AARP Eye Center
11 Things We Didn't Know Last Week
By Steve Mencher, January 29, 2014 04:52 PM
News, discoveries and fun ...
![Pope Francis on the cover of Rolling Stone](https://aarp-content.brightspotcdn.com/17/9d/e52ad29d0e59dfe7be2b0344bbcc/20140127-popecover-x600-1390844430.jpg)
1. Francis is the first pope on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine. (Learn more at Rolling Stone)
2. The Grand Canyon could be 6 million years old ... and 70 million years old. (Learn more at NPR)
![grandcanyon-jeremy-wilburn](https://aarp-content.brightspotcdn.com/0c/87/437503af8a8c925e2a1b940eed45/grandcanyon-jeremy-wilburn.png)
3. Men are more forgetful than women. (Learn more at Medical News Today)
4. Your cellphone carries 10 times more germs than your toilet. (Learn more at AARP)
![Toilet and Cell Phone](https://aarp-content.brightspotcdn.com/4f/0a/75f1a6f8bbf5b0418153f9882bc4/istock-000005339709medium.jpg)
5. Cyber criminals are using malicious "RAM scraper" software to steal information about you and your credit cards. (Learn more at AARP)
6. A bean bag on a stick does a great imitation of the human hand. (Learn more at Wired)
![LEGO_screenshot1](https://aarp-content.brightspotcdn.com/59/7e/302821877fa56530899411b56f9a/lego-screenshot1.png)
7. Turning down your thermostat might help you lose weight. (Learn more at MedicalXpress)
8. To celebrate its 100th birthday, Beverly Hills threw a party for centenarians. (Learn more at L.A. Times)
9. Down to its last £1 million (about $1.6 million), Great Britain's royal family must economize. (Learn more at NBC)
![400-queen-elizabeth-money-news-roundup](https://aarp-content.brightspotcdn.com/9b/a2/a24722e24d1617be2742a2aaf60b/400-queen-elizabeth-money-news-roundup-300x232.jpg)
10. By many measures, Mississippi still ranks lowest among the 50 states. (Learn more at AARP)
11. In a real life sequel to the film Monuments Men, paintings looted by the Nazis are being sold at auction. (Learn more at Yahoo.com)
![us-soldiers-recover-looted-paintings](https://aarp-content.brightspotcdn.com/a5/10/7c67bb52b803add299198ad4c9e7/us-soldiers-recover-looted-paintings.jpg)
Bonus video: Everybody knows you can't just create a "viral" video. But so far, more than a million people have clicked to see Bill Gates wearing a chicken head, a tin foil hat and fake teeth.
Let us read 11 Things to you:
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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 - Rolling Stone cover: Photo by Stefano Spaziani, courtesy of Rolling Stone; Grand Canyon: Jeremy Wilburn/Flickr; Cellphone in toilet: Bryan Faust/istockphoto; Versaball robotic hand: Courtesy of Empire Robotics; Queen Elizabeth: Photo by Mark Cuthbert/UK Press/Getty Images; "Monuments Men" in Germany: Courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration
Music: Longitudinal exploitation by Relias, via SoundCloud
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