10 things we didn't know last week
17:45 UK time, Friday, 29 September 2006
1. There are more than 600 full-time creative writing degree courses at UK universities.
2. Lionesses favour balder lions, with less of a hairy mane.
3. Ubuntu, espoused by Bill Clinton, is the African philosophy which means "I am because you are”.
4. Menthol cigarettes are harder to give up than normal cigarettes.
5. The brain is soft and gelatinous - its consistency is something between jelly and cooked pasta.
6. People suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome can be helped by talking about it, say researchers.
7. China executes more prisoners than the rest of the world put together.
8. One in eight children in primary schools in England have English as a second language.
9. Europe has a Buddhist state - the Russian republic of Kalmykia.
10. The Mona Lisa used to hang on the wall of Napoleon’s bedroom.
[2. Times, 27 September; 4. Guardian, 26 September; 9. Daily Telegraph, 29 September]. Thanks to Lester Mak and Jonathan Richardson for submissions and Rebecca Andrews for the picture.
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