THE MOON
• For every one time the Earth orbits the Sun, the Moon orbits the Earth 13 times.
• The largest known crater in the solar system is on the far side of the Moon (the side facing away from Earth). It is 1,454 miles (2,340 km) across and eight miles (13 km) deep—more than twice as big as Alaska and deeper than the deepest part of the Pacific Ocean.
• The Moon doesn’t radiate its own light—when we see moonlight, what we see is actually sunlight reflected off the Moon’s surface.
• Light from the Moon gets to Earth in about 1.5 seconds.
• The distance from Earth to the Moon: about 15,654,023,458 inches.
• The Moon is one-fourth the size of the Earth.
• Flying around the Moon’s equator, you would cover the same distance as flying from New York to London and back again.
• Full moons occur every 29 or 30 days. A “blue moon” is the second of two full moons that appear in the same calendar month.
• Don’t look for a full moon on Halloween: During the past 100 years, it’s happened only four times—in 1925, 1944, 1955, and 1974. The next October 31 full moon will be in 2020.
JUNK FOOD
• Twinkies are about 68% air.
• Thinking of entering a doughnut-eating contest? Here’s a tip: Press down hard on the doughnut before biting into it, so the air inside doesn’t bloat your belly.
• The world’s longest hot dog: a 1,996-foot wiener made by Sara Lee Corp. for the 1996 Olympics. Unfortunately, the “Olympic Weenie” wasn’t refrigerated, so it couldn’t be eaten.
• Krispy Kreme makes about five million doughnuts a day in its North American stores.
• In 1886, its first year in business, Coca-Cola sold an average of nine bottles a day. In 2000, people in more than 200 countries drank nearly 571 million servings of Coca-Cola in just one day.
• Depending on how you measure it, San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge is 4,200 feet—or 28,800 Oreo cookies—long.
• In 2006 a Coca-Cola employee tried to sell one of Coke’s secret recipes to Pepsi…but Pepsi turned him in.
• On July 4, 2006, Takeru Kobayashi won the International Hot Dog Eating Contest for the sixth year in a row. He ate 53¾ hot dogs (with the buns) in just 12 minutes—more than one wiener every 15 seconds.
ANOTHER VISIT
TO MICROBIA
• In the world of microbes (microorganisms), the smallest of the small is the parvovirus. It’s so tiny it can be seen only through a high-power microscope.
• Seaweed and kelp may look a lot like plants, but they actually belong to the same family as microbes.
• Viruses are versatile: They can infect every form of life, including fungi, bacteria, plants, animals…and you.
• If you could stack bacteria, it would take about 500 of them to equal the thickness of one thin dime.
• Fungi are everywhere! They live on your body, in your house, on plants and animals, in the soil, and in fresh and salt water.
• A single teaspoon of topsoil contains about 120,000 fungi.
• Viruses have a unique way of reproducing: invading and taking over other cells (like the ones in your body).
• Each square centimeter of your skin is home to an average of about 100,000 active, healthy bacteria.
• Slime molds normally live as individual cells, but in poor conditions they group together. When they do, look out! They form a slimy, sluglike structure that can crawl off to a new location.
DON’T BE
A DAFTY!
If you’ve run out of names to call your friends, try some of these from Cumbria in northwest England.
• A “gammerstang” is a big girl with bad manners.
• A silly, talkative person is a “bletherskite.”
• What’s a “mæzlin?” A person with no sense.
• A tattletale is a “clat.”
• Someone who’s incompetent is “feckless.”
• Someone who says flattering things is a “flaach.”
• A big bully is a “gomerel.” (Though in other places in England, a gomerel is a fool.)
• “Goamless” is the word for cowardly.
• A blunderer is a “maffelhorn.”
• Know anyone who’s totally useless? You’d call him a “wæster.”
• A rogue or a scamp is a “taggelt.”
• A lazy guy who slinks around is a “slonk.”
• A woman who’s dressed extravagantly is a “flîgaery.”
• A “tæstrel” is a violent or mischievous person.
• Lots of words for idiots: Try “dafty,” “clot-head,” “dummel head,” or “gowk.”
HERE,
DOGGIE
• Dobermans were first bred by Louis Dobermann, a German tax collector who wanted a dog for protection from bandits—and for intimidating taxpayers.
• The oldest American breed is the American Foxhound. Hounds came with the first settlers; the American Foxhound developed from those dogs.
• In the United States, an estimated one million dogs have been named in their owners’ wills.
• The Saluki, a graceful variety of hound, is represented in Sumerian carvings that date all the way back to 7000 B.C.
• Greyhounds can stride a distance of 27 feet.
• A dog’s ear is controlled by 17 muscles.
• True or false: Dalmations are born with all their spots. False! They’re born with white coats, and the black spots develop later.
• Chow Chows have tongues and gums that start out pink at birth but turn bluish-black by the time they’re eight weeks old.
• Basset Hounds can’t swim. Their legs are too short to keep their long, heavy bodies afloat.
• Who’s Bingo? (He’s the dog on the Cracker Jack box.)
WORD ORIGINS
You’ve heard them here and there, but where do they come from?
