THE TREE WITH ONLY 2 LEAVES

The Welwitschia, a tree found in Africa, grows only two leaves. Dendrologists have found living specimens that are more than 1,000 years old. But even these ancients of the species have only two leaves. And unlike other trees, the leaves are never replaced. They just keep growing.

Prosopagnosia is a dysfunction in which adults lose the ability to recognize faces, including those of their spouse and children.

Frank Lloyd Wright was actually born Frank Lincoln Wright. But the family changed Wright’s middle name in honor of his mother’s family, the Lloyd Joneses.

Biologists, studying mating behavior among wild tigers, have found that a tigress in estrus and her male consort mate with amazing frequency, sometimes more than 50 times a day for up to three days.

The best time to buy shoes is in the afternoon. That’s because the more time you’ve spent on your feet, the more likely they are to swell. Buy shoes in the morning, and chances are that they will be tight and uncomfortable later in the day.

SEARS TOWER IS THE TALLEST

The tallest building in the United States is Chicago’s Sears Tower, standing 1,450 feet.

Emergency room doctors say that if you could schedule a medical crisis, it would be best to aim for a Wednesday, Thursday or Friday morning. Emergency rooms are busiest from noon to midnight, and most surgeries and doctor’s appointments are scheduled early in the week, making it more difficult to get quick service and quality care on short notice.

Although born in 1867, Frank Lloyd Wright claimed for years that he hadn’t arrived in the world until 1869. At least one biographer suggests that the architect lied about his age in order to make it seem that he had been particularly precocious with impressive, early success in the 1890s.

The popularity of plastic Tupperware had grown to the point that by the year 2000, it was estimated that a Tupperware party started somewhere in the world about every three seconds.

Highbrow means cultured or intellectual, and its opposite is lowbrow. In 1925, the English humor magazine “Punch” offered a definition for a relatively new term — middlebrow: “It consists of people who are hoping that some day they will get used to the stuff they ought to like.”

A tiger’s roar may carry as far as three miles.

BUY JEWELRY IN THE SUMMER

Experts say that the best time to buy jewelry is during July or August when demand is relatively low, giving customers a better chance to bargain. That’s because the two summer months have no gift-giving holidays.

A penguin swims at a speed of approximately 15 miles per hour.

Among gelada baboons, a male’s dominance is dependent on his willingness to serve. If he has spent plenty of time, grooming each of the females in his group, they will stick with him when another male challenges his leadership. But if the male has been neglectful of his grooming duties, many of the females will refuse to stand by their man.

In 10th century England, a yard was defined as any measure that equaled the distance from the tip of King Edgar’s nose, along his outstretched arm, to the end of his middle finger.

The Romans separated kisses into three categories: the oscula for friendship, the basia for love and the suavia for passion. The crime of giving unwanted or unwelcome kisses was called crimen osculationis.

When Republicans nominated Barry Goldwater for President in 1964, they made good use of the slogan, “In your heart you know he’s right.” Democrats countered, “In your guts, you know he’s nuts.”

TIES ARE BIG BUSINESS IN MENSWEAR

More than $1 billion is spent each year on neckties in the United States.

In West Africa, red colobus monkeys can often be found in association with black and white dianas. That’s because chimpanzees prey on the red colobus, and the vigilant dianas are better at spotting chimpanzees than are their reddish-brown friends. It also helps that the two species don’t compete for food. Dianas eat fruit while the red colobus prefer leaves.

A well-known physician of ancient Greece, Galen, held that a drippy nose was evidence of a brain that was purging itself.

By 1914, the Ford Motor Company employed less than 20 percent of the country’s auto workers. But it was responsible for almost half of the nation’s cars.

Statistics from General Motors show that the average driver uses an airbag only once every 175 years.

Teflon, the nonstick material that is often touted as a result of the space race, was actually created in 1938, years before the U.S. put a man on the moon. And its invention was a lucky mistake. Roy Plunkett had been attempting to make a nontoxic refrigerant. Plunkett’s discovery was kept a military secret until 1946. The first nonstick cooking pans were produced by the Tefal company in 1956.

TALKING OUT OF YOUR STOMACH

Ventriloquism literally means “belly-talking.”

