Strange BUT TRUE

• It was Isaac Asimov, professor of biochemistry and beloved Grand Master of science fiction, who made the following sage observation: “There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.’”

• According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, if you’re like the average American, you drink 22.7 gallons of coffee every year. The surprising thing about that statistic isn’t how much it is, though — it’s how little. It seems that in the 1940s, Americans were drinking twice that amount of java.

• You might be surprised to learn that gravity makes you shorter. It’s true; gravity compresses your spine — in a weightless environment, you would be 2 to 3 inches taller than you are here on Earth.

• George W. Church, the founder of Church’s Fried Chicken, didn’t actually enter the restaurant business until after he retired. In his first career, Church ran a chicken hatchery and sold incubators.

• Those who study such things say that 1 percent of the world’s lizard species have no males. The females reproduce by parthenogenesis, which produces offspring that are clones of their mothers.

• Before Charlton Heston became a famous actor, he earned cash by serving as an artists’ model — and posed in the nude.

• • • Thought for the Day:

“Mistakes are a part of being human. Appreciate your mistakes for what they are: precious life lessons that can only be learned the hard way. Unless it’s a fatal mistake, which, at least, others can learn from.”

— Al Franken