1,001 Facts that Will Scare the S#*t Out of You
Page 12
“Lightning Safety,” National Weather Service, www.lightningsafety.noaa.gov.
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FACT : Each year about fifty to seventy confirmed shark attacks and five to fifteen sharkattack fatalities occur around the world. Numbers are on the rise. I’m wondering what makes for an unconfirmed shark attack. If a person has a huge chunk of meat ripped out of his ass, does anyone really suspect a sea bass?
Brian Handwerk, “Shark Facts: Attack Stats, Record Swims, More,” National Geographic News, June 13, 2005, www.news.nationalgeographic.com.
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FACT : Collisions with motor vehicles cause over 90 percent of deaths from bicycle-related injuries. And it’s not the people in the motor vehicles who die, in case you were wondering.
“Bicycle Injury: A Nationwide Problem,” Alaska Department of Transportation, August 2003, www.dot.alaska.gov.
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FACT : Over 400,000 children go to the emergency room for bicycle-related injuries each year; children account for 70 percent of all bike injuries treated. Clowns, monkeys, Shriners, and village idiots account for the rest.
“Bicycle Injury: A Nationwide Problem,” Alaska Department of Transportation, August 2003, www.dot.alaska.gov.
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FACT : There were 850 hunting accidents in this country in 2002, more than 10 percent of them fatal. Beer + redneck + loaded weapon ‚ “accident.”
“IHEA Hunting Statistics,” Hunting for Tomorrow, December 10, 2005, www.huntingfortomorrow.com.
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FACT : In 2008, a seventeen-year-old boy was killed at Six Flags Over Georgia amusement park after being decapitated by a roller coaster. The teen and a friend had climbed over two well-marked six-foot security fences as a short-cut into the park when the victim was struck. Six Flags’ “No cutting in line” policy is a bit more strict than most amusement parks.
“Boy Decapitated by Roller Coaster at Six Flags Over Georgia,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, June 29, 2008, www.ajc.com.
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FACT : At the Middle Tennessee District Fair in Lawrenceburg, a sixty-year-old woman was severely injured when she fell thirty feet from the top of a ferris wheel and landed on the spokes close to the center wheel axle. Witnesses told investigators that the woman was standing up and waving right before she fell from the gondola. I bet she saw a guy selling cotton candy and was trying to get his attention.
“Woman, 60, in Critical Condition after Fall from Ferris Wheel,” RideAccidents.com, September 28, 2007, www.rideaccidents.com.
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FACT : A thirty-two-year-old woman fell from a roller coaster at Holiday World & Splashin’ Safari theme park in Santa Claus, Indiana in 2003 and was killed. The equipment malfunctioned at the highest point of the roller coaster, when riders feel the most “air time,” or zero-gravity feeling as a roller coaster train crests a hill. The victim fell from the last seat of the train car and plunged sixty to eighty feet to her death. You’d think nothing bad could happen in a town called Santa Claus. You’d be wrong.
“Woman, 32, Killed in Fall from Roller Coaster at Holiday World,” RideAccidents.com, May 31, 2003, www.rideaccidents.com.
CHAPTER 8
Let Me
Hear Your
Potty Talk
The Straight
Poop on
Going to the
Bathroom
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FACT : The germs on your fingers double after using the toilet, but almost 50 percent of men and 25 percent of women do not wash their hands after going to the bathroom. That’s why they call bowls of loose candy in restaurants and offices “fecal mints.”
Katy Holland and Sarah Jarvis, Children’s Health for Dummies (For Dummies, 2006).
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FACT : Simply washing your hands with soap and water after going to the bathroom reduces the spread of diarrheal diseases by almost half. The simple act of diarrhea is enough to convince me to wash my hands with soap.
“Poo Facts,” Poo Productions Advocacy Group, www.pooproductions.org.
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FACT : Flushing the toilet can propel small drops of aerosolized fecal matter through the air as far as twenty feet, potentially landing on every surface in your bathroom. Studies have found feces on faucets, sinks, counters, combs, brushes and toothbrushes. Reminds me of the time I ate some of those fat-free potato chips with olestra. Propel is not even close to describing what my ass did.
Philip M. Tierno, The Secret Life of Germs: What They Are, Why We Need Them, and How We Can Protect Ourselves Against Them (Simon & Schuster, 2004), 92.
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FACT : Some intestinal viruses can remain in the air after you defecate and flush the toilet, and can cause infection if inhaled or swallowed. Why are you inhaling anyway? You like that smell? I hold my breath until I can get the hell out of Dodge.
