Sassafras, sometimes called white sassafras, is well known for its aromatic properties.  The leaves and bark both have a slightly citrus scent, while the roots have a strong root-beer odor.  It is from these roots that root beer was historically produced by early colonists.  The roots were boiled with molasses, and then allowed to ferment, until a distinctive soft drink was produced.  Sassafras tea is another popular drink that is steeped from the bark of the tree and served as a "soothing drink", or a "spring tonic".  In England, the tea is mixed with milk and sugar to make saloop, a popular morning beverage.  Herbalists use sassafras for a variety of medicinal uses.  It is said to have value as a stimulant, pain reliever, astringent and treatment for rheumatism.  In addition to medicinal uses, sassafras wood, bark and roots produce an extract (oil of sassafras) that is useful in flavorings, or in perfumes and scented soaps.  A yellow dye is also extracted from the trees.  The crushed leaves were used by colonists to thicken soups and stews.  Sassafras wood is very durable and is used to make buckets, barrels, poles, posts, and crossties.  It is also used in interior cabinetry.  Sassafras is found throughout the eastern and southern United States and into Mexico. It
ranges as far west as Texas and Iowa.   The leaves are simple, alternately arranged and may be of three types, mitten-shaped, lobed, or obovate-elliptical.  See pictures at:  http://www.sfrc.ufl.edu/4h/Sassafras/sassafra.htm

Dec. 27, 2012  The American Folk Art Museum  in New York , in addition to having to sell its showcase building— and move back into its smaller space--apparently agreed yesterday to forfeit some 210 objects it had been promised by longtime benefactor Ralph Esmerian, “the former jewelry dealer who last year was sentenced to a six-year prison term on wire fraud and other charges.”  The works, not yet in the museum’s legal possession (though some seem to have been on view), would be lost as part of a deal to settle bankruptcy claims.  The Wall Street Journal says that “the trustee for the case and the museum negotiated a settlement in which the museum would keep 53 of the 263 promised gifts.  On Dec. 26, the trustee filed a motion in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York to approve the settlement.  A call to the trustee was not returned.”  But the WSJ says that museum officials chose the 53 items they were able to keep, with the rest likely going up for sale at auction.  “These 53 were the most important to the museum because they would enhance the collection,” said Ms. [Barbara] Livenstein, [the spokeswoman].  “We were eager to arrive at this compromise and get it behind us.”  If the settlement is approved, the museum will be able to keep items like the 1848 painting “Situation of America,” which is currently on view in the museum’s exhibition at the South Street Seaport Museum.  High-quality examples of folk art genres such as needlework, fraktur (handwritten manuscripts) and scrimshaw, as well as portraits and sculptures, will also be retained.  http://www.artsjournal.com/realcleararts/2012/12/glad-to-leave-2012-behind-the-american-folk-art-museum.html

Revelers began celebrating New Year's Eve in Times Square as early as 1904, but it was in 1907 that the New Year's Eve Ball made its maiden descent from the flagpole atop One Times Square.  Seven versions of the Ball have been designed to signal the New Year.  The first New Year's Eve Ball, made of iron and wood and adorned with one hundred 25-watt light bulbs, was 5 feet in diameter and weighed 700 pounds.  The Ball has been lowered every year since 1907, with the exceptions of 1942 and 1943, when the ceremony was suspended due to the wartime "dimout" of lights in New York City.  Nevertheless,
the crowds still gathered in Times Square in those years and greeted the New Year with a minute of silence followed by the ringing of chimes from sound trucks parked at the base of the tower - a harkening-back to the earlier celebrations at Trinity Church, where crowds would gather to "ring out the old, ring in the new."  In 1920, a 400 pound ball made entirely of wrought iron replaced the original.  In 1955, the iron ball was replaced with an aluminum ball weighing a mere 200 pounds.  This aluminum Ball remained unchanged until the 1980s, when red light bulbs and the addition of a green stem converted the Ball into an apple for the "I Love New York" marketing campaign from 1981 until 1988.  After seven years, the traditional glowing white Ball with white light bulbs and without the green stem returned to brightly light the sky above Times Square.  In 1995, the Ball was upgraded with aluminum skin, rhinestones, strobes, and computer controls, but the aluminum ball was lowered for the last time in 1998.  For Times Square 2000, the millennium celebration at the Crossroads of the World, the New Year's Eve Ball was completely redesigned by Waterford Crystal.  The crystal Ball combined the latest in technology with the most traditional of materials, reminding us of our past as we gazed into the future and the beginning of a new millennium.  The ball is now on display at the Times Square Museum & Visitor Center.  On November 11th, 2008, the co-organizers of New Year’s Eve in Times Square, Times Square Alliance and Countdown Entertainment, unveiled a new Times Square New Year’s Eve Ball.  The Ball is now a year-round attraction above Times Square in full public view January through December. 
http://www.timessquarenyc.org/events/new-years-eve/about-the-new-years-eve-ball/history-of-the-new-years-eve-ball/index.aspx

Central America (Spanish: América Central or Centroamérica) is the central geographic region of the Americas.  It is the southernmost, isthmian portion of the North American continent, which connects with South America on the southeast.  Central America consists of seven countries:  Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama.  It is bordered by Mexico to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the east, the North Pacific Ocean to the west, and Colombia to the south-east.  Central America is an area of 524,000 square kilometers (202,000 sq mi), or almost 0.1% of the Earth's surface.  
As of 2009, its population was estimated at 41,739,000.  It has a density of 77 people per square kilometer.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_America

The population density (people per sq. km) in the United States was last reported at 33.82 in 2010, according to a World Bank report published in 2012.  Population density is midyear population divided by land area in square kilometers.  Population is based on the de facto definition of population, which counts all residents regardless of legal status or citizenship--except for refugees not permanently settled in the country of asylum, who are generally considered part of the population of their country of origin.  Land area is a country's total area, excluding area under inland water bodies, national claims to continental shelf, and exclusive economic zones.  In most cases the definition of inland water bodies includes major rivers and lakes.  http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/population-density-people-per-sq-km-wb-data.html

A Lingua Ignota (Latin for "unknown language") was described by the 12th century abbess of Rupertsberg, Hildegard of Bingen, who apparently used it for mystical purposes.  To write it, she used an alphabet of 23 letters, the litterae ignotae.  She partially described the language in a work titled Lingua Ignota per simplicem hominem Hildegardem prolata, which survived in two manuscripts, both dating to ca. 1200, the Wiesbaden Codex and a Berlin MS.  The text is a glossary of 1011 words in Lingua Ignota, with glosses mostly in Latin, sometimes in German; the words appear to be a priori coinages, mostly nouns with a few adjectives.  Grammatically it appears to be a partial relexification of Latin, that is, a language formed by substituting new vocabulary into an existing grammar.  The purpose of Lingua Ignota is unknown; nor do we know who besides its creator was familiar with it. 
See image of Hildegard's alphabet at:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingua_Ignota

"More than nine hundred languages have been invented since Lingua Ignota, and almost all have foundered."  In 2004, John Quijada published "Ithkuil:  A Philosophical Design for a Hypothetical Language, a fourteen-page Web site. 
Read the story, Utopian for Beginners, in The New Yorker, Dec. 24 & 31, 2012