The Tarantula nebula is thought to contain a huge star of over 1,000 times the mass of the Sun, ten times more massive than any star in the Milky Way.

New Zealand was the first country to give woman the vote, in 1893.

The tax imposed on tea that triggered the infamous Boston Tea Party in 1773 was 3 cents per pound.

There are 110 calories per hour consumed during an hour of typing -- only 30 more than those used while sleeping.

According to the Hostess website, Christopher Sell invented the "fried twinkie" at the ChipShop, his restaurant in Brooklyn, New York. It was described by the New York Times in this way: "Something magical occurs when the pastry hits the hot oil. The creamy white vegetable shortening filling liquefies, impregnating the sponge cake with its ...Read more

Cats see in color, so your new paisley frock in orange, purple, and yellow won’t be lost on them. They also have fantastic night vision, and only need one-sixth of the light humans require to see. So don’t go getting your cat night-vision goggles.

The term “Sword and Sandal Epic” is a film industry colloquialism for an epic film with biblical or fantasy elements. The term was named for the weapons and costumes that the characters typically wear.

False teeth are often radioactive. Approximately 1 million Americans wear some form of denture; half of these dentures are made of a porcelain compound laced with minute amounts of uranium to stimulate fluorescence. Without the uranium additive, the dentures would be a dull green color when seen

Laptop computers get bumped around too much, which makes them around 30 percent more likely to fail than a computer that stays in one place.

The Nile crocodile averages about 45 years in the wild, and may live up to 80 years in captivity.

Male moose have antlers 7 feet across. The antlers often weigh 60 pounds.

Elvis Presley's hit recording of "Love Me Tender" entered Billboard's pop charts in October 1956. It stayed on the charts for 19 weeks, and was in the Number 1 spot for five of those weeks. The song, from Presley's debut film with the same title, was adapted from the tune "Aura Lee," which had

Cars produce about four times their own weight in carbon dioxide each year. The average home produces 50 tons of carbon dioxide each year.

In addition to silversmithing, Paul Revere practiced dentistry in colonial Boston. He learned the craft from a surgeon dentist and advertised himself as being prepared to fix loose false teeth and to clean teeth.

While diamonds are usually considered the most precious of stones, a large, near flawless emerald is worth considerably more than a diamond of the same size.

The soft mass of the adult brain is motionless. Though it consumes up to 25 percent of the blood's oxygen supply, it does not grow, divide, or contract.

The phrase "To not budge an inch" is from Will Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew, "Induction," Scene 1. This phrase was first uttered by the drunken tinker Christopher Sly. Sly's refusal to budge altered what had been a neutral verb up until then to a negation, according to word researcher Michael Macrone. As he points out in his book, Brush Up ...Read more

An eagle can attack, kill, and carry away an animal as large as a young deer. The Harpy eagle of South America feed on monkeys.

In Sweden, when leaving someone's home, wait until you get to the doorway to step outside before putting on your coat. To do so earlier suggests you are eager to leave. When entering or departing a Russian home, it is considered very bad form to shake hands across the threshold.