FORT MYERS, Fla. - When Mark McGwire emerged from the visitor's dugout at Hammond Park one recent afternoon, he found red-clad fans lined up five deep in the nearby stands.

They held balls, shirts and posters commemorating McGwire's 70-homer season. They yelled out "Big Mac" and thanked him after he spent several minutes signing.

Used to be, you had to wait for the entire bracket to come out before the first complaint was registered. In the world of Twitter, however, it only took about two minutes after his team's name popped up Sunday before Tennessee coach Bruce Pearl was quoted by Mike Griffith of the Knoxville News-Sentinel.

The Founding Fathers thought the census important enough to mention high up in the Constitution, the fifth paragraph. They commanded an "actual Enumeration," a term that literalists insist means a physical headcount and rules such shortcuts as statistical sampling.

In the long evolution of reptiles, the venomous rattlesnakes and their ilk have developed a highly sensitive way to spot prey and flee from predators: They carry tiny infrared detectors on the sides of their heads that instantly sense the heat of warm-blooded animals nearby.

Dear Helaine and Joe: I've enclosed photographs of a green glass bowl with no markings on the bottom and a porcelain bird -- a North African hoopoe. I am curious about them. Do you have any ideas about their origins and values? -- C.B., e-mail

Minerva Hernandez has waited a long time for a visit from an old friend.

It's unlikely that promise will ever be fulfilled.

Hernandez's friend at that time, almost a decade ago, was Colleen LaRose, and she's now behind bars in the Philadelphia area, awaiting arraignment Thursday in federal court on terrorism charges.