Spot the Difference

Juggling is said to increase the volume of gray matter in a child’s brain by 3 percent. “Learning a difficult perceptual-motor skill—juggling—induced a 3 percent increase in the volume of gray matter in visual attention areas,” write Yale scholars.

Forty years ago, KFC ran a particularly successful marketing campaign in Japan that resulted in the tradition of having Christmas dinner at the fried chicken restaurant. The strange custom has become so popular that Christmas orders have to be put in two months in advance!

The lychee was first cultivated in southern China, and was a popular delicacy in the Chinese Imperial Court. It made this impression on a European traveler in 1585: “They haue a kinde of plummes, that they doo call lechias, that are of an exceeding gallant tast, and neuer hurteth any body, although they shoulde eate a great number of them.”