Uncle John’s Did You Know?

by Bathroom Readers' Institute

  • Superman’s home planet was named after the real element krypton, a gas that was discovered in 1898.

  • Though it’s commonly thought to have an icky smell—kind of like rotten eggs—sulfur is nearly odorless. The stuff that smells bad is hydrogen sulfide, a gas that forms in sewers and swamps.

  • Neon is colorless, but gives off a red-orange glow when it’s put in a vacuum tube and electricity is passed through it for a neon sign.

  • Plastic is an organic compound, but it’s usually considered an inorganic material because it takes so long—centuries—to decompose.

  • Mercury is one of only five elements that are liquid at room temperature. The others are caesium, francium, gallium, and bromine.

  • The full chemical name of tryptophan synthetase (an amino acid) is 1,909 letters long.

  • Metals that are resistant to corrosion—such as gold, silver, and platinum—are called “noble” metals.

  WHATCHA-

  MACALLIT, USA

  Some real places in America.

  • Deathball Rock, Oregon, was named after an especially bad batch of biscuits.

  • Atlasta Creek, Alaska. A local woman was so delighted that a building had been constructed in this remote area that she exclaimed, “At last, a house!” The name stuck.

  • Norwood, Massachusetts. A local man christened the town “Norwood” because it “had a pleasing sound, was easy to write, and had no i to dot or t to cross.”

  • Matrimony Creek, North Carolina, got its name from an unhappy surveyor who said the creek was irritatingly noisy—the same opinion he had of marriage.

  • Tesla, California’s, founding fathers named the town for inventor Nikola Tesla in hopes that their proposed power plant would supply electricity to San Francisco and make them rich. The plant was never built, and Tesla is now a ghost town.

  • Hot Coffee, Mississippi, as you might imagine, was named in honor of a roadside store that sold really good coffee.

  • Rego Park, New York, was named for a local construction company called Rego—short for “real good.”

  ALL OVER THE MAP

  • Ho-Ho-Kus, New Jersey, is the only town in the United States that has two dashes in its name.

  • Bolivia was named after Colombian-born freedom fighter Simón Bolívar (full name: Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar Palacios y Blanco).

  • Siberia means “sleeping land.”

  • Thailand translates to “land of the free.”

  • In 190 A.D., Roman emperor Commodus changed the name of Rome to Colonia Commodiana (Commodus’s Colony). After he was assassinated a year later, the Senate changed the name back to Rome.

  • The Bronx, New York, was named for its first European settler, Jonas Bronck.

  • Bangkok’s official Thai name is 167 letters long.

  • Venezuela was named after Venice, Italy. The name literally means “Little Venice.”

  • St. Paul, Minnesota, was originally called “Pig’s Eye,” which was the nickname of Pierre Parrant, the city’s first settler (and a notorious whiskey merchant).

  • Istanbul, Turkey, was once called Constantinople after Roman emperor Constantine. But it was founded by Greeks who named it Byzantium…after King Byzas.

  THE AVERAGE…

  • …roll of toilet paper is 114.8 feet long.

  • …human body has 29 feet of intestines.

  • …person laughs 17 times a day.

  • …American consumer spends $1,508 on clothes every year.

  • …ratio of yellow kernels to white kernels in a bag of popcorn is 9 to 1.

  • …Frenchman drinks 140 bottles of wine per year.

  • …American uses about 100 gallons of water a day.

  • …cat has 24 whiskers (12 on each side).

  • …adult human body contains 28 pounds of carbon.

  • …adult has approximately 45 billion fat cells in his or her body.

  • …whole chicken from the grocery store weighs 3 pounds, 12 ounces.

  • …person has about 25 moles on their body.

  • …iceberg weighs 20 tons.

  • …water droplet contains 100 quintillion water molecules. (That’s 100,000,000,000,000,000,000.)

  • …American police officer will walk 1,632 miles on the job this year.

  OH, HONEY!

  Sweet facts about bees and honey.

  • A honeybee will make only 1/12 of a teaspoon of honey in its entire lifetime (about four months).

