Strange But True: Cheap chocolate

By Lucie Winborne

• Shonda Rhimes got the idea for the TV series "Grey's Anatomy" after a doctor told her how hard it was to shave her legs in the tiny hospital shower.

• The first Hershey's chocolate bars with almonds were produced in 1908 because they were cheap to make. The nuts took the place of some of the more expensive milk chocolate, which meant Hershey's could keep the price of the candy at a nickel.

• A website called Myfridgefood.com lets you enter whatever ingredients you have in your fridge and tells you what you can make with them.

• One of the reasons your lungs feel refreshed when walking through a pine forest is because of an anti-inflammatory compound called a-Pinene, found in conifers. It is used as a bronchodilator in the treatment of asthma and is abundantly present in marijuana.

• An estimated 10% of Europeans are immune to HIV infection because they have an ancestor who survived bubonic plague, or "Black Death."

• The Hardy Tree in London's St. Pancras churchyard is named for Thomas Hardy. The Victorian author worked at the burial ground in the 1860s and rearranged tombstones around the base of an ash tree to make room for a railway expansion.

• If you're a man and pee on a pregnancy test and it's positive, you could have cancer.

• Because of the amount of granite in its construction, Grand Central Station produces more radiation than is allowable at a nuclear power plant.

• In India, a statue of Jesus had "holy" water mysteriously dripping from its toes, which worshipers would collect and sometimes drink. A man traced the fluid's source to a clogged toilet behind the wall, condensing on the statue.

Thought for the Day: "A good example has twice the value of good advice." -- Albert Schweitzer

(c) 2025 King Features Synd., Inc.