Uncle John’s Heavy Duty Bathroom Reader@ (26 page)

“Concussion, abrasions, contusion: Patient was sitting on toilet and was trying to answer pager and fell off of toilet, hitting head.”

“25-year-old male was talking on cell phone when he walked over telephone guy-wire from a pole, states he might have gotten ‘zapped.’”

“Concussion: Sixteen-year-old male was talking and text messaging on phone, walked into a telephone pole.”

“Patient trying to get cell phone picture of squirrel. Squirrel bite to finger.”

“Distracted pedestrian” accidents in the U.S. quadrupled between 2006 and 2008.

UNOBTAINIUMS

Ready to brush up on your science? Don’t worry—it’s
fake
science. Here are the names and properties of various chemicals, elements, and other substances…that exist only in books, movies, and TV shows
.

Dilithium:
Crystalline mineral used in the operation of the warp drive on the U.S.S.
Enterprise
on
Star Trek
. It controls the “anti-matter” used to power the warp drive, which somehow allows the ship to travel through space faster than the speed of light. Dilithium is in the “hypersonic” family of elements.

Energon:
Highly radioactive and extremely unstable, this substance is found throughout the universe, but in its liquid form it’s both fuel and food for the giant robots from space in the
Transformers
cartoons and movies. The search for energon is what leads the evil Decepticon robots to Earth, where the chemical is abundant.

Beerium:
In Yahoo Serious’s
Young Einstein
(1988), Albert Einstein turns out to have been an Australian who, in addition to his many scientific pursuits, invented rock music and beer. He invents beer by splitting the
beerium
atom, which releases carbonation.

Byzanium:
In Clive Cussler’s 1976 novel (and the 1980 movie)
Raise the
Titanic!,the Pentagon begins work on a secret defense system that uses sound waves to deflect missiles. But it requires tremendous power, which can only be produced by a rare, radioactive element called byzanium. And the world’s only store of it is locked in a vault on board the sunken
Titanic,
requiring the book’s protagonist, explorer Dirk Pitt, to go get it.

Adamantium:
A metal alloy that covers the skeleton of Wolverine in the
X-Men
comics and movies. It’s what allows him to have metal claws protruding from his hands.

Ice-nine:
This substance drives the plot of Kurt Vonnegut’s 1963 novel
Cat’s Cradle
. Ice-nine has such a high melting point that any substance that comes into contact with it instantly freezes. In the novel, scientists fear that since ice-nine could freeze everything on Earth, it could bring about the end of the world.

The Ice Forever Co. will cover your iPod Shuffle in gold and gems. Cost: $12,500.

Carbonite:
A
Star Wars
substance in which living things can be frozen and suspended indefinitely. Most notably, it’s how Han Solo was imprisoned for delivery to his nemesis, Jabba the Hut.

Unobtainium:
In the movie
Avatar
(2009), earthlings go to the distant planet of Pandora to mine this fuel source, worth $20 million per kilogram. Writer James Cameron actually took the name from real life: Scientists have long used “unobtainium” to describe rare or possibly nonexistent materials.

Vibranium:
A recurring substance in Marvel Comics, it first appeared on Earth 10,000 years ago, when a meteorite made of it crashed in Africa, causing natives to mutate. In the 1940s, a scientist named Dr. Myron MacLain obtained some while developing iron alloys for military tanks and used it to create an indestructible shield for the Nazi-fighting super-soldier, Captain America.

Eitr:
According to Norse mythology, this bright-blue liquid is the source of all life, from which the first creature, the giant Ymir, first emerged.

Amazonium:
In the comics, Wonder Woman’s lightweight armor-like bracelets are made of this metal, found only on her native “Paradise Island.” (On the TV show her bracelets are made of “feminum.”)

Melange:
The much sought-after “spice” from Frank Herbert’s
Dune
(1965), it’s a drug that can both extend life and bend time. Unfortunately, it’s extremely rare and extremely addictive. Once you’ve started taking it, you can’t stop—or you’ll die.

Deutronium:
Found on various planets throughout the universe on the ’60s TV series
Lost in Space,
it’s combustible in liquid form, making it the fuel of choice for the Robinson family’s
Jupiter 2
spaceship.

Cavorite:
Making appearances in novels by H. G. Wells (
War of the Worlds, First Men on the Moon),
it’s a rare element that, when heated into a liquid and then cooled, can block the effects of gravity.

Nitrowhisperin:
From
Get Smart,
it was invented by scientist Albert Pfitzer in an attempt to create silent fireworks. It’s exactly like nitro-glycerin, except that it explodes in silence. The evil KAOS organization tries to use it to destroy the world in a 1968 episode of the TV series.

In the 1920s, radioactive radium was considered harmless and was used in kids’ toys.

Chemical X:
In the 1990s cartoon
The Powerpuff Girls,
the Professor attempts to concoct “the perfect girls” out of “sugar, spice, and everything nice,” but accidentally drops in Chemical X, which gives the three little girls superpowers.

Mithril:
A rare metal in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth of
The Lord of the Rings,
it looks like silver but is lighter and stronger than steel. When a cave troll stabs Frodo with a spear in the Mines of Moria, the hobbit is saved by his vest made of mithril.

Upsidaisium:
From the
Rocky and Bullwinkle
cartoons, this mineral floats in the air, unbound by gravity. Its only known source: Mt. Flatten, a mountain that hovers in the sky. (Bullwinkle inherited the mine from his Uncle Dewlap.)