  • Worker honeybees have the toughest job in the hive—gathering the nectar for the honey. To make just one pound of honey, they will fly more than 55,000 miles and visit two million flowers.

  • Honeybees “dance” to communicate with each other. When a worker bee returns to the hive with nectar, it gives everyone a taste and then, through its dance, it tells the other bees the location, quantity, and quality of the nectar supply.

  • Even though their wings beat very fast, honeybees fly only about 15 miles per hour.

  • European colonists introduced the honeybee to North America in 1638. Native Americans called it “white man’s fly.”

  • Aside from adding it as an ingredient in food or drinks, American colonists used honey to make cement, varnish, medicine, and furniture polish.

  • Not only did ancient Egyptians use honey to sweeten their bread, but they also fed it to sacred animals.

  • In the Middle Ages, German peasants sometimes paid their rent with honey and beeswax.

  NOT-SO-

  FAMOUS PEOPLE

  • Astronomer Carolyn Shoemaker has discovered 32 comets and approximately 300 asteroids.

  • Every photograph of the first American atomic bomb detonation was taken by Harold Edgerton.

  • Kevlar, the synthetic fiber used in bulletproof vests, was invented by chemist Stephanie Kwolek.

  • In 1876, Maria Spelterina was the first woman to ever cross Niagara Falls on a high wire.

  • Richard Pavelie solved the Rubik’s cube underwater with only five breaths of air.

  • As of 2005, there were 37 taxi drivers in New York City named Amarjit Singh.

  • Youngest TV host: 6-year-old Luis Tanner, host of TV’s Cooking for Kids With Luis.

  • A Ukrainian monk, Dionysius Exiguus, created the modern-day Christian calendar.

  • Russian pilot I. M. Chisov survived a 21,980-foot plunge from an airplane with no parachute. (He landed in three feet of snow, which cushioned his fall.)

  • Louise J. Greenfarb of Las Vegas, Nevada, has 35,000 refrigerator magnets. She’s been collecting them since the 1970s.

  THAT’S MORE

  DISGUSTING!

  • When you sneeze, your body ejects a lot—snot, spit, and pretty much anything else in your mouth and nose—at speeds of up to 100 miles per hour.

  • Dung beetles gather poop into apple-size balls, and the females lay their eggs inside. After they hatch, the baby beetles eat their way out of it.

  • If your head is chopped off, your brain will keep functioning for about 15 seconds!

  • What, exactly, is snot? Mostly water, plus salt and chemicals that help it stay sticky. It may look similar to saliva, but it’s not; saliva comes from the salivary glands in your mouth.

  • Earwax naturally dries up and forms little balls that drop out when we yawn, chew, or swallow.

  • In 1973, folks near Dallas and Boston panicked when slime molds tried to take over their neighborhoods. Slime molds don’t move very fast, but they do move.

  • Head-shrinking (displaying heads cut off in battle) probably dates back to 200 B.C. or earlier, and was common only in a few tribes in Ecuador, Peru, and Brazil. The Jívaros, a tribe in the Amazon rain forest, used shrunken heads in victory celebrations and feasts—and then discarded them or let the kids use them as toys.

  LANDMARKS

  • At 555 feet tall, the Washington Monument is the tallest stone building in the world.

&nb
sp; • Emperor Shah Jahan of India built the Taj Mahal as a tomb for his wife, Mumtaz Mahal.

  • The Grand Coulee Dam in Washington state is the largest concrete structure in the world.

  • When it was first built, Egypt’s Great Pyramid was 482 feet high, but erosion and settling have shrunk it by about 30 feet.

  • When it was first built about 5,000 years ago, England’s Stonehenge monument had 30 upright stones. Today, only 16 are still standing.

  • The tallest occupied building in Europe is London’s Canary Wharf, at 50 stories high.

  • Remember the Alamo? The Texas fort was defended by 187 men, all of whom were killed in the battle.

  • Armed with sledgehammers, the citizens of East and West Berlin began the destruction of the 26-mile-long Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989. The dismantling was taken over by the government and finished in November 1991.

