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

by Bathroom Readers' Hysterical Society

  MURPHY’S LAW OF LINES: The line next to you will move more quickly than the one you’re in. (This also applies with a line of traffic.)

  Scientific analysis: On average, all the lanes of traffic, or lines at a Wal-Mart, move at roughly the same rate. This means that if there’s a checkout line on either side of you, there’s a two in three chance that one of them will move faster than the one you’re in.

  MURPHY’S LAW OF SOCKS: If you lose a sock, it’s always from a complete pair.

  Scientific analysis: Start with a drawer containing 10 complete pairs of socks, for a total of 20 socks. Now lose one sock, creating one incomplete pair. The drawer now contains 19 socks, 18 of which belong to a complete pair. Now lose a second sock. If all of the remaining socks have the same odds of being lost, there’s only one chance out of 18 that this lost sock is the mate of the first one that was lost. That means there’s a 94.4 percent chance that it’s from one of the complete pairs.

  MURPHY’S LAW OF MAPS: The place you’re looking for on the map will be located at the most inconvenient place on the map, such as an edge, a corner, or near a fold.

  Scientific analysis: If you measure out an inch or so from each edge of the map and from each fold, and then calculate the total area of these portions of the map, they’ll account for more than half the total area of the map. So if you pick a point at random, there’s a better than 50 percent chance that it will be in an inconvenient-to-read part of the map.

  FACTS TO BUG YOU

  The praying mantis is the only insect that can turn its head like a human.

  The hairs on the butt of a cockroach are so sensitive that they can detect air currents made by the onrushing tongue of a toad.

  Mating soapberry bugs remain locked in embrace for up to 11 days, which exceeds the life span of many other insects.

  On the Road

  Forty-one percent of people ages 18 to 24 wear seat belts. Only 18 percent of people over age 65 do.

  If your car is more than 42 feet long, you can’t drive it on U.S. public roads.

  First American car race: Chicago, in 1895. Average speed: 7.5 mph.

  Divide the U.S. population by two—that’s how many cars there are in America.

  Chance that a driver will swerve out of their lane of traffic while talking on a cell phone: 7 percent.

  In 1920 Detroit became the first city in the United States to put in a stoplight.

  Busiest stretch of highway in the United States: New York’s George Washington Bridge.

  The average car in Japan is driven 4,400 miles a year. In the United States, it’s 9,500 miles a year.

  Sport-utility vehicle drivers are twice as likely to talk on a cell phone as are drivers of other kinds of cars.

  According to one study, 85 percent of parents use child car–safety seats incorrectly.

  Chance that a public road in the United States is unpaved: 1 percent.

  There are more fatal traffic accidents in July than in any other month.

  More road rage incidents occur on Friday between 4 and 6 p.m. than at any other time.

  Aches & Pains

  If it’s a drug, it has a side effect.

  Aspirin has never been approved by the FDA. It has never been rejected, either.

  Fifth most popular plastic surgery performed on U.S. males: breast reduction.

  You can’t get athlete’s foot if you don’t wear shoes.

  Chocolate is good for you: It has more antioxidant properties than green tea. The darker the better—and the warmer the better, as in a nice cup of hot chocolate.

  The swine flu vaccine of 1976 caused more sickness and death than the flu itself did.

  What do pediatricians do when their kids get colds? Sixty-three percent say they “let them run their course.”

  A few drops of tincture of mullein, easy to find at a vitamin or health food store, will stop a dry cough every time.

  Crushed cockroaches, when applied to a stinging wound, are said to ease the pain.

  There’s no medical treatment for tinnitus, ringing in the ears. On the bright side, it sometimes goes away all by itself.

  Peppermint tea is the perfect remedy for everything from stomach upsets to ulcers.

  Chewing on parsley or cardamom seeds will get rid of bad breath.

  Experts say that a belly laugh can help relieve constipation.

  It takes about 30 minutes for aspirin to find a headache.

