Trivia

Pine, spruce, or other evergreen wood should never be used for barbequing. These woods, when burning or smoking, can add harmful tar and resins to the food. Only hardwoods should be used for smoking and grilling, such as oak, pecan, hickory, maple, cherry, alder, apple, or mesquite, depending on the type of meat being cooked.

Bet you didn't know March 1st is National Pig Day! Time to celebrate the wonder, beauty and flavor of our most favorite animal.

Most cuts of pork suitable for grilling, pan grilling or pan frying may be cooked on a barbeque.

Choose pork that is cut about 1.5cm to 2cm thick. Similarly sized cubes can be cooked on skewers.

Marinating pork or brushing the meat with basting mixtures while cooking adds extra flavour. Marinades should be cooked thoroughly or discarded.

Place pork on the preheated barbeque (medium heat) and cook until the meat feels firm when pressed with tongs and the pork juices are clear.

Turn the pork once during cooking. Avoid poking or turning the meat unnecessarily with a fork as this pierces the meat and releases juices, making the meat dry

California sea otters spend almost all of their time in the water. Alaska sea otters often sleep, groom, and nurse on land.

Sea Otters are playful animals that spend almost all their time in the sea. They eat, sleep, and even have their babies in the water. In the daytime sea otters float on their backs eating Abalone, their favorite food. To open the Abalone shell they place a small rock on their chest and smash the shell against it. Sea otters are one of the few mammals, beside humans, that use tools. They will use strands of kelp to tie themselves into the kelp beds for a secure night's sleep. They love to frolic with other otters and seals. Unlike seals and walrus, sea otters have no blubber to keep them warm in the cold arctic waters. Air trapped in their fur keeps them warm and bouyant. Oil spills can damage this fine fur and cause the otter to get very cold and die. That is why volunteers cleaned the sea otters so carefully after the oil spills in Alaska.

Sea otters also faced great dangers from hunters who wanted their valuable coats. They were hunted so heavily in the 18-19th Centuries that they had to be placed on the U.S. government endangered species list. Now the populations have come back to a large extent, but conservationists would like to continue to protect them. Fishermen would like them off the endangered species list in order to protect the abalone harvest.

Before going into the music business, Frank Zappa was a greeting-card designer.

On December 4, 1993: Frank Zappa dies at the age of 52 Real Audio 167 K.

Frank Zappa died at his Los Angeles home, shortly before his 53rd birthday. Zappa was one of the most exotic, original and complex figures to have emerged from rock culture. Bandleader, guitar hero, composer, satirist, and political commentator, Zappa managed to avoid being easily categorized for over three decades. And uniquely among rock idols, the career of the man who put the sneer into rock evolved outside the mainstream of pop history. Hailed by some music critics as a genius, came to prominence in the early 1960s, leading his band, the Mothers of Invention, in a merry cacophony of what he called "sonic mutilations." With the band or as a solo performer he released about 50 albums. Zappa, who had battled prostate cancer for several years, remained active to the end, vowing not to let the disease conquer him. He said he didn't care how he was remembered after he died. "It's not important to even be remembered," he said ", "I mean, the people who worry about being remembered are guys like Reagan, Bush. . . . I don't care."

One of the fattiest fishes is salmon: 4 ounces of the delectable fish contains 9 grams of fat.

People who live along Salmon Creek are digging through cluttered attics and garages, looking for stuffed or mounted trophies of long-dead coho salmon so scientists can scrape off some of the scales in search of the fish's DNA.

It sounds like a scene out of "Jurassic Park," but no one is trying to recreate living coho from the genetic material.

The hunt is on because scientists now know salmon evolve differently in different streams. A salmon from the Mendocino County's Noyo River, for example, may die if introduced into the Russian River. So if coho are ever to be restored to west Sonoma County's Salmon Creek -- or any other stream or river -- scientists want to make sure the new fish they introduce are genetically similar to ones there originally.

DNA research is being conducted on chinook and coho salmon, as well as steelhead, which scientists consider a strain of salmon. All three are listed as threatened species.

The dream is to create fisheries robust enough to support recreational fishing and to maintain the species' and nature's diversity, said Gail Seymour, watershed restoration planner for the California Department of Fish and Game.

