Word: curious
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...French Presidents like to leave monuments behind them, preferably in Paris, as a proof of their passage. But no President de la Republique since World War II showed a more recklessly phara- onic commitment to changing the face of Paris than Pompidou. By a curious irony, the political consequences of this urge are what saved the Gare d'Orsay. Pompidou had ordered the razing and redevelopment of the vast central food market known as Les Halles -- Zola's "belly of Paris." The market, which had formed a bolus of stalled, honking traffic, was shifted to Rungis, near Orly Airport...
Women who work or live together tend to get their menstrual cycles in sync. That curious phenomenon, known for years by scientists and many ordinary folk, has long been suspected as an indication that humans, like insects and some mammals, communicate subtly by sexual aromas known as pheromones. Last week Philadelphia researchers weighed in with two reports showing that scents, including underarm odors, do indeed affect menstrual cycles...
...reformers, mostly doctors and other upper-crust male professionals. The idea, the only idea, was to enforce sexual restraint. Reformers believed that enlightened mass education could help banish venereal disease, prostitution, masturbation and sex outside marriage. The notion of "scientific" sex education arose as a way of deflecting the curious from actual sexual behavior. Instruction, said a 1912 committee, "should aim to keep sex consciousness and sex emotions at the minimum." Then, as now, there were heavy implications that parents, particularly impoverished ones, could not be counted on to teach restraint to the young...
...they head home for Britain, T & D, as the English press calls them, will be as familiar to many Americans as AT&T. To those who watched the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo, they already are. Scoring two perfect sixes, they won the gold medal and virtually reconstructed that curious hybrid -- half sport, half art -- called ice dancing...
...Sherlock Holmes noted in the curious case of the dog that did not bark in the night, the most important deductions involve things that did not happen. The fact that voters did not make it a referendum on Reagan's record indicated that his personal popularity does not transfer to his policies. The fact that they did not vote along party lines dispelled Republican hopes that certain regions and voting blocs would become part of a fundamental realignment from the Democrats to the G.O.P. The fact that national issues played little role was a sign that while voters...