Read Uncle John’s Heavy Duty Bathroom Reader@ Online
Authors: Bathroom Readers’ Institute
Where It Was Found:
In a box in the basement
The Story:
A down-on-their-luck family (who wish to remain anonymous) was about to lose their home. It had been in the family since the 1950s, but by 2010 they were nearly bankrupt and facing foreclosure. With no way to meet their mortgage payments, they decided it was time to pack up and move out. When Dad and the kids were sorting though boxes of Grandpa’s stuff in the basement (which hadn’t been touched for decades), they found some old comic books. One of them, called
Action Comics #1
, featured Superman on the cover, holding a car over his head. It was dated June, 1938. Could this be the very first Superman comic? The father contacted Vincent Zurzolo, the owner of Metropolis Collectibles in New York. “99.9 percent of the claims I hear that someone has found
Action Comics #1
turn out be false,” he later said. But this time it was the real deal
—the
most sought-after comic book in existence. Originally sold for 10 cents, less than 100 copies are known to exist. It’s expected to fetch anywhere from $250,000 to $1 million for the family—more than enough to save their house. “You couldn’t have asked for a happier ending,” said Zurzolo. “Superman saved the day.”
Heirloom tomatoes are rare or obscure varieties of tomatoes that result from random, natural cross-pollination. There are hundreds of them, and they’re often uniquely colored, shaped…and named. These are real names of real varieties
.
Banana Legs
Ding Wall Scotty
Extreme Bush
Heidi
Burgess Mammoth Wonder
Turkey Chomp
Arkansas Traveler
Smeig Craig
Black Sea Man
Glamour
Polish Dwarf
Red Stuffer
Bloody Butcher
Mortgage Lifter
Snow White
Tartar of Mongolistan
Delicious
Eva’s Purple Ball
Tommy Toe
Mr. Stripey
German Johnson
Black From Tula
Moneymaker
Blaby Special
Golden Egg
Spoon
Green Zebra
Big Rainbow
Plum Tigris
Sugar Lump
Amish Paste
Zogola
Beauty Queen
Pink Ping Pong
Orange Fleshed Purple Smudge
Cherry-Go-Round
Kellogg’s Breakfast
Stump of the World
Hank
Mamma mia! Average ticket price for a Broadway show in 2010: $76.
it’s nice to be the first, but being last can be memorable too
.
…surviving American World War I veteran:
Frank Buckles joined the Army at age 16 and served as an ambulance driver on the Western Front. He turned 109 in February 2010.
…major film released on VHS:
The 2005 Oscar-nominated thriller
A History of Violence
.
…30-game-winning pitcher in Major League Baseball:
Denny McLain of the Detroit Tigers, in 1968, amassed a 31–6 record.
…ABA player in the NBA:
The NBA absorbed the failing American Basketball Association—and its top players—in 1976. The last one still playing in the NBA was Hall of Famer Moses Malone, who retired from the San Antonio Spurs in 1995.
…Soviet head of state:
Mikhail Gorbachev was the General Secretary of the Communist Party when the U.S.S.R. dissolved in 1991, making him the last leader of the Soviet Union.
…U.S. president who was neither Democrat nor Republican:
In 1850 Vice President Millard Fillmore—a Whig—assumed office upon the death of President Zachary Taylor and served until 1853.
…guest host of
The
Muppet
Show:
Roger Moore, then-portrayer of James Bond, hosted the last episode of the original show in 1981.
…person publicly executed in the guillotine:
Eugene Weidmann, convicted of six murders, was beheaded on June 17, 1939, outside a prison in Versailles, France.
…black-and-white series on American television:
Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood
. It didn’t switch over to color until 1969.
…immigrant to enter the U.S. via New York’s Ellis Island:
A Norwegian man named Arne Peterssen was the last person to be processed at the facility, in 1954.
…time Coca-Cola was made with cane sugar:
1980. That year, American bottlers switched to the cheaper sweetener high-fructose corn syrup. (But Mexican and kosher bottlers still use sugar.)