It has been estimated that when the “Titanic” went down, 29 third-class female passengers died for every dog carried by a first-class passenger into a lifeboat.

Plato, the well-known Greek philosopher, was born as Aristocles. And scholars have argued over the reason he took a new name, which when translated, means broad or flat. Some suggest it is because Plato had a broad forehead, indicating intelligence. Others claim Plato took the name because of his broad shoulders.

Before the debut of the Model T in 1908, the Ford Motor Company introduced a number of other models, including A, B, AC, C, F, K, N, R and S.

In 2003, American doctors performed 1.7 million cosmetic surgical procedures, a 5 percent increase from the previous year.

Among Madagascar’s black lemurs, only the males are black. The females are reddish-brown. And male lemurs are picky about the looks of a potential mate. They like the girls with the brightest fur. Biologists claim that males have this preference because dull fur color is a sign of parasites, so females with bright fur have the best chance of producing healthy offspring.

One bale of cotton can make 215 pairs of jeans.

BACK IN THE DAYS OF COMPETITION

Between 1895 and 1905, more than 3,000 different car companies were formed in the United States.

Fires raged for three days following the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, killing an estimated 200 people in addition to the 500 that died in the earthquake itself.

The potto, a slow-moving, African primate, doesn’t have proper scent glands, so the animal urinates on its hands and feet before starting a nightly tour of its range.

The English word “nostril” is an evolved form of the Old English “nosthyrel,” which means “nose hole.”

On the “Titanic’s” last day afloat, guests enjoyed a luncheon of grilled mutton chops, baked jacketed potatoes, salmon mayonnaise, Norwegian anchovies and corned ox tongue.

When a dispute arose between the colonial towns of Lyme and New-London, Conn., over a certain piece of property, the citizens of both communities agreed to a unique solution. Each town selected two champions — Griswold and Ely for Lyme, and Ricket and Latimer for New-London. The men met on a designated field for a fistfight. Griswold and Ely won the slugfest, so the town of Lyme took possession of the land in question.

Each breath includes about 76 percent nitrogen, 23 percent oxygen and 1 percent argon with other elements present in minute quantities.

MOTHER BABOON TRADES BABY FOR GROOMING

When a female chacma baboon has a baby, her peers will offer to groom her much more than they would a childless female. That’s because they want to buy access to the baby. New baboon mothers are reluctant to let others handle their offspring.

The duck-billed platypus experiences more rapid-eye movement during sleep than any other creature — up to eight hours per day.

Research into Africa’s huge baobab trees reveals that the plant does not grow consistently from year to year. Sometimes it shrinks. At least one tree, studied by forester G. L. Guy, measured 222 feet around in 1931. In 1946, the same tree had slimmed down to a girth of 212 feet.

A third-class ticket on the first voyage of the ill-fated “Titanic” cost $36. A one-way ticket for the ship’s most luxurious suite went for the equivalent of $4,200.

Etymologists theorize that “y’all” — a word popular in the American South — most likely originated in Ireland.

The Cadillac Motor Company originally was known as The Henry Ford Company. But Ford, who had been hired to create a lightweight car that could be sold for $1,000, neglected his duties and left the organization in 1902.

WHITE MAN POSED AS GAS MASK INVENTOR

Garrett Augustus Morgan’s invention of the gas mask saved the lives of 29 people, trapped in a tunnel under Lake Erie, after a 1916 explosion. But in spite of this dramatic success, Morgan had trouble selling his masks, especially in the South. The problem? Morgan was African American. So he hired a white friend to pose as the inventor in order to give the mask credibility.

The word radio comes from the Latin radius meaning ray or beam of light.

The Ford Motor Company, started in 1903, originally didn’t make its own engines. Instead, Henry Ford contracted with the best machine shop in Detroit. It was run by two brothers, Horace and John Dodge.

Isabel Peron, Argentine president Juan Peron’s third wife, became the first woman head of state in the western hemisphere in 1974.

Ring-tailed lemurs often compete by scent. Females deposit scent marks in hopes of attracting a mate. If a male finds the mark, he will cover it with his own scent in order to confuse potential rivals. Female ring-tails also will overprint scent marks left by other females in order to ensure that they find a mate.

