Trivia

The G.I. Joe toy line got its name from the 1945 movie "The Story of G.I.Joe", which retold the story of war correspondent Ernie Pyle's days on the front lines. It starred Burgess Meredith and Robert Mitchum.

Pyle was not shy in telling readers he was never big on going on "heroic" missions just so he could write about them. He would pass on opportunities to stick his neck way out. But Pyle was always ready to go along with the troops, and if that meant being shot at, strafed, or shelled, he just hung on with the rest of the fellows. Pyle made it clear to the readers that the real heroism was being there and sticking it out, not the particular feats of bravery that garnered the headlines and the medals. He showed all the guys (and all the gals; Pyle's second love were the ladies in the uniforms) were heroes and he told the folks at home why.

I would recommend any of Pyle's books and a copy of Bill Mauldin's WWII cartoons of Willie and Joe (Mauldin's cartoon versions of GI infantrymen that Pyle loved the most) as the very best way to introduce a young person to the Americans in World War II. They provide the feel, of the life and the death, the humor and sadness. Without that feel it is very hard to give the history much real meaning.

The worlds fastest reptile (measured on land) is the spiny-tailed iguana of Costa Rica. It has been clocked at 21.7 mph.

Spiny-tailed iguanas are large, bulky lizards with adult males reaching up to 18 inches long with an 18-inch tail. They are predominantly black but the dorsal surface may show black bands on a grayish background. Most have black mottling on their backs. The color may also lighten after basking in the sunlight with yellowish and orange markings becoming evident along the sides. Juveniles tend to be olive-green becoming tan and then finally grayish as they grow. Adult males and females are dimorphic. Adult males have well developed dorsal crests and small dewlaps. The dewlap, the crescent of skin that can be extended under the throat, is not inflated. A small bone bows out to extend the dewlap during times of threat, courtship, or while defending territory. Females lack obvious crests. There is considerable variation with age and sex and therefore identification may be difficult. The lizards have tails ringed with rows of sharp, curved spines, hence the name spiny-tailed iguana. The spines down the back are short.

The first U.S. patent for an animal was issued to geneticists at Harvard University in 1988. The animal--called an oncomouse--is a genetically engineered mouse that is highly susceptible to breast cancer.

The Oncomouse was developed in the 1980s at Harvard Medical School, through DuPont funding. It was patented by Harvard researcher Dr. Philip Leder, and licensed exclusively to DuPont.

'Onco' is derived from oncogene, a name geneticists give to a damaged or mutated gene. Leder says that, in cases where such genes are responsible for regulating cell growth, cancer can be the result. For the purposes of study, Leder and his associates have given oncogenes to mice to help them develop cancer. When oncogene meets mouse, the result is the Oncomouse.

When two such mice breed, the cancer-causing genes are passed to the offspring, which are thus predisposed to developing cancer at an accelerated rate. Scientists study the interplay between oncogenes in the mice as a model for studying cancer in humans.

In the air, puffins are powerful flyers, beating their wings 300 to 400 times a minute to achieve speeds up to 40 miles per hour (64 kph).

The Atlantic Puffin (formerly the Common Puffin) is a small, pigeon-sized seabird which lives on the open ocean throughout the majority of the year, breeding in colonies on northern seacoasts and rocky islands from April to mid-August. Puffins lay one egg that is incubated in turn by each adult for approximately 39-43 days. The adults feed the chick fish for approximately 45 days, although that period may be considerably longer depending on the quality of the fishing resources nearby, after which time the pufflin is large enough to fledge (leave) the nest.

Puffins live at sea and are well adapted to this lifestyle. They are excellent swimmers, using their wings to essentially ‘fly’ underwater while using their feet to control direction. They hunt a variety of small fish including herring, hake, capelin and sand lance. Puffins do not come to land outside of the breeding season, flying, swimming or riding the ocean surface throughout the year regardless of weather.

The Atlantic Puffin is the only species of puffin found on the Atlantic coast.

Dachshunds are the smallest breed of dog used for hunting. They are low to the ground, which allows them to enter and maneuver through tunnels easily.

