NEWS IN A NUTSHELL

Taranaki Daily News, 6 October 1934, Page 13 (Supplement)

NEWS IN A NUTSHELL

THE WORLD AT A GLANCE

Blind-worms are not blind, but have quick and brilliant eyes.

A. rabbit can stand more morphine than a man can.

Turkeys do not comd from Turkey and never did, being birds native to America.

The word hydrophobia is a complete misnomer, since man or dog suffering from it craves rather than dreads water.

Jerusalem artichokes don’t come from Jerusalem, but are members of the girasoles unflower family. A modem car, if completely taken to pieces, would be found to include 16,000 separate parts.

It is exceptional to find a woman with a receding lower jaw who has remained single.

Wormwood has nothing to do with wood and less with worms. It is a herb used in medicines and—vermouth.

Prussian blue does not come from Prussia, but can be made anywhere—and is.

Ely Place, just off Holbom, is the only street in London which still has a night watchman who calls out the hours of the night.

Talkie picture sound engineers employ the cat’s "me-ow” to make the bloodcurdling noises in film thrillers. They magnify it and run it backwards. “Plump in figure and with darkish hair,” describes the “ideal woman” as voted for by the students of one big American university.

It cost £23,540 to maintain the Tower of London last year; against this, the return for admission fees and sale of guide-books was £18,706.

Huge beasts that died 100,000 years ago are still poisoning the Black Sea, their remains forming a thick layer over the 20,000 miles of sea-bed.

Famous film stars have strange names in the East, where Chinese “fans” call John Barrymore “Ya Han,” Harold Lloyd, “Luke,” and Mickey Mouse “Mee Kan.”

Shark skins are rapidly returning to commercial favour. A Northampton firm of leather manufacturers has just placed an order for 20,000 skins a month from United States exporters.

The sky does not retain its blue appearance at aH altitudes. Recent tests show that at a height of thirteen miles It has a dark violet-grey appearance, turning a black-grey a little higher.

Seven Clarksons, all members of one family, sing in the Bumhope (County Durham) Methodist church choir. An eighth is organist and a ninth is the organ-blower. . ♦

By scoring forty-five bullsi’-eyes in forty-five shots with a pistol, Major; G.' R. Rede, of the United States Army, recently established a new world’s record.

A bear’s den, with an inverted periscope, has been built in Yellowstone Park to enable scientists to study the the habits of the animals during hibernation. 1 1 . .

Permission is to be given to establish eighteen. German factories in Great Britain. Their principal products will be articles of clothing, and while some Germans will be employed, most of the workers will be British.

The loudest sound ever heard by man was the eruption of Krakatoa, a volcano in the Dutch East Indies, in 1883. So violent was the explosion that air waves resulting from it traveUed three times successively round the earth. “Harem trollies" have been abolished ip Turkey, Until now, every trolly qar has had the first two rows “of seats reserved for women. .This was always called the harem, because that word simply means “a place reserved for women.”

“Anise-ikonia,” a newly-discovered abnormality of vision, affects about a third of all persons afflicted with eye trouble. This abnormality results in a condition in which one eye, unknown to the subject, sees an image larger than that seen by the other. During a recent heat-wave a Berlin butter firm was troubled in keeping the contents of delivery vans fresh. Someone evolved the idea of growing grass on the roofs. Consequently, motor-yans were seen dashing about the streets of Berlin covered with turf, and occasionally the driver would stop and water the grass. ’ •• ’ Known in Findlay, Ohio, as the “doll baby,” the tiny daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Carmen has died after living only four days. She was so small, her weight being only twenty ounces, that a shoe-box was used as a cradle. Her height was only - fourteen inches. . Both her parents were nineteen years old.

A Queensland flcod once led to the construction of a very queer railway bridge. At Roope’s Bridge, near Rockhampton, unprecedented floods filled a long valley, burying the rails feet deep. , To cross trains was impossible; and still shower-bath weather continued. A string of 61 waggons was pushed out across the flood and bridged with ing. Over this peculiar bridge passengers trooped from one train to the other, and were thus given a chance to be better fate than never.

One of the finest natural washing 4 solutions obtainable is the water in which* beche-de-mer is boiled before being dried and smoked for export. The water in which the sea-slugs have been boiled acquires remarkable properties, ; for clothing dipped in it before washing loses every particle of dirt and grease, while it will also clean and polish brass and copper to a brilliant lustre. The water, however, has a decidedly unpleasant smell, but this is not noticeable after the clothes and articles cleaned or ~ polished have been rinsed in clean rain water. '

A criminal being cross-examined by S detectives will give himself away quicker by his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down than he will by his facial expression. When a person “swallows hard” it means that his throat is dry from some inner emotion, probably fear. . That is one of the newest tips that modem psychology has given to th® science of character-reading. A man's ,5' eyes or forehead do not- give him away so easily as his Adam’s apple or his hands. When a person is angry and Is trying hard to conceal his emotion, he ~ gives himself away by holding his head : a bit higher, pushing his chin slightly forward, upper lip raised a little, eyebrows drawn downwards, corners of the ? nose raised, and forehead wrinkled. Women show their emotions, ■especially fear, by the clutching, wringing and 'fe perspiring of hands. And a card, player $• with a good hand involuntarily move* his elbows closer to his side*. ■ ? M