Uncle John's Top Secret Bathroom Reader for Kids Only! Read online

  Watch Out! If you get tangled up in its 10 feet (or more) of tentacles, you could die within 30 seconds—unless you get the antidote right away.

  2. BLUE-RINGED OCTOPUS

  Description: This little octopus never grows larger than a golf ball. When it’s relaxed, it is yellowish brown. But when it’s angry or frightened, little blue rings appear on its body, and it starts biting. By the time you see the rings, it’s probably too late!

  Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is the largest living thing in the ocean.

  Watch Out! The poison can kill a human being. You may not even know you’ve been bitten until the symptoms kick in: extreme pain, nausea, blurred vision, and paralysis. Now for the bad news: There is no known antidote for a blue-ringed octopus bite.

  3. IRUKANDJI JELLYFISH

  Description: These peanut-size deepwater jellyfish are transparent. They have a box-shaped bell with a single long tentacle hanging from each corner.

  Watch Out! The toxins from these tiny jellies are so powerful that every summer they put an average of 60 people in the hospital. The sting is extremely painful…and sometimes deadly.

  4. CONE SHELLS

  Description: These colorfully striped or spotted, cone-shaped snails live around mud flats and in shallow reef waters. Their shells are beautiful, but don’t pick one up! Inside lurks a sea snail with a single harpoonlike tooth. These poisonous creatures come in all sizes: some are as small as a fingernail, others as big as a football.

  Watch Out! The cone shell’s tooth is so sharp it can penetrate clothing. And the bite packs a real wallop: weakness, lack of coordination, blurred vision, numbness, pain, and, in severe cases, death.

  Looney law: In Berea, Kentucky, dogs and cats are required to wear taillights after dark.

  5. LIONFISH

  Description: The colorfully striped lionfish gets its name from the long, sharp, extremely poisonous spines that are spread out along its back like a lion’s mane.

  Watch Out! You probably won’t see any lionfish—they hide motionless in crevices, waiting for dinner to come to them. But if you do brush against one, you’ll know it right away. The sting site will swell rapidly. You’ll become nauseous, have trouble breathing, go into convulsions, and collapse. Most people survive a lionfish sting, but it can take months to get over it.

  6. STONEFISH

  Description: Lying low in the mud, hiding out on coral reefs, or lurking near rocks, the stonefish is naturally camouflaged with brown and green patches. But this fish also has 13 dorsal spines, each of which squirt venom when pressed against.

  Watch Out! Keep your hands out of the rocks and coral! A stonefish sting will cause blinding pain, rapid swelling, muscle weakness, temporary paralysis, and, if left untreated—death.

  Is your male fish blowing bubbles? That means he is ready to breed.

  GHASTLY HUMOR

  Uncle John likes a good gag. (These jokes made him sick.)

  Q: What goes Ho, ho, ho!—plop?

  A: Santa Claus, laughing his head off.

  Q: What kind of mistakes do ghosts make?

  A: Boo-boos.

  Q: Why are ghosts bad at telling lies?

  A: Because you can see right through them.

  Q: What do you call a skeleton who presses a doorbell?

  A: A dead ringer.

  Q: What’s invisible and plays soccer?

  A: A ghoulie.

  Q: What do cannibals call skateboarders?

  A: Meals on wheels.

  Q: Why is a ghost like an empty house?

  A: Because there′s no-body there!

  Q: What happened when the ghost disappeared in the fog?

  A: He was mist.

  Q: What do you get when you cross a Cocker Spaniel, a Poodle, and a ghost?

  A: A cocker-poodle-boo!

  Q: Why did the cannibal get expelled from school?

  A: He was buttering up his teacher.

  Q: What plant do you get when you cross a firecracker with a ghost?

  A: Bam-boo!

  The Bible contains the phrase “Ha, ha.” (Job 39:25)

  MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE

  Imagine you’re swimming in the ocean and suddenly a bottle floats by. Inside is a message from someone in a far-off place. It could be a surprise gift, a plea for help…or even a message from beyond the grave.

