What Makes Flamingos Pink?

by Bill McLain

  FACTOIDS

  When the zipper was first introduced, people did not know how to use it, so directions were included with each zipper.

  It’s rumored that the zipper was invented because of a bad back. Supposedly a friend of Whitcomb Judson could not bend over to fasten his boots. Judson invented a slide fastener that his friend could open or close with one hand.

  A Swiss mountaineer, George de Mestral, became very frustrated when walking through the woods because of the numerous burrs that stuck to his clothes. One day, while picking them off, he had an inspiration. He thought he could possibly use the same principle to invent a fastener that would compete with the zipper. He did just that and came up with Velcro. He liked the sound or “vel” in the French word velours (meaning “velvet”) so he combined that with “cro” from the French word crochet (meaning “a hook”). Just two years after Mestral perfected his product, textile factories were churning out 60 million yards of Velcro a year.

  DID YOU KNOW?

  During the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, few people even noticed the inventor of the zipper, but virtually everyone acclaimed the genius of the inventor of the most sensational object at the fair, a gigantic vertical wheel that later became known as the Ferris wheel.

  The wheel was 250 feet high with a circumference of 825 feet and weighed over 4,000 tons. It was powered by two 1,000-horsepower engines. The axle alone weighed 70 tons and was the largest piece of steel ever cast in one piece.

  The 36 enclosed cars, resembling streetcars without wheels, could each seat 40 people, or a total of 1,440 passengers. If the passengers stood, the wheel could carry 2,000 people.

  When George Ferris asked the fair directors for permission to build his wheel at the fair, they thought he was crazy. Fortunately for us, Ferris was a persistent man or today we would not be enjoying the numerous Ferris wheels in our country.

  Oh, yes, the fair directors later said that George Ferris was a genius.

  Why are soda cans cylindrical? (It all started with a bottle of wine.)

  In 1795 the French wanted to find a new, efficient, and practical means of preserving food. Napoleon’s armies had lengthy and vulnerable supply lines and food often spoiled before it reached the soldiers in the field. More soldiers were disabled by scurvy and hunger than by combat. A prize of 12,000 francs was offered to anyone who could come up with a solution.

  An obscure Parisian, Nicolas Appert, had worked as a brewer and vintner, among other occupations. He had a brilliant idea: why not pack food in bottles just like wine?

  It took him 15 years to perfect the idea and prove his theory that if partially cooked food was sealed in corked bottles and then immersed in boiling water, the food would not spoil. To test his method, he processed meat, vegetables, fruit, and milk. These were then put aboard French ships that set sail and stayed at sea for over four months. When the containers were opened, the food was as fresh and tasty as the day it was processed. Napoleon himself awarded the 12,000 francs to Appert.

  Not to be outdone, the British decided to improve upon Appert’s idea. Because glass could easily break, it could not endure harsh battlefield conditions. So they decided to make the containers out of metal. They designed a wrought-iron can lined with tin. There were only two problems with the can: it took a skilled craftsman a full day to make just four cans, and you could only open a can with a hammer and chisel. Eventually, a lighter can was made.

  Cylindrical earthenware bottles were made in ancient Rome and in China. Later, bottles were made by blowing glass, which led to their round shape. Bottles were used in the first attempts at food preservation. Cans were a substitute for bottles, so they were made cylindrical like bottles. The custom has lasted until this day.

  FACTOIDS

  A modern can manufacturing line in a factory can turn out up to 400 cans per minute (almost 200,000 in an eight-hour day); a typical factory produces over a million cans a day.

  Every three months, U.S. consumers throw away enough aluminum cans to provide all the aluminum required to completely rebuild all the commercial airliners in the country.

  In spite of the popularity of cans, one study found that people preferred their soda in a glass bottle rather than a metal can.

  Approximately 99 percent of all beer cans and 97 percent of all soft drink cans are made of aluminum.

  From the time an aluminum can is made until it is recycled and remanufactured is an average of six weeks.

  DID YOU KNOW?

  For many people it’s difficult to think of a tin can without thinking of soup. In fact, the term “soup can” has almost become a generic term for any can other than a soda or beer can. Soup cans are put to use even after the soup is gone. Boy Scouts and hoboes have used them for boiling water and for cooking. The cans have been used as tools for scooping and as banks to hold accumulated loose change.

  Whenever someone thinks of a soup can, they almost always think of Campbell’s condensed soup. In the late 1800s the Joseph Campbell Preserve Company developed a method for making commercially condensed soups. Because the water was removed from the soup, 32 ounces of soup were reduced to a mere 10 ounces and the price dropped from 34 cents to a dime.

  Around the same time, a corporate executive from the company attended a football game between Cornell and Penn State and was so impressed with Cornell’s brilliant red-and-white uniforms that he convinced the company to use the same colors on its soup labels. The red-and-white soup labels are still used today, almost a hundred years later.

  The celebrated artist Andy Warhol is probably most famous for his painting of 200 Campbell’s soup cans. When asked why he painted soup cans, he replied, “Because I used to drink soup. I used to have the same lunch every day for twenty years.”

