Uncle John’s Supremely Satisfying Bathroom Reader® (85 page)

(Answers from
page 151
)

1.
Wet.

2.
Hi Bud.

3.
A telephone.

4.
Holds up the other one.

5.
A dead bird.

6.
Post office.

7.
A glove.

8.
None. It was Noah who brought them, not Moses.

9.
A hole.

10.
Noise.

11.
A river.

12.
The outside.

13.
The letter T.

14.
Nine.

15.
A date.

16.
Mash them.

17.
A scale.

18.
Silence.

19.
Night and day.

The Earth weighs an estimated 100,000 tons more than it did one year ago today.

(Answers from
page 395
)

1—a)
Light cream is heavier. “Heavy” and “light” refer to the fat content, not the weight. Heavy cream contains a higher percentage of milk fat (36%) than light cream (15%–18%), but since fat is lighter than water—the other major component of cream— increasing the percentage of fat reduces the percentage of water, lowering the overall weight.

2—c)
The air in a jet plane in flight is lower in pressure and less humid than what most people are used to, which affects the way food tastes. The low pressure impairs the passengers’ sense of taste by reducing the volatility of the molecules that give food its odor and taste. Low humidity causes people to become dehydrated, especially if they’ve been drinking alcohol or coffee—both are diuretics that cause your body to eliminate water. So it’s not unusual for an airline to add extra seasoning, with the exception of salt, which would further increase the body’s need for water.

3—c)
The oils that irritate your eyes when you chop an onion have the same effect on your tastebuds and your sense of smell: they irritate your taste and smell receptors slightly, and in this “raw” state the receptors are more sensitive than they would be otherwise.

4—a)
Air is whipped into ice cream as part of the manufacturing process, and it’s not uncommon for manufacturers of cheaper brands to whip extra air into their ice cream, reducing the amount of actual ice cream in the container and lowering its weight. So if you want to try a new brand of ice cream but aren’t sure how good it is, compare its weight to the same size container of a brand you’re familiar with. If the unfamiliar brand weighs as much or more, it’s likely to be similar or even better in quality.

5—b)
Botanists consider only the “ovary” of a plant—the part that contains the seeds—to be the fruit; so technically speaking, pumpkins, tomatoes, cucumbers, peas, and even corn are all considered fruit. Any other part of a plant that is edible—the leaf, root, stem, and so on—is considered a vegetable.

6—a)
It’s true—apple seeds contain trace amounts of cyanide, as do apricot and peach seeds. But the amount of cyanide in a single apple seed is so small that it would take hundreds of seeds to amount to a lethal dose. And even if you ate that many seeds you’d probably survive unharmed, because the husk of an apple seed is so hard it’s indigestible, even if it’s been cooked. The apple seeds— and the cyanide they contain—would pass through your body completely intact.

7—b)
Many people incorrectly believe that freezing food more than once makes it unsafe to eat. This myth dates back to the late 1920s, when frozen food pioneer Clarence Birdseye stamped the words “DO NOT FREEZE’ on his packages of frozen foods. He feared that if people mishandled his products by repeatedly thawing and refreezing them, they’d blame the resulting poor quality on his company, which might harm sales. Some people mistakenly interpreted Birdseye’s warning to mean that refreezing food is dangerous.

8—b)
The most vitamin-rich part of the potato is the pulp just beneath the skin. When you peel a potato, you invariably remove some of the pulp in the process; that’s why it’s a good idea to cook potatoes with the skins on whenever possible.

9—c)
Coffee beans from the port of Mocha in southwestern Yemen had lots of acid but not much flavor; beans from the port of Java in Indonesia had lots of flavor but not much acid. A well-rounded cup of coffee requires both acid and flavor, and it eventually occurred to people that blending the two types of beans would result in a better-tasting cup of coffee than was possible with Mocha or Java beans alone.

10—b)
Marinades usually contain acids that tenderize meat. But in the process of tenderizing, they also degrade its ability to retain moisture, which makes the meat drier when cooked. So why bother marinating meat in the first place? It’s a tradeoff—the tenderness and the flavor obtained by marinating the meat more than makes up for the loss of moisture…at least according to people who like marinades.

Stay alert: 1% of U.S. businesses allow their employees to take naps during working hours.