The blink of an eye measures about one-sixth of a second.

MAIL LOST ON TITANIC

The R.M.S. — Royal Mail Steamer — “Titanic” carried 3,364 bags of mail or approximately 400,000 letters from Europe, bound for the United States.

In Early Modern English, the word “you” was generally used only when speaking to someone, who was socially superior or of higher status, although members of the upper class might also use it with each other as a form of polite address. The word “thou” was favored in all other exchanges.

Ebony weighs approximately 73 pounds per cubic foot, and mahogany weighs about 45 pounds per cubic foot. Cork, a much lighter wood, weighs only about 13 pounds per cubic foot. But balsa beats them all at 7 pounds.

Angelo Siciliano created a system of muscle building that he called “dynamic tension,” and the program worked so well that “Physical Culture” magazine dubbed Siciliano in 1922 the “World’s Most Perfectly Developed Man.” By that time, however, Siciliano had taken on a new name: Charles Atlas.

Thomas Edison designed a camera called the kinetograph. It was the world’s first machine, specifically designed to film motion pictures. Creating the camera required $24,000 worth of experimentation. But the risk paid off. By 1895, Edison had made $177,847 on sales of the cameras and films.

THE WORLD DRINKS COCA-COLA

About 13,000 Coca-Cola Company beverages are consumed every second of every day.

Mouse lemurs, the smallest of primates, double their weight during Madagascar’s wet season. They store most of the extra fat in their tails.

The Seychelles palm nut tree bares 30- to 40-pound nuts that take six years to ripen. The full-grown nut, up to 3-1/2 feet around, is the world’s largest seed.

The eyelid is only one millimeter deep, making it the thinnest skin on the human body.

Sixteenth-century Dutch humanist Erasmus offered this advice for blowing the nose: “to blow your nose on your hat or clothing is rustic . . . nor is it much more polite to use your hand . . . . It is proper to wipe the nostrils with a handkerchief and to do this while turning away, if more honorable people are present.”

Philadelphia’s Billy Carter, a first-class passenger of the “Titanic,” brought along his 35-horsepower Renault motorcar, packed away in the ship’s hold. Carter also brought 24 polo sticks, 60 shirts and 15 pairs of shoes for the voyage.

The first, solely English dictionary was published in 1604 by schoolteacher Robert Cawdrey. He called the completed work “A Table Alphabeticall.”

THE LAST WHITE HOUSE COW

Pauline, the last cow to live on White House grounds, moved to the neighborhood of 19th and B streets in 1911. But she retained special privileges at the President’s home, visiting there each morning to graze the White House lawn. She was returned home each day at twilight.

During the reign of England’s King Charles II, the cost of a merchant vessel was about £8 per ton. A warship cost about £15 per ton. Construction of the king’s yachts, however, required silk ceremonial flags, crimson damask, rich mahogany and other luxuries, which brought construction costs up to about £33 per ton.

The hole at the end of a hypodermic needle is called the lumen.

About 20 percent of a robin’s diet is made up of earthworms, and the red-breasted birds are quite adept at getting a meal. Ornithologists have observed robins that successfully captured earthworms at the rate of 20 per hour.

The state tree of Nebraska is the Cottonwood.

At least 17 different professional football teams have represented New York City. The first was Brickley’s New York Giants, founded in 1921.

Richard M. Nixon was only the country’s ninth President to ride to his inauguration in an automobile.

WHO'S THE BIGGER MAN?

When England’s George IV became Prince Regent in 1811 he had gained so much weight from his love of food and relaxation that he could not mount a horse without mechanized help. George was wheeled up a ramp in his chair and lowered by tackle onto the waiting steed.

Some beaver dams extend in length more than 1,500 feet.

Who decides where one ocean ends and another begins? The International Hydrographic Organization. And in 1999, that group became responsible for introducing the world’s newest ocean. All the water surrounding Antarctica, up to 60 degrees south, has been called the Southern Ocean.

Tanzania’s Mt. Kilimanjaro, Africa’s highest peak, stands 19,340 feet tall.

