Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Extraordinary Book of Facts: And Bizarre Information (Bathroom Readers)
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In ancient China reflective pieces of polished brass were placed over doorknobs so that evil spirits would scare themselves away.
Ben Franklin mounted mirrors outside his second-story window so he could secretly see who was knocking at his front door.
The word mirror comes from the Latin mirari, meaning “to wonder at.” It’s also the root word for miracle and admire.
The world’s largest mirrors sit inside the twin Keck Telescopes—the world’s largest telescopes—at the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii. Each mirror is made of 36 hexagonal segments that work together as a single piece. Diameter: ten meters (32 feet) across.
In olden days some thought that the reflection of the body in a shiny surface or mirror was an expression of the spiritual self, and therefore if anything happened to disturb that reflection, injury would follow. This was the origin of the superstition that breaking a mirror would bring seven years of bad luck.
Trade secret: building managers install mirrors in lobbies because people complain less about waiting for slow elevators when they’re occupied looking at themselves.
In 1994 Russian astronauts orbiting in the Mir spacecraft tried using mirrors to reflect sunlight into northern areas of their country, in an attempt to lengthen the short growing season. It didn’t work.
That’s Rich!
Where was the first U.S. gold rush? Not California—North Carolina, in 1803. (Started when a boy found a 17-pound nugget on his father’s farm.) It supplied all the gold for the nation’s mints until 1829.
It is estimated that only about 100,000 tons of gold have been mined during all of recorded history.
The word garnet comes from the Latin word for pomegranate. (Garnets were thought to resemble pomegranate seeds.)
Rarest gem: Painite, discovered in Burma. Fewer than 10 specimens exist in the world.
The chemical formula for the stone lapis lazuli: (Na,Ca)8 (AlSiO4)6(S,SO4,CI)1-2.
The chemical formula for diamond: C.
The name “turquoise” comes from the fact that it was first brought to Europe from the
Mediterranean by Levantine traders, also known as Turks.
The California gold rush yielded 125 million ounces of gold from 1850 to 1875—more than had been mined in the previous 350 years and worth more than $50 billion today.
Amber gives off static electricity when it’s rubbed. Benjamin Franklin noticed this and so-named the phenomenon after the Greek work for amber: elektron.
Legend says that one day Cupid cut Venus’s fingernails while she was sleeping and left the clippings scattered on the ground. So that no part of Venus would ever disappear, the Fates turned them into stone. The stone: onyx, Greek for “fingernail.”
From 330 B.C. to A.D. 1237, most of the world’s emeralds came from Cleopatra’s mine in Egypt.
The Plant World
Fastest-growing plant on earth: bamboo, which can grow as much as 35 inches a day.
About 45 percent of all prescription drugs contain ingredients originating in the rain forest.
The seed cones of the cycad tree can weigh up to 90 pounds.
The bark of the giant sequoia can be up to two feet thick.
If a plant is native to the Arctic Circle, it doesn’t have thorns.
The potato and the tomato are more closely related than the potato and the sweet potato.
Onions are members of the lily family.
Herbicide use has created at least 48 “superweeds” that are resistant to chemicals.
Coconut shells can absorb more impact than most crash helmets.
The pineapple is neither a pine nor an apple. It’s actually a very big berry.
Seventy-five percent of the trees in Australia are eucalyptus.
That’s Disgusting!
The average human foot has about 20,000 sweat glands and can produce as much as half a cup of sweat each day.
Most people generally fart between 10 and 20 times a day, expelling enough gas to inflate a small balloon.
Cockroaches can flatten themselves almost to the thinness of a piece of paper in order to slide into tiny cracks; they can be frozen for weeks and then thawed with no ill effect; and they can withstand 126 g’s of pressure with no problem (people get squished at 18 g’s).
Most of the dust in your house is made up of dead human skin cells—every day, millions of them float off your body and settle on furniture and floors.
The average municipal water treatment plant processes enough human waste every day to fill 72 Olympic-size swimming pools.