No!

The humps on a camel's back are actually huge heaps of fat and flesh that can weigh as much as 80 pounds in a healthy camel. These humps help camels survive for weeks without food and water.

When water and food become scarce on the deserts where camels roam, the fatty humps serve as stored food and are used for nourishment. As the camel's body metabolizes or uses up the humps' stored fat, the hump becomes smaller and flabbier. So the longer the camel goes without eating, the smaller its hump gets. The size of a camel's hump helps determine a camel's health, food sources, and overall well-being.

These humps, or reserves of fat, are the reason why camels can go for days without water and food. While humans are supposed to drink 8 glasses of water a day, camels can go without water for up to 2 weeks!

Camel characteristics:

Camels are the only animals with humps.
Got milk? Camels can produce up to 600 liters of milk a year.
Camels can close their nostrils.
Camels eat just about anything. When camels are really hungry and there is no food around, they won't think twice about gobbling up people's tents, sandals, or blankets.
Camels as professional boxers? In some countries camels are a source of entertainment. For example, camel fighting attracts audiences of all ages in several countries around the world.
Are camels faster than a speeding bullet? Well not quite. But camels can run just as fast as horses, if not faster. Similar to horse races in the United States, camel races are a popular sport in Morocco.

Death Valley in southern California is the lowest point in the United States at 282 feet below sea level. The highest point in the contiguous 48 states is also in California: Mount Whitney, which is 14,491 feet above sea level.

Hottest, Driest, Lowest: Death Valley is a land of extremes. It is one of the hottest places on the surface of the Earth with summer temperatures averaging well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. It encompasses the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere at 282 feet below the level of the sea, and it is the driest place in North America with an average rainfall of only 1.96 inches a year.

This valley is also a land of subtle beauties: Morning light creeping across the eroded badlands of Zabriskie Point to strike Manly Beacon, the setting sun and lengthening shadows on the Sand Dunes at Stovepipe Wells, and the colors of myriad wildflowers on the golden hills above Harmony Borax on a warm spring day.

Death Valley is a treasure trove of scientific information about the ancient Earth and about the forces still working to shape our modern world. It is home to plants, animals, and human beings that have adapted themselves to take advantage of its rare and hard won bounty. It is a story of western expansion, wealth, greed, suffering and triumph. Death Valley is a land of extremes, and much more.

Many visitors to Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks are interested in seeing Mt. Whitney, the tallest mountain in the "lower 48" states. However, Mt. Whitney is on the east side of the Great Western Divide, a chain of mountains that runs north/south through the center of Sequoia National Park, "dividing" the watersheds of the Kaweah River to the west and the Kern River to the east. Because many of the snowcapped peaks in the Great Western Divide reach altitudes of 12,000' (3657 meters) or higher, it is impossible to see over them to view Mt. Whitney from any of the roads on the west side of the Sierra. The best place from which to see Mt. Whitney is the Interagency Visitor Center on Highway 395, just south of the town of Lone Pine on the east side of the Sierra. Highway 395 can be reached via Tioga Pass in Yosemite National Park (open summer only), or by going around the southern end of the Sierra from the town of Bakersfield.

There is just one known species of ostrich in the world – it is in the order of Struthioniformes.

Description: largest living bird, males are jet black with white plumage and bright red or blue skin; females are fairly uniform in color, with earthy gray-brown plumage and skin color.

Life span: around 40 years in managed situations, unknown in the wild

Sexual maturity: 3 to 4 years

Incubation: around 40 days

Habitat: common in the wild in East Africa: in open country, desert areas, and dry savannah.

Diet: bulk of food is vegetation, fruit, seeds, leaves, shoots, shrubs, succulent plants; also invertebrates, occasionally lizards, and other small vertebrates. Stones are ingested to aid in digestion.

One ostrich egg equals up to 24 chicken eggs. And it takes approximately 2 hours to boil!

Ostriches can run up to 70 km/hr (40 mph) and can outpace most pursuers, such as lions, leopards, and hyenas.

It is the largest and heaviest living bird. It is unable to fly and does not possess a keeled sternum (breastbone) common to most birds.

