Mental Floss: Instant Knowledge (17 page)

(nutrition-wise)

USEFUL FOR:
cocktail parties, bachelor parties, and chatting with vegetarians

KEYWORDS:
New Guinea, cannibalism, or mad cow disease

THE FACT:
You are what you eat. So it stands to reason that if you eat a diseased dead guy, you’re going to become a diseased dead guy. Unfortunately, the cannibalistic Fore people of New Guinea found that out the hard way.

For most of the 20th century, the Fore were plagued by a disease called kuru, also known as the “laughing death.” Kuru, a relative of mad cow disease, paralyzes its victims and causes dementia by literally creating holes in the brain. Fascinated by what he thought was a genetic disorder, scientist Daniel Carleton Gajdusek traveled to New Guinea in 1957 where he discovered that women made up the vast majority of kuru victims. He also noticed that women and children were the ones ceremonially eating the brains and intestines of dead relatives. Gajdusek deduced that the Fore were ingesting the prions, or misshapen proteins, that caused the disease. Gajdusek received a Nobel Prize for his work, and today cannibalism and kuru are all but wiped out in New Guinea.

USEFUL FOR:
anytime you want to feel good about spending too much on clothes

KEYWORDS:
graft, corruption, or 100 percent pure evil

THE FACT:
If you want to feel like a natural woman, all you need is a pair of X chromosomes. But if you want to feel like an
evil
woman, try borrowing a set from Imelda Marcos.

The former first lady of the Philippines has a biological makeup that seems like the result of a torrid love affair between Enron and Barneys. In fact, during her husband’s presidency from 1965 to 1986, Imelda and Ferdinand Marcos managed to steal an estimated $3 to $35 billion from the Philippine people by siphoning foreign aid and profits from large domestic companies into their Swiss bank accounts. It’s widely believed that Imelda was the mastermind behind these schemes (her children were once reportedly spotted wearing T-shirts that say, “Don’t Blame My Dad. Blame My Mom!”), and her extravagant ways seemed to support this theory. Imelda is famous for her lavish jewelry and her shoes; she is said to have owned 3,000 pairs, one of which was a pair of plastic disco sandals with three-inch flashing battery-operated heels. Her contribution to her country? $28 billion in foreign debt.

(Boss Tweed style)

USEFUL FOR:
impressing history teachers, corrupt politicians, and greedy capitalists

KEYWORDS:
Tweed, overpriced, or overpriced tweed

THE FACT:
The undisputed poster child of graft and greed in American politics, Boss William Tweed basically raised corruption to an art form with his (far from ethical) markups.

As a member of New York’s Tammany Hall, Tweed and his cronies ran New York in the Civil War era as their own private money factory. Tweed bought 300 benches for $5 each, then sold them to the city at $600 a pop. And that’s just the tip of it. The building of City Hall was a clinic in graft: the city was charged $7,500 for every thermometer, $41,190 for each broom, and $5.7 million for furniture and carpets. And although he was crooked as a dog’s hind leg, Tweed does get a bit of credit from some historians for undertaking many important projects that improved life in New York (albeit at enormous financial gain to himself). Tweed’s illicit profits were said to be in the range of $200
million
, and that’s in the ’60s—the 1860s! The law eventually caught up with the Boss, though, and he died in prison in 1878.

USEFUL FOR:
cocktail parties, grocery store chatter, and chatting up anyone who loves their pork

KEYWORDS:
kosher, pork, or mouth-watering meat in minutes

THE FACT:
Any company smart enough to bless mankind with sprayable whipped cream, the sort that touts direct-to-mouth action, has got to know a thing or two about immediate gratification. Or so you’d think.

But sadly, the makers of Reddi-wip were unable to meld their keen understanding of human laziness with processed meat. The way they figured it, if you’re cooking breakfast in the morning and you’ve got a hankering for bacon, why dirty up a pan that you’ll only have to clean later? The solution—foil-wrapped Reddi Bacon you could pop into your toaster, for piping-hot pork in seconds. What’s more, the stuff actually tasted pretty good! Too bad the brains behind the bacon forgot that bacon grease turns to liquid when heated. Tragically, the Reddi Bacon foil wrappers leaked, creating a definite fire hazard, a messy (if not totally ruined) toaster, and a product that lasted about as long as it took to cook.

(and why Hawaii has ’em)

USEFUL FOR:
cocktail parties, road trips, and telling anyone who’ll listen

KEYWORDS:
why does Hawaii have interstate highways

THE FACT:
While we’d like to believe Hawaii’s interstate highway system exists for the sole purpose of annoying George Carlin, there’s a simple reason behind it.

Like it or not, the “interstate” name is actually a misnomer. The truth is that not all interstates physically go from one state to another; the name merely implies that the roads receive federal funding. As for three Hawaii interstates (H-1, H-2, and H-3), they became Interstates as part of the Dwight D. Eisenhower System of Interstate and National Defense Highways. The sweeping initiative to build better highways from state to state was actually a defense measure meant to protect the U.S. from a Soviet invasion by making it easier to get supplies from one military base to another. Interstate H-201 (formerly state route 78) joined the other three in July 2004.