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Weekend


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January 3, 2003

Strange But True!

  • A weekly column of incidental information, off-the-wall observations and other random facts about the world.
    • By BILL SONES and RICH SONES, Ph.D.
    Special to the Journal

    Q. What's the strongest material made by an animal a) turtleshell b) rhino horn c) oyster pearl d) spider silk?

    A. d. The story here begins in old Tombstone days of the Wild West, 1881, when physician George Emery Goodfellow noticed upon examining the body of a man gunned down that his silk handkerchief protruded from the wound, says "Science News." When Goodfellow removed the handkerchief, tugging it through ripped out flesh and broken ribs, there lay the bullet wrapped within the untorn cloth, he wrote in his "Notes on the Impenetrability of Silk to Bullets."


     
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