Trivia

The monorail is hardly new. From 1888 to 1924, double cars hung over both sides of a single track mounted on triangular trestles along a nine-mile stretch between Listowel and Ballybunion in southwest Ireland’s County Kerry. A French engineer named Charles Lartigue built the steam-powered wonder.

Q. How many commercial websites are on the Internet?

A. About 400,000 at this writing.

Every time there are Northern Lights, there are Southern Lights.

Among the Seminoles of Florida, the tribal mother names all the new babies - hers, her daughters’, granddaughters’, great granddaughters’. Or such has been the long tradition.

Q. How did we first learn bats use sonar to navigate?

A. Italian scientist Lazzaro Spallanzie two centuries ago blinded some bats and noted they could still find their way around. Then he plugged their ears and noted they couldn’t.

Russia has two traditional drinks. One is vodka. What’s the other? If you ask that worthy in your family who knows these things, you’ll no doubt hear tea.

Whatever the most popular masculine name might be in any given year, chances are that one out of every 15 baby boys will be so called.