Ostriches stretch out their neck and lay their head on the ground to keep from being seen, hence the myth that ostriches hide in the sand.

Ostriches are so powerful that a single kick at a predator, such as a lion, could be fatal.

A female ostrich shows a remarkable ability to recognize her own eggs even when mixed in with those of other females in their communal nest.

There are no wild deer of any kind in Australia, and the small red deer is the only one found in Africa.

Six species of deer are established in the wild in Australia, having been introduced during the world-wide movement to 'share the world's most beautiful and useful things' as was the objective of the acclimatisation societies which were active in the latter half of the 19th. century. Of the many species which the acclimatisation societies and private individuals introduced, only the chital (Axis axis), fallow deer (Dama dama), hog deer (Axis porcinus), red deer (Cervus elaphus), rusa (Cervus timorensis) and sambar (Cervus unicolor) remain.

During the course of the widespread exchange of species which took place during those years, some mistakes which were to have horrific consequences occurred as animals, plants and insects finding circumstances to which they were uniquely suited, exploded into populations which could not have been dreamed of at the time. Other introductions were less spectacular or failed to survive, but those that did became in many instances exactly what their benefactors set out to achieve -- beautiful and useful things. We only have to look around us to see that almost all of our food resources, for instance, are provided by introduced species.

Deer in Australia continue to suffer the stigma of having been introduced (exotic) in many instances, while conversely being revered by those who take an interest in them. It is probably fair to say that most members of the public are thrilled and excited by the occasional chance sighting of a deer in the wild.

Shelta is an esoteric jargon based on Irish and Gaelic, and it is still spoken by tinkers and vagrants in some parts of Ireland and England.

Irish Travelers (sometimes known as "itinerants" or "Tinkers") are a very small minority group in Ireland. They make up less than 1% of the population with approximately 23,000 people in the Republic and another 1,500 in the North. It is also estimated that there are about 15,000 Irish travelers in Britain and another 7,000 in the USA.

Irish Travelers belong to a distinct ethnic group within Ireland. They have their own language, beliefs and social customs which have been made stronger over time due to their exclusion and marginalization from mainstream "settled" society.

Occasionally Irish Travelers have been confused with the Roma or Gypsies in England, who despite centuries of coexistence, cultural interchange and limited intermarriage, remain a distinct people.

Until not so long ago Irish Travelers were referred to as "Tinkers". This word referred to their occupation as tinsmiths and metalworkers and was derived from the Irish word "ceard" (smith) or "tinceard" (tinsmith). This word is now generally used in a derogatory sense. Most of the Travelers' traditional crafts such as spoon-mending, tinsmithing and flower-making have gone by the way now as a result of urbanization and the introduction of plastic and industrial technology.

Traveler musicians have included the great uilleann piper Felix Doran and the world-renowned folk musicians, The Furey Brothers. The music and singing of the Irish Travelers have been in decline since urbanization and the arrival of television. Fewer Travelers now rely on singing and making music for their livelihood as in times gone by.

There are a number of theories as to the origin of the Irish Travelers. Their secret language, Shelta, and the evidence of various historical references to them would seem to indicate that they are the remnants of an ancient class of wandering poets, joined by those who were pushed off the land during different times of social and economic upheaval such as Cromwell's campaign, the Battle of the Boyne (1690) and the Battle of Aughrim (1691). Many of the Travelers may also be the descendants of people who were left homeless as a result of the Irish potato famines of the nineteenth century.

The game crambo, in which one person or team must find a rhyme to a word or a line of verse given by another, originated around 1600. The word "crambo" is from the Latin for “cabbage.”

CRAMBO, an old rhyming game which, according to Strutt (Sports and Pastimes), was played as early as the 14th century under the name of the ABC of Aristotle. In the days of the Stuarts it was very popular, and is frequently mentioned in the writings of the time. Thus Congreves Love for Love, i. I, contains the passage, Get the Maids to Crambo in an Evening, and learn the knack of Rhyming. Crambo, or capping the rhyme, is now played by one player thinking of a word and telling the others what it rhymes with, the ,others not naming the actual word they guess but its meaning. Thus one says I know a word that rhymes with bird. A second asks Is it ridiculous? No, it is not absurd. Is it a part of speech? No, it is not a word. This proceeds until the right word is guessed. In Dumb Crambo the guessers, instead of naming the word, express its meaning by dumb show, a rhyme being given them as a clue.