The New York Jets were first known as the New York Titans.

John F. Kennedy’s 1961 Lincoln Continental convertible came equipped with a rear seat that could be raised to a height, 10-1/2 inches from the floor. This allowed Kennedy to be more easily seen during parades.

In the 1970s and 1980s, American astronauts commonly breakfasted on eggs and bacon. But Russian cosmonauts were more likely to start their day with chicken and prunes, pralines and white Borodinsky bread.

Apple juice consumption in the United States more than doubled from 1961 to 1971.

BROOKLYN BRIDGE MEASURES UP

The length between the two towers of New York City’s Brooklyn Bridge is 1,595.5 feet.

Other than for flights to Denver, almost all air travel out of New York’s La Guardia Airport is limited to trips of 1,500 miles or less. The Port Authority made the rule when it opened what is now John F. Kennedy International in order to encourage use of the newer airport.

Tug-boats work better pushing than pulling. That’s because a tug leaves its own wake, which creates added turbulence for the barge, which is being pulled.

After the United States entered World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s convertible Lincoln was sent back to the Ford Motor Company to receive protective armor and other safety features. The renovations, which included bulletproof glass, armor plate and a compartment for submachine guns, added six feet to the car’s original length and brought it up to a total weight of 9,300 pounds.

Half of all astronauts experience motion sickness while in space.

The favorite hobby of Russian Czar Peter the Great was shipbuilding. In 1697, Peter traveled to Holland on holiday and worked in a shipyard in Zaandam. He tried to avoid unnecessary attention by using the name Peter Mikhailov.

COWS HAVE ADVANCED SALT SNIFFERS

With an advanced sense of smell, cows can detect sodium from up to six miles away.

First introduced at the 1904 World’s Fair, puffed rice was billed as an alternative to popcorn, not as a breakfast cereal.

William Painter, inventor of the bottle cap, suggested a number of tools for opening bottles: a knife, a screwdriver, a nail, an ice pick. He later created a bottle cap opener.

In 1927, the first Volvo came off the assembly line in Goteborg, Sweden.

Historians believe that, after the dog, the goat was the second animal to be domesticated.

The Otis Elevator Company has 1.4 million of its elevators, operating in buildings around the world, including the White House, the Kremlin, Buckingham Palace and the Vatican.

Steel wheels on steel rails result in such minimal friction that travel by train is about 10 times more energy-efficient than travel by road.

New York City stopped installing seesaws in its 900-odd park playgrounds in 1986. It was decided that the risk of injury to children was too high.

The United Nations has its own post office, fire department and security force.

New York City’s transit buses travel nearly 102 million miles each year.

AMERICANS PREFER COW

The average American eats about 70 pounds of beef each year.

Pre-sliced bread was first sold by Missouri’s Chillicothe Baking Company in 1928. By 1933, about 80 percent of all bread sold in the U.S. was pre-sliced.

The state flower of Michigan is the Apple Blossom.

In 1863, U.S. innovators applied for 3,773 different patents. Just six years later, that number had risen to 12,000. By the 1930s, patent applications were coming in at the rate of a thousand a week.

When Samuel Clemens (a.k.a. Mark Twain) and his family moved to Europe in 1892, it wasn’t because they loved the Old World. Instead, the family could live more cheaply in Europe, a fact that became very important as Clemens did just about everything possible to avoid impending bankruptcy.

Broadway theaters have seats with each row identified by a letter. But there is no Row I. That’s because the letter that follows H is too easily confused with the number 1.

In 1910, U.S. President Howard Taft began a tradition by throwing out the first ball on the Washington Senators’ opening day.

Kansas, Texas, Missouri and Florida have the country’s greatest percentage population of people, age 65 and older.

LOTS O' GOATS

There are about 700 million goats in the world.

Charles Darwin reported that wild ducks are monogamous, at least for a season. But such is not the case for their much-more promiscuous, domesticated relatives.

In his two-year racing career, the famous horse, Man o’ War, earned prizes of $249,465. He raced 21 times, and took second place in only one contest. He won all the rest.

First intended for makeup removal, Kleenex facial tissues were first called Celluwipes.

