Question: If there were a school of shark dentistry, what might students read in the text?Answer: Sharks that feed on whole fish or larger prey have razorlike teeth; those feeding on crabs and lobsters, which would damage sharp teeth, have flat ones arranged like paving stones, says R. McNeill Alexander in "Animals."
Most gray sharks have long slender spikes on the bottom and broad triangular cutting edges for uppers. With prey firmly in mouth, a gray shakes its head back and forth violently, using the inertia of the victim's body to hold it steady as the teeth buzz-saw on through.
As teeth wear down, new ones develop in the rear of the mouth, then slide forward in a layer of skin covering the jaw. For at least one type of shark, teeth move forward at a rate of a row every eight days.
A more novel bite is that of the cookie-cutter shark, about the size of a police officer's billy club and glowing an eerie green in deep water, says science reporter Sharon Bertsch McGrayne. It cuts out round plugs the size of vanilla wafers from the skin of a whale, sea lion or porpoise, then spins its body as its suction-cup mouth sucks out the flesh. (It has even been known to scoop out pits in the sides of submarines.)
Question: Sunset lovers, how might you see two of them the same day without riding a jet plane or space shuttle to outrace the sun?
Answer: At the beach, lie down and at just the moment the last slice of sun disappears below the horizon, stand back up. Because of your angle of elevation, you'll now be able to watch the fireball set again, around 10 seconds after the first event if you're 6 feet tall. (Time varies with latitude and is less toward the equator.) For yet another encore, run up and watch from atop the lifeguard's tower.
Question: When famous leaders die and are buried, why do their bodies sometimes refuse to stay put?
Answer: Following her death in 1952, Eva Peron attracted a huge following, and her memory helped hold together Argentina's Peronist Party, says Kenneth V. Iserson in "Death to Dust: What Happens to Dead Bodies?" This prompted political enemies to steal her corpse and spirit it off to Italy, where it remained for 16 years.
People with varying political motives had the body moved to different sites, until finally it was returned and placed in the family crypt in Argentina.
After Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie died mysteriously in 1975, his body was found buried under the floor of the office of the man who overthrew him. The overthrower declared on Ethiopian radio that he just wanted to be sure the body didn't rise up from the dead.
On U.S. soil, attempts were made to kidnap President Abraham Lincoln's corpse for ransom, forcing its protectors to hide it in various cellars and bury it elsewhere, with the public unknowingly paying their respects at an empty sarcophagus. The body's peripatetic journey ended in Springfield, Ill., in 1901 under a vast tonnage of concrete -- Lincoln's Tomb.
Question: When a pregnant woman indulges in garlicky foods, does the fetus share in the smell experience?
Answer: Fetuses are known to be quite sensitive, responding to extrauterine sounds with changed heart rate and blinking when a bright light is brought near the mother's abdomen, say Julie Menella and Gary Beauchamp in "Why We Eat What We Eat."
But smell is harder to test. It has been demonstrated that the odor of garlic permeates amniotic fluid and is detectable by panels of adult sniffers. But still this doesn't prove fetuses can smell it.
So bring on the animal studies: In one, rat pups showed a stronger preference for the herb if mom ingested plenty of it while pregnant. So probably baby-to-be does come along for the garlic ride, especially considering that "the normal fetus has open airway passages that are bathed in amniotic fluid and swallows significant amounts of it during the latter stages of gestation, inhaling more than twice the volume swallowed."
(Send STRANGE questions to brothers Bill and Rich at strangetrue@compuserve.com