Duroc is one American breed of hardy hogs having drooping ears – it was allegedly named after the horse owned by the hog's breeder.

The Duroc breed of hogs had its origin in the eastern United States and in the Corn Belt. It would seem presumptuous today to attempt to identify the foundation stock of the breed, which was originally called the Duroc-Jersey, because persons attempting to write the history of the breed only a few years after it was formed could not definitely state the exact source of the red hogs that went into their foundation. One source of the red or reddish-brown hogs that were found in the United States was reputed to be those that came from the Guinea coast of Africa, and it is said that hogs similar to those found on the Guinea coast were found in every country to which early slave trading vessels found their way. In The Story of Durocs it is stated that red hogs were brought to America by Columbus on his second voyage, and red hogs were also brought to this country by DeSoto. These were presumed to have come from Spain and Portugal, and red hogs were sent from Portugal to Nova Scotia. In The Breeds of Livestock, Sanders is of the opinion that reddish-brown hogs of the Berkshire strain were brought to the United States and probably found their way into the Duroc breed.

Children's author Shel Silverstein, who wrote the 1981 bestseller "A Light in the Attic" (which was on The New York Times best sellers list for 182 weeks), as well as the children's classics "The Giving Tree" (1964) and "Where the Sidewalk Ends" (1974) had other creative talents as well.

He composed Johnny Cash's 1969 country hit "A Boy Named Sue." Silverstein earned a Grammy for Best Country Song and Cash received a Grammy for Best Country Male Vocal Performance for the tune.

BOY NAMED SUE

My daddy left home when I was three,
And he didn't leave much to Ma and me...
Just this old guitar and an empty bottle of booze.
Now, I don't blame him cause he run and hid,
But the meanest thing that he ever did
Was before he left, he went and named me 'Sue'.

Well, he must o' thought that is was quite a joke,
And it got a lot of laughs from a' lots of folk.
It seems I had to fight my whole life through.
Some gal would giggle and I'd get red,
And some guy'd laugh and I'd bust his head.
I tell ya, life ain't easy for a boy named 'Sue'.

Well, I grew up quick and I grew up mean,
My fist got hard and my wits got keen.
I'd roam from town to town to hide my shame.
But I made me a vow to the moon and stars
That I'd search the honky-tonks and bars,
And kill that man that give me that awful name.

Well, it was Gatlinburg in mid-July
And I just hit town, and my throat was dry.
I thought I'd stop and have myself a brew.
At an old saloon on a street of mud,
There at a table, dealing stud,
Sat the dirty, mangy dog that named me 'Sue'.

Well, I knew that snake was my own sweet dad
From a worn-out picture that my mother'd had,
And I knew that scar on his cheek and his evil eye.
He was big and bent and gray and old,
And I looked at him and my blood ran cold,
And I said: "My name is 'Sue!' How do you do! Now you gonna die!"

Well, I hit him hard right between the eyes,
And he went down, but, to my surprise,
He come up with a knife and cut off a piece of my ear.
But I busted a chair right across his teeth
And we crashed through the wall and into the street
Kicking and a' gouging in the mud and the blood and the beer.

I tell ya, I've fought tougher men,
But I really can't remember when,
He kicked like a mule and he bit like a crocodile.
I heard him laugh and then I heard him cuss,
He went for his gun and I pulled mine first,
He stood there lookin' at me and I saw him smile.

And he said: "Son, this world is rough,
And if a man's gonna make it, he's gotta be tough,
And I know I wouldn't be there to help ya along.
So I give ya that name and I said good-bye.
I knew you'd have to get tough or die,
And it's that name that helped to make you strong."

He said: "Now you just fought one hell of a fight,
And I know you hate me, and you got the right
To kill me now, and I wouldn't blame you if you do.
But ya ought to thank me, before I die,
For the gravel in ya guts and the spit in ya eye
Cause I'm the son-of-a-bitch that named you 'Sue'."

