When she got behind the wheel in...

When she got behind the wheel in Warsaw in the 1980s, a nun named Sister Pauline gave her title of Mother Superior new meaning. She was the chauffeur for then-opposition leader Lech Walesa, who called on her to get him quickly to secret meetings. “Despite being pursued by the secret police� and showing “great reflexes and daredevil skills,� the nun continually “managed to shake off the tail,� declared a statement at a ceremony in the Polish capital, where Walesa, now Poland’s president, gave her a new car.

Oops: Television cameras rolled in Denver last week as the proud vet prepared to implant into a beaver a device to prevent conception. The critters were a growing nuisance in a Denver suburb, gnawing trees and burrowing under paths. But now that beaver probably considers vet David Robinson a nuisance, because just before the animal went under the knife, the doctor took one last look and said: “It’s a male.� The beaver reduction program was called off.

New View: Feminist Gloria Steinem used to think of herself as “a plump brunette from Toledo, too tall and much too pudding-faced.� Then she saw herself on television for the first time. “There was this thin, pretty, blondish woman of medium height . . . It was a shock . . . Where had this woman on television come from?� Steinem, 57, writes in her new book, “Revolution From Within.�

Clean Your Plate: Scientists at Iowa State University want you to eat everything on your plate and then eat the plate. They are poring over gobs of a substance made of corn starch and corn or soy protein that looks like plastic and turning it into edible spoons, plates and cups. “Our ultimate goal is that your picnic plate will become your dessert in strawberry flavor or chocolate flavor,� said professor Jay-lin Jane. “We’ll leave it up to someone else to come up with the flavors.