Things I learned lately 19 January

• Up until now, most electricity storage components (batteries) used metal ions in some type of solution. Now we've figured out how to use organic molecules called quinones to store a charge and this could revolutionize batteries by making them safer, more efficient, cheaper to make and both charge and discharge faster. A tank holding $27 worth of chemicals could hold 1 kilowatt hour of energy. Quinones can come from fossil fuel or even rhubarb. Hmmmm, pie or a drive? Both.
• Hey America - you think $4.00 is a lot to pay for a gallon of gasoline? Try $9.24 per gallon. In Oslo Norway.
• Confide is a new self-destructing 'secret message' app that prevents against screenshot capture because it only reveals a portion of the message as you swipe over it. It also lets the sender know that you tried to take a screenshot, even though it wouldn't work.
• General Managers at The Cheesecake Factory typically get a new BMW every 3 years as a perk. GMs typically stay on with the chain for more than 10 years.
• Taco Bell's re-fried beans arrive on location in powder form. The re-fried beans are actually oatmeal that inflates when you add hot water. It does contain some beans, but it's really oat clay. You can sculpt with it.
• The best tap water in the world is apparently in Norway. 
• When tigers hunt, they go for the kill shot: the carotid artery located in the neck. After the tiger’s canines have pierced the artery, the whiskers move forward, encircling the prey’s neck, to determine if the prey’s pulse is gone. 
• The origins of ice cream date back as far as 200 B.C., when people in China created a dish of rice mixed with milk that was then frozen by being packed in snow.
• In 2005, Starbucks had brand ambassadors drive around with replicas of Vente cups affixed to their car roofs. If anyone stopped the ambassador to warn them about the coffee cup on their roof, that person received a $5 gift card to Starbucks.
• Even though Mercury can get quite hot - surface temperature up to 800°F, at the poles, in the shadow of craters, its temperature is cold enough to allow ice. NASA's Messenger Spacecraft found a lot of water ice - estimated to be over 100 billion tons of ice. To be confirmed by a visit, of course. I'm not going.
• Venus has snowcapped mountains, but instead of water, the snow is made of heavy metals like lead sulfide (galena) and bismuth sulfide (bismuthinite).
• There may come a remake of the movie Logan's Run.