But her wrists were tiny, and the electrocardiogram sensor bracelets were very big. Because of this, she had to have Brandon press the electrode on the bracelet against her wrist.
Brandon, who was only eight years old, had recently learned that an electrolyte solution—a liquid that’s high in salt—was good for conducting electricity. He got the idea to soak small pieces of sponge in an electrolyte solution and place them between his mom’s wrist and the electrode on her bracelet. He also added elastic to the bracelet to make the it fit better. Brandon called this new invention the PaceMate.
Spencer’s Idea: KidKare. Spencer was barely six when he got his idea. Because Spencer and Brandon spent so much time visiting their mom in the hospital, they often went into the children’s ward to play.
Most of the kids in the children’s ward were very sick. They had to be given their medicine through an IV (intravenous) drip. (An IV is a little tube that is connected to a vein in your arm. It lets medicine drip into your body at a slow, even rate.)
The IV tubes were hung on metal stands with wheels so they could be moved around. If the kids wanted to move around and play, they had to lug the big heavy IV stand around with them. And if they wanted to ride in one of the play cars, a parent or nurse had to follow after them with the stand.
Spencer watched as adults tripped over tubes when they struggled to keep up with the kids in the play cars. Then it hit him: Wouldn’t it be great if the IV stand could ride on the back of the cars? Then, parents wouldn’t have to hold the IV stands or chase after their kids. Spencer designed a colorful play car that would carry an IV; he called it KidKare.
“To invent, you need a good imagination and a big pile of junk.”
—Thomas Edison
Only girl ever to compete in a Golden Gloves boxing event: Amber Hunt (she was 12).
LEFTIES
Cosmic question: If the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body, are left-handed people the only ones in their right minds?
DID YOU KNOW?
• Only one person in 10 is left-handed.
• But if both parents are left-handed, the odds that their kids will be lefties increase from 10% to 50%.
• Boys are more likely to be left-handed than girls.
• Most gorillas are left-handed.
• The honeysuckle vine twines to the left (counterclockwise), making it one of the few left-handed plants.
• The three main candidates in the 1992 U.S. presidential election were all left-handed: Bill Clinton, Ross Perot, and George H. W. Bush.
• At any given time, 40% of the top pro tennis players are lefties.
• Neil Armstrong, the first astronaut on the moon, took “One giant leap for mankind” with his left foot.
• It’s against polo rules to play left-handed.
• Some primitive societies discriminated against left-handed people. They thought lefties were evil—and lefties often feared for their lives. Children caught using their left hand for reaching and grabbing were often scolded and forced to use their right hand in order to make it dominant. Some parents even tied their child’s left hand behind their back or down at their side, forcing them to use their right hand.
Skateboarding or surfing with your left foot in back is called riding “goofy-foot.”
• In ancient Japan, a man could ask for a divorce if he discovered that his wife was left-handed.
• In 1890 the baseball diamond in Chicago was built to protect batters from the late-afternoon sun. That meant a pitcher would face west and normally throw with his right arm, which was on the north side. If he pitched with his left, he was a “southpaw,” which is what left-handed pitchers (and other people) are still called today.
LEFT BEHIND
Let’s face it, it’s a right-handed world—most products and tools are made for righties. Some examples: scissors, school desks, manual pencil sharpeners, violins, saxophones, carrot peelers, can openers, power tools, wrist watches, and rifles are all hard for lefties to use because they’re designed for righties.
FAMOUS LEFTIES
Julius Caesar
Joan of Arc
Leonardo da Vinci
Billy the Kid
Ben Franklin
Albert Einstein
Helen Keller
Pablo Picasso
Marilyn Monroe
Jim Henson
Julia Roberts
Keanu Reeves
Jimi Hendrix
Bart Simpson
Traditionally, Mongolian children learn to ride horses before they learn to walk.
IT’S IN THE CARDS
Do you like to play Go Fish?…Crazy Eights?…or (in the bathroom) Solitaire? Then maybe we can interest you in a couple of pages on the origin of playing cards.
SUITS ME FINE
The first playing cards are believed to have come from the Mamelukes, people who ruled Egypt from 1250 to 1517. Just like today’s playing cards, the Mamelukes’ deck had 52 cards and four suits, with three face cards and 10 numbered cards per suit. But instead of today’s suits—clubs, diamonds, hearts, and spades—Mameluke decks had swords, polo sticks, cups, and coins.
WILD CARDS
In the 1300s, cardplaying was a huge craze in Europe—until it was banned. Why were playing cards banned? Because they were used for gambling, which was considered evil. Religious people called them “the Devil’s prayer book.”
Paris, France, was one of the first: it outlawed card-playing in 1377. Other cities soon followed, and by the mid-1400s, anti-card sentiments reached a fever pitch. During one public demonstration in Nuremberg, Germany, more than 40,000 decks of cards were burned in a bonfire. But none of the attempts to eliminate cardplaying worked. In fact, cards are one of the only things from the 12th century that still exist almost unchanged to this day.
Strange but true: Girls—hic!—don’t get the hiccups—hic!—as often as boys do—hic!
