1. Literacy opened up entire realms of verifiable knowledge to ordinary men and women having been previously considered incapable of discerning truth for themselves.

2. ln early Mesopotamian civilization, castor oil served not only as a laxative, but also a skin-softening lotion and it was a construction lubricant for sliding giant stone blocks over wooden rollers.

3. An analysis of tree bark all over the globe shows that chemical insecticides have often spread thousands of miles from where they were originally used.

4. Consumers may not think of household cleaning products to be hazardous substances, but many of them can be harmful to health, especially if they are used improperly.

5. According to the Economic Development Corporation of Los Angeles County, if one were to count the Los Angeles metropolitan area as a separate nation, it would have the world’s eleventh largest gross national product, that is bigger than that of Australia, Mexico, or the Netherlands.

6. lnitiated five centuries after Europeans arrived in the New World on Columbus Day 1992, Project SETI pledged a $100 million investment in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.

7. According to some economists, the July decrease in unemployment so that it was the lowest in two years suggests that the gradual improvement in the job market is continuing.

8. Developed by Pennsylvania’s Palatine Germans about 1750, Conestoga wagons, with high wheels capable of crossing rutted roads, muddy flats, and the nonroads of the prairie and they had a floor curved upward on either end so as to prevent cargo from shifting on steep grades.

9. The Baldrick Manufacturing Company has for several years followed a policy aimed at decreasing operating costs and improving the efficiency of its distribution system.

10. Some buildings that were destroyed and heavily damaged in the earthquake last year were constructed in violation of the city’s building code.