Are Lobsters Ambidextrous?

by David Feldman

  All of these theories have some merit, but we must admit that the last is the most inviting, if only because it is the most inclusive.

  Submitted by Dan Arick of New York, New York.

  Why do women put perfume on their wrists?

  We’ve wondered the same thing. When we pass through the cosmetics counters of department stores, we see women applying perfume to their wrists and then sniffing intently. Why not on their fingers? The back of their hands? Their arms? Their underarms?

  What do they know that men don’t know? A cursory poll of some females indicated that most of them had no idea why they put perfume on their wrists. But it turns out that there is a method to their madness. Irene L. Malbin, of the Cosmetic, Toiletry, and Fragrance Association, explains:

  Women put perfume on their wrists because there is a pulse point there. Pulse points are located wherever the pulse of the heartbeat is closest to the surface of the skin. The heat generated by the pulse point will intensify a perfume’s impact.

  Malbin lists other pulse points: behind the ears, the nape of the neck, the bosom, the crook of the elbows, behind the knees, and at the ankles. Obviously, it is easier for a consumer to apply perfume to the wrist than the back of the knee, at least in a department store.

  All of this makes perfect sense. But then why don’t men apply cologne to their wrists? Or do they?

  Submitted by Jesse Flores of Henrico, Virginia.

  Why do pretzels have their strange shape?

  We don’t know how every source we read or contacted dated the origin of the pretzel to Italy in A.D. 610, considering that none of them can point to the identity of the inventor or the exact location. But all agree that the pretzel was invented by a monk who used it as a reward for students who recited their catechism properly.

  According to the conventional wisdom, the shape was not an accident, and it had nothing to do with expediency in baking. The Italian word for pretzel, bracciatelli (variously translated as “small arms” and “folded arms”) is the clue: The shape of the pretzel was meant to resemble the arms of a child in prayer. Norma Conley, a self-professed pretzel historian and president of the Pretzel Museum in Philadelphia, told Imponderables that in medieval times, people prayed by putting their arms across their chest in a cross shape, placing each hand on the opposite shoulder.

  The shape of boys’ arms in prayer, and not the letter B, a knot, or parts of the human body, are what the pretzel was designed to look like. Conley reports that pictures of pretzels can be found in early bibles, sometimes used as page borders.

  This said, we would still not be surprised if the monk story was apocryphal. But it’s all we have, at present.

  Occasionally, rituals around the world take advantage of the unusual shape of the pretzel. A woodcut from the seventeenth century, found in a cathedral in Switzerland, shows the pretzel used as a nuptial knot—a wishbone, of sorts. The bride and groom each pulled on one side of the pretzel; whoever grabbed the larger piece had his or her dreams come true. The two linked arms and ate the pretzel, and the possessor of the short end pretended that the inevitable loss of face involved in losing this contest wouldn’t ruin the marriage irreparably.

  In parts of Europe, even today, the pretzel is used as a good-luck charm. In Germany, for example, many folks wear a pretzel on a loop around their necks on New Year’s Eve. (Try doing that with a pretzel stick!) Supposedly, the pretzel necklace brings them good luck and a long life. If nothing else, it gives them something salty to eat to motivate them to drink more beer—another, less esoteric, German New Year’s Eve custom.

  Submitted by Jacob Schneider of Norwalk, Ohio.

  Why do disposable lighters have two separate fluid chambers, even though the fluid can flow between the two?

  One look at Bic’s disposable lighter reveals the seemingly needless use of two chambers. When we queried folks at Bic and other lighter manufacturers, representatives calmly and without defensiveness denied that there were two chambers in their lighters.

  Not until we heard from Linda Kwong, public relations manager at Bic, did we get the answer: Our eyes deceived us. There aren’t two chambers, but…

  The wall of plastic that makes up the fuel reservoir portion of the main body has to be reinforced with a cross rib or web to assure that this containment vessel will exceed the high pressure of the fuel. This cross rib gives the appearance of two separate chambers.

  Submitted by Joseph P. McGowan of Glenolden, Pennsylvania. Thanks also to Dori Moore of Wheelersburg, Ohio.

  In Do Penguins Have Knees?, our readers obsessed about bubble gum, but this time around, we seem to have a new junk food obsession: Just what are they putting into those soft drinks of ours?

  What ingredient in diet drinks provides the one calorie? Why do some diet drinks have one calorie and some have no calories?

  Let’s solve the second part of this Imponderable first. Most diet drinks, ones containing aspartame or saccharin, contain less than one calorie per twelve-ounce can but more than one half-calorie. Whether or not the drink gets promoted as “zero calories” or “one calorie,” then, usually depends upon how the marketer defines a serving size. Six ounces is the most popular serving size in the soft drink industry. If a twelve-ounce can of diet soda contains .66 of a calorie, then a six-ounce serving would contain .33 of a calorie. Because all figures are rounded off on nutritional labels, this soft drink can be advertised as containing zero calories.

