Illustration by Arnie Bermudez

Things you always never wanted to know

· The human brain is 80 percent water, more watery than our blood.

· Honey is the only food that does not spoil. Honey found in the tombs of Egyptian pharaohs has been tasted by archaeologists and found edible.

· The custom of serving a slice of lemon with fish dates back to the Middle Ages; the lemon was originally intended for remedial purposes rather than to flavor the fish. It was believed that if a person accidentally swallowed a fish bone, the lemon juice would dissolve it.

· Before 1941 fingerprints were not accepted as evidence in court. Up to that time it was not an established fact that no two fingerprints were alike. Today the only way in which fingerprints will not be allowed as evidence is if the defense can prove that there are in fact two sets of fingerprints somewhere in the world that match.

· In Turkey, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, anyone caught drinking coffee was put to death.

· In 1776 a man who made $4,000 a year was considered wealthy.

· The African country of Rhodesia is named after an English entrepreneur, Cecil Rhodes. Rhodes, prime minister of Cape Colony in South Africa in the late nineteenth century and creator of the South Africa diamond syndicate, at one time controlled 90 percent of the world's supply of diamonds. When he died in 1902, his will stipulated that a great part of his fortune was to be used for the establishment of a foundation for the furtherance of higher education, which today grants the Rhodes Scholarship.

· George Washington's face was badly scarred from smallpox.

· Natural gas has no smell. The odor is artificially added so that people will be able to identify leaks and take measures to stop them.