Strange But True: Luxury Bedding
By Lucie Winborne
Shortly before auditioning for the part of Stanley Kowalski in Tennessee Williams' "A Streetcar Named Desire" at the playwright's rented cottage, Marlon Brando repaired a clogged toilet and blown light fuse for him.
A single day on Mercury lasts 59 Earth days.
The goblin shark has a jaw that shoots outward to grab prey in what scientists have called "slingshot feeding." It can deploy that jaw at 10.1 feet per second.
There's a five-story, blood-red waterfall in Antarctica.
On average, people in India spend 10 hours and 42 minutes a week reading, the most time of any country on Earth.
The German word "kummerspeck" refers to excess weight gained from emotional overeating. Its literal translation is "grief bacon."
Ben Franklin's formal education ended at 10 years old.
Astronauts on Mars won't just make plans based on temperature, they'll also need to consider tau, the level of particulate matter in the atmosphere. High tau levels will block sunlight to solar-powered rovers.
Bedding was such a luxury in the Middle Ages that blankets and sheets were written into people's wills.
Brazil's prisons reduce inmates' sentences for reading books and writing reviews.
In many skating competitions, judges can deduct a point if they consider a skater's costume to be overly garish or provocative.
Orlande de Lassus, one of the greatest musicians and composers of the Renaissance, was kidnapped three times during his childhood. The reason behind those abductions? His beautiful singing voice.
Thomas Jefferson hated banks and believed they were more dangerous than armies.
One study claimed that men who kiss their wives every morning before leaving for work live five years longer than those who don't.
Thought for the Day: "Let not a man guard his dignity, but let his dignity guard him." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
(c) 2025 King Features Synd., Inc.