General Appearance

Low to ground, long in body and short of leg with robust muscular development, the skin is elastic and pliable without excessive wrinkling. Appearing neither crippled, awkward, nor cramped in his capacity for movement, the Dachshund is well-balanced with bold and confident head carriage and intelligent, alert facial expression. His hunting spirit, good nose, loud tongue and distinctive build make him well-suited for below-ground work and for beating the bush. His keen nose gives him an advantage over most other breeds for trailing. Note: Inasmuch as the Dachshund is a hunting dog, scars from honorable wounds shall not be considered a fault.

The Dachshund is clever, lively and courageous to the point of rashness, persevering in above and below ground work, with all the senses well-developed. Any display of shyness is a serious fault.

If an object has no molecules, the concept of temperature is meaningless. That's why it's technically incorrect to speak of the "cold of outer space" — space has no temperature, and is known as a "temperature sink," meaning it drains heat out of things.

OR - - - -

Yes, it would be really cold. Temperature measures the energy per "degree of freedom" (i.e. way something can move) of whatever molecules happen to be around. So, it it becomes so cold that the molecules stop all together, then this is the "absolute zero" temperature. On the Celsius Temperature Scale (i.e. water freezes at 0, and boils at 100) this takes place at -273 degrees C. We usually use the Kelvin temperature scale, where Zero Kelvin is this "absolute zero" temperature -- or -273 degrees C. Water freezes at +273 Kelvin and water boils at +373 Kelvin.

If we put a thermometer in darkest space, with absolutely nothing around, it would first have to cool off. This might take a very very long time. Once it cooled off, it would read 2.7 Kelvin. This is because of the "3 degree microwave background radiation." No matter where you go, you cannot escape it -- it is always there.

A turkey should never be carved until it has been out of the oven at least 30 minutes. This permits the inner cooking to subside and the internal meat juices to stop running. Once the meat sets, it's easier to carve clean, neat slices.

Bird should be placed on back, with legs at right of platter for carving. Introduce carving fork across breastbone, hold firmly in left hand, and with carving knife in right hand cut through skin between leg and body, close to body. With knife pull back leg and disjoint from body. Then cut off wing. Remove leg and wing from other side. Separate second joints from drum-sticks and divide wings at joints. Carve breast meat in thin crosswise slices. Under back on either side of backbone may be found two small, oyster-shaped pieces of dark meat, which are dainty tidbits. Chicken and fowl are carved in the same way. For a small family carve but one side of a turkey, that remainder may be left in better condition for second serving.

Cheddar, often sold as "American" or store cheese, constitutes about two-thirds of the cheese sold in the United States.

If you don't have a refrigerator, there's no way to keep milk from going bad within a few hours, especially if you live in a hot climate like Africa or Western Asia. Even WITH a refrigerator milk goes bad in about a week. But ancient cows and sheep and goats only gave milk part of the year, right after they had had their babies in the spring. By mid-summer their milk had all dried up. How could people manage to preserve this milk to be able to eat it in the fall and winter as well?

They made it into cheese. The easiest kind of cheese to make is yogurt, which was very common in the ancient Mediterranean diet and in India (and still is today). If you leave milk out on the kitchen counter on a warm day, it will soon get all lumpy and turn into a kind of yogurt. This is because bacteria get into the milk from the air and turn it into yogurt. Some of these kinds of bacteria are bad for you, or make the milk taste bad. But if you get the right kind of bacteria in your milk, it turns into good yogurt. Yogurt tastes good, and it will keep for a few days without being refrigerated, but it still won't keep all winter.

Once people realized how to make yogurt, they began experimenting with other types of bacteria, and found that you can use different bacteria to make aged cheeses. Some of these cheeses can be kept without being refrigerated for four or five years or even more. Swiss cheese is an example of an aged cheese that you might have eaten. Or cheddar cheese.

"Dry Ice," the trademark name for solid carbon dioxide, reaches its solid state when cooled liquid carbon dioxide is put under pressure.

Scientists successfully produced the snowy, white solid, which produced temperatures dipping as low as 109 degrees Fahrenheit, and envisioned dozens of practical uses for "Dry Ice." Unfortunately, they had yet to discover how to keep this solid from melting back into its original liquid state.

Fortunately, the solution to the scientists' dilemma, which possibly dawned on them over cocktails at happy hour, lay in the fact that when "Dry Ice" mixes with liquids having very low freezing temperatures, for example alcohol, instead of melting, the solid turns into gas. Because the gas escapes into the air, it packs more refrigeration power than an identical amount of ice made from water.

