1. 40,000 Pounds of Sausage

Back in March of 2009, a two-truck crash in Sheboygan County scattered 40,000 pounds of meat products on Interstate 43 in Wisconsin. Mmmm, meat products.

2. 5,000 Gallons of Molasses

If any town might prepare for a sticky truck spill, you’d expect it to be Sugar Land, Texas. That’s where, in 2008, motorists came face to face with a monstrous wave of molasses. 5,000 gallons spilled when the truck carrying it jack-knifed and rolled over. The cleanup took eight hours and 8 trillion handy wipes.

3. A 56-Foot Whale

(Warning: Disgusting photo ahead!)

The Taiwanese city of Tainan looked like the set of a slasher movie after a 56-foot sperm whale exploded on its way through town. At the time, the whale was dead, having beached itself earlier, and was being carted via flatbed truck to a research facility for autopsy. As the whale lay rotting in the sun, gases began to build up inside its carcass until they detonated in a flood of whale guts.

4. Lots of Keystone Light

In 2008, when a driver lost control of his rig on a Colorado interstate ramp, the capsized trailer was shorn open like a beer can . . . full of beer cans. That’s right: this particular truck was carrying twelve-packs of smooth-drinking Keystone Light. Keystone markets itself as “Always Smooth, Even When You’re Not”–like, say, when you take a ramp too fast and crash your tractor-trailer. Fortunately, the “uninjured” beer was recovered and loaded on another truck, leaving me to imagine that a poor beer-lover somewhere bought himself a very foamy twelve-pack.

5. $2 Million in Change

As tough as the economy is, maybe people should start combing the highways for loose change. In 2004, a wrecked armored truck spilled $2 million in coins on the New Jersey Turnpike. In 2005, an armored truck caught fire and splashed $800,000 in scalding quarters on an Alabama road. And in 2008, a truck carrying 3.5 million nickels (worth about $185,000) to the Miami Federal Reserve dumped its load after a violent wreck that killed the driver.

6. A Ship Engine

What do you do when a 200-ton marine engine destined for a San Diego shipyard flips off its flatbed? Get a crane. Actually, get three cranes–and a new road. The massive engine pancaked cars and even shoved one below the pavement. True to Murphy’s law, the truck driver involved went to the wrong address, realized his mistake, backed up, hit a curb, and—kaboom! For a cool description of how engineers put the engine back on a truck, check out the original article on the crash.

7. 35,000 Pounds of Explosives

In 2005, a truck carrying 35,000 pounds of explosives rolled over on a Utah highway and (in classic A-Team fashion) blew up moments after the driver and passenger escaped. The blast dug a crater 30 feet deep and 70 feet across. It also propelled concrete road barriers hundreds of feet in the air and twisted nearby railroad tracks like straws. Fortunately, no one died.

Portions of this article originally appeared in 2009. Visit TruckSpills.com for many more.

More from mental_floss…

19 Outstanding Words You Should Be Working Into Conversation
*
10 Facebook Status Updates Gone Horribly Wrong
*
How to Hire … a Hitman? 11 Fascinating Search Suggestions From Google
*
16 Movie Sequels Nobody Has Ever Heard Of
*
11 Things You Might Like to Know About Reindeer

Eleven Americans have won the world’s most prestigious literary award. In today’s quiz, you’ll be asked to match each superstar writer with the statement that describes him or her.

Keep in mind, when we’re talking about uber intellectuals, nothing is ever simple, including citizenship status. Several writers on this list were born abroad and then immigrated to the U.S. Likewise, a few native-born writers became famous expatriates. But all were American citizens at one point or another. Good luck!

Take the Quiz: Americans Who Won the Nobel Prize in Literature

After our last Beer Geography quiz, half the country wrote in to complain that we’d ignored their favorite hometown drafts. Drawing on their suggestions, we present another round of the same. The rules are simple: Tell us where the following brews are made, and we’ll tell you a fun little fact about each one.

Take the Quiz: Beer Geography (Round Three)

Just about everyone knows that Sam Adams is made in Boston, and that Anchor Steam hails from San Francisco. Inspired by these venerable pint-o-neers, the craft-beer movement has filtered into all corners of the country. Tell us where the following brews are made, and we’ll tell you a fun little fact about each one.

Take the Quiz: Beer Geography (Domestic Edition)

After our last Beer Geography quiz, half the country wrote in to complain that we’d ignored their favorite hometown drafts. Drawing on their suggestions, we present another round of the same. The rules are simple: Tell us where the following brews are made, and we’ll tell you a fun little fact about each one.

Take the Quiz: Beer Geography (Round Three)

Just about everyone knows that Sam Adams is made in Boston, and that Anchor Steam hails from San Francisco. Inspired by these venerable pint-o-neers, the craft-beer movement has filtered into all corners of the country. Tell us where the following brews are made, and we’ll tell you a fun little fact about each one.

Take the Quiz: Beer Geography (Domestic Edition)

Remember memorizing the names of continents and capitols for seventh-grade geography tests? Here’s a version for map-savvy adults who have moved on to other hoppies, er, hobbies—namely, beer. Tell us where the following brews are made, and we’ll tell you a fascinating fact about each one.

Take the Quiz: Beer Geography

1. Accessory nipples

Accessory nipples are just what they sound like—extra nipples that below the main nipples. They form in a line, as with the row of teats on a pig. Both boys and girls can get them.

2. Rhinophyma

In rhinophyma, your nose grows out of control, becoming bulbous and enflamed. It is a symptom of advanced acne rosacea, which causes chronic flushing of the face. Both Bill Clinton and W.C. Fields had rosacea, and caricatures of the men often show them having round, ruddy, red noses. Many folks with rhinophyma go on to have nose surgery.

