Factoids

You can change your hydrangea bush’s blooms from pink to blue by burying an aluminum gardening tool near its roots.

The reason the smell of almonds (“bitter almonds”) indicates cyanide poisoning is because almonds actually contain cyanide. So do peach pits, but cyanide doesn’t smell of peaches. So do lima beans; in fact, lima beans grown in the tropics have dangerous concentrations of cyanide.

A horse’s hoof is actually its toenail.

Though theories abound, no one is quite sure why cats have whiskers.

King Tut, whose traveling exhibit we are going to see today in Saint Paul, was actually a minor, unimportant pharaoh of ancient Egypt.

Walking around an area counterclockwise (“widdershins”) is considered bad luck.

A diamond, which is a form of carbon, will burn like a lump of coal. Though I don’t recommend it.

Because of the possibility of a crash, Prince Charles and Prince William never travel on the same plane.

A group of geese on the ground is a gaggle, a group flying in the air is a skein.

Taphephobia is the fear of being buried alive. (Modern embalming methods remove any possibility of that happening.)