11 Things We Didn't Know Last Week - Polar Vortex Edition

 News, discoveries and fun ...

1. It got so cold in Kentucky that an escaped prisoner turned himself back in. (Learn more at  Associated Press)

Tweets about "#polarvortex"

2. Eating certain foods can reduce your risk of developing cataracts. (Learn more at AARP)

3. Siri, Apple's voice-activated personal assistant, isn't so keen about her purring counterpart in the new movie  Her, but suggests seeing the movie anyway.  (Learn more at Wired)

 

4. A newspaper in Vancouver, Wash., discovered an undeveloped roll of film taken by a photographer who was killed 33 years ago in the catastrophic eruption of Mount St. Helens. (Learn more at The Columbian)

Reid Blackburn/The Columbian

5. Time travelers are not chronicling their adventures on Facebook and Twitter. (Learn more at The Atlantic)

6. A restaurant in Pakistan has banned Pakistanis from eating there. (Learn more at  NBC News)

7. Tonya Harding still denies any involvement in the 1994 attack on rival figure skater Nancy Kerrigan. (Learn more at ESPN Films)

8. Downton Abbey's proud, straight-laced head butler Mr. Carson was once in love. (Learn more at AARP)

9. Not even your surgeon knows how much a new hip costs. (Learn more at Kaiser Health News)

10. Online, your shopping cart could be stalking you. (Learn more at AARP)

11. The American Dialect Society crowned " because" its 2013 word of the year. Why? "Because useful." (Learn more at the New York Times)

Bonus video: What to do when it's really cold outside:

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Learn something this week? Mail your ideas to  11things@aarp.org, and we'll try to include your story next time.

On Twitter, we're using the hashtag   #11things.

Images - Deep freeze: Elvis Kennedy/Flickr; Prunes: Chrissy H./Flickr; Siri: Screenshot; Mount St. Helens: Reid Blackburn courtesy of The Columbian; Tonya Harding: Bob Thomas/Getty Images; Downton Abbey: Courtesy PBS

Music - Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra plays Jimmie Lunceford and his Orchestra - Blue Blazes by Sy Oliver, Creative Commons, courtesy of Smithsonian Remix project.

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