● Of the 195 flags of the countries of the world, only two feature the color purple. A parrot on the flag of Dominica has purple feathers, and a rainbow on the flag of Nicaragua has a purple band.
● Prunus is a genus of trees and shrubs that includes peaches, nectarines, plums, cherries, apricots, and almonds. All are stone fruits, which consist of a hard, inedible central pit and an edible fleshy surrounding (the almond seed being an edible exception). Prunus is a member of the rose family.
● Most bony fish (but not fish with skeletons of cartilage, such as sharks and rays) have a two-part, gas-filled swim bladder that controls buoyancy. By adjusting the amount of gas in the sacs, the fish can rise or fall in the water without swimming.
● Humans have an average of about 100,000 hair follicles on their heads. The number varies with hair color. The average is 150,000 follicles for blonde hair, 110,000 for brown, 100,000 for black, and 90,000 for red.
● The Galapagos Islands, notable for the many endemic species that led Charles Darwin to posit the theory of evolution, sit astride the equator 500 miles west of Ecuador (of which the Galapagos is a province) and consist of 18 major islands, four minor islands, and 107 mostly-unnamed islets and rocks.
● The full name of Mexican painter Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) was Magdalena Carmen Freida Kahlo y Calderón.
● According to the Park Service, the (regrettable and tacky) sculptures on Mount Rushmore were carved between 1927 and 1941 at a cost of $990,000, which is $15,000,000 in today’s money.
● The Milky Way Galaxy is zipping through space at an estimated 130 miles per second while rotating clockwise. Within the rotation, our solar system is moving at about 143 miles per second. Owing to the galaxy’s humongous size, our sun takes 230 million years to complete one orbit of the Milky Way.
● Wolf packs range in size from two to 30 members and average about 10. The number varies with such factors as the availability of prey in the territory. In most cases, a pack consists of parents and a season or two of offspring.
● Abraham Lincoln was a licensed bartender.
● Change for a dollar bill can be made in 292 different ways. 293 if you count swapping a dollar bill for a dollar coin.
● The rarest color combination among humans is red hair and blue eyes. Both are recessive traits; only about 17 percent of us have blue eyes, and less than two percent have red hair. Blue-eyed redheads make up about one percent of the population.
● The ears of an elephant radiate heat to help the animals stay cool. Elephants also spray water on themselves with their trunks, after which they may roll in the dirt to add a layer of insulation.
● The northernmost community in the US is Point Barrow, Alaska.
● The soft drink Sprite was introduced in West Germany in 1959 by the Coca-Cola Company. Back then, it was part of the Fanta line and was called Fanta Klare Zitrone (Fanta Clear Lemon). It was renamed Sprite when introduced in the US a few years later to compete with 7 Up.
● The world’s fastest animal is the peregrine falcon, which swoops down on its prey at an average of 185 mph. The highest measured speed: 242 mph.
Over the last year, several of my preferred toiletry items have disappeared from the market. These were products I used regularly and counted on, and now they aren’t available anymore. Which leaves me with the unwelcome hassle of finding replacements.
Yes, I’m aware that products get axed all the time. The suits up at Corporate do it for “business reasons.” Maybe sales are down. Maybe the suits want to shake up the market with something new.
Whatever the reason, I am displeased, and I want to vent.
1 — my aftershave
A while back, Burt’s Bees® Natural Skin Care for Men Aftershave, which I had used for years, was replaced on store shelves by Burt’s Bees® Soothing Moisturizer+ Aftershave.
The thing is, I LIKED the old Burt’s Bees® aftershave. I found it pleasing to the nose, gentle to the skin. And, wouldn’t you know it, the replacement is bloody awful. The fragrance isn’t just different, it’s unpleasant. I used it one time and threw the tube in the trash.
2 — my shave cream
Also gone is Burt’s Bees®Natural Skin Care for Men ShaveCream. It was replaced by Burt’s Bees® Cooling Shave Cream with Aloe & Hemp Seed Oil.
