Trivia

Q. How come some people can remember faces and some can’t?

A. Those who can’t tend to be timid types who don’t really look at the faces when they first see them. They sense the direct gaze may be a bit too aggressive. Or so contends a student of human behavior.

The Earth’s inner core spins a bit more swiftly than the earth’s outer core. It’s this speed difference, scientists now believe, that generates the earth’s magnetic field. Ask a Scout with a compass to explain it in more detail.

That word “tranquilizer” first came to wide public attention in 1822 when Thomas DeQuincy used it to describe drug effect in his “Confessions of an English Opium Eater.”

Q. Have the medics ever figured out why the suicide rate drops among convicts permitted to take care of pets?

A. 1. Pet keepers are less morbidly inclined. 2. People who take care of living things, outside themselves, tend to be mentally healthier than whose who care not. Such are the reasonable assumptions of the researchers.

Q. When did Mexico’s state of Vera Cruz ban priests as citizens?

A. Oct. 6, 1932.