In a survey, 2.1 percent of nose pickers said they did so “for enjoyment.”
According to a survey, over 10 percent of Americans have picked someone else’s nose.
Tears are made up of almost the same ingredients as urine.
Your mouth slows production of bacteria-fighting saliva when you sleep, which allows the 10 billion bacteria in your mouth to reproduce all night; “morning breath” is actually bacterial B.O.
A tapeworm can grow to a length of 30 feet inside human intestines.
The crusty goop you find in your eyes when you wake up is the exact same mucus you find in your nose—boogers.
Spiders don’t eat their prey; they paralyze the victim with venom, vomit a wad of acidic liquid onto them, and then drink the dissolved body.
Safe & Sound
Eighty percent of the deaths that occur in U.S. casinos are caused by “sudden heart attack.”
Murders claimed more American lives during the 20th century than wars did.
The odds of being killed by a bolt of lightning are about the same as those of being killed by falling out of bed.
More people are killed by donkeys every year than are killed in plane crashes.
Top five causes of household accidents: stairs, glass doors, cutlery, jars, power tools (in that order).
Over 2,500 lefties die each year “using products meant for right-handed people.”
In the next seven days, roughly 800 Americans will be injured by their jewelry.
Odds that you’ll be killed by a plane falling from the sky: one in 25 million. Odds that it will happen today: one in 7 trillion.
The four most dangerous steps on most staircases: the two at the top and the two at the bottom.
Since 1950, more than 700 people have been killed by avalanches in the United States.
In 1992, 2,421 people checked into U.S. emergency rooms with injuries involving house plants.
Number of documented deaths-by-piranha in human history: not even one.
You’re more likely to be struck by lightning than to be eaten by a shark.
Down on the Farm
If you pet your pig, it will have a larger litter. Pigs, like people, respond to kindness.
New Zealand sheep outnumber New Zealanders 13 to one.
If a pig is sick it stops curling its tail.
The average cow produces 70,000 glasses of milk in her lifetime.
An adult horse eats 15 pounds of hay and nine pounds of grain every day.
A horse will win a sprint against a camel, but a camel will win a marathon against a horse.
Pound for pound, sheep outeat cows seven to one.
Name for a suckling calf: a bob.
Black sheep have a better sense of smell than white sheep.
Horses can only breathe through their nostrils.
Dumbest farm animal, according to farmers: the turkey.
Elemental Questions
WHAT ELEMENTS MAKE UP A HUMAN BEING? As a child you were told that girls were made of sugar and spice and everything nice, and that boys were made of snips and snails and puppy dog tails, but let’s just say that this list of primary components was, well, a little off. Actually, just six elements comprise 99 percent of the mass of every boy and girl. They are (in order of weight): oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, and phosphorus. Coincidentally, these same elements are major players in snails, spices, sugars, and puppy dog tails. But it’s not so much the
ingredients as the way they’re put together.
WHAT’S THE MOST COMMON ELEMENT ON EARTH? Oxygen. It makes up nearly half the weight of the earth’s crust and 62 percent of the total by sheer number of atoms. In the earth’s crust, after oxygen, the most abundant elements are (in order of weight): silicon, aluminum, iron, calcium, and sodium. However, in terms of elements in the atmosphere, oxygen ranks a paltry second to nitrogen. Nitrogen is 78 percent of the earth’s atmosphere, while oxygen is just 21 percent.
WHAT’S THE MOST COMMON ELEMENT IN THE UNIVERSE? Roughly three quarters of the universe is nothing more than hydrogen, the simplest element there is, and most of the rest of it is helium. The rest of the naturally occurring elements, from lithium to uranium, make up less than 1 percent of the universe.
CAN YOU NAME THE PLACE ON EARTH THAT HAS FOUR ELEMENTS NAMED AFTER IT? This is one to stump your friends at the next chemistry department mixer you go to. The answer: Ytterby, Sweden, which gave its name to ytterium, erbium, terbium, and ytterbium. The first three of these were found in a quarry near the town, which seems reason enough for their naming; ytterbium, however, was discovered in Switzerland by Jean de Marignac. He named the element after the town because it was a “rare earth” element, and the first rare earth elements discovered were in that quarry outside Ytterby.
