ROYAL INSECT
Here’s an amazing fact from nature, a mystery that scientists can’t explain.
FLY AWAY HOME
Monarch means “ruler”—like a king or queen—and the monarch butterfly is truly the royalty of the insect world. Besides being beautiful (its wings look like orange-and-black stained-glass windows), it does something truly remarkable.
Like all butterflies, it develops from an egg, to a caterpillar, to a chrysalis, and finally into a butterfly. Then it lays its eggs. And then it migrates. What’s so remarkable about that?
• Every year, all the monarchs in the cold regions of the United States and Canada—nearly 100 million of them—fly south to Mexico, Florida, and California.
• They fly at speeds up to 12 mph, traveling as far as 50 miles a day! A migrating monarch may cover 2,000 miles on this one-way journey.
• They’re in constant danger of being struck by cars, battered by storms, and eaten by predators, such as birds, mice, wasps, and spiders. But still they fly on.
• Here’s the most remarkable part: generation after generation of monarchs not only migrate to the same spot their ancestors flew to—they often go to the exact same tree!
In 1952 Albert Einstein was offered the presidency of Israel. He declined.
LET THERE BE LIGHTS
Mysterious lights have confused, frightened, and entertained people for thousands of years. Some we now understand. Others remain a mystery.
FIREFLIES
You’re probably familiar with the little lights that flicker on and off in our backyards on summer nights: fireflies. But what makes them glow? Bioluminescence. This is the scientific word that describes the emission of light when certain living things meet up with oxygen. Have you ever seen the ocean and noticed that the waves seem to glow at night? That’s caused by the bioluminescence of tiny creatures that live in the saltwater. In fact, 90% of all creatures in the sea are bioluminescent.
FOXFIRE
Go for a walk in the woods during a dark, moonless night. Once your eyes adjust to the dark (after about 20 or 30 minutes), look carefully at the leaf-covered ground or the rotting wood of an old stump. You might see the eerie, soft glow of foxfire. Like the glow of fireflies, foxfire is also the result of bioluminescence. In this case, it is the byproduct of rapidly growing fungi that are eating the leaves or the stump.
Earth’s average population density is 16 people per square mile.
WILL-O’-THE-WISPS
If you happen to be strolling through a marsh or walking along sea cliffs at night, you might see a will-o’-the-wisp. Some say they are caused by methane gas. Others believe they are the result of bioluminescence. Wisps might appear as a glowing ball or as many tiny flickers. They are almost always blue. If you’re lucky and happen to see one, the wisp might seem to mimic your movement. When you move, the light moves; when you stop—so does the light. No wonder they’re also called fairy lights.
EARTH LIGHTS
That’s the name given to certain unexplained lights on our planet. Here are a few places you might spot these mysterious globes.
Bald eagle nests (called aeries) can weigh over 2 tons—more than a car.
• Hessdalen Valley Light, Norway. You never know when, but sometimes during dark winter nights, the Hessdalen Valley lights up with dancing orbs of yellowish light. They appear all around the valley—even inside homes—but mostly they hover under the mountain ridges.
• Hornet Ghost Light, Missouri. The Hornet Ghost has been observed for more than 100 years. This orange ball of light is about the size of a basketball and swings about in the night sky, sometimes for as long as 30 minutes.
• Brown Mountain Lights, North Carolina. A German engineer first recorded seeing them in 1771, but according to Cherokee legend, the lights of Brown Mountain have been seen darting in and out of trees as far back as the year 1200. Their appearances are rare but unmistakable—the lights are visible for a few seconds at a time, starting out as blue or yellow, then fading to a dull red before disappearing. The best time to see them is during the fall.
So what—or who—is responsible for all this mysterious glowing? Ghosts? As-yet-unexplained scientific phenomena? Perhaps the future will shed some light…
***
GET THE LEAD OUT
In military contracts, pencils are sometimes referred to as “portable, handheld communications inscribers.”
Q: What are the three largest Native American tribes in the U.S. today?
THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE
Ships go in…but they don’t come out.
MYSTERIOUS WATERS
In 1492 Christopher Columbus sailed across the Atlantic Ocean on his first voyage to the New World. Near the island of Bermuda, he had compass trouble and observed strange lights. He noted it in his ship’s log. Over the following centuries, other sailors had the same experience. Weird sounds were heard, and men and their boats sometimes disappeared from this place.
They call it the Bermuda Triangle—an area of ocean stretching from Bermuda to Florida to Puerto Rico and back. Even today, some people are afraid to sail or fly there. Some even call it the Devil’s Triangle.
U.S.S. CYCLOPS
Stories have been told about this strange place for hundreds of years, but the Bermuda Triangle didn’t become a legend until 1918. That was when a ship called the U.S.S. Cyclops sailed into the area and vanished, never to be heard from again.
How could a ship with 309 people on board just disappear? No trace of the ship was ever found. Not a lifeboat. Not a scrap of wood. Nothing.
A: 1) Cherokee, 2) Navajo, 3) Chippewa.
BOMBERS AWAY?
