Strange but true

• Two journalists invented Trivial Pursuit in 45 minutes after being shocked at the price of a Scrabble set.

• One person in 20 has an extra rib, and they are most often men.

• Fearing that someone would murder him in the recreation yard at Alcatraz prison, gangster Al Capone received permission to spend rec time practicing his banjo in the shower room.

• A Chinese millionaire sold canned air to people on the streets to raise awareness of air pollution. He donated the money to charity.

• Female cats are mostly rightpawed, while male cats are more frequently left-pawed.

• The universe has a color — but it’s not what you might think. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University took the average of light from over 200,000 galaxies and discovered that the universe is actually kind of beige. They dubbed the hue “cosmic latte.”

•A centuries-old Japanese tradition holds that if a sumo wrestler can make your baby cry, the baby will live a healthy life! During a special ceremony, parents hand their infants to wrestlers who not only bounce the babies up and down but sometimes even roar in their faces to start the waterworks. As one mom, Mae Shige, remarked of her son at a 2014 event: “He’s not a baby that cries much, but today he cried a lot for us and we are very happy about it.”

• Daisies aren’t just for picking or playing “He loves me, he loves me not.” They’re also an excellent source of vitamin C and have been said to slow bleeding, relieve indigestion, and soothe coughs.

• There are eight times as many atoms in a teaspoonful of water as there are teaspoonfuls of water in the Atlantic Ocean.

***

Thought for the “The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.” — Marcus Aurelius

© 2020 King Features Synd., Inc.