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Vaknin, Sam, 1961-

"The First Book of Factoids"

com/tauranac.htm

Planets
The planets in the solar system rotate anticlockwise, except Venus,
Uranus and Pluto which rotate clockwise. No one knows why.
In the case of Venus, the Sun's gravity may have slowed it down until
its rotational period equalled its orbital period, a situation known
as spin-orbit resonance. It would not account for its retrograde
rotation, though. This may be the outcome of an impact with a large
celestial body. Uranus' strange angle of rotation is almost certainly
due to such a collision - but Venus' unusual direction of spin
requires another explanation.
http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect/solarsys/revolution.html
http://pds.jpl.nasa.gov/planets/welcome.htm
http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/nineplanets/nineplanets/nineplanets.html
Polygamy

Polygamy refers to both polyandry - marrying more than one man - and
polygyny, wedding more than one woman. Hard to believe, but the United
States outlawed polygamy only in 1882.

Humans are not the only polygamous species. The Northern Fur Seal and
the Baikal Seal, for instance, mate with all the females in their
territory.

Examples of polygamous societies include the Kikuyu, Masai and Oromo
in east Africa; Swaziland in southeast Africa; some Native American
tribes (such as the Blackfoot and Illinois); some nations in the
Philippines, Indonesia and Polynesia and, in west Africa, in Cameroon,
Ghana, Mali and Niger; the Mormons in the United States and throughout
the world (though they rarely practice it).


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