In 1973, over Ivory Coast, an aircraft collided with a Ruppell’s griffon, a kind of vulture.
It had been flying at 37,000 feet — that’s seven miles high.
Always Hire a Good Real Estate Agent
Dioniso Pulido must have angered the gods.
On Feb. 20, 1943, the Mexican farmer watched a volcanic fissure open in the middle of his cornfield. Within 24 hours the cone was 50 meters high; within a week it was twice that. By August his whole town was buried in lava and ash.
The new volcano, called Paricutin, eventually grew to be 10,000 feet high, and it didn’t go quiet until 1952.
And the gods got their due. No one died in the eruption — but three people were killed by associated lightning strikes.
One Lump or Two?
How can you put 10 lumps of sugar into three cups so there is an odd number of lumps in each cup?
Unquote
“Who would write, who had any thing better to do?” — Lord Byron
Twice Around Noah’s Ark
A race among all the world’s creatures would show some surprising results. Top speeds:
- Tortoise: 0.23 mph
- Sea trout: 15 mph
- Dragonfly: 18 mph
- Human sprinter: 22 mph
- African elephant: 25 mph
- Cat: 30 mph
- Racehorse: 43 mph
- Ostrich: 45 mph
- Bluefin tuna: 46 mph
- Racing pigeon: 53 mph
- Pronghorn: 55 mph
- Cheetah: 62 mph
- Mallard: 65 mph
- Sailfish: 68 mph
The winner would be the peregrine falcon, which has been clocked in level flight at 217 mph.
Frankly, My Dear …
To find the actress to play Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With the Wind, MGM shot 149,000 feet of black-and-white test film and another 13,000 feet of color with 60 actresses, none of whom got the part.
Vivien Leigh eventually got it, but MGM also considered Katharine Hepburn, Norma Shearer, Bette Davis, Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Crawford, Lana Turner, Susan Hayward, Carole Lombard, Paulette Goddard, Irene Dunne, Merle Oberon, Ida Lupino, Joan Fontaine, Loretta Young, Miriam Hopkins, Jean Arthur, Tallulah Bankhead, Joan Bennett, Frances Dee, and Lucille Ball.
Apparently Rust Does Sleep
This iron pillar, part of a complex of monuments in Delhi, India, has stood for 1,600 years without rusting, despite harsh weather.
Metallurgists think it’s protected by a thin layer of “misawite”, a compound of iron, oxygen and hydrogen, that formed shortly after it was made.
Some Things Never Change
Letter from Jeannette Linn to Santa Claus, Dec. 21, 1899:
Dear Santa, I thought I would drop you a few lines and tell you a few things what I want. Well, I want a pair of skates, because I think by the time Christmas comes it will be frozen up. And for another thing, I want a pair of leggings so that it will keep my feet warm and I want them so that they will come up above my shoe-tops, and I want a little slate like those that have pictures of cats and rabbits and dogs on and like those that are almost like a slate, and if it don’t cost too much I would like a large doll, so large that it would look about four years old. I will tell you where to find it. If you look in the basement of the Arcade on the place where the dolls are, you will see a large doll with real long curly hair and it is jointed and it is as pretty as I am. And I don’t think I want much, but dear Santa, I know that I want more than you can afford to give, for there are more little boys and girls and they want something too. But I would like to have so much a nice tricycle that would cost three dollars and that is too much, I think, to pay for anything, but that is really the price of it because I saw the price on it and it said $3.00 as plain as this letter is written and I think it is written pretty plain.
She finished: “Well Santa, I must close because it is getting late and I think if I don’t close you will not bring me anything. I have got as much as I can think of.”
In a Word
sophomania
n. delusion that one is incredibly intelligent
Bzzzzzzz
After he’d been stung by almost everything, entomologist Justin O. Schmidt created the Schmidt Sting Pain Index, a four-point scale comparing the overall pain of insect stings:
- 1.0 – Sweat bee: “Light, ephemeral, almost fruity. A tiny spark has singed a single hair on your arm.”
- 1.2 – Fire ant: “Sharp, sudden, mildly alarming. Like walking across a shag carpet and reaching for the light switch.”
- 1.8 – Bullhorn acacia ant: “A rare, piercing, elevated sort of pain. Someone has fired a staple into your cheek.”
- 2.0 – Bald-faced hornet: “Rich, hearty, slightly crunchy. Similar to getting your hand mashed in a revolving door.”
- 2.0 – Yellowjacket: “Hot and smoky, almost irreverent. Imagine W.C. Fields extinguishing a cigar on your tongue.”
- 3.0 – Red harvester ant: “Bold and unrelenting. Somebody is using a drill to excavate your ingrown toenail.”
- 3.0 – Paper wasp: “Caustic and burning. Distinctly bitter aftertaste. Like spilling a beaker of hydrochloric acid on a paper cut.”
- 4.0 – Pepsis wasp: “Blinding, fierce, shockingly electric. A running hair drier has been dropped into your bubble bath (if you get stung by one you might as well lie down and scream).”
- 4.0+ – Bullet ant: “Pure, intense, brilliant pain. Like walking over flaming charcoal with a 3-inch nail in your heel.”