Ripley's Believe It or Not by Ripley’s Believe It or Not! for May 19, 2014

Thanks, Joe, for making such a tasty drink and for finding what every living organism breathes.

Yeah yeah….deadly nightshade and potatoes….

but also tomatoes and eggplants and peppers, hot and sweet…and tobacco, and petunias…and dozens… no hundreds of others…

All in Solanaceae, the huge, diverse “nightshade family”… many sharing various toxic, and/or psychotropic alkaloids, in varying degrees…belladonna, nicotine, capsaicin, atropine… many more…

Which is why you should cut away or peel any green parts of a potato, and never eat tobacco, or make salads with the leaves of your tomato plants.

And why tomatoes aren’t any more to be called “fruit” than their closest relatives, peppers and eggplants.

In recognition of Mr. Priestly’s accomplishment, I would just like to say, ‘BURRRRRRRRRRRRRPPPPP!’

The old joke of course is “what did we breathe before he discovered Oxygen?”

I picture anthropomorphic iguanas trading salt back in the days when it was worth a fortune.

Priestley called carbonating water, “Impregnating Water with Fixed Air.” He thought soda water would help sailors avoid scurvy. Johan Jacob Schweppe took his idea for carbonating water, and today we have Schweppe’s Club Soda. Much later, Dr. John Pemberton of Atlanta, Georgia, thought his syrup from coca beans and kola nuts would cure every disease; he hadn’t expected it to become a carbonated beverage we know today as Coca Cola.

When potatoes were first introduced to the court of Elizabeth the First in England, the cooks didn’t know how to prepare them, so they away the tubers and boiled the green. Everyone who ate them became quite sick and the potato was subsequently banned from the court.

Tried to link this cartoon to FaceBook and got the wrong cartoon. Got 5/18/2014 instead of 5/19/2014!

Yes, just to keep this clear, there was an old court case that said that tomatoes are “vegetables”, not “fruits”, for tax purposes. Biologically, they are absolutely, positively fruits.