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* Leona Woods was the only woman physicist on the team that built the world’s first nuclear reactor as part of the Manhattan Project. She became a mother during the project, but hid her pregnancy as not to miss work. Afterward, as a professor, she authored more than 200 papers in physics and astrophysics.
* A 10-second French kiss spreads around 80 million bacteria between the two smoochers.
* Director Michael Bay (“Transformers”) traced his interest in action films to when he attached firecrackers to a toy train and filmed the ensuing fiery disaster with his mother’s 8 mm camera. The fire department was called, and Bay was grounded.
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* The African country of Zambia entered the Space Race in the 1960s with a plan to visit Mars and convert aliens to Christianity. The plan unraveled when one of the “Afronauts” got pregnant, another pulled out to join a local dance group and a third went missing.
* Sharks can grow up to 50,000 teeth in their lifetime.
* Libyan revolutionary Moammar Gadhafi had a serious obsession with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, showering her with over $200,000 in gifts and having a famous local composer write a song for her called “Black Flower in the White House.”
* Ever notice that the word “phonetic” is not phonetic?
* As if job interviews weren’t stressful enough, some notably head-scratching questions asked by employers include “If Germans were the tallest people in the world, how would you prove it?” (Hewlett-Packard), “Why is a tennis ball fuzzy?” (Xerox), and “Are you exhaling warm air?” (Walker Marketing)
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Thought for the Day: “Few people know how to take a walk. The qualifications are endurance, plain clothes, old shoes, an eye for nature, good humor, vast curiosity, good speech, good silence and nothing too much.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
(c) 2022 King Features Synd., Inc.