"Despite claims of 90% validity by polygraph advocates, the National Research Council has found no evidence of effectiveness. ... A polygraph cannot differentiate anxiety caused by dishonesty and anxiety caused by something else." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygraph#Effectiveness
So many police techniques - bite mark analysis, arson detection, bullet led analysis, and even fingerprint matching - have proven more questionable than the practitioners of the field suggest. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forensic_science#Questionable_techniques

Lee Majors will always be my Fall Guy.

Franzified, I think you are turning into your parents. ☺︎ I mean, as a kid in the 1980s I remember adults asking why the kids these days were buying distressed or acid-washed jeans, and couldn't understand why anyone would buy jeans with holes already in them. So this seems like more of the same.

We had aircraft carriers by the end of the 1920s, which I assume could carry planes to the middle of the ocean.

Sure. I've been to the Blue Lagoon too. For that matter, manatees in Florida thrive in power plant wastewater, to the point that losing those plants might be a problem - https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060031090 .

Not just the Romans! Urine use for tanning and fulling (cleaning wool) was widespread. Starting around the Renaissance, urine was used to make saltpeter, essential for the gunpower used in centuries of wars. For example, saltpetermen would come to dig saltpeter from under the barn where the animals peed (and everywhere else with nitrated earth, under protection of the crown). Urine from beer and wine drinkers was in demand because it was thought to produce better yields. There's even a story during the US Civil war when Jonathan Haralson, Agent Nitre and Mining Bureau, asked the "ladies of Selma ... to preserve the chamber lye to be collected for the purpose of making nitre. A barrel will be sent around daily to collect it." Leading Northerners to write a ditty to the tune of "O Tannenbaum": "Jon Haralson, Jon Haralson—you are a wretched creature; You’ve added to this bloody war a new and useful feature. / You’d have us think, while every man is bound to be a fighter, / The Ladies, bless the pretty dears, should save their pee for nitre."

"It's a Southern Thing" did a skit about 6 types of Back-to-School Moms. #6 was "The Stay At Home" Mom - https://youtu.be/jGoFVcUGyLQ?t=64 - spoofing Risky Business.

I went to North Dakota to see the giant buffalo statue in Jamestown. As a bonus, I drove through Strasburg, birth town of Lawrence Welk and his drummer Johnny Klein. In Idaho I visited Craters of the Moon Nat'n Park ]to see the lava tubes, and drove through Arco, the "first community in the world ever to be lit by electricity generated solely by nuclear power." In Liberal, Kansas I visited Dorthy's house (of Oz fame) and the Mid-America Air Museum. In Mississippi ... I bought gas in Biloxi.

There's the old joke about a drink named the Canadian screwdriver. It's Canadian Whiskey + orange juice, also called a Robertson.

As I recall, flamingos are notable for having a sizeable tongue, for a bird, which evolved from this form of eating. They were considered delicacies in Roman times. For details consult https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Flamingo%27s_Smile, which is where I learned it from.