Mental Floss: Instant Knowledge (38 page)

(and the kid responsible for must-see TV)

USEFUL FOR:
chatting with nerds, scientists, disgruntled inventors, and anyone who used to hang out with the A/V kids

KEYWORDS:
television, genius, or unsung hero

THE FACT:
Who knew the idea for a TV set came from a 21-year-old Idaho farm boy?

Philo T. Farnsworth took his inspiration from the lines in the freshly tilled fields, and single-handedly dreamed up the cathode ray tube, itself leading to the invention of the television. By scanning and transmitting images in horizontal lines, the young eccentric pioneered an entirely new medium. Sadly, though, his claim to fame was quietly usurped. At just 21, Farnsworth presented his research to RCA executive David Sarnoff and Russian scientist Vladimir Zworykin. Zworykin and Sarnoff then replicated the technology and revised it. Using their position and resources at RCA, the two then began to dominate the marketing of this new technology. Farnsworth sued and seemingly won in court, but the power of the corporation proved mightier, and Farnsworth was never able to profit from the industry he helped launch.

(the original Baby Jessica)

USEFUL FOR:
cocktail parties, wishing wells, and consoling anyone who’s just tripped or fallen

KEYWORDS:
Jack and Jill, absentminded, or genius

THE FACT:
Thales of Miletus, the first Western philosopher, set the standard for absentminded professors to come. After all, lost in thought and gazing at the sky, Thales fell into a well years before Baby Jessica could make the practice famous.

Of course, the whole well incident wasn’t great for PR. Ridiculed as an impractical dreamer, Thales set out to show that philosophers could do anything they set their minds to, including amassing wealth. One winter, using his knowledge of meteorology and astronomy, Thales predicted a bumper olive crop for the coming season. As such, he cornered the market on olive presses in Miletus and made a fortune when the olive harvest met his expectations. Remarkably also, Thales predicted the solar eclipse of 585 BCE. And he measured the height of the Egyptian pyramids using just their shadows. Despite all this, Thales is perhaps best known for arguing that water is the basic source element, that ultimately all things are made of water.

(and why you should just say no)

USEFUL FOR:
mainly warning teenagers and Grateful Dead fans

KEYWORDS:
tripping, peer pressure, or Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride

THE FACT:
No matter what the hype, don’t ever lick a cane toad.

In the 1930s “sugar cane” toads were introduced into Australia from Hawaii with the idea that they would control the gray-backed cane beetle, a sugar cane pest. Somehow, though, they became guests that overstayed their welcome—overpopulating and growing to be a real nuisance. Aside from their talent for consuming gray-backed cane beetles, “cane toads” can secrete a toxic compound known as bufotenin from a couple of glands behind their eyes (when attacked by predators, of course). But the toxic goo is also a hallucinogen, albeit a dangerous one. In their endless quest to get high, Australian teenagers have taken to drinking the slime produced when toads are boiled. Clearly, emulating this behavior isn’t the brightest idea, as two Canadian kids learned. They purchased a couple of toads from an exotic pet store and licked them hoping for euphoria. They got hospital beds instead.

(and the law)

USEFUL FOR:
cocktail parties, afternoon snack conversation, and chatting up lawyers fond of vending machines

KEYWORDS:
Twinkies, insanity, or the law

THE FACT:
What should’ve been an open-and-shut case of murder in the first got a little twisted when a box of Twinkies came to the defense.

There wasn’t much question it was Dan White who climbed through a window at San Francisco City Hall and methodically shot to death Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk, one of the nation’s most prominent gay politicians. So lawyers for White, who was an ex-cop and county supervisor, relied on a “diminished capacity” defense. They argued White was too depressed to commit premeditated murder. As proof, they briefly mentioned White’s recent consumption of sugary snack foods. Oddly enough, the “Twinkie defense” worked, and White was convicted of manslaughter instead of murder. The verdict, however, triggered a night of rioting in the city’s gay community. White served five years in prison and then killed himself a few months after his release. In 1982, California voters abolished diminished capacity as a legal defense.

(like the spiny dogfish)

USEFUL FOR:
barroom banter, making friends at Lamaze, and ensuring you don’t get invited up “for coffee” after a date

KEYWORDS:
What could be worse than getting pregnant?

THE FACT:
Forget Lamaze! If you want to ease the pain of childbirth, just focus on a spiny dogfish shark.

To conceive, the male spiny dogfish shark grasps the female’s fins with his mouth and uses his two reproductive organs, known as clappers, to inseminate the female. But this is no gentle act of foreplay. The sharp clappers leave deep cuts and gashes behind the females head, which take a week or so to heal. Once that’s over, she’s got a glorious 22 to 24 months of pregnancy to look forward to—the longest gestation period of any vertebrate. And when that magical day finally arrives, you’d better believe she’s wondering where
her
epidural is. Spiny dogfish mommies give birth to between two and
eleven
three-foot-long pups, each coming out headfirst. Of course, evolution has equipped the pups with cartilaginous sheaths on their spines to protect the mother from injury. Yeah, like that makes up for it.