Detracting Evidence: Unusual things do happen in the universe, so it’s hard to say this is impossible. But the specific weights, speeds, distances, and gravitational effects needed for this theory to work make it statistically unlikely.
4. GIANT IMPACTOR THEORY
Details: The world’s leading moon scientists held a conference in Hawaii in 1984, during which they devised this fourth theory. It goes like this: 4.5 billion years ago, a planetoid called Theia, about the size of Mars, crashed into a still-forming Earth. The impact was 100 million times more powerful than the asteroid believed to have killed the dinosaurs. It was probably only a glancing blow rather than a full-on collision, so it didn’t reach the iron in Earth’s core. Still, it sent enormous amounts of “earth” into space. As the ejected material orbited around Earth over the next few billion years, some of it rained back down onto the planet, some spun away into the solar system, and the rest settled into a single body: the moon.
We read it online: The US has more personal computers than the next 7 countries combined.
Detracting Evidence: About 40 percent of the moon would be made of the remnants of Theia; the other 60 percent would have been Earth. But evidence published in 2012 shows that certain titanium isotopes are just as abundant in Earth rocks as in moon rocks, suggesting that they both formed from the same debris field.
GOING, GOING GONE
While the question of the moon’s origin is debated, one thing is certain. The satellite is moving away from Earth at about four centimeters per year, and in time will drift so far that Earth’s gravity won’t be able to hold it. The moon will shrink in the sky until it disappears into the heavens. Don’t worry, though! You’ll be able to enjoy moonlit nights for at least a few billion years longer.
* * *
NICE TRY
In July 2012, San Francisco Giants outfielder Melkey Cabrera was the MVP of the All-Star Game, and leading the league in hits. A month later, Cabrera received a 50-game suspension when he tested positive for a synthetic testosterone, a performance-enhancing substance banned by Major League Baseball. The MLB will reverse suspensions if a player can prove he took banned substances through no fault of his own. That’s exactly what happened, Cabrera argued. He claimed he had purchased and used a topical cream that, unbeknownst to him, contained synthetic testosterone. Naturally, investigators had some questions, such as “What kind of product?” and “Who runs the company?” It was quickly discovered that an associate of Cabrera’s had paid $10,000 to set up a fake website for the company that supposedly had sold Cabrera’s muscle cream, and put an ad for the muscle cream on the site. The suspension stood.
Five of the ten most costly hurricanes in the U.S. have occurred since 1990.
SNAP, CRACKLE…FLOP
Wheaties and Rice Krispies have taken up permanent residency in America’s breakfast bowls—these forgotten cereals, not so much.
Fruit Brute: General Mills debuted a line of five monster cereals in the 1970s: Franken Berry, Yummy Mummy, Count Chocula, Boo Berry, and Fruit Brute. The biggest flop of the bunch: Fruit Brute. But it has a cool factor—filmmaker Quentin Tarantino collects old cereals, and his personal box of Fruit Brute has appeared in his movies Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction.
Graham Crackos: Kellogg’s released this graham-cracker-flavored cereal in the late-1970s, a few years before the crack-cocaine epidemic that hit American cities. In light of this, old commercials for Crackos become unsettling. In one, a character named George arrives at a suburban house to deliver a box of Crackos to a family. In the background, a cheery balladeer sings, “Something new is comin’ to town, George the Milkman is bringin’ it ’round.” After the mother takes a bite, she asks George if the cereal will help slow her kids down. “Long enough for them to eat,” he replies.
Mr. T Cereal: Based on the fool-pitying strongman’s animated self in Mister T, his early-1980s cartoon show, it was made up of crispy corn chunks shaped like the letter T. Essentially, Mr. T Cereal was a clone of Alpha-Bits, but with just one letter.
Ice Cream Cones: Available in two flavors, chocolate-chip or vanilla, this cereal consisted of crunchy puffs and sugary cones. The brand—which featured a smiling cartoon character named Ice Cream Jones who delivered the cereal to kids on a bicycle—disappeared within a year of its 1987 debut, possibly because parents didn’t fall for the claim that the ice cream-flavored cereal contained “four wholesome grains and eight essential vitamins!”
