10 things we didn't know last week News snippets

Sliced and diced for your convenience Published duration 26 June 2015

image copyright ALAMY

1. Marvel Comics stipulates that Peter Parker must be white and straight but Spider-Man can be of any ethnicity or sexual orientation.

2. Rats dream about the places they want to go.

3. The more politically conservative you are, the easier you'll find it to lose weight because you're likely to have more self-control.

4. Listening to heavy metal may make you calmer.

5. Mustard is the by-product of millions of years of evolutionary "warfare" between plants and butterflies.

6. Only 83 black women have ever received a PhD in physics in the US.

7. Indians - most of them Sikhs - currently make up about 60% of Italy's Parmesan-producing workforce.

8. The word "twerk" dates back to 1820.

9. Asda might not process your photos if they look too good.

10. William Hague used to only reveal the subject of his questions to Tony Blair with the final word of the sentence - so that the then-PM didn't have time to find his place in an alphabetical folder full of topics.

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