Random Facts 5

Columbus's Ships
All three of Christopher Columbus's ships were originally named for Barcelona prostitutes.
Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Plunges Into History, pp. 201

Green Haired Bears
In February 2004, Sheba and Inuka, two polar bears at the Singapore zoo, suddenly turned bright green. Why? Because polar bear fur has hollow hair shafts. The white you see in their fur is actually sunlight reflecting off the shafts. But these shafts can fill with algae, and when they do, the polar bears can turn green. “The harmless algae is the result of Singapore's warm and humid tropical conditions,” said a spokesperson for the zoo. The bears got a bleach job a few weeks later, and now they're back to normal.
Uncle John's 17th edition Slightly Irregular Bathroom Reader pp. 423

Goering Suicide Explained
Nuremberg, Germany: A former U.S. soldier said this week that he was the person who slipped a cyanide capsule to Hermann Goeringin 1946, allowing Hitler’s second in command to escape the gallows through suicide. Herbert Lee Stivers, 78, was a 19-year-old prison guard at Nuremberg during the Nazi war crimes trials. He said he brought Goering the pill, which he thought was medication, at the request of a pretty German girl named Mona, whom he was trying to impress. Goering was guarded round the clock throughout his trial, and historians could never discover how he got hold of the cyanide. Stivers said he was coming forward now to set the historical record straight. “I never saw Mona again,” Stivers told the Los Angeles Times. “I guess she used me.”
The Week, February 18, 2005, Vol. 5, Iss. 195, pp. 8

Mercury, Tuna & More
From Discover, Vol. 26, No 3, pp 59-60
1. Liquid mercury vaporizes at room temperature, and when you inhale the vapor it moves right from the lungs to the bloodstream to the brain. A broken thermometer can release enough mercury vapor to poison the air in a room, one reason why some cities and several states discourage the sale of mercury fever thermometers.
2. Seafood is one of the two most common sources of mercury exposure in adults...With each meal the mercury concentration rises.
3. The species singled out by the recent FDA advisory, big predators such as albacore tuna, shark, and sword fish, can have 100 times more mercury in their tissue than smaller fish do.
4. One particularly common source of low-level mercury exposure is tuna. Because they are large, long-lived predators, tuna accumulate more mercury in their tissue than smaller, short-lived fish. When tested for mercury in parts per million, flesh from albacore tuna, which take five years to mature, was shown to contain about five times as much mercury as chunk light tuna, which is harvested from younger fish.

Heat by Yelling
Yell for 8 years, 7 months and six days and you'll burn enough energy to heat 1 cup of coffee.
Uncle John's 17th edition Slightly Irregular Bathroom Reader pp. 509

Lemonade
Mongolians invented lemonade around 1299 AD.
Snapple Real Fact #250