Bathroom Readers' Institute's Blog, page 165

A Weird Invention: Graphene

Imagine a smartphone as thin as a sheet of paper. Or after folding up your laptop…you roll it up and put it in your pocket. Amazingly, these kinds of products may be available within the next decade, thanks to some scientists in Europe hard at work developing an amazing new material called graphene.

Not only is the better-than-Flubber substance flexible and transparent, it can conduct electricity. And a sheet of graphene is only one atom thick—which means it’s actually hard to detect with the human eye. When stretched out, the material is tougher than steel and harder than a diamond. Along with featherweight phones and computers, it may one day be used to create interactive newspapers, much like the ones seen in sci-fi movies, such as Minority Report.

Grapheme was developed in 2004 by two scientists at the University of Manchester, who earned the Nobel Prize for their labor. Earlier this year, researchers at Sweden’s Chalmers University of Technology landed a $1 billion grant from the European Union to further experiment with graphene and explore other possible applications for the material. Here are a few ideas from this Japanese Samsung commercial:

Want more weird inventions? Pick up our latest book, Weird Inventions.

Famous For Fifteen Minutes: Grand Canyon Stunts

There’s something about America’s biggest hole in the ground that seems to lure thrill-seekers into believing that they simply must risk their lives and navigate it somehow. In June, seventh-generation tightrope walker Nik Wallenda successfully walked over the Grand Canyon on a two-inch-wide cable, without a safety harness or net while the Colorado River roared thousands of feet below him. (And all on live TV.)

Here are two more possibly less-than-sane individuals and their death-defying Grand Canyon stunts.

In 2010, magician/performance artist Criss Angel performed what he called a “teleportation jump” over the Grand Canyon for an episode of his reality show Mindfreak. First, he rode a three-wheeled motorcycle toward a ramp on the edge of a cliff. A cage suspended from a helicopter hovered over the middle of the canyon a few hundred yards away. Once Angel hit the ramp, the motorcycle exploded and he “magically” reappeared…in the cage. While there’s a certain amount of risk involved in performing an elaborate illusion like this, that’s just what it was: an illusion. We won’t spoil its secrets (because we can’t figure out how he did it), but you can watch the trick here:

Motorcycle daredevil Evel Knievel successfully (and unsuccessfully) jumped over a lot of things in the ‘60s and ‘70s—long lines of cars and trucks, the fountains at Caesars Palace, the Snake River Canyon. But one thing he was never able to attempt was a jump over the Grand Canyon. Supposedly, the U.S. Department of the Interior nixed his plans in 1973 (that’s when he tried—and failed—to make it across the Snake River Canyon). In 1999, his son, Robbie Knievel, decided to give it another shot. He negotiated to jump his motorcycle over a section of the Grand Canyon that was in the jurisdiction of the Hualapai tribe. The younger Knievel successfully completed the 228-foot jump…although he did lose control of his bike after it landed and broke his leg.

 

The Last Telegram

Here at the BRI we love to write about technology that was once cutting-edge,

and has now become obsolete and vanished from the scene. But we

seldom get an opportunity to witness the actual departure.

In less than a week, the last telegram will be sent. The telegraph was the world’s first mass communication tool. First developed in the 1840s, sending series of electric pulses in Morse code (different combinations of pulses that corresponded to letters of the alphabet) along long stretches of electrical wire made instant communication a reality. The first telegram, sent on May 24, 1844, read, “WHAT HATH GOD WROUGHT?”

A hundred and fifty years later, with the development of cheap long-distance telephone service, the fax machine, e-mail, texting, cell phones, and other ways to instantly reach out to somebody, the telegram has grown increasingly irrelevant. Even Western Union, one of the first and definitely the longest-serving telegram company, doesn’t even use them anymore. (They stopped sending telegrams in 2006.) Western Union is primarily a money wiring service now.

The last place on earth where you could send a telegram is in India. (It’s called a taar there.) Telegrams became a popular way to send a message there in the 1970s and ‘80s. The industry peaked in 1985, with 60 million telegrams sent nationwide. But as cheap cell phones became the norm, telegrams became just as arcane in India as they were elsewhere. Last year, only about 2 million telegrams were sent – which, in a country of a billion people, isn’t a lot. (And most of those are sent by the government.) Meanwhile, BSNL, the country’s state-run telecom company, is losing $23 million a year on operating a telegraph service. So it has announced that on July 14, the service will be discontinued.

Essentially, on July 14, after nearly two centuries, the last telegram will be sent.

What’s On Tap? 5000-Year-Old Beer Recipe

Beer has been around for centuries—lots of world cultures have developed some variation on fermented grain and water. But the brews our distant forefathers drank were probably a lot different than the ones we drink now.

While the ale that was enjoyed centuries before the birth of Julius Caesar may have been tastier than other beverage choices of the day, it was still incredibly sour, with a flavor closer to vinegar than Hefeweizen. That’s according to a team of University of Chicago archaeologists and brewers from the Great Lakes Brewing Company. Using a 5,000-year-old beer recipe outlined in “Hymn to Ninkasi,” an ode to the Sumerian goddess of beer, they brewed up a batch of era-appropriate beer. To help ensure authenticity, they even used recreations of ancient wooden tools and ceramic fermentation pots based on artifacts found in Iraq in the 1930s, malted the barley on a roof, and hired a baker in Cleveland to prepare the bappir (“beer bread”) they used as the source of their yeast. And they heated the beer during the brewing process the old fashioned way: over a manure-fueled fire.

Much like Mesopotamian brewers, the crew also didn’t use any modern-day cleaning methods to get rid of the naturally occurring bacteria in the pots. After letting their strange brew ferment for two days, they finally tasted it and deemed it too sour for the 21st century. Nate Gibbon, a Great Lakes brewer who spent a few months doing prep work for the project, isn’t tossing in the towel though. He’s vowed to give the 5000-year-old beer recipe another try, hopefully marketing the ancient beer through Great Lakes some day, but next time he’ll sweeten the beer with honey or dates, as his successors may have done back in the day to make their products more drinkable.

A Weird Invention: The Electronic Nose

One of the most talked about public pranks last April Fools Day was Google’s announcement of a new service called Google Nose, a tool that would let users search the Internet for smells. It was a joke, of course. But while online smell searching isn’t real, artificial noses are quite real. A California company called Cyrano Sciences is working on a prototype electronic nose that will recognize a preprogrammed array of scents. The company claims their “nose” could help supplement the limited capacity of the human nose. Dangerous, undetectable gas leaks could be picked up by an artificial nose, for example. It could even help doctors diagnose pneumonia and other maladies with distinctive smells. An earlier model, the Cyrano 320, a “portable electronic odor detector” has been used in the food and chemical industries since 2000. NASA also uses a similar device to track down problems on the International Space Station.

Want more weird inventions? Check out our latest book, Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Weird Inventions.

Happy Canada Day 2013!

Here is a special nod to our friends north of the border. May you have a fantastic Canada Day. There is no better way to celebrate than to learn more about Canada. Here is a story from Uncle John’s Fast-Acting, Long-Lasting Bathroom Reader.

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WEIRD CANADA

Canada: land of beautiful mountains, clear lakes…and some really weird news reports.

HOME COOKING

Health inspectors in Granby, Quebec, shut down the Comme Chez Soi restaurant in 2000 when the owners were caught re-serving foods such as tartar sauce, coleslaw, bread, and fondue that had been discarded from previous customers’ plates.

They’d even used bread slices with bites out of them to make bread crumbs. They were also caught reusing discarded food from rooms in a motel they owned. (Comme chez soi means “just like home.”)

STEP RIGHT UP

In 2005 the Canadian postal service notified Christine Charbonneau of Orleans, Ontario, that they would no longer be delivering mail to her door. Reason: her front steps were 30 cm (12 inches)

high, and regulations say that mail carriers are not required to climb steps higher than 20 cm (8 inches). Charbonneau said that the mail had been delivered to her door for the last 17 years and added that her 77-year-old mother-in-law—who is on oxygen— uses the stairs regularly.

BEAUZEAU LE CLOWN

In 2001 Quebec Premier Bernard Landry proposed the province spend $11 million to increase the number of clowns and other performers graduating from Quebec’s National Circus School. The school was only graduating ten students a year, and when it comes to clown training, said Landry, Quebec must “maintain and enhance its leadership position.”

UH, DOCTOR?

Rebecca Chinalquay of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, sued the Meadow Lake Hospital after she was left alone in the delivery room while in labor. She called for help, but no one came, and she ended up having the baby by herself. The hospital’s excuse: Chinalquay was being uncooperative and wouldn’t allow nurses to monitor her condition, preventing them from knowing that the baby was coming.

SHOW ME THE MONEY

The Toronto-Dominion Bank loaned businessman Edward Del Grande $3.5 million in 1990. In 1995, when he didn’t pay them back, they sued him. Del Grande countersued…for $30 million.

His charge: the bank ruined him by loaning him too much money.

Case dismissed.

LOTT O’ LUCK

A man from Sherbrooke, Quebec, sued the provincial lottery, Loto-Quebec, for fooling him into believing he could actually win.  He said that they sold only losing tickets, something he could prove by showing the $840 worth of losing tickets he’d bought in the month of March alone. The man, who is on welfare, sued the lottery for $879.58. Lawyers predicted an out of court settlement.

DWV

In 2004 a 54-year-old man was pulled over by Ontario Provincial Police on Highway 400 in Toronto because he was playing the violin while driving. He said he was on his way to a performance and needed to warm up.

CANADIAN ACHIN’

• A Saskatchewan wildlife officer was attempting to “mercy kill” a wounded moose when the slug from his rifle missed, hit a tree, and ricocheted into a fellow officer’s leg. The wounded moose was put down; the wounded officer was not—he made a full recovery.

• In 1952, Stan Long, 23, of the Victoria Cougars hockey team in British Columbia, had his left thigh completely pierced by a hockey stick. The defenseman had collided with another player whose stick had just broken and was saved only by the fact that there was a doctor in the stands. He recovered from the wound and eventually played hockey again.

• A 19-year-old woman from Ontario was injured in 2005 when her car collided with a Molson Beer truck. The crash on Toronto’s Highway 401 caused the truck to flip over. Both drivers received only minor injuries, but 2,184 cases of beer spilled onto the highway in the middle of the morning rush hour. Traffic was held up for hours in what one officer described as a “sea of beer.”

Bathroom Reading Month: Writer for a Day Winner

Congrats to Perry P. for winning our fourth and final weekly giveawayof the month of June. The response was very diverse to our question this week: “If you were to write a book about a subject, what would you write about and why?” Here are the highlights:

• Non-military history of the renaissance

• Firsthand experiences of living through Hurricane Katrina

• Strange medical conditions as well as emergency room patients with wierd things wrong

• Is the moon landing really a hoax?

• The modern-day Seabees (Navy Construction Battalions) and their place in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And a couple of personal stories we want to highlight:

“I am a triple amputee. 14 years ago I hit a moving train while riding my motorcycle. So I would travel and get other stories of those in America who have amputations, and the things they do to accommodate in a two handed world.”

“I would write a book about a fictional character who has Developmental Coordination Disorder which is the same disability that I have. I would write about the character’s struggles in areas such as writing neatly and in gym class with basic skills such as catching a ball or trying to hit a badminton birdie. I would also write about the character’s successes such as finally mastering shoe tying or learning to skate.”

Thank you everyone for entering our weekly giveaways and helping us celebrate June as Bathroom Reading Month. Have a great weekend and don’t forget to enter our awesome June is Bathroom Reading Month Giveaway. You could win the ENTIRE in-print library of our books. Deadline is June 30!

Word Origins: Meet Your New Words

The Oxford English Dictionary is the de facto official record of the English language. Like every living language, English is constantly evolving, with new words seemingly entering the vernacular everyday—most of them slang phrases, computer and Internet terms, or portmanteaus, which are new words combined out two or more existing words.