Is the new shave cream, like the new aftershave, bloody awful? I don’t intend to find out.
Burt’s Bees® really whiffed the ball on this one. And it isn’t just me. The online chatter has been brutal in bad-mouthing the new versions and asking Burt’s Bees® to bring back the Natural product line.
For that to happen, the suits at Burt’s Bees® would have to admit they screwed up. Not very likely.
Meanwhile, tubes of the now-defunct, now-scarce Natural versions (which retailed for about $7.99) are selling online for $25 to $45 each.
I can only hope that heads will roll at Burt’s Bees®.
3 — my toothpaste
In addition to my beef with Burt’s Bees®, I have a bone to pick with Crest® Toothpaste. For years, my toothpaste was Crest® Complete Multi-Benefit™ Herbal Mint Fluoride Toothpaste. I found the herbal mint flavor to be pleasant and refreshing. Nice and minty.
But Crest® chose to cease production of the herbal mint variety. When I realized it wasn’t being restocked, I grabbed what few remaining boxes I could find. Now, alas, I am down to one unopened tube.
That means I’ll either have to start sampling the god-knows-how-many other Crest® varieties…
… or tell Crest® to go scratch and look elsewhere.
4 – my underarm deodorant
My final gripe re the sudden unavailability of my toiletries is about my deodorant. This was especially distressing, because one’s body becomes accustomed to the chemistry of one’s deodorant. Changing to a new type can be a problem.
But then I discovered that the suits had pulled a bait-and-switch, and my product was, in fact, still available. Let me explain.
My preference for a long time has been Mennen® Speed Stick® Fresh Deodorant. (A deodorant, not an antiperspirant; I don’t do antiperspirants.)
This is my preferred Mennen® Speed Stick® Fresh Deodorant:
Exhibit A, Speed Stick® Fresh
Sometime last year, I made a routine purchase of the product below, having been tricked by the similar label design and color:
Exhibit B, Speed Stick® Regular
To my alarm, the product I purchased (Exhibit B), although very close in appearance to my preferred product (Exhibit A), was a different product with a different fragrance.
Apparently, the sticker “New Look — Same Great Deodorant” refers to another Mennen® Speed Stick® deodorant that they neglect to identify.
It took a bit of sleuthing, but I finally figured out what Mennen® had done. The original Speed Stick® Fresh Deodorant (Exhibit A) is still on the market, but it was given deceptive new labeling. This labeling:
Exhibit C, the new Speed Stick® Fresh
The new Kelly green version of Speed Stick® Fresh (Exhibit C) is, to my relief, identical to the previous blueish-greenish-teal version (Exhibit A) on which I have depended for so long. My deodorant was concealed, not discontinued, so all is well.
But if the suits do away with the current green version of Speed Stick® Fresh (Exhibit C), I can’t be responsible for my actions.
● 94 percent of the organisms on Earth live underwater.
● Lincoln was the tallest president at 6’4”. Lyndon Johnson was 6’3”. Jefferson was 6’2½”, as is Clinton.
● The first televised athletic event in the US was a baseball game between Columbia and Princeton on May 17, 1939.
● The Basset Hound was bred in France in the 1500s as a hunting dog that could be followed on foot. This was a boon to the common folk, inasmuch as hunting from horseback was a pastime of the rich. Typically, Bassets hunted small game such as rabbits, foxes, and badgers. In French, the word basset means low or short.
● The concept of infinity has been understood since ancient times, but not until the 17th century did someone — English mathematician John Wallis — come up with the infinity symbol, ∞.
● Botanically, all varieties of the pepper plant — bell, pimiento, jalapeño, habanero, chipotle, cayenne, etc. — are fruits.
● Among the animals that mate for life are gibbons, wolves, coyotes, beavers, swans, bald eagles, ospreys, black vultures, barn owls, and pigeons.
