Captain Kidd was one of the most notorious pirates of the high seas. He was originally hired by the British crown as a privateer and pirate hunter, capturing ships of England’s enemies and splitting the loot with his royal patrons. However, a short temper, a rebellious crew and plenty of ill luck eventually led him to be branded a traitor. He was tried and executed in London in 1701, but no one was able to account for the vast treasure he must surely have collected over the years. At the time of his trial, a small cache of loot was discovered on Gardiners Island, in the Caribbean—possibly revealed by Kidd himself, in hope that it would buy him some clemency. In 2007, one of Kidd’s ships was discovered off the coast of the Dominican Republic. There are plenty of rumors of islands where his wealth might be buried, but the one sure place to find Kidd’s treasure? In fiction. From the year that he died, songs and stories memorializing the dread pirate filled pop culture, each exaggerating his deeds and his wealth more than the last. So, while maybe his treasure will one day be unearthed, there’s a much better chance that it’s simply unreal.
That depends on how you use it. Cleopatra, for example, is purported to have eaten the largest pearl ever discovered, simply to impress Marc Anthony. The ancient historian Pliny the Elder recorded that she wanted to impress her lover with her immense wealth, and made a bet with him that she could spend 10 million sesterces (approximately $12,500) on a single meal. During the meal, she had her servants deliver a goblet of wine, into which she dropped her treasured pearl. The acetic acid in the vinegar dissolved the pearl, allowing her to drink it and win the bet. Did it indeed make her more beautiful? Well, it certainly seemed to work for Marc Anthony.
Any single woman who has ever felt frustration at the lack of available men might be surprised to know that it doesn’t start out that way. There are many factors that influence the determination of a child’s sex at conception, but statistically speaking, humans produce more boy babies born than girls by a margin of about 5%. But before accusing Mother Nature of gender bias, it should be pointed out that the numbers are evened out over time. Male babies are more likely to have health complications than females, and then as adults, factors such as risk-taking behavior and warfare combine to give men a shorter life expectancy. So, while there is a definite boom in boy babies, in the worldwide human population, the male to female ratio is nearly equal.
The story is often told that, during the sweltering days of the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis, an ice cream vendor ran out of bowls for his customers. His problem was solved by Earnest Hamwi, a Syrian vendor of waffle-like cookies who rolled one of his confections into a cone, forming the perfect, edible holder for a scoop of ice cream. But while Hamwi’s name is remembered as the ice cream cone’s inventor, plenty of other vendors at the Fair also claimed the idea was theirs. The treat was such an instant sensation that it spread like an avalanche from booth to booth, making it impossible to be sure who came first. Unless, of course, you discredit them all by acknowledging that waffle cone recipes could already be found in French cookbooks for at least 80 before that.”
The bad news is that no one saved this species of turtle from extinction. In the 1980s, researchers scoured the island of Seychelles, off the eastern coast of Africa, and could find not one of the Pelusios seychellensis, first identified by August Brauer 100 years earlier. The good news is that the turtle wasn’t saved because it simply never existed. The specimen Brauer collected was actually a Pelusios castaneus, which is still commonly found on Africa’s western coast. Evidence indicates that Brauer purchased his turtles, rather than catching them in the wild, and it’s unknown whether they had been transported before their sale, or if Brauer simply mislabeled them. Either way, it’s a rare case of an animal being taken off the extinction list because it no longer exists.
Most of us have only seen them in cartoons or caricatures, but we all know what it means: an old-fashioned jug marked with XXX is full of moonshine. It turns out that the marks refer specifically to moonshine’s distilling process. The moonshiners would start by distilling a mash of fermented sugar cane pulp. The resulting liquid, known as the “singlings,” is foul-tasting and a mere 30-40% alcohol by volume. To get the kick that moonshine is known for, it has to go through two more distillations—rendering it almost 100% pure alcohol. The three X’s on the jug were meant to signify that its contents had completed that triple-step process, and also that it might just be strong enough to knock your shoes off, curl your hair and take your breath away for the next thirty-six hours.
In the forests of Africa, you might just feast your eyes upon the brilliant coloring of the marble berry. Its clusters of brilliant blue fruit are considered to be the shiniest thing in nature, and they shimmer with pixelated sparkles. This effect is caused by layers of overlapping fibrous cells that cause the light to reflect and refract. These berries, however, are the ultimate triumph of style over substance: the brilliant surface contains nothing but seeds, with no flavor or nutritional value. The advantage of all this razzle-dazzle is that the plant tricks birds into eating and spreading its seeds, without having to go through all of the work of producing something temptingly sweet.
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Uncommon Knowledge
Uncommon Knowledge: Is it wise to give your eye teeth for something?
June 26, 2013
If you’re going to give your eye teeth, it better be for something pretty darn valuable. The term eye tooth refers to the canine teeth in your upper jaw, called so because of their placement below the eyes. Giving up these teeth would not only be painful and impossible to disguise, but it might also suggest a loss of prestige or rank. In the 1700’s, “to cut your eye teeth” meant to have matured into adulthood. This is probably derived from the fact that the upper canine teeth on an actual canine are long and fang-like, and a dog would have the capacity to hunt or fight for itself once those teeth had grown in.