  If it’s good enough for Andy Warhol, then it should be good enough for everyone.

  Who invented the bumper sticker? (Don’t get stuck on this one.)

  Shortly after World War II, fluorescent ink and self-sticking adhesive were developed. At that time a company called Gill-line, founded in 1934, specialized in printing and decorating canvas products. As far as is known, it was the first company to combine fluorescent ink and self-sticking adhesive to produce a sign that could be applied to an automobile’s bumper. In effect, Gill-line invented the bumper sticker. When the company celebrated its fiftieth anniversary in 1984, it had already produced well over one billion bumper stickers.

  You cannot drive very far these days without seeing a car with a bumper sticker. It’s almost an American tradition. The stickers fall into many categories. There are sayings about work, such as “I’m a corporate executive, I keep things from happening.” Some stickers refer to driving, such as “Cover me, I’m changing lanes,” or “Honk if anything falls off my car.” Still others can be satirical, such as those that mimic the movie The Wizard of Oz, “I owe, I owe, so off to work I go” and “Auntie Em, hate you, hate Kansas, taking the dog. Dorothy.” And there are always the ones that are a play on words, such as “Horse lovers are stable people” and “Authors have novel ideas.”

  You know yourself how popular this product has become.

  FACTOIDS

  There are tens of thousands of bumper sticker sayings. You probably have your favorites. Here’s just a few samples:

  Ever stop to think, and forget to start again?

  Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.

  Born free, taxed to death.

  Forget about world peace … visualize using your turn signal.

  As long as there are tests, there will be prayer in public schools.

  I used to have a handle on life, but it broke.

  A closed mouth gathers no feet.

  A lost ounce of gold may be found, a lost moment of time never.

  How in the world can buffalo fly with those little tiny wings?

  It is bad luck to be superstitious!

  DID YOU KNOW?

  Bumper stickers let people express their feelings. But what did p
eople do before the invention of the automobile? Well, it was simple. They inscribed the sayings on walls of buildings. Today we typically use the plural form of the old word for this kind of inscription, “graffiti.”

  Perhaps one of the earliest forms of graffiti is the “handwriting on the wall” mentioned in the Bible. The words mene mene tekel upharsin were written on the palace walls of King Belshazzar. Daniel said that these words meant:

  mene: God has numbered your kingdom and finished it.

  tekel: You have been weighed in the balance and found wanting.

  upharsin: Your kingdom has been divided and given to the Medes and Persians.

  Although we think of graffiti as a modern phenomenon, it has been found on walls in Rome and at ancient Mayan sites in Mexico.

  Today’s graffiti is neither as prophetic nor as somber as that found in the Old Testament. Most of it falls into one of two categories: writing someone’s name or organization, or a true attempt at an artistic design.

  When people started painting their names and other sayings on walls, they were considered vandals who were defacing property and creating an eyesore. Their paint scribble might just be a name, a witty saying, or a declaration of love. These so-called “taggers” are still considered vandals today. In New York, graffiti was started in the early 1970s by an individual who wrote “Taki 183” on walls.

  However, some people use graffiti as a serious art form and have been allowed to create elaborate colored graffiti in public places. These are called “pieces” (from the word “masterpiece”) to separate them from the illegal taggers. These pieces are not uncommon in cities such as New York and Los Angeles.

  In some cases, these graffiti pieces have become legitimate art. The work of the late Keith Haring, for example, moved from the subway walls of New York to the walls of respected art galleries and private art collectors.

  Many pieces have been considered true art by some people, while others who have seen the identical pieces complain they are an eyesore.

  Whether graffiti is good or just a nuisance seems to be in the eye of the beholder.

  Who invented Gatorade? (It’s definitely not alligator juice.)

  During physical exertion at high temperatures, you can suffer severe dehydration and loss of body salts. If you lost just 2 percent of your body weight because of perspiration, your blood volume could drop, dangerously decreasing your blood pressure. Dehydration can cause fatigue, muscle cramping, decreased coordination, and poor all-around performance.

  In the early 1960s, a team of researchers at the University of Florida started a project to develop a product that would rapidly replace the fluid and salts lost during extreme exertion. In 1965, Robert Cade, a kidney researcher and professor of medicine, concocted a formula to combat dehydration. All that was left to do was test the new formula.

  Football players lose a great amount of body fluid when practicing and playing games. The researchers decided to test the new formula on 10 members of the University of Florida football team. The name of the team is the “Gators,” derived from the word alligator, so it was decided to name the formula “Gatorade.”

  The football coach, recognizing the value of Gatorade, had his players drink it for the entire season. That year the Gators had a winning season and earned the nickname “the second-half team,” because they outplayed all their opponents in the second half of the game. When the Gators whipped Georgia Tech in the 1967 Orange Bowl, the opposing coach said, “We didn’t have Gatorade. That made the difference.” Sports Illustrated magazine published the coach’s remarks. From that time on, more and more football coaches realized that players needed to consume fluids during the game to avoid dehydration.

