How Does Aspirin Find a Headache?

by David Feldman

  We had a long talk with Philip Smith, Ph.D., one of thirteen fellows of the Scottish Tartan Society worldwide and an author of several books about Scotland. He informed us that kilts, or their equivalents, were worn in many parts of Europe in the ancient world. The Scottish kilt is not too different from the garb of the ancient Romans and the Portuguese.

  Smith feels that the widespread use of the horse in other countries eventually led to the abandonment of kiltlike clothing. For rather obvious anatomical reasons, kilts and horse riding are, let us say, an uncomfortable fit for men.

  After an unsuccessful Jacobean uprising in 1745, the English Prohibition Act of 1746 (more commonly known as the “Dress Act”) banned the wearing of both the kilt and any tartan material by anyone except the Highlands regiment. Ironically, the prohibition is probably responsible for our current association of Scotsmen with kilts. Scotsmen kept their kilts during the ban and wore them surreptitiously at closed gatherings. Along with the tartan, which identifies the clan of the wearer, the kilt became a symbol of Scottish pride.

  As Scotsmen needed the blanketlike garment less and less for practical reasons in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the kilt, if anything, gained in significance as a way for Scotland to carve its psychic independence from England. If proof of this were necessary, we need only point to the wearing of kilts in ceremonial occasions by Scotsmen from the south, who never wore them in the eighteenth century.

  Submitted by Yvonne Martino of La Verne, California.

  Why Are the Muppets Left-Handed?

  Our sharp-eyed correspondent, Jena Mori, first noticed that all the Muppet musicians seem to be left-handed, and then realized that just about all of the Muppets’ complicated movements were done with their left hands. We went to the folks at Jim Henson Productions for the answer to Jena’s conundrum and were lucky enough to get an expert answer right from the frog’s mouth, so to speak.

  Steve Whitmire has been a Muppet performer for fifteen years, and currently “is” Kermit The Frog. Steve performs Wembley Fraggle and Sprocket the Dog from “Fraggle Rock,” as well as Rizzo the Rat, Bean Bunny, and numerous lesser-known Muppets. He also performs Robbie and B.P. Richfield on “Dinosaurs” and has worked on all of the Muppet movies.

  Since we don’t often have the opportunity to speak with Muppet performers, we imposed on Steve to answer in interview form.

  IMPONDERABLES: Steve, why are Muppets left-handed?

  STEVE: Because most puppeteers are right-handed.

  IMPONDERABLES: Huh?

  STEVE: Imagine standing with your right hand in the air. You are wearing a hand puppet that fits down to approximately your elbow. Now imagine that a television camera is raised to six feet off the floor and is pointing at everything above your head. You are watching what the camera sees on a television monitor on the floor in front of you. Your right hand is in the head of the character. If you want to move the puppet’s arms, you reach up in front of your face and grasp one or both of the two wire rods that hang from the puppet’s wrists. You have to make sure that your head is low enough to clear the camera frame, so you’ll probably have to shift your weight to your left as you duck your head to the left.

  IMPONDERABLES: Why do you duck to your left instead of your right?

  STEVE: The right hand is stretching as high to the right as possible because that is most comfortable. When the right hand stretches up, the left side automatically hunches down a bit. It’s easier for me to duck my head to the left; otherwise, I’d be ducking my head under my right arm.

  IMPONDERABLES: If your right hand is controlling the head of the puppet, how are you controlling its arms?

  STEVE: You reach up in front of your face and grasp one or both of the two wire rods that hang from the puppet’s wrists. You’d be able to have general control of both arms with your left hand. If you needed to do some bit of action that is more specific, you’d likely use the puppet’s left arm.

  IMPONDERABLES: Aha, we’re now at the crux of our Imponderable. But since you are controlling both of the puppet’s arms with your left hand, why does it matter which of the puppet’s hands you control?

  STEVE: Right-handed people tend to have more dexterity and stamina in their right hand and arm, so it goes into the head of the puppet. It is an ergonomic choice more than anything. If the puppeteer is right-handed, it is the more coordinated arm and hand, and it is usually best for it to be in the head. The left arm of the puppeteer is just below the puppet’s left arm, so making the left hand of the puppet its dominant hand seems like the natural choice.

  IMPONDERABLES: You are implying that a Muppet performer concentrates much more on the head of a character than its arms.

  STEVE: The attention of the audience is generally focused on the puppet’s face and, more specifically, its eyes. That’s part of the appeal of the Muppets—they seem to be looking at whatever they are focused on, whether it is a prop, another character, or the home audience via the camera. The arms are somewhat secondary, although if they are performed badly, say, with arms dangling, they can attract unwanted attention.

  Eye contact, and life within the face, is always the first priority in bringing our characters to life: simple head moves and gestures, accurate lip sync, etc., mimic human or animal movement. We keep all of the movement of the characters to the minimum needed to give them the life we want. There shouldn’t be any movement without a purpose.

  IMPONDERABLES: But some of the Muppets’ movements seem awfully complicated. How can you control intricate movements with your “wrong” (i.e., left) hand manipulating two rods?

