• A mole can dig a tunnel 300 feet in one night.
• Ancient Chinese artists freely depicted scenes of nakedness and coition, but absolutely never would they depict a simple bare female foot.
• The penculine titmouse of Africa builds a home in such a sturdy manner that Masai
tribesmen use their nests for purses and carrying cases.
• It is impossible to sneeze and keep one’s eyes open at the same time.
• The Maya Indians filed their front teeth to points and drilled holes in them so that they could be embellished with precious gems. They filled cavities in their teeth with pieces of jade.
• An electric eel can produce a shock of more than 300 volts. It not only uses this power to kill its prey but to locate it as well. Though it is born with eyes, it is blind and uses its electricity to find food in much the same way as man uses radar.
• The rickshaw was invented by an American. The Rev. Jonathan Scobie, a Baptist minister living in Yokohama, Japan, built the first model in 1869 to transport his invalid wife through the city streets. Copies were made by the minister’s parishioners and soon the rickshaw became a standard mode of transportation in the Orient.
• The original name for the butterfly was “flutterby”.
• A “clue” originally meant a ball of thread. This is why one is said to “unravel” the clues to a mystery.
• Light textiles from Gaza, the town for which the Gaza Strip is named, gave us the word “gauze”.
• Avocados have the highest calories of any fruit at 167 calories per 100 grams.
• If your home is infested with cockroaches, get a gecko. Geckos sleep during the day and by night prowl the kitchen for their favorite prey – cockroaches. They voraciously consume hundreds of roaches a week. Geckos are clean and require no grooming.
• Arachibutyrophobia is fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of the mouth.
• The world’s largest Gothic cathedral is in New York City. It is the Cathedral of St. John the Divine at Amsterdam Avenue and 112th Street. The cathedral is 601 feet long, 146 feet wide, and has a transept measuring 320 feet from end to end.
• French poodles did not originate in France. Poodles were originally used as hunting dogs in Germany and Russia. The dogs’ thick coats were a hindrance in water and thick brush, so hunters sheared the hindquarters, leaving the cuffs around the ankles and hips to protect them against rheumatism. Each hunter marked his dog’s head with a ribbon of color, allowing hunters to tell their dogs apart.
• Quito, Ecuador is said to have the most pleasant climate in the world.
Wein is a published author and a Los Altos resident.
