March 15th (Ides of March) this year marks the 2050th anniversary of Caesar's death. An MIT chemistry professor calculated that when Caesar exhaled for the last time, he released 05x6x10 to the power 23 molecules of carbon dioxide.

Over the years, a number of scholars have tried to figure out what typically would happen to all those molecules. They figured some were absorbed by plants, some by animals, some by water -- and a large portion would float free and spread themselves all around the globe in a pattern so predictable that (this is the fun part) if you take a deep breath right now, at least one of the molecules entering your lungs literally came from Caesar's last breath.

I sent the story above (from NPR Morning Edition) around this morning to a few friends. AAS wrote back:

"Truly fascinating. It reminds me of the fact that every male that ever lived has a Y that came from Prophet Adam (though some mutations may have rarely occurred along the way )"