Facts You Probably don’t Need

• The thing you stand behind to make a speech is not a podium. You stand on a podium. What you stand behind is called a lectern.

• A baby platypus is called a puggle.

• A typical microwave oven consumes more electricity powering its digital clock than it does heating food.

• In a room with 23 people, there is a 50% chance that two people share a birthday. It’s called the birthday problem.

• Uranus was originally named George.

• The western lowland gorilla’s scientific name is gorilla gorilla gorilla.

• Whale oil was used in automatic transmission fluid until 1973.

• The caffeine in the coffee plant, like capsaicin in chili peppers, is meant to be a toxic substance to deter herbivores.

• Japan’s occupation of Hong Kong in WWII from 1941 to 1945 caused the population to drop from 1.6 million to about 600,000.

      Facts by Sean McVeigh, factologist.