Strange BUT TRUE

• Researchers have developed an algorithm that transforms complex data into musical sounds.

• In 2003, Marvel successfully argued in a U.S. court that mutants were “nonhuman creatures” and, therefore, toys, in order to save on taxes, since X-Men action figures were being imported as dolls but toys have a lower tariff.

• An ostrich can run faster than a horse.

• Seventy-five percent of Japanese homes boast a high-tech toilet, the latest models of which eliminate the need for toilet paper, keep you warm, check your blood pressure, play the sound of running water to, er, drown out your business, and automatically open and shut so you won’t have to touch anything.

• Prior to the adoption of standard time zones in 1883, each city or town set its own local time based on the sun’s position.

• Six years after Hall of Fame pitcher Gaylord Perry stated, “They’ll put a man on the moon before I hit a home run,” he struck the only one of his career just hours after Neil Armstrong stepped onto the lunar surface.

• Actor George Reeves, who played Superman in the 1950s, once had to deflect a young fan who wanted to test his “invulnerability” by bringing a pistol to a live appearance. Reeves convinced the boy to hand over his gun by warning him that a bystander might be hurt by bullets that bounced off his Superman suit.

• A 2018 study found that wearing a necktie can reduce the blood flow to your brain by up to 7.5%.

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Thought for the Day: “Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson and Albert Einstein.” — H. Jackson © 2024 King Features Synd., Inc.