Flubber:
In the 1961 Disney film
The Absent-Minded Professor,
Medfield College chemistry professor Ned Brainard (Fred MacMurray) botches a calculation and accidentally creates an elastic substance that absorbs energy when it hits a hard surface, causing it to bounce sky-high. He names it “flubber” (a contraction of “flying rubber”). First Brainard uses it to help basketball players jump higher, which helps them win the big game, and then he charges the flubber with radioactive particles, enabling his Model T to fly.

LIFE IMITATES ART

In May 2010, a tornado traveled down a rural Oklahoma highway and destroyed several buildings at J. Berry Harrison’s farm. “It took us 50 years to build,” he said, “and it blew away in 15 minutes. It was quite a wind.” Thankfully, no one was injured. In 1996 Harrison’s farm was featured in the movie
Twister
. The real tornado carved nearly the exact same path down the highway and across Harrison’s land as the fictional one had nearly 15 years earlier.

According to zookeepers, Galapagos tortoises like neckrubs.

WHY THEY DON’T
SPEAK SPANISH IN RIO

Ever wonder why the official language of Mexico and nearly all of Central and South America is Spanish, but in one country in the region—Brazil—they speak Portuguese? We did too. Here’s why
.

T
HE FIRST PIRATES

The 15th century was a momentous time in world history—the beginning of the “Age of Exploration” during which European powers traveled all over the globe…and claimed large parts of it for themselves. The two biggest players: Portugal and Spain, the world’s mightiest naval powers at the time.

But they weren’t equal; Portugal was stronger. In 1415, under the rule of King Henry “The Navigator,” the Portuguese conquered the Muslim trading center of Ceuta in North Africa. In 1420 they colonized the Madeira Islands, 500 miles off the coast of northeast Africa in the Atlantic Ocean. Seven years later they discovered and colonized the Azores, a group of islands in the middle of the North Atlantic roughly 1,000 miles west of Portugal.

And Portuguese domination might have continued into the 16th century—if their king had agreed to back a daring young explorer named Christopher Columbus. Columbus had asked Portugal’s King John II for financial backing, and when the king refused him, he turned to Spain. In 1492…well, you know that story.

FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES

Columbus’s discovery of the Western Hemisphere spawned diplomatic tensions between Spain and Portugal. The Portuguese argued that the “New World” should be considered theirs—because the Azores were the closest thing to them. Spain claimed the New World was theirs, by virtue of the fact that they had discovered it. After months of bickering, King Ferdinand of Spain appealed to Pope Alexander VI, himself a Spaniard and a friend of the king, asking Alexander to issue a
papal bull
on the issue.

Most of Europe was ruled by Catholic kings and queens at the time, and the pope wielded enormous power over them. Papal bulls, or official letters released by the Vatican, were accepted as legally binding in every Catholic state. Any leader refusing to obey them could be excommunicated. Several papal bulls had been issued over land disputes between Spain and Portugal, and were in fact the basis for both of the counties’ present claims on the newly discovered New World.

John Wayne said the word “pilgrim” 23 times in
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
.

Pope Alexander agreed to his friend’s request, and on May 4, 1493, issued a new bull creating an imaginary line from the North Pole to the South Pole through the Atlantic Ocean, roughly halfway between the Azores and the Caribbean islands discovered by Columbus. All lands west of that line, the bull decreed, belonged to Spain. It didn’t specifically give all lands east of the line to Portugal, but the two countries made that clear when they formalized the pope's decision with the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494.

Never mind that no one in Europe had any idea how much land they were talking about—Columbus had only explored a few Caribbean islands so far (not to mention that there were already people who called those lands home). The pope and the rulers of Spain and Portugal had effectively divided the entire world into two pieces, one half belonging to Spain and the other to Portugal. And they quickly went to work to claim all that territory.

BLAME RIO ON IT

So what does all this have to do with Brazil? Well, you might not know it, but Brazil, located on South America’s great eastern bulge, actually lies to the east of the imaginary line created by the papal bull—so it was deemed to belong to Portugal. And while Spain conquered most of that continent, as well as all of Central America and much of North America, the Portuguese settled in the only place they were allowed in the New World: Brazil. They first landed there in 1500 and began colonizing it in the 1530s. Over the next three centuries, Brazil grew into a modern state under Portuguese rule. Today it’s the world’s fifth-largest country, both geographically and by population, and dwarfs its colonizer: Portugal has 11 million inhabitants today; Brazil has about 192 million. And the official language is still Portuguese, the one assigned to them by a 15th-century pope. And that’s why they don’t speak Spanish in Rio.

Almost all of South America is east of New York City.

IT AIN’T FROM THERE

Just because something is named after a place doesn’t mean it came from there
.

•
Outback Steakhouse,
the Australian-themed restaurant, was founded in Tampa, Florida.

•
Irish Spring
soap is manufactured by Colgate in the United States, and is not sold outside of North America.

•
Uno’s Chicago Grill
pizza restaurant chain is Boston-based.

•
Texas Pete Hot Sauce,
a popular brand in the South, is made in North Carolina.

•
AriZona Iced Tea
is headquartered in New York City.

•
London broil
is a method of marinating and preparing flank steak. The dish originated in the American Midwest; it’s virtually unknown in London.

•
Old Milwaukee
beer is brewed in Detroit.

•
Lone Star Steakhouse
is the name of a restaurant chain that was founded in North Carolina. In Texas, the Lone Star State, there are no Lone Star Steakhouses.