Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Extraordinary Book of Facts: And Bizarre Information (10 page)

Twenty-nine days, 12 hours, 44 minutes, and three seconds from a new moon to a new moon

Thirty-five days for a mouse to reach sexual maturity

Thirty-eight days for a slow boat to get to China (from New York)

Twelve weeks for a U.S. Marine to go through boot camp

Eighty-nine days, one hour for winter to come and go

Ninety-one days, 7 hours, 26 minutes, and 24 seconds for Earth to fall into the sun if it loses its orbit

Two hundred fifty-eight days for the gestation period of a yak

One year for Los Angeles to move two inches closer to San Francisco (due to the shifting of tectonic plates)

Two years for cheddar cheese to reach its peak flavor

Four years, eight months to receive your FBI file after making the appropriate request

There are six years in a snail’s life span.

Twenty-five years equals the time the average American spends asleep in a lifetime

Sixty-nine years for the Soviet Union to rise and fall

One hundred years for tidal friction to slow Earth’s rotation by 14 seconds

Eighteen hundred years to complete the Great Wall of China

Five hundred thousand years for plutonium-239 to become harmless

One billion years for the sun to release as much energy as a supernova releases in 24 hours

INVENTION:
Musical Baby Diaper Alarm

USE:
Three women from France marketed this alarm to mothers in 1985. It’s a padded electronic napkin that goes inside a baby’s diaper. When it gets wet, it plays “When the Saints Go Marching In.”

INVENTION:
Thinking Cap

USE:
Improves artistic ability by mimicking the effects of autism. The cap uses magnetic pulses to inhibit the front-temporal, or “left brain,” functions. This, say the two Australian scientists behind the project, creates better access to extraordinary savant abilities. They reported improved drawing skills in five of 17 volunteers in a 2002 experiment.

INVENTION:
Breath Alert

USE:
This pocket-sized electronic device detects and measures bad breath. You simply breathe into the sensor for three seconds, then the LCD readout indicates—on a scale of one to four—how safe (or offensive) your breath is.

INVENTION:
Vibrating Toilet Seat

USE:
Thomas Bayard invented the seat in 1966. He believed that “buttocks stimulation” helps prevent constipation.

INVENTION:
Lavakan

USE:
It’s a washing machine for cats and dogs. This industrial-strength machine soaps, rinses, and dries your pet in less than 30 minutes. One of the inventors, Andres Díaz, claims that the $20,000 machines can actually reduce pet stress. “One of the dogs actually fell asleep during the wash,” he said. Cats weren’t quite as happy about being Lavakanned. “But it’s better than having a cat attach itself to your face, which is what can happen when you try to wash one by hand.”

INVENTION:
See-Through Refrigerator

USE:
The door is a one-way mirror so when a light is switched on inside the fridge, you can see what’s inside without opening the door. You save energy . . . and pounds. Inventor Bruce Lambert says, “The mirror encourages dieting, because people can see their reflections as they approach the door.”

INVENTION:
Rape-L

USE:
Haley manufactures skunk scent vials that wearers can clip to their undergarments to fend off sexual assaults. When attacked, the wearer simply pinches the vial and douses themselves with the scent, which is harvested from real skunks at a skunk ranch in upstate New York. The kit also contains a second vial filled with ordinary tap water “for practice,” inventor John Haley explains. Suggested retail price: $19.95.

INVENTION:
Beethoven Condoms

USE:
The condom will play a bit of Beethoven if it breaks during use. According to news reports, “the condom is coated with a substance that changes electrical conductivity upon rupture, setting off a microchip that produces sound.” Inventor Lino Missio, a 26-year-old Italian physics student, has also proposed an alternative to music: a verbal warning to the participants to stop what they’re doing immediately.

Hurricanes are classed by wind speed:

In 1912 the archbishop of Paris declared dancing the tango a sin.

In the 13th century, Europeans baptized children with beer.

King Henry VI banned kissing in England in 1439 because he thought it spread disease.

Tablecloths originally served as big napkins. People wiped their hands and faces on them.

Ancient Roman theaters had “vomitoriums,” passageways that allowed people to file in and out quickly. (They weren’t for vomiting.)

Parrot tongue and ostrich brains were considered delicacies in the Roman Empire.

Colonial governor John Winthrop introduced the table fork to America in 1620.

When medieval Europeans burned witches, the witches’ families had to pay for the firewood.

Knights in armor used to lift their visors when riding past the king—the original military salute.

In the Middle Ages chicken soup was considered an aphrodisiac.

In the 13th century, suits of armor weighed as much as 90 pounds.

