Things I learned lately - 24 May

• The official Quebecois word for 'foodie' is 'cuisinomane'. Certified 100% Quebecois by the Office quebecois de la langue francaise (OQLF).
• Doubling the TFSA contribution limit in reality only benefits about 7% of the population, based on current saving habits.
• Since I was born, I've travelled 51 billion kilometres around the sun and 426 billion kilometres through the Milky Way.
• The planet Neptune was mathematically predicted by Urbain Le Verrier before it was directly observed by astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle. It was a sensational moment of 19th century science, and dramatic confirmation of Newtonian gravitational theory. Le Verrier had discovered a planet "with the point of his pen".
• You can make bread in your crock pot.
• It's not your blood that mosquitoes are attracted to. It's the microbes on your skin. People with a diverse collection of microbes are less attractive to the pests.
• The most edited Wikipedia page ever belongs to George W. Bush.
• In the UAE, there are no real physical addresses. So with no address, there’s not really any mail. Some people get a PO Box but essentially the place operates without it. Speed cameras are everywhere but no one tells you when you've been caught. When you go to get your licence renewed, they give you the accumulated bill and you can't renew your licence until you pay. So, people will call the license bureau every couple of months just to make sure they stay on top of their tickets.
• In the UAE, your (local) cell phone number acts as your ID and address. You can't get a bank account without a local cell number. Every time there's a financial transaction, it gets sent to your phone immediately.
• In 1970, GM alone made 50% of the vehicles sold in the US. In 2012, that number dropped to 17.9%.
• People have eaten gluten for thousands of years without any problems. The reason people have become more sensitive to it now is because wheat has been bred to contain more and more gluten. Why? Because that's what people like. We've also taken the ancient einkorn wheat, which has only 14 chromosomes, and bred it to become a more versatile 42-chromosome emmer wheat. This is one reason why many people are becoming sensitive to wheat - our immune systems don't recognize it as food.
• There are no Lone Star Steakhouse restaurants in Texas.