Twice Around Noah’s Ark

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Swiftcheetah.jpg

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.

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.”

Bzzzzzzz

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Waspstinger1658-2.jpg
Image: Wikimedia Commons

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.”

R.I.P.

In bloom of life
She’s snatched from hence
She had not room
To make defence;
For Tiger fierce
Took life away,
And here she lies
In a bed of clay
Until the Resurrection Day.

— Epitaph of Hannah Twynnoy, killed by a tiger escaped from a traveling circus, Malmesbury, England, 1703

What Would Darwin Say?

Robert Wallace had a noble impulse when he discovered a new species of monkey in Bolivia’s Madidi National Park. Rather than name the species after himself, he would auction off the naming rights to raise money for the park.

The marketers of the world are not so noble: $650,000 changed hands and the new species was named after an Internet casino. It’s officially called the “GoldenPalace.com Monkey.”