Joseph Guillotin, namesake of the guillotine, opposed capital punishment but promoted the device as a more humane alternative to the brutal execution methods of his time when abolition proved impossible.

In 2022, the California Supreme Court ruled that bumble bees could be classified as a protected species because they met the state’s legal definition of 'fish.'

In captivity, ravens can learn to talk better than some parrots. They also mimic a variety of sounds, like car engines, toilets flushing, and other animal and bird calls.

About 1 in 10,000 people (0.01%) are born with situs inversus, a rare condition where internal organs are arranged in a mirror-image reversal, with the heart and stomach on the right and the liver on the left.

Flowers communicate with bumblebees using electricity. If a flower hasn’t been visited recently, it emits static that tugs at tiny hairs on a bee’s back, signaling available nectar.

The loudest shout ever recorded was by a primary school teacher who yelled, 'Quiet!' at 121.7 decibels - loud enough to cause hearing damage. This record has held strong for 30 years.

Salt was so valuable in ancient times that it was used as currency. The word 'salary' comes from the Latin 'salarium', meaning the allowance Roman soldiers received to buy salt.