Weird But True (3 page)

Whiter Than
White

B
ecause pure white bread was considered to be of higher quality than brown bread, medieval bakers would whiten their flour by any means necessary—mixing it with alum, chalk, clay, or even ground bones.

Shame,
Shame!

I
n fourteenth-century England and France, bakers who were caught tampering with the purity of their bread were punished by being led through the streets and to the pillory with a loaf of bread tied around their neck. If they were caught a second time, they might be beaten or their ovens destroyed. After a third offense, they would be run out of town.

It All Went
Sour

I
n medieval times, a German tavern owner and his wife who had tried to sweeten sour wine by mixing it with roasted pears were punished by being locked in the pillory with pears hung around their necks.

The Price
of Spice

O
rdinary black pepper wasn't so ordinary way back when. In fact, it used to be so rare and valuable that when the Visigoths sacked Rome in the fifth century they demanded three thousand pounds of pepper (among other riches) as ransom for the city's release.

* * *

Pepper was sometimes included in dowries during the Middle Ages.

Put Some
Pepper on It

W
hat do you call a single woman who's over thirty? In Scandinavia, she's a “pepper maiden” (
pebermø
in Danish;
piparmey
in Icelandic). A single guy over thirty is a “pepper man” (
pebersvend
in Danish;
piparsveinn
in Icelandic). The terms hark back to the fourteenth-century German merchants who worked in Scandinavia but were not allowed to marry there. Those salesmen and traders—many of whom sold spices, including pepper— were the only older single guys around. Today it's common for people in Denmark, Norway, and Iceland to celebrate a single friend's thirtieth birthday by presenting him or her with peppermills as gag gifts.

I Do

I
n the United States, the probability of a woman being married by age thirty is 74 percent; for a man it's 61 percent.

Boys and
Girls Together

S
ome giant Australian cuttlefish are more “giant” than others, and when it comes to wooing the alluring female giant Australian cuttlefish, the smaller males are no match for their beefier brethren. So instead of going head to head with the big boys, the smaller guys hang out with the gals—even changing color to resemble the females. Then they sneak up on the females and mate with them on the sly.

* * *

The nematode worm goes even further than that. It actually changes sex to increase its chances of mating. And if a female can't find a mate, that's no problem at all—she has the ability to self-fertilize and produce her own offspring, all of which are born female.

We're All
Ladies Here

T
he speckled insects of the family
Coccinellidae
are known as ladybugs in the United States, and as ladybirds in England, Australia, India, and Pakistan. Entomologists prefer to call them lady beetles, but they have many other names as well, including lady cows and lady flies. The Russian word for ladybug translates to “God's little cow.” In Turkish it's “good luck beetle,” and in Hebrew it's “Moses's cow.”

* * *

All ladybugs are referred to as ladybugs—even if they're male.

Sharks are
Doin' It For
Themselves

T
idbit, a female blacktip shark, grew up in an aquarium in Virginia and had no contact with male blacktip sharks for the eight years of her life. So imagine how surprised her handlers were when she turned up pregnant. Tidbit's pregnancy confirmed what ichthyologists (fish biologists) had long suspected: Sharks have the ability to reproduce by virgin birth. Female sharks can become pregnant without the assistance of males, and those offspring have the same DNA as their moms without any contributions from another shark. Ichthyologists believe that this type of reproduction could become even more common as shark populations are overfished and females have a tougher time finding mates.

Love Bites

T
he skin of female blue sharks and Greenland sharks is twice as thick as that of their male counterparts. That's because sharks mate face-to-face, and the males of these species bite the females violently to hold them in place while copulating.

That's Harsh

M
ost sharks live in tropical or temperate waters, but the Greenland shark likes it cold—really cold. It's found as far north as the Arctic, and it spends much of its time in the deepest, darkest parts of the ocean.

Dark
and
Deep

P
arasites attach themselves to the Greenland shark's eyes, damaging the corneas and leaving the shark virtually blind. Since its habitat is pitch-dark anyway, this isn't as detrimental as it might sound. The Greenland shark uses its other senses to detect prey, and it's not a picky eater—it will consume anything that crosses its path.

* * *

The stomach contents of one Greenland shark included seals, squid, fish, nematode worms, rope, fishing nets, and pieces of wood.

Life as We Are
Getting
to Know It

T
here are some pretty bizarre life-forms in the world, and many of them live in incredibly harsh surroundings. Take the microbes that thrive in the purely acidic, sulfur-ridden environments of hot springs in Japan— environments that would literally strip the skin from your bones if given the chance. These little buggers are called
Picrophilus torridus
(
Picrophilus
means “acid-loving;”
torridus
means “hot”), and they live in extremely hot conditions with a pH of near zero. Thermoacidophiles like these are the type of organism scientists point to when they wonder about life-forms that might exist on other planets. Would the acid environments of Mars or Venus keep them away? Probably not. In fact, these microbes might be out there in the galaxy soaking up the sulfur right now. . . .