Trivia

The human brain usually is said to work at 15 percent of capacity. Yes, that high.

Modern doctors most carefully use tetrodotoxin as a local anesthetic and muscle relaxant. It’s said to be 160,000 times more potent than cocaine. One researcher reports it’s the same nerve-destroying drug that Haitian voodoo practitioners use to entrance the so-called zombies.

Q. After one of Earth’s most disastrous flood seasons ever, I wonder how many noteworthy dams there are worldwide now?

A. Approximately 36,000.

Can you support the old contention that women are happier when happy and sadder when sad than men are? Such a simple generality may no longer hold up in today’s advanced disciplines. But it was the claim of that pioneer psychologist Lewis M. Terman.

A large sea snail called the melo makes big orange pearls.

Q. The pajama makers now report 31 percent of women go to bed in the nude. But researchers earlier said almost half the women sleep in the nude. Which is correct?

A. Both maybe. Will check.

Is Switzerland an insurance salesman’s paradise? Must be. No other nationals spend more money per capita on insurance than do the Swiss.