● The invoice price of a Model T Ford when it was introduced in 1909 was $825.00.
● Pink Floyd’s 1973 album The Dark Side of the Moon was so popular, it remained on the record charts for 962 weeks — over 15 years.
● Six of the eight planets in the solar system rotate counter-clockwise, the same as the Sun. The exceptions are Venus, which rotates clockwise, and Uranus, which rotates clockwise while tilted on its side. For the record, the former planet Pluto also rotates clockwise and tilted.
● Disney World has 46 rides.
● Dolphins have the ability to go without sleep by resting half of their brains while the other half remains on duty. The halves then switch places. Studies have shown dolphins doing the resting thing for as long as two weeks before taking an actual full-on snooze.
● When the piano was invented in Italy in 1698, it was called a fortepiano or pianoforte. In Italian, piano and forte mean soft and loud, respectively, a reference to the volume level depending on how hard the keys are struck.
● In the 1963 film Cleopatra, Elizabeth Taylor changed costumes 65 times.
● Nephophobia is the fear of clouds. It usually manifests after a scary incident involving a storm, hurricane, or tornado. Nepho is Greek for cloud.
● On average, an ear of corn has 800 kernels arranged in 16 rows. For reasons undetermined so far, the ears almost always have an even number of rows. An odd number is rare.
● Richard Burton, who starred in the 1984 film “1984,” died in 1984.
● Ninety Mile Beach in New Zealand is only 55 miles long. It is misnamed because European settlers in the mid-1800s could traverse the beach on horseback in three days, and horses typically covered 30 miles a day. They failed to account for sand slowing their progress.
● 250 languages are written and read from left to right, 12 from right to left.
● In Hawaiian, the word ukulele means jumping flea.
● The Province of New Jersey, an English colony that preceded the American Revolution, granted women the right to vote in 1776. But in 1807, as a US state, New Jersey reverted to the old system wherein only white men could vote. Classy.
● In America, 375 slices of pizza are consumed per second.
● 45 men have served as US President. Only 12 were elected to a second term.
● The only member of ZZ Top who doesn’t have a beard is Frank Beard.
One special memory of my raft trips down the Colorado River through Grand Canyon is the behavior of the ravens living along the river. When we camped each night, their goal was to steal food, and they often worked in pairs to do it. Several times, I saw a raven dance and squawk to draw attention while another bird snatched unguarded food.
Ravens are members of the corvidae family, as are crows, rooks, jays, and magpies. Most experts consider corvids, especially crows and ravens, to be the most intelligent of all birds.
Scientists say that, despite having a brain the size of a pecan, they possess the reasoning ability of a seven-year-old human. True, one’s reasoning ability at age seven is a work in progress, but that’s still impressive.
In several experiments, crows quickly learned to drop stones into containers of water to raise the water level, either to get a drink or to bring food into reach.
They also regularly use twigs or sticks as tools, and they will drop nuts onto a highway so passing vehicles will crack the shells.
A family of crows usually consists of about a dozen birds. They are highly social and use a variety of caws and clicks to communicate. They use separate calls to tell their fellows that a threat is from a person, cat, hawk, or whatever.
Crows not only can recognize individual human faces, but also have the capacity to inform later generations about known threats.
In 2011, a team at the University of Washington trapped a dozen crows while wearing “caveman” masks. The crows were tagged and released and thereafter left alone.
For the next five years, researchers walked a designated route near the trapping site, some wearing the caveman masks and some not.
Initially, the team noted that the crows showed alarm and scolded people wearing the caveman mask 26 percent of the time. After 15 months, the figure was up to 30 percent. After three years, it rose to 66 percent. The researchers concluded that the crows were informing their peers and offspring that caveman humans are dangerous.
Conversely, crows will be nice to you if you’re nice to them. Instances have been recorded of crows bringing gifts — pebbles, sticks, etc. — to people who feed them.