The primary use for "Dry Ice," both then and today, is to keep perishables fresh, especially during shipment. Solid carbon dioxide made its debut as the packing material of choice for ice cream.

Today, products such as fish and meat can be shipped thousands of miles, and arrive at their destinations in mint condition. Eggs can remain fresh indefinitely if refrigerated with solid carbon dioxide, as the primary reason they grow stale is the escape of carbon dioxide from tiny pores in their shells. When enveloped by the vapor from the gas solid carbon dioxide emits, the escape of carbon dioxide from their shells is cancelled out.

Even florists take advantage of the preservative property of "Dry Ice," and can prevent flower buds from opening for up to three days by placing them in a solid carbon dioxide atmosphere. Essentially, "Dry Ice" temporarily freezes the aging process to suit our purposes.

Pearl Buck

Pearl Comfort Sydenstricker was born on June 26, 1892, in Hillsboro, West Virginia. Her parents, Absalom and Caroline Sydenstricker, were Southern Presbyterian missionaries, stationed in China. Pearl was the fourth of seven children (and one of only three who would survive to adulthood). She was born when her parents were near the end of a furlough in the United States; when she was three months old, she was taken back to China, where she spent most of the first forty years of her life.

In 1910, Pearl enrolled in Randolph-Macon Woman's College, in Lynchburg, Virginia, from which she graduated in 1914. Although she had intended to remain in the US, she returned to China shortly after graduation when she received word that her mother was gravely ill. In 1915, she met a young Cornell graduate, an agricultural economist named John Lossing Buck. They married in 1917, and immediately moved to Nanhsuchou (Nanxuzhou) in rural Anhwei (Anhui) province. In this impoverished community, Pearl Buck gathered the material that she would later use in The Good Earth and other stories of China.

In English folklore, Queen Mab was a fairy queen who governed people's dreams.

Although Queen Mab has no direct references in Arthurian Legend, she is still a Queen of the Fae and worth investigation.

In the Celtic tradition, Queen Mab was also known as Queen Maeve. "Maeve" means mead and it was said that Mab gave this blood red wine to all of her consorts. Mead wine represented menstrual blood which was considered "the wine of women's wisdom". In Warwickshire, the word "Mabled" came to mean "led astray by the faeries or elves". In Cymric (the Welsh language) Mab was defined as meaning "small child". Additionally, Mab meant "Drunk Woman" and "Queen Wolf".

Mythologically, Mab was the Queen of Connact; the warrior queen of the Ulster Cycle. She was the combined mother/warrior aspect of the Triple Goddess. The Pagan festival of Mabon was celebrated in her honor each year at the Autumnal Equinox. During the festival, those wishing to be King were not endorsed unless Mab invited them to drink of her mead wine. This ensured that the male king would be well versed in feminism and women's mysteries.

In the Middle Ages, the belief that birds chose their mates on St. Valentine's Day led to the idea that boys and girls would do the same. Up through the early 1900's, the Ozark hill people in the U.S. thought that birds and rabbits started mating on February 14, a day for them which was not only Valentine's Day but Groundhog Day as well.

The history of Valentine's Day -- and its patron saint -- is shrouded in mystery. But we do know that February has long been a month of romance. St. Valentine's Day, as we know it today, contains vestiges of both Christian and ancient Roman tradition.

So, who was Saint Valentine and how did he become associated with this ancient rite? Today, the Catholic Church recognizes at least three different saints named Valentine or Valentinus, all of whom were martyred. One legend contends that Valentine was a priest who served during the third century in Rome. When Emperor Claudius II decided that single men made better soldiers than those with wives and families, he outlawed marriage for young men -- his crop of potential soldiers. Valentine, realizing the injustice of the decree, defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret. When Valentine's actions were discovered, Claudius ordered that he be put to death. Other stories suggest that Valentine may have been killed for attempting to help Christians escape harsh Roman prisons where they were often beaten and tortured.

According to one legend, Valentine actually sent the first 'valentine' greeting himself. While in prison, it is believed that Valentine fell in love with a young girl -- who may have been his jailor's daughter -- who visited him during his confinement. Before his death, it is alleged that he wrote her a letter, which he signed 'From your Valentine,' an expression that is still in use today. Although the truth behind the Valentine legends is murky, the stories certainly emphasize his appeal as a sympathetic, heroic, and, most importantly, romantic figure. It's no surprise that by the Middle Ages, Valentine was one of the most popular saints in England and France.

