October 2016 – Page 27

October 23, 2016

A young Arkansas woman spent 35 days…

A young Arkansas woman spent 35 days in jail and paid thousands in fines for a $29 bounced check.

October 23, 2016

11 of History’s Most Notable Mothers-in-Law

Jake Rossen

filed under: History, Lists

Image credit:

Franklin Roosevelt and his mother, Sara Roosevelt. Carl Anthony Online

It’s said that Aboriginal men have a strict policy when it comes to their mothers-in-law: They don’t look directly at them or address them in any way. It’s a tradition that has roots in the culture’s earliest days and probably has done more to ease familial tensions than any in history.

Of course, most families don’t have any such traditions in place, leading to several instances of historical figures who have been influenced—or browbeaten—by their in-law. Here are 11 examples.

1. SARA ROOSEVELT

Upon hearing her son—and future president—Franklin wanted to marry Eleanor, Sara Roosevelt tried to convince him to break it off. When that didn’t work, she coerced him into keeping it a secret for a year. Sara had a hand in every facet of his life, even ordering construction of a double townhouse after the wedding so that Franklin and Eleanor could live on one side and she could live on the other. Eleanor and Sara were often at odds, including how best to move forward after Franklin’s diagnosis of polio. When Sara died in 1941, Eleanor wrote that it was hard to have known someone for 36 years yet “feel no deep affection or sense of loss.”

2. SOPHIE OF BAVARIA

Wikimedia Commons

Born in 1837, Sisi Wittelsbach became an empress by marrying Franz Joseph, a seeming promotion in life quality—were it not for her mother-in-law, Sophie. The Archduchess was also Sisi’s aunt and campaigned for her son to marry Sisi’s sister, Helene, instead. When that failed, she made a habit of correcting Sisi’s every move, including how best to mother her own children. Even her own son, Franz, was too laid-back for her liking; Sophie has become known as the “only man in Hofburg.”

3. MARIE WOOLF

Welcoming the famed writer Virginia Woolf into her fold was something Marie Woolf had no reservations about, but the same wasn’t necessarily true of her new daughter-in-law. Although Marie admired Virginia’s intelligence and considered her her favorite in-law, Virginia perceived Marie’s presence as a reminder of her own tumultuous upbringing that was marked by possessive relatives. “I felt the horror of family life, and the terrible threat to one’s liberty that I used to feel with father,” she once wrote in her diary. “To be attached to her as daughter would be so cruel a fate that I can think of nothing worse.”

4. MARIA CLEMM

Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore

Awkwardly, Clemm was both writer Edgar Allan Poe’s aunt and his mother-in-law: the shift in relations came when Poe married his 13-year-old cousin, Virginia. (Poe was 27.) While Poe and Clemm were believed to have largely gotten along, she did create friction between her nephew and a friend of his named William Duane. Poe had borrowed a book belonging to Duane that Clemm subsequently sold, forcing Duane to track it down through third-party sellers. With the Poe clan unapologetic, Duane never spoke to them again. Following Poe’s death, Clemm reportedly burned a bunch of valuable correspondence that belonged to him.

5. BONA SFORZA

A woman of considerable influence in 16th century Poland and Lithuania, Bona Sforza prompted many of her son’s associates to tread lightly. When Sigismund II, the heir to the Polish throne, married Elizabeth of Austria, Sforza made her disdain for the bride known—and Elizabeth died two years later. Sigismund’s second wife also became ill and died a short time after exchanging vows. Although it’s unlikely she had anything to do with the deaths of her daughters-in-law, Sigismund eventually grew very wary of his mother and saw her off to Warsaw, where she could presumably no longer interfere with his romantic relations.

