Things you always never wanted to know

· A person who is lost in the woods and starving can obtain nourishment by chewing on his shoes. Leather has enough nutritional value to sustain life for a short time.

· According to Professor Walter Connor of the University of Michigan, men are six times more likely than women to be struck by lightning.

· The outdoor temperature can be estimated to within several degrees by timing the chirps of a cricket. It is done this way: count the number of chirps in a 15-second period and add 37 to the total. The result will be very close to the actual Fahrenheit temperature. This formula, however, only works in warm weather.

· The snail mates only once in its entire life. When it does mate, however, it may take as long as twelve hours to consummate the act.

· The first automobile race ever seen in the United States was held in Chicago in 1895. The track ran from Chicago to Evanston, Ill. The winner was J. Frank Duryea, whose average speed was 7 1/2 miles per hour.

· A bird sees everything at once in total focus. Whereas the human eye is globular and must adjust to varying distances, the bird's eye is flat and can take in everything at once in a single glance.

· According to the Greek historian Herodotus, Egyptian men never became bald. The reason for this, Herodotus claimed, was that as children Egyptian males had their heads shaved, and their scalps were continually exposed to the health-giving rays of the sun.

· The average person in the United States spends fifty-two minutes each day reading the newspaper. This means that in a seventy-year lifetime (subtracting the first fifteen years as non-newspaper reading time), the typical American spends a little less than two years ÷ about 687 days ÷ of his or her life reading the paper.

· The polar bear is one of the only large land mammals that has absolutely no fear of man. It will stalk people at every chance and has been known to charge groups of hunters, sometimes into heavy gunfire, without slowing down even after its vital organs have been hit repeatedly.