The following is an article from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Bob Fletcher was an agricultural inspector working in California’s Central Valley in the early 1940s. He might have stayed one, too, had the outbreak of World War II not changed everything. INFAMY Shortly before 8:00 a.m. on the morning of December 7, 1941, Japanese military forces attacked the U.S. naval […]
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Sporting the third deepest natural harbor in the southern hemisphere and a rich habitat, the waters around Eden, Australia attract a variety of wildlife, including baleen whales and, at least in the fall and winter, orcas. At some point in the history of the indigenous Yuin people, they and the killer whales seemingly entered into a tacit sort of unspoken […]
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The following is an article from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Did you know that although tin cans were invented in the 1810, the can opener wasn’t invented until 1855? If you’re reading this on an iPad or a Kindle, you may be surprised to learn that e-books have a similar history—they predate e-book readers by more than 30 years. CHAPTER […]
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Louis R. asks: Why do they always print bibles with two columns on the pages instead of like a normal book? The practice of using two columns with compact texts dates back to at least the fifteenth century, which in turn was just a continuation of an older tradition of narrow columns in horizontally opened scrolls. Both the Gutenberg Bible […]
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Darren W. asks: Are there any records of someone paying with a briefcase full of money or is this just a Hollywood trope? A briefcase full of cash is a trope so common that even TV Tropes, a website dedicated to cataloguing cinematic cliches, requests that users only mention “exceptions, parodies and subversions”. While you’d expect something so ridiculous to […]
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In episode 4 of The BrainFood Show podcast, we discuss the fascinating origin of Atari and the game that more or less gave birth to an industry- Pong. Next up, we talk with award winning computer game designers Lori and Corey Cole, most notably creators of one of the greatest game series in history, the groundbreaking Quest for Glory (which […]
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Timothy Evans was no saint and there was good reason for the police to suspect him of murdering his pregnant wife and baby daughter. He and said wife, Beryl, had a long history of angry quarrels including witnesses stating that the couple occasional came to blows with one another. Seemingly a constant source of argument was Beryl being upset with […]
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In episode 3 of The BrainFood Show podcast, we discuss the fascinating origins of the Food Pyramid and why that is a horribly unhealthy way to eat (and why the USDA made it that way even though they knew well it wasn’t a healthy recommendation at the time). We also discuss whether eating too much salt is actually bad for […]
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Tanya G. asks: Why did the Village People dress up in those outfits? The creation of the Village People is directly attributed to French composer and producer Jacques Morali, a gay man who wanted to create disco music gay men would appreciate. Moreli, a legendary disco beat-smith who was responsible for producing a string of disco hits in the early […]
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In episode 2 of The BrainFood Show podcast, we discuss what actually started WWI, with the motivations there not quite what most people think, some rather interesting things the soldiers on both sides got up to in the early days of the war, and the absolutely bizarre, but effective, Order of the White Feather. We wrap up this section discussing […]
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John A. asks: Are there any real examples of medieval castles having alligators in the moat to keep out intruders? A common image in pop-culture is that of a castle moat filled to the brim with water and hungry crocodiles. So did anyone ever actually do this? The short answer is that it doesn’t appear so. That said, while there’s […]
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In this debut episode of our new The BrainFood Show podcast, we discuss the surprising similarities between online commenters and audiences throughout history, as well as how the practice of throwing tomatoes at performers got started. We’ll also be looking at the various ways to monetize on youtube and websites and just generally explaining how all that works. Finally, we […]
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Joseph R.asks: What happens if the president is too sick to work? The president of the United States never technically takes a day off. Even when they’re ostensibly “on vacation” they are still very much the leader of the country and have many duties to fulfill on a daily basis. For example, even while on vacation, they need to continue […]
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While not thought to be directly related to modern Valentine’s Day traditions, the beginnings of celebrating love (of a sort) in February date back to the Romans. The feast of Lupercalia was a pagan fertility and health festival, observed from February 13th through the 15th, that was celebrated at least as far back as 44 BCE (the year Julius Caesar […]
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Ron G. asks: Your donating bodies to science article left me wondering. What do hospitals do with limbs of people they amputate? Like, if I have a limb amputated, can I ask for it back? It’s standard procedure in most hospitals to incinerate any limbs, organs or tissue they remove from a non-organ donor patient. However, just because this is […]
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1026: Bed bugs reproduce via the male bed bug literally stabbing the female in the abdomen with his hypodermic genitalia rather than using the female’s reproductive tract. Once he’s stabbed the female, he then releases his sperm insider her body cavity. The sperm ultimately travel via the female’s blood to sperm storage structures in her body. The males also are […]
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Ian asks: When someone leaves their body to science, what happens to it and how does a person opt into this? As you might expect, the rules surrounding how one goes about donating one’s body FOR SCIENCE varies a little from region to region, though the general process and what happens after you donate seems to be relatively consistent. For […]
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The following is an article from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader How deadly could a secret program code-named “Operation Vegetarian” be? So deadly that had it ever been implemented, millions would have died and thousands of square miles of European soil might still be unoccupied today. ALONE On September 1, 1939, Adolf Hitler set World War II in motion when he […]
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