Scrabble number and other trivia

A short collection of interesting facts:

The only number that, when spelled in Scrabble letters, produces a score that is equal to it is TWELVE.

There are only five countries that end in the letter L: Israel, Brazil, Nepal, Senegal and Portugal.

J is the only letter that does not appear in the Periodic Table.

Seething mass

I have long described life, including every emotion and event, as a seething mass of chemicals. Now while reading my early, reviewer's copy of The Shaking Woman by Siri Hustvedt, I find that Francis Crick, in his book The Astonishing Hypothesis put what I think is the same idea in a slightly different way:

"You, your joys, your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules."

What great stuff. It sends shivers down my spine.