I got all choked up and I threw down my gun
And I called him my pa, and he called me his son,
And I come away with a different point of view.
And I think about him, now and then,
Every time I try and every time I win,
And if I ever have a son, I think I'm gonna name him
Bill or George! Anything but sue! I still hate that name!

President James Buchanan was a gracious host. When the Prince of Wales visited the White House in the fall of 1860, so many guests accompanied him, there weren't enough beds. The story goes that the president decided to sleep in the hallway.

Tall, stately, stiffly formal in the high stock he wore around his jowls, James Buchanan was the only President who never married.

Presiding over a rapidly dividing Nation, Buchanan grasped inadequately the political realities of the time. Relying on constitutional doctrines to close the widening rift over slavery, he failed to understand that the North would not accept constitutional arguments which favored the South. Nor could he realize how sectionalism had realigned political parties: the Democrats split; the Whigs were destroyed, giving rise to the Republicans.

Born into a well-to-do Pennsylvania family in 1791, Buchanan, a graduate of Dickinson College, was gifted as a debater and learned in the law.

He was elected five times to the House of Representatives; then, after an interlude as Minister to Russia, served for a decade in the Senate. He became Polk's Secretary of State and Pierce's Minister to Great Britain. Service abroad helped to bring him the Democratic nomination in 1856 because it had exempted him from involvement in bitter domestic controversies.

As President-elect, Buchanan thought the crisis would disappear if he maintained a sectional balance in his appointments and could persuade the people to accept constitutional law as the Supreme Court interpreted it. The Court was considering the legality of restricting slavery in the territories, and two justices hinted to Buchanan what the decision would be.

Thus, in his Inaugural the President referred to the territorial question as "happily, a matter of but little practical importance" since the Supreme Court was about to settle it "speedily and finally."

Two days later Chief Justice Roger B. Taney delivered the Dred Scott decision, asserting that Congress had no constitutional power to deprive persons of their property rights in slaves in the territories. Southerners were delighted, but the decision created a furor in the North.

Buchanan decided to end the troubles in Kansas by urging the admission of the territory as a slave state. Although he directed his Presidential authority to this goal, he further angered the Republicans and alienated members of his own party. Kansas remained a territory.

When Republicans won a plurality in the House in 1858, every significant bill they passed fell before southern votes in the Senate or a Presidential veto. The Federal Government reached a stalemate.

Sectional strife rose to such a pitch in 1860 that the Democratic Party split into northern and southern wings, each nominating its own candidate for the Presidency. Consequently, when the Republicans nominated Abraham Lincoln, it was a foregone conclusion that he would be elected even though his name appeared on no southern ballot. Rather than accept a Republican administration, the southern "fire-eaters" advocated secession.

President Buchanan, dismayed and hesitant, denied the legal right of states to secede but held that the Federal Government legally could not prevent them. He hoped for compromise, but secessionist leaders did not want compromise.

Then Buchanan took a more militant tack. As several Cabinet members resigned, he appointed northerners, and sent the Star of the West to carry reinforcements to Fort Sumter. On January 9, 1861, the vessel was far away.

Buchanan reverted to a policy of inactivity that continued until he left office. In March 1861 he retired to his Pennsylvania home Wheatland--where he died seven years later--leaving his successor to resolve the frightful issue facing the Nation.

Heinrich W. Brandes made the first weather map in 1815, based on data gathered in 1783. Brandes waited so long because it was the only way he could be certain the information was correct.

An excerpt from
Air Apparent
How Meteorologists Learned to Map, Predict, and Dramatize Weather by Mark Monmonier

"American weathercasting began on October 14, 1941, on WNBT-TV, an experimental station (later WNBC) serving at best a few thousand viewers in New York City. Hawking Botany Wrinkle-Proof ties, a cartoon character named Woolly Lamb introduced the forecast by singing, "It's hot. It's cold. It's rain. It's fair. It's all mixed up together. But I, as Botany's Woolly Lamb, predict tomorrow's weather." The forecast that followed consisted of a single screen with several lines of text, but no map. As far as I can tell, the distinction of telecasting the first weather map belongs to the British Broadcasting Corporation, which for a brief period in 1936 transmitted to far fewer viewers simple weather charts with isobars and pressure centers as well as temperature, sky conditions, and precipitation for a handful of unnamed cities in the British Isles and the adjacent continent. As Woolly Lamb presaged the weathercaster's role as an entertainer, the BBC experiment demonstrated television's ability to deliver timely weather maps to a mass audience. Although World War II interrupted the new medium's development, postwar prosperity stimulated a new industry in which news programs with weather reports became a standard feature."

