10 things we didn't know last week
Snippets from the week's news, sliced, diced and processed for your convenience.
1. Circumcision does not reduce sexual satisfaction.
2. The UK has only one polar bear, at Edinburgh Zoo. Its name is Mercedes.
3. Window cleaners who work on very tall buildings are trained to lie flat if their platform comes loose - a tactic which appears to have saved the life of Alcides Moreno, who tumbled some 500ft (150m) to the ground in New York.
4. At school, Sir Edmund Hillary was in a gym group for those lacking co-ordination.
5. Siblings who are separated when adopted may be naturally attracted to each other in later life.
6. Etiquette dictates that at dinner parties, a man should always talk to the woman on his left during the first course, and right during the main course.
7. One in three British adults is on a permanent diet.
8. Octopuses need mental stimulation.
9. Liverpool is not Europe's only capital of culture this year.
10. Half of men aged 16-24 haven't read a single book in the past 12 months.
Seen 10 things? . Thanks to Keith Bedson for this week's picture of 10 birds on the River Fosse at York on Christmas Day.
(Source: 3 - the Guardian, 5 January.)