Despite being a major oil exporter, the United Arab Emirates asks for a renewal of the Kyoto protocol and is a major investor in solar power.

The United Arab Emirates is the world’s fourth largest oil exporter, behind Saudi Arabia, Russia, and Iran. While one might think oil companies and oil exporters would primarily be in the business of ensuring more oil business, that’s not the case here.

The UAE has publicly pushed for a renewal of the Kyoto protocol, an agreement among industrialized nations to control carbon emissions, despite capping carbon emissions being counterproductive to business. Additionally, UAE announced a plan to increase renewable energy production, and even started a massive solar energy generation project.

Both of these are obviously potentially detrimental to business, but one could also argue the first to really break ground in alternative energy will be getting the lion’s share of profits. Despite all of the “Good Guy Oil Exporter” business here, Dubai (which is located within UAE) still gets all of its energy needs from burning natural gas, so the region still ranks third on the Global Footprint list.

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NASA forced bees to hold their pee…for a week!

We’ve all seen the infamous NASA footage of Neil Armstrong taking his first steps on the moon. Ever wonder if anyone (or anything) else joined him on the trip? NASA makes it a point to never take animals into space unless absolutely necessary, preferring instead to use simulators and computers. However, there have been several cases where non-humans have made the trip to space and valuable data has been collected on how they reacted to a zero-gravity environment. Monkeys, fruit flies, mice, squirrels, and bees are just some of the creatures that have made the trek to the greater beyond.

Some didn’t make the trip back, but others did shockingly well. In the 1984 Challenger mission, NASA sent 3,300 bees to space in a special box. They not only survived, they carried on with their usual routine…almost. The bees created a perfectly normal honey comb, but they didn’t go to the bathroom! Because bees do not excrete inside their hive, the bees held their bladders for a full 7 days. A NASA spokesman described the space hive as “just as clean as a pin.”

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Actor Peter Cushing once attempted to commit suicide by running up and down a set of stairs!

Cushing is perhaps most well known for his role as Grand Moff Tarkin in Star Wars. He was married to actress Helen Beck who passed away in 1971 and Cushing claims he was devastated. After she passed he wrote, “To join Helen is my only ambition. It’s all just killing me.” In his autobiography he later wrote that he was so depressed after her passing that he attempted suicide on the same night, yet was clearly unsuccessful.

Cushing ran up and down the stairs in the hope that he would have a heart attack. Either he was extremely out of shape and hoped his heart would just burst, or he attempted the worst thought out suicide attempt ever, and we will let you decide on that one because the jury is still out!

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Apple seeds are slightly poisonous.

So much for “an apple a day keeps the doctor away.” Apple seeds contain cyanide- a highly toxic chemical compound that has applications in mining, fishing, and pest control. Also, its proteins have been known to cause two forms of allergies. Even with these properties, the apple is no forbidden fruit.

About 69 million tonnes of apples were grown worldwide in 2010, and of course 50% of them were “made in China.” The United States is the second-leading producer of apples with more than 6% of the worldwide production. Now, apples aren’t a complete death trap. Research suggests that they reduce the risk of colon cancer, prostate cancer, and lung cancer. Additionally, apple seeds are not usually dangerous to humans, as they only contain a splash of poison.

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A man in India was wrongly declared dead by the government and spent years to gain recognition!

Lal Bihari was minding his own business farming the land when he decided he needed a bank loan in 1975. He went to get proof of ID for the loan and low and behold he found out he was dead. Well, officially he was dead. His uncle had bribed an official to register Lal as dead, so he would get ownership of Lal’s ancestral land. The land was less than an acre. Nonetheless, Lal was pretty upset. He started asking around and found 100 other people in the same terrible situation as him: dead, but not really dead. He founded an organization, Mritak Sangh.

The organization seeks to rectify wrongly registered certificates of death and register the individuals as alive again. It took Lal 19 years to accomplish this feat for himself. He ran for a seat in parliament in 2004 and continues to actively fight for those who’ve been written off as legally dead.

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