  STEVE: If there is specific action that requires precision that would draw our attention away from the head for too long, we will often have another puppeteer handle the right, and occasionally both, hands.

  IMPONDERABLES: Couldn’t it get tricky having two people manipulate the same puppet?

  STEVE: It can. Having one performer manipulating the head and left hand and another the right hand of the puppet can help. This method allows the puppeteer on the head to do any action with the left hand if it needs to come in contact with the face, or the puppet’s right hand.

  However, when Jim Henson did the Swedish Chef, he worked only the head, and it was usually Frank Oz in both hands. One reason for this was that the Chef’s hands were actually human hands and needed to match. Another reason was that Jim and Frank loved to do difficult and silly things like that. Frank’s goal was to break the china on the back wall each time they did a bit and the Chef threw something over his shoulder during his opening song. We would all take bets. I think he only did it [successfully] once or twice.

  IMPONDERABLES: So this answers the question reader Robin R. Bolan asked about why some Muppets don’t seem to have wires: The answer is that sometimes they don’t.

  STEVE: Right. These types of puppets are good for handling props because the puppeteer can simply pick things up. In this case, a second puppeteer always does the right hand of the character, because the lead performer is completely tied up with the head and left hand.

  IMPONDERABLES: Sounds like it’s easier to be green than a Muppet performer.

  STEVE: I always liken what we do to being an air traffic controller, because there is so much to concentrate on while we are performing. Not only are we manipulating the puppet’s mouth, body movements, and arms, we are doing the voice, remembering dialogue, watching a television screen (we never look at the puppet—only the screen), and tripping over cables, set pieces, and five other puppeteers who are doing the same thing we are.

  It’s a wonder we ever get anything done considering how truly complex it really is. Fortunately, and for good reason, the audience only sees what goes on up there above us.

  Submitted by Jena Mori of Los Angeles, California. Thanks also to Robin R. Bolan of McLean, Virginia.

  Why Do We Have a Delayed Reaction to Sunburn? Why Is Sunburn Often More Evident Twenty-four Hours After We’ve Been Out in the Sun?

  It’s happened
to most of you. You leave the house for the beach. You forget the sunscreen. Oh well, you think, I won’t stay out in the sun too long.

  You do stay out in the sun too long, but you’re surprised that you haven’t burned too badly. Still, you feel a heaviness on your skin. That night, you start feeling a burning sensation.

  The next morning, you wake up and go into the bathroom. You look in the mirror. George Hamilton is staring back at you. Don’t you hate when that happens?

  Despite our association of sunburn and tanning with fun in the sun, sunburn is, to quote U.S. Army dermatologist Col. John R. Cook, nothing more than “an injury to the skin caused by exposure to ultraviolet radiation.” The sun’s ultraviolet rays, ranging in length from 200 to 400 nanometers, invisible to the naked eye, are also responsible for skin cancer. Luckily for us, much of the damaging effects of the sun is filtered by our ozone layer.

  Actually, some of us do redden quickly after exposure to the sun, but Samuel T. Selden, Chesapeake, Virginia, dermatologist, told us that this

  initial “blush” is primarily due to the heat, with blood going through the skin in an effort to radiate the heat to the outside, reducing the core temperature.

  This initial reaction is not the burn itself. In most cases, the peak burn is reached fifteen to twenty-four hours after exposure. A whole series of events causes the erythema (reddening) of the skin, after a prolonged exposure to the sun:

  1. In an attempt to repair damaged cells, vessels widen in order to rush blood to the surface of the skin. As biophysicist Joe Doyle puts it, “The redness we see is not actually the burn, but rather the blood that has come to repair the cells that have burned.” This process, called vasodilation, is prompted by the release of one or more chemicals, such as kinins, setotonins, and histamines.

  2. Capillaries break down and slowly leak blood.

  3. Exposure to the sun stimulates the skin to manufacture more melanin, the pigment that makes us appear darker (darker-skinned people, in general, can better withstand exposure to the sun, and are more likely to tan than burn).

  4. Prostaglandins, fatty acid compounds, are released after cells are damaged by the sun, and play some role in the delay of sunburns, but researchers don’t know yet exactly how this works.

  All four of these processes take time and explain the delayed appearance of sunburn. The rate at which an individual will tan is dependent upon the skin type (the amount of melanin already in the skin), the wavelength of the ultraviolet rays, the volume of time in the sun, and the time of day. (If you are tanning at any time other than office hours—9:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M.—you are unlikely to burn.)

  Even after erythema occurs, your body attempts to heal you. Peeling, for example, can be an important defense mechanism, as Dr. Selden explains:

  The peeling that takes place as the sunburn progresses is the skin’s effort to thicken up in preparation for further sun exposure. The skin thickens and darkens with each sun exposure, but some individuals, lacking the ability to tan, suffer sunburns with each sun exposure.

