Most interesting thing you learned today

[Sarah]

Sanford & Son was a remake from a British sitcom.

Ah yes, Steptoe and Son, Steptoe being played by Wilfrid Brambell, Paul McCartney's very clean grandfather in A Hard Day's Night.  The show had just started up again in 1970, when my family was living in England, and it was one of my father's favorites (he was also partial to Dad's Army).  He liked Sanford and Son, too.

On topic:  The most interesting thing I learned today is that the guy who painted the trim on my house a few years ago is in jail again.

[fonpr]

I learned that bananas are not fruit, they are herbs.

I beg to differ.  Banana trees aren't trees.  Bananas however are fruit, according to my sources.

Where did you get your information, Laura?

You are correct Fredericks! I asked my housemate again and she sent me this:

"Ok. So the banana is an herb and a berry. A berry is defined as, many seeds with in a fleshy layer. Diff. varieties have seeds, but the ones that we eat have little no seeds b/c they are triploids (YAY Gentics!!)- they were genetically engineered to have 3 sets of chromosomes which prevents them from undergoing meiosis- the products of which are seeds covered in a fleshy delicious fruit. (Also think of seedless watermelons). This is very taxing for the plant to produce a seedless fruit, which in the case of a banana is actually a berry, b/c ultimately it serves no purpose for the plant to produce a seedless fruit.

The bananas that we eat today were made by a process similar to grafting, except since the banana is herbaceous and has no wood, (the leaves grow around each other in layers.) This makes every banana you've ever eaten an exact genetic clone of the one MOTHER banana plant. How wild is that? Plants are immortal?!?"

Let us just call them sterile plant ovaries.

[JonFromMaplewood]

Nation states do not believe half of what they say to the press about other nation states.

Oh wait. I knew that.

How about this then: After downloading Interstellarium (amazing freeware), I learned that the massive sun Betelgeuse is visible in our night sky.

[cutout]

My mother wants Julian Assange to be assassinated.

[ben]

That Steve Sodabug is the actual name.

[Ike]

My mother wants Julian Assange to be assassinated.

The political scientist who shares my office does as well.  Totally peaceful, extremely liberal fella, and he can't see why the US has let this "goon walk around, not getting rubbed out." 

NEARLY a spittake moment in the office. 

[Steve of Bloomington]

'"On the Blessed Land." DPRK 2010 A new release! The feature film deals with the noble ideological and moral traits and optimistic work style of young Koreans who are devotedly carrying out the Workers′ Party of Korea′s policy of bringing about a radical turn in potato farming after volunteering to work'

[Austin From NC]

Tom Leher allegedly invented jello shots.

[Sarah]

You mean Tom Lehrer?  Really?  Source, please.

[Sarah]

Found it.

I love Tom Lehrer.  Was singing "We'll All Go Together When We Go" when I was five.  I especially liked the more ghoulish numbers.

[yesno]

I knew that the Italian humanists had modeled their typefaces on Carolingian minuscule, but I did not know that this was because they had erroneously thought that the Carolingian-era manuscripts they studied were Roman originals.  In fact, had they actually copied originals, our current lower-case letters would look more like this: