The Realm Of Bizarre News 12: Straws Into Potatoes
You asked for it and you got it! Dr. Ruehl will open the vault of strange deaths in this episode. And, as if you needed more, he also performs a small miracle with a potato, tells us all about the strange creature the hexapus, and still manages to extricate the trivia question from its paper prison.
Step 1: Straws and potatoes
Welcome once again ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, to the realm of bizarre news. I'm your host, Doctor Franklin Ruehl, and we start off with the famous straw in the potato experiment. I claim that I can drive this lily livered straw into this rock-hard potato by pinching the straw and saying the magic word, gaiee! Did you see that? Let's try that again, gaiee! One more time, gaiee! Now the principle at work here is as follows, we're all surrounded by air which acts down with the pressure of 14.7 pounds per square inch. When I pinch the straw, I'm trapping air in it, converting it into something akin to arrow. If I were to attempt this on the surface of Mars, where the atmosphere is not as thick as it is here it would not work quite as well. Contrary wise, if I were to do this on the surface of Venus, where the atmosphere is 90 times that of Earth it would work even better. Gaiee! Let's try that one more time, gaiee! Gaiee! One more, gaiee! And one more, gaiee! Do you see that? One potato, ten straws. A modern miracle that you can perform in your own kitchen at dinner time. Yes.
Step 2: The hexapus.
Now, for the trivia question of the day. Let me extricate it here from its paper prison. Question: How many hearts does an octopus have? One, two, three, four, or five? Now the prize is one pat on the back, that you'll have to administer yourself. Heck of a lot better than a slap on the belly with a wet trout. Now, back in 1955 you had the sci-fi flick "It Came From Beneath the Sea", a Ray Harryhausen production, which actually featured a gigantic octopus that only had six legs. So it was technically a hexapus. They tried to shoot around it, tried to fool us, but they should have embraced it. It was a radioactive mutation. Now fast-forward to today, 53 years later and we actually have a hexapus found in Blackpool, England at an aquarium there, doing quite nicely. A natural mutation with just six legs. Yes, the hexapus does indeed exist.
Step 3: Octopus facts:
Now for the trivia question, again, how many hearts does an octopus have? One, two, three, four, or five? You said two? No, it's three hearts, and blue blood. And they're actually very intelligent creatures. For example, another octopus in Waymuth, England loves to play with huge Lego blocks. yes, intelligent creatures. They might like the Sudoku.
Step 4: The Truth of Sudoku.
You know that the Sudoku is not a Japanese puzzle? No. It was invented in 1979 by an American Howard Garnz, in Indianapolis. He called it the number place puzzle. It enjoyed a limited degree of success, but in 1986 a Japanese publisher reinvented it as Sudoku. That's actually a contraction for a six word term meaning "only one number per grid". In the basic Sudoku you have nine three by three grids, each number one to nine can appear only once in each grid, also only once in each column and row. Yes, the Sudoku. It took off in 2005 globally, unfortunately Garnz died in 1989, he did not see that.
Step 5: Saving cats:
Now let's open the vault of strange deaths. Who do we have? Meow. Meow. A kind man, aged 27 in Orange, California was climbing up a cyprus tree to rescue a stranded cat, not even his cat. Just as he is about to reach for the feline he fell to his death. So what do I want to say. Yes, we want to save cats, I love cats. I once saved a cat, but I just stood at the base of the tree and held my arms out and it jumped down. Do that, please do not climb a tree to save a cat. Call the firemen, we can't afford to lose even one of you out there. Thank you. Now until next time may the power of the cosmos be with you. Yes! Yes! Yes! A modern miracle!