The American crow (Corvus brachyrhynchos) weighs approximately one pound when fully grown.

The American Crow needs little description. It is a large (17 to 21-inch), completely black bird. It has a purplish gleam in strong sunlight. The tail is fan-shaped, the bill and feet strong and black. The only other large black bird is the Raven.

This sociable bird is found among deciduous growth along rivers and streams; orchards and city parks. It will also frequent mixed and coniferous woods, but avoids closed coniferous forests and desert expanses. Its voice, a loud caw caw or cah cah, is easily imitated.

The Crow breeds from British Columbia, central interior Canada and Newfoundland south to Southern California, the Gulf Coast and Florida. It winters north to southern Canada.

The nest is a well-made bowl of sticks lined with feathers, grass and rootlets built in a tree. There it lays 4-6 greenish eggs that are spotted with dark brown.

The Crows diet is varied: seeds, garbage, insects and mice. It is well-known for its nest-plundering, but in orchards and fields it destroys many injurious insects. Crows do destroy many eggs and nestlings of woodland and meadow birds, but they also weed out the weak and feeble, and they alert the animals in a neighborhood when danger approaches.

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.

Barbequing is not easy... First of all, let's establish our terminology. Technically speaking, barbequing refers to a slow and smoky cooking over indirect heat. Cooking directly over the coals (or gas, as it were), is grilling. Granted, this is a distinction that is well defended in the U.S.A, where barbeque usually involves things like pulled pork and the like, but in Canada they tend to refer to anything involving the outdoor grill as barbequing.

Recently, after an exhaustive search, we finally bought a barbeque/grill. It's a fancy-looking stainless steel rig with a lot of dials, four independent burners, and at first glance it could be mistaken for one of those very fancy tools that can run upwards of a thousand dollars. No, we paid significantly less than that (but more than for a $149 cheapo at Canuck Tire).

The first weekend with the Q yielded results that were delicious but tended towards being overcooked. So I did more research.

This weekend, Martine and I decided to try barbecuing some poultry. We thawed a couple of Rock Cornish hens -- which is to say, small chickens -- that have been sitting in the freezer for a few months waiting for spring. Research indicated that one hour and 15 minutes at 375°F would do the job. So after brining them in rock salt and brown sugar for a few hours I made up a batch of blork's special basting sauce (olive oil, butter, paprika, and pepper) and set them on the grill -- using indirect heat -- when the barbeque's thermostat registered 400° (close enough).

As they cooked (basting every 10 minutes or so) I prepared a nice tomato salad. Fresh market tomatoes, sliced red onion, curls of Italian parmesano reggiano a liberal dose of fresh herbs from the garden (two kinds of basil, Italian oregano, and ciboulette), a few good slugs of the insanely expensive olive oil that we only bring out when no one's around, a shake and scratch of fleur de sel and black pepper, and a few drops of balsamic vinegar. At least I didn't have to worry about it being over-cooked.

About 45 minutes before the projected time of completion I put a couple of foil pouches of potatoes, onions, butter, oil, and herbs in there with the chicken. That too is the kind of thing that's hard to over-do, because onions simply get better with over-cooking, and too-soft potatoes are forgivable under those circumstances.

After the prescribed time the chickens -- I mean Cornish hens -- didn't seem quite done, so I gave them an extra ten minutes. Finally, I pulled everything off the grill, presented it nicely, and then Martine cut into her bird. She saw some very pink flesh and cloudy juices. It was like that scene in Wallace Stegner's Crossing to Safety where the know-it-all spouse nearly ruins the cookout by insisting that the chicken is done -- and it isn't. Grumbling, I fired the Q up to 500 and put them back in for another 20 minutes while we ate the vegetables (which included some peppers I had grilled).

Finally, eating Italian style (course after course instead of all dishes at once) we tucked into some properly cooked birds. The lesson, of course, is that oven rules to not apply to outdoor barbeques. Not two nights earlier I had seen a guy on License to Grill cook beer-can chickens at 500°F, but that just seemed too extreme.