Prince of Thieves: This cash-in on the 1991 film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves had a couple of problems: 1) Manufacturer Ralston-Purina couldn’t get the rights to Thieves star Kevin Costner’s likeness, so they had to put a generic Robin Hood image on the box, and 2) the cereal was supposed to look like little arrows, but came out resembling a certain part of the male anatomy.
The beat goes on: Capuchin monkeys use large branches to club snakes.
PORTMANTEAU WORDS
These words combine parts or all of two different words, taking on aspects of both meanings. The term was coined in 1871 by author Lewis Carroll. Here are a few modern examples:
ADVERTORIAL
From: Advertisement and editorial
Meaning: An ad designed to look like a news story
Origin: The word first appeared in the mid-1940s and was widely used by the late 1950s. But while the term is fairly recent, the practice of making newspaper and magazine ads look like editorials or news stories, and even placing them in sections normally reserved for editorials and news, has been going on for centuries. Today it’s illegal to use them without proper notification, which is why you often see—in teensy-weensy letters—the words “Paid Advertisement” hidden somewhere on an advertorial.
BEEFALO
From: Beef and buffalo
Meaning: Cattle that are the result of crossbreeding common cows with American bison (“buffalo”). And it’s not just any old mix: Official beefalo must be ⅜ bison and ⅝ cattle breed such as Angus or Hereford. If they’re more than ⅜ bison, they’re known as “bison hybrids.”
Origin: It was coined by beefalo breeders as a name they thought would help sell meat from these animals to the public. The first known use was in 1973, and credit is usually given to one breeder in particular, a California rancher named Bud Basolo.
Bonus: One of the first people to try crossbreeding cattle and bison was legendary Texas Panhandle rancher Charles Goodnight, who bred female bison with bull cattle in 1870. He hoped the result would be cattle with thick fur, which would help them withstand the region’s harsh winters, but was ultimately unsuccessful—the resulting calves were often either sterile or very aggressive. Goodnight didn’t call them “beefalo”—he called them “cattalo.”
Egyptian Pharaoh Pepi II had his slaves smeared with honey to attract flies away from him.
MALWARE
From: Malicious and software
Meaning: Any software, files, code, or programs designed to harm or interfere with the operation of a computer
Origin: In the 1970s and 1980s, computer scientists began using the terms worm, virus, and Trojan horse to describe programs that attack computers. They all do damage differently: A worm installs itself on a computer, then replicates and spreads to other computers, consuming bandwidth and crippling networks; a virus infects and corrupts data on files and programs; and a Trojan horse is a program designed to look like a harmless file that, once installed, can destroy files or allow hackers access to a computer. Computer geeks argued about the use of these terms for years, so in 1990, someone—some say it was an Israeli security expert named Yisrael Radai—came up with the all-encompassing term malware.
STAYCATION
From: Stay and vacation
Meaning: To spend vacation time at home rather than travel
Origin: Canadian comedian Brent Butt is credited with inventing this word in the October 24, 2005, episode of his hit sitcom, Corner Gas. The word became popular in the English-speaking world after the financial crisis struck
in 2008 and millions of people were forced to take “staycations” due to financial circumstances. It was made an official word when Merriam-Webster added it in 2009.
NETIQUETTE
From: Net and etiquette
Meaning: Conventions of polite behavior on the Internet
Origin: The word was coined in 1982—three years before the word “Internet” was invented and a full ten years before the Internet became widely popular. Scientists and university students involved with the development of the Internet, however, had been communicating on early prototypes, such as USENET and ARPANET, since the 1970s, and someone came up with the very polite term “netiquette” for them.
Busiest day for plumbers: the day after Thanksgiving.
DUSTBIN OF HISTORY: BARBARA HUTTON
On page 73 we told you the story of tycoon Frank W. Woolworth’s untimely demise. Here’s the story of his granddaughter—and heir—Barbara Hutton, aka “the poor little rich girl.”
