QI: FUNNY YOU SHOULD ASK

Based on the TV programme The Why Workshop, this is a mind-bending collection of impossible questions viewers ask, from "Why are dusters yellow?" to "How do plant seeds know which way is Up?". For instance, why is loss of memory linked to having a baby? The answer is that the mother's brain undergoes changes to make it more emotionally sensitive, and as the authors point out, a baby will appreciate a mother who understands why it's crying rather than one who can recite 100 digits of pi. Why do men go bald? The cause is the male hormone testosterone, and an ancient Egyptian remedy was a medicinal lotion made of boiled porcupine quills, or alternatively a female greyhound's leg fried in oil with a donkey's hoof. So how and when did it become the norm to have three meals a day? The Romans only had lunch, and for the next two millennia it was two meals, but the Industrial Revolution with its longer working hours created a demand for three meals for working people. Now, you'll never get this one: in 1896, what was the 937th most popular name for a baby boy in America? Startlingly, it was Josephine. And the answers to the questions in the first sentence are that we don't know why dusters are yellow. Seed cells have microscopic balls called statoliths which drop to the bottom, so if that is where the roots should be, the stems grow in the opposite direction. Happy quizzing. 237pp, line drawings.