No, barbeques are not ovens. They loose their heat much faster and easier, so higher temperatures are normal.

Lesson learned and bellies full, we were satisfied. After all those potatoes, however, we couldn't finish the birds. Hence the excellent chicken salad sandwiches we're having for lunch today...

Abraham Lincoln, who invented a hydraulic device for lifting ships over shoals, was the only US president ever granted a patent.

"I was born Feb. 12, 1809, in Hardin County, Kentucky. My parents were both born in Virginia, of undistinguished families--second families, perhaps I should say. My mother, who died in my tenth year, was of a family of the name of Hanks.... My father ... removed from Kentucky to ... Indiana, in my eighth year.... It was a wild region, with many bears and other wild animals still in the woods. There I grew up.... Of course when I came of age I did not know much. Still somehow, I could read, write, and cipher ... but that was all."

Lincoln made extraordinary efforts to attain knowledge while working on a farm, splitting rails for fences, and keeping store at New Salem, Illinois. He was a captain in the Black Hawk War, spent eight years in the Illinois legislature, and rode the circuit of courts for many years. His law partner said of him, "His ambition was a little engine that knew no rest."

He married Mary Todd, and they had four boys, only one of whom lived to maturity. In 1858 Lincoln ran against Stephen A. Douglas for Senator. He lost the election, but in debating with Douglas he gained a national reputation that won him the Republican nomination for President in 1860.

With 980-plus species, bats make up more than 23 percent of all known mammals by species.

Bats are unique in the animal kingdom because they are the only mammals to have evolved true flight. Most species also possess a system of acoustic orientation, often called "bat radar," but technically known as echolocation.

Bats are often thought of as flying mice,but they are more closely related to primates, including humans, than they are to mice. Bats are unique among mammals because they fly. As with most other mammals, the bat's body is covered by hair, with the exception of its wings.

Although bats have the same basic arm and hand bones found in humans and most other mammals, the bat's hand and finger bones are very long and slender and there are only 4 digits. The delicate-looking skin between the arms, fingers, body, legs, and feet looks delicate, but is extremely resistant to tearing by sharp objects.

Peanut oil is used for underwater cooking in submarines. Undersea fleets like it because it does not smoke unless heated above 450 degrees F.

Findings of a study demonstrating that diets high in peanuts, peanut butter and peanut oil are as effective as olive oil in protecting against heart disease and are more heart healthy than very low fat diets were announced today at the Experimental Biology annual meeting in San Francisco.

In the study, conducted by researchers at The Pennsylvania State University and the University of Rochester in New York, 22 healthy subjects with slightly elevated blood cholesterol levels consumed five diets -- low fat, olive oil, peanut/peanut butter, peanut oil, and typical American -- for four weeks each.

Results show that the peanut/peanut butter, peanut oil and olive oil diets (all low in saturated fat and cholesterol and high in monounsaturated fat), which lowered total and LDL cholesterol and triglycerides levels, did not lower the beneficial HDL cholesterol levels. The low fat diet did lower LDL cholesterol levels but also lowered HDL cholesterol and increased triglyceride levels.

In 1894, A. G. Spalding & Bros. in Chicopee, Massachusetts invented the first official basketball. The first balls were made of panels of leather that were stitched together over a rubber bladder.

Basket Ball (the original name of the game) was invented in 1891 by Dr. James Naismith, a teacher at the YMCA Training School in Springfield, Massachusetts. At Hoophall.com, the official site of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, we learned that, "The game of basketball was the result of a challenge from a teacher to his student to pique the interest of an incorrigible class during the usually dull winter months."

Apparently, the class was tired of calisthenics and Naismith's instructor assigned him the duty of inventing a new indoor sport. Taking to the task at hand, Naismith rounded up two peach baskets (the janitor didn't have any boxes handy) and a soccer ball. Next, he developed 13 rules for the new game.

He divided his class of 18 into 2 teams of 9 players each (the team today would be the equivalent of 3 guards, 3 centers, and 3 forwards) and set about to teach them the basics of b-ball.

The object of the game was to throw the soccer ball into the peach baskets nailed to the lower railing of the gym balcony. Every time a point was scored, the game was halted so the janitor could lug out a ladder and retrieve the ball. Of course, that didn't happen too often -- the score of the very first basketball game ever played was an amazingly low 1-0.

