10 things we didn't know before the 40th week of 2009

1. Male life expectancy in the UK goes up by about three months every year.
2. Fidel Castro stopped smoking cigars in 1985.
3. In the early days of barcodes there was a plan for round ones.
4. In the UK, 26 million addresses get post.
5. Japan has a theme park where children pretend to be fast food workers.
6. Only two serving US presidents won the Nobel peace prize before Barack Obama - Theodore Roosevelt in 1906 and Woodrow Wilson in 1919.
7. The flash on David Bowie's Aladdin Sane album cover was inspired by the logo from a rice cooker.
8. Wild animals in zoos in Gaza have to be smuggled in tunnels under the border.
9. There was a royal blood disorder.
10. Low-quality females prefer low-quality males. In the world of zebra finches at least.

(Borrowed from the BBC)