6. CATHERINE DE MEDICI

Wikimedia Commons

When Mary, Queen of Scots was just 5, she was sent to live in France with her newly betrothed, the 4-year-old dauphin. Though her future mother-in-law, Queen of France Catherine de Medici, wasn’t overly warm towards her, Mary was a court favorite and loved her time in France. However, just two years after her wedding at Notre Dame, an 18-year-old Mary, who had only been Queen Consort for 17 months, was widowed and subsequently shipped back to Scotland by Catherine. And despite accusations of murdering her second husband, Mary, Queen of Scots garnered a better reputation over the years than her former mother-in-law. The Medici matriarch had little use for human nuisances, being implicated in the killing of courtiers and orchestrating the St. Bartholomew’s Massacre that helped to suffocate the idea of Protestantism in France.

7. DOWAGER CIXI

Born in 1835, Dowager Cixi kept a firm grasp in China’s Qing Dynasty for half a century. For some time, her influence was directed through her son, Tongzhi, who became Emperor at the age of 5. When he married Xiaozhe 11 years later, an irritated Cixi guaranteed she would remain his primary influence by allegedly encouraging Tongzhi to keep concubines. Soon after Tongzhi died of smallpox (which is rumored to have actually been syphilis), Xiaozhe and her unborn son also passed away under suspicious circumstances—The New York Times reported at the time that “the circumstances of her death have aroused general suspicion … and there is but little attempt to conceal the belief that the fear of complications in case her expected child should be a son led to the sacrifice of her life.” Without an heir, Cixi was able to retain her influence, leading some to speculate she had been responsible for their deaths.

8. ROSE KENNEDY

TheFamousPeople

As the matriarch of the most famous political family in American history, Rose Kennedy was perceived a model of behavior for the women who married her sons. According to Jackie Kennedy, Rose did not fit the stereotype of the overbearing scold: She offered advice when asked but refused to burden Jackie with demands. After the assassination of JFK and Rose’s husband Joe Kennedy’s stroke, Jackie said it was her relationship with Rose that helped keep her a symbol of strength while her grief was under a microscope.

9. YVONNE MACNAMARA

The discovery of a work-in-progress notebook once owned by acclaimed poet Dylan Thomas in 2014 shed some light on his relationship with mother-in-law Yvonne Macnamara. After marrying Caitlin Macnamara, Thomas was apparently under significant duress when in Yvonne’s presence. He wrote: “I sit and hate my mother-in-law, glowering at her from corners.” Her house, he said, “levels the intelligence.” Adding credence to his opinion, it was considered a minor miracle his notebook was found at all: After finding it, Yvonne had ordered a servant to burn it.

10. MADGE GATES WALLACE

Truman Library

Following the death of Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman became President of the United States in 1945—and promptly equipped the White House with another domineering mother-in-law. Madge Gates Wallace, the mother of Truman’s wife, Bess, apparently didn’t hold the office in high regard, believing that her daughter was still too good for the most powerful man in the free world. When Truman ran opposite Thomas Dewey in 1948, Wallace told Truman she admired Dewey greatly.

11. PRINCESS ALICE OF BATTENBERG

Despite having been a royal her whole life (she was the great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria, and was married into the Greek royal family), Prince Philip’s mother, Princess Alice, had little use for the pageantry that surrounded regality. She gave some of her jewels to be set into the engagement ring when Philip was betrothed to Princess Elizabeth, but when her daughter-in-law was crowned Queen in 1953, Alice attended the Westminster Abbey coronation wearing a wimple and habit. Alice largely stayed out of their business, rejecting their lavish bubble and devoting herself to helping the poor in Greece (for her earlier role in saving a Jewish family during World War II, she was declared one of the “Righteous Among the Nations,” a high honor given by Israel to those who risked their own lives to save Jews during the war), and she even founded her own religious order of nuns before settling in with her family at Buckingham Palace for two years prior to her death in 1969.

October 23, 2016 – 2:00pm

October 23, 2016

Watch This Groovy 1960s Tupperware Documentary/Infomercial

Chris Higgins

filed under: chemistry, Food, food science, video

Image credit:

YouTube // wdtvlive42 – Archive Footage

In The Wonderful World Of Tupperware Plastics, we learn the benefits of Tupperware, “made from polyethylene, polypropylene, and polystyrene—relative newcomers to the wonderful world of imagination and industry.” This is precisely what that guy in The Graduate was referring to when he told Benjamin Braddock, “Just one word: PLASTICS.”

From Earl Tupper’s novel plastics to Brownie Wise’s “Tupperware Party” innovation, this is an impressive half-hour how-it’s-made. It actually goes deep into the details of how oil byproducts are turned into plastics, and how the manufacturing process works. There’s also a notable segment about how IBM punch-card computers help with inventory management “at lightning speed.” It really kicks into gear with a series of corny musical numbers celebrating Tupperware, featuring Anita Bryant and Johnny Desmond.

Enjoy:

Further reading: How a Single Mom Created a Plastic Food-Storage Empire and 15 Tupperware Facts From the Back of the Fridge.

October 23, 2016 – 12:00pm

October 23, 2016

This Week’s Best Amazon Deals You Can Still Get

Smart Shopping Team

filed under: shopping

Image credit:

amazon / istock

As a recurring feature, we share some amazing Amazon deals we’ve turned up. These items were the ones that were the most popular with our readers this week, and they’re still available.

Mental Floss has affiliate relationships with certain retailers (including Amazon) and may receive a small percentage of any sale. But we only get commission on items you buy and don’t return, so we’re only happy if you’re happy. Good luck deal hunting!

October 23, 2016 – 11:00am

Amazon Product Id:

B000GB1R7S

October 23, 2016

The Science of Spit

Luba Ostashevsky

filed under: biology, health, medicine

Image credit:

iStock

The human body is an amazing thing. For each one of us, it’s the most intimate object we know. And yet most of us don’t know enough about it: its features, functions, quirks, and mysteries. That’s why we’re launching a new series called The Body, which will explore human anatomy, part by part. Think of it as a mini digital encyclopedia with a dose of wow.

Your mouth is a battleground—a wet one. Trillions of microorganisms wage war against each other within. On one side are at least 700 species of bacteria. Most are harmless, and some even beneficial—but a few major species repay your hospitality with tooth decay or gum disease, such as Streptococcus mutans, first described by 18th-century Dutch scientist Antonie van Leeuwenhoek as “living animalcules” because they wriggled around so much under a microscope lens. These spiral-shaped microbes build colonies on smooth tooth surfaces and turn the sugars and starches of food stuck in your teeth into acid that dissolves enamel and causes cavities. But Streptococcus isn’t the only danger. Below the gum line live Porphyromonas gingivalis and the recently discovered Prevotella histicola, both of which cause gum disease.

On the other side are the white-caped superheroes of your mouth: enzymes encased in a watery, frothy substance known as saliva or spit. Your mouth makes two to four pints of spit every day. It’s produced by the salivary glands inside your cheeks and the bottom of your mouth. While saliva is 99 percent water, its constant circulation keeps bacteria from settling on your teeth, and swallowing flushes them into your stomach. (Saliva also performs the important function of keeping your mouth’s pH slightly basic, preventing the acid produced by microbes like the S. mutans from making your teeth fall out.)

While saliva polices the neighborhood, there is also co-existence going on. Between meals, when there’s little for bacteria to feast on, some species dig into the protein in saliva and in the fluid secreted by gums. Having a certain level of microbes in your mouth is important: They boost your immune system and keep respiratory infection at bay.

Which microbes occupy your mouth matters. While 200 odd species are common around the world, many others depend on your environment, race, or food preferences—and they can tell a lot about your overall health.

That’s why last summer’s headlines suggesting you toss the floss made many dentists frown.

A medieval dentist at work on a patient, circa 1500. Image credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images

“Some patients need to floss, others do not,“ explains Dan Malamud, professor of infectious disease at the NYU School of Medicine.

Not only does your particular micro-fauna dictate the importance of your daily routines, Malamud tells mental_floss that saliva holds a lot of information, and at times can be a more useful diagnostic tool than your blood.