  Animal Names

  GORILLA

  First used in a Greek translation of 5th century B.C. Carthaginian explorer Hanno’s account of a voyage to West Africa. He reported encountering a tribe of wild hairy people, whose females were, according to a local interpreter, called gorillas. In 1847 the American missionary and scientist Thomas Savage adopted the word as the species name of the great ape and by the 1850s it had passed into general use. (Dictionary of Word Origins, by John Ayto)

  FERRET

  Ferret comes from Latin furritus, for “little thief,” which probably alludes to the fact that ferrets, which are related to pole cats, like to steal hens’ eggs. Its name also developed into a verb, to ferret out, meaning “to dig out or bring something to light.” (Cool Cats, Top Dogs, and Other Beastly Expressions, by Christine Ammer)

  SKUNK

  Because the little striped mammal could squirt his foul yellow spray up to 12 feet, American Indians called him segankw or segonku, the Algonquin dialect word meaning simply “he who squirts.” Early pioneers corrupted the hard-to-pronounce Algonquin word to skunk, and that way it has remained ever since. (Animal Crackers, by Robert Hendrickson)

  HOUND

  Before the Norman conquest of England, French hunters bred a keen-nosed dog that they called the St. Hubert. One of their rulers, William, took a pack to England and hunted deer—following the dogs on foot. Saxons had never before seen a dog fierce enough to seize its prey, so they named William’s animals hunts, meaning “seizure.” Altered over time to hound, it was long applied to all hunting dogs. Then the meaning narrowed to stand for breeds that follow their quarry by scent. (Why You Say It, by Webb Garrison)

  LEOPARD

  It was once wrongly believed that the leopard was a cross between a “leo” (a lion) and a “pard” (a white panther)—hence the name “leopard.” (Why Do We Say It?, by Nigel Rees)

  PYTHON

  According to Greek legend, the god Apollo’s earliest adventure was the single-handed slaying of Python, a flame-breathing dragon who blocked his way to Pytho (now Delphi), the site he had chosen for an oracle. From the name of this monster derives the name of the large snake of Asia, Africa, and Australia, the python. (Thou Improper, Thou Uncommon Noun, by Willard R. Espy)

  CARDINAL

  One would think that such an attractive creature would have given its name to many things, but in fact it is the other way around. The bird’s name comes from the red-robed official of the Roman Catholic Church, who in turn was named for being so important—that is, from the adjective cardinal, from the Latin cardo, meaning “hinge” or “pivot.” Anything cardinal was so important that events depended (hinged or pivoted) on it. (It’s Raining Cats and Dogs, by Christine Ammer)

  MOOSE

  Captain John Smith, one of the original leaders at Jamestown, wrote accounts of the colony and life in Virginia, in which he defined the creature as Moos, a beast bigger than a stagge. Moos was from Natick (Indian) dialect and probably derived from moosu, ‘he trims, he shaves,’ a reference to the way the animal rips the bark and lower branches from trees while feeding. (The Chronology of Words and Phrases, by Linda and Roger Flavell)

  FLAMINGO

  This long-legged pink wading bird is named for the people of Flanders, the Flemings, as they were called. Flemings were widely known for their lively personalities, their flushed complexions, and their love of bright clothing. Spaniard explorers in the New World thought it was a great joke naming the bird flamingo, which means “a Fleming” in Spanish. (Facts On File Encyclopedia of Word and Phra
se Origins, by Robert Hendrickson)

  Thomas Edison

  He wasn’t blind, but Edison preferred reading in Braille.

  Edison proposed to his second wife by Morse code.

  In one four-year period, Edison obtained an average of one patent every five days.

  In the 1860s Edison developed a device to electrocute cockroaches.

  In 1888 Edison invented the talking doll.

  Thomas Edison invented the light socket and the light switch.

  The first sound recording ever made was “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” by Edison in 1877.

  First sport on film: boxing (Edison filmed it in 1894).