A lot has happened since the introduction of the game and basketball has undergone many changes, both in equipment and rules.

Reportedly, Louisa May Alcott didn't want to write her classic novel, Little Women. She despised young girls and wrote the bestseller for the money.

Louisa May Alcott was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania on November 29, 1832. She and her three sisters, Anna, Elizabeth and May were educated by their father, philosopher/ teacher, Bronson Alcott and raised on the practical Christianity of their mother, Abigail May.

Louisa spent her childhood in Boston and in Concord, Massachusetts, where her days were enlightened by visits to Ralph Waldo Emerson’s library, excursions into nature with Henry David Thoreau and theatricals in the barn at Hillside (now Hawthorne’s "Wayside").

Like her character, Jo March in Little Women, young Louisa was a tomboy: "No boy could be my friend till I had beaten him in a race," she claimed, " and no girl if she refused to climb trees, leap fences...."

For Louisa, writing was an early passion. She had a rich imagination and often her stories became melodramas that she and her sisters would act out for friends. Louisa preferred to play the "lurid" parts in these plays, "the villains, ghosts, bandits, and disdainful queens."

At age 15, troubled by the poverty that plagued her family, she vowed: "I will do something by and by. Don’t care what, teach, sew, act, write, anything to help the family; and I’ll be rich and famous and happy before I die, see if I won’t!"

Confronting a society that offered little opportunity to women seeking employment, Louisa determined "...I will make a battering-ram of my head and make my way through this rough and tumble world." Whether as a teacher, seamstress, governess, or household servant, for many years Louisa did any work she could find.

Louisa’s career as an author began with poetry and short stories that appeared in popular magazines. In 1854, when she was 22, her first book Flower Fables was published. A milestone along her literary path was Hospital Sketches (1863) based on the letters she had written home from her post as a nurse in Washington, DC as a nurse during the Civil War.

When Louisa was 35 years old, her publisher Thomas Niles in Boston asked her to write "a book for girls." Little Women was written at Orchard House from May to July 1868. The novel is based on Louisa and her sisters’ coming of age and is set in Civil War New England. Jo March was the first American juvenile heroine to act from her own individuality; a living, breathing person rather than the idealized stereotype then prevalent in children’s fiction.

In all, Louisa published over 30 books and collections of stories. She died on March 6, 1888, only two days after her father, and is buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord.

Some people believe in the superstition that cats have nine lives, because cats can survive falls from high places with few, if any injuries. This gives the appearance that the cats return to life after sustaining a fatal accidents. Granted, they may sustain minor injuries, such as bloody noses, cracked teeth, or a few broken ribs, but they live to recover.

The ability of the cat to survive these accidents that would kill humans or other animals is not due to multiple lives, but to several advantages they possess. Their small size and low body weight soften the impact as they make contact with the ground after falling from great heights.

The highly developed inner ears of cats equip them with an unusually keen sense of balance, which is critical to their landing on their feet. This sense of balance allows a cat falling upside down to right himself by rapidly determining his position, repositioning himself, and making any adjustments necessary to ensure that he lands on all fours.

Since cats land on all four paws, the impact from landing on the ground is absorbed by all four. Additionally, cats bend their legs when they land, which cushions the impact by spreading the impact, not only through bones that could easily break, but through the joints and muscles as well.

Most are surprised to learn that a cat stands a greater chance of survival if it falls from a higher place than from a lower place. New York veterinarians gathered data from their feline patients, which clearly supports this fact. Ten percent of their patients died after falling from 2-6 stories, while only five percent of the fatalities occurred when their patients fell from 7-32 stories

Laws of physics explain why these survival rates vary. All falling bodies, regardless or their masses, accelerate by 22 miles per hour per second of their falls. The falling object, after traveling a certain distance through the air reaches a final speed, or "terminal velocity," because the object’s friction with the air slows the fall. The smaller the object’s mass, and the greater its area, the more it will slow.

A cat falling from a higher floor, after it stops accelerating, spreads its legs into an umbrella shape, which increases the area against which the air must push and increases the friction, thus slowing the cat’s fall. Through the cats highly developed sense of balance, he buys more time to maneuver his body in preparation for landing on all fours. A cat falling from a lower height does not have the opportunity to increase its body’s area, slow its fall, or position his body to land on all four feet