As a journalist I work much like a sorter at a town dump. Don’t get confused; I do not propose that I deal with trash but I do, however, separate pieces of peoples’ lives and sort and organize them so they might be revitalized, reanimated. I am given heaps of information and it is my job to carefully pick through it all in search of the gems. I then offer up my worthy catch to you, fine reader, filtered and ready for digestion.
    But what happens to all the discarded information? What happens to the millions of facts that are, daily, too obscure to make use of? The ‘unimportant’ factual jewels are relegated to the land of social fodder; trivial chit-chat to save for a bus stop or half time. These bizarre nuggets of truth are part of what makes life so interesting — they are the curious spice, the peculiar seasonings in our daily dish. As we begin the new year I want to share the factoids I found to be most interesting that surfaced on my radar in 2007, may they add zest to your cannon and your life.
    A study done by German scientists found drinking black tea significantly improved the ability of arteries to relax and expand to keep blood pressure at a healthy level. I am not sure when this study occurred but in 2007 the European Heart Journal (eurheartj.oxfordjournals.org) found that certain proteins in milk, called ‘caseins’ completely negate this aforementioned effect. The BBC estimates 98 percent of all United Kingdom tea-drinkers prefer milk in their black tea; over here we just drink coffee and call the whole thing off.
    Polish scientists recently completed a study that proves cloudy apple juice is healthier than clear. The antioxidants found in apple juice, red wine, berries and dark chocolate – called polyphenols – are more common in cloudy juices because of the manufacturing process behind producing them (www.soci.org).
    According to the American Journal of Environmental Health  (www.neha.org), micro waving a dish towel or sponge for two minutes can kill up to 99 percent of all germs living on the scrubber. Firefighters everywhere sigh in anguish.
    A survey of 500,000 people living in China, completed by the Chinese Ministry of Education (www.moe.edu.cn), found only 53 percent of people could speak Mandarin, Chinese. Mandarin, the nation’s official language, is one of the hundreds of dialects spoken in the country. In a related study, nearly 100 percent of all Mainers speak a jagged form of English I am now dubbing ‘the dialect pertaining to the deep south of the far north.’
    Harvesting rhubarb in candlelight helps further preserve its flavor (www.yorkshirerhubarb.co.uk).
    If you are planning to host a political meeting in Europe be sure not to serve anything to your guests besides tea and biscuits because it is an illegal offense known as “treating” and is punishable by a year in prison or an unlimited fine. Yay for the many quirky laws of the Representation of the People Act, 1893.
    Superman had a bad year in 2007, as miners in Serbia discovered a new mineral, sodium lithium boron silicate hydroxide, or as it is now being called ‘kryptonite,’ (www.nhm.ac.uk). Dr. Chris Stanley, a mineralogist at the National History Museum in London, told the BBC the following:“Towards the end of my research I searched the Web using the mineral’s chemical formula, and was amazed to discover that same scientific name, written on a case of rock containing kryptonite stolen by the fictional Lex Luthor, from a museum in the film ‘Superman Returns,’” he said.
    Because the mineral contains no fluorine (as it does in the film) it is white, rather than green, but in all other respects the chemistry matches that of the fictional makeup of kryptonite.
    Peanuts can be made into diamonds. Because of the carbon in peanuts the paste of the legume can be made to squeeze between the tips of two pre-existing diamonds, creating what scientists at Edinburgh University call a “stiletto heel effect,” (www.ed.ac.uk).
    The town of Eucla, Australia, has its own time zone. To check out the nine hour lagger visit their Web site (www.worldtimezone.com/time/wtzresult.php?CILD=42272).
    Sleeping on the job is tolerated in the Japanese work environment, as long as you remain upright and obey a short list of rules like no snoring, no drooling and no sleep walking. The sleepy philosophy, dubbed ‘inemuri’ by a Japanese workers union (www.mynippon.com), has yet to be adopted by the Mainely Media, LLC staff, but rumors persist around the office that it may be included in a future code of conduct rewrite.
    Slugs, which live off of plant matter, eat twice their body weight in a day. The gastropod is famous for its sunny-day elusiveness, but according to a group of scientists at the European company Bayer Cropscience (www.byercropscience.com) the plant-muncher should be henceforth known for its gluttonous ways.
    British Transport Police adopted a feline in September 2007 and gave it the highest ranking law position in British history for cat, that of chief mouser. The cat, which is legally a constable of the force, is named Tizer, and patrols the King’s Cross Rail Station to keep it rodent free. In lieu of this story I promoted my dog Baxter to executive chef and pleaded with him for some coffee and a bagel. Details aside he has been relieved of this position and currently spends his days drooling on my bed.
    That is all for now, but believe me, there are more odd facts out there than there are ordinary bits of information. It is unrealistic to think of our world as anything but wild. While it is important to follow the ongoing matters of day to day, there is much to be said in the way of fantastical nourishment. We read fiction, go to movies and observe all forms of art for this – the beauty of the strange, which makes it all the more interesting when something like a cat being made into a police constable surfaces in a world we would like to label sane and calculated. – Stowell P. Watters