Birds that lay their eggs in other species’ nests and manipulate the hosts to raise their young are known as brood parasites. Perhaps the best known of there are various species of the cuckoo.
The English author John Wyndham made reference to this practice in his novel The Midwich Cuckoos, in which an alien life form uses the brood parasite approach with terrifying consequences.
A bird whose nest is used for a brood parasite’s egg(s) is known as a cuckold, a word that came to be used for a man whose wife bears another man’s child and later was extended to the husband of an unfaithful wife in general.
There is some evidence that the habitat of polar bears is being threatened by global warming, which is reducing the amount of ice coverage in the Arctic.
Polar bears live only in Arctic areas that surround the North Pole—not in Antarctica, which surrounds the South Pole. School children often see illustrations of penguins and polar bears together, but this could never happen. The word arctic comes from the Greek word for bear, and Antarctic comes from the Greek meaning the opposite, without bear.
The female name Ursula comes from the Latin for ‘little she-bear’.
Factual correction. The origin if the word “arctic” has no reference any any actual bear, but to the northerly latitudes of the Ursa Major “Great Bear” constellation. “Antarctic” did not exist as a word or even a concept until the round-earth awareness of a south pole opposite the north pole, and was named by geographers with no knowledge of the ursine zoology of the hypothetical region. The ant- prefix means against or opposed to, not “without”.
Antarctica - from Anti-Arktos, meaning opposite of the Arctic. Thanks for that, jtur88. Ignorance corrected.
Ursula Andress was married to John Derek, as were Bo Derek, and Linda Evans.
Bo Derek’s character’s Jenny in 10 described Ravel’s Bolero as “the most descriptive sex music ever written”, which resulted in massive sales of the work. Because Ravel’s music was still under copyright at the time, sales of Boléro generated his estate an estimated $1 million in royalties and briefly made him the best selling classical composer—over 40 years after his death.
Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean of Great Britain won the 1984 Olympic ice dancing competition in Sarajevo with a nearly-pornographic routine performed to Bolero, receiving twelve perfect 6.0s and six 5.9s which included artistic impression scores of 6.0 from every judge.
The 1984 Olympic Torch Relay began in New York City and ended in Los Angeles, traversing 33 states and the District of Columbia. Unlike later torch relays, the torch was continuously carried by runners on foot. The route covered more than 9,320 mi (15,000 km) and involved 3,636 runners, including 200 from the sponsoring company AT&T. Noted athlete O.J. Simpson was among the runners, carrying the torch up the California Incline in Santa Monica.
Saint Monica was the mother of Saint Augustine. She is remembered for her constant prayer for the reformation of her son’s hedonistic lifestyle.
Saint Augustine was an early Christian philosopher, and is considered one of the greatest patristic writers of the Church. His works became very influential in the development of western philosophy and Christianity.
Route 66, a.k.a. the Mother Road or the Will Rogers Highway or the Main Street of America, runs some 2,450 miles between Santa Monica, California and Chicago, Illinois.
The French word for ‘hand’ is la main. It is derived from the Latin word manus.
McManus, California is a small town in the Sierra Nevada foothills, between Sacramento and South Lake Tahoe. Currently, the Facebook page for McManus, California has three likes.
Three.
Sacramento is the capital of California. It takes its name from the Blessed Sacrament i.e. the Eucharist, or Corpus Christi.
The USS Lexington (CV-16) is an Essex Class aircraft carrier built during World War II. It was originally going to be named Cabot, but during construction when the USS Lexington (CV-2) was lost at the Battle of the Coral Sea, she was renamed. She was commissioned in 1943, and finally decommissioned in 1991, and she now serves as a museum in Corpus Christi, TX.
In 1922, the Essex Motor Company made America’s first affordable enclosed sedan with a hard-top design, revolutionizing the auto market with a shift toward the closed family car. Before that, car’s had a canvas roof, which could usually be opened.
Newark Liberty International Airport located in the southeast section of Essex county in Newark and Elizabeth in Union County, both in New Jersey, is considered the third New York Metropolitan airport, after LaGuardia and JFK.
Toward the end of her reign, Queen Elizabeth I turned to the Earl of Essex to be one of her closest advisors. There were rumors and legends of a romantic relationship, but no union seems to be consummated, not even in the Balliwick of Jersey or the city of York.