There is evidence to suggest that ginger root is effective against motion sickness and nausea when taken in powdered form.

Ginger is the rhizome of the perennial herb Zingiber Officionale found in the Southwest coast of India and the Malabar Coast. Ginger was always known as a medicinal plant and a spice in India and China for thousands of years. Ginger has been used by many as a remedy for the common cold. Additionally, it has also been used as an effective analgesic, anti-pyretic, anti-viral, in the treatment of hypertension, and in the prevention of atherosclerosis. Other benefits of ginger include its ability to cleanse the colon, reduce spasms and cramps, stimulate circulation, and aid metabolism. Many have used it to treat colitis, nausea, gas, indigestion, bowel disorders, morning sickness, motion sickness, vomiting, congestion, fever, and headaches. Asian medicine still uses it as a treatment for asthma, shortness of breath, water retention, earache, diarrhea, nausea and vomiting. Homeopathic practitioners even recommend it for sexual disorders. An added benefit to Ginger is that it is a strong antioxidant and effective microbial agent for sores and wounds.

How does Ginger work in the digestive system? It helps protect the gastric system by increasing the pH of stomach acid, reducing its acidity, thereby lower the rate of gastric secretions, and increasing digestive enzyme activity. Rather than blocking the feelings of nausea in the brain, it acts directly on the stomach and liver to reduce nausea and vomiting.

During the Renaissance when Charles VIII's armies entered France, he also brought with him his passion for perfume. Charles even had his own personal perfumer. Rose, orange blossom, and rosemary oil were favorite scents in his court.

Charles VIII (June 30, 1470 - April 7, 1498) was King of France from 1483 to 1498, a member of the Valois Dynasty. He achieved prominence by commencing the long series of Franco-Italian wars which so characterized Italian affairs in the first half of the 16th century. He was born at the Royal Chateau Amboise, France, the only son of King Louis XI of France. Charles succeeded to the throne upon his father's demise on August 30, 1483. In poor health and regarded by his contemporaries as of pleasant disposition but foolish and unsuited for the business of the state, the thirteen-year-old king reigned under a regency headed by his eldest sister, Princess Anne de Beaujeu, and her husband Pierre de Bourbon.

On December 6, 1491 Charles married Anne de Bretagne, heiress to the duchy of Brittany, in an elaborate ceremony at Chateau Langeais. The fifteen-year-old Duchesse Anne, not happy with the politically arranged marriage, arrived for her wedding with her entourage carrying two beds. However, Charles's marriage brought him independence from his relatives, and thereafter he managed affairs according to his own inclinations. Queen Anne would live at the Clos Lucé in Amboise.

Having inherited a vague claim to the kingdom of Naples through his paternal grandmother, Marie of Anjou (1404 - 1463), and encouraged by Ludovico Sforza of Milan, he imagined himself capable of seizing that realm, and he thereupon set France's resources toward that goal - starting the Italian Wars. He contracted several unfavourable treaties with Austria, England, and Aragon, in order to free himself of distractions, and then commenced a massive buildup of forces. He entered Italy in 1494, and marched across the peninsula, reaching Naples on February 22, 1495. Crowned king of Naples, he then found himself the subject of an opposing coalition from the League of Venice, involving that republic with Austria, the Papacy, and Ludovico Sforza of Milan. Defeated at Fornovo in July 1495, he escaped to France at the cost of the loss of most of his forces. He attempted in the next few years to rebuild his army, but was hampered by the serious debts incurred by the previous one - he never succeeded in recouping anything substantive. He died two-and-a-half years after his retreat, of an accident - striking himself on the head while passing through a doorway, he succumbed to a sudden coma several hours later.

