The sun will never be a mile across, it's much larger than that - over 110 times the diameter of the Earth and a million times the Earth's volume. But the sun will not remain in its present form for ever. At the moment it is about 4.5 billion years old and is 'burning' hydrogen to produce the heat and light that we rely on for our life on earth today. So far it has burned up about 50% of its hydrogen stores meaning that it should be okay for another 5-6 billion years. But once the hydrogen is all gone the sun will begin to burn up helium in its core and at the same it will swell into a 'Red Giant', engulfing the innermost planets in our solar system as it does so. This phase will last about 500 million years before the sun shrinks back to become a very dense 'white dwarf' not much bigger than the size of the earth. Although it will be very small, the white dwarf will be extremely dense - a teaspoonful of the material it is made from will weigh more than a tonne.

 

Legend says that giving birds fizzy water can make them explode as gas builds up in their stomachs. But this is probably not correct - birds can burp it up. Bird's guts are somewhat different to humans, containing different chambers, but they do have an oesophagus which allows the bird's food to reach the crop (where a human's stomach would be). As bird's have no teeth they swallow food whole. It travels down to the crop ready for regurgitation to feed their young. It follows that, if they can regurgitate food, they should be able to regurgitate gas too. However it's not really natural for birds or other animals to drink fizzy water so best to stick to still water for your pets!

It's False much more at 162 metres, set last year by Loic Leferme. Possible because of an ancient response programmed into all of us called the mammalian diving reflex - when the face hits the water the heart slows by 50% and the circulation shifts, shutting down less essential organs in favour of maintaining blood flow to the heart and brain.

It's True American Charles Osbourne died in 1991 having hiccuped continuously since 1922. Long term hiccup attacks can also run in families and are more common in men than women. The only cure with any scientific basis is breathing into a paper bag to raise blood carbon dioxide levels.

It's True when the pond freezes over the fish survive the low-oxygen conditions by reducing their metabolism by over 90%, swimming very slowly, and burning up the sugar glucose. Without oxygen they turn the products of their metabolism into alcohol which is peed out into the pond water.

It's True but only in terms of its 'diameter'. Obviously the volume of the moon is significantly smaller than the volume of the Earth. The moon has a diameter of 2156 miles and is 239,000 miles (384,000 km) from the Earth. This is still tiny compared with the sun (which is 92 million miles away) and has a diameter 110 times that of the earth and could comfortably accommodate a million planet Earths inside.

It's True Experts are predicting that the world population will reach 8.9 billion by the year 2050. They had suggested that the population would rise to 9.3 billion from its current total of 6.3 billion, but they have revised their estimate because of a reduction in the present birth rate, and the impact of AIDS.