Bathroom Readers' Institute's Blog, page 128

Ask Uncle John Anything: Eye See Your Boogers

Uncle John knows pretty much everything—and if he doesn’t, he heads his massive research library, or puts one of his many associates on the case. So go ahead: In the comments below, ask Uncle John anything. (And if we answer your question sometime, we’ll send you a free book!)

What causes the little crusty chunks that appear around the eyes when you wake up each morning?

That gross yellow junk has a lot of different names: “crusties,” or “eye boogers,” or “sleep sand,” or “sleep gunk,” or…

Rheum is a term that refers to any and all materials expelled from the facial cavities—nose, mouth, and eyes—during sleep. The technical name for eye rheum is gound. It’s a mixture of a lot of stuff that your body made or didn’t want and then tried to get rid of when it thought you weren’t paying attention, mostly dead blood cells, dead skin cells, and dust.

That makes up the solid elements, but eye gunk is also a little wet and a little oily. The moisture comes from mucus ejected by the conjunctiva, tissue that lines the inside of the eyelids and which also covers the sclera, or white of the eye.

The oil is a substance called meibum, secreted by the meibomian glands, which line the rums of the eyelids. Their main function is to keep the eyes nearly air-tight while closed, and keep moisture inside of your eye sockets, where they can lubricate the eyeballs.

The processes carried about by the conjunctiva and meibomian glands occur all the time. When you’re awake, however, you’re blinking constantly, allowing waste products to escape your eye. But when they’re closed, all that junk has nowhere to go but the edge of the eyeball, right on the border of the inside and outside.

The post Ask Uncle John Anything: Eye See Your Boogers appeared first on .

No More Saturday Morning Cartoons

Pour out a box of sugar cereal to honor the death of an American institution.

The TV landscape is certainly changing. There are hardly any soap operas left, most any program can be seen outside of its timeslot online the next day, and cheap devices allow us to store our favorite shows and skip the commercials. But while the majority of viewers do still watch, say, late night TV shows late at night, there’s one TV institution that’s gone for good: Saturday morning cartoons on network TV.

Last weekend, the CW aired its “Vortexx” block of action-heavy cartoons for the last time—the last time a broadcast network aired cartoons on Saturday morning. Next weekend, in that place will be a block of live action shows. Since 2013, CBS has aired a block of live-action educational shows for kids produced by a company called Litton Entertainment…which has provided similar shows for ABC’s Saturday mornings since 2011. Fox stopped airing Saturday morning cartoons in 2008 and left the responsibility of filling Saturday morning up to its affiliates. NBC did away with cartoons all the way back in 1992, filling the morning with another edition of Today and a block of sitcoms geared toward teens, including Saved By the Bell.

So what exactly killed the Saturday morning cartoon? Again, the changing TV landscape.

A series of laws passed in the 1990s highly regulated children’s programming on the broadcast channels. Networks are required to air three hours weekly of educational shows, and they generally put them on Saturday morning, displacing cartoons.


Cereal and fast food companies have been under increasing pressure to curtail marketing to children, as those products have been linked with the rise of childhood obesity. The biggest advertisers on Saturday mornings, in their heyday? Cereal and fast food.


The audiences just kept dwindling. Up to the 1980s, there was very little kid-oriented TV available. If kids wanted to see cartoons, they had to wait for Saturday morning. Today, the majority of American homes have cable TV, which offers multiple channels just for kids, such as the Disney Channel, Nickelodeon, and Cartoon Network. Kids can now watch cartoons whenever they want.

The post No More Saturday Morning Cartoons appeared first on .

Ig Nobel Awards: Better Living Through Poopy Science

Since 1991, the Ig Nobel Awards honor the world’s most ridiculous research and scientific undertakings. Two out of ten of this year’s honorees regarded, well, fecal matters.

The 2014 Ig Nobel award for biology went to a group of scientists from the Czech Republic and Germany that studied if dogs can sense the Earth’s magnetic field. The team examined dozens of dogs while they went to the bathroom, theorizing that the average pooch aligns its body along a north-south axis while they do so…or at least they do when a solar storm isn’t messing with the magnetic field. After studying over 70 dogs and 1,893 “doggy dumps,” they published their findings in Frontiers in Zoology. (This same group once conducted a similar study that proved that cows also align themselves on an axis during times of relief, but they studied that by examining Google Earth satellite images.) Why do dogs and cows prefer to poop in this fashion? The scientists have yet to figure that out.

The award for nutrition went to an even stinkier project. A group of food scientists in Spain discovered that they could make sausages out of baby poop. Well, to be more specific, they figured out that it’s possible to use three strains of bacteria commonly found in their diaper leavings to make what’s called probiotic starter cultures. This is a component that’s required to make several different types of fermented sausage. The scientists’ project eventually landed in the pages of Food Microbiology. That said, it’s a safe bet that Hormel, Oscar Mayer, and others will continue to use more conventional sausage-making methods.

The post Ig Nobel Awards: Better Living Through Poopy Science appeared first on .

3 Obscure Spinoffs Of Popular TV Shows

A successful show does not necessarily mean a successful offshoot. Here are three examples of TV show spinoffs that never took off.

Upon its conclusion in 1993, Cheers spawned the 11-season hit spinoff Frasier. But the first Cheers spinoff was The Tortellis. While Cheers was urbane and sophisticated and a cut above other ’80s sitcoms, The Tortellis was broad and crass, focusing on Carla (Rhea Perlman)’s sleazy ex-husband Nick Tortelli (Dan Hedaya) and his trophy wife Loretta (Jean Kasem) who lived in Las Vegas. Despite the Cheers pedigree (it was created by Cheers writer Ken Estin), the show was cancelled after 13 little-watched episodes in 1987.

When Friends debuted in 1994 (20 years ago this week), the cast of six was relatively unknown…unless you were a fan of obscure sitcoms. The network tried several times to land a spinoff of Married…With Children. Two of them starred future Friends and Episodes star Matt LeBlanc. The first was Top of the Heap, in which Al Bundy’s friend Charlie Verducci (Joe Bologna) and his dimwitted son Vinnie (LeBlanc) try and fail to get rich. It was gone after seven airings in the spring of 1991, only to resurface a year later as Vinnie & Bobby. This time around, the character of Charlie was replaced with Vinnie’s friend, Bobby (Robert Torti). They shared an apartment, worked on a construction crew, and chased girls. This spinoff also lasted just seven episodes.

Columbo aired every few weeks in the 1970s as part of The NBC Mystery Movie, alternating with McCloud and McMillan & Wife. By 1979, star Peter Falk was done with the character, but NBC wasn’t. Result: Mrs. Columbo, in which Detective Columbo’s wife, Kate, solved mysteries. The connections were tenuous and even nonsensical—the original Columbo never depicted or mention Columbo’s wife by name, but she was said to be as old as Columbo. Mrs. Columbo, however, starred 24-year-old Kate Mulgrew. The show confused Columbo fans (on which her husband never appeared), so the show was retitled Kate Loves a Mystery. It didn’t work—the show barely lasted a year.

The post 3 Obscure Spinoffs Of Popular TV Shows appeared first on .

Scandal at Ben & Jerry’s!

Even ice cream can be controversial.

In February, Ben & Jerry introduced a line of “core” ice creams, in which a pillar of fudge, chocolate, or jam runs through the middle of a carton of frozen dessert. The “Hazed & Confused” variety combined hazelnut (the “haze”) and chocolate ice creams with a core of Nutella-like fudge. However, the company may rename the hazelnut dessert after receiving several complaints that it’s offensive. Is it because it conjures up the phrase “dazed and confused” and so implicitly endorses the teenage drug use depicted in the popular 1993 movie Dazed and Confused? No—anti-hazing advocates say the name makes light of hazing, which many colleges have banned because it can so often turn violent.

This Ben & Jerry’s flavor, however, does make use of drug humor. This fall, the company introduced “Satisfy My Bowl,” a flavor inspired by reggae icon—and noted marijuana user Bob Marley. While “bowl” is a drug term (it’s what marijuana users call part of a pipe), the ice cream itself is drug-free: it’s banana ice cream with chocolate peace sign cookies.

 

In 2011, the conservative parents group One Million Moms asked its members to write letters of protest to the ice cream company for two of its flavors. The first was “Schweddy Balls,” which OMM said was a very profane name for an ice cream…unaware that the dessert was named after a popular double-entendre-filled Saturday Night Live skit about a baker named Dave Schweddy who was famous for his baked goods, which he called his “Schweddy Balls.” The OMM also took offense to “Hubby Hubby”—a brief run of cartons of Ben & Jerry’s Chubby Hubby flavor sold to commemorate the same-sex marriage movement.

5 Bands Whose Members Were Romantically Involved

It’s said that musicians play music to, uh, attract others. These musicians didn’t have to go very far.

Sonic Youth

New York avant garde musicians Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon formed the pioneering alternative rock band in 1981. They married three years later, and their daughter, Coco, was born in 1994. In 2011, Gordon learned that Moore had been seeing another woman for three years. That marked the end of their marriage, and after 15 albums, the end of Sonic Youth, too.

Sleater-Kinney

Today, Carrie Brownstein is best known as the star of the sketch comedy show, Portlandia. She first rose to stardom in the early ‘90s as guitarist of the rock band Sleater-Kinney. In 1995, Brownstein told a reporter from Spin that she was bisexual, and that early on in Sleater-Kinney’s formation, she had dated Sleater-Kinney singer Corin Tucker. “One More Hour,” a song on the band’s third album, is about their breakup. (They remain friends and frequent collaborators.)

Fleetwood Mac

It’s well known that the soft rock band’s 1977 blockbuster album Rumours is about the breakups of various band members with each other. After having joined the band as a couple in 1975, Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks broke up during the recording of Rumours—Buckingham wrote “Second Hand News” about it, and Nicks wrote “I Don’t Want to Know” about it. Christine McVie wrote “You Make Loving Fun” about a new love, who she was seeing after separating from her husband, Mac bassist John McVie.

Yo La Tengo

The influential New Jersey rock band was formed in 1984 by guitarist Ira Kaplan and drummer Georgia Hubley. They were already dating when they decided to form the group, which didn’t have any other permanent members until 1991, and they’re still married and still fronting the band together.

The White Stripes

When the White Stripes burst into the mainstream in 2002 with “Fell in Love With a Girl,” the duo purposely tried to confuse the media. Members Jack White and Meg White told some reporters that they were brother and sister. It wasn’t true—they’d married in the late 1990s and divorced in 2000, before the White Stripes found commercial success. Interestingly, Jack took Meg’s name when they married (and kept it after they were divorced). His given name is Jack Gillis.

A Few Festive Oktoberfest Factoids

It’s everybody’s beer-soaked holiday! (Next to Cinco de Mayo and St. Patrick’s Day.)

The Oktoberfest tradition began with a colossal wedding party on October 12th, 1810 that celebrated the nuptials of the future King Ludwig I to Princess Therese of Saxony-Hildburghausen. (Try to say her name and title three times fast..) The royals invited the public to attend the festivities outside of Munich’s city gates in a large field. The epic party concluded with a horse race.


Everybody had such a great time that the horse races became an annual tradition in the field, which was later dubbed Theresienwiese (“Theresa’s fields”) in honor of the princess. Over time, the event expanded to include carnival rides and its current most popular feature: beer.


Drinking fine German ale became so popular that the fest’s beer stands had to be replaced with increasingly large tents beginning in the late 19th century. (In case you were wondering, the final horse race was held in 1960.)


As Oktoberfest began to draw bigger and bigger crowds with each passing year, organizers decided to add additional days and move the event, even though it has the word “October” in it, to September—the weather is typically better then. These days, Munich’s Oktoberfest ends on the first Sunday in October.


The first day of the fest traditionally begins with a series of parades featuring members of local gun clubs and all the staff that will be serving the crowds. Then, at noon, the mayor of Munich taps a keg and offers the first frosty mug of beer to the Minister-President of the state of Bavaria.


One of the biggest controversies in recent years was the decision to ban smoking in all the fest’s colossal beer tents—refusing to sell beer to anyone caught smoking is a common form of punishment. Many attendees hate it because the smoke covered up the disgusting scent of all the beer that’s spilled in the usually overcrowded tents. To fight the putrid stench, some tents now utilize a special bacterial substance.


Now recognized as the largest annual “people’s fair” on the planet, Oktoberfest features carnival rides, concerts, tons of locals and tourists running around in traditional Bavarian clothing ,and lots of beer. How much? Last year, the fest attracted 6.4 million people, who drank 6.7 million liters (that’s altogether, not individually).


Since 1810, Oktoberfest has been cancelled 24 times due to various health epidemics and wars.

Ask Uncle John Anything: It’s in the Bag

Uncle John knows pretty much everything—and if he doesn’t, he heads his massive research library, or puts one of his many associates on the case. So go ahead: In the comments below, ask Uncle John anything. (And if we answer your question sometime, we’ll send you a free book!) Today’s question comes from Renee B., who asks…

What causes bags under the eyes?

There are a lot of reasons why your eyes might look puffy in the morning. You might not have gotten enough sleep. Your eyes are tired. You have poor eating habits, particularly eating too much salt, which leads to dehydration. You might be retaining water. You may have a sinus infection. Many of these causes stretch the skin immediately underneath the eyes, particularly pulling down the eyelids.

Under-eye bags typically fade as the day goes on, which is a sign that it was retained fluids working their way out of your system. That is, if you’re young. Those bags under the eyes, like so many other things on the body, become unattractive and permanent the older we get. As far as under-eye bags are concerned, it has to do with the fat that’s part of every human face. It’s held there by muscles and ligaments. As you age, those muscles and ligaments naturally weaken, which causes everything around them to sag…including the skin around your eyes. That in turn, makes fat more visible—the fat in this case being those bags. Similarly, collagen levels in facial skin decline with age, limiting your face’s ability to literally bounce back.

Those bags can be diminished, to a degree, with a cold compress, or sleeping with an extra pillow—the elevation helps with drainage. One thing that doesn’t empty the bags: Preparation H. There’s an old urban legend that the notorious hemorrhoid cream can shrink under-eye bags the way it shrinks, uh, other things. It’s simply not true.

The post Ask Uncle John Anything: It’s in the Bag appeared first on .

Mick Jagger’s Pig and Other Odd Creatures Named After Celebrities

The fans of various artists, athletes and musicians can be inspired to create websites and all sorts of other stuff in their honor. Sometimes, their very names are slapped onto newly discovered animal species.

In 2012, British scientists discovered a new breed of Yeti crab in a deep sea ocean vent off the shores of Antarctica. These crabs are noted for their hair-like setae that grow around their claws and limbs. The specimens they encountered were almost completely covered in the bristles. They decided to name the crustacians after the equally hairy actor David Hasselhoff. Their real, official name: Hoff crabs.


A year prior, Bryan Lessard, a 24-year-old researcher at Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, discovered an extremely rare fly in its archives. It had been captured and cataloged back in 1981 but no one had bothered to give the bug, which featured a golden-haired posterior, a name. Lessard decided to dub it Scaptia beyonceae after the “bootylicious” and golden-haired singer Beyonce, who happened to be born in 1981.


A prehistoric swamp pig was recently bestowed with the title Jaggermeryx naiad paleoanthropologist Ellen Miller named it after Mick Jagger. Much like the Rolling Stones frontman, the pig, which once roamed the plains of Africa about 19 million years ago, likely had a big pair of lips. It may have used its upper one to snuffle out food along river banks. Miller’s colleagues wanted to name the pig after the equally lippy Angelina Jolie, but Miller got her way.


A 500 million year-old lobster fossil was named after Johnny Depp in 2013 According to the scientists who uncovered the ancient crustacean, it sort of resembled the titular character Depp played in Edward Scissorhands. once lived off the coast of British Columbia and had super-sharp claws it used to hunt down prey.

 

 

The post appeared first on .

Fake-or-Fact Friday: Dogs Behaving Badly

Every Friday we give you three news stories and ask you to pick which two are true and which one we made up. Can you guess which ones are true and which one is the fake? (The answer is at the end of the post.)

A.

Earlier this year, the owners of a three-year-old Great Dane rushed him to a Portland, Oregon, emergency animal clinic. The poor pup couldn’t stop throwing up, and a veterinarian first did an X-ray of the dog’s stomach. She then immediately took the dog into surgery, where it took two hours to remove the culprit of the dog’s gastrointestinal pain: He had eaten 43 and a half socks. The dog’s owners said that their dog liked to chew on socks, but this was the first time he had eaten one. (He made a full recovery.)

B.

Earlier this year, Steven Tyler, frontman of the rock band Aerosmith, rushed his dog, a two-year-old Labdradoodle named Joe, to a Beverly Hills animal clinic. The poor pup couldn’t stop throwing up, so a veterinarian did an X-ray to determine the problem. The dog was rushed into surgery, where the culprit of the dog’s gastrointestinal discomfort was revealed: He’d eaten two of Tyler’s signature long, silk scarves that he wears and ties around microphone stands during performances. (The dog made a full recovery.)

C.

Earlier this year, the owner of a four-year-old Samoyed rushed the dog to a Rotherham, England pet hospital. The poor pup wasn’t eating much, and throwing up what he had eaten. Vets first did an X-ray of the dog’s stomach, then took the dog into surgery. The reason for the dog’s gastrointestinal discomfort: He’d eaten three of his owner’s pairs of thong-style underwear. The surgery was a success and the dog was released from the hospital…and less than three hours later, ate another thong, requiring another trip to the vet, where vomiting was induced.

Want more things that sound true…but aren’t? Then check out Uncle John’s Fake Facts. (Really!)

 

The post Fake-or-Fact Friday: Dogs Behaving Badly appeared first on .