WILL POWER
Frank Woolworth, founder of the F.W. Woolworth chain of five-and-ten-cent stores, was updating his will when he fell ill and died suddenly in April 1919. The new will would have dispersed his fortune among many heirs, including his wife, daughters, grandchildren, close friends, business associates, and charities. But he died before he’d signed it—which meant that an earlier will, drafted in 1899 when his estate was significantly smaller, was the one that counted.
That will left his entire fortune to his ailing widow, Jennie. When she passed away a few years later, the estate was divided equally among just three heirs: two surviving daughters and a granddaughter, 12-year-old Barbara Hutton. Barbara was the only child of Woolworth’s third daughter, Edna Woolworth Hutton, who had committed suicide in 1917.
THANKS, DAD
Barbara’s one-third share of the Woolworth fortune came to about $28 million (roughly $377 million in today’s dollars). It was held in trust until she reached her 21st birthday, and was managed by her father, a wealthy stockbroker named Franklyn Hutton. (The last name might sound familiar: Hutton and his brother, Edward Francis Hutton, founded the E. F. Hutton brokerage firm in 1904.)
Franklyn Hutton was a shrewd investor even by Wall Street standards: By the time Barbara turned 21, he’d nearly doubled her fortune to $50 million (about $870 million today). Then he locked in her gains by getting out of the stock market just months before the October 1929 crash. The rest of the country slid into the Great Depression, but thanks to her father, 21-year-old Barbara Hutton was one of the wealthiest women in the world.
Take that, Italy! Galileo’s middle finger is on display at Italy’s Museum of Science.
THE MARRY-GO-ROUND
Franklyn Hutton may have been good with money, but he was a terrible family man. He was a blatant womanizer and a heavy drinker, and his behavior helped to drive his wife, Edna, over the edge. After she killed herself, Franklyn sent Barbara, then only four, to live with relatives until she was old enough to be packed off to boarding school.
Barbara Hutton’s painful childhood left her needy and insecure. Perhaps because of it, at the age of 20, she began a nearly life-long pattern of marrying the fortune seekers who were drawn to her like mosquitos. Hutton would wed seven times: to a self-styled “prince” from Soviet Georgia (1933–35), a Danish count (1935–41), actor Cary Grant (1942–45), a Lithuanian prince (1947–51), a Dominican playboy and diplomat (1953; the marriage lasted only 53 days), a German baron and former tennis pro (1955–59), and a Vietnamese chemist who became a Laotian prince after Hutton paid $50,000 for his title (1964–66). With the exception of Cary Grant, who had his own money and neither asked for nor received alimony, each of Hutton’s husbands walked away with millions.
BANK-ACCOUNT BARBIE
The money that Hutton’s husbands couldn’t get their hands on she spent herself, on exquisite jewels, fine art, yachts, palatial homes in the United States, Great Britain, Morocco, and elsewhere, an army of servants, and anything else she wanted. She gave away money compulsively, not just to friends, servants, and toadies, but also to hard-luck cases she’d read about in the newspaper and strangers she met on the street. She was also public spirited: During World War II she donated her yacht to Britain’s Royal Navy; after the war she gave Winfield House, her London mansion, to the U.S. State Department to be used as the ambassador’s residence, a purpose it still serves today.
Hutton’s fabulous wealth, her numerous marriages and affairs, and her connection to the dime-store chain where so many Americans shopped, made her irresistible fodder for the newspapers, which called her “the poor little rich girl.” (After she married Cary Grant, the pair ended up with a new nickname: “Cash and Cary.”) Although much of the coverage was negative, it made her one of the most famous women of her time.
Q: Can you name the ventriloquist’s dummy on Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood? A: Hischer Booptrunk. (It was Fred Rogers’ childhood toy.)