  A few soft drinks with mostly artificial sweeteners contain some natural flavorings, such as fruit juice, that contribute a meaningful number of calories (the flavored ginger ales marketed by Canada Dry and Schweppes contain a whopping two calories per six-ounce serving). But for the most part, the contributors to any caloric content in artificially sweetened drinks comes from trace carbohydrates and other elements in flavorings.

  So don’t blame the sweetener if you binge on one of those fattening one-calorie diet drinks. NutraSweet brand, the most popular artificial sweetener for soft drinks, is made of two amino acids, which are, technically, protein components. So aspartame has the same caloric count, per gram, as the protein in a T-Bone steak—four calories per gram. Fortunately for the dieter, the amount of aspartame in a soft drink doesn’t compare to the weight of the protein in a steak. Phyllis Rosenthal, consumer affairs analyst for NutraSweet, explains:

  Since NutraSweet is 200 times sweeter than sugar, only a small amount is needed to sweeten products. Therefore, it contributes negligible calories to a product. A level teaspoon of sugar has 16 calories while the amount of NutraSweet with equivalent sweetness has 0.007 calories.

  One 12-ounce carbonated beverage contains approximately 180 mg of NutraSweet, a very small amount, which provides a negligible amount of calories.

  Negligible yes. But sometimes enough to push a drink over the precipice into one caloriedom. Of course, then the soft drink company can decide that a serving size should really be three ounces, and the product magically becomes zero calories all over again.

  Submitted by Barry Long of Alexandria, Virginia.

  Why do diet colas, but not sugared colas, contain phenylalanine? Isn’t phenylalanine the same substance found in chocolate?

  Relax, Jon. Phenylalanine is one of those two amino acids we referred to above that are used to make aspartame (the other is aspartic acid). You can find phenylalanine in all kinds of foods, including meats, grains, dairy products, and sometimes even chocolate.

  If a soda uses sugar as its sweetening agent, it won’t contain phenylalanine.

  Submitted by Jon. L. Carleen of Chepachet, Rhode Island.

  What is brominated vegetable oil, and why is it found only in orange soda?

  BVO, as it is known in the trade, is used as a stabilizing agent in beverages. Actually, it is in many other citrus drinks besides orange sodas. BVO consists of a vegetable oil base—usually soybean, but occasionally cottonseed—combined with bromine. You can’t taste BVO because it is used in minute amounts.

&
nbsp; BVO keeps the flavoring ingredients in sodas from separating from the rest of the drink. It is much less convenient to shake a bottle of carbonated orange soda than it is to shake a carton of orange juice that has been sitting in the refrigerator for a few days. At least, it’s more convenient if you are the one who has to clean up the mess from shaking the soft drink.

  BVO adds a side benefit, as well, for it is also a clouding agent, lending the liquid a more opaque appearance. Subliminally, the consumer might think of an orange drink as healthier because the opaqueness conjures up an image of actual food, a pulpy, fruit-based rather than a chemical- and flavorings-based beverage.

  Submitted by William Rockenstire of Poestenkill, New York.

  How do they put the pockets in pita bread?

  Who would have ever thought that the pocket is created without human hands intervening? Bakery engineer Simon S. Jackel, director of Plymouth Technical Services, explains:

  Pita bread is placed in the oven as a thin, solid piece of dough. There is no pocket in the dough when it goes into the oven. But the oven temperature is so high, about 900 degrees Fahrenheit, that there is a rapid, explosive expansion of the water in the dough, causing the formation of a pocket by literally ripping the bottom part of the dough piece from the top dough piece. Total baking time at this high temperature is only one and one-half to two minutes.

  Submitted by James Frisch of Great Neck, New York.

  Why do we wear caps and gowns at graduations? Why are the caps flat and square? What does the color of gowns signify?

  The first organized institutions of higher learning appeared in Paris and Bologna in the early twelfth century. In this era, virtually everyone, male and female, old and young, wore long flowing robes that didn’t look too different from our graduation gowns of today. Rich people might have worn silk robes with ornamentation while the poor wore plain, coarse wool robes, but the style varied little.

  Robes were in vogue until around 1600, when gowns were generally worn only by older and professional men. By the end of the seventeenth century, only legal and other officials wore gowns. But by the time robes for men had become passé, they had long been prescribed for use as academic garb, especially by English universities, and the tradition of wearing gowns at graduation had stuck.

  In Roman law, a slave was freed when he was allowed to wear a cap. This symbol of emancipation might have been the inspiration for Oxford adopting the practice of placing a cap on the recipient of a Master’s of Art when he graduated. The cap