Illustration by Arnie Bermudez

Things you always never wanted to know

· A cockroach can live several weeks with its head cut off.

· In 1875 the director of the United States Patent Office sent in his resignation and advised that his department be closed. There was nothing left to invent, he claimed.

· A sunbeam setting out through space at the rate of 186,000 miles a second would describe a gigantic circle and return to its origins after about 200 billion years.

· If you've ever wondered what the numbers on your Social Security card signify, here is a breakdown of the mysterious code: The first three numbers show what part of the country you applied from. The next two numbers, in coded form, show the year you applied. The last four numbers indicate your citizen's number kept on file by the government.

· The practice of exchanging presents at Christmas originated with the Romans. Every December, the Romans celebrated a holiday called the Saturnalia. During this time the people gave each other good-luck presents of fruit, sweets, pastry or gold. When Christians began to celebrate their own holiday at this time of year, they simply took over the tradition.

· Richeborg, a dwarf who was raised as a servant of the Orleans family in eighteenth-century France and who stood 23 inches high at maturity, was employed by the aristocracy as a secret agent during the French Revolution. Disguised as an infant and wrapped in swaddling clothes, Richeborg was taken out of Paris in the arms of his "nurse," all the while carrying crucial secret dispatches. Richeborg died in Paris at slightly less than a hundred years of age.

· A survey conducted by the New York League for the Hard of Hearing determined that 50 percent of disco disc jockeys have suffered hearing damage. Of these, 33 percent have become partially deaf.

- Compiled by Jill Holt