  LUCKY FIND

  In 1937 Daisy Singer Alexander, heiress to the Singer sewing machine fortune, made up a will, stuffed it in a bottle, and tossed it into the Thames River in London, England. The will read: “I leave half my estate to the lucky person who finds this bottle.”

  Twelve years later, in 1949, an unemployed man named Jack Wrum was wandering along a San Francisco beach when he found the bottle. He opened it, read the will, and took it seriously enough to find out if it was real. Amazingly, it was. Wrum inherited $6 million in cash, plus an income of $80,000 a year (for the rest of his life) from Daisy Alexander’s Singer stock.

  MAN’S BEST FRIEND

  Robert Sinclair was a 55-year-old hermit who lived alone in a broken-down farmhouse outside Falkirk, Scotland. Suffering from chronic asthma, he collapsed on the floor one day. Sinclair was too weak to get up but managed to write a note asking for help and put it in a bottle. He pulled himself to the window and threw it outside.

  Only five U.S. states touch the Pacific Ocean. Can you name them?

  Sinclair went eight days without food and four days without water. He was near death when Ben, a sheepdog from a nearby farm, found the bottle and took it to his master. Brian Besler read the note inside the bottle:

  I’m in severe pain and cannot move from this house. I’ve run out of food and I don’t want to die here. Please help. —Robert Sinclair

  Besler called emergency services, who rushed to the old farmhouse. Sinclair was barely alive and struggling for breath when they found him. He was given oxygen and rushed to a hospital, where he made a full recovery. If Ben the sheepdog hadn’t found the bottle with the note inside, Sinclair would have died.

  MESSAGE FROM BEYOND

  When Roger Clay was seven years old, he went to Florida on vacation with his family. One day he wrote a note, put it in a bottle, and tossed it into the Gulf of Mexico. The note read:

  Hard fact: The word diamond comes from the Latin adamas, meaning “invincible.”

  To whoever finds this letter, please write me a letter and let me know.

  He signed his name and included his address in Fairfield, Ohio. The note was dated December 27, 1984.

  Sadly, Roger Clay was killed in a motorcycle accident when he was 21. But his parents were to receive one last message from him, four years after he died: In 2003, Don Smith found the bottle floating in the water behind his house in Tampa, Florida. It had been drifting in the Gulf of Mexico for 19 years! When Smith returned the letter to the Clays, Roger’s father said, “It’s kind of hard to put into words, all the emotions that brings back. It was like Roger was trying to remind us he was still with us.”

  * * *

  FLUBBED NEWS HEADLINES

  MARCH PLANNED FOR NEXT AUGUST

  Astronaut Takes Blame for Gas in Spacecraft

  Kids Make Nutritious Snacks

  Local High School Dropouts Cut in Half

  PATIENT AT DEATH’S DOOR—DOCTORS PULL HIM THROUGH

  Getting ahead: If you cross the International Date Line going east, you’ll arrive yesterday.

  FAMOUS PIRATES

  Long John Silver? Jack Sparrow? One-Eyed Willie? Those movie pirates don’t begin to compare to the real deal.

  BLACKBEARD

  The Big Daddy of all pirates was Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard. For five years, until he met his end in 1718, he terrorized the Atlantic Coast from the Bahamas all the way to Maryland. Blackbeard liked to look as terrifying as possible. Standing 6′5″ tall, he was a huge man of great strength. To look even more fierce, he would braid lit bomb fuses into his long black hair and trademark beard before an attack.

 
The sight of this wild-haired giant standing on his ship, sword in one hand and pistol in the other, with clouds of smoke pouring from his head, laughing like a maniac, convinced sailors that the Devil himself was after them. They usually surrendered their ships without a fight, which was exactly what Blackbeard wanted them to do.

  Like most pirates, Blackbeard had only a brief reign as scourge of the seas. During a furious naval battle near his base in Bath, North Carolina, he was finally beaten on November 22, 1718. The victorious British captain cut off Blackbeard’s head and tossed his body overboard to the sharks. Legend has it that the headless body swam around the ship three times looking for its head before sinking beneath the waves.

  London has the world’s longest subway system. It’s nicknamed the “Tube.”