J. Barker and M.V. Jones, “The Potential Spread of Infection Caused by Aerosol Contamination of Surfaces after Flushing a Domestic Toilet,” Department of Pharmaceutical and Biological Sciences, School of Life and Health Sciences, Aston University, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.
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FACT : In a humid environment like a bathroom, a single bacterial cell can multiply into 1 billion cells overnight. I imagine all that floating, flying feces doesn’t help, either.
Philip M. Tierno, The Secret Life of Germs: What They Are, Why We Need Them, and How We Can Protect Ourselves Against Them (Simon & Schuster, 2004), 92.
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FACT : Forty percent of the world’s people have no toilet, and must use the bathroom in any public place they can find: bushes, roadsides, alleys, etc. Roadsides sound especially fun. “Dad, can I borrow the car? I wanna go out to U.S.-1 and take a shit.”
Rose George, The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters (St. Martin’s Press, 2008).
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FACT : Lack of sanitation and access to a toilet isn’t just a Third World problem: 1.7 million people in the United States have inadequate or no means of safe disposal of waste. Inadequate? There’s no place inadequate for a quick potty break when you really gotta go.
Rose George, The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters (St. Martin’s Press, 2008).
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FACT : Feces in the water supply cause 10 percent of the world’s communicable diseases. On a moonless night, a well can easily be mistaken for a latrine.
Rose George, The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters (St. Martin’s Press, 2008).
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FACT : People often fart shortly after they die. Is this what they mean by a “death rattle”?
“Facts On Farts,” SmellyPoop.com, www.smellypoop.com.
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FACT : Lack of clean water and improper disposal of human waste contribute to the spread of numerous preventable diseases, including typhoid, cholera, and dysentery, which take the lives of thousands of children each day. So please stop crapping on playgrounds and in the foam ball cage at Chuck E. Cheese’s.
“Poo Facts,” Poo Productions Advocacy Group, www.pooproductions.org.
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FACT : Safe disposal of children’s feces can reduce childhood diarrhea by as much as 40 percent. A few years back I took my dogs for a hike. One of them went off the trail to sniff around and started wallowing in something on the ground. When the dog returned, he stank of what I assumed to be deer feces. We hiked on and the trail curved around by the spot where my dog had wallowed, so I glanced over . . . and saw a big pile of used toilet paper. That was not safe disposal
of feces.
“Poo Facts,” Poo Productions Advocacy Group, www.pooproductions.org.
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FACT : The most germ-laden place on your toilet isn’t the seat or even the bowl: it’s the handle. The solution: don’t flush. Let the next guy worry about it.
“The Truth about the Toilet,” Clorox.com, www.clorox.com.
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FACT : Some major world cities remain disturbingly behind the times when it comes to sanitation. Milan, Italy, one of the fashion centers of the world, continued to dump raw, dangerous sewage into the Lambro River until the city built its first treatment plant in 2005, spurred by the threat of a $15-million-a-day fine from the European Union. And you thought Venice smelled bad.
Rose George, The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters (St. Martin’s Press, 2008).
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FACT : Brussels, Belgium, seat of the European Union, dumped human waste into the Senne River until completion of a water treatment plant in 2003. All those Europeans were a-peein’ directly into the Senne.
Rose George, The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters (St. Martin’s Press, 2008).
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FACT : When you pee, a small amount of urine enters your mouth through the saliva glands. Which I suppose is better than urine entering your mouth any other way.
Greta Garbage, That’s Disgusting: An Adult Guide to What’s Gross, Tasteless, Rude, Crude, and Lewd (Ten Speed Press, 1999).
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366
FACT : Urine with a sweet odor can indicate that blood sugar is being excreted, a warning sign for diabetes. The smell is also caused by starvation and ketonuria, a result of excessive dieting. I don’t think starving people are too concerned about the smell of their pee.
Sally Wadyka, “What Your Urine is Telling You About Your Health,” MSN Health & Fitness, www.health.msn.com.
FACT : If you see blood in your urine, consult a doctor right away. It is most likely the sign of a urinary tract infection, but can also indicate bladder cancer. Yes, see a doctor right away—after you regain consciousness, that is.
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Sally Wadyka, “What Your Urine is Telling You About Your Health,” MSN Health & Fitness, www.health.msn.com.