• The word “worm” is from wyrm, the Old English word for dragon. In ancient times, worms and insects were classified with serpents.
• Bungalow, pajamas, jungle, and shampoo are all from the Hindi language.
• The term “devil’s advocate” comes from the Roman Catholic Church. A devil’s advocate argues the case against appointing someone a saint.
• “Mayday” comes from the French m’aider, a shortening of venez m’aider: “Come help me!”
• If you ice skate, you probably know what a Zamboni is. The machine used in ice rinks to smooth the ice is named for its inventor, Frank Zamboni, who created the first one from a tractor.
• The abbreviation for pound—lb.—comes from the Latin libra, the word for scale. People in the Middle Ages did their weighing and accounting in Latin.
• “Chameleon” is from the Greek word for “little lion.”
• The word “moose” comes from the Algonquian Indian word meaning “twig eater.”
IN LIVING
COLOR
• Technically, black and white are not colors. White contains all the colors of the visible spectrum and black is the absence of color.
• In 10th-century France, the doors of traitors and criminals were painted yellow.
• The color yellow has come to mean “cowardly.” It used to be common to say a cowardly person had a “yellow streak” or was “yellow-bellied.”
• Greenish blue is called turquoise; bluish green is called teal.
• The ancient Persians believed all gods wore white.
• In ancient Rome, public servants wore blue. Interestingly, even today, many police officers and other public servants wear blue uniforms.
• At Easter in Greece, eggs are dyed red for good luck.
• Red means good luck in China, too. It’s used especially for holidays and weddings.
• Ancient Egyptians colored the floors of their temples green.
• Leonardo da Vinci believed that the power of meditation increased by 10 times when it was performed
in purple light, for instance in the purple light of stained glass.
COMMERCIAL
CHARACTERS
• Tony the Tiger, the Frosted Flakes mascot, is married and has a son and a daughter. His wife’s name: Mama Tiger. His children are Tony Jr. and Antoinette.
• A male actor provided the voice of the famous Taco Bell Chihuahua, but the dog you saw in the commercials was a girl dog named Gidget.
• The Energizer Bunny has made cameo appearances in commercials for Purina Cat Chow and Hostess Twinkies.
• The oldest and most enduring cartoon characters to advertise a Kellogg’s product are Snap! Crackle! and Pop! of Rice Krispies fame.
• When the Jolly Green Giant first appeared in 1928, he wasn’t jolly at all. He was a scowling, hunchbacked giant in a scruffy old bearskin.
• Back in the 1930s, Pepsi had an advertising campaign starring two cartoon cops named “Pepsi & Pete.”
• Ronald McDonald’s face is recognized by more than 95% of American children.
• A Pillsbury Doughboy doll released in 1972 was so popular that Playthings magazine named it Toy of the Year.
PANGRAMS
A pangram is a sentence containing all 26 letters of the alphabet, like the classic “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.” But there are lots more where that came from.
• A mad boxer shot a quick, gloved jab to the jaw of his dizzy opponent.
• About sixty codfish eggs will make a quarter pound of very fizzy jelly.
• Amazingly few discotheques provide jukeboxes.
• By Jove, my quick study of lexicography won a prize.
• Crazy Fredericka bought many very exquisite opal jewels.
• Jaded zombies acted quaintly but kept driving their oxen forward.
• Exquisite farm wench gives body jolt to prize stinker.
• Uncle John’s fake, girly Pez box liquid washed MTV.
• Grumpy wizards make toxic brew for the evil queen and jack.
• Jolly housewives made inexpensive meals using quick-frozen vegetables.
• The xylophone orchestra vowed to imbibe jugs of kumquat fizz.
THE POOP ON PIGS
• According to scientists, pigs are the smartest domesticated animals.
• Why do pigs roll around in the mud? They can’t sweat, so they coat themselves in mud to cool off.
• The pygmy hog of India—the world’s smallest pig—weighs about 10 pounds.
• In the 1860s, about 10,000 wild pigs roamed New York City. They ate garbage.
• Pigs can be taught to use a litter box.
• Pigs were first domesticated over 7,000 years ago.
• Ben & Jerry’s sends ice cream waste to local pig farms near its Vermont headquarters. The pigs love it all…except for Mint Chocolate Cookie.
• Engineers in Finland used pig poop to clean a contaminated pond near an old mine. The bacteria in the poop attracted the metals that polluted the water, and the combination sank to the bottom.
• In 2006, 12 piglets from seven countries took part in the Pig Olympics in Moscow, competing in pig-racing, pig-swimming, and pigball, a piggy version of soccer.
IT’S A
WILD WORLD
• Of the approximately 4,680 species of mammals, nearly half are rodents, and about one-fifth are bats.
• Biggest clam: the tridacna. It can grow four feet wide and weigh up to 500 pounds.
• All animals with hooves are close relatives of whales and dolphins—the rhino seems to be the closest.
• Male Dayak fruit bats are the only male mammals known to produce milk—and they suckle their young just like the females do.
• There’s a deer in Asia called a “mouse deer.” The little guy is only nine inches tall.