Charles bequeathed a meagre legacy - he left France in debt and in disarray as a result of an ambition most charitably characterized as unrealistic. On a more positive side, his expedition did broach contacts between French and Italian humanists, energizing French art and letters in the latter Renaissance.

Charles proved the last of the elder branch of the House of Valois, and upon his death at Amboise the throne passed to a cousin, the duc d'Orleans, who reigned as King Louis XII of France.

Pitcher plants are passive hunters that capture insects by means of nectar and color. Once lured inside, the insect slips on the plant's slippery inner surface and drowns in the rain water that has collected in its base. The pitcher plant secretes enzymes that digest the bodies, except for outer skeletons and wings, of its prey.

Armed with sticky and slippery traps but rooted to the spot, most carnivorous plants have no choice but to consume any small creature unlucky enough to stumble into them. But a pitcher plant in Brunei's rainforest seems to have refined the art of fussy eating, luring only termites to their doom.

The picky pitcher plant, Nepenthes albomarginata, can catch thousands of termites in its slippery-walled, jug-shaped leaves filled with digestive fluid.

N. albomarginata's preference for a single type of prey is a first for carnivorous plants, according to Marlis Merbach at the University of Frankfurt in Germany and colleagues, who made the discovery. Moreover, the plant is the only one known to offer up its own tissue as bait.

An old folk custom for selecting a husband from several suitors involved taking onions and writing each suitor's name individually on each. Then all the onions were put in a cool dark storeroom. The first onion to grow sprouts would determine which man the undecided maiden should marry.

Onion Folklore

Onions were grown as many as 5,000 years ago, and to this day the tear-inducing vegetable has garnered a special place in kitchens the world over. But surprisingly, the onion has not always been recognized as just a culinary embellishment. It's enjoyed symbolic importance as well. In fact, the onion is a symbol of eternity and has been used in special ceremonies through the ages because of its unique circular pattern when sliced.

To some extent, onions were, and still are, considered a medicinal cure-all. They've been used for everything from an antibiotic to a remedy for baldness. It's a known fact that the onion is an excellent antioxidant, with components that work in much the same way as vitamin C.

Scientists have determined that most rocks on the surface of the Moon are between 3 and 4.6 billion years old.

Between 1969 and 1972 six Apollo missions brought back 382 kilograms (842 pounds) of lunar rocks, core samples, pebbles, sand and dust from the lunar surface. The six space flights returned 2200 separate samples from six different exploration sites on the Moon. In addition, three automated Soviet spacecraft returned important samples totaling 300 grams (approximately 3/4 pound) from three other lunar sites. The lunar sample building at Johnson Space Center is the chief repository for the Apollo samples. The lunar sample laboratory is where pristine lunar samples are prepared for shipment to scientists and educators. Nearly 1000 samples are distributed each year for research and teaching projects.

Study of rock and soil samples from the Moon continues to yield useful information about the early history of the Moon, the Earth, and the inner solar system. Recent computer models indicate that the Moon could have been formed from the debris resulting from the Earth being struck a glancing blow by a planetary body about the size of Mars. The chemical composition of the Moon, derived from studies of lunar rocks, is compatible with this theory of the origin of the Moon. We have learned that a crust formed on the Moon 4.4 billion years ago. This crust formation, the intense meteorite bombardment occurring afterward, and subsequent lava outpourings are recorded in the rocks. Radiation spewed out by the Sun since the formation of the Moon's crust, was trapped in the lunar soil as a permanent record of solar activity throughout this time.

"The bends" is a painful condition caused when nitrogen gas forms bubbles in a diver's blood. Scuba divers risk getting the bends if they come up too fast from a deep dive.

SCUBA stands for self-contained underwater breathing apparatus. When using SCUBA equipment, a diver breathes from a tank that holds highly compressed air.

SCUBA diving is different from holding your breath and diving, and to understand the difference you need to understand the incredible pressures that a diver's body experiences. When we are living on dry land at sea level, the air around us has a pressure of 14.7 PSI (pounds per square inch), or 1 atmosphere. That is a "normal pressure" for our bodies. Because water is so heavy compared to air, it does not take much water to exert a lot of pressure. For example, a 1-inch by 1-inch column of water 33 feet high exerts another 14.7 PSI.

