10 things we didn’t know, from last weeks news, sliced, diced and processed for your convenience.
Courtesy of BBC Magazine Monitor, your recommended daily allowance of news and culture.
- Cataplexy is a rare condition that means laughter can bring on paralysis.
- Flat-earthers call spherical-world believers “globularists“.
- The number 8 is an auspicious number in China because its Mandarin translation is “ba”, which sounds like the word for “prosper”.
- All countries have rights over resources up to 200 nautical miles from their shoreline.
- The Japanese have a day to celebrate greenery called midorinohi.
- Pet dogs can catch human yawns.
- Fencing is Italy’s most successful Olympic sport.
- Sportsmen make better decisions in heat.
- Some people can hear what they see.
- Robins only became a symbol for Christmas in the 19th Century, when postmen – who mostly brought mail at Christmas – wore scarlet waistcoats and were known as Robin Redbreasts.
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