Just a drop of your spit can tell doctors if you are prone to heart disease; if your pregnancy may be complicated; if you’re stressed; or, if you’re a woman, whether you have a healthy relationship with your father. It may soon also reveal whether you have cancer. Spit is easier to access than blood, too.

While this dark, moist cave is bacteria’s fantasy real estate—an easy place to grow and reproduce—your health depends on keeping them in check. Moreover, the right balance of microbes is important: bacteria on your teeth are being kept in check by bacteria in your gums that produce bad breath. And while the species P. histicola may cause gum disease, it was discovered recently that it also helps control rheumatoid arthritis. And the chemical compound opiorphin, found in saliva, helps activate opiate receptors, which block pain signals from the brain—giving new credence to the idea that you can kiss a booboo to make it feel better.

But there is still a lot that is not understood about our spit. Only half the microbes in our mouth have been sequenced and identified, Xuesong He, a microbiologist at UCLA school of dentistry, tells mental_floss. The Human Microbiome Genome Project, an initiative by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), is currently funding a massive effort to identify all of the millions of microbes that inhabit our bodies.

He and his group recently identified [PDF] bacteria in the mouth called TM7x that live parasitically, meaning they occupy the host and rely on it for nutrition. This is the first time a parasitic bacterium has been discovered in the human body. Its host, XH001, is a “relatively good bug,” He says, but when saddled with the parasite, it may cause gums to become prone to disease.

There may be many other such connections lurking under our tongues. NYU’s Malamud, for example, is currently working to develop a diagnostic saliva test for the Zika virus. A blood test exists, but blood begins to develop antibodies to Zika after 7 to ten days, and then the virus becomes undetectable. In one recent CDC report, researchers were able to detect Zika in saliva up to 20 days after infection. As the virus progresses in stages, its long detection cycle in spit allows doctors to tell when the person was infected. Moreover, the ressearchers were able to spot Zika in saliva 81 percent of the time—a rate second only to urine (92 percent), and a third higher than serum (51 percent).

Malamud sees the sequencing of human saliva as one of many steps toward personalized medicine. He says, “When it’s all put together in five to 10 years, it will change the way we practice medicine.”

October 23, 2016 – 8:00am

October 23, 2016

Artist’s Hand-Hewn Ceramic Mugs Resemble Cardboard

Kirstin Fawcett

filed under: art, design

Image credit:

Tim Kowalczyk, courtesy of timsceramics // Etsy

Artist Tim Kowalczyk’s mugs look like they’re fashioned from tattered cardboard scraps, but when you touch them, you realize they are carefully hand-hewn from clay. According to Bored Panda, Kowalczyk is a ceramics instructor at Illinois Central College. When the teacher isn’t molding young minds, he creates unique, corrugated dinnerware in his home studio.

“Pathetic, absurd, antiquated, banal or even garbage are words that best describe the objects I am drawn to,” Kowalczyk explains in an artist’s statement published on his website. “These types of objects hold my attention because of the stories they can tell and what they can mean. Many times I find objects at thrift stores, yard sales or the side of the road … I want people to see the beauty and narrative that is held within simple overlooked objects.”

Along with his cardboard-inspired mugs, Kowalczyk also makes ceramic plates, bowls, and ashtrays that mimic styrofoam, paper, and pegboard; tumblers that look like old tin cans; and trash-themed sculptures. View some of his mugs and cups below, or visit the artist’s Instagram or website to check out more works.

[h/t Bored Panda]

Know of something you think we should cover? Email us at tips@mentalfloss.com.

October 23, 2016 – 6:00am

October 23, 2016

Relax With a Video Visit to Kew Gardens (in 1942)

Chris Higgins

filed under: garden, video, world war two

Image credit:

Vimeo // British Council Film

London’s Kew Gardens are a gem. Contained within the city, the gardens first opened in 1840. They house thousands of plant specimens along with research labs.

