Fun_People Archive
21 Aug
WhiteBoardness 21 Aug 1995

Date: Mon, 21 Aug 95 20:58:38 -0700
From: Peter Langston <psl>
To: Fun_People
Subject: WhiteBoardness 21 Aug 1995

Excerpted-from: WhiteBoard News for August 21, 1995

Tucson, Arizona:

Scientists have discovered that the gunk lodged between the toes of
black-tailed deer kills the bacteria that cause acne and the fungus that
causes athlete's foot.

The deer, which frolic in the mountains along the Pacific coast, secrete a
greasy substance from the groove between their toes.  This toe jam,
researchers at Humboldt State University conclude, contains a compound
that's potent against the bacterium Propionibacterium acnes and also kills
the fungus Trichophyton mentagrophytes.

In hopes that hoof jam proves effective in fighting zits, a Tucson firm,
Research Corporation Technologies, is commercializing synthetic versions of
the chemical.

Which may be a lot easier than catching deer and flossing between their
toes.
==========

Rotterdam, Netherlands:

Dutch farmers now use self-service milking machines for their cows.

According to the Wall Street Journal, a cow desiring to be milked approaches
the milking machine's robot, which is activated by a computer chip in the
cow's collar.

A typical farmer saves about four hours a day, and, says one, "The cows tend
to like it."
==========

New York, New York:

Coming soon on Nasdaq: a topless bar on the lower tier.

Rick's Cabaret International Incorporated has won approval to trade on the
Nasdaq Stock Market's lower- tier SmallCap Market, overcoming apprehension
among Nasdaq officials about how badly Nasdaq's image would be hurt by
offering the only publicly traded topless- bar stock.

Although a listing for the Houston company won't do much to help that image,
officials apparently decided that they had no legal ground to turn down the
self- described "premier adult nightclub offering topless entertainment."

The $4.9 million offering of stock, with the symbol RICK, is expected as
soon as early September.

Not surprisingly, the Rick's offering already has stirred interest among
stockbrokers.  Investors shouldn't get overly passionate though.

The offering prospectus warns that the stock is "speculative" and shouldn't
be bought by investors who "cannot afford the loss of their entire
investment."

Does that mean you really could lose your shirt?
==========

Birmingham, England:

Now, at last, science confirms what we have always known: Toast really does
land butter-side down.

Robert Matthews, a visiting research fellow at Aston University, has proved
it.

In the July issue of the European Journal of Physics, under the title
"Tumbling Toast, Murphy's Law and the Fundamental Constants," he
demonstrates that when a slice of toast slides off a plate, it tips and
spins at a uniform rate.

And that rate, and the average kitchen table's height, virtually guarantee
it will land on its face.

Or as Matthews puts it: "The fate of the toast, whether it lands butter side
up or down, boils down to the size of a ratio, and that ratio is the ratio
of the size of the toast to the height of the table."
==========

Warsaw, Indiana, police say they've destroyed  more than 6 million marijuana
plants over the past two weeks.  Officers are trying to eliminate maturing
plants, which are remnants of "Hemp for Victory" farms during World War II.

© 1995 Peter Langston