CARD FACTS
• The four modern suits—hearts, clubs, spades, and diamonds—originated in France around 1480.
• Until the 1600s, all playing cards were hand-painted.
• For 500 years playing cards were much larger than they are today—about the size of a page in this book
• Not all card decks use diamonds, hearts, spades, and clubs as suit symbols. Traditional German cards still use hearts, leaves, acorns, and bells; Swiss cards use roses, shields, acorns, and bells.
• The joker is the youngest card in the deck—and the only American card. It was added in the mid-19th century, when it was the highest card in an American game called Euchre.
• In a standard deck of cards, the king of hearts is the only king with no moustache.
• The word ace is derived from the Latin word as, which means “the smallest unit of coinage.”
A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.
DECODING HARRY POTTER, PART II
Wizard-in-training Harry Potter learns a lot of magic spells at Hogwarts School. They may sound strange and mysterious, but the words actually come from Latin, the language of the ancient Romans.
The Spell: Accio! (the summoning charm)
Latin Translation: “To summon.”
The Spell: Cruciatus! (One of the “unforgivable curses,” it causes excruciating pain in the victim.)
Latin translation: “To torture.”
The Spell: Diffindo! (a charm used to break something open)
Latin Translation: “To split or open.”
The Spell: Expelliarmus! (the disarming spell)
Latin Translation: Expello means “to drive out.” It is combined with arma, which means “weapon.”
The Spell: Finite incantatem! (the spell that stops the effects of all currently operating spells)
Latin Translation: Fino means “end,” and incantare means “to enchant.”
The Spell: Imperio! (Another “unforgivable curse,” it causes the victim to be completely under the wand-waver’s command.)
; Latin Translation: Impero means “to order, or command.”
The Spell: Lumos! (the chant that causes a small beam of light to shine from the end of a wand)
Latin Translation: Lumen means “light.”
All-time bestselling children’s storybook: The Poky Little Puppy, by Janette Sebring Lowrey.
THE NAME GAME
John means “God is gracious” in Hebrew. It is also a nickname for a toilet. Uncle John prefers the first definition…or does he?
POPULAR NAMES AND WHAT THEY MEAN
Girls
Emily (German) Industrious
Hannah (Hebrew) Grace of God
Madison (German) Child of Matthew
Samantha (Hebrew) Listener
Ashley (English) Ash tree meadow
Sarah (Hebrew) Princess
Elizabeth (Hebrew) God’s promise
Kayla (Greek) Pure
Alexis (Greek) Defender of mankind
Abigail (Hebrew) Father’s joy
Boys
Jacob (Hebrew) Held by the heel
Michael (Hebrew) He who is like God
Joshua (Hebrew) The Lord is salvation
Matthew (Hebrew) Gift of God
Andrew (Latin) Manly
Joseph (Hebrew) God shall increase
Nicholas (Greek) Victory of the people
Anthony (Latin) Priceless
Tyler (English) Maker of bricks or tiles
Daniel (Hebrew) God judges
Look at a blank piece of white paper after staring at a computer screen for several hours. What do you see? A lot of people see pink.
THE MICROWAVE
Microwave ovens are so common that it’s easy to forget how rare they once were. In 1975, only 10% of homes had one. Today, more Americans own microwaves than dishwashers.
HOT DISCOVERY
Magnetrons, the tubes that produce microwaves, were invented by British scientists during World War II for radar systems.
These tubes might still be for strictly military use if it weren’t for an engineer named Percy Spencer. One day in 1946, Spencer stepped in front of a magnetron with a chocolate bar in his pocket. Minutes later he went to eat the candy and found the chocolate had almost completely melted.
Spencer wasn’t sure what had happened, but he wondered whether the magnetron was responsible. So he tried an experiment: He held a bag of popcorn kernels up to the tube. Seconds later, they popped.
The next day Spencer brought eggs and a tea kettle to work. He cut a hole in the side of the kettle, stuck an egg in, and put it next to the magnetron. The egg exploded.
MICROWAVES TO MARKET
Spencer shared his discovery with his bosses and suggested making magnetron-powered ovens. They agreed and patented the first “high-frequency dielectric heating apparatus” in 1947. It was five and a half feet tall, weighed more than 750 pounds, and cost $5,000—more than a house, so only railroads, ocean liners, and a few restaurants could afford them.
The price would remain high until the 1980s, when technical improvements made microwave ovens both affordable and practical for the first time. Result: today you can buy one for less than $100. Thank you, Percy Spencer!
***
FIREWORKS IN DECEMBER
In 1996 Chris Lee invited a few friends to his house for Christmas dinner. On the menu: a whopping 22-pound turkey…with stuffing.
Lee quickly stuffed the bird, put it into the oven, and then went into the living room to join his guests. A few minutes later, he checked his watch to see how much longer the turkey needed to cook. Uh-oh… no watch. Lee assumed he had left it at a friend’s house. Wrong.
