• In 1972, Amir Hamadan held the world's record for the most memorized digits of three separate transcendental numbers: pi, e, and Chaitin's constant.

• At his current rate of song playing on his XM radio show, it will take Bob Dylan two years to broadcast as many songs as he has written.

• New York City has more abandoned subway stations than the number of active subway stations in Baltimore.

• The only fighting style in common among all of the Ultimate Fighting Championship's heavyweight champions is boxing.

• Yale has more secret societies than any other university.

• Cockroaches have only recently evolved their aversion to light. Less than two hundred years ago they had no such distaste.

• There's a one in nine chance that a bike stolen in Los Angeles has been stolen at least once before.

• While it is not explicitly illegal to have alcohol in an embassy located in the U.S., it is illegal to transport alcohol from the U.S. on to embassy grounds.

• A person who brushes their teeth twice a day removes 14 grams of plaque every year.

• 1.83 percent of Germans can "recall" seeing a unicorn in a zoo at some point in their life.

• Microwaves run most efficiently when they are warmed up. Running a microwave empty for three seconds before heating food will reduce overall wattage and cooking time by up to 43 percent.

• Properly warming up a microwave will increase its useful lifetime by an average of 21 months.

• The odorless, colorless plasma emitted by a microwave stays resident within food for up to fifteen minutes after cooking.

• Two identical microwaves running back to back can develop a thermal harmonic strong enough to melt glass.

• Technically speaking, microwave ovens use milliwave radiation, but were intentionally misnamed to take advantage of the public's high interest in microcomputers at the time.

• The Shawshank Redemption recently surpassed The Wizard of Oz as the most-watched movie on TV. Rounding out the top five are A Christmas Story, It's a Wonderful Life, and The Magnificent Seven.

• In the history of Nathan's Coney Island hot dog eating contest, only four people have burst their stomach during competition.

• Without gravity, a spider would spin a spherical web.

• According to a Cornell University study, 70 percent of students earning a Ph.D. in the humanities will be on welfare for at least a year within five years of graduation.

• If the rate of falling age of menarche continues unabated, by 2050, half of all girls will have their first menstruation before entering kindergarten.

• For several months in 1921, Albert Einstein carried small mimeographed cards which elegantly explained the theory of relativity so as not to have to repeat himself at cocktail parties.

• The first designs for a clock radio were rejected by the US Patent Office because they weren't sufficiently original. The design called for the nailing of a previously manufactured clock and radio to an oak board.

• Only five percent of household high definition televisions are properly operated to achieve maximum clarity.

• The average member of the Libertarian Party is 2.1 times more wealthy than the average Republican and 3.4 times as wealthy as the average Democrat.

• Members of the Green Party are the most likely to incorrectly fill out their tax forms.

• Over five times more people die annually from being struck by hail than being struck by lightning.

• According to a Microsoft spokeswoman, Microsoft recently placed an order for 500,000 CD labels, CD sleeves, and packaging boxes labeled "Windows Server 2007", but has also ordered an equal number of small "8" stickers, "just in case."

• Nearly 75 percent of phone numbers are unlisted.

• The order that food is eaten can make a significant difference in the number of calories absorbed. For example, eating a high-fiber food prior to eating a high-fat food will cause the body to absorb up to 30 percent fewer total calories than if they are eaten in the opposite order.

• Unicycles are explicitly banned from using bike lanes in 17 states.

• Alaska is home to all ten of the ten least-visited national parks.

• Anne Murray was briefly the Canadian Parliamentary Poet Laureate in 1978.

• If a Hot Wheels car were scaled up to actual size, it would weigh nearly six tons.

• Baskin-Robbins' franchise agreement requires that every store stock at least 31 flavors, but the average one carries 40.

• As a whole, the U.S. Presidents have been fluent in 22 languages other than English, most commonly, French, Latin, and Ancient Greek. A mere six Presidents spoke only English.

• Renowned cyclist Lance Armstrong uses 11 different pedaling techniques, each of which utilize different muscle groups, allowing the muscles not in use to rest.

• 22 percent of Americans say they feel less safe when they see a police officer on the street.

• Anthropomorphic fish make an appearance in 13 percent of movies with speaking animals. Only in two percent, do they play a major role in the plot.

• Bottlenose dolphin pods will attack, and often kill, members of their group that exhibit pedophiliac tendencies.

• Since the invention of the typewriter, overall handwriting legibility in the world has declined 68.2 percent.

• Elmo's fish Dorothy has died and been replaced six times since debuting on Sesame Street.

• The most-purchased item at Office Depot is a 1.69 oz. bag of plain M&M's.

• Kamchatkan has the fewest alphabetic characters of any language still natively spoken.

• Due to a minor complication during surgery, musician Neil Young had only one of his tonsils removed as a child.

• For their 10-year anniversary in 1931, White Castle hamburgers gave away thousands of "White Castle Knights" membership cards. One of the benefits bestowed upon the bearer was 5¢ hamburgers for life. While only eight cards are known to still exist today, White Castle continues to honor them.

• Since 1989, The White House has been painted "ivory #5" instead of the more traditional glossy white.

• "Ikea" means "simple" in Swedish.

• In mid-August 2003, the world's largest collection of arctic ice core samples, stored at the State University of New York at Buffalo, completely melted due to the prolonged power outage affecting Eastern North America.

• There are 19 places which bill themselves as "the most unique town in America."

• While Washington, D.C. commemorates President George Washington, the state of Washington is officially named after both George and Martha Washington.