3. Black Hairy Tongue

Black hairy tongue doesn’t actually involve hair, nor is it necessarily black. Yeast or bacteria camp out on your tongue, where they produce the characteristic stain and make it appear to be fuzzy. Black is the most common, although many shades are possible, including brown, orange, and white.

4. Leprosy

An ancient disease, leprosy takes years to run its course. It can be 20 years before the first symptoms appear—a stuffy nose, cuts on the skin, and/or numbness—and longer still before the infamous flesh rotting sets in. Interestingly, scholars have been arguing for years (as seen in this 1909 New York Times article) that the leprosy mentioned so prominently in the Bible is not leprosy at all. If treated early, leprosy is highly curable. The World Health Organization has spearheaded a campaign to wipe out leprosy, with efforts now focusing on Brazil, India, Madagascar, Mozambique, and Nepal.

5. Hypertrichosis Lanuginosa

A diagnosis of hypertrichosis lanuginosa means you have hair growing all over your body—hair that is long, thick, and everywhere it should not be. The illness can be either inherited or acquired. The inherited form, known as Abras Syndrome, goes way back in history, according to medical historians. For instance, an extremely hirsute young man named Petrus Gonzalez from the Canary Islands was captured and “given” as a freak-show gift to the French nobility—who realized that there was nothing wrong with the guy except that he was completely covered in shaggy hair. They gave Gonzalez a castle, where he started family. Their portraits of Gonzalez show that many of his descendants inherited Abras Syndrome from him. The acquired form of hypertrichosis lanuginosa cause the fine hairs that your have on your face and elsewhere to thicken and lengthen. This condition is very rare. When it does occur, it’s often as a result of cancer.

6. Cornu Cutaneum

Imagine looking into the mirror one morning—and seeing a horn sprouting from your head! That’s the unfortunate predicament of folks with cornu cutaneum. These conical growths aren’t actual horns, but rather tumors, sometimes benign and sometimes cancerous. But they look like horns, and that’s the problem. One doctor described a patient with a horn three inches long (despite occasional trimmings) that had been developing for 30 years!

7. Human Papillomavirus

The human papillomavirus, often in the news for its association with cervical cancer, also causes numerous kinds of warts. In one extreme case, an Indonesian man with HPV developed pounds of thick, gray, bark-like warts. Since doctors hacked away the growths, the gentleman, Dede Koswara, has quit his job in a freak show and started searching for a wife.

[Most of these photos came from Johns Hopkins' online DermAtlas, which contains over 10,000 pictures of skin diseases.]

Remember memorizing the names of continents and capitols for seventh-grade geography tests? Here’s a version for map-savvy adults who have moved on to other hoppies, er, hobbies—namely, beer. Tell us where the following brews are made, and we’ll tell you a fascinating fact about each one.

Take the Quiz: Beer Geography

When I first heard that a truck had dumped 40,000 pounds of sausage on Wisconsin highway, my first thought was, “Mmmmm, sausage.” My second thought was, “That has to be the weirdest truck spill ever.” But it’s not. With help from friends at Truckspills.com, we found some truck spills you would definitely rather read about than encounter.

1. Molasses

If any town might prepare for a sticky truck spill, you’d expect it to be Sugar Land, Texas. That’s where, in 2008, motorists came face to face with a monstrous wave of . . . molasses. 5,000 gallons spilled when the truck carrying it jack-knifed and rolled over. The cleanup took eight hours and 8 trillion handy wipes.

2. A Whale

(Warning: Disgusting photo ahead!)


The Taiwanese city of Tainan looked like the set of a slasher movie after a 56-foot sperm whale exploded on its way through town. At the time, the whale was dead, having beached itself earlier, and was being carted via flatbed truck to a research facility for autopsy. As the whale lay rotting in the sun, gases began to build up inside its carcass until they detonated in a flood of whale guts.

3. Beer

Last year, when a driver lost control of his rig on a Colorado interstate ramp, the capsized trailer was shorn open like a beer can . . . full of beer cans. That’s right: this particular truck was carrying twelve-packs of smooth-drinking Keystone Light. Keystone markets itself as “Always Smooth, Even When You’re Not”–like, say, when you take a ramp too fast and crash your tractor-trailer. Fortunately, the “uninjured” beer was recovered and loaded on another truck, leaving me to imagine that a poor beer-lover somewhere bought himself a very foamy twelve-pack.

4. Money

As tough as the economy is, maybe people should start combing the highways for loose change. In 2004, a wrecked armored truck spilled $2 million in coins on the New Jersey Turnpike. In 2005, an armored truck caught fire and splashed $800,000 in scalding quarters on an Alabama road. And just last year, a truck carrying 3.5 million nickels (worth about $185,000) to the Miami Federal Reserve dumped its load after a violent wreck that killed the driver.

5. A ship engine

What do you do when a 200-ton marine engine destined for a San Diego shipyard flips off its flatbed? Get a crane. Actually, get three cranes–and a new road. The massive engine pancaked cars and even shoved one below the pavement. True to Murphy’s law, the truck driver involved went to the wrong address, realized his mistake, backed up, hit a curb, and—kaboom! For a cool description of how engineers put the engine back on a truck, check out the original article on the crash.

6. Explosives

In 2005, a truck carrying 35,000 pounds of explosives rolled over on a Utah highway and (in classic “A-Team” fashion) blew up moments after the driver and passenger escaped. The blast dug a crater 30 feet deep and 70 feet across. It also propelled concrete road barriers hundreds of feet in the air and twisted nearby railroad tracks like straws. Fortunately, no one died.