Why does turkey make me tired?

Most people blame tryptophan, but that’s not really the main culprit. In case you’re wondering, tryptophan is an amino acid that the body uses in the processes of making vitamin B₃ and serotonin, a neurotransmitter that helps regulate sleep. It can’t be produced by our bodies, so we need to get it through our diet. From which foods, exactly? Turkey, of course, but also other meats, chocolate, bananas, mangoes, dairy products, eggs, chickpeas, peanuts and a slew of other foods. Some of these, like cheddar cheese, have more tryptophan per gram than turkey. Tryptophan doesn’t have much of an impact unless it’s taken on an empty stomach and in an amount larger than what we’re getting from our drumstick. So why does turkey get the rap as a one-way ticket to a nap?

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Purist fans decry corporate stadium naming-rights deals as another step in the crass commercialization of sports. Owners see the deals in a different light; a well-negotiated package can bring in hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue for a team. Sixty years ago, no one would have seen this debate coming. At the time, stadiums and arenas were mostly named after people or their geographic location, and now it’s a bit unusual to see a stadium going by such a nondescript moniker.

So how did our stadiums become billboards capable of seating thousands of people? Here’s a bit of history, including the current kerfuffle over whether Citigroup, which needs federal assistance to stay afloat, should be plunking down $400 million for a stadium naming deal with the New York Mets.

This Bud’s To Blame

If you thought Anheuser-Busch’s only advertising breakthroughs were Clydesdales and talking frogs, think again. In 1953, the brewery wanted to buy the naming rights for Sportsman’s Park, the home of the St. Louis Cardinals, and rename the park “Budweiser Stadium.” National League President Ford C. Frick wasn’t so hot on naming a stadium after booze, but he allowed Augustus Busch to stick his family’s surname on the park. The Cardinals opened the 1954 season in Busch Stadium. Anheuser-Busch quickly rolled out “Busch Bavarian Beer” to take advantage of this advertising. This Busch Stadium closed in 1966, but the Cardinals’ two subsequent homes have kept the name. Busch Bavarian Beer morphed into what’s now Busch and Busch Light, so thank Ford C. Frick and Stan Musial the next time you play beer pong with those suds.

The Astros Learned a Valuable Lesson

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Giving thanks can make you healthier and happier. But there’s a catch: You have to do it even when the calendar does not say “Thanksgiving.”
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6 Awesome Thanksgiving Leftover Meal Ideas. I get the feeling that sweet potato cupcakes may help your out-of-town guests decide to go home.
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Prepare yourself before you hit the stores for Christmas shopping. Check out what deals await you on Black Friday.
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10 Unconventional Winter Holiday Movies. These have nothing to do with a wonderful life, but still might spread some Christmas cheer. Or not.
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Happily Ever Over is an epic tale that explains a lot of what you you never understood about holidays. An economic crisis among the magical creatures leads to crime, so Santa Claus and a police investigator must save the day!
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The Daily Show’s 8 Best Thanksgiving Moments. A welcome break from all the warm fuzzies on Thanksgiving.

In a few days, I’ll be enjoying the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade while curled up on the couch in my pajamas. Unfortunately, it’s not always that cozy — very serious things often happen at the parade. Here are 10 of them.

1. Kathleen Caronna might want to think about buying a lucky horseshoe or something. First, in 1997, she was the victim of the infamous Cat in the Hat incident. When the Cat balloon got swept astray of the parade route by high winds, it ran into a lamp post and knocked it down – right in to Ms. Caronna, who was in a coma for a month afterward. She sued the city, Macy’s, and the lamp post manufacturer for $395 million and settled for an undisclosed amount. But that’s not all. In 2006, a plane carrying Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle and his flight instructor crashed into the Belaire Apartments building. Caronna’s apartment was one of the ones hit, although she wasn’t home at the time. Still: weird.

2. In 1986, there were two incidents: a 61-year-old bagpiper had a fatal heart attack while marching in the parade, and a spectator fell out the fourth story window he was watching from and landed on someone below. (more…)

Although a roast turkey is most impressive on the Thanksgiving table, its usually the simplest part of preparing the meal. The basic recipe is to put it in a the oven and wait a few hours. Women do it this way because they need time to prepare the dressing, gravy, pies, and other side dishes, plus straighten the house, round up more chairs, and make sure the kids are clean before company arrives. On the other hand, a man will put in the extra effort to try something new and different in order to show off his culinary skills.

Cooking a Turkey the Scientific Way explains (in a throughly geeky manner) the important parts of the cooking process. Once you understand the most important concepts, you can depart from the basic recipe.

You can improve almost any food by wrapping it in bacon. It’s the American way. Bacon-Wrapped Turkey is becoming quite popular. Here’s the recipe, with a video. (more…)

Today is my birthday. While you’re surfing mentalfloss.com, I’m home celebrating with single-malt scotch and Rock Band. Wish you were here. In honor of my special day, here’s the science behind the trick in trick candles, which I really hope aren’t part of today’s festivities, for they are cruel and unusual and prolong the wait for delicious cake.

A lit candle wick melts the paraffin wax near it, absorbs the liquid wax, and pulls it upward. The flame vaporizes the wax, the vapor burns and keeps the flame lit, allowing the cycle to continue. When you blow out a regular candle, you might notice the little wisp of smoke that rises from the wick. That’s a last little bit of paraffin that’s been vaporized by the dying ember of the wick, but didn’t ignite because the ember isn’t hot enough.

