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.