  One dermatologist, Joseph P. Bark, of Lexington, Kentucky, told us that the delayed burning effect is responsible for much of the severe skin damage he sees in his practice. Sunbathers think that if they haven’t burned yet, they can continue sitting in the sun, but there is no way to gauge how much damage one has incurred simply by examining the color or extent of the erythema. To Bark, this is like saying there is no fire when we detect smoke, but no flames. Long before sunburns appear, a doctor can find cell damage by examining samples through a microscope.

  Submitted by Launi Rountry of Brockton, Massachusetts.

  Why Do Hockey Goalies Sometimes Bang Their Sticks on the Ice While the Puck Is on the Other End of the Rink?

  No, they are not practicing how to bang on an opponent’s head—the answer is far more benign.

  In most sports, such as baseball, football, and basketball, play is stopped when substitutions are made. But ice hockey allows unlimited substitution while the game is in progress, one of the features that makes hockey such a fast-paced game.

  It is the goalie’s job to be a dispatcher, announcing to his teammates when traffic patterns are changing on the ice. For example, a minor penalty involves the offender serving two minutes in the penalty box. Some goalies bang the ice to signal to teammates that they are now at even strength.

  But according to Herb Hammond, eastern regional scout for the New York Rangers, the banging is most commonly used by goalies whose teams are on a power play (a one-man advantage):

  It is his way of signaling to his teammates on the ice that the penalty is over and that they are no longer on the power play. Because the players are working hard and cannot see the scoreboard, the goalie is instructed by his coach to bang the stick on the ice to give them a signal they can hear.

  Submitted by Daniell Bull of Alexandria, Virginia.

  What Is the Substance That Resembles Red Paint Often Found on Circulated U.S. Coins? And Why Do Quarters Receive the Red Treatment More Often Than Other Coins?

  The substance that resembles red paint probably is red paint. Or fingernail polish. Or red lacquer. Or the red dye from a marking pen.

  Why is it there? According to Brenda F. Gatling, chief, executive secretariat of the United States Mint, the coins usually are deliberately “defaced” by interest groups for “special promotions, often to show the effect upon a local economy of a particular employer.” Other times, political or special interest groups will mark coins to indicate their economic clout. Why quarters? As the largest and most valuable coin in heavy circulation, the marking is most visible and most likely to be noticed.

  Some businesses—the most common culprits are bars and restaurants—mark quarters. Employees are then allowed to take “red quarters” out of the cash register and plunk them into jukeboxes. When the coins are emptied from the jukebox, the red quarters are retrieved, put back into the register, and the day’s income reconciled.

  Submitted by Bill O’Donnell of Eminence, Missouri. Thanks also to Thomas Frick of Los Angeles, California, and Michael Kinch of Corvallis, Oregon.

  Why Are So Many Farm Plots Now Circular Instead of Squarish?

  Our peripatetic correspondent Bonnie Gellas first noted this Imponderable while on frequent airplane trips. The neat checkerboard patterns of farm plots that she remembered from earlier days have transformed themselves into pie-plots. Are there hordes of agricultural exterior decorators convincing farmers that round is hip and rectangular is square?

  We’re afraid the answer is considerably more prosaic. The round farm plots are the result of modern irrigation technology—specifically, “center pivot irrigation” systems. Dale Vanderholm, associate dean for agricultural research at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, told Imponderables that one of the problems with squarish plots was the expense required to water them. They required lateral movement systems, in which one huge pipe the length (or width) of the land traveled back and forth in order to irrigate the entire field.

  Center pivot systems, on the other hand, require only one water source, at the center of each plot. Pipes must still move, but they travel only the relatively short distance around the “pivots.” According to Lee Grant, of the University of Maryland’s Agricultural Engineering Department:

  The traveling system moves on “tractors,” spaced at intervals along the irrigation pipe. The “tractors” are supported by pairs of tractor type tires arranged one in front of the other. Motors driven by the flowing water turn the tires to pivot the irrigation pipe around the field.

  We asked Vanderholm what farmers did with the “corners” of the circle, the small portions of land outside the reach of the spray. Usually farmers plant crops that don’t require irrigation or don’t farm that area. If they want to spend the money, they can also buy auxiliary arms, which can water areas beyond the reach of the center pivot.

  According to Vanderholm, center pivot systems are most popular in the high plains states, just where you
would likely be looking out the window on cross-country flights, bored out of your mind, craving sensory input, and seeking any alternative to the airplane food, movie, or seatmate.

  Submitted by Bonnie Gellas of New York, New York. Thanks also to Gloria Klinesmith of Waukegan, Illinois.

  Why Are Virginia, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky Called “Commonwealths” Instead of “States”? What’s the Difference Between a Commonwealth and a State?

  These four states chose to call themselves commonwealths, yet trying to find a reason why they did so is a futile exercise. By all accounts, the word “state” preceded “commonwealth.” Etymologists argue over whether the term predated medieval Europe, but all agree that the concept of “state” was well established by then. Most social scientists define “state” as any discrete political unit that has a fixed territory and a government with legal or political sovereignty over it. Theoretically, though, a “state,” in its abstract form, could be taken over by a military dictator and retain its “stateness.”