Uncle John’s Facts to Annoy Your Teacher Bathroom Reader for Kids Only! (17 page)

For the next seven years, Maria competed in amateur matches, placing first in so many of them that she won tennis’s first “Rising Star Award.” In 2001, when she turned 14, she went pro and became the youngest person to reach the final at the Australian Open’s junior division. But her biggest success came in 2004, when she headed to Wimbledon. She made it all the way to the final (which no one expected the 17-year-old to do) and had to face Serena Williams, one of the best players in the world. But thanks to 100-mph serves and quick feet, Maria won the match—becoming the first Russian and the third-youngest person ever to win Wimbledon. (The two younger winners were Lottie Dodd, age 15, in 1887, and Martina Hingis, age 16, in 1997.)

Don’t let the name fool you: The koala bear is a marsupial, not a bear.

RYAN SHECKLER

This California kid started riding a skateboard when he was 18 months old. He wasn’t doing tricks back then, but he loved scooting around his driveway on one knee. By 1996, when he was just seven, Ryan had landed his first commercial sponsor (a local skate shop) and was winning amateur skateboarding contests. Then in 2003, he went pro…and at 13 won a gold medal at the Summer X Games, becoming the youngest person ever to do so. He’s taken first place in more than 15 professional competitions since, and even has his own MTV reality show,
Life of Ryan
. When a reporter asked him if he knew he’d be this successful, Ryan said, “I always thought it would happen, just not so soon!”

*      *      *

WHY DOES ORANGE JUICE TASTE SO BAD AFTER I BRUSH MY TEETH?

Scientists aren’t sure, but they think it has to do with a chemical reaction that occurs when you put both things in your mouth. Sodium lauryl sulfate makes toothpaste sudsy, but it also suppresses your taste buds’ sweet receptors. Orange juice is contains both sweet and bitter flavors. So if you drink orange juice but have no working sweet receptors, all you taste is the bitter part.

The
Peanuts
comic strip was originally called
Li’l Folks
.

P-U! These facts sure do stink
!

•
Every person has a unique scent (the same way that everyone has a unique set of fingerprints). The exception: identical twins. They smell exactly the same—minus the perfume, soap, and shampoo, of course.

•
On average, girls have a sharper sense of smell than boys do.

•
Humans can discern between more than 10,000 different odors. Most of these pass in and out of your nose without your noticing. It’s only when a smell is particularly good or bad that your brain pays attention.

•
Your sense of smell gets better throughout the day, and is sharpest in the evening.

•
Some people have no sense of smell, a condition called anosmia.

•
About 80 percent of taste is actually smell. That’s why food tastes so bland when you have a stuffy nose.

•
People remember facts better when they attach a smell to the fact and then re-create the smell when they need to remember. So next time you’ve got a test, try using a certain soap when you study. Then use the same soap on test day. You should have an easier time remembering the answers.

November 19 is World Toilet Day.

Lurking in the ocean is an enormous sea monster that, according to myth, likes to eat fishing boats and fishermen. Is it just a legend…or is it real
?

S
EA TALES

Sailors have been telling stories about tentacled sea monsters for thousands of years. Paintings from ancient Greece show giant animals attacking fishing boats. In Norway, sailors feared the mythological kraken, a vicious sea creature with long arms and enormous eyes. But it wasn’t until the late 19th century that someone actually brought home hard evidence of one of these “monsters.”

HAUL IT IN!

In 1873, a man and his son were fishing off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada, when they saw something that appeared to be a huge squid floating in the water. When the curious fisherman poked the animal, it reared up, wrapped its tentacles around their small boat, and tried to eat it. But the boy took a hatchet, chopped off one of the tentacles, and the creature slithered back into the sea. The pair collected the tentacle (which was about 19 feet long) and brought it back to shore.

The Masai people from Africa eat a traditional dish made from a combination of cow’s blood and milk.

A year or so later, the tentacle—and a complete body of a similar creature that had washed up on the shore of Newfoundland—made their way to a Yale University professor named Addison E. Verrill. He did numerous tests on the animal and finally named the sea monster that sailors had been talking about for centuries: he called it the giant squid.

BODY BASICS

Including its head, body, and tentacles, the average giant squid grows to be between 30 and 40 feet long and weighs several hundred pounds. Females, which are bigger than males, can grow to be 600 pounds or more.

The largest giant squid ever found washed up on a New Zealand beach in 1880. It was 65 feet long, including its 40-foot tentacles. How long is that? About the height of a six-story building.

Giant squid also have the largest eyes in the animal kingdom, approximately 10 inches across—the size of dinner plates. These large eyes make it possible for them to see in the deep, dark waters where they live.

HIDE-AND-SEEK

Giant squid are so rare that it wasn’t until 2006 that scientists were able to film a live specimen. That year, Japanese researchers filmed a 24-foot female in the ocean about 600 miles off the coast of Tokyo.

NOT THE BIGGEST?

It’s hard to imagine, but the giant squid has an even bigger relative: the colossal squid. This creature usually grows to be about the same length as a giant squid, but it’s much heavier.

Since 1925, when the first colossal squid was identified, only six others have been found, and all were in the ocean off Antarctica. The largest colossal squid ever captured was in 2007: a 1,091-pounder that was 33 feet long. But it was a male. And since scientists know that female squid are usually bigger than males, they believe there are even larger colossal squid hiding somewhere in the ocean.

*      *      *

GIANT SQUID ARE…

•
The world’s largest cephalopods.

•
A sperm whale’s main prey.

Beyoncé is allergic to perfume.

Even the simplest things in life aren’t always what they seem.

•
Poison ivy
isn’t poisonous, it’s allergenic (it causes allergies). If you come into contact with poison ivy, your skin will start itching and swelling, but touching the plant won’t “poison” you. (It’s also not even a type of ivy—it’s a sumac.)

•
Only the day you were born is actually your
birthday
. Each year, you’re really celebrating the anniversary of your birth.

•
The
Caspian Sea
and the
Dead Sea
aren’t seas at all—they’re both lakes.

•
The
United States of America
is an incorrect term because the nation includes Hawaii. The Pacific islands are not, technically, part of North or South America.

•
Pencil lead
isn’t lead—it’s a mixture of graphite and clay.

•
The
New York Jets
and the
New York Giants
both play their home games in New Jersey.

•
French fries
are not from France. Most likely invented in Belgium, they’re called “French” because of the style in which they’re sliced (into long, thin strips), known in French as
julienned
.

The turkey didn’t come from Turkey—it’s native to North America.

Uncle John loves a good joke. He likes these, too.

Q.
What does a dog do that a man steps in?

A
: Pants

Q.
What’s at the end of the world?

A.
The letter D

Q.
What did one mountain say to the other?

A.
Do these trees make my butte look fat?

Q.
Why was the broom late for work?

A.
It over-swept.

Q.
Where was the Declaration of Independence signed?

A:
At the bottom

Q.
Can you spell this sentence without any Rs? “Railroad tracks crisscross.”

A.
Sure: T-H-I-S S-E-N-T-E-N-C-E

Q.
What do you call a boomerang that never comes back?

A:
A stick

Eggplants don’t contain eggs. So why are they called that? Early varieties were white or yellow and egg-shaped.

To get elected president, you have to be perfect, right? Not exactly.

N
IXON INSULTS HIS WIFE

Richard Nixon ran for president in 1960 against Senator John F. Kennedy. During the debates of that campaign—the first ones ever televised—Kennedy came off as handsome and relaxed, but Nixon sweated profusely and looked nervous. Then, during their fourth debate, Nixon made a serious goof. While driving home a point, he declared: “America can’t stand pat!” (To “stand pat” means to resist change, and Nixon meant that he thought Kennedy was inflexible.) The trouble was, “Pat” was also the name of Nixon’s wife—and for a minute, many viewers wondered why he was insisting the country didn’t like her.