Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Extraordinary Book of Facts: And Bizarre Information by Bathroom Readers' Hysterical Society Read Free Book Online Page A

litter.
    Pregnant goldfish are known as “twits.”
    The great white shark is the only shark that can hold its head above water to observe activity on the surface.
    Some Arctic and Antarctic fish have proteins in their blood that act as antifreeze.
    Marine turtles rid their bodies of excess salt by weeping.
    A shrimp’s heart is in its head.
    Great white sharks can hear sounds from over a mile away.
    A baby oyster is called a spat.
    Sponges form 99 percent of all marine species.
    Maximum life span of a goldfish in captivity: 25 years.
    The glue that barnacles use to stick themselves to ship hulls is twice as strong as epoxy resin.
    An adult electric eel generates enough electricity to power a medium-size house.

     
STRANGE TOURIST ATTRACTIONS
    The Hall of Mosses (Washington)
    Philip Morris Cigarette Tours (Virginia)
    The Soup Tureen Museum (New Jersey)
    The Testicle Festival (Montana)

Safari
     
    Hippopotamus bites are almost always fatal. Reason: they’re very large bites.
    The hippo weighs about 100 pounds at birth.
    Elephants drink a minimum of 50 gallons of water a day.
    Elephants spend 18 hours a day eating.
    The ears of an African elephant can weigh up to 110 pounds each.
    No matter what anyone tells you, elephants are not afraid of mice.
    The elephant is the only animal with four knees.
    An elephant grows six sets of teeth in its lifetime.
    Lions and tigers can’t purr. Cougars can.
    Force exerted by the jaw of an African lion: 937 pounds. By the human jaw: 175 pounds.
    Lions are the only cats that live in packs.
    Lions can mate more than 50 times a day.
    Elephants can’t jump. Every other mammal can.
    The cheetah is the only member of the cat family that cannot retract its claws.
    A giraffe only sleeps about four hours a day.
    Baby giraffes grow as much as one inch every two hours.
    A giraffe’s tongue is 17 inches long.
    Baby giraffes drop six feet to the ground when they’re born.
    The giraffe has the highest blood pressure of any animal.
    Giraffes are highly susceptible to throat infections because of their long throats—and because they can’t cough.

Famous Folks
     
    Benjamin Franklin once wrote an essay on the possibility of waterskiing.
    What did Christopher Columbus look like? No one knows—his portrait was never painted.
    P. T. Barnum staged the first international beauty contest.
    Astronaut Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon with his left foot first.
    Daniel Boone thought coonskin caps were uncivilized.
    Though deaf and blind, Helen Keller learned English, French, and German.
    Joan of Arc was 19 years old when she was burned at the stake.
    Jimmy Hoffa’s middle name was Riddle.
    Mussolini’s favorite cartoon character was Donald Duck.
    Abraham Lincoln and William Shakespeare have no living descendants.
    Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein married their first cousins.
    Winston Churchill called his wife Kat. She called him Pug.
    Albert Einstein couldn’t read until the age of nine.
    Sigmund Freud smoked 20 cigars a day.
    Napoléon Bonaparte was afraid of cats.
    Cleopatra was married to Ptolemy XIII and Ptolemy XIV—both her brothers.
    Cleopatra tested the potency of her poisons by feeding them to her slaves.
    Mahatma Gandhi is buried in California.

Myth Conceptions
     
    Myth: The driest spot on earth is in the Saharan desert.
    Fact: The driest place on earth is in Chile. It’s so dry in Calama, Chile, that 400 years went by without rain; the only source of moisture was the fog in the air. (A torrential rainstorm broke the 400-year dry spell in 1972, but the record remains intact.)
    Myth: Most of the world’s plant life is in the dense jungles of Africa and South America.
    Fact: The vast majority—85 percent, in fact—of the world’s greenery is in the oceans.
    Myth: All your fingernails grow at the same rate.
    Fact: If you’re right-handed, nails on your right hand grow faster; if you’re left-handed, nails on your left will.
    Myth: If you touch a baby bird, its mother will abandon