If you hold your breath and dive down 33 feet (10 meters), therefore, your lungs actually contract in size by a factor of two. They have to -- there is twice as much pressure around the air in your lungs, so they contract. When you rise back up the air expands again, so your lungs return to normal size.

When you breathe from a SCUBA tank, the air coming out of the tank actually has the same pressure as the pressure that the water is exerting. It has to, or it won't come out of the tank. Therefore, when SCUBA diving, the air in your lungs at a 33-foot depth has twice the pressure of air on land. At 66 feet, it has three times the pressure. At 99 feet, it has four times the pressure, and so on.

When high-pressure gases in the air come in contact with water, they dissolve into the water. This is how carbonated beverages are made. To make carbonated water, water is exposed to high-pressure carbon dioxide gas, and the gas dissolves into the water. We all know what happens when you release the pressure in a bottle of soda -- bubbles suddenly start rising. The gas dissolved in the water at high-pressure comes out of the liquid when the pressure is released, and we see it as bubbles.

If a SCUBA diver stays under water, say at a depth of 100 feet (about 30 meters), for a certain period of time, some amount of nitrogen from the air will dissolve in the water in his or her body. If the diver were to swim quickly to the surface, it is just like uncorking a bottle of soda -- the gas is released. This can cause a very painful condition, and it is sometimes fatal.

To avoid the effects of quick decompression, the diver must rise slowly and/or make intermittent stops on the way up (called "decompression stops") so that the gas can come out of solution slowly. If the diver does rise too fast, the only cure is to enter a pressurized chamber in which the air pressure matches the pressure at depth (breathing 100-percent oxygen on the way to the chamber also helps). Then, the pressure is released slowly.

Decompression sickness, also known as the bends, is one danger of diving. Other dangers include nitrogen narcosis, oxygen toxicity and simple drowning (if you run out of air before making it back to the surface). If the diver decompresses properly, remains at "recreational depths" (less than 100 feet or so), and is careful about the air supply, the dangers can be largely eliminated. Proper training, good equipment and careful execution are the keys to safe diving.

President Benjamin Harrison and the first lady never touched the light switches themselves when electric lights were installed during the renovation of the White House in 1891. Fearing shock, they would call for a servant whenever they wanted the lights on or off.

Nominated for President on the eighth ballot at the 1888 Republican Convention, Benjamin Harrison conducted one of the first "front-porch" campaigns, delivering short speeches to delegations that visited him in Indianapolis. As he was only 5 feet, 6 inches tall, Democrats called him "Little Ben"; Republicans replied that he was big enough to wear the hat of his grandfather, "Old Tippecanoe."

Born in 1833 on a farm by the Ohio River below Cincinnati, Harrison attended Miami University in Ohio and read law in Cincinnati. He moved to Indianapolis, where he practiced law and campaigned for the Republican Party. He married Caroline Lavinia Scott in 1853. After the Civil War--he was Colonel of the 70th Volunteer Infantry--Harrison became a pillar of Indianapolis, enhancing his reputation as a brilliant lawyer.

Superstitions, such as a rabbit's foot being considered lucky, grow out of man's attempts to explain the unknown. When man disproves the old belief, and some still cling to the belief, it becomes a superstition, such as in the instant case. In Western Europe, prior to 600 B.C., man considered rabbits to be sacred, because of their belief that spirits inhabited the bodies of animals, and also because of their belief that man directly descended from a select few of these animals.

Later, the ancient European Celts adopted portions of the older belief, that rabbits were sacred, and that spirits inhabited their bodies. The Celts, based upon the fact that these animals spent an inordinate amount of time in their underground burrows, held the belief that the rabbits' bodies were inhabited by numina, underground spirits with whom they communicated at very close proximity!

Another reason the Celts held the rabbit to be sacred, was because of their prowess in the field of reproduction. They believed that the numina intended for rabbits to be put upon pedestals and revered as symbols of procreation, reproduction with a high turnover rate, of health, and of prosperity.

Since the rabbit itself was considered to be lucky, it follows that any of its body parts would also be considered lucky. People selected the rabbit's foot to tote around for good luck, because of its capacity to dry quickly, its small size, and the fact that it made a great key chain!