WHAT ELEMENT ARE YOU LEAST LIKELY TO FIND IN YOUR EVERYDAY LIFE? That would probably be francium, the most highly unstable naturally occurring element. Less than an ounce is present on the face of the earth at any one time, and none of that in any measurable amounts; it had to be discovered through the decay of actinium, another element entirely.
WHICH ELEMENT IS THE MOST EXPENSIVE? Among the naturally occurring elements, protactinium is likely to be the most expensive, not just because it’s rare but also because it’s so hard to isolate. In 1961 the British government extracted 125 grams of the stuff from over 60 tons of material at a cost of half a million bucks; in today’s money, that works out to $24,000 a gram. But don’t start flashing that jewel-encrusted protactinium ring to your friends just yet: it’s radioactive and highly toxic.
WHY IS THE CHEMICAL SYMBOL FOR GOLD “AU”? There’s neither an a nor a u in gold. Well, not in English. There is both an a and a u in aurum, the Latin word for gold (gold, incidentally, comes from the Old English geolo, meaning “yellow”). Other elements whose chemical symbols don’t match their English names include silver (Ag, argentum, Latin), lead (Pb, plumbum, Latin), potassium (K, kalium, Latin), tungsten (W, wolfram, German), and tin (Sn, stannum, Latin).
WHAT’S THE DUMBEST NAME FOR AN ELEMENT? Take your pick: ununnilium, unununium, or ununbium. These names were given to recently discovered elements after chemists and physicists couldn’t play nice and agree on the names these new elements ought to have. So the International Union for Pure and Applied Chemistry devised a naming system based on the Latin names for numbers and the atomic weight of the element. Ununnilium, for example, has an atomic weight of 110; so, one-one-zero. The Latin word for one is un, and for zero it’s nil—therefore: un-un-nil-ium.
Sounds Familiar
Sarah Josepha Hale’s 1830 poem “Mary Had a Little Lamb” was inspired by a little girl named Mary Tyler. Her pet lamb used to follow her to school.
Australian soldiers used “We’re Off to See the Wizard” as a marching song during World War II.
The song “You’re a Grand Old Flag” was originally called “You’re a Grand Old Rag.”
“Battle Hymn of the Republic” was written by Julia Ward Howe. She sold the rights for five dollars.
“The Alphabet Song,” “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star,” and “Baa, Baa Black Sheep” are all sung to the same music: a 1765 French song titled “Ah! Vous dirais-je, Maman.”
The third verse of “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow” is “The bear went over the mountain . . .”
There are 364 gifts in “The Twelve Days of Christmas.”
First song ever sung in space: “Happy Birthday,” performed by the Apollo astronauts on March 8, 1969.
Pete Seeger, who wrote “Turn, Turn, Turn” and “We Shall Overcome” (among others), was born into a musical family: both his parents were teachers at Juilliard School in New York.
“Dixie,” the anthem of the South, was written by a Yankee: Dan Emmett of Ohio. Emmett also wrote “Polly Wolly Doodle.”
A rough translation of “Auld Lang Syne” is “times gone by.”
Charles Wesley wrote the words to “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” in 1739. More than 100 years later composer Felix Mendelssohn put the song to music.
Ask the Experts
Q: HOW DO PARROTS TALK?
A: Exactly why parrots can change their calls to make them sound like words is still not understood. Their ability to mimic may possibly be linked with the fact that they are highly social birds. A young parrot in captivity learns the sounds it hears around it and quickly realizes that repeating these sounds brings attention and companionship. This is perhaps a substitute for its normal social life. Although they are such good mimics in captivity, parrots do not imitate other sounds in the wild. There are, however, many other species that do: mynah birds and lyrebirds, for example, do mimic the sounds they hear in their everyday lives. (What Makes the World Go Round?, edited by Jinny Johnson)
Q: IS THERE SOUND IN SPACE? IF SO, WHAT’S THE SPEED OF SOUND THERE?
