Word: platypus
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...women rarely exercised to keep themselves in shape or style. Too often they simply mutilated their bodies. For a thousand years Chinese women bound their feet so tightly that a natural "high heel" was formed, and toes were twisted irreversibly under the arch; African women used discs to form platypus lips; in Burma, tribeswomen encircled their necks with so many heavy metal rings that the vertebrae would separate. In the early 19th century, English fashion in female bodies was ethereal, emaciated; a tubercular fragility was considered attractive. Women subsisted on a diet of vinegar and belladonna to achieve...
...most of all, their German shepherds, Bob and Stan. Dogs are a major topic of Letterman's comedy, and absence from Bob and Stan may help drive Letterman and Late Night to California. For now, though, there is plenty to smile about-and Letterman does, with his patented platypus grin. "I just want to make the show as playful as possible," he says. And why not? Hey folks, it's only Network Television...
...their time, for 115 million years, until the disappearance of dinosaurs and other reptiles allowed them to evolve thousands of different shapes and sizes. Significantly, the Arizona find adds a third major branch of mammals to the two that had previously been identified: one resulted in the egg-laying platypus and the spiny anteater of today; the other led to all modern animals that produce live young. The new branch may have been a zoological dead end, but its discovery illustrates the extraordinary precariousness and complexity of the evolutionary process...