Do Fish Drink Water? by Bill Mclain

Do Fish Drink Water? by Bill Mclain

Is it true that elephants are afraid of mice?

How much gold does the United States store in Fort Knox?

Why do I get a headache when I eat ice cream too fast?

How did the "seventh inning stretch" originate?

As the official webmaster for Xerox, Bill McLain was surprised by the kinds of questions he was receiving, like whether people born blind can see in their dreams and why rabbits are associated with Easter. McLain began to answer each and every question--attracting national attention from MSNBC, CNN, and People--and the result, collected in Do Fish Drink Water?, is a surprising, funny, and informative collection of facts. McLain's answers can often be as wild as the questions and prompt entertaining anecdotes about where he found them. McLain explains how magnets are made, what caused the Great Depression of 1922, and even explains why cats purr. Also included is an extensive list of websites where he conducts research, offering an informative guide to making the most of the Internet.

Bill McLain, the Internet's famed Answer Whiz, served as the official Webmaster for Xerox Corporation. McLain and his colleagues were in charge of responding to e-mails sent to the company's website, and they received between 750 and 1,000 queries per day. While the majority of the e-mails he received were Xerox-related, he received dozens of queries every day from interested fact-seekers with questions ranging from the weird to the practical to the simply amusing. In What Makes Flamingoes Pink?, McLain compiled the most memorable of these inquiries, as well as his equally memorable answers.