Whenever the OED is updated, usually each June, editors announce the newest words added to the 800,000 word-plus dictionary. They’re not super-new—they’re generally words that have been around for about 10 years and are still common. This year, OED editors added more than 1,200 new words to the dictionary, and, by extension, officially to English. Here are some notable additions.

• Binge drinking: consuming a large amount of alcohol in a short period of time with the intention to get drunk

• Crowdsourcing: obtaining services or information by seeking out input from a large group of people, usually via the Internet

• Dad Dancing: awkward, uncoordinated dancing to music, as a middle-aged dad would do at a wedding

• Epic: in the sense of it meaning something excellent or outstanding

• E-Reader: a handheld device used to read digital books

• Flash mob: when a large group of people coordinates ahead of time to all meet in a single location to perform a dance, sing a song, or another action…then just as quickly disperse

• To have a cow: to become upset or to stress out about something

• Mani-pedi: a portmanteau of “manicure” and “pedicure,” it describes the beauty salon treatment of getting both sets of nails done.

• Tweet: to post a message of 140 characters or less on the “microblogging” site Twitter.

My Body Lies Over the Ocean: Let’s Dig Up Jimmy Hoffa (Again)

Jimmy Hoffa was a well-known union leader in the 1960s and ’70s, but he’s far more famous for being a missing person (and maybe for his ties to organized crime). On July 30, 1975, Hoffa had dinner at the Raleigh House Restaurant in suburban Detroit. Then he completely disappeared. After no trace of him showed up for seven years, he was declared legally dead in 1982. But nearly 40 years later, federal agents—and conspiracy theories—are still looking for him. Here’s a brief timeline of the very long search.

• 1975: Detectives inspected a trash compactor at the Raleigh House after theorizing that mobsters might have used it to crush Hoffa’s body before it was carted off by a Mafia-related garbage service. They found…nothing.

• 1989: In an interview with Playboy magazine, gangster Donald “Tony the Greek” Frankos said he’d been part of the hit team that murdered Hoffa. Then, Frankos said, they dismembered the body and shipped it to New Jersey in an oil drum, where it was buried under one of the end zones in Giants Stadium. This story has become something of an urban legend; federal agents never even bothered to dig up Giants Stadium to investigate. When the stadium was demolished in 2010, Hoffa was nowhere to be found.

• 2004: In the 2004 book I Hear You Paint Houses, a criminal named Frank Sheeran admitted to author Charles Brandt that he’d killed Hoffa in a Detroit house in 1975. Some producers at Fox News heard about it and hired two retired Detroit police detectives to search the house in question. After they claimed to have found traces of blood on some floorboards, authorities searched the property and removed floorboards but they didn¹t find Hoffa, or any of his blood.

• 2012: On his deathbed, a Detroit man said that in 1975 he saw somebody burying a body under a driveway in Roseville, Michigan. The FBI went to the house, and, after convincing a very skeptical homeowner, they dug up the driveway. No Hoffa.

• 2013: This month the FBI received a tip from a man who reportedly had mob ties that Hoffa’s body was buried in a field outside of Detroit. Agents conducted a search, but didn’t find anything. Again.

Cupcake ATM

So this is an actual thing:

We approve!

It’s located at the flagship bakery of Sprinkles Cupcakes, at 9635 Santa Monica Blvd. in Beverly Hills, California:

For Sprinkles addicts on the go, swing by the world’s first Cupcake ATM! In the heart of Beverly Hills nestled between Sprinkles Cupcakes and the brand new Sprinkles Ice Cream, the Cupcake ATM is continuously restocked day and night with a variety of freshly baked cupcake flavors and even cupcakes for Fido!

That pic was taken by BRI cousin Holly S., and is used here with her permission! Thank you, Holly! She says the cupcakes are “freakin delicious,” and are a perfect midnight snack (although a tad expensive at $4 a pop!).

Bonus: Just like it says—they make cupcakes for dogs. They’re $2.50, and come in vanilla or salty flavor. Holly says her good doggie – Sid Vicious – loves them.