Strange But True: Consuming Organisms

By Lucie Winborne

• A UCLA study determined that football players with lower jersey numbers are perceived as slimmer and faster than their teammates with higher jersey digits.

• The Sullivan Ordinance of 1908 in New York City aimed to prohibit women from smoking in public places, sparking not just widespread debate about women's rights, but marking a symbolic battleground for female activists dedicated to gender equality. The law was vetoed by Mayor George B. McClellan Jr. just two weeks later.

• A study of over 10 million births revealed that children are 4.6% more likely to be born in the same month as their mothers.

• When Kentucky Fried Chicken expanded its operations to China in the 1980s, the food chain's iconic slogan -- "It's finger-lickin' good!" -- was mistakenly, if amusingly, translated in Mandarin to "Eat your fingers off."

• King Charles III was the first British royal to go to a traditional school.

• During the Napoleonic campaigns in the early 19th century, French soldiers observed an odd condition among many local Egyptian men, who reported blood in their urine, leading to the misnomer label "the land of the menstruating men." The actual cause was the parasitic disease schistosomiasis.

• Some scientists make a habit of consuming the organisms they study, a practice that dates to Charles Darwin's sampling of exotic animals such as pumas and iguanas during his voyages.

• The word "gymnastics" comes from the ancient Greek "gymnazein," meaning "to exercise naked."

• Are you a fan of Cheetos? If so, you might want to visit the town of Cheadle in Alberta, Canada, which is the proud possessor of a 20-foot statue of a ... Cheeto. Bonus: It even lights up at night!

Thought for the Day: "It's no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then." -- Lewis Carroll

(c) 2024 King Features Synd., Inc.