FOR SALE—CHEAP
If you inherited the equivalent of $870 million, do you think you could make it last? In the late 1960s, when Hutton was in her late 50s and estranged from her seventh and final husband, she started running out of ready cash. Her financial advisers began selling off the homes, jewels, and other items she’d accumulated over the years to raise the money she needed to live in the high style to which she was accustomed. There was plenty of stuff to sell, but thanks to a lot of self-dealing and sweetheart deals, many of Hutton’s assets, including valuable real estate, sold for a fraction of what they were worth, causing her fortune to dissipate even faster.
Money wasn’t Hutton’s only problem: A lifetime lived in the headlines as she careened from one bad relationship to another had taken its toll. By her early 60s, she’d become a chain-smoking alcoholic, addicted to prescription drugs. When her only son, fathered by the Danish count, died in a plane crash in 1972, she sank into a depression that would last the rest of her life.
By the late 1970s, Hutton was a virtual recluse, living in a $10,000-a-month suite in the Beverly Wilshire hotel in Los Angeles. There she existed on Coca-Cola, vodka, cigarettes, prescription drugs and not much else, as her advisors scrambled to sell ever more of her assets to raise the $25,000 a month needed to cover her living expenses.
INTO THE DUSTBIN
The advisers managed to stretch Hutton’s fortune to the end of her days, but only barely. Though she still owned a lot of jewelry, when she died from a heart attack in her hotel suite in May 1979, most of her other possessions had been sold. She had just $3,500 left in her bank account.
The Woolworth dime-store chain that had provided Hutton with her wealth didn’t outlast her by much. Unable to compete against Walmart and other competitors, in the 1980s the company shifted its focus to its more successful specialty chains and let the original Woolworth stores wither away. The last Woolworth’s in the United States closed in 1997. Four years later, the parent company renamed itself after its most successful specialty chain: Foot Locker.
HOUSEHOLD HINTS
Sent in by our readers.
Having trouble getting a key on a tight metal key ring? Use a staple remover to pry it apart and hold it open.
Rub a walnut (the nut, not the shell) on small dings and dents in wooden furniture to make them disappear.
To prevent your kid from falling out of bed, put a foam pool-noodle under the fitted sheet to make a bed bumper.
Place cleaning products in a hanging plastic shoe rack, and hang the rack on the back of a door. That keeps them away from your kids, and easily accessible for you.
To cut open plastic “blister” packages, try using a can opener.
To vacuum tricky corners or under furniture, stick an empty paper-towel or gift-wrap roll into the end of the hose.
Sprinkle cayenne pepper on plants to keep squirrels from nibbling them. It won’t affect the plants.
Lost an earring? Put pantyhose over a vacuum hose and vacuum the area—the machine will suck up the earring, but the pantyhose will prevent it
from going inside.
Put a dryer sheet in your pocket to help keep mosquitos away. (They hate the smell.)
To remove soap and mildew buildup from a shower head, tie a vinegar-filled baggie around it and leave overnight. (But don’t forget to remove it before you shower.)
Want a less toxic alternative to bug spray? Try cornmeal. Put small piles of it where you see ants. They’ll take it back to the colony to share, but none of them can digest it.
If you break a glass and you’re not sure you swept up all the tiny shards, dab at the area with a wet cotton ball or Q-tip, or a wad of damp paper towel.
The fastest way to de-fog a windshield: a chalkboard eraser. The fastest way to clean foggy headlights: toothpaste.
Star Wars quiz: Who was Ralph McQuarrie? The artist who designed Darth Vader’s helmet.
AMERICA IS…
…the greatest nation? Not according to these folks.
“We Americans are the best informed people on earth as to the events of the last twenty-four hours; we are not the best informed as to the events of the last sixty centuries.”
—Will Durant
“Americans will put up with anything, provided it doesn’t block traffic.”
—Dan Rather
“In our brief national history we have shot four of our presidents, worried five of them to death, impeached one, and hounded another out of office. And when all else fails, we hold an election and assassinate their character.”
—P. J. O’Rourke
“America is a country that doesn’t know where it’s going, but is determined to set a speed record getting there.”
Uncle John's Fully Loaded 25th Anniversary Bathroom Reader (Uncle John's Bathroom Reader) Page 21
