We now know that Rudolph's red nose was a result of a condition brought on by alcohol abuse. Rudolph was so lonely, being cut out of all those reindeer games, that he hit the bottle, and hard. Happily, his chance to lead the sleigh in the snow gave him a new lease on life. He later joined a twelve-step program and is in his fiftieth year of sobriety. His nose is now bloated, but a pinkish grey.
In an attempt to make Dickens more accessible to the modern youth, all editions of A Christmas Carol are being reprinted with Scrooge's famous words altered to "**** that for a game of soldiers".
Scientists sifting the rubble of a desert hillside in Ethiopia have discovered a trove of crab shells 2 1/2 million years old that may reveal the first direct link between shrimps and the earliest members of our true human lineage. This new found crustacean species, still far more lobster than human, could include the very first beings on Earth to use sellotape. That technology marked a major turning point on the long evolutionary path toward modern Homo sapiens, the scientists say.