  • The Mason-Dixon line—the imaginary line that separates the northern U.S. from the southern U.S.—is 244 miles long.

  THE DEADLIEST

  SNAKES

  Here are nine of the most dangerous snakes in the world.

  • Fierce snake (Australia): One bite from this killer contains enough venom to slaughter 100 people.

  • Brown snake (Australia): One drop of its venom—as small as a grain of sand—can kill a human being.

  • Malayan krait (Southeast Asia): 50% of the Malayan krait’s victims die, even if they’re treated.

  • Tiger snake (Australia): This aggressive snake kills more people than any other Australian snake.

  • Saw-Scaled viper (Africa): It kills more people than all other African snakes combined.

  • Boomslang (Africa): Stand back! The boomslang has very long fangs and can open its mouth to a full 180°.

  • Coral snake (United States): The coral snake has small fangs, but extremely potent venom. Though it has trouble penetrating clothing, it can easily puncture human skin.

  • Death adder (Australia): One bite from this snake will paralyze you—and can kill you in six hours.

  • Beaked sea snake (Asia): It’s responsible for more than half of all sea-snake bites. 90% of its victims die.

  COOKING GOOD

  • To make the perfect boiled egg, make a pinprick in the round end of the shell before boiling, so the air can escape. (And be careful—don’t crack the egg.)

  • Always cook pasta in plenty of boiling water so the pasta can move around as it cooks. That’s what prevents it from sticking together.

  • Humans are the only creatures on Earth that cook their food.

  • Why do onions make you cry? Blame it on the sulfur compounds in the onion—they make your eyes water while you’re chopping.

  • Anti-crying trick: Stick out your tongue while you’re cutting onions. The moisture on your tongue will soak up the onion’s airborne chemicals before they hit your eyes.

  • Cooked food is easier to digest than raw food.

  • Why do vegetables get soggy when they’re overcooked? The cellulose in their cell walls (which normally keeps them rigid) softens when it’s heated.

  • What makes food turn golden brown when it’s cooked in a frying pan? “Browning” is what happens naturally when the sugar molecules and the amino acids in the food are heated together.

  THE CALENDAR

  • The ancient Romans were the first to celebrate January 1 as New Year’s Day. When? In 153 B.C.

  • There was no year 0.

  • Luckily, there can never be more than three Friday the 13ths in one year.

  • What’s the only month that’s also a verb? March!

  • September 23, 2006, marked the beginning of the year 5767 in the Jewish calendar.

  • The Chinese solar calendar is divided into 24 segments of 15 days each. The third month, beginning in early March, is known as the month of the Excited Insects. July is divided into two months known as Slight Heat and Great Heat.

  • A year is the amount of time it takes the Earth to orbit the Sun. So, if you’re 10 years old, you’ve traveled around the Sun 10 times! (It’s not exactly a year: A year is 365 days—a revolution around the Sun takes 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds.)

  • Brazilians consider August an unlucky month.

  • “Kalpa” is a Hindu measurement of time. It’s also the world’s longest measurement of time—432 billion years.

  ANIMALS BY

  THE NUMBERS

  • The oldest cat on record lived to be 34. But one goldfish outlived it, logging in a record life span of 41 years.

  • To figure out a dog’s age in human years, count the first dog year as 15 years, the second as 10 years, and all the following years as 3 years. So a 6-year-old dog would be: 15+10+3+3+3+3 = 37 human years old.

  • An aardvark’s tongue is about 17 inches long.

  • There are 103 different species of crow.

  • An oyster can survive out of water for as long as four months.

  • Natural llama hair comes in 22 different colors.

  • What a hog: A pig’s stomach can hold 32 pints—that’s four gallons—of food and drink.

  • Ospreys (a.k.a. seahawks) have been clocked at 80 miles per hour.

  • Ants can survive underwater for as long as 14 days.

  • On a good day, a hummingbird may visit 2,000 flowers before he get his fill of nectar.

  • The chickens of the world lay two billion eggs a day, which, by the way, would make an omelet as big as the island of Cyprus—3,500 square miles.

