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Illustration by Arnie Bermudez
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Arizona Daily Wildcat
Thursday, November 13, 2003
Things you always never wanted to know
Among the Betsileo natives of Madagascar, in the 18th century, there was a caste of servants known as the ramanga who were made to eat all nail parings and blood lost by members of the upper classes. If the nail parings were too long or jagged, they were minced up before being gobbled down. If a noble cut himself or was wounded in battle, a ramanga would lick his wounds. Those of high rank rarely went anywhere without these attendants, and if by chance a nail broke or blood flowed when the aristocrat was alone, he would preserve the residue and later give them to a ramanga, who obediently swallowed them.
One can see the stars during the day from the bottom of a well.
Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park, Wyo., is not the highest natural geyser in the United States. Its neighbor, the Beehive Geyser, spouts well over 200 feet of water, compared with Old Faithful's 160 feet. The Beehive, however, performs its majestic ejaculations at infrequent and unpredictable intervals.
Faust, the protagonist of works by Christopher Marlowe, Goethe and dozens of other writers, was an actual person. Johann Faust was a 16th century doctor of theology at the University of Wittenberg in Germany. Many stories were told about him during his lifetime, including one in which he sold his soul to the devil in exchange for eternal youth and wisdom. The tale captured the imagination of authors for centuries afterward.
A day on the planet Mercury is twice as long as its year. Mercury rotates very slowly, but revolves around the sun in slightly less than 88 days.
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