In 1942, cinematographer Geoffrey Unsworth captured Kew in Technicolor, marking one of his earliest works—he went on to photograph 2001: A Space Odyssey, Superman, Cabaret, Zardoz, and dozens more. Keep in mind that the Blitz only ended in May, 1941, so Kew was within a war-torn country when this film was made.

Take ten minutes to relax and enjoy this vintage look at Kew’s beautiful grounds and research facilities.

World Garden (1942) from British Council Film on Vimeo.

October 23, 2016 – 4:00am

October 23, 2016

Watch the Relaxing Process of Creating Traditional Japanese Dolls

Rebecca OConnell

filed under: art, video

If you’re familiar with Japanese culture, you’ve likely come across the prolific Daruma doll. The symbolic toys have a rich history in Japan: They’re based on Bodhidharma, the founder of Zen Buddhism. While the dolls can come in an array of different colors and styles depending on the region, the most popular models come from the city of Takasaki. In the video above, you can see Daruma dolls being created in that regional style.

Each doll has a mustache made of turtles and cranes for eyebrows. (These animals both represent longevity.) Once the figures are sculpted, artists dip them in red paint, then hand-paint designs on their faces. As you might have noticed, the dolls have blank eyes, which look out of place when surrounded by the intricate animal patterns.

That’s because it’s up to the owner to paint them in: After purchasing a doll, the customer fills in the left eye, while thinking about a specific goal or wish. Once that objective has been completed, they can fill in the right eye. In this way, the doll serves as a physical reminder to the owner to keep working on his or her goal.

Primary image courtesy of YouTube.

Know of something you think we should cover? Email us at tips@mentalfloss.com.

October 23, 2016 – 12:00am

October 23, 2016

Marie Connolly Owens, America’s First Female Police Officer

Livius Drusus

filed under: History

Image Credit: “Owens tails deadbeat dad” // Chicago Daily Tribune, October 28, 1906

When women first began to enter the police force around the turn of the 20th century, they came in through the back door as social workers tasked with upholding laws protecting women and children. Lola Greene Baldwin, sworn in “to perform police service” for the Portland, Oregon, police department on April 1, 1908, did the same thing as a “Female Detective” (that was her actual job title) as she had done for her previous employer, the Travelers Aid Society: keep young women safe from predators seeking to lure them into prostitution and a life of crime. Two years later Alice Stebbins Wells was hired by the Los Angeles Police Department to enforce laws protecting girls from hotbeds of white slavery like dance halls, skating rinks, and penny arcades.

Alice Stebbins Wells via The Day Book Chicago, February 10, 1914.

Because of their non-standard appointments and powers, determining who was the country’s first policewoman is challenging. Both Baldwin and Wells have vied for the title, but in fact they were beaten to the punch by almost 20 years. Marie Connolly Owens joined the Chicago Police Department in 1891 with the title of Detective Sergeant, full arrest powers, and a badge. She was on the department payroll and received a police pension when she retired in 1923 after 32 years on the force.

Marie Connolly was born the daughter of Irish famine immigrants in Bytown (later renamed Ottawa), on December 21, 1853. She married gas fitter Thomas Owens in 1879, and they moved to Chicago soon thereafter. Together they had five children before Thomas died of typhoid fever in 1888. Marie was widowed with five mouths to feed; her youngest was just a couple of years old. As she told the Chicago Daily Tribune in 1904, up until this point she had never “earned a penny” in her life.

She entered the workforce with a bang the next year. In 1889, the city of Chicago passed an ordinance prohibiting the employment of children under 14 years old unless they had extraordinary circumstances requiring them to work. To enforce the ordinance, the city hired five women as sanitary inspectors to monitor conditions in stores, factories, and tenements. Women, all of them married or widowed mothers, got the jobs because dealing with children was deemed to be in their natural purview. Mrs. Owens, Mrs. Byford Leonard, Mrs. J.R. Doolittle, Mrs. Ada Sullivan, and Mrs. Glennon formed the first board of sanitary inspectors in the country to be given official authority by the city. They reported to the Commissioner of Health and were paid salaries of $50 a month.