  The first thing Edison filmed with his movie camera was a person sneezing: “Record of a Sneeze” (1894).

  SUPERSTITIOUS?

  If cooking bacon curls up in the pan, a new lover is about to arrive.

  If the bubbles on the surface of a cup of coffee float toward the drinker,

  prosperous times lie ahead; if they retreat, hard times are promised.

  When a slice of buttered bread falls butter-side-up,

  it means a visitor is coming.

  Finding a chicken egg with no yolk is unlucky.

  If meat shrinks in the pot, your downfall is assured.

  If it swells, you’ll experience prosperity.

  Your Body

  If your stomach didn’t produce a new layer of mucus every two weeks, it would digest itself.

  Every day an adult body produces 300 billion new cells.

  When your face blushes, the lining of your stomach turns red, too.

  Nearly everyone’s right lung is bigger than their left lung.

  A single isolated heart cell will “beat” for as long as it has a fresh supply of blood.

  Side by side, 2,000 cells of the human body would cover about one square inch.

  Your kidneys, weighing about five ounces each, process about 425 gallons of blood a day.

  Your liver—the largest organ in your body—processes about a quart of blood a minute.

  The acid in your stomach is strong enough to dissolve razor blades.

  You’ll take about 23,000 breaths today.

  You exhale air at an average speed of four miles per hour.

  Your stomach has 35 million digestive glands.

  Two percent of Americans have an extra nipple somewhere on their body.

  Pain travels through your body at a rate of 350 feet per second.

  The largest cell in the human body is a female egg. The smallest is a male sperm.

  A full bladder is about the size of a softball.

  Tendons, which anchor muscle tissue to bones, have half the tensile strength of steel.

  You use about 200 muscles each time you take a step.

  Your body uses 300 muscles to balance itself when you’re standing still.

  Skin & Bones

  You can sweat as much as three gallons of water a day in a hot climate.

  The thickest skin on your body is on your foot. It’s three times thicker than the skin on your palms.

  Ichthyosis is the condition that gives human skin the appearance of fish scales.

  The average person’s skin weighs twice as much as their brain.

  The average person sheds 40 pounds of dead skin in their lifetime.

  Technical term for goose bumps: horripilation.

  Muscle cells live as long as you do. Skin cells live less than 24 hours.

  In the old days, freckles were called moth-patches and were considered an affliction.

  Draw a one-inch by one-inch square on your forehead. That square is home to 8 million bacteria.

  Take your weight, multiply it by 0.6. That’s roughly how many pounds of water are in your body.

  If you’re typical, your body contains about four ounces of salt.

  GROSSEST FACT IN THIS BOOK:

  You inhale about 700,000 of your own skin flakes daily.

  The Friendly Skies

  Two years before he made his first flight, Wilbur Wright told friends, “man won’t fly for 50 years.”

  The Wright brothers made four flights on December 17, 1903. The first was the shortest.

  Charles Lindbergh carried a Felix the Cat doll with him on his famous flight.

  Henry Ford was Charles Lindbergh’s first passenger in the Spirit of St. Louis.

  Charles Lindbergh’s first words after his historic flight: “Are there any mechanics here?”

  First pilot ever to fly a loop-the-loop: Lincoln Beachy, November 18, 1913, in San Diego.

  On February 18, 1930, a cow flew in an airplane for the first time.

  First animal to be ejected from a supersonic jet: a bear, in 1962. It parachuted safely to earth.

  Castor oil is used as a lubricant in jet planes.

  The higher a plane flies, the less fuel it uses.

  Every year, more than 500,000 passengers are bumped from U.S. airlines due to overbooking.

  Air Canada was the first North American airline to ban smoking.

  Fourteen of the world’s 20 busiest airports are located in the United States.

  In an average hour, there are 61,000 Americans airborne over the United States.

  Myth America

  TAKING A STAND

  Myth: Custer’s Last Stand at Little Bighorn was a heroic effort by a great soldier.

