Strange But True: Star Sand

By Lucie Winborne

• If you've ever worried about damaging your cellphone by accidentally sitting on it, you'll be glad to know that Samsung built a robotic posterior to test the durability of its smartphones. It can repeatedly exert up to 220 pounds of pressure to simulate the act of a human sitting on their device.

• More than 200 artificial languages have been created for use in books, TV and movies.

• Our 50-star U.S. flag was designed by Robert Heft, a 17-year-old student in Lancaster, Ohio. He made it for a high school history project and received a B- from his teacher for lack of originality.

• NASA astronaut Leland Melvin sneaked his two rescue dogs, Jake and Scout, into Houston's Johnson Space Center for his official -- and unique -- photoshoot.

• In 2013, developers of a skyscraper in London, nicknamed the "Walkie-Talkie" due to its shape, realized that some design changes were seriously and immediately in order. The building reflected the sun onto the street below for two hours a day, with a beam so hot it melted parts of a Jaguar XJ parked nearby.

• Some beaches on the Japanese islands of Taketomi, Hatoma and Iriomote have star-shaped sand.

• Since the summer of 2020, so many orca whales have launched attacks on boats off the coast of Spain and Portugal that sailors have been advised to stay in port at night.

• Actor Mike Meyers originally gave the character of Shrek a thick Canadian accent but decided, after animation had begun, that a Scottish one would better suit the character. The film had to be re-animated and cost over $4 million, or around 10% of its overall budget.

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Thought for the Day: "Never allow a person to tell you no who doesn't have the power to say yes." -- Eleanor Roosevelt

(c) 2022 King Features Synd., Inc.