The trick to a re-lighting candle, then, is getting enough heat going to ignite the escaping vapor and bring the flame back to life. The folks who don’t want you to eat your cake and make these candles usually turn to magnesium for the job. Magnesium, the ninth most abundant element in the universe by mass, is an alkaline earth metal that’s highly flammable and ignites at temperatures as low as 800 degrees F (430 degrees C) when powdered or shaved into thin strips. Powered magnesium is put inside the wick, where it’s kept cool and shielded from oxygen by the liquid wax. When the candle is blown out, the wick’s ember ignites the magnesium – if you watch closely, you can see little bits of magnesium sparking – which ignites the paraffin vapor and re-lights the candle. Magic!

The problem, of course, is getting the candles out once and for all when you get tired of games and want to eat (or if the cake bursts into flames). Trick candles need to be snuffed or dunked in a liquid to cut off the oxygen supply so the flame can’t re-ignite. And no, you cannot use my scotch.

This question was suggested by my friend Paul. If you’ve got a burning question that you’d like to see answered here, shoot me an email at flossymatt (at) gmail.com. Twitter users can also make nice with me and ask me questions there. Be sure to give me your name and location (and a link, if you want) so I can give you a little shout out.

If you’re sitting at your desk anxiously awaiting a company-wide “we’re closing early!” email, we’ve got a productive way to kill some time. Head on over to the mental_floss store and do a little pre-Black Friday holiday shopping. All t-shirts are $14.90—just use the code “holidayteeparty” during checkout.

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!

You hear the same phrases every Thanksgiving. “Please pass the gravy.” “Actually, can I have the gravy again? I missed a spot.” And “Ugh, why do we have to watch the Lions play again this year?” Every year since 1934, the Detroit Lions have taken the field for a Thanksgiving game, no matter how bad their record has been. When this year’s hapless 0-11 squad squares off against the powerhouse Tennessee Titans, you might find yourself wondering how the lowly Lions managed to get the plum gig of playing a nationally televised game every Turkey Day. So what’s the origin of Detroit’s most beloved football tradition this side of “Fire Millen!” chants? And what about the other Thanksgiving NFL stalwart, the Dallas Cowboys?

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A few months ago, I wrote about my friend Bryan Doerries’ staged readings of ancient Greek dramas for military audiences around the country, and how absolutely contemporary the post-war hurts and traumas suffered by Ajax and Philoctetes — the dramas’ physically and mentally wounded protagonists — seemed to everyone who watched. I regretted not being able to share a video of the performance here, because that’s where the power of the project really lies, but this week NPR sent producer Elizabeth Blair to a reading at the Department of Defense, and she brought along a camera crew.

The story aired yesterday on All Things Considered, and it’s archived here. I wish I could embed the videos here, but regardless you must check out the second video, of John Adams star Paul Giamatti giving a tear-down-the-house performance of one of Bryan’s scenes. (I’m usually impressed by Giamatti’s performances; that he can generate this much passion in a staged reading is even more impressive.) Also, the story sheds more light on the project’s genesis:

The Philoctetes Project, which brought the plays to the Warrior Resilience Conference, is the brainchild of Bryan Doerries, a translator and director of Greek and Roman drama. Philoctetes is a Greek warrior who gets bitten by a poisonous snake just before the Trojan War. When his injury makes him a liability, his generals abandon him on an island where he lives by himself — in great pain — for nine years.

When the veterans-care scandal at Walter Reed Army Medical Center made headlines in 2007, Doerries saw parallels.

“On every front page,” Doerries says, “there were pictures of modern Philocteteses, waiting for treatment, abandoned on islands, just like the character in the play. And all of a sudden it became a revelation that this play was about a wounded vet who was waiting for treatment and had to accept it from a medical establishment he no longer trusted.”

That anguish and mistrust runs through Sophocles’ character Ajax as well. At the end of the Trojan War, Ajax feels he’s been badly mistreated by the military. He grows depressed, possibly psychotic, and attempts to kill first his generals and then himself.

“It’s an amazing thing that the military is so interested in these [plays],” says Giamatti, who points out that from one perspective, both Philoctetes and Ajax can seem anti-military. The title characters, he explains, essentially rail at their superior officers: “‘How could you have done this to me? I gave you my loyalty and strength and you turned me into a monster.’”

With the holiday driving season upon us, many Americans will be taking to the road for long trips this weekend. I’ll be heading up to Seattle (only about a three-hour drive), but I’m already planning everything: I’ll be carrying core beverages, backup beverages, a selection of audiobooks, a pile of outdated maps, and of course a trunk full of weird junk that might be used in case of emergency (an unopened AAA “Emergency Kit,” a squeegee on a stick, oil, a lot of bungee cables, an expired Washington license plate that came with the car, and for some reason about a thousand paper napkins). I think I’m prepared. But what about you?

Blogger Mary Wheeler recently wrote up a list of what’s in her car. I reprint it here in its entirety (emphasis added):

• ancient iPod Nano — not worth stealing (I hope)
• persimmon (from my mom’s tree, for the fresh scent, ‘natch)
• back scratcher — especially for those long drives (I use it a LOT!)
• Whoopie cushion — you know, for hitchhikers
• iPhone adapter (in case the Nano runs out of batteries)
• inspirational Tarot card
• rubber beetle
• ecdysiast button — this just appeared in my car one day — I think it might have been left there by a hitchhiker.

Not pictured: napkins, flashlight, screwdriver, electrical tape, hose clamp, rubber belt of some kind (like I’d know what to do with it if I needed it), pens, maps, rags, extra oil, tire gauge, dirt. What I don’t have, but should: flares, fire extinguisher, first aid kit, money.

In case of hitchhikers, all I have is additional audiobooks.

So what about you? What’s in your car? Share in the comments. Also, if you realize you really need a whoopee cushion, now would be the time to stock up.

(See also: The Items We Carry and On My Desk.)