Strange But True: Bruce Lee

By Lucie Winborne

• Martial arts icon Bruce Lee could throw a single grain of rice into the air and catch it with chopsticks.

• A 2009 study found that lost wallets were 88% more likely to be returned to their owners if they contained a photo of a baby. Barring that, you're also more likely to recover one if you typically carry pictures of a puppy, family members or an elderly couple.

• The word "checkmate" comes from the Arabic "shat mat," or "The king is dead."

• Want your candles to burn longer and drip less? Put them in the freezer for a few hours before lighting them.

• In what must qualify as one of the oddest marketing campaigns ever created, Burger King launched one that entitled customers to a free Whopper if they unfriended 10 Facebook friends. Those folks would receive a message explaining that their digital relationship was less valuable than the sandwich. Hey, we like Whoppers too, but really!

• Dolphins have been witnessed amusing themselves by creating underwater bubble rings.

• There's a Google Map for Mercury, Venus, Earth's moon, Mars, Pluto, three out of four of Jupiter's moons, and all but one of the round Saturnian moons.

• Leonardo da Vinci often bought caged animals just to set them free.

• Early 19th-century composer Robert Schumann had an interesting, if grisly and ineffective, method of attempting to cure any disease he had or might have: plunging his hands into the guts of recently slaughtered animals.

• Sid Nouar, owner of the 1000&1 Signes restaurant in Paris, was the first deaf person to open a restaurant in France. It is also staffed entirely by deaf employees.

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Thought for the Day: "Take action. An inch of movement will bring you closer to your goals than a mile of intention." -- Steve Maraboli

(c) 2022 King Features Synd., Inc.