Winning bid (or a “moldy lemon” auctioned on the eBay internet auction sites $6.75.

(Answers from
page 361
)

1. GEORGE.
“Farmer” from the Greek
georgos
“earth worker,” which was derived from the elements ge, “earth,” and ergon, “work.”

2. AMY.
“Beloved” from Old French
aimée.

3. MICHAEL.
From the Hebrew name
Mikha’el
, meaning “who is like God.”

4. BARBARA.
“Foreign” from the Greek
barbaros.

5. DANIEL.
“God is my judge” from the Hebrew name
Daniyel.

6. EDWARD.
“Rich guard” from the Old English
ead,
“rich, blessed,” and
weard,
“guard.”

7. AMANDA.
“Lovable” from Latin
amanda.
This name was created in the 17th century by the playwright Colley Cibber.

8. HENRY.
“Home ruler” from the Germanic
Heimerich,
which came from the elements
heim,
“home,” and
ric,
“power” or “ruler.”

9. JOEL.
“YAHWEH is God,” from the Hebrew name
Yoel.
Joel was a minor prophet in the Old Testament. YAHWEH is the name of the Hebrew God, represented in Hebrew by the “four letters”
Yod He Waw
He, and written in Roman script as YHWH. Because it was considered blasphemous to utter the name of God it was only written and never spoken, so the original pronunciation was lost.

10. SUSAN.
From the Hebrew word shoshan, meaning “lily.” In modern Hebrew, it also means “rose.”

11. LINDA.
“Beautiful” from the Spanish
Linda

12. MELISSA.
“Bee” from the Greek.

13. ANN.
“Grace” from the French and German forms of
Hannah.

14. ROBERT.
“Bright fame” from Germanic
hrod,
“fame,” and
beraht,
“bright.”

15.
STEPHEN. “Crown” from the Greek
stephanos.

16.
JOHN. English form of
Johannes,
the Latin form of the Greek name
Ioannes,
itself derived from the Hebrew name
Yochanan,
meaning “YAHWEH is gracious.”

Why does one Taiwan company make dinner plates out of wheat: So people can eat them.

(Answers from
page 295
)

1—c)
Demaret is the mother of David Vetter, a boy who suffered from a disease called “severe combined immunodeficiency” and died in 1984 at
the
age of 12. “The notion of making a comedy about a life-threatening disease is, in and of itself, a travesty,” she writes. “It dishonors the memory of my son David and is an insult to families and children who are born with his disease and died from it.”

Counters a Disney spokesman, “The bubble is a setup for a road-trip comedy. It doesn’t make fun of immune deficiencies.”

2—b)
Public servants who gossip face reprimands, sensitivity training, and even dismissal if they refuse to stop. Council member Alcebiades Pereira da Silva says he drafted the law to stop incoming administrations from using gossip to persecute workers from previous administrations.

3—b)
“It’s a common mistake,” says High Priest Kevin Carlyon. “Even theTV series
Bewitched
showed broomsticks being ridden backwards, but this is not correct.”

4—a)
They want to outlaw the cramped “gestation crates” used to house pregnant pigs. According to Floridians for Humane Farms, “Pigs confined in gestation crates experience chronic stress, frustration, depression, and other psychological disorders.”

5—a)
Willand also told students that Pocahontas “did handsprings in the nude.” But the poster and the Pocahontas trivia “weren’t meant to be offensive, they were just meant to perk attention.” The school forbade Willand from using “phraseology which does not manifest a clear concern for student sensibilities.” He’s suing, alleging that the reprimand was “unjust.”

6—b)
“The website should be corrected,” says Mangal Prabhat Lodha, a state legislator who says the cat’s name is an insult. “We are not asking for a renaming. We just want mention of the cat to be removed from the website.”

7—c)
The group wants to replace “all thy sons” with “all of us” or “all our hearts.” Protestor Frances Wright explains, “Parents of children in Canada don’t call their girl children ‘sons.’ ”

8—a)
After studying corked and capped wines over a period of 24 months, the Institute found that metal screwcaps do a better job of helping white wine retain its sulfur dioxide, which protects against oxidation. “Up to this point, in retaining freshness and overall aroma, a screwcap has performed better,” says a spokes-man. The Institute plans to continue the study over 10 years.

20% of men say their TV” has taught them more about life than their parents have.