Sports Fact & Book Rec of the Day 2/9/2009

2/9/2002:
Notre Dame defeats Georgetown, 116-111, in quadruple overtime at the MCI Center in the longest and highest-scoring game in Big East Conference history. By the fourth OT, four Georgetown starters have fouled out and the Irish use that edge plus a 64-54 advantage off the boards to finally prevail. Matt Carroll leads Notre Dame with 30 points, while freshman guard Chris Thomas adds 22 points and 12 assists. Excelling in defeat for the Hoyas, Mike Sweetney scores 35 points, grabs 20 rebounds, blocks 6 shots and records 6 assists before fouling out with two minutes left in the fourth OT.

Birthdays:
Dit Clapper b. 1907
Phil Ford b. 1956
Mookie Wilson b. 1956
Vladimir Guerrero b. 1976
Jameer Nelson b. 1982

Packers Fact:
When Green Bay beat Philadelphia 16-13 on Kickoff Weekend in 2007, it marked the 37th time in Brett Favre's career that he had led the Packers to victory after his team was tied or trailing in the fourth quarter.

THE NOSE KNOWS

Chandler Burr, perfume critic for The New York Times, takes as his subject Luca Turin, a maverick biophysicist and lover of scents who develops a theory of smell, a mystery that has spawned a $20-billion-a-year industry and more than a few romances and obsessions over the centuries. Turin was rebuffed, dismissed, even ridiculed at every turn by perfumers and by the scientific community. Burr’s sparkling reporting and Turin’s intriguing personality make wonderful reading. (For more, see Turin’s own book, The Secret of Scent: Adventures in Perfume and the Science of Smell, Ecco, 2006.)

THE EMPEROR OF SCENT: A TRUE STORY OF PERFUME AND OBSESSION, by Chandler Burr (Arrow Books, 2004)

TOILET TECH

Product: Indipod
How it works: First there were car phones, then car DVD players. Now there’s a car toilet. Indipod is a small chemical toilet within an inflatable opaque “bubble,” designed to work inside most SUVs. A fan, powered by the car’s cigarette lighter, inflates the tentlike bubble, creating a private bathroom in the back of the car. Chemicals in the toilet break down waste into a “sweet-smelling” liquid housed in a detachable, disposable container. Bonus: The fan noise masks any . . . um . . . sounds made inside the bubble. The company’s motto: “Freedom to go wherever you want to go.”

A NEWBORN BABY’S HEART HAS THE SAME NUMBER OF CELLS AS AN ADULT’S.

On what about the other 234,693,990?

SEVEN INDONESIANS DO NOT HAVE BIRD FLU

headline in Medical News Today

TORRES DEL PAINE NATIONAL PARK

CHILE

One of nature’s last virtually untrammeled wildernesses, Torres del Paine’s 600,000 acres hold deep lakes, rushing rivers, glaciers, mountains, pampas, and fjords. More than 100 species of native birds are at home there, including the ostrich-like rhea and the fabled Andean condor, with its 12-foot wingspan.