Sanitary inspector Marie Owens dove into her work with a passion, removing illegally employed children from their workplaces, helping them find other means of support and even paying out of her own pocket to help their destitute families. She soon earned a reputation for zeal and effectiveness tempered by a diplomatic approach to parents, children, and business owners that made her as popular as someone in her role could be.

In 1891, the newly appointed Chief of Police, Major Robert Wilson McClaughrey—a tireless reformer with a particular interest in the rehabilitation of juvenile offenders—took notice of Mrs. Owens’ efforts in tracking down wife deserters—men we now call deadbeat dads. Owens saw first-hand how many children were forced to seek employment to keep the family from starving after the father abandoned them. She was relentless in ferreting these men out and turning them into the police, so much so that McClaughrey decided to employ Owens in the detective bureau.

Owens photo via Chicago-Daily Tribune, Oct-28-1906

Marie Owens was now Sergeant No. 97, with the rank, salary, badge, and arrest powers of any detective (although she made infrequent use of the latter two). She was detailed to the Board of Education where her brief was enforcing child labor, truancy, and compulsory education laws. In an op-ed she wrote for the July 28, 1901, issue of the Chicago Daily Tribune, Owens described her early days on the job:

The sights to be seen in the slums today can in no way compare with those of ten years ago and the suffering due to the inability of the older members of the family to work is, indeed, pitiable. Children were found working in factories all over the city, the frail little things in many cases being under 7. The pittance of 75 cents or $1 a week, however, helped to buy food for a sick mother, though it was at the cost of health and education.

When the work was first begun a woman wearing a police sergeant’s star was a novelty. Manufacturers in some cases were not inclined to admit me to their workshops, but armed with the strong arm of the law and the will to do good I soon found that in most cases the merchants met me half way and rendered me great assistance. As a result the children were gradually thinned out, and the employers became accustomed to asking for affidavits required by law before work was given to children. Mothers had to depose as to the children’s ages, and with these papers the latter were enabled to get employment in the larger factories and stores.

Owens, like Baldwin and Wells after her, made a point of differentiating what she did from the work of male police officers. In almost every contemporary news article about her, her success in law enforcement was subsumed under her femininity, maternal instinct, charitable nature, and kind heart. A 1906 story in the Chicago Daily Tribune assured its readers that this lady police sergeant “has lost none of her womanly attributes and other detectives in the central office lift their hats when they chance to meet her.” If that wasn’t relief enough for anyone concerned about the dangers of masculinized womanhood, the words of Sergeant No. 97 herself were sure to soothe:

“I like to do police work,” said Mrs. Owens. “It gives me a chance to help women and children who need help. Of course I know little about the kind of work the men do. I never go out looking for robbers or highwaymen. That is left for the men. … My work is just a woman’s work. In my sixteen years of experience I have come across more suffering than ever is seen by any man detective. Why, it has kept me poor giving in little amounts to those in want. I have yet the time to come across a hungry family that they were not given food.”

Her superior officer, Captain O’Brien, gave her more credit than she gave herself in that article. “Give me men like she is a woman,” he said, “and we will have the model detective bureau of the whole world.”

Despite Owens’ effectiveness, a woman wearing a police sergeant’s star was supposed to remain a novelty. In 1895, Chicago adopted new civil service rules requiring all cops to pass the civil service exam (Owens scored a 99 percent) and allowing for appointment of women as regular factory, tenement, or child labor inspectors independent of the police force. Had those rules been in effect in 1891, Mrs. Owens would probably have been made a government inspector rather than a police detective. Because she was so great at her job and had an unblemished service record, she was kept on the police force after the new rules were in place instead of being transferred. In an article in the August 7, 1904, Chicago Daily Tribune, the new rules were assumed to have made women police officers obsolete. The civil service rules “will forever prevent the appointment of more feminine patrolmen. Mrs. Owens will undoubtedly remain as she has been for fifteen years, the only woman police officer in the world.”