  Truth: General George Armstrong Custer had unwarranted contempt for the American Indians’ fighting ability. His division was supposed to be a small part of a major attack led by General Alfred Terry, who was planning to meet Custer in two days with his troops. Custer was instructed to wait for Terry. Instead, he led his 266 men into battle. They were all slaughtered.

  REPUTATION ON THE LINE

  Myth: Henry Ford invented the auto assembly line.

  Truth: No, chalk this one up to Ransom E. Olds, creator of the Oldsmobile. Olds introduced the moving assembly line in the early 1900s and boosted car production by 500 percent. The previous year the Olds Motor Vehicle Company had turned out 425 cars. The year after, they made more than 2,500 of them. Ford improved Olds’s system by introducing the conveyor belt, which moved both the cars and needed parts along the production line. The belt cut Ford’s production time from a day to about two hours. A significant contribution, but not the original.

  WITCH HUNT

  Myth: Witches were burned at the stake during the Salem witch trials of 1692.

  Truth: No witches were ever burned in Salem. A hundred fifty men and women were arrested under suspicion of witchcraft. In all, 19 people and two dogs were put to death as “witches and warlocks,” all of them hanged except for one person, who was pressed to death by stones. Ten others were convicted, but not put to death. A few months later the governor of Massachusetts dissolved the witch court. The judges didn’t mind; they were running out of people to accuse.

  RECLUSE

  Myth: While writing Walden, Henry David Thoreau lived in isolation in the woods of Massachusetts.

  Truth: Thoreau’s two-year retreat to Walden Pond was like a little boy pretending that his backyard tree house is in the middle of the jungle. In truth, Thoreau built his famous cabin a scant two miles from his family’s home and spent very little time in isolation. “It was not a lonely spot,” wrote Walter Harding in The Days of Henry Thoreau. “Hardly a day went by that Thoreau did not visit the village or was visited at the pond.” Thoreau was even known to return home on the weekends to raid the family cookie jar.

  INCOGNITO

  Myth: To escape Union capture, Confederate president Jefferson Davis fled Richmond disguised in his wife’s dress.

  Truth: Rather than admit defeat by surrendering to the Union army, Davis fled to Texas with the hope of reorganizing his troops. However, on May 10, 1865, he was apprehended in Georgia. Clad in a gray suit as he hastily greeted the Union troops, he accidentally grabbed his wife’s cloak to protect him from the cold. Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton presented the false story of Davis disguising himself in
a dress to the New York Herald, which published it on May 16, 1865.

  ROBIN HOOD

  Myth: “Jesse James was a man who killed many a man. / He robbed the Glendale train. / He stole from the rich and he gave to the poor. / He’d a hand and a heart and a brain.”

  Truth: Jesse Woodson James, who was born in Missouri in 1847, did indeed rob from the rich. Most of the money that he stole, however, he kept for himself. A child of slave-owning aristocrats, Jesse James made a name for himself as one of the Confederate marauders known as Quantrell’s Raiders during the Civil War. His move to robbing banks after the war was inspired by a deep hatred of the Northern industry that was becoming widespread in the pastoral South. It is true that he killed many a man—most of them innocent bystanders.

  Europe

  Netherlands used to be known as the United States.

  Europe is the only continent without a desert.

  The Berlin Wall was 26.5 miles long.

  Oldest unchanged flag in history: Denmark’s. It has remained the same since the 13th century.

  Reykjavík, Iceland, one of the coldest cities in the world, is heated almost entirely by hot springs.

  The British Isles have no mountains higher than 5,000 feet.

  World’s largest harbor: Rotterdam Harbor in the Netherlands.

  Florence, Italy, was the first city in Europe to have all of its streets paved.

  Europe is the most densely populated continent in the world.

  The world’s largest cemetery: the Friedhof Ohlsdorf in Hamburg, Germany. It covers 990 acres.