52 things I learned in 2025

Every week I post something new I learned whilst preparing my weekly newsletter, I've highlighted some of my absolute favourites from 2025. (2024 list here)

1. Nigel Richards regularly wins foreign language Scrabble competitions, despite not speaking the languages (The Guardian)
2. Sausage Kiosks in Vienna are being awarded UNESCO 'Intangible Cultural Heritage) status. (Yahoo Life)
3. Humans have toenails to aid with our sense of proprioception, that's our 'position in space'. (Mental Floss)
4. Saturns Rings are going to disappear for a while, but they will be back. (EarthSky)
5. The Grand Canyon is home to a poo museum, although it looks like it is closed now. (Poo Museum)
6. Sweden is building a sustainable city of the future, made entirely from timber. (Time Magazine)
7. Cooling Towers are shaped in a specific way, to aid the cooling. (ScienceABC)
8. Sleep is regulated by a tiny blue dot inside in all of our brains (BBC)
9. There are 350 different shapes of pasta, and even more names for them. (Italy Magazine)
10. The Amazon River doesn't have any official bridges. (IFL Science)
11. Bison are making a comeback in the UK, and its driving real biodiversity. (Reasons to be Cheerful)
12. Our teeth are radioactive. (YouTube)
13. There is an active 'volcano' in East London that no-one seems to be able to stop (The Guardian)
14. Ancient Greek statues often had clothing, and smelt of perfume. (Archaeology Magazine)
15. A Swiss town is prescribing museum visits as therapy for patients (AP News)
16. Before the invention of the bicycle, the average distance between the birthplaces of spouses in England was ONE mile. (Galibier)
17. A day on Uranus is 28 seconds longer than it used to be. (AP News)
18. The Uber Lost and Found Index is a strange and mysterious place. (Uber)
19. Scientists discovered a new colour. Not a favourite colour, a brand new colour that no-one has seen before. (BBC)
20. There is an annual competition for imitating the screech of a seagull. It is as extraordinary (and annoying) as you are imagining. (BBC)
21. Cardinals don't live on the strictest of rations when they are locked in a conclave, but they have NOWHERE to hide a message. (BBC)
22. People still use typewriters, every day in some parts of the world. (BBC)
23. Twins sometimes have the same allergies, but not always. (BBC)
24. You are statistically more likely to die on your birthday, than any other day of the year. (The Pudding)
25. A man in Norway woke up to find a container ship in his back garden. (BBC)
26. A spacecraft has taken photographs of the Sun's 'South Pole' for the first time. (BBC)
27. There is a website that tracks the number of people in space right now. It's the same now, as it was when I read about it - just 10. (HowManyPeople)
28. A Japanese airport had to cancel some flights due to a bear on the runway. (CBS)
29. All the fireworks have different names, and there are way more than I imagined. (Keystone Fireworks)
30. Counting a million dollars is not as easy as you would expect. (Calvin Liang)
31. There was a secret British Language which helped beat the Nazis in the Channel Islands during World War Two. (BBC)
32. Neil Armstrong had to complete a customs form when he landed back from the Moon. For the Rocks. (University of Cincinnati)
33. The Mizohata-Takeuchi Conjecture is a major math mystery that lasted 40 years, until a 17 year old solved it. (Quanta)
34. Keep Calm and Carry On became a phenomenon, almost 60 years after it was designed - here's why. (BBC)
35. A fourteen year old boy founded his own 'micronation' on the border between Serbia and Croatia. (The Guardian)
36. Dogs now have their own surfing championship. (World Dog Surfing)
37. In 1969, engineers stopped Niagara Falls from flowing for the first time in 12000 years. (1440 Daily)
38. Norway, controversially, has it's own version of the KitKat. It might look very similar but could well taste even better. (BBC)
39. Scandal ripped through this years Internatiomal Stone Skipping Championship when 'imported/doctored' rocks made their way into competition. (Popular Science)
40. Rappers make raps using incredible lyricism, but also some clever patterns of repetition that give them a signature sound. (Vox Magazine)
41. Wind Turbines have three blades for a very good reason, more or less won't do. Trust me, it's not (just) what you originally think. (YouTube)
42. A rare interstellar comet passed by Mars during 2025, and is being closely monitored. (The Guardian)
43. A very rare Snow Leopard has been born in captivity at Chester Zoo. (Nice News)
44. There was once a plan devised to slice up Europe like a Pizza, with Vienna at the middle. They even had maps made. (Big Think)
45. Our bodies goe through a 'mini jet-lag' when the clocks go forward or back - in some cases, even a mild depression. (ABC News)
46. There are two places in the world that sell a honey so full of psychoactives that it is nicknamed 'mad honey'. (CNN)
47. There is a database of the most dangerous roads in the world, you can check if there is a local one to drive. (Dangerous Roads)
48. I'm lucky enough to see the sea as I write this list, but until this year I never knew the hidden maths behind waves. (Quanta)
49. Vitamin D can affect both your immune system and your heart health, and in the winter, many of us don't get enough. (MIT Technology Review)
50. A mysterious black fungus is emerging at Chernobyl, and it looks like it might be 'eating' radiation. (BBC)
51. At last! A competition I'd back myself in - the World Parallel Parking Championship. (Car and Driver)
52. There is a massive black hole, speedining at over 2 million miles per hour through its home galaxy. (Space)