Strange But True: January 2, 2020

* It was Samuel West, the founder and curator of Sweden's Museum of Failure (which showcases disasters in design and innovation), who made the following sage observation: "Each failure is uniquely spectacular, while success is nauseatingly repetitive."

* Those who study such things say that the earth is more flattened at the South Pole than the North Pole. The weight of all that ice is to blame.

* Clams can live for more than 200 years.

* You know what a mortgage is, but do you know how the word came to the English language? The "mort" should give you a clue. The roots trace all the way back t...