Uncle John's Facts to Go Call of the Wild (Uncle John's Facts to Go Series Book 14) by Bathroom Readers’ Press

Author:Bathroom Readers’ Press [Press, Bathroom Readers’]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Portable Press
Published: 2014-10-19T14:00:00+00:00

How’d it work out? Some Roman gladiators ate onions before entering the arena, believing onions repelled lions.

WEIRD ANIMAL NEWS

Strange tales of creatures great and small.

WHALE OF A VACATION

In 2003 the Johnson family of Coventry, England, took a 10-day sailing vacation in Australia. But their trip came to a sudden end when a 10-ton humpback whale leaped out of the water and onto their 40-foot sailboat, damaging the rigging and pulling down the mast. “It’s amazing no one was hurt or killed,” 61-year-old Trevor Johnson told reporters. Total cost of chartering the boat: $238,000. (No word on whether the Johnsons got a refund.)

CAT-ASTROPHE

Bill Jenness got in trouble with the city of Whitman, Massachusetts, because of his cat—its poop was radioactive. The 11-year-old cat, Mitzi, was being treated for hyperthyroidism with radioiodine, which can make cats radioactive for weeks. The vet had warned Jenness that he had to limit his snuggling time with Mitzi, had to keep the cat away from children, and had to use gloves when flushing the cat’s litter. But Jenness was afraid the litter would clog his septic system, so he put it in the garbage instead. After alarms at the local incinerator detected the radioactivity, workers found the man’s mail nearby and tracked him down. The city fined him $2,800 in order to clean up the radioactive scat.

ELECTRIC COILS

On May 19, 2004, the entire nation of Honduras was plunged into darkness when a generator at the country’s biggest hydroelectric plant failed. What caused a whole country to go dark? A boa constrictor slithered into a sensitive area of the power plant. The unlucky snake was electrocuted, and the resulting short-circuit caused the emergency systems to shut down the entire plant, which knocked out the country’s power for about 15 minutes.

IT’S A SMELL WORLD

In an average month, trains operated by the West Japan Railway Company strike and kill 10 deer that wander onto railroad tracks. In late 2002, the railroad decided to test a new kind of deer repellent on the rails—lion poop. Lions and deer are natural enemies, the thinking went, so the smell of the predator would keep the deer away. In August 2003, the railroad scrapped the experiment, not because it didn’t work, but because it worked too well—the poop kept the deer away, but it smelled so bad that it kept everything else away too, including local residents. “The track really did stink,” says railroad spokesperson Toshihiko Iwata. “We’re experimenting with more environmentally friendly methods now.”

FAST SPLIT

Bibi and Poldi, two giant tortoises who live in an Austrian zoo, had been a couple since ’98—that’s 1898. After more than a century of marital bliss, the relationship hit the skids when Bibi, the female, bit off a chunk of Poldi’s shell in 2012. They soon became so aggressive that they had to be separated. “They can’t stand the sight of each other anymore,” lamented zoo director Helga Happ. Not knowing what else to do, zoo officials called in animal psychologists to perform “couples counseling.” They gave the pair special “amorous” treats to excite them.

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