News Bytes Past and Present

How many of these below did you know?

1. Drinking too much water can kill you.
2. Some of the world's most bizarre and unusual creatures are still unprotected.
3. Britain and France considered a union in the 1950s.
4. Unsigned British bands can hit the charts thanks to changes in the law.
5. Retail outlet Marks and Spencers is going green.
6. Scientists are developing anti-cancer chicken eggs and slimming chewing gum, and suggest that cloudly apple juice is "healthier".
7. Scart, is a French-originated standard for an audio visual connector, standing for Syndicat des Constructeurs d'Appareils Radiorecepteurs et Televiseur. Except, having named it, the French call it something entirely different - Peritel.
8. European country Austria jails historians.
9. Leonardo da Vinci's mother might have been a slave from Istanbul.
10. Google offers personal searches.
11. When filming summer scenes in winter, actors suck on ice cubes just before the camera rolls - it cools their mouths so their breath doesn't condense in the cold air.
12. Cows can have regional accents.
13. Satirical cartoons of Jesus Christ were offered to Jyllands-Posten, the right-wing Danish daily paper that published the Muhammad cartoons two years later, but the editor had refused saying that he thought his "readers would not enjoy the drawings".
14. Parrots can have a sense of humour.
15. Snakes can (almost) eat alligators.

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