12 Smooth, Shiny, Totally Transfixing Pebbles of Trivia

It might not be the biggest by area, but in terms of east to west width, Hawaii boasts the biggest measurement.

Perhaps the most famous cartoon character of all time is known in Italy not as Mickey Mouse, but as “Topolino.”

One of the symptoms of a vitamin A deficiency is night blindness, making it even harder than normal to see in dark conditions.

Well, not just candy. Cats, because they can’t make a specific protein, literally don't have the capacity to taste sweetness.

Not because he had any insatiable hunger for the stuff, but because it was a gift from a dairy farmer. The half-ton-plus block of cheese sat in the White House for a full year.

The English word “soy,” along with “soy sauce,” “soybeans” and so on, comes from Japanese. Weirdly, though, not the Japanese word for the beans themselves, but the word shoyu, used for soy sauce. Shoyu became saio, which became soy, and it ended up named for its own sauce.

It’s a word used to refer to fake, manufactured grassroots support. Fake grassroots = Astroturf.

Pumice, a volcanic rock, has such a low density that it can actually float on water when dry.

It’s not a popular drink these days, so fewer people might know how brandy is actually made: by distilling wine.

The word utopia, meaning a perfect world, in Greek means “nowhere.”

Most people remember Natalie Portman as Queen Amidala in Star Wars: Episode I, but less notice a future star who plays her body double: a 12-year-old Keira Knightley.

The plant from Little Shop of Horror’s largest iteration took 51 separate puppeteers to operate.