Yesterday a Fox TV affiliate in Kansas City reported that a woman who was handed a piece of paper by a male stranger at a local gas station began to feel light-headed and nearly passed out as she was driving away. "Little did the woman know," the report said, "there was something on the paper that made her feel ill."

The scenario is reminiscent of a forwarded email tale about a woman in Texas who accepted a business card from a stranger and experienced similar symptoms. The card was supposedly laced with a powerful intoxicant known as "burundanga." The drug is known to have been used by criminals in South America to incapacitate their victims, though not, in any documented instances, by means of tainted slips of paper or business cards. Email rumors notwithstanding, I have yet to hear of a confirmed case of burundanga assault in the United States.

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We sing the praises of Otto Titzling, whose revolutionary "chest halter" of a century ago paved the way for the mighty Wonder Bra of today. History tells us Titzling's achievement went unappreciated in his own time, thanks largely to the machinations of his arch rival, one Philippe de Brassiere.

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Today marks the 76th anniversary of the death of Prohibition-era gangster John Dillinger. Is it true that his private parts are on display in a jar of formaldehyde at the Smithsonian Institution?

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According to an old wives' tale dating at least as far back as the 18th century, the small, pincered insect known as the earwig earned its name by crawling into people's ears and boring into their brains, causing madness and even death.

Fact or fiction?