Four years later, Lola Greene Baldwin put an end to that assumption with her April Fool’s Day appointment. Two years after that, Alice Stebbins Wells charged into the fray and soon became the national posterchild for female police officers. She went on lecture tours emphasizing the need for women on the force to deal appropriately with women and children. In one of those lectures, delivered at Brooklyn’s Civic Forum in 1914, Wells showed how foolish the poor Chicago Daily Tribune’s prognostications had been: “There are four policewomen in Los Angeles, five in Seattle, and 25 in Chicago,” she said, “and the time is coming when every city will have policewomen, both in plain clothes and in uniform.”

Lola Baldwin rocking her badge at 94, March-1954 via Oregon Historical Society Research Library

Wells’ tours made her so famous throughout the country that even though just a few years earlier Det. Sgt. Marie Owens had been the subject and author of numerous newspaper stories about her pioneering position in the Chicago Police Department, Wells became fixed in the cultural imagination as the first woman police officer in the nation. Owens was still on the job when this misconception took hold, keeping her shoulder to the wheel and never, so far as we know, seeking to correct the record publicly.

She retired in 1923 at the age of 70 and moved to New York to live with her daughter. When she died four years later, the notice made no mention of her 32 years on the police force. She faded even further from memory after a historian confused her with a Mary Owens, the widow of a policeman, in a 1925 book on female police officers.

The real Marie Owens and her many accomplishments were rediscovered by, appropriately, a retired DEA agent whose father, grandfather and great-grandfather were Chicago cops. Rick Barrett was researching fallen police officers when he found a reference to Owens as the wife of a slain cop. Death records revealed that Mr. Owens had been a gas fitter, not a cop, and Barrett pulled on the thread until the whole rich tapestry unraveled. After nigh on a decade of research, Barrett is writing a book about Detective Sergeant Marie Owens that will restore her to her proper role in history.

October 22, 2016 – 1:00am

October 23, 2016

10 Quacking Facts About Ducks

Mental Floss UK

filed under: Animals

by Jenny Morrill, Mental Floss UK

“From troubles of the world I turn to ducks,

Beautiful comical things”

– Ducks by Frank W. Harvey

From Jemima to Donald, ducks have permeated popular culture due to their friendly and entertaining nature. But far from just being waddling bundles of feathers, ducks are actually very complex creatures…

1. They follow the first animal they see

Image: Cute Overload

This is a phenomenon known as imprinting (nothing to do with the werewolf stuff in Twilight). The basic thought behind imprinting is as follows: a newly hatched duckling will adopt characteristics of the first animal they see. This is usually a mother duck, but could be anything from a dog to a human (which I assume is what happened to Donald Duck). There is even a known case of a group of ducklings imprinting on a cardboard box.

Imprinting takes place due to the duckling’s instinct to follow the first thing that passes by, because more often than not this is their mother. To prevent this it is common practice, when hand rearing ducklings, to feed them using a hand puppet of a duck, so that later on the duckling can integrate with its own species.

2. Puzzling parts

Image: Neatorama

Duck romance isn’t exactly moonlight and roses. While ducks pair off every mating season, this doesn’t stop rival males from forcing themselves on the female. The males of many duck breeds have developed spiky, corkscrew shaped penises, which give them an advantage over rivals when it comes to depositing sperm. This video, charmingly titled Explosive eversion of a duck penis, shows the extent of the weirdness.

However, female ducks do not take this lying down. Over time they have developed vaginas comparable to Hampton Court Maze, with dead ends, and parts that spiral in the opposite direction to the male’s penis.

It doesn’t end there. Some breeds of duck have penises so long they are able to use them as lassos (see picture above). Researches at the University of Alaska theorise that the Argentinian lake duck will sometimes lasso escaping females in order to mate with them.

Ducks have also been known to have sex with dead ducks. I think it’s fair to say that ducks are sex mad.

