CHEESE
• When cream is placed in a crock and jiggled a lot, the result is butter. But one day in ancient times some person placed milk or cream in a sack made from the intestines or stomach of an animal. After being agitated, perhaps during a day’s ride, the result was not butter, but a primitive form of cheese. That was the first discovery that the enzymes and acids in the lining of an animal’s stomach will cause milk to coagulate. • Known as rennet, these chemicals are essential in the manufacture of cheese. Rennet contains many enzymes which coagulate the milk, causing it to separate into solids (curds) and liquid (whey). This helps young mammals digest and assimilate their mother’s milk.
© 2014 King Features Synd., Inc.
• The average American eats about 26 lbs. of cheese each year. CHEESE FACTS & ANECDOTES • A mouse will not eat cheese if other food is available. Mice have been known to eat glue, leather, plastic, paste, soap, bugs, leaves, roots, stems, and seeds— but they just don’t go for cheese. • Canadian cheese makers wanted to have a very unique display at Chicago’s World’s Columbian Exposition in 1983. They created a cheese centerpiece that weighed 22,000 pounds. The train that was hauling it to Chicago broke down under the strain several times on the way. When it was maneuvered into place at the Expo, it promptly crashed through the floor of the building.
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Weekly SUDOKU
• On a chemical level, there's not too much difference between blood and seawater. • If you've ever looked closely at a zipper, you may have noticed the letters YKK on the tab. The letters stand for Yoshida Kogyo Kabushikigaisha, which is Japanese for "Yoshida Manufacturing Shareholding Company," which produces most of the zippers found in the U.S. • An octopus has three hearts. • A recent study by scientist Karl Berg suggests that an adult green-rumped parrotlet, a tiny bird native to Venezuela, will "name" its babies, assigning each a particular series of peeps to identify it. Not only that, other parrotlets then learn to associate that exact series of peeps with that particular bird, and actually use the sounds to get its attention. * * * Thought for the Day: "I have often regretted my speech, never my silence." -Xenocrates
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• It was noted British lexicographer Samuel Johnson who made the following sage observation: "The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good." • If an American black bear is pregnant when it goes into hibernation, she could give birth without ever awakening. While she is still in her torpor, her body will draw on reserves of fat to produce milk to nurse her young. However, if something that could be dangerous to her young comes within 50 feet of the den, the mother bear's heart rate will spike and she will wake to defend the cubs. • If you're holding your nose, you can't hum. Try it. • If you happen to be fortunate enough to spot numerous bears together in the wild (or unfortunate enough, depending on the circumstances), thanks to this column you'll be able to call the group by its correct collective noun: It's a sloth or sleuth of bears.
King CROSSWORD
by Samantha Weaver
• Cheese is little more than artificially coagulated milk, with different types of bacteria and/or molds added. There are 18 different categories of cheese and well over 1,000 different varieties.