Here are some of the most interesting things I learned this year:
1. Every iron object made before 1200 BC came from meteorites. (“Bronze Age iron: Meteorite or not? A chemical strategy”)
2. Santa’s reindeer are all female. Male antlers don’t start growing antlers until February, so any reindeer with antlers hauling goods on Christmas Eve wouldn’t be male. (FDA)
3. Cookie Monster eats approximately two dozen cookies for every Sesame Street episode filming. The cookies are baked at the home of Lara MacLean, and the ingredients—pancake mix, puffed rice, Grape-Nuts, instant coffee, with water, and black glue for the chocolate chips—are optimized to explode into crumbs without getting stuck in Cookie Monster’s fur. The last human to eat the cookies was Adam Sandler, in 2009. (“Nom Nom Nom. What’s the Deal With Cookie Monster’s Cookies?”)
4. Costco is responsible for 50% of all cashew sales in the world. (“Costco Clothing Is Cheap. WSJ Readers Love It. But Is It Actually Good Value?”)