In 1945 five Avenger torpedo bombers left the Naval Air Station in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, and flew over that area on a military exercise. Two hours into their flight, they sent this radio message: “Everything is wrong. The ocean doesn’t look as it should.” All five planes in the squadron reported that their compasses were spinning. They couldn’t tell north from south. They said the sky was a strange yellow color. And then they were gone.
The Navy immediately sent another plane with a crew of 13 men to help them. That plane was never heard from again, either. All six planes simply disappeared.
Where did they go? The Navy searched for weeks, looking for an oil slick or a piece from a plane…but nothing has ever been found.
WHERE’D EVERYBODY GO?
More than 100 ships and planes have passed into the Triangle, never to be seen again. Ships have been found drifting there with all of the people gone. Sometimes an animal—like a dog or a bird—will be left on board, but never any people. Sometimes pilots flying over the area will be having a normal radio conversation with ground control and suddenly they’re gone. It’s as if they’ve flown into a hole in the sky.
Records show that more than 1,000 people have been lost in the Bermuda Triangle. One possible explanation: It’s a highly-trafficked area, so more disappearances would occur. But does that explain everything?
Wild alligators are found in only two places in the world: the southern U.S. and Yangtze, China.
SPACE TOILETS
Space: the final frontier. The astronauts’ mission: To boldly go where no man has gone before. The only question: How do they GO?
WET SUIT
In the early days of the U.S. space program, there were no space toilets. In fact, on the first named American space flight, Alan Shepard was supposed to be shot straight up and come straight down. They figured it would take only 15 minutes, so they didn’t even think about supplying a bathroom. Unfortunately, the launch was delayed and Shepard was stuck in his space suit, lying on his back inside the capsule for hours. Finally, when he could hold it no longer, he just peed in his space suit.
SPACE DIAPERS
After Shepard’s soggy experience, NASA came up with a new solution: they made an extra-large diaper for the second U.S. astronaut, Gus Grissom. And for the next 25 missions, astronauts wore a big plastic bag fastened directly to thei
r bottoms with double-sided sticky tape.
ZERO-GRAV LAV
Today, space vehicles are equipped with a toilet called the Waste Collection System (WCS). It looks like the ones we have on Earth but it’s a little different. Toilets in space can’t use water. Why? Because of weightlessness. Any basin (or bowl) of water would break into tiny little droplets and float around the space shuttle. So how do they make sure what goes into the toilet doesn’t come out? They use a vacuum toilet. It works pretty much like a vacuum cleaner: When an astronaut pees, the urine is sucked away in a hose. When an astronaut poops, the astronaut pulls a lever to have the waste whisked away.
A rocket must reach the speed of 7 miles per second to escape Earth’s gravity.
UNIVERSAL QUESTIONS
Where does the pee go? When the holding tank is filled with urine, it’s dumped into space. This can be a spectacular sight. According to Apollo astronaut Russell Schweickart, “There is nothing quite as beautiful as a urine dump at sunset.” The instant the urine goes out the exit nozzle, it freezes into millions of little ice crystals. And because space is essentially a perfect vacuum, those crystals blast off in every direction at a really high speed. “It’s an incredible stream,” says Russell. “A spray of sparklers.”
Where does the poop go? All solid waste is freezedried and deodorized. Then it is kept in plastic bags and taken back to Earth to be analyzed. Why do they analyze it? Scientists want to know what effect space travel has on bodily functions.
Reflect on this: A chimpanzee can learn to recognize himself in a mirror—monkeys can’t.
A-M-A-Z-I-N-G A-N-A-G-R-A-M-S
An anagram is a word or phrase made by rearranging the letters of another word or phrase. Check out these.
Television set becomes See? It’s not live.
A volcanic eruption becomes Topic: cone, lava, ruin.
Charlie’s Angels becomes Lean girls chase.
Be all that you can be becomes Obey, launch a battle.
Yosemite Valley becomes Yes, a lovely time!
Schoolmaster becomes The classroom.
Butterfly becomes Flutter by.
The Addams Family becomes My dismal fathead.
Gosh, see that triangle? becomes It has got three angles.
Computer science becomes Concrete scum pie.
Made in America becomes I am a nice dream.
Shel Silverstein becomes I sell thin verses.
A Nintendo Game Boy becomes Made to be annoying.
Original name for Hostess Twinkies: Little Shortcake Fingers.
REEL SILLY
More wit than wisdom from the movies.
“I’m a Mog: Half man, half dog. I’m my own best friend!”
—Barf, Spaceballs
“We’re babies! We’re supposed to get in trouble. That’s our job!”
—Tommy, Rugrats
“Okay. I don’t need a compass to tell me which way the wind shines.”
—Furious, Mystery Men
“And then one time I ate some rotten berries. Man there were some gases eeking outta my butt that day!”
—Donkey, Shrek
“Don’t torture yourself, Gomez. That’s my job.”
—Morticia, The Addams Family
“Invention, my dear friends, is 93% perspiration, 6% electricity, 4% evaporation, and 2% Butterscotch Ripple.”
—Willy Wonka, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
“Waiter, I’m in my soup!”
—Fly, A Bug’s Life
“Whoever said orange was the new pink was seriously disturbed.”
