The "A Bit More of This & That" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Saw a few things while reading during the past few months that I found interesting and just knew you would enjoy reading about them also.  Not enough for an entire story so I have put the items together for this story.  Here goes:

1. The iodine commonly added to table salt helps prevent thyroid disease and metal retardation.  Without the iodized salt, a child's IQ score can be lowered by 10 points.  Found that hard to believe.  During the past 20 years the portion of the world's population with access to iodized salt has increased from 20% to 70%.  Amazing numbers for only 20 years.  This increase is a quiet revolution in public health at an annual cost of a nickle per person.  Did you have iodized salt when you were growing up?  How about fluoride in your drinking water?  Many people thought, and may still think, that the government was trying to poison us.  I know without the fluoride in the water, I would have had an unbelievable number of cavities in my teeth. 
2. Did you ever hear of the word "Medusoid"?  I never did until I saw it in a copy of Wired magazine.  Definition is an artificial jellyfish made by impregnating silicone with muscle cells harvested from a rat's heart.  Researchers designed the creature - vengefully known as a medusa - to work as a simple stand-alone pump.  Someday its cousin could function as a heart valve implant.  Now that's amazing.  I have a friend that has parts of a dead pig in his body, but never heard of the rat thing.  Pretty remarkable.
3. And finally, I read recently that the maker of Banana Boat sunscreen was recalling some half-million bottles of spray-on lotion after reports that a handful of people have caught fire after applying the product.  A company spokesman said that there have been five reports of people suffering burns after using the sunscreen in the last year; four cases in the US and one in Canada.  Now this sounds pretty bad, but I didn't tell the whole story.  You must come in contact with a flame or spark prior to complete drying of the product on the skin.  Therefore if a person smoked and had a lighter or even a match, it could cause a fire.  Good reason to stop smoking, but if you can't, at least stay out of the sun! 

Well, that's it.  Some interest items that I wanted to share with you.  Thought they were all pretty interesting.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.A