Domino’s Pizza was originally called DomiNic’'s Pizza, but the name was changed in 1965.

The Louisiana Purchase contained 909,380 square miles of land.

Norman G. Dyhrenfurth’s well-equipped climb of Mt. Everest in 1963 required a thousand porters and sherpas to carry the almost 30 tons of gear. Supplies included 12,000 cigarettes, 216 bottles of oxygen, waterproof diaries, seven movie cameras and freeze-dried foods, including crab imperial, pork chops and chicken tetrazzini.

Levi Strauss always referred to the pants he sold as “waist high overalls,” not jeans.

The physician Malachias Geiger published a protection against the Black Death in his 1637 book, “Margaritologia.” Geiger recommended baking pulverized pearls with antlers and cinnamon as well as other ingredients.

NOT BAAAD

In Tibet and other parts of the Himalayas, sheep are used as pack animals.

The sole survivor of Gen. Custer’s last stand at Little Big Horn in Montana was a horse. His name was Comanche.

Q-tips originally were called Baby Gays.

The state bird of Kentucky is the Cardinal.

Russia’s Mir space station spent 5,511 days in space, orbiting the Earth 86,330 times.

In Korea, kite fighting was named a national sport in 1921.

In spite of Robert E. Peary’s claim that he had reached the North Pole in 1908, violent east winds, shifting ice and Peary’s own failure to measure longitude make it likely that he missed the pole by as much as 60 nautical miles.

The Mercantile Agency, established by Lewis Tappan, became one of the nation’s first, successful credit rating agencies. Tappan commissioned correspondents, who operated as investigators, ferreting out a subject’s net worth, business prospects and moral character. Abraham Lincoln was one of Tappan’s correspondents. Ulysses S. Grant, Grover Cleveland and William McKinley also worked for the company.

Pearls once commanded incredible prices. For instance, the Roman general Vitellus sold one of his mother’s pearls and used the proceeds to finance an entire military campaign.

SHEEP PREFER FEMALE LEADERSHIP

Among flocks of wild sheep, leadership often goes to the most experienced mother as opposed to the biggest or strongest ram.

One of the hooves of Marengo, Napoleon’s most-prized horse, was saved when the animal died and made into a silver-mounted snuff box.

John Harvey Kellogg, a medical doctor, invented flaked breakfast cereal in 1895 and introduced Corn Flakes in 1898. One of Kellog’s former patients, Charles Post, became a competitor with his own Grape-Nuts cereal.

In the United States, a major symphony conductor has an expected life-span of 73.4 years. But an author of political poetry is expected to live only 64.47 years. College and university presidents have an average life-span of 70.11 years.

President Calvin Coolidge is remembered by historians as a great respecter of the rules of the road. While driving, he never accelerated to more than 16 miles per hour.

The oval wan-wan, the largest kite ever built, was created to celebrate the reconstruction of Japan’s Rengiji Temple in 1692. The kite measured about 65 feet across and weighed nearly 5,500 pounds. Flying the kite required 200 strong men, and if the wind did not subside overnight, the kite sometimes remained airborne for days because it was impossible to haul down.

NEARLY 5 MILLION VEGETARIANS

Almost 5 million Americans identify themselves as vegetarians.

Craven Walker, inventor of the Lava lamp, told 1960s consumers that “if you buy my lamp, you won’t need drugs.” Walker’s invention was an immediate success.

In 1964, Sidney Poitier became the first African American to win an Oscar for Best Actor.

Pigs do have sweat glands. But only on their noses.

Justin Morgan taught school, served as town clerk and conducted singing classes. But Morgan also had an eye for fine horses, and when he died, he left behind a little horse, named Figure. That little horse — part Arab, part Thoroughbred — was well-known for his ability to outpull and outrun much larger animals. And he became the father of America’s first new line of horses, the Morgan.

Alexander Graham Bell is well-known for his invention of the telephone. But Bell also experimented in genetics, working for many years to breed sheep with extra nipples. He thought the ewes of just such a breed might produce more milk.

Biologists suggest that if the human body could retain the same resistance to stress, injury and disease that is present in a 2-year-old child, we might commonly live for up to 700 years.