Things I learned lately - 17 Jul

• It takes 4.5 hours for radio signals to get from the New Horizons spacecraft (which just passed within 13,000 km of Pluto) to earth, almost 5,000,000,000 km. For reference, the distance from the earth to the moon is 384,400 km.
• Pluto circles the sun once every 248 years.
• It will take 16 months for New Horizons to transmit all of its pictures and data that it collected during the Pluto fly-by.
• Canada is the only country with a universal health care system that does not also provide universal coverage of prescription drugs.
• If you're on the beach in San Diego, the country directly across the ocean from you is........... Japan.
• Harry Wasylyk of Manitoba and Larry Hansen of Ontario invented the first plastic garbage bag for commercial use in 1950. Union Carbide Company bought the idea and brought Glad trash bags into homes.
• Newspaper editor Joseph Coyle of Smithers, British Columbia, found a new use for paper in 1911. The egg carton.
• Montreal's Canadian Lady Corset Company first licensed the trademark "Wonder-bra" in 1939, and then renamed the company Wonderbra in 1961. The Wonderbra is as old as me......
• Peanut butter was patented in 1884 by Montreal pharmacist Marcellus Gilmore Edson. He envisioned his nutty ointment-like product as a food option for people who couldn't chew.
• An odd number of flowers are unlucky in China and Indonesia; even number is considered to be unlucky in India, Turkey, Russia and Germany.
• In Malaysia, people point with the whole fist and the thumb at the top indicating direction. Filipinos, on the other hand, point to an object by shifting their eyes towards it or pursing their lips and pointing to it with their mouth.
• Since 9/11, more people in the US have died at the hands of non-muslim extremists, than at the hands of muslim extremists.
• Some companies are getting so restrictive with email use that employees must select from a list of pre-approved topics before the email software will allow them to send a message.
• Most brands of PCs have lost anywhere from 7% to 27% in sales figures in the last year. Only Apple computers continues to see positive growth.
• One litre of gasoline in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia costs $0.13. That's not a typo. 13 cents.