Read Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Wise Up! Online
Authors: Bathroom Readers’ Institute
Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Wise Up! (9 page)
A female lobster is called a hen or a chicken.
A cow’s first stomach is the rumen.
The sound made by ferrets during play is called dooking.
When a male horse and female donkey mate, the offspring is a hinny.
Bears live in dens, badgers live in setts, and squirrels live in dreys.
Crepuscular animals (from the Latin
crepusculum
, meaning “twilight”) are most active at dawn and dusk. Examples: dogs, deer, mice, and some birds.
The words “flour” and “flower” are related. Both come from French terms that mean “blossom.”
A five-pound bag of flour yields about 17 ½ cups.
Bread made from flour is one of the oldest prepared foods in the world. As far back as the Neolithic period (around 9500 BC), people were using flour to make bread.
The primary difference among cake, bread, and all-purpose flour is the amount of gluten (a type of protein that comes from wheat) that each contains. Bread flour has the most, cake flour the least.
The inner part of a loaf of bread is called the crumb.
Whole-wheat flour has fives times more fiber and 25 percent more protein that white flour.
Flour particles suspended in the air are highly flammable and have caused many mill explosions throughout history.
Want to kill weevils or insect eggs in your flour? Freeze it for 48 hours.
Hummingbirds rarely walk, and when they do, they usually do it for just an inch or two.
Buzzards are legally classified as songbirds in Ohio.
Bats, like cats, groom themselves.
Some birds, such as gulls and cormorants, can drink salt water.
Some grizzly bears eat as many as 40,000 moths in one day.
Storks use their long bills (some can be more than a foot long) to fight off predators.
A male bird of paradise needs several years to develop his extravagant, flower-shaped plumage.
Yellow canaries that are fed red pepper will turn bright orange.
Pigeons can’t walk without bobbing their heads.
Owls cannot move their eyes. They have to move their heads, which they can swivel 270 degrees.
A pelican’s pouch can hold three gallons of water…more than twice what will fit in its stomach.
Standing on one leg is a flamingo’s most comfortable position.
World’s most ancient bird: New Zealand’s Kiwis. The species has been around for about 30 million years.
The ostrich has the biggest eyes of any land animal— two inches in diameter.
To make sure it doesn’t lose its balance, a bald eagle will drop a feather from one wing if it loses one from the other.
Bats aren’t birds or rodents; they’re mammals. They also aren’t blind. Bats see very well, but mostly in shades of gray.
The town of Eleanor, West Virginia, was established in 1934 and named for Eleanor Roosevelt.
According to some stories, Roosevelt ate three pieces of chocolate-covered garlic every morning. Supposedly, it was to improve her memory.
When she married Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1905, Eleanor’s uncle—President Theodore Roosevelt—gave her away.
Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt got so many death threats that she started carrying a concealed revolver during his years as a New York senator. Members of the state police force taught her how to shoot it.
When King George VI and the future Queen Elizabeth II visited the White House in 1939, Roosevelt arranged a meal of smoked turkey, Virginia ham, green salad, strawberry short-cake…and hot dogs.
* * *
“Campaign behavior for wives: Always be on time. Do as little talking as humanly possible. Lean back in the parade car so everybody can see the president.”
—Eleanor Roosevelt
Pro golfer Frank Nobilo’s ancestors were Italian pirates.
Richard Pryor was raised in a brothel.
To prepare for his role in
Down and Out in Beverly Hills
(1986), Nick Nolte spent five weeks as a homeless person.
Robert De Niro accidentally broke Joe Pesci’s rib during a sparring scene in
Raging Bull
.
Tom Cruise spent two years preparing for
The Last Samurai
(2003), learning how to use swords and speak Japanese.
Gene Kelly had a fever of 103 degrees when he danced the title song in
Singin’ in the Rain
.
Western hero most often portrayed on film: William “Buffalo Bill” Cody.
Humphrey Bogart appeared in only one horror film:
The Return of Dr. X
(1939). He played a zombie.
Al Pacino was once arrested for carrying a concealed weapon.
John Wayne was a star college football player, but a bodysurfing accident at Newport Beach, California, cost him his athletic scholarship and ended his football career.
Robert Mitchum once served time on a chain gang.
Sylvester Stallone grew up in foster homes until he was five years old.
Who played Robert De Niro’s homicidal passenger in
Taxi Driver
? Martin Scorsese.
Actor Mark Wahlberg has three nipples.
Woody Harrelson claims that he had more than 17 jobs one year—and was fired from most of them.
The game of marbles dates back to the Stone Age and is found in almost every culture.
The three most-landed-on Monopoly squares: Illinois Avenue, Go, and the B&O Railroad.
And Monopoly’s Boardwalk is called Mayfair in England, Schlossallee in Germany, and Rue de la Paix in France.
The soundtrack for the video game Onimusha includes a 203-piece orchestra.
World’s largest toy distributor: McDonald’s.
Best-selling video games of all time: Super Mario Bros. (40 million) and Tetris (33 million).
If you divided the world’s Legos among the world’s humans, every man, woman, and child would get 75.
The answer cube inside a Magic 8-Ball is a 20-sided icosahedron.
There are 324 possible solutions in the game of Clue.
Three thousand years ago, Egyptian children played with hoops of dried grapevines.
There are 255,168 possible outcomes in tic-tac-toe.
Billiards was introduced to America by the Spanish in 1565.
Chess is a descendant of an Indian game known as Chatur-Anga, played in the seventh century.
Top-selling toys of 1929: American Flyer model trains and the Popeye Paddle and Ball.
Number of white dots in the Pac-Man arcade game? 240.
