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You run into an old friend, an astronomer, and she tells you her marriage has gone sour. "Joe and I make love now only once in a blue moon. And I mean that literally." From this, how cold would you say their lovebed has grown?
"Once in a blue moon" -- a phrase that has been around at least 400 years, according to folklorist Philip Hiscock--has at least two common meanings: One is the second full moon occurring in a calendar month, which happens roughly once every three years. The other meaning signifies an actual bluing of the moon's (or sun's) appearance. Ordinarily the moon looks white or yellow, or maybe orange or red when low in the sky. But blue moons are rare indeed--brought on by particles of volcanic dust or forest fire ash being released into the atmosphere. These particles, to cause bluing, must be of a certain rare critical size, as occurred in 1950 in Alberta, Canada when airborne oil droplets from forest fires blued the moon as far away as Scotland. Either way, you can assume your friend's marriage bed needs some heavy stoking.

Never seen a UFO? Are you in the mood for seeing one tonight?
Try this: In a dark room, stare at the glowing tip of a cigarette in an ashtray a distance from you. Within seconds, it will begin moving around--or seem to--as your eye muscles grow tired from fixating too long on one spot. "It will appear to wander around erratically, swooping in different directions or oscillating back and forth," says Ronald K. Siegel in "Fire in the Brain: Clinical Tales of Hallucination." With proper suggestions, the light can appear to move several feet. Despite such movements, the light always comes back to its original position. Now go outdoors and stare a while at a solitary star and watch it begin to move around (the "wandering star illusion"). Or pick out an unidentified colored light far off near the dark horizon. In a suitably suggestible mood, you may soon witness your own UFO visitation.

For you sexual literati, what's the "Coolidge effect"?
The story goes that when U.S. President Calvin Coolidge's wife spotted a rooster mating repeatedly, she said to her guide, "Tell Mr. Coolidge about that." When informed of the remark, her husband asked: "Was this always with the same hen?" Told that it wasn't, he retorted: "Tell that to Mrs. Coolidge." Thus the "Coolidge effect"--a biological fact--refers to the extra stimulative power of a novel mate for humans as well as other species.

It stands 100 feet taller than Niagara Falls, weighs as much as 1500 midsize cars, and was already 2,000 years old when Columbus set sail. It is still alive and growing. What is it?
A sequoia tree named the "General Sherman," located in the Giant Grove of Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Park in California. A seedling around the time of the Roman Empire, it is now the largest plant on Earth, report Neil Campbell, et al, in "Biology: Concepts and Connections." Sequoias were cut down during the heyday of lumbering last century, when a single tree yielded prime boards sufficient for about 50 houses..

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