  THE WARRIORS

  • The word conquistador is Spanish for “conqueror.”

  • The Vikings’ favorite weapons? Catapults and battering rams.

  • We get the word “vandalism” from the Vandals, a European tribe that completely destroyed Rome in the 5th century A.D.

  • 1,200 Japanese kamikaze pilots died sinking 34 American ships during World War II.

  • Future president Theodore Roosevelt led a group of soldiers called the Rough Riders (they were mostly cowboys, miners, and law-enforcement officials) in the Spanish-American War.

  • The Samurai of Japan wore two swords—one long, one short—and gave them names, believing their swords were the “soul” of their warriorship.

  • The Swiss Guard were mercenaries (paid soldiers) who fought in various European armies. Now their only job is to guard the Pope in Vatican City.

  • The Spartan boys of ancient Greece were sent to military school at age 6 or 7 and stayed there until they were 20.

  • Members of the elite warrior class of the ancient Aztec army were known as “eagle warriors.”

  • Ninja is a Japanese word that means “to do quietly.”

  HOCKEY

  TEAM NAMES

  Name games that inspired the teams.

  • Anaheim Mighty Ducks: In 1993, the NHL put a brand-new team in Anaheim, California. It was owned by Disney, which named the team after its 1992 hockey movie, The Mighty Ducks.

  • Boston Bruins: The guidelines for a 1920s contest to name the team requested that the name “relate to an untamed animal whose name was synonymous with size, strength, agility, ferocity and cunning; and in the color brown category.” Bruin, another name for a brown bear, fit the order.

  • Calgary Flames: Before they moved to Calgary, the Flames were based in Atlanta, Georgia. They chose their name as a reference to the burning of Atlanta during the Civil War.

  • Detroit Red Wings: When James Norris bought the team in 1932, he changed their name from the Falcons to honor a team he once played for—the Montreal Winged Wheelers.

  • New Jersey Devils: Named after the Jersey Devil, a mythical monster that supposedly lives in New Jersey.

  FAST FOOD

  • Many cultures have their own versions of fast food: In Asia there are noodle shops, in the Middle East there are falafel stands, and ancient Roman cities had bread-and-olive stands.

  • One out of every seven Americans eats a diet made up almo
st entirely of fast food.

  • 96% of all Americans have been to a McDonald’s. Or to put it another way, only 4% of Americans have never been to a McDonald’s.

  • Number of sesame seeds on a Big Mac: 178.

  • The British Nutrition Foundation reported that McDonald’s Caesar Salad with Chicken Premiere contains 18 grams of fat. A cheeseburger contains only 11.

  • Brits eat over 22,000 tons of french fries per week.

  • Wendy’s introduced the “drive-thru” window in 1972.

  • One of Coke’s ingredients—called “7x”—is a secret. The few people who know what it is aren’t allowed to travel together, in case they all get in an accident.

  • Dick and Mac McDonald opened the first McDonald’s restaurant in San Bernardino, California, in 1940, selling barbecue.

  • First fast food restaurant in North America: White Castle in Topeka, Kansas. They opened in 1921. Hamburgers cost 5¢ each.

  SECRET LIVES

  OF FICTIONAL

  CHARACTERS

  Ever wonder where Kermit the Frog got his name?

  • What do Lassie, Rin Tin Tin, Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny, Snow White, and Godzilla have in common? They all have stars on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame.

  • Smoky Bear’s original name: “Hot Foot Teddy.”

  • Mickey Mouse has three fingers and a thumb on each hand.

  • In Lima, Peru, there’s a tall brass statue of…Winnie the Pooh.

  • James Bond debuted in the 1952 novel Casino Royale. Since then, he’s appeared in 53 books, 23 films, a TV show, and a dozen video games.

  • Where did Shrek get his accent? Mike Myers based it on the voice his mother used when she told him bedtime stories.

  • Kermit the Frog was named for Kermit Scott, a childhood friend of Muppet creator Jim Henson. The Muppet also delivered the commencement address at New York’s Southampton College in 1996.