THE WORLD'S LARGEST SPERM

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The male Drosophila bifurca fruit fly produces individual sperm cells that are about 5.8 centimeters (over two inches) long. This is over 1,000 times the length of human sperm, which are generally about 55 microns. It is also twenty times the length of the animal itself (imagine a six-foot tall human with a 120-foot long sperm cell). 

If you are wondering how this is physically possible, it is because each fruit fly sperm is really, really coiled up and there are not that many of them--like maybe only 50 per fruit fly ejaculation compared to up to 1.2 billion per human.

For a view of a fruit fly sperm cell, click here.

THE TITANIC PRESCIENCE

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The novel Futility describes the tragic voyage of the "Titan," the largest ocean liner in existence at the time. The ship was described as unsinkable, but a collision with an iceberg near Newfoundland on a tragic April night laid that myth to rest.  Due to an insufficient number of lifeboats and a failure to launch many of those which were available, the loss of life was high.

Although some have labeled the book as being a thinly-disguised historical novel based on the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, they usually drop this accusation when they find out that Futility was first published in 1898 and that its description of the Titanic disaster was nothing but a remarkable coincidence.

WOODROW WILSON'S VERSION OF FREE SPEECH

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President Woodrow Wilson and his “liberal” Democratic-controlled Congress enacted The Espionage Act of 1917. This law states that any person who is privy to a government secret and discloses it to someone else (such as a reporter) is guilty of a felony. In addition, the person to whom he turns it over (I defy you to write this sentence without a dangling preposition someplace) who intentionally receives the information (such as a reporter) is also guilty of a felony. 

Wilson was not happy with this state of affairs, as he wanted even more restrictions. He wrote a senator that “Authority to exercise censorship over the press is absolutely necessary.” As a result, Congress gave him that authority in 1918 when it added the Sedition Act as part of the Espionage Act. The Sedition Act criminalized "disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language" about the United States government, its flag, or its armed forces or that caused others to view the American government or its institutions with contempt." The penalty was 5 to 20 years imprisonment.

Wilson’s Justice Department successfully prosecuted and imprisoned Socialist candidate Eugene Debs under the Sedition Act for making statements opposing Wilson’s WWI policies. It also barred Debs’s newspapers from the mails, jailed a filmmaker who made a movie about the Revolutionary War (because it might have offended our British allies), and sentenced a clergyman to prison for 15 years when he asserted that Jesus was a pacifist. There were close to 2,000 prosecutions in all, including those for offhand comments made by persons nursing drinks at corner taverns.

Common sense finally prevailed. Debs was pardoned in 1921, and by the same year, the Sedition Act was no longer law.

The other provisions of the Espionage Act of 1917, however, are still on the books. These provisions had rarely been invoked (and not even once during World War II) due to the fact that they were and are obviously overbroad. Nonetheless, as of April 1, 2015, the Obama administration has brought eight prosecutions under the Espionage Act of 1917. Prior to 2009, there was a total of three prosecutions from all of the other administrations combined (not including, of course, the previously-described cases under the Sedition Act).

THE INFAMOUS KANSAS/NEBRASKA OVERPRINTS

STAMP PHOTO FROM SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION NATIONAL POSTAL MUSEUM ARAGO WEBSITE, WHICH IS COMPLETELY INDEPENDENT OF AND NOT ASSOCIATED WITH  "HENRY'S DAILY FACTOIDS."

The rising criminality of the Roaring Twenties was not expressed only by an increase in bank robberies; post offices were also a prime target, especially in the Midwest. In 1928, U.S. postage stamps worth over $200,000 were stolen from post offices and fenced. In an effort to make it easier to trace such thefts, the Post Office Department embarked on a scheme where all postage stamps, except for those for use in major cities, would be printed with the name of the state where they were legally issued. In 1929, the postal authorities issued a trial run of stamps in eleven different denominations for sale in Kansas and Nebraska and labelled either "Kans." or "Nebr."

The experiment was a flop. Even though a stamp marked with the name of a particular state could be legally used anywhere in the country, numerous folks thought that the postage was valid only for mail sent within Kansas or Nebraska. Many postal workers in Kansas and Nebraska did not know about the overprints and refused to accept them at all. The overprints did not appreciably assist in the investigation of post office thefts. The Post Office Department therefore quietly abandoned its plans to expand the project to the remaining 46 states.

THE DOG WILLING TO SIT DOWN WITH TAX COLLECTORS

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The Doberman Pinscher was developed in 1890 by Friedrich Louis Dobermann.  Dobermann was a tax collector for the municipality of Apolda, Germany and also managed the dog pound. He bred the canine to provide him with protection on his rounds through bandit-infested areas as well as to encourage payment from reluctant citizens. The pooch proved particularly proficient in both endeavors.

The dog today is now generally referred to merely as a "Doberman," as "Pinscher" is German for terrier, which would not be all that appropriate.

After World War II, the Doberman almost became extinct. No litters were bred for a decade in West Germany. Werner Jung saved the breed by searching through West German farms for individuals to recreate the lineage and by even smuggling one in, at the risk of his life, from East Germany. Most Dobermans today are descendants of Jung's dogs.

THE WEIGHT OF THE INTERNET

Although not as bulky as information printed on paper, data stored on computers does have a finite weight, as each electron has a mass of 9 x 10⁻³¹ kilogram. According to physicist Russel Seitz of Harvard University, the total amount of material stored on the internet in 2006 weighed slightly less than two ounces worth of electrons, or about the same mass as an average chicken egg.

Most likely, the amount of electrons required to store the current U.S. tax code and regulations would correspond at the least to the yolk of that egg.

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THE GROTESQUE VADER

There is a gargoyle of Darth Vader on the Washington National Cathedral.  Well, actually, it technically is a grotesque, not a gargoyle.  While both gargoyles and grotesques are monstrous beings found on top of fancy buildings, a gargoyle either acts as a drainpipe or contains a drainpipe to expedite the removal of water from a building, while a grotesque is merely used as an obstacle to the water so that its flow is diverted (perhaps to a nearby gargoyle).  This particular Dark Lord of the Sith is not a drainpipe.