In 1995, the number of TV programmes in Britain watched by over 15 million people was 225. By 2004, this had fallen to six.
Biologists cannot agree on definitions for the words ‘species’, ‘organism’ or ‘life’.
Beijing, Seoul and Tokyo all mean ‘capital’, in their respective languages.
Dildos are illegal in Texas.
The amount of water on Earth is constant, and continually recycled over time: some of the water you drink, will have passed through a dinosaur.
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A “Bug” is an insect that has sucking mouth parts.
The oldest active synagogue in Europe is in Prague. It is called the Old New Synagogue.
Humans and elephants are the only animals with chins.
The Lord Ponsonby of Shulbede and Baron Soulsby of Swaffham Prior are actual titles in the English Peerage.
Australia was discovered by the Chinese. The Dutch were the first Europeans to discover it. William Dampier was the first Englishman to discover it.
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To repel attackers, the bombardier beetle shoots a noxious mixture of boiling chemicals out of its bottom in a series of rapid blasts.
The National Health Service is the world’s 4th-largest employer after the US Defense Department, the Chinese Red Army, and Walmart.
Palm trees are a type of grass.
The seventh most common sentence in The Hunger Games trilogy is “they swallowed hard”.
In 2015, a town in North Carolina rejected a solar farm because residents believed it would “suck up” sunlight and kill the local plants.
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Feathered flight
160 million years ago
Birds evolved from feathered dinosaurs – modern birds are essentially Velociraptors with beaks instead of snouts and wings instead of arms. The most famous early bird, Archaeopteryx, lived 150 million years ago. But in recent years slightly older fossils, such as Xiaotingia and Aurornis, have been found in China.
See other: History of Life
“He who asks a question is a fool for five minutes; he who does not ask a question remains a fool forever.”
– Chinese proverb
It could be argued that North Korea qualifies as a failed state. The regime is so unstable and insecure it requires a totalitarian grip on every citizen in order to survive. The government aspires to control every aspect of life to ensure the perpetuation of its power. It mainly achieves this by indoctrinating its citizens from birth and maintaining an atmosphere of fear and constant battle against invisible foreign enemies.
In reality, the allegedly perfect regime is ludicrously incompetent and inconsistent. Supposedly, there is housing for everyone, but no citizen can choose where to live. Supposedly, there is schooling for everyone, but no one can choose what they want to learn. Supposedly, there is universal healthcare, but there are no medicines to cure patients. On the one hand, individual initiative of any kind is stamped out, on the other hand, the government cannot provide basic necessities for its citizens, most importantly, food. On top of that, dissenters, nonconformists, critics and others who are considered traitors to the regime are regularly imprisoned, tortured or executed, often together with their entire family. (The list of known human rights violations is too long to go into any further.)
This begs the question, with such a tenuous grip on power, how does the North Korean regime manage to survive?
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Penistone is a town South Yorkshire, England.
The “Make America Great Again” caps designed for the 2016 Donald Trump presidential campaign were made in China.
Women were not allowed to serve on Royal Navy submarines until 2011.
Lizards cannot breathe and walk at the same time.
The national anthem of Bangladesh includes the lines: “The fragrance from your mango groves makes me wild with joy.”
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‘The so-called Golden Rule, “do as you would be done by”, appears in Confucianism as a negative: “what you do not desire for yourself, do not do to others.” The difference is subtle but crucial: Confucius does not prescribe what to do, only what not to do, emphasizing restraint rather than action. This implies modesty and humility – values traditionally held in high regard in Chinese society, and which for Confucius express our true nature. Fostering these values is a form of loyalty to oneself, and another kind of sincerity.’
– Atkinson. S., Landau. C., Szudek. A., Tomley. S. (et al.) 2011. The Philosophy Book New York, United States: DK Publishing p. 39
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