Antarctica has one native insect.

It’s called Belgica antarctica and is a species of flightless midge, native to the great icy landmass. Impressively, even though it is only 2-6 millimeters long, it is the largest terrestrial animal on the continent, and of course its only insect. All other animals on Antarctica spend at least part of the time in water. 

The insect is flightless so that the wind doesn’t blow it into inhospitable areas. It is designed in such a way that is body fluids can freeze without it dying, and its life span is only two years. Luckily, it only takes two growing seasons for the insect to be able to reproduce, so it manages okay.

It survives by absorbing heat, and can go without oxygen for 2-4 weeks. it can even survive dehydration up to 35% of its normal body weight. These are all understandable traits though, because survival is pretty tough for an insect down there. 

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Stephen Fry claims that Douglas Adams told him why he chose the number 42 as the answer to the “Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything.”

In the first novel of Douglas Adams’ hit comic fiction series The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe, a group of hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional beings demand the answer to the “Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything” from a super computer by the name of Deep Thought. It takes Deep Thought 7.5 million years to calculate the answer, and that answer turns out to be 42. 

Through the course of the series, it was never clearly revealed what exactly the “Question” was, and why 42 was its answer. Now, there have been many speculations as to why Adams chose “42.” Some say that it’s because 42 is 101010 in binary code, other say it has to do with the fact that light refracts off water by 42 degrees to create a rainbow. Adams has said that he just chose a random number; “I sat at my desk, stared into the garden and thought, ’42 will do’.” 

However, not even Adams’ own testimony that 42 is a completely random number, is enough to convince people that it is. Stephen Fry, a friend of Adams, claims that Adams told him “exactly why 42,” and that the reason is “fascinating, extraordinary, and when you think hard about it, completely obvious.” However, Fry says that he had to vow to keep that reason a secret, and will take it with him to the grave. 

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When you use &%#@$ instead of swear words, it's called a Grawlix

Grawlix is a term used to describe the symbol strings of typography that replace profanity, such as “%*#$*@”. The term was coined by Mort Walker, an American cartoonist, in 1964. Walker is best known for creating the comic strip Beetle Bailey in 1950 and Hi and Lois in 1954. He was actually born in El Dorado, Kansas in 1923 and grew up in Kansas City, Missouri. Six of his nine children still work for him in his Connecticut studio where he continues to supervise at the ripe age of 89 years old.

In his book The Lexicon of Comicana, written in 1980 as a satirical look at the devices cartoonists use, Walker invented a vocabulary called Symbolia. For example, Walker coined the term "squeans" to describe the starbursts and little circles that appear around a cartoon's head to indicate intoxication.

The typographical symbols that stand for profanities, which appear in dialogue balloons in the place of actual dialogue, Walker called "grawlixes."

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Lucy Liu claims to have had sex with a ghost.

In a US Weekly interview, Lucy Liu was not shy about her sex encounter with a ghost, or a heavenly figure. She said that it was sheer bliss, she felt everything and then he floated away. Apparently her description is not unlike what many other people report.

This could be a subset of what's called an incubus encounter, an often scary meeting with a creature that sits on your chest and looks scary. Really it's just something called sleep paralysis in which the paralysis effects of REM sleep intrude into a waking state, resulting in you not being able to move but are still awake.

Lucy Liu might have just experienced a similar incubus encounter, but instead of her being scared and paralyzed, she felt like she had sex with a ghost!

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Ever wondered why a baker’s dozen is 13 instead of 12?

Several hundred years ago, bakers used to have extremely strict laws because it was so easy for them to cheat buyers by shorting them on bread. These laws even go back to ancient Egypt where someone could have their ear cut off and nailed to the door if they were caught cheating. Bread was especially important because it was often the only thing available for poorer people to eat, and in times of famine, bakers were likely to cheat.

To avoid the harsh punishment of being caught as a cheat, bakers began to add an extra piece of bread, which ensured that there was more than what was purchased and they were being honest. So when people came in and asked for a dozen loaves, they would just include 13, which eventually came to be known as a baker’s dozen!

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