Buckwheat is not related to wheat.
It’s long been assumed that the world’s most intelligent animals (after humans) are the “higher” mammals—great apes, dolphins, whales, and elephants, each of which uses tools and complex forms of communication. Over the past few decades, however, biologists have discovered that one non-mammal group also belongs to that exclusive club: birds
.
W
INGS
Earth’s 9,000 avian species include expert toolmakers, communicators, navigators, architects, and problem solvers. Numbering at least 100 billion, birds range in size from the tiny hummingbird—which is lighter than a penny—to the ostrich, which stands nine feet tall and can weigh 300 pounds. Birds inhabit every continent; some can fly five miles high (Rüppell’s vultures) and others can dive 1,000 feet below the surface of the ocean (Emperor penguins).
Birds’ levels of intelligence vary greatly as well. And even the so-called “dumb” ones are smarter than previously thought. Many farmers dismiss domestic turkeys as being quite stupid, but after studying poultry for 30 years, Oregon State University biologist Tom Savage says that turkeys are misunderstood: “They have a keen awareness of their surroundings. The dumb tag simply doesn’t fit.” As scientists are only recently finding out, this can be said of many bird species. In fact, a more fitting insult than “bird brain” is “lizard brain”: Birds’ brains are very large in proportion to their bodies—6 to 11 times larger than those of similar-size reptiles.
So which bird is the most intelligent of them all? The answer (coming later) may surprise you.
GIMME SHELTER
One way that scientists define intelligence: the ability to physically alter an object to suit a specific need, such as toolmaking or elaborate nest construction. Starting with nests, here are two of the most impressive avian abodes.
•
Tailorbird:
Native to tropical Asia, this warbler is known as “nature’s seamstress.” After finding two suitably large leaves in the top of a tree, the female pierces holes into the opposite edges of each one with her sharp beak (the holes are so tiny that the leaf doesn’t brown). Then the male brings her either spider silk, cocoon silk, or plant fibers. Using her beak as a needle, the tailor-bird threads the holes with the silk and literally sews the tops of the leaves together into a roof that that they put over the nest for camouflage and protection.
The average Hell’s Angels biker rides 20,000 miles per year.
•
Bowerbird:
The male of this Australian species spends up to nine months building an attractive home (or
bower
) to serve as a “love nest.” First, he gathers hundreds of stems and meticulously weaves them together into a hut on the ground with a wide opening; he uses a few larger sticks as pillars to hold up the massive roof, which can measure six feet across. Then he searches the forest for adornments to place inside and on top of his bower: colorful feathers from other birds, flower petals, autumn leaves, acorns, fruit, pebbles, shells, even human garbage. Outside, the bowerbird creates a “front lawn” using tufts of green moss and may even line the border with purple beetle wings. The final step: He performs an elaborate song-and-dance routine. When a female arrives at his colorful bower, he presents her with a flower.
HATCHING A THEORY
The big question among ornithologists (people who study birds): Do these unusual nesting skills come from mere instinct—as is the case with the nests of reptiles, fish, and insects—or is there something more intelligent at work? To find out, in 2008 a team of Scottish researchers studied African weaver birds. Because the males construct several nests each year, the team was able to study many constructions by a single weaver in a short period of time. If he was driven by instinct, then all of his nests would look roughly the same. But the weaver’s nests varied significantly, suggesting that experience plays some part in nest construction.
That’s significant because only the most intelligent animals can plan, improvise, and learn from their mistakes. Exactly which factor rules birds most—instinct or experience—is still being determined. However, it’s becoming evident that (at least from an intelligence point of view) some bird species are more like us than even most of our fellow mammals are.
For one, we’re both social animals. Biologists theorize that over time, the birds’ need to maintain a high place in their group’s “pecking order” has made their brains grow larger in proportion to their bodies. That’s how it worked with modern humans; it helped us become expert problem solvers. According to the results of one study, some birds are better at solving problems than we are.
