Uncle John’s Slightly Irregular Bathroom Reader (67 page)

CAUGHT!
Three doors down she found her woman, Frances Orgee, and thanked her for taking care of her pet. “She said, ‘That’s
my
cat.’ It turned out we had been sharing him for three years without either of us knowing,” Coulthart reports. Baldrick—a.k.a. Scruffy—had been having breakfast at Orgee’s at 6:00 a.m., then (after a nap on Orgee’s bed) having lunch at Coulthart’s, and then returning to Orgee’s for another snack at 3:00 p.m.

“He had it all worked out,” Coulthart says.

PURR-FECT GRAMMAR

What’s the difference between a cat and a comma? One has the paws before the claws, and the other has the pause before the clause.

World’s largest baseball card collection: the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s (200,000 cards).

From the news stream...

C
AUGHT YELLOW-HANDED

“It wasn’t tracks in the snow that helped police in Nevada break the case. It was the yellow snow. According to officers in Elko, a burglar relieved himself from the roof of a restaurant that he robbed, and the yellow snow yielded enough DNA to link Roger Gray to the scene. Investigators are now looking at his possible involvement in burglaries at a pizza place and a JC Penney.”

—
azcentral.com

PEE (FOR PESTICIDE)

“The
Times of India
newspaper reported in June 2003 that India is planning to export compost and pesticides made from the urine and dung of cows to the United States. The scheme, says the
Times
, is the brainchild of the Municipal Commission of Delhi, which has been trying to round up the 35,000 or so stray cattle on the streets of the Indian capital. According to authorities, the strays can produce enough urine and dung to yield 160,000 tons of vermicompost and 70,000 litres of biopesticide each day.”

—Agence France Presse English

CHEERS!

“Cameroon health minister Urbain Olanguena Awono says people should forget about using urine for therapeutic purposes even though reports say it can cure 64 diseases. And Awono warns that people caught ingesting urine—which can be toxic—will be prosecuted. Supporters of urine therapy say it can cure hemorrhoids, ulcers, infertility and snakebites, among other things. Emile, who uses it for hemorrhoids, told
Le Messager
newspaper: ‘Everyone uses it in secret. But you need to be brave—not everyone has the necessary courage.’”

—United Press International

I FOUND SOME GATORADE, MA!

“It’s not a pretty sight, but plastic jugs filled with urine are becoming a common sight along highways, particularly at freeway interchanges. ‘You wonder what’s happening in our society,’ said Karen Cagle, who supervises highway cleanup crews in Eastern Washington. In 2002 one Adams County highway cleanup crew picked up 2,666 jugs of urine. That prompted Adams County Waste Reduction & Recycling to take out a full-page newspaper ad that features a photo of a plastic milk jug filled with urine, prefaced with a message: ‘Okay, one last time: This is not a urinal.’”

—
The Tri-City Herald

There are 7,000 varieties of apple in the United States alone.

STRAIGHT FROM THE COW TO YOUR HOME

“Robert J. Wall and his Department of Agriculture team are the first researchers to genetically engineer animals that concentrate a pharmaceutical product in their urine. They have developed mice that produce human growth hormone in their bladders. Although the mice produce only a tiny amount, Wall says they show that urine farming techniques work. But collecting urine from farm animals may also prove challenging, researchers warn. Drug farmers may have to keep their herds attached to catheters.”

—
Sciencenews.org

URINE CANDID CAMERA

“Mystified by the recurring stench behind their garage, Wes and Heather Skakun used video surveillance equipment to catch their neighbor in the act of splashing a jug full of urine on the garage door. Robert Kukura, 60, pleaded guilty to mischief in provincial court and was ordered to pay $1,732 restitution. The Saskatoon couple thinks Kukura kept the urine in his sun-heated garage for many days between applications. ‘He was saving it and letting it steep in the sun,’ Skakun said.”

—
National Post
(Ottawa)

THE LIVING MOP!

“Accountant Danny Miller considers his two Cockapoos his children. That’s why he was particularly horrified when he watched a PETsMART groomer use his dog, Mocha, as a mop, wiping up a puddle of urine she had created. ‘I was speechless,’ he says. The store says the groomer was using a form of ‘aversive training,’ but was not acting in accordance with the store’s philosophy of animal training. Miller received a refund on his $36 grooming charge for Mocha.”

—
Phoenix
(Arizona)
New Times

Internal revenue: In the 4th century, Rome levied a tax on urine and excrement.

What’s the difference between horns and antlers? Which animals have which? And why do they have them? Inquiring minds want to know
.

R
ACK ’EM UP

Many different mammals in many parts of the world have what is known as
headgear
—horns or antlers. All the species that have them have unique varieties which grow in their own special way: Some are straight as an arrow, some spiral like vines, some are only inches long, and some weigh more than 40 pounds each. Nearly all headgear comes in the form of
true horns
and
antlers
, but there are some rare exceptions:
keratin horns
and
pronghorns
.

•
Horns
are found only on
bovids
such as cattle, sheep, goats and antelopes. They are made of compressed
keratin
—the same thing that human hair and fingernails are made of. True horns grow in a single tine—they have no branches—and are permanent fixtures that keep growing throughout the animal’s life. In most species they appear on both the male and the female.

