more dogs than cats
PAWS
c) there are more households with cats
’N
d) there are more multiple dog households
CLA
WS
CORRECT ANSWER:
a) there are more cats than dogs
In the United States alone, there are more than 90
million cats and close to 75 million dogs. Three quarters of dog owners have only one dog, but cat
households usually have two or more. In Europe, about 47 million cats act superior to 41 million dogs.
Going by the numbers, cats win in most Western
nations, but there are still countries sticking, doggedly, to their canines. Dogs outnumber cats by five to two in Brazil, and in Costa Rica, where most households have a pet, by almost four to one. In Japan, there are about ten dogs for every seven cats, but that could change. Felines are getting more popular all the time. Their numbers have been rising in pet-friendly nations since the mid-1990s, and where cat numbers increase, dog numbers tend to drop.
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IFOs: IDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECTS
A Real Flying Saucer!
What do you get when you combine rumours of alien Q
spaceships in Roswell, New Mexico; a whack of science fiction films; and ongoing media fascination?
You get the UFO craze of the 1950s. Flying saucers captured the imagination of the world, and at least one aeronautical designer. John Frost thought that the disc’s aerodynamic shape would make for the fastest, most maneuverable flying machine ever. He wanted to create the first vertical takeoff aircraft —
in the form of a flying saucer. So, did his idea fly?
What happened to Frost’s flying saucer?
a) Canada’s Defence Department funded its
development.
b) During U.S. military test flights, people mistook it for a UFO.
c) It ended up decorating the roof of a café in Roswell.
d) It flew at 500 km/h (300 mph) at an altitude of 3,000 m (10,000 ft).
61
A Real Flying Saucer!
What happened to Frost’s flying saucer?
A
a) Canada’s Defence Department funded its
development.
b) During U.S. military test flights, people mistook IFOs:
it for a UFO.
IDENTIFIED
c) It ended up decorating the roof of a café in Roswell.
d) It flew at 500 km/h (300 mph) at an altitude of 3,000 m (10,000 ft).
FLYING
CORRECT ANSWER:
OBJECTS
a) Canada’s Defence Department funded its
development.
Canada’s government and Frost’s employer, Avro
Canada, funded his work for the first few years, and after a great sales pitch and demonstration by Frost, the U.S. military decided to invest in his dream. The saucer-shaped Avrocar was supposed to be a flying jeep that would clip along at 500 km/h (300 mph), at an altitude of 3,000 metres (10,000 ft). But $10 million* and two prototypes later, it only managed a tenth of that speed, and if it reached “altitudes”
higher than 1 metre (3 ft), it became unstable. All the backers lost interest, and the top-secret flying saucer project, underway near Toronto, Canada, was
grounded for good in 1961.
* If you account for inflation, $10 million is about $68 million today.
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Flying Pie Tins
A frisbie by any other name is a flying disc, and the Q
very first frisbies were metal pie tins. About 125 years ago, William Russell Frisbie’s bakery supplied pies to universities in the northeastern U.S., and because IFOs:
video games hadn’t been invented yet, students flew IDENTIFIED
the empty metal pie tins for fun. They were the only frisbies you could get for the next 60 years or so, until two guys in California, Warren Franscioni and Walt Morrison, came up with a revolutionary flying disc FLYING
made out of plastic.
OBJECTS
What were their flying discs called?
a) Flyin’ Saucers
b) Frisbees
c) Pluto Platters
d) Martian Flyers
63
Flying Pie Tins
What were their flying discs called?
A
a) Flyin’ Saucers
b) Frisbees
c) Pluto Platters
IFOs:
d) Martian