3. Not all ducks can fly

Image: Karen Barclay

There is a breed of duck that has more in common with a penguin than with its anatine cousins. The Indian Runner is becoming increasingly popular with UK duck owners, thanks to its inability to fly and comical appearance; the most frequently used description among Indian Runner owners is “a wine bottle on legs”.

Even though the Indian Runner can’t fly, it can outrun many predators, and also its owner. Because of this, Indian Runners are occasionally used to train sheepdogs.

4. They’re not supposed to eat bread

Image: Down To Earth Mother

At some point in our lives, we’ve all been to the park to feed the ducks, usually clutching half a bag of stale Warburtons. However, feeding bread to a duck actually does the duck more harm than good.

While ducks are largely omnivorous, and have even been known to eat sand and grit for its mineral content, bread is actually one of the worst things they can eat. Apart from having no nutritional value, regularly eating bread can cause obesity, malnutrition, and a condition known as angel wing, which impedes the duck’s ability to fly. On top of this, rotting, uneaten bread will attract pests and predators to the duck’s environment.

Corn, oats and chopped vegetables are all good alternatives to try when feeding the ducks.

5. They have have 3 eyelids

Image: Flickr

This is the case with most birds. As well as the standard top and bottom eyelids, ducks also have a third, sideways lid, known as a nictitating membrane. The membrane acts like goggles do on humans, so the ducks can see while their heads are underwater. The membrane also removes things like grit and dust from the eyes.

6. You can tell a male from a female by the tail

Image: Flickr

While many breeds of duck are distinguishable by their colouring (for example, with the mallard), some have identical colouring regardless of sex. With these breeds, the most common way to tell the male from the female is to look at the tail feathers. In many breeds, the male will have curly tail feathers, in contrast to the female’s straight, stubby feathers.

7. Not all ducks quack

Image: Notes From The Wild Side

In fact, hardly any ducks produce the characteristic ‘quacking’ sound we’ve come to associate with them. The most common UK duck, the mallard, does quack, but other breeds croak, squeak, whistle, or remain mute. You can listen to a few different duck calls here.

And while we’re on the subject, duck quacks do echo.

8. Egg laying is affected by daylight

Image: Bebe Styles

Both ducks and chickens slow down their egg production when there is a shortage of daylight, due to the light levels affecting their hormones. This is why most breeds of duck and chicken don’t lay many, if any eggs during the winter months.

Ducks aren’t as affected by the dark as chickens however, and some breeds do lay all year round (the current record holder producing 364 eggs in one year).

Because of this, farmers and duck keepers are advised to introduce artificial light into the duck house in order to boost egg production.

9. Females are louder than males

Image: Pichost

Sorry ladies, our duck counterparts are giving us a bad name. With most breeds of duck, the female is considerably louder and more talkative than the male. In fact, some male breeds are virtually silent (desperately tries not do do a joke about being hen-pecked). People wanting to keep domestic ducks are often advised to keep only males if they have neighbours, as this will reduce the risk of annoying them with the noise.

10. They can be very indecisive

As this hilarious and adorable video shows –

Main image: Backyard Duck

June 1, 2016 – 2:10pm

1. SARA ROOSEVELT

2. SOPHIE OF BAVARIA

3. MARIE WOOLF

4. MARIA CLEMM

5. BONA SFORZA

6. CATHERINE DE MEDICI

7. DOWAGER CIXI

8. ROSE KENNEDY

9. YVONNE MACNAMARA

10. MADGE GATES WALLACE

11. PRINCESS ALICE OF BATTENBERG

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1. They follow the first animal they see

Image: Cute Overload

2. Puzzling parts

Image: Neatorama

3. Not all ducks can fly

Image: Karen Barclay

4. They’re not supposed to eat bread

Image: Down To Earth Mother

5. They have have 3 eyelids

Image: Flickr

6. You can tell a male from a female by the tail

Image: Flickr

7. Not all ducks quack

Image: Notes From The Wild Side

8. Egg laying is affected by daylight

Image: Bebe Styles

9. Females are louder than males

Image: Pichost

10. They can be very indecisive

Main image: Backyard Duck