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FACT : Holding in urine too long puts you at risk of death from hyponatremia, also called “water intoxication,” the result of consuming more water than your body can regulate. In 2007, a twenty-eight-year-old woman died of hyponatremia during a “Hold Your Wee for a Wii” contest sponsored by a local radio station in Sacramento, California. Well, her New Year’s resolution was to drink more water.
Tom Zeller Jr., “Too High a Price for a Wii,” The Lede— New York Times, January 15, 2007, http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com.
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369
FACT : Harvard researcher Dr. Marsha Moses is studying the possibility of using a simple urine test to detect breast cancer and predict its aggressiveness. Moses recommends that doctors look for the protein ADAM 12 in patients’ urine, as increasing amounts indicate cancer growth. Doctors should also check for the Dragnet protein and the CHiPs protein, an indicator of Poncharello’s disease.
William J. Cromie, “Urine test tracks deadly birthmarks,” Harvard University Gazette, February 24, 2005, www.harvardscience.harvard.edu.
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370
FACT : Red urine can indicate diabetic nephropathy, papillary renal cell carcinoma, or aloe poisoning.
It can also be a sign that you ate too many beets, or a side effect of taking certain prescription drugs. If you eat enough beets to turn your pee red, you might be a rabbit.
Consult your local veterinarian.
“Causes of Red urine,” Wrong-Diagnosis.com, March 17, 2009, www.wrongdiagnosis.com.
Ruth Woodrow, Essentials of Pharmacology for Health Occupations, 4th ed. (Cengage Learning, 2001), 247.
Joseph T. DiPiro and others, Pharmacotherapy: A Patho-physiologic Approach, 7th ed. (McGraw-Hill Professional, 2008), 84.
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FACT : Black urine can be a sign that you have alkaptonuria, a rare hereditary condition that causes pee to turn pitch black upon exposure to air. Black urine disease can cause arthritis, and can inhibit cardiac, pulmonary, and renal function. Black urine can also inhibit your “not-screaming-like-a-schoolgirl” function.
J. C. Segen, The Dictionary of Modern Medicine (Taylor & Francis, 1992).
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FACT : Green urine can result from infections caused by Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a bacteria found in soil and water. Green urine disease can be fatal if it occurs in the lungs, urinary tract, or kidneys. Exceptions: Kermit The Frog, The Incredible Hulk, leprechauns.
Samer Qarah, “Pseudomonas aeruginosa Infections,” WrongDiagnosis.com, www.wrongdiagnosis.com.
J. C. Segen, The Dictionary of Modern Medicine (Taylor &Francis, 1992).
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373
FACT : A gram of feces contains up to a million bacteria, ten times as many viruses, 100 worm eggs, and 1,000 parasitic cysts. And corn.
Rose George, The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters (St. Martin’s Press, 2008).
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FACT : The average healthy adult expels between 100 and 200 grams—almost half a pound—of feces a day. That sounds low. Did they include vegans? How about John Goodman?
The Merck Manuals Online Medical Library, Merck & Co., www.merck.com.
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FACT : Some experts estimate that people who live without adequate sanitation inadvertently consume ten grams of fecal matter every day, potentially leading to infection, serious illness, and death. So don’t bother telling them to eat shit—they already do.
Rose George, The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters (St. Martin’s Press, 2008).
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FACT : The chemicals indole and skatole, which cause the foul smell of human feces, are used as ingredients in perfume. White Diamonds and Jean Nate in particular.
Shayne C. Gad, Toxicology of the Gastrointestinal Tract (CRC Press, 2007).
Richard Allen Miller and Iona Miller, The Magical and Ritual Use of Perfumes (Inner Traditions, 1990).
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377
FACT : Thin stools can be an indicator of colon cancer or its precursor, polyps in the colon. Or they can simply mean that you are a small dog, like a Chihuahua or a Dachshund.
Sally Wadyka, “What Your Bowel Movements Are Telling You About Your Health,” MSN Health & Fitness, www.health.msn.com.
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FACT : If your stool is pale or grayish, you could have problems somewhere in your digestive tract, such as a blockage in the liver or a pancreatic disorder. Or maybe your stool just needs a little sun. Try shitting on the beach for a week or two and see if that helps.
Sally Wadyka, “What Your Bowel Movements Are Telling You About Your Health,” MSN Health & Fitness, www.health.msn.com.
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FACT : Stool that is black and tar-like can be the harmless result of taking an iron supplement, but can also indicate dangerous bleeding in a higher part of the GI tract, like the stomach or esophagus. Stool that is black and tar-like can make you wish you had a bidet, because TP is powerless against it.