The United States, home to 4% of the global population aged 5 to 25 years, accounts for more than one-quarter of the global public-education budget.

Keanu Reeves used to have a job sharpening ice skates.

The most effective rat poisons are different in each country to match what people eat there. In Germany, they contain pork fat; France, butter; United States, vanilla, granola, popcorn, and a little margarine; India, curry; Chile, fish meal; and Italy, olive oil, pasta, honey, espresso, green apple juice, and Nutella.

Charles Schulz, cartoonist, was part Norwegian. As a child, Schulz had an abnormally clever dog called Spike. If he ever had another dog, the family thought they would call him “Snupi,” a Norwegian term of endearment.

There are more bacteria in ice machines at fast-food restaurants than in toilet-bowl water.

This article appears in November 9 • 2007.

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