Animal with the highest ratio of brain-to-body mass: the shrew (10%).
PIGEON-HOLED
The “Monty Hall Dilemma” (named after the
Let’s Make a Deal
host) is a logic test. You are given three doors to choose from and behind one of them is a prize. Let’s say you choose Door No. 1, but the tester opens Door No. 2 and says, “It’s not in here. Do you want to switch to Door No. 3?” Though it sounds counterintuitive to most people, switching doors actually
doubles
the probability of finding the prize. (For a more detailed explanation, see
page 480
.)
In 2009 researchers decided to try this dilemma on pigeons—and then try it
again
on humans. Their finding: “The birds adjusted their probability of switching and staying to approximate the optimal strategy. Replication of the procedure with human participants showed that humans failed to adopt optimal strategies, even with extensive training.” To translate (because it seems like we might need to), pigeons can be more logical than people.
WHAT A TOOL
According to legend, the ancient Greek playwright Aeschylus was told by a soothsayer that he would die when a house landed on him. Frightened, Aeschylus hid in the desert—far from any houses. Then an eagle flew over him, mistook Aeschylus’s bald head for a rock, and dropped a tortoise on it, killing Aeschylus. The question among ornithologists: Was the eagle using the playwright’s head as a tool with which to break open the tortoise’s “house” to get to the meat inside? Probably not, because the eagle didn’t manipulate Aeschylus’s head in any way. Vultures, however, are different: When a vulture finds an ostrich egg, it searches for a suitable rock, then picks up the rock in its talons, flies over, and drops the rock on the egg. Because the vulture manipulated the rock, it
was
using it as a tool. And one bird—the world’s smartest—takes this cracking process to a whole new level.
What is it? Turn to
page 256
to find out
.
Cars traveling at 65 mph need 160 feet to come to a stop. Semi-trucks need 420 feet.
Even if you’ve never actually owned one, you probably know what a Chia Pet is, thanks to the TV commercials that blanket the airwaves each holiday season. Here’s the origin of one of America’s most popular pieces of pop-culture kitsch
.
T
HE SEED OF AN IDEA
In 1977 a San Francisco advertising executive named Joseph Pedott made a trip to Chicago’s annual housewares show to drum up clients for his agency. As he toured the convention, Pedott quizzed exhibitors and attendees on what products were popular that year. One executive, a buyer for a chain of drug stores, told him about some little animal-shaped terra-cotta planters imported from Mexico that sold pretty well as gift items. The planters had grooves etched into their sides and came with a pack of
chia
seeds. When the seeds were soaked in water and planted in the grooves, the animals grew chia “fur.”
The little planters had been a part of Mayan culture for at least 200 years, but they’d been imported into the United States for only two. A Chicago importer named Walter Houston discovered them on a trip to Mexico in 1975 and had been selling them in Florida and the midwestern United States under the brand name “Chiapet.” But they weren’t a very profitable item, and he doubted they ever would be.
Pedott disagreed: He thought that with the right marketing push, Chiapets could sell very well indeed, at least for a season or two before the novelty ran its course. Rather than recruit Houston as a client for his ad agency, Pedott bought the rights to the Chiapet product line outright so that he could sell the little planters himself. In 1982 he rolled the product out nationwide under the slightly changed name “Chia Pet.” And what kind of pet? In 1982 there was only one kind: a ram.
AS SEEN ON TV
The biggest change that Pedott made to the Chia Pet line wasn’t the way he spelled the name, it was the way he sold the product. Walter Houston hadn’t spent a lot of money on advertising—he just pitched his product to stores, and if they liked it, they took a few and put them on their shelves. Marketed that way, the Chiapet line didn’t offer much promise to Houston
or
the retailers. Customers didn’t know what Chiapets were, or even that they existed at all, so no one was exactly breaking down the door to buy them. Chiapets might sit on store shelves for weeks or months on end, taking up valuable retail space that could have been used to sell items that were in greater demand.