•
Antlers
are found only on
cervids
, members of the deer family. They are made of solid bone and always branch out to form several tines or “points” (as in a five-point buck). While antlers are still growing they’re covered by a layer of soft, very sensitive skin, known as
velvet
. The velvet contains veins and nerves that actually “grow” the antlers. They’re the fastest growing bone on any animal—up to an inch a day on some species—and only the males have them (the caribou is the one exception).

Antlers are
deciduous
. Just before mating season the velvet dries up and the antlers stop growing. The animal scrapes off the dry velvet on trees or bushes, and the antlers become hard and sharp. After mating season the antlers fall off, and within a few months they start growing again. Each year (on healthy animals) they will grow a little larger.

•
Keratin horns
only appear on some species of rhinoceros. Just like horns, they are permanent and appear on both sexes. They don’t grow in pairs—they jut out from the midline of the snout.

Whales don’t have hips or legs, but they do have hip bones and leg bones.

•
Pronghorns
are only found on...the
pronghorn
(often called the
pronghorn antelope
, although it is not a true antelope) found in western North America. Their headgear is a unique mix of both horns and antlers. They have the bone core and the keratin sheath of a horn, but they’re not permanent—the keratin falls off each year like antlers do, leaving only the bone core.

SO THAT’S WHY THEY CALL IT “HORNY”

The most important role of headgear: sex. It’s no coincidence that antlers grow to prominence just in time for mating season and then fall off when the work is done. Males of nearly all species with headgear use it to fight off rivals for mates. It’s usually done in harmless, ritualistic ways, but can sometimes get brutal and bloody. And sometimes the bull with the mightiest headgear doesn’t even have to fight—his display alone can ward off contenders and impresss the females.

Bambi Bites Back

All animals with headgear are
herbivores
, or plant-eaters; they are prey, not predators, which means they lack the sharp claws or teeth of carnivores. Their headgear is their weapon—nature’s way of providing them with “teeth.” Take the bull elk for example: his first instinct is to flee, but if necessary he will stand down a 150-pound mountain lion, with dagger-sharp antlers up to five feet across. (And not just lions: The elk at yellowstone National Park have been known to gore careless visitors. A few have even attacked automobiles, poking holes right through car doors with their antlers.)

Headgear can also be used for marking trees, digging in the ground for food, or scratching a hard-to-reach itch.

HEADGEAR STANDOUTS

•
The
Moose
is the largest member of the deer family, often reaching seven feet at the shoulder. Every year the male grows a set of
palmate
antlers. They spread out like the palm of a hand with large flattened areas and tines sticking out of the flats. His anlters can span more than six feet, have as many as thirty spikes, and can weigh 40 pounds each.

•
Elk’s
antlers grow to five feet, with six to ten spikes on each side. During mating season their battles get fairly violent: some stab wounds can kill outright or cause so much damage that the loser cannot escape from danger. Worst-case scenario: two bulls interlock their antlers and are unable to get them apart. Both animals will eventually die of starvation or be killed by predators.

This year, Americans will throw away more than 100 million cell phones.

•
The
Indian Water Buffalo
has the longest horns of all. In 1955 a bull’s horns were measured from tip to tip around their long, sweeping curve. Length: 13 feet, 11 inches.

•
Big Horn Sheep
have thick, stout horns that curve back around, beneath their ears, and then forward again. And the horns can weigh more than all the other bones in their bodies put together. Each mating season the males fight for social dominance, running into each other and bashing the thick bases of their horns together—at speeds of over 20 mph with a force of 2,000 pounds per square inch. Their battles can be heard up to a mile away.

•
The
Chousinga
is a member of the true-horned bovid family, but instead of two horns, it has four. Also known as the four-horned antelope, this small creature lives in India and Nepal and grows an extra set of horns on its forehead, just above its eyes.

•
Giraffes
are unique: Their horns aren’t covered with keratin—they’re covered with skin.

GET TO THE POINT

•
The Asian Musk Deer is one of the few members of the deer family that have no antlers. What do they have instead? Tusks—long, fang-like teeth that grow down over their lower jaw.

•
Imagine seeing a tusked animal only 20 inches long that looks like a cross between a deer, antelope, and a pig. That’s the mouse deer from Malaysia.

•
The Irish Elk is the name given to an extinct species of deer. Their antlers measured over 13 feet across, and weighed up to one hundred pounds—each.

•
Not only are all of the animals with headgear herbivores. They also share one other characteristic: they all have hooves.

•
Animals with headgear are native to every continent except Antarctica and Australia. No native Australian mammals have antlers, horns, or hooves.

How fast does a bumblebee flap its wings? 160 beats per second.

Uncle John finally bought a DVD player, and now he’s got a new hobby: finding “Easter eggs”—deleted scenes, alternate endings, bloopers, etc.—that are hidden on many discs. Here are a few he’s found
.

C
ITIZEN KANE (1941)

Easter Egg:
From the main menu, choose “Special Features.” Then click the right arrow on your remote control. When the
Rosebud
sled appears onscreen, press Enter.

What You Get:
A five-minute interview with actress Ruth Warrick, who starred as Emily Kane