Uncle John’s Legendary Lost Bathroom Reader (8 page)

ANSWERS & QUESTIONS

How do they come up with their questions?

• A research staff of 12 writers drafts the questions and provides at least two sources verifying the information.

• Then the show’s editorial associate producer edits the questions and assigns dollar amounts.

• The questions are then sent back to a different researcher, who verifies them again.

• From there the questions are given to the show’s producer, who can ask for even further verification.

• On game day Alex Trebek reviews the questions himself. More than 300,000 questions have been through this review process.

CONTESTANTS

Where do they get the contestants?

• Every year, 250,000 people apply for an audition, either through the station that broadcasts the show in their area, or by contacting the show itself.

• Only 15,000 are chosen for the initial screening exam, and only 1,500 qualify to become contestants. Then, only 500 actually make it on the air.

Every day, Americans eat an estimated 18 acres of pizza.

In the time it takes to read this four-page article, you’ll blink at least 30 times. Or at least that’s what Jay Ingram says in his fascinating book
, The Science of Everyday Life.
Here are some of the more fascinating tidbits on blinking and the eye from Ingram’s book and others.

I
T CLEANS & MOISTENS!
“The typical eyeball is about 2.5 centimeters in diameter and seven grams in weight,” reports Thinkquest. That translates to just about one inch wide, and about 1/4 of an ounce.

• The front, non-white part of the eye—the
cornea
—is covered by a transparent membrane called the
conjunctiva
, which functions along with the lachrymal (or tear) gland, to keep the eyeball moist.

• When we blink, the tear gland releases tears and the eyelid washes the eyeball clean while moistening it at the same time.

• From there the liquid collects in tear ducts at the sides of our eyes, and it eventually drains back into our bodies by way of the back of the nasal passages.

• Beyond keeping the eyeball moist, the blink serves other important functions. It protects the eyeball from nearby objects, like an oncoming finger. But primarily it acts as a cleaning device, washing out dust and dirt particles and killing germs and bacteria.

• A blink is an involuntary reaction, much like breathing and if you choose to not blink, your body will usually take over and do it for you when your eyes get dry enough.

FAST, FAST, FAST RELIEF!

• How often one blinks varies from person to person, but most scientists agree that we blink an average of 17,000 times in a day.

• That translates to roughly one blink every five seconds and rounds up to six-and-a-quarter million times in one year.

• Each blink lasts about three-tenths of a second.

• Author Jay Ingram: “Slow motion replays show that the eyelid begins to drop, builds up speed to a maximum, then begins to slow again before your eye is actually closed.”

Astronaut Buzz Aldrin claims to have been the first man to “piss in his pants on the moon.”

• The eye-closing part of a blink lasts, on average, one-tenth of a second.

• Ingram, again: “The eyelid stays closed for about one-twentieth of a second, then it starts accelerating back upward again, leaving a film of tears behind. The odd thing is that even though your eye is partly or completely closed for three-tenths of a second or more, you aren’t aware of missing anything.”

BLINKIN’ PSYCHOLOGY

• We tend to blink faster when we’re excited or nervous. For instance, someone who’s on television tends to average between 31 and 50 blinks per minute—twice the normal rate.

• But why? A chemical called dopamine is responsible. It’s released in the brain when we’re under stress...which triggers body arousal—faster heart rate, quicker breathing, and more rapid eyelid movement, or blinking.

• Knowing this, psychotherapists have long thought that excessive blinking in a patient can reflect, among other things, a deep-seated desire to hide. As a result, blink rates are used to gauge subjects taking polygraph tests as well. The normal blink rate is about twenty times per minute. A faster rate signifies anxiety, emotional distress, or that the “fight or flight” response is kicking in—all indicators that someone may be lying.

INSIDE INFO

• FBI Special Agent, Joe Navarro, has gone so far as to identify a specific type of blink that he directly associates with someone about to lie.

• In an online interview, Navarro explains: “On NBC’s “Today Show,” Matt Lauer talked about how Madonna had lied to him about her announced pregnancy just the other day. He showed the video and her response but he missed something to ponder about. She did what I call the eyelash flutter when asked, “Are you pregnant?”

• It’s different under high speed camera from the eye-blink, we can see that it does not close completely and the speed is amazing. I first observed this eyelid behavior in 1985, and find that people who are troubled by a question or an event do this, especially if they have to answer and are about to lie.

“The” is the most used word in the English language.

• “I tell attorneys to look for the eyelash flutter when they have people on the stand; it means they really do not like the question at all. I even had a case where the individual picked out the route of escape for me when I went through several routes with him; I just waited for the flutter to pick out the way.”

DEMOCRACY GOES ON THE BLINK

• With the advent of video closeups, political analysts have looked for signs in the blinking of politicians. Somebody with a video recorder and a stopwatch discovered that Richard Nixon blinked twice as much as normal when answering hostile questions about Watergate and that Bill Clinton’s blinking rate went up from 51 blinks per minute to 71 when discussing Monica Lewinsky.

• During the television debates between Michael Dukakis and George Bush, somebody else discovered that both candidates blinked faster when questions were directed to them.

• Most recently, Boston College neuropsychologist Joe Tecce noted that George W. Bush blinked an average of 82 blinks a minute, indicating severe stress. Al Gore, on the other hand, blinked at a rate of 48 blinks a minute. Based on the previous six elections, where the slower blinker won, Tecce believed it was a sign that Gore was more likely to keep his head and win the election. However, as the election showed, the eyes didn’t have it.

• The extremes of blinking in presidential debates? Bob Dole is “the fastest blinker among all world leaders I’ve studied,” says Tecce. He clocked a record 147 blinks per minute in his 1996 debate with Clinton. The slowest? Ross Perot, who managed a meditative 9 bpm in the three-way 1992 debate.

DOCTOR, MY EYES

• Excessive blinking in children is one of the symptoms that pediatricians watch for. It can mean a number of things, including allergies, chronic exposure to cigarette smoke, extreme anxiety or eye problems.

• Rapid and habitual blinking is often the first symptom that appears in children who are developing Tourette’s Syndrome. On the other hand, sometimes it’s just a habit that a kid does because it gets him adult attention.

Water babies: Baby sea lions have to be taught how to swim.

WITH A NOD AND A WINK

• Blinking eyes have many times been used as a signal. American prisoners of war appearing before movie cameras communicated secret messages in Morse code during the Vietnam War.

• While frozen within a block of ice, magician David Blaine answered questions by blinking once for yes and twice for no.

• However, the most extraordinary use of blinking for communication has to be writer Jean-Dominque Bauby. Profoundly paralyzed by a stroke, he lost all movement in his body except his left eyelid. Using 200,000 blinks and a very patient friend, Bauby wrote his memoirs. The book became an instant bestseller in France, but Bauby all-but-missed the excitement—he died two days after it was published.

HISTORY PASSES IN A BLINK OR TWO

• The Roman emperor Gaius screened gladiators based on whether they could go unblinking into the face of extreme danger. It wasn’t a foolproof test—only two of 20,000 passed it.

• It was a blinking surgeon during the French Revolution who first demonstrated that a head lived for a short time after decapitation. Unfortunately, the head in question was his own. Antoine Lavoisier (1743–1794), a French chemist who discovered oxygen, was beheaded during the Reign of Terror. Ever the scientist, before being beheaded he told a friend that he would continue blinking for as long as possible after the guillotine struck to see how long he would remain conscious. His friend reported that Lavoiser’s disembodied head blinked for about 15 seconds.

And Speaking Of Eyes....
According to a story in the
Washington Times
, “glass eyes” are no longer made from glass, but a hard, virtually unbreakable plastic. That’s a good thing, since 17,000 to 18,000 people lose an eyeball every year. A good replacement eye is indistinguishable from a real one, but it doesn’t come cheap—$1700 to $2500 for a custom-matched eye, made by an expert ocularist.