—Elle Woods, Legally Blonde
“Well the buzz from the bees is that the leopards are in a bit of a spot. The baboons are going ape. I told the elephants to forget it, but they can’t.”
—Zazu, The Lion King
Q: How many bananas does it take to make a pint of “banana oil?”
PHOBIAS
Do you know someone who is so afraid of spiders that they scream whenever they see one, no matter how small it is? Or do you know someone who is afraid to fly in a plane? Overwhelming fears like these are called phobias.
EVERYONE’S AFRAID OF SOMETHING
No one really knows why people suffer from phobias, but brain chemistry and heredity might have something to do with it.
Some phobias have been around forever, like nyctophobia, the fear of the dark, or brontophobia, fear of thunder and lightning. Some fears are more commonly known, like claustrophobia, fear of small enclosed spaces, or acrophobia, the fear of heights. Other phobias are so new they don’t even have names yet—like the fear of garbage disposals or the fear of driving on the highway. Some people even suffer from the fear of taking those little cotton balls out of new medicine bottles.
TEST YOUR PHOBIA I.Q.
Just for fun, Uncle John has put together a phobia quiz. Your task is to match the fear with the phobia. Some phobias you might recognize right away. Others might be more difficult. But have no fear—the answers are provided.
A: None—“banana oil” is made from petroleum.
And, if you are afraid that some of the names of phobias are just too long to even guess at, take a look at this phobia: the fear of long words is called hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia. (Try saying that 10 times fast!)
MATCH THE FEAR WITH THE PHOBIA
Fear
Phobia
1. Fear of spiders
a. Necrophobia
2. Fear of telephones
b. Cyberphobia
3. Fear of insects
c. Motorphobia
4. Fear of flying
d. Hydrophobia
5. Fear of computers
e. Phonophobia
6. Fear of animals
f. Dentophobia
7. Fear of automobiles
g. Aviophobia
8. Fear of water
h. Entomophobia
9. Fear of dentists
i. Arachnophobia
10. Fear of death
j. Zoophobia
Answers
1. i; 2. e; 3. h; 4. g; 5. b; 6. j; 7. c; 8. d; 9. f; 10. a.
***
“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt
Snakes can have as many as 450 vertebrae, each with a pair of ribs.
TOYS ‘R’ WEIRD
Behind every toy is a story. And sometimes the story is as interesting as the toy itself—especially when the story involves grown-ups acting stupid.
BOBBLEHEADS
Believe it or not, bobbleheads have been around for more than 400 years. Papier maché bobbleheads were made in China in the 1600s and they’ve gone in and out of style ever since.
The most recent bobblehead craze began in 1999, when the San Francisco Giants gave away Willie Mays bobblehead dolls. Then the Minnesota Twins gave out four different bobbleheads. Other teams followed. When the Philadelphia 76ers offered Allen Iverson bobbleheads to the first 5,000 kids at a game, it was total chaos. Bobblehead collectors were actually renting children so they could get one of the dolls!
Today, more than a million bobbleheads are made every month. Where are they made? In China…the country where bobbleheads first began.
CABBAGE PATCH KIDS
In 1978 a 23-year-old artist named Xavier Roberts started creating soft-sculpture dolls by hand. The dolls had pudgy faces, stumpy arms, and small, close-set eyes.
Fastest time ever to solve a Rubik’s Cube: 22.95 seconds.
They were completely different from the traditional cute baby doll. He called them Little People Originals. But he didn’t “sell” them—he let people pay a fee to “adopt” them. He and five friends bought an old medical clinic in Georgia, renamed it Babyland General Hospital, and opened it to the public.
Assistants dressed as nurses helped customers adopt their very own “baby” by giving them birth certificates with the doll’s name and “birth date.” They even passed out official-looking adoption papers. Li
ttle People were an immediate hit.
Doll Crazy
Four years later, Roberts signed a deal with a major toy manufacturer, Coleco Toys, and changed the name of the dolls to Cabbage Patch Kids. With a vinyl head and a slightly smaller size than the Little People, each was unique—during the manufacturing process, a computer randomly placed small changes in each doll. Kids loved it!
The dolls were such a hot Christmas item in 1983 that supplies ran low. Fistfights broke out between customers desperate to get a doll. Because there weren’t enough dolls to go around, many stores held lotteries to decide who could buy one. Police had to be called in to keep shoppers from rioting.
More than $600 million worth of Cabbage Patch Kids sold in 1985, making them the most successful toy of the 1980s.
Africa has more languages than any other continent…about 1,300.
YIN AND YANG
This ancient symbol represents the opposing forces of the universe, known as yin and yang. The ancient religon called Taoism (pronounced dow-ism) teaches that harmony in the universe comes from balancing opposites such as good and evil, warm and cold, male and female, and darkness and light. This story, from the Chinese, tells how that balance happened.
THE EGG
In the beginning of time, there was only chaos, fighting and churning inside an enormous egg. One day the egg broke and a giant called Pan Ku appeared. With him came the two basic forces: Yin and Yang.
Uncle John's Electrifying Bathroom Reader for Kids Only! Page 10