A: No, there is no sound in space. That’s because sound has to travel as a vibration in some material such as air or water or even stone. Since space is essentially empty, it cannot carry sound, at least not the sorts of sound that we are used to. (How Things Work, by Louis A. Bloomfield)
Q: HOW DO WOODPECKERS AVOID BRAIN DAMAGE AFTER HITTING THEIR HEADS AGAINST TREES ALL DAY?
A: The force generated by the woodpecker pecking does not pass through its braincase—it travels along the bird’s upper jaw, which connects below the brain and allows shock to dissipate throughout the bird’s entire body. Naturally, some of the blow does reverberate back into the cranium, but since the woodpecker’s brain surface area is relatively large, the impact is absorbed as a slap, not a punch. And because the avian skull fits tightly around its bird brain—like a bicycle helmet—it prevents internal bruising. Every bit of cushioning helps: according to experts, the acceleration force felt by a common acorn woodpecker measures between 600 and 1,200 g’s—enough that its eyeballs would literally pop out on impact if it didn’t blink. (The Wild File, by Brad Wetzler)
Q: DOES THE FOURTH SPATIAL DIMENSION REALLY EXIST?
A: That depends on what you mean by space. There are only three dimensions to our everyday, commonsense kind of‘space, the space we can perceive and move in. But physicists have developed persuasive theories using an extra six spatial dimensions. These higher dimensions are curled up into tiny circles, or similar closed surfaces. This curling up of dimensions is like our observing, say, a piece of string from a distance and seeing it as a line, then moving closer and observing that it actually has an extra, circular dimension. If we could observe any point (say a subatomic particle) at a large enough magnification, we would similarly see that it is not a point, but has further dimensions in unexplored directions. (The Best Ever Queries, by Joseph Harker)
IRONIC DEATH
Thomas Parr was thought to be England’s oldest living man in the 17th century. He was supposedly 152 years old in 1635, when King Charles invited him to a royal banquet in hopes of learning the secret to his longevity. Parr’s answer: “Simple meals of grains and meats.”
Final Irony: According to one account: “‘Marvelous,’ said the King as he offered Parr goose livers and baby eels basted in butter and onions, followed by fried sheep’s eyeballs. Throughout the banquet, Parr regaled the King with stories while the King saw to it that Parr’s plate and glass were always full. Unfortunately, Parr, overwhelmed by the food, expired during the meal. The distraught King, feeling responsible, had him buried in Westminster Abbey.”
More Animal Briefs
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nbsp; Kangaroos are lactose-intolerant.
Crab-eating seals don’t eat crabs.
Elephants adopt orphans.
Foxes pollinate plants.
Otters can get herpes.
Gophers are hermits.
Cows get hair balls.
Horses can’t sit.
Sheep snore.
Squirrels can’t see red.
Armadillos can be housebroken.
Elephants breathe 12 times a minute.
Latin America
Not only is Lake Titicaca the highest navigable lake in the world, it’s also the most fun to say.
Angel Falls in Venezuela is 15 times higher than Niagara Falls. It was named after U.S. pilot Jimmy Angel.
The Mayan Empire lasted six times as long as the Roman Empire.
The Caribbean island of St. Bart’s is named for Bartolomeo Columbus, Christopher’s brother.
North America uses over eight times as much energy per person as does Latin America.
Quetzal is the name of Guatemala’s national bird and its national currency.
The Bahamas are made up of of more than 700 islands.
Panama hats originally came from Ecuador. They got the name Panama from the gold rush prospectors who bought them in Panama on their way to California.
Women in Guatemala work longer days than any other women in the world: an average of 11 hours a day.
Odds are that the next cherry you eat will come from Chile. It’s the leading exporter of cherries to the United States.
El Salvador leads the world in deaths per capita from contact with centipedes and venomous millipedes.
There are only two landlocked countries in South America: Bolivia and Paraguay.