Futility Closet

Swans mate for life.

Insulting nicknames of U.S. presidents:

• John Adams: His Rotundity
• Martin Van Buren: Martin Van Ruin
• William Henry Harrison: Granny Harrison
• John Tyler: His Accidency
• James Buchanan: Old Public Functionary
• Ulysses S. Grant: Useless
• Rutherford B. Hayes: His Fraudulency
• Grover Cleveland: The Beast of Buffalo
• Woodrow Wilson: Coiner of Weasel Words
• Warren G. Harding: President Hardly

Beer consumption per capita, as of 2004, in liters per year:

• Czech Republic: 156.9
• Ireland: 131.1
• Germany: 115.8
• Australia: 109.9
• Austria: 108.3
• United Kingdom: 99.0
• Belgium: 93.0
• Denmark: 89.9
• Finland: 85.0
• Luxembourg: 84.4

Darwin, Australia, has the highest beer consumption of any city in the world. The average resident there drinks 230 liters, or about 60 gallons, of beer each year.

In August 1848, during a voyage to Saint Helena in the South Atlantic, the officers and crew of the HMS Daedalus observed a creature 60 feet long that held a peculiar maned head above the water.

What was it? The English biologist Sir Richard Owen supposed it was an elephant seal; others have suggested a "super eel," a giant squid, and an upside-down canoe. We'll never know.

shunamitism
n. rejuvenation of an old man by a young woman

• Dan Aykroyd has one blue eye and one brown eye.
• Gracie Allen had one green eye and one blue eye.
• Jane Seymour has one green eye and one brown eye.
• Elizabeth Berkley's eyes are green, but her lower right eye is brown.
• Kate Bosworth's eyes are blue, but her lower right eye is hazel.
• David Bowie has a permanently dilated left eye that can appear brown or green.

In 1991, a pair of German tourists discovered the frozen corpse of a Copper Age man in the Alps, where it had apparently lain undisturbed since 3,300 B.C. "Ötzi" had died in a fight, it seems: A CAT scan found an arrowhead in one shoulder, and he had bruises and cuts on his hands, wrists, and chest. DNA analysis also found blood from four other people on his gear.

If he was ornery in life, apparently his ghost was worse. In all, eight people connected with the iceman have died unexpectedly. In 1992, the head of the investigating forensic team died in a head-on collision. The mountaineer who led scientists to the body died in an avalanche. An Austrian journalist who covered the body's removal died of a brain tumor, and the tourist who found it fell into a ravine on the mountain.

Have investigators unleashed a mysterious curse, like that of King Tutankhamen? "I think it's a load of rubbish," said the leading expert on the corpse, archaeologist Konrad Spindler. "It is all a media hype. The next thing you will be saying I will be next."

He died in April 2005.

Nobel laureates by country, as of July 2006:

1. United States: 160
2. United Kingdom: 110
3. Germany: 92
4. France: 44
5. Switzerland: 25
6. USSR and Russia: 21
7. Italy: 19
8. Canada: 18
9. Sweden: 18
10. Netherlands: 18
11. Hungary: 16
12. Denmark: 14
13. Poland: 14

Joshua Gardner may be a sex offender, but he's a creative one. Last year the 22-year-old visited Minnesota's Stillwater Area High School three times, claiming to be Caspian James Crichton-Stuart IV, the Fifth Duke of Cleveland. He spoke in an English accent and insisted that students, staff and even the principal call him "your grace."

Student journalists caught on when he misspelled the name of his "castle," and they soon discovered Gardner was on probation after having sex with a 14-year-old girl in 2002. He now faces up to 21 months in prison.

Before World War II, this photo emerged from Japan — Emperor Hirohito inspecting a fleet of giant tubas, with anti-aircraft guns in the background.

They're actually acoustic locators, designed to listen for plane engines. Radar made the whole project obsolete.