Research and/or verification in process for this curiosity - check back soon!

The tabby mesquite tree, native to a remote corner of the Argentine pampas, bears a thorned seed pod with a remarkable resemblance to a cat sitting at attention. Tiny grooves in the pod resonate with the wind, creating a sound like a cat howling.

There once were two brothers crossing the jungle when they came upon a pack of sleeping tigers. Brother! the younger said to the older, we need to slip past these tigers. I will adorn you with bells so you may distract them while I cross, then I will do the same for you. The older brother agreed, and put on the bells, and danced and shouted to distract the tigers. The tigers woke up, and quickly devoured both the older brother and the younger one, who wasn't fast enough to run past a pack of tigers. The moral of the story: should be pretty obvious, folks. Don't listen to your idiot brother when he tells you to wear bells around tigers. I mean really, why did either of them think that would work?

From time to time the Baba Yaga's chicken-leg hut is known to leave a stone egg on the forest floor. If a witch-marked girl, the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, finds and keeps the egg, it will hatch into a firebird that will protect her for all her days. Anyone else who tries to steal the Baba Yaga's gift will hatch a cockatrice and be turned to stone.

The young monk Hanzi To at last reached the mountain peak, his feet cracked and bloody from the grueling trek up 10,000 stone stairs. He crawled to the sensei on hands and knees and prostrated himself, ready to receive the master’s wisdom. “You wore the sandals? Who told you you had to wear the sandals? There are boots you can… I really need to talk to the guys down there.”

Philosophy professor Vance Charlton took particular pleasure in hazing his first-year seminar students with his voice-throwing skills. Nothing lightened the mood of a terse meeting to discuss revisions to a mediocre essay than hearing Aristotle opine from the other side of the office, “it is possible to fail in many ways… and you found about six of them, idiot!”

Research and/or verification in process for this curiosity - check back soon!

Research and/or verification in process for this curiosity - check back soon!

It took Millie Baker’s nana almost two years of saving on her maid’s salary, but she was finally able to buy that microscope in the window at the drugstore for a Christmas gift. When Hiram asked what that little girl was going to do with a microscope, Nana said, “she’s goin’ to college, mor’n your lunkhead son is gonna do!” Millie went on to be the first girl to win the county science fair, was valedictorian of the high school, and earned a doctorate in biochemistry. Hiram’s son Jesse is still running the drugstore.

Research and/or verification in process for this curiosity - check back soon!