  Robert Cade eventually sold the Gatorade rights to Stokely Van-Kamp, Inc. In 1983, the Quaker Oats Company purchased the rights to Gatorade. At that time, Gatorade came in three flavors, the original Lemon Lime, Orange, and Fruit Punch. There are now about 30 flavors worldwide. In spite of increased competition from about 60 different sports drinks, Gatorade is still the number one sports drink in the United States.

  Whether football players are drinking it or pouring it over their coach’s head in a victory celebration, the pale-green Gatorade will probably be part of the football scene for years to come.

  FACTOIDS

  To prevent dehydration when exercising, weigh yourself before and after your workout. If you have lost 2 or more pounds, drink 24 ounces of water for each pound you’ve lost.

  In 1985, Jim Burt, who played for the New York Giants, was the first football player to dump a cooler of Gatorade on a coach when he drenched Bill Parcells. It wasn’t until 1989 when a coach retaliated. Steve Spurrier, coach at the University of Florida, crept up behind three unsuspecting players who had doused him the week before and promptly dumped a cooler of Gatorade on them.

  Drinking a sports drink is better than drinking water when you’re working out. Water will quench your thirst but it isn’t that good for preventing dehydration. It turns off your thirst before you get all the fluids you need, and it doesn’t contain the important electrolytes that you lose when perspiring.

  DID YOU KNOW?

  When discussing Gatorade and the Gators, it’s quite easy to think of alligators, which are very fascinating creatures. Their name comes from the Spanish el lagarto, meaning “the lizard.” Although they are large, up to 16 feet long, and appear sluggish, they are extremely mobile and can roam as much as five miles a day, even across dry land.

  It’s not that difficult to tell the difference between an alligator and a crocodile. An alligator has a U-shaped snout rather than a pointed one, and you can’t see its bottom teeth when its mouth is closed. That’s just as well. An alligator has 80 large teeth and if any old ones fall out, new ones grow in. In fact, an alligator may go through as many as 2,000 or 3,000 teeth during its life.

  When an alligator is depicted in a cartoon or on a shirt, it is always green for some reason. Real alligators are not green but black, so that the cold-blooded beast can better absorb the sun’s rays and stay warm.

  There are a few rare alligators that are albino, or completely white. Two rare white alligators are brothers, Boudreaux and Beauregard, owned by Jerry Savoie of Cut Off, Louisiana. He often lends them to zoos so the public can see these unusual creatures. Only 25 albino alligators are known to exist in the world.

  It would be possible to write an entire book about these unusual creatures. However, this might be a good time to repeat an old saying, “See you later, alligator.”

  Who invented chewing gum? (Remember the Alamo!)

  Humans have been chewing on something since the dawn of history, usually sap (resin) from various trees or wax. In 1848, John Curtis made the first gum in the United States when he cooked resin from a spruce tree on his wood-burning stove. In 1869, the first patent issued for chewing gum was given to William Semple, a dentist in Ohio, who invented a gum to exercise the jaws and stimulate the gums. It never sold, probably because it was made primarily of rubber.

  The invention of gum, as we know it today, came about because of the friendship of two men, Thomas Adams, a photographer, and Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, who had defeated the Texans at the Alamo. When Santa Anna was exiled from Mexico, he lived with Adams on Staten Island, New York. Adams had tried different schemes to make money but all had failed. Santa Anna told him of an idea that could make Adams wealthy. He told him of a gummy substance that people in Mexico had been chewing for thousands of years. It was called chicle, the milky sap from the sapodilla tree that grows in the tropical rain forests of Central America. But gum was not on either’s mind. The plan was to blend chicle and rubber together to make cheaper tires, toys, and rainboots.

  Santa Anna had his friends in Mexico ship a ton of chicle to Adams. Although he labored for about a year, every one of his experiments failed. He had not been able to blend chicle and rubber. A vast amount of useless chicle was stored in his warehouse and Adams decided to throw it all into the river.<
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  By sheer luck, Adams happened to go into a drugstore and saw a little girl buy some paraffin wax chewing gum. He remembered that Santa Anna had told him that Mexicans chewed chicle. Inspired, Adams started making unflavored pure chicle gum. It sold extremely well and Adams built a thriving business.

  Some years later, John Colgan, a drugstore owner in Louisville, Kentucky, was selling a gum he made from balsam tree sap and flavored with powdered sugar. He had heard of how successful Thomas Adams was, so he ordered 100 pounds of chicle. He started making Taffy Tolu Chewing Gum, which was so successful that he sold his drugstore and devoted his time to manufacturing chewing gum.

  A breakthrough in gum manufacture occurred when a popcorn salesman, William J. White, started experimenting with a barrel of chicle a friend had given him. He discovered how to flavor gum. Chicle does not absorb flavors, but sugar does. He combined flavors, such as peppermint, with corn syrup and then blended the mixture with the chicle.

  In 1899, the major gum manufacturers united to become the American Chicle Company. William White was president and Thomas Adams, Jr., was chairman of the board. You might see some of their brands today, such as Black Jack and Beeman’s.

  People have been chewing gum ever since.

  FACTOIDS

  Clove gum became popular during Prohibition. Illegal liquor clubs passed it out as a breath freshener to remove traces of bootleg liquor on the breath.