Just some snippets

At the moment on my daily commute I'm (still) listening to the audiobook of "At Home: A Short History of Private Life" by Bill Bryson. Whilst it's proving to be entertaining and highly informative, I'm finding that it's not causing any moments of particular inspiration, hence the paucity of postworthy thoughts of the last few days.

A couple of facts have interested me sufficiently, however, to make them worth repeating here:

(I've already posted these on twitter so you may have already seen them)

• The biochemist with the best name ever!
• The naturally-occurring element Francium is so rare that it is thought there maybe as little as 20 ATOMS on the whole planet. (I'm not sure where Bryson got this figure - perhaps the printed book has references - the best figure I could find online was 20-30g at any one time)
• The human requirement for vitamin B12 is so miniscule that 1 ounce (ah, those crazy Americans with their antiquated measurements) will last your entire lifetime. (again, I'd like to see a source on this).

Okay, they're not particularly Earth-shattering, I'll grant you, but I liked them. Hopefully you did, too.