Some e-mail you all might enjoy (forwarded through a long list of
intermediaries I have deleted).

> New Scientific Theories
> ********************************************************************
> These are responses to a contest sponsored by OMNI magazine:
>
> Grand Prize Winner:
>
> When a cat is dropped, it always lands on its feet, and when toast is
> dropped, it always lands with the buttered side facing down. I
> propose to strap buttered toast to the back of a cat; the two will
> hover, spinning inches above the ground. With a giant buttered cat
> array, a high-speed monorail could easily link New York with Chicago.
>
> Runners-up:
>
> If an infinite number of rednecks riding in an infinite number of
> pickup trucks fire an infinite number of shotgun rounds
> at an infinite number of highway signs, they will eventually produce
> all the worlds great literary works in Braille.
>
> Why Yawning Is Contagious: You yawn to equalize the pressure on your
> eardrums. This pressure change outside your eardrums unbalances other
> people's ear pressures, so they must yawn to even it out.
>
> Communist China is technologically underdeveloped because they have no
> alphabet and therefore cannot use acronyms to communicate ideas at a
> faster rate.
>
> The earth may spin faster on its axis due to deforestation. Just as a
> figure skater's rate of spin increases when the arms are brought in
> close to the body, the cutting of tall trees may cause our planet to
> spin dangerously fast.
>
> Honorable Mentions: [most deleted because they weren't all that honorable]
>
> The quantity of consonants in the English language is constant. If
> omitted in one place, they turn up in another. When a Bostonian
> "pahks" his "cah," the lost r's migrate southwest, causing a Texan to
> "warsh" his car and invest in "erl wells."

Dennis Paulson phone: (206) 756-3798
Slater Museum of Natural History fax: (206) 756-3352
University of Puget Sound e-mail: dpaulson at ups.edu
Tacoma, WA 98416