  HENRY MORGAN

  This is one pirate captain who beat the odds and came out on top. Born in Wales in 1635, Henry Morgan shipped out to the Caribbean to seek his fortune as a privateer—a pirate who is given permission by one country to raid the ships of its enemies.

  By 1668 Morgan was the commander of a fleet of pirate vessels working for England against their archrivals, the Dutch and the Spanish. At one point Morgan had 36 ships and 2,000 sailors under his command. He raided ships from Venezuela to Cuba, and was feared by his enemies for his brutality.

  In 1671 he invaded Panama, the heart of Spain’s American empire, and brought back looted treasure to his base in Jamaica. But unbeknownst to Morgan, Spain and England had declared peace. Suddenly, he was no longer a legal privateer fighting for England but was considered a criminal raiding the ships of England’s friend and ally. Result: He was arrested and sent back to England to stand trial.

  Fortunately for Morgan, the Spanish and English started fighting again, and he was knighted for his heroic actions on behalf of the crown. He returned to Jamaica as Lieutenant Governor, and retired to his plantation a wealthy man.

  CAPTAIN KIDD

  It was William Kidd’s bad luck to become a pirate at the wrong time. Captain Kidd sailed from London in 1695 as a privateer, with permission from the British government to raid the pirates of the Red Sea. He was to bring the loot home to England, where the investors who paid for his trip (including the king of England) would split the plunder.

  Sorry, Lefty: Many world cultures forbid eating with the left hand. It’s considered unclean.

  By the time Kidd reached the Red Sea, two years had passed and the British government had changed its policy—it now wanted nothing to do with privateers. Why? Because these legalized pirates were too hard to control, brought complaints from other nations, and (most importantly) were no longer a major source of income to the crown.

  Unfortunately, Kidd didn’t know that change was in the wind, and captured a rich merchant vessel from India. India promptly complained, and British authorities declared Kidd a pirate and a criminal. The British Navy chased Kidd all the way across the Atlantic to New York City, where he was arrested and sent back to England in chains.

  The trial lasted all of one day; Kidd was found guilty and hanged. (There’s no record of what happened to the loot…or if the king of England got his share.)

  * * *

  SCIENTIFIC NAMES FOR GROSS STUFF

  Runny nose: Rhinorrhea

  Scab: Fibrinogen

  Throwing up: Emesis

  Dandruff: Pityriasis capitis

  Belch: Eructation

  Zits: Acne vulgaris

  Old-strich? An ostrich can live to be 70.

  RECORD BREAKERS

  The BRI “Golden Plunger” Awards, where Uncle John recognizes extremes of every kind.

  OLDEST CITY: Damascus, Syria. People have lived there continuously since 6000 B.C. New evidence suggests the town may even date back to 8000 B.C.

  COUNTRY THAT EATS THE MOST CHOCOLATE: Switzerland. The Swiss eat about 22 pounds of chocolate per person a year. (The average American eats about half that amount.)

  BESTSELLING BOOK OF ALL TIME: The Bible. It’s sold more than 6 billion copies worldwide.

  OLDEST TREE: “Methuselah.” It’s a bristlecone pine in the White Mountains near Big Pine, California. Although you can visit the grove where Methuselah lives, its exact location is a secret. Scientists believe the tree to be 4,767 years old—older than the great pyramids of Egypt.

  COUNTRY THAT MAKES THE MOST MOVIES: India. During the 1990s, India produced an average of 851 movies per year—twice as many as Hollywood.

  LARGEST LOBSTER: Forty-four pounds, six ounces—about the average weight of a five-year-old child. It was caught near Nova Scotia, Canada, in 1977.

  India’s movie-making capital, Bombay, is nicknamed “Bollywood.”

  TREK*NOLOGY

  Sci Fi author Arthur C.Clarke once said that “advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Uncle John says, “It’s also indistinguishable from Star Trek.”

  TV TECH

  When Star Trek premiered on TV in 1966, the space technology invented by the show’s writers looked like, well, science fiction to viewers. While Captain Kirk and his crew streaked through space at warp speed, “boldly going where no man has gone before,” real astronauts could only orbit the Earth a few times before splashing down into the ocean. Even though most people thought it would be hundreds of years before humans developed technology to match Star Trek’s, some innovative thinkers were already turning TV fiction into everyday fact. Here are a few examples of how “Trek*nology” has become technology.

