Random Fact Sheet #25- 35 Facts to Add to Your Knowledge

The Fossa, a large carnivore and the top predator in Madagascar but it isn't a cat, being more closely related to the mongoose family. And it's scientific name is derived from the fact that it has a concealed anus

27. AIDS denial in South Africa resulted in an epidemic that resulted in an estimated 300,000 deaths.

28. Female dragonflies will fake their own death just to avoid mating.

29. Cashew nuts are actually seeds and not nuts but they're grown outside of the fruit which is called a cashew apple.

30. When IBM executives first met Bill Gates of Microsoft in 1980, he was so young-looking that they thought he was the office boy.

Wyoming's Devils Tower has no apostrophe in its name. It was accidentally left off when Teddy Roosevelt signed the document making it a National Landmark and has never been fixed.

32. The Nazis during World War 2 formed a plan called 'Operation Bernhard' in which they were to crash England's economy by counterfeiting £132 million and dropping it over England by planes. This would be worth £8.3 billion today.

33. In 2006, amateur German radio operators managed to receive radio signals from the Voyager 1 space probe, which at that time was 14.7 billion km away.

34. Saint Lawrence of Rome while being martyred by being placed on a gridiron with hot coals below it joked with his tormentors saying, "I'm well done. Turn me over!" He is now the patron saint of cooks, chefs & comedians.

35. Carrots do not actually help most people to see in the dark. This myth was propaganda used by the Royal Air Force to explain why their pilots had improved success during night air battles but were actually used to disguise advances in radar technology.