Some 40 species of crow exist around the world. The one you’re familiar with probably is the American crow, although the fish crow and Tamaulipas crow also live in North America.
Thanks to their brain power and adaptability, crows are doing quite well as a species. Experts say their numbers over the last 40 years grew about 20 percent per decade. Their estimated breeding population now stands at some 27 million.
Impressive and interesting animals. And certainly not birdbrains.
● Thomas Edison held a total of 2,332 patents worldwide. Today, the president of a semiconductor lab in Japan holds the world record — 5,843 patents and counting.
● English has more words than any other language.
● The average human sheds some 600,000 particles of dead skin per hour, or about 1.5 pounds per year.
● When viewed from the Earth, the Moon goes through eight phases as it progresses from new moon to full moon and back to new moon, as shown below. (The word gibbous refers to being more than half lighted, but less than full, which is the opposite of a crescent.)
● British author Agatha Christie (1890-1976) featured her famous detective Hercule Poirot in 33 novels, 50 short stories, and one play. Christie was honest about the character. She once described Poirot as “a detestable, bombastic, tiresome, egocentric little creep.”
● The word karaoke comes from the Japanese words karappo, which means empty, and oke, a shortened form of okesutura, which means orchestra.
● July 4 is the day in 1776 when the Continental Congress formally adopted the Declaration of Independence. However, the vote to do so took place on July 2. John Adams and several other founding fathers believed that we chose the wrong day to honor.
● The average adult bald eagle weighs 14 pounds and is about three feet long. Its wingspan, however, is a full seven feet.
● The working title of Margaret Mitchell’s novel “Gone With the Wind” was “Ba! Ba! Black Sheep.”
● When Homo sapiens appeared about 100,000 years ago, the species was noted for a smaller body and a larger brain. But even then, Neanderthal brains were larger than ours.
● In 5 BC, Rome became the world’s first city to reach a population of one million. The second city to reach that milestone was London — but not until 1800 AD.
● The majestic lion statues in front of the main branch of the New York Public Library are named Patience and Fortitude. They were carved from pink Tennessee marble and erected in 1911.
● At the US Constitutional Convention in 1787, the delegates thought it would be inappropriate to count a slave as a whole person when determining a state’s population. In their wisdom, they decided that a slave would count as 3/5 of a free citizen.
● The ionosphere, so named for the abundance of ionized atoms and free electrons within it, begins about 30 miles up and extends to the edge of space (roughly 60 miles above the planet’s surface). Radio waves bounce off the ionosphere, which is what makes radio communications possible.
● The body of an adult human contains about 100,000 miles of blood vessels.
● The tragic Dutch artist Vincent Van Gogh (poverty, depression, suicide) created almost 900 oil paintings, but sold only a few. The only one known by name was “Red Vineyard at Arles,” which was purchased by the sister of one of Van Gogh’s friends.
● According to the US government, the average dollar bill remains in circulation for 6.6 years.
● Despite its name, the Spanish Flu of 1918 had no connection to Spain. During World War I, Spain remained neutral and did not observe a media blackout. Thus, it reported freely on the pandemic, which led most of the world to associate Spain with the flu.
● The heart of an adult blue whale weighs 400 pounds.
● The only species of penguin found north of the equator is the Galápagos penguin of, you guessed it, the Galápagos Islands. In this case, however, “north” is a stretch; the islands literally straddle the equator.
● Cornell University in Ithica, New York, offers a degree in Enology and Viticulture, which is the study of wine and wine-making and the science of grape-growing.
● The flags of 29 countries feature the colors red, white, and blue.
● A desert is an ecosystem that receives less than 10 inches of precipitation annually. About 20 percent of the earth’s surface is classified as desert.
● Apple trees are native to Asia, and they were not found in North America until early European colonists brought them here. Soon, apple pie became a symbol of American culture, as opposed to native cultures and later immigrants, who cooked apples in other ways. Hence the expression “as American as apple pie.”
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