His watch was actually much closer than he thought: it was inside the turkey. While Lee was stuffing the bird, his watch had accidentally slipped off his wrist. And now it was roasting at 400°F. What happened? The watch battery exploded. The blast sent the turkey flying through the oven door. Pieces of oven, turkey, and what was left of the watch splattered all over Lee’s kitchen. He spent the next four hours scraping the mess off the walls and ceiling. What did they end up doing for Christmas dinner? They ordered out for pizza.
When the Titanic sank, there was 7,500 pounds of ham on it.
ECRET-SAY ANGUAGES-LAY
Want to talk to your friends in a secret language? You could try to invent one of your own. But before you tackle that, try one of these. Ave-hay Un-fay!
PIG LATIN
Pig Latin, sometimes called Dog Latin, is the most popular secret language for kids. How popular? The Bible has been translated into Pig Latin. Online, Google even has a Pig Latin engine called Ooglegay Earchsay Enginesay (Google Search Engine). No one knows exactly how old it is (it’s at least 100 years old) or exactly why it’s called Pig Latin. What we do know is that it’s easy and fun!
How Do I Speak it? Take off the first consonant sound of a word, add “ay” to it, and stick it on the end of whatever’s left of the word. Words that start with a vowel just get an “ay” stuck on the end.
Samples:
you
ou-yay
me
e-may
radio
adio-ray
party
arty-pay
cool
ool-cay
movies
oovies-may
skateboard…ateboard-skay
Something to chew on: Sitophobia is the fear of food.
English: “Quick! Hide! Here comes my little brother!”
Pig Latin: “Ick-quay! Ide-hay! Ere-hay omes-cay y-may ittle-lay other-bray!”
OPPISH
This is an extra-secret language. It’s not easy to master, but Oppish is definitely worth the effort. Oppish has been around probably as long as Pig Latin, and there are a few variations. We’re only going to show you one here. Once you get up to speed, no one will be able to decipher your language. Unless they speak Oppish, too.
How do I speak it? Insert “op” after the first consonant of any syllable. For words that start with vowels, put the first “op” right in front of the vowel. (“Elephant” becomes “op-elopephopant.”) In this version, it’s not necessary to put an “op” at the end of the word.
Samples:
you
yop-ou
me
mop-e
radio
rop-a-dop-io
party
pop-ar-top-y
cool
cop-ool
hot dog
hop-ot dop-og
skateboard…skop-a-top-e-bop-oard
English: “Quick! Hide! Here comes my little brother.”
Oppish: “Quop-ick! Hop-ide! Hop-ere cop-omes mop-eye lop-it-top-le brop-o-thop-er!”
UBBI DUBBI
The secret language Ubbi Dubbi was created for the PBS television show Zoom. The code is simple to learn and, if you speak it really fast, impossible for a non-ubbi dubbi-ist to understand.
Ask them! Three insults your great-grandparents may have used as kids 1) addlebrain! 2) dunderhead! 3) chucklehead!
How do I speak it? All you have to do is add “ub” before every vowel sound.
Samples:
you
yub-ou
me
mub-e
radio
rub-a-dub-i-ub-o
party
pub-ar-tub-y
cool
cub-ool
burger
buburg-gub-er
skateboard…skub-ate-bub-oard
English: “Quick! Hide! Here comes my little brother.”
Ubbi Dubbi: “Quub-ick! Hub-ide! Hub-ere cub-omes mub-y lub-it-tuble brub-o-thub-er.”
Want more? Check out our RESOURCE GUIDE on page 284, where you’ll find websites that will help you translate words into sop-e-crop-et lop-an-gop-uages.
***
MORE SECRET LANGUAGES
There are actually dozens of secret languages already invented. Here are a few:
Bush Talk
Double Dutch
Cazarn
y
Skimono Jive
Jeriqoza
Gree
Fufa
Eggy-Peggy
MYSTERY EATS
Ever seen something weird on a menu and wondered what it was? Here are a few dishes that have puzzled kids for years.
Grits. Grits are small broken grains of corn, first eaten by Native Americans centuries ago. They are cooked in water and usually served with eggs at breakfast. They may look like gritty mush, but try them with butter or maple syrup. You may be surprised.
Tapioca pudding. Tapioca is a starch that comes from the South American cassava, or yuca plant. Cassava is dangerous because it has poisonous roots. But the Mayans figured out how to extract the poison (cyanide!) for their blow darts and turn the rest into tapioca. Other uses: tapioca flour can thicken soups and sweeten baked goods.
Sweetbreads. If you’re looking for a cinnamon bread or a roll, don’t order this. Sweetbreads are the thymus (throat gland) of veal (baby cows). They’re considered a delicacy and are rich in minerals and vitamins. They’re usually served creamed, curried, or covered with sauce. Why? Probably to disguise the fact that they’re throat glands.
Chicken-fried steak. Is it chicken or is it steak? It’s steak—fried like chicken. It’s a favorite dish in the South and at truck stops. Dip a steak in flour and egg, roll it in bread crumbs, and then fry it like chicken. Add gravy, mashed potatoes, and biscuits, and you have a delicious, hearty meal…not healthy, but delicious.
Uncle John's Electrifying Bathroom Reader for Kids Only! Page 16