Word: batting
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...ever a creature seemed conjured by the forces of darkness, it is the bat. With webbed wings and feral face, the furry little beast appears to be the offspring of some monstrous union of bird and rodent. Over the years, legend has had it that bats are filthy and nasty (they feed on human blood) and that they possess spooky supernatural powers (they shift shape from bat to man). No wonder they have been a motif of countless horror tales and films...
This image, however, is the product of imaginative folklore, stubborn myth and terrible p.r. The bat, say scientists, is actually one of nature's most dazzling and precious creations. Today researchers are striving to correct common misapprehensions about them--and racing to save them from extinction. Last week in Boston, the largest ever convocation of bat experts met to trade new findings from the weird and wonderful world of bats. Among recent discoveries...
While most species of bats live in vast colonies in caves or trees, some nest in spider webs; others fashion "tents" out of leaves. In southern India, for example, the male short-nosed fruit bat spends as long as two months painstakingly chewing the veins of leaves and palm fronds until they collapse into a shelter that will house him and a harem of as many as 20 females...
...White Sox wasn't listening. The slugging first baseman left the All-Star Game after the fourth inning to catch a plane back to Chicago for a game the next night. Granted, he hit a two-run homer in the fourth, but the AL could still have used his bat, and besides, many players who had games the next day stayed...
...colonists arrived. Herb gardeners can choose from 10 different kinds of basil, including licorice. Others want to plant "wild gardens" that are designed to provide food for critters. And there are ways to make more critters part of natural dacor: the Sharper Image catalog offers three different sizes of bat houses built of red cedar. The company claims each bat will consume up to 600 mosquitoes an hour; the biggest bat house will accommodate 100 bats. "You might not believe it," says Sharper Image's director of marketing Brian Peck, "but we sell a significant number of these...