  1. SHUTTLE CRAFT

  Trek*nology: When Kirk and his crew needed to move people and equipment from the Enterprise to a planet’s surface, they often used the shuttle craft—a small space vehicle that could go from ship to planet or star base, and back again.

  Technology: Fifteen years after the first Star Trek episode, NASA launched the first space shuttle. Since 1981 there have been more than 100 shuttle flights. Today, astronauts and supplies are routinely ferried to and from the International Space Station.

  Q: Which U.S. president was once an Eagle Scout? A: Gerald Ford.

  2. STAR BASE

  Trek*nology: When the Enterprise needed repairs, or the crew needed some R&R (“rest and relaxation”), they set course for the nearest star base—a floating space city that supported hundreds, sometimes thousands, of people with food, housing, and entertainment.

  Technology: On May 14, 1973, the United States launched the space station Skylab, the home base in space for U.S. astronauts until February 1974. The Russian space station MIR circled Earth from 1986 to 2001. In 1998 the International Space Station began its service as Earth’s current “star base.”

  3. PHASER

  Trek*nology: When exploring an alien planet, the crew of the Enterprise had to be ready for anything. Their best defense? The phaser—a handheld ray gun. Set on “stun,” a phaser would merely immobilize the enemy; set on “maximum,” it would vaporize him.

  Technology: We don’t have phasers yet, but a California company is trying to design one. Their suitcase-sized phaser (they call it an “Anti-Personnel Beam Weapon”) uses a laser beam to temporarily immobilize the target. It doesn’t cause injury, but within milliseconds of being zapped, the suspect is frozen in the position he was in at the moment of being stunned. When this technology is perfected, it will be reserved for military and police use.

  State dance of both Washington and Oregon: square dance.

  4. COMMUNICATORS

  Trek*nology: These small portable communication devices could be used anywhere, anytime, and also worked for remote tracking and locating. No operators. No phone booth. No dangling cord. Sweet!

  Technology: The first cellular phone call was made in April 1973, but it wasn’t until 1982 that cell phones became available to the public—16 years after the first Star Trek episode. Today, cell phones not only act as communications devices, they can also log onto the Internet or offer GPS (Global Positioning System) navigational information. And they are even smaller than the communicators Spock and Kirk used.<
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  5. TRANSPORTER

  Trek*nology: “Beam me up, Scotty!” Within seconds, Captain Kirk and his landing party would vanish from a planet’s surface and reappear in the transporter room on the Enterprise. Teleportation—a means of transporting people from one place to another by converting them into pure energy, then changing them back into people again at the other end—was a staple of every Star Trek episode.

  Fish can get seasick.

  Technology: Scientists haven’t been able to teleport a person (or even an object) from one place to another, but in 1998 they did succeed in teleporting a laser beam. When it’s perfected, this technology will most likely be used for moving information—called quantum computing—and will allow people to move huge blocks of digital data at the speed of light. No more twiddling your thumbs while you download your favorite game or MP3 file. But you’ll have to wait a little longer before you can say “Beam me up, Scotty.”

  * * *

  WHO DONE IT?

  He who smelt it, dealt it.

  She who discerned it, burned it.

  He who derided it, provided it.

  She who nosed it, composed it.

  He who detected it, effected it.

  She who denied it, supplied it.

  He who policed it, released it.

  She who smelled it, expelled it.

  He who snifted it, gifted it.

  She who deduced it, produced it.

  He who noted it, floated it.

  Captain Kirk never said, “Beam me up, Scotty.”

  THE GREAT PEBBLE

  If you had this one in your rock collection, you wouldn’t need any more rocks.

  ROCK STAR

  The largest free-standing rock in the world sits in the middle of the Australian Outback. A surveyor named it Ayers Rock in 1873 after Sir Henry Ayers, who was the premier of South Australia at the time. But the Aborigines, the native people of Australia, had named this amazing rock thousands of years before Sir Henry was born. They called it Uluru, which means “great pebble.”