In 17th-century America, the average married woman gave birth to 13 children.
The birth-control pill was invented by three men.
Disposable diapers are five times more likely to cause diaper rash than cotton ones.
Queen Victoria was one of the first women to use chloroform as anesthesia during childbirth.
The American Birth Control League’s founder, Margaret Sanger, was against changing the group’s name to Planned Parenthood.
According to folklore, an axe or knife placed under a woman’s bed will “cut the pain” of childbirth.
The frequency of twin births has almost doubled since 1980.
Animals that give birth to live young are “viviparous.”
Tammie Green participated in the 1998 Solheim Cup golf tournament…while six months pregnant.
In nearly every language, the word for “mother” begins with the “m” sound.
The original birth-control pill contained five times as much estrogen as today’s pills.
Of Queen Anne’s 18 children, 13 were stillborn. The only one that survived infancy died at age 11.
No babies have ever been born within the border of Vatican City.
* * *
Gulp!
Many old English gambling dens employed someone to swallow the dice in case of a raid.
An adult pig can run a mile in 7.5 minutes— about the same speed as the average human.
Sailfish, which live in the warmer parts of the Pacific Ocean, are the fastest fish in the world. They can swim at speeds of more than 60 mph.
Bad news: polar bears can smell you from 20 miles away. Good news: their top speed is only 25 mph.
How fast does a bumblebee flap its wings? 160 beats per second.
A hummingbird’s heart beats about 615 times per minute.
Fastest land animal in North America: the pronghorn antelope can run up to 53 mph.
Research has shown that dogs can locate the source of a sound in six hundreths of a second.
A three-toed sloth can move twice as fast in water as on land, but he’s fastest when climbing trees.
A school of piranhas can devour a 400-pound hog in just a few minutes.
The people of the United Kingdom eat more cans of baked beans than the rest of the world combined.
Country with the highest per-capita consumption of soft drinks in the world: Iran.
Popular meal in Russia:
mockba
pizza—topped with sardines, tuna, mackerel, salmon, and onions.
Cubans eat more sugar than any other nation in the world. The Irish eat the most corn flakes.
Italy imports most of its pasta from the United States and Canada.
On average, the French eat 200 million frogs per year.
In Japan, there are vending machines that dispense fresh-cooked spaghetti.
Germany produces more than 1,200 varieties of sausage.
In the United Kingdom, about eight servings of fish and chips are sold every second.
In China, pancakes are often served as side dishes.
In India, pickled ginger and minced mutton are popular pizza toppings.
Middle Eastern Dunkin’ Donuts shops sell fig-filled doughnuts.
Favorite pizza toppings in Germany: sauerkraut and onions.
In Sweden, horse meat is more popular than lamb.
The ancient Greeks ate cheesecake.
China consumes an average of 135 million tons of rice every year.
Favorite pizza toppings in Japan: eel and squid.
At her coronation in 1953, Queen Elizabeth II took on 27 titles:
Her Majesty Elizabeth II
By the Grace of God, of Great Britain, Ireland and the British Dominions beyond the Seas Queen, Defender of the Faith
Duchess of Edinburgh
Countess of Merioneth
Baroness Greenwich
Duke of Lancaster
Lord of Mann
Duke of Normandy
Sovereign of the Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George
Sovereign of the Order of Mercy
Sovereign of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath
Sovereign of the Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle
Sovereign of the Most Illustrious Order of Saint Patrick
Sovereign of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire
Sovereign of the Distinguished Service Order
Sovereign of the Imperial Service Order
Sovereign of the Most Exalted Order of the Star of India
Sovereign of the Order of Burma
Sovereign of the Order of Merit
Sovereign of the Most Eminent Order of the Indian Empire
Sovereign of the Order of British India
Sovereign of the Indian Order of Merit
Sovereign of the Royal Order of Victoria and Albert
Sovereign of the Royal Family Order of King Edward VII
Sovereign of the Order of the Companions of Honour
Sovereign of the Royal Victorian Order
Sovereign of the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem
Most popular reason for eating out: birthdays.
More babies are born on Tuesday than on any other day of the week.
Every year, the U.S. Postal Service delivers 20 billion cards, letters, and packages between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
New Year’s Eve and July 4th are the two deadliest holidays for car travelers. Reason: drunk drivers.
Three percent of pet owners give Valentine’s Day gifts to their pets.
An average Super Bowl party has 18 people.
How much do Americans spend on Easter candy each year? $1.9 billion.
What month do most couples get engaged? According to studies: December.
Eight percent of pet owners dress up their dogs and cats for Halloween.
Among Americans, 45 percent of women and 25 percent of men say they cried at their wedding.
The average American uses about 57 squares of toilet paper per day.
The light put out by the sun is equal to that of 4 trillion trillion lightbulbs.
The 10 hottest years on record have all occurred in the last two decades.
Scientists believe a 1 percent drop in the atmosphere’s ozone levels causes up to a 6 percent rise in skin cancer cases.
In a year, most elevators travel the equivalent of nearly halfway around the equator.
About 27 percent of the food in developed countries is wasted each year.
Acid rain was first identified and named in 1852.
Every year, one ton of concrete is poured for every person on earth.
Rachel Carson’s book
Silent Spring
inspired measures to curb the use of the insecticide DDT.
Every year, the average American uses paper and wood equivalent to one 100-foot-tall tree.
Since the mid-18th century, 1.7 million species have been identified and described.
From the fields to your fork, the average American dinner travels 1,500 miles.
Americans consume nine pounds of food additives every year.
If you yelled for eight years, seven months, and six days, you’d create enough energy to heat one cup of coffee.
The average American household wastes 14 percent of the food it buys.