Thomas Kearns, Jr. was an NBA player (1958-1959) whose League shooting percentage shall never be surpassed. “Tommy” shot one time and made the shot. Then he retired. Yep, he is officially listed as posting a lifetime 1.0000 shooting percentage.

A fifth grade student (Clara) in Kansas City, Missouri excited some local educators and professional chemists when she created what is apparently an entirely new combination of molecules during one of her science lab sessions. Her innovation is classified as “explosive.” Clara was quoted as saying “It … go boom.”

I was aware that all normal mammals had navels marking the sites where umbilical cords had been attached. It was information new to me to discover that bird hatchlings have small scars where their gastrointestinal tracts were attached to egg yolks – perhaps called “bird navels.”

The most famous inhabitants of Tasmania are almost certainly the “Tasmanian Devils.” The world’s largest carnivorous marsupial is almost suddenly in danger of extinction. Monitored populations have decreased by more than 80% since 1996. The beleaguered devils are the victims of a contagious cancer that is spread through saliva and it has always been their nature to bite each other. So far, it appears that the death rate of those infected is 100%.

The question of what is the oldest continuously inhabited (by humans) site in the United States is a question that anthropologists have not definitively answered. Acoma and Taos of New Mexico and Oraibi in Arizona are all approximately 1,000 years of age.
    
High flying dirigibles were quite the transportation rage during the 1920’s and 1930’s. Weight aboard these “ships” was a closely watched factor. Most dirigibles allowed only one napkin per passenger when stocking for flights. The disaster involving the famous Hindenburg signaled the end of the airships’ societal popularity. It was on May 6, 1937 that 35 of 97 passengers met their deaths when the hydrogen employed for buoyancy ignited above a field in New Jersey.

An apparently sane man named Baumgartner has a plan to jump from a height of about 23 miles (using a helium-filled balloon) above Roswell, New Mexico. He will don a special suit that will hopefully protect him from temperatures of -70 degrees F and gravity-induced speeds in excess of 700 miles per hour. The speed will exceed the sound barrier at those altitudes. In what seems to me to be an inadequate precaution – Baumgartner does intend to carry 3 parachutes. Blimey!

Well, control your enthusiasm should you seek to observe “bird navels” – and have a great weekend.