A woman announces to her friend that she is getting married for the fourth time.
"How wonderful! But I hope you don't mind me asking what happened to your first husband?"
"He ate poisonous mushrooms and died."
"Oh, how tragic! What about your second husband?"
"He ate poisonous mushrooms too and died."
"Oh, how terrible! I'm almost afraid to ask you about your third husband."
"He died of a broken neck."
"A broken neck?"
"He wouldn't eat the mushrooms."
Percy L. JulianDied 19 Apr 1975 at age 76 (born 11 Apr 1899).African-American chemist, whose 100 patents include the synthesis of cortisone, hormones, and other products from soybeans. He isolated from plants simple compounds and investigated how they were naturally altered into chemicals essential to life, including vitamins and hormones; then he attempted to create the compounds artificially. Early in his career he synthesized physostigmine, a glaucoma drug. A refined soya protein was the basis of Aero-Foam, a foam fire extinguisher used by the U.S. Navy in WW II. His efforts led to quantity production of the hormones progesterone (female), testosterone (male) and cortisone drugs. In 1950, his home in an all-white suburb was bombed and burned.« |
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