• A pregnant polar bear can live off her stored fat for up to eight months while traveling hundreds of miles to give birth and nursing her cubs until they’re more than 10 times their birth weight.
• Hyenas are closely related to cats, but hunt like dogs.
• You probably know that camels can go a long time—up to several months—without drinking. They can also down 13 gallons of water in just a few minutes.
• B-r-r. Z-z-z. B-r-r. Z-z-z. Many species of bats can survive freezing temperatures when they hibernate.
BUILDING
BLOCKS
What puts the “you” in human…
• You genes, called the “blueprints of life,” determine almost everything about you, from your eye color to your shoe size. They tell your cells how to make muscles, nerves, bones—and every other part.
• Cell Fact #1: A cell is the smallest unit of matter considered to be alive.
• Cell Fact #2: There are about 200 different kinds of cells in your body, each with a unique shape and a unique job to do.
• In the center of every cell is a nucleus. In the nucleus are several pairs of chromosomes. Chromosomes are crucial because they carry your genes.
• Humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes in each cell. Mosquitoes have 3 pairs, goldfish have 52 pairs, and onions have 8 pairs.
• Cell Fact #3: Every individual cell in your body is a living creature. If you put a single skin cell in a dish with nutrients, it would continue to live—and even crawl around!
FOOD,
GLORIOUS FOOD
• Should we check the expiration date? Graham crackers, Jell-O, instant coffee, Triscuit crackers, Campbell’s Tomato Soup, and Fig Newtons have all been around for more than 100 years.
• When a swarm of locusts landed on Beijing, China, in 2002, they were scooped up, deep fried…and eaten.
• In 1895, C.W. Post created the very first grocery coupon by offering shoppers 1¢ off the purchase of the company’s new health cereal, Grape-Nuts.
• Americans eat approximately 100 acres of pizza a day. That’s an average of 350 slices per second.
• Sometimes when you want to sell something, you have to give it away—that’s what Kellogg’s did in 1907 when it introduced its new breakfast food. They gave away a free box of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes to every woman who winked at the grocer.
• In 2000, the H.J. Heinz, Co. experienced its biggest spike in sales since the company was founded in 1869. That’s when they introduced green ketchup.
• Some people believe tea originated in China on a very windy day. According to legend, a strong wind blew tea leaves into a pot of boiling water.
• Biggest cereal maker in the world: Quaker Oats.
• The most popular pizza toppings in India: dill, ginger, and lamb.
• What do you call a plain, unsalted pretzel? A “baldy.”
• Three jars of peanut butter are sold every second.
• Americans eat nearly 20 billion pickles per year. That’s more than nine pounds per person a year.
• Almost everybody (98%) spreads the peanut butter on first when they’re making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
• The average American eats 24 pounds of cheese per year. That’s nothing compared to the French: They eat 43.6 pounds of cheese per person, per year.
• Don’t try this at home: Among nuts, macadamias have the hardest shells in the world. It takes approximately 300 pounds of pressure to open them.
• There are at least 1,462 edible insect species in the world. The most popular way to prepare an insect is to cook it live, like a crab or a lobster, and then peel it open and eat the insides.
• Eight out of 10 American families have a box of oatmeal in the kitchen cupboard.
• In Japan, you can taste some unusual ice cream flavors, including horseradish, crab, squid ink, buttered potato, ox tongue, cactus, and chicken wing.
BOOKS
• According to one theory, the word “book” comes from bok, meaning “beech” in Old English, because the first books in Europe were written on slabs of beechwood.
• The British Library owns the world’s oldest existing printed book: a Buddhist text c
alled Diamond Sutra, published in China in 868 A.D.
• A book of maps is called an atlas because the covers of early editions featured pictures of the mythical Greek character Atlas carrying the world on his shoulders.
• The Bible is the bestselling book of all time. More than six billion copies have been sold.
• The Da Vinci Code is the bestselling adult novel of all time within a one-year period: 6.8 million copies.
• Orbis Pictus (The Visible World in Pictures), a children’s encyclopedia, was published in 1658 by a Czech educator. It’s considered to be the very first picture book for children.
• A bibliophile is a person who loves books.
• Ms. Kazuko Hosoki from Japan has written a series of 81 books on fortune telling, with a total of 34,000,000 copies sold.
• An 1859 first edition of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection was returned to a Boston public library in 2001—80 years overdue.
SHARK ATTACK!
• There are about 375 species of shark.
• Great whites are the sharks most commonly responsible for attacks on people. They have a very good sense of smell. How good? They can smell a single drop of blood in an Olympic-size swimming pool.
• Shark attacks are very rare. You have better odds of winning the lottery than being attacked by a shark.
• Some sharks, like blacktip reef sharks, hunt in groups. Blacktip reef sharks can also jump all the way out of the water or just stick their noses out of the water to look around. (Look out, seagulls!)
• Sharks have the unusual ability to sense minute electrical fields that are generated by other creatures. This sixth sense is possible because of specialized sensory organs called the ampullae of Lorenzini.
• Great white, tiger, hammerhead, and bull sharks are known as apex predators—they have no natural enemies.
Uncle John’s Did You Know? Page 15