The Pilgrims refused to eat lobsters because they thought they were really big insects.

The wok began as a Bronze-Age Mongolian helmet that doubled as a cooking pan.

World’s oldest profession according to anthropologists: witch doctor.

6 Nobel Prize Categories

Peace, Chemistry, Physics,

Physiology & Medicine,

Literature, Economics

6 Wives of Henry VIII

Catherine of Aragon, Ann

Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of

Cleves, Catherine Howard,

Catherine Parr

6 Parts of the

Circulatory System

Heart, Arteries, Arterioles,

Capillaries, Venules, Veins

6 Enemies of Mankind

(Hinduism)

Lust, Angst, Envy, Avarice,

Spiritual ignorance, Pride

6 Layers of the Earth

Crust, Upper mantle, Lower

mantle, Outer core, Transition

region, Inner core

6 Grades of Meat

Prime, Choice, Good,

Standard, Commercial, Utility

6 Foreign Places Named

for U.S. Presidents

Cape Washington, Antarctica;

Monrovia, Liberia; Lincoln

Island, South China Sea;

Cleveland, Brazil; Mount

Eisenhower, Alberta, Canada;

Avenue de President

Kennedy, Paris

6 Rodeo Contests

Saddle bronco riding, Bareback

riding, Calf roping, Bull riding,

Steer wrestling, Team roping

6 Ice Hockey Positions

Right wing, Left wing,

Right defense, Left defense,

Center, Goalie

6 Branches of the

U.S. Armed Forces

Army, Navy, Air Force,

Marines, National Guard,

Coast Guard

Sinister 6 (Spider-Man’s

Archenemies)

Kraven the Hunter, Dr.

Octopus, Mysterio, Vulture,

Electro, Sandman

6 Elements (Buddhism)

Earth, Water, Fire, Wind,

Space, Consciousness

Myth:
Your hair and nails continue to grow after you die.

Fact:
They don’t. Your tissue recedes from your hair and nails, making them appear longer.

Myth:
You should never wake a sleepwalker.

Fact:
There’s no reason not to wake a sleepwalker. This superstition comes from the old belief that a sleepwalker’s spirit leaves the body and might not make it back if the person is wakened.

Myth:
In the Old West, pioneers circled their wagons to protect against Indian raids.

Fact:
When they did circle the wagons, it was to keep livestock in.

Myth:
A strong cup of coffee will help a drunk person get sober.

Fact:
It’s the alcohol in a person’s bloodstream that makes them drunk, and no amount of coffee, no matter how strong, will change that.

Myth:
SOS stands for “Save Our Ship.”

Fact:
It doesn’t stand for anything. It was selected as a distress signal because it’s easy to transmit in Morse code: 3 dots, 3 dashes, 3 dots.

Myth:
Fortune cookies were invented in China.

Fact:
They were invented in the United States in 1918 by Charles Jung, a Chinese restaurant owner, to amuse customers while they waited for their food. Only later were they served after the meal.

Myth:
According to the Bible, Adam and Eve ate the forbidden apple and were expelled from the Garden of Eden.

Fact:
They ate the “fruit” of the Tree of Knowlege. Nowhere does the bible call the fruit an apple. The misconception may have come from the fact that, in Middle English, “apple” referred to many fruits.

Myth:
Dogs sweat through their tongues.

Fact:
Dogs cool off by breathing rapidly, not by sticking their tongues out. Their tongues don’t have sweat glands—and the only large sweat glands they have are in their feet.

Myth:
For every cockroach you see in your house, there are 10 more you didn’t see.

Fact:
According to studies conducted by the Insects Affecting Man and Animals Laboratory of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the number is actually closer to 1,000 to 1.

Myth:
The artist Vincent van Gogh cut off his entire ear.

Fact:
The famous episode followed two months of hard work, hard drinking, and an argument with his best friend, Paul Gauguin. Van Gogh was despondent and cut off only a small part of his earlobe.

Myth:
The largest pyramid in the world is in Egypt.

Fact:
The Quetzalcoatl pyramid southeast of Mexico City is 177 feet tall, with a base covering 45 acres and a volume of 120 million cubic feet. Cheops, the largest in Egypt, though originally 481 feet tall, has a base covering only 13 acres and a volume of only 90 million cubic feet.

Myth:
A limb “falls asleep” because its blood supply gets cut off.

Fact:
This feeling of numbness—called neurapraxia—happens when a major nerve is pinched against a hard object or bone. This causes the harmless temporary sensation of numbness, but the blood continues to flow normally.

Americans consume more than 20 pounds of candy per person per year.

The kid on the Cracker Jack box is named Robert.