Galileo went blind studying the sun through telescopes.

These tidbits about extinct candy bars come from Dr. Ray Broekel, “candy bar historian” and publisher of a newsletter called the
Candy Bar Gazebo.

T
HE AIR MAIL BAR.
Introduced in 1930 to honor the first airmail flight in the U.S.—in 1918, from Washington, D.C to New York City. Ironically, the first flight never made it to New York. After takeoff, the pilot noticed someone had forgotten to fill the fuel tank. Then he got lost over Maryland and had to land in a cow pasture. The Air Mail candy bar had a similar fate.

FAT EMMA.
In the early 1920s, the Pendergast Candy Company in Minneapolis introduced a candy bar with a nougat center. They planned to call it the Emma bar. But when it wound up twice as thick as expected (they accidentally put too much egg white in the mixture), they changed the name to Fat Emma. Later, Frank Mars copied the idea to create the Milky Way bar.

THE SAL-LE-DANDE BAR.
The first candy bar named after a stripper—Sally Rand, whose “fan dance” at the 1933-34 Chicago World’s Fair shocked and titillated the nation. In the 1960s, another stripper bar was available briefly: the Gypsy bar, named after Gypsy Rose Lee.

THE RED GRANGE BAR.
Endorsed by Red Grange, the most popular football player of his day. After starring at the University of Illinois, he joined the Chicago Bears in 1925 and helped keep the National Football League in business. Unfortunately, he couldn’t do the same for his candy bar.

THE VEGETABLE SANDWICH BAR.
One of the weirdest “health” bars ever made, this 1920s vegetable concoction contained cabbage, celery, peppers, and tomatoes. Its makers claimed it aided digestion and “will not constipate.”

The average American throws out 1,905 pounds. of garbage every year.

THE ZEP CANDY BAR.
“Sky-High Quality.” One of several candy bars that capitalized on the popularity of “lighter-than-air” dirigibles in the 1930s. This one featured a sketch of a Graf Zeppelin on the wrapper. It was taken off the market after the Hindenburg exploded in 1937.

THE CHICKEN DINNER BAR.
One of the bestselling bars you’ve never heard of. It was introduced in the 1920s and remained on the market for about 50 years. The original wrapper featured a picture of a roasted chicken on a dinner plate—a bizarre way of suggesting it was a nourishing meal and encouraging consumers to associate it with prosperity (“a chicken in every pot”). The manufacturer, Sperry Candy Co., even dispatched a fleet of Model A trucks disguised as giant sheet-metal chickens to deliver the candy to stores. Several years after the bar’s debut, Sperry dropped the chicken from the wrapper. But it kept the name.

THE BIG-HEARTED “AL” BAR.
George Williamson, owner of the Williamson Candy Company, was a good Democrat and a good friend of New York governor Al Smith, Democratic nominee for president in 1928. Smith lost in a landslide to Herbert Hoover, and his candy bar soon followed.

THE SEVEN UP CANDY BAR.
Got its name from having seven connected pieces, each with a different center. The bar came out in the 1930s, before the 7-Up Bottling Company began producing its soft drink—so the Trudeau Candy Company owned the trademark rights to the name. Eventually the 7-Up Bottling Company bought the bar and retired it, so they had exclusive use of the name no matter how it was spelled—
Seven Up
or
7-Up
.

THE “IT” BAR.
The #1 female sex symbol of the silent movie era was Clara Bow—known as the “It Girl.” (She had that special quality her movie studio called “It.”) In 1927 the McDonald Candy Company of Salt Lake City tried cashing in on her popularity with a candy bar featuring her face on the wrapper. It did well for a few years, then disappeared along with Bow. (She wasn’t able to make the switch to talkies, because although she was lovely to look at, her Brooklyn accent made her impossible to listen to.)