Clemens' notebook: Facts: Fun and Otherwise

Found these while flipping through back issues of Wired magazine (while supposedly setting them aside for recycling).

Fun fact about poison:
Tetrodotoxin (ingested)
Found in the organs of puffer fish (the famous Japanese delicacy fugu), tetrodoxin persists even after the fish is cooked. If the toxin is consumed, paralysis and death can strike within six hours. Up to five Japanese die from badly prepared fugu every year.

Less fun fact about poison:
Anthrax (inhaled)
Cutaneous exposure can kill, but the most deadly, panic-inspiring form of anthrax is inhaled. It starts with flu that doesn’t get better - then your respiratory system collapses. [hmm - sort of like Lykesboro in the allergy season]

Least fun fact about poison:
Strychnine (ingested or inhaled)
A common pesticide, strychnine isn’t as toxic as other poisons on our list, but it gets style points for causing the most horrific deaths of all: Every muscle in your body spasms violently until you die from exhaustion.

[I don’t know why a high tech mag like Wired would do an article on poisons, but you have to admit that gives you a whole new respect for Mr Yuck]


Canada vindicated!
The breakdown that caused the 2003 East Coast blackout originated in Ohio, not Ontario ("The Worst: Engineering Mistakes," Start, issue 14.06)

Plane Incompetence:
[That’s the mag’s pun. I refuse all responsibility for it]
It took airlines 60-odd years and sophisticated computer modeling to figure out that it would be more efficient to seat aft windows first and forward aisles last ("Now Boarding, Fast," Start, issue 14.06). No wonder most of them can’t figure out how to make money. [from reader Andy Richards).

Best new product of the future:
A photo of a hypothetical hour class shaped Coke Burn can from the future. ‘ONE CAN BURNS 500 CALORIES’ it blares. ‘How it works: Coke Burn’s proprietary enzymes and proteins increase your mitochondrial activity, speed up the Krebs cycle and overclock ion transport channels to help you lose weight!’ [Don’t laugh - it’s only a matter of time.]

Favorite new name found while reading a magazine:
Elon Musk, PayPal cofounder.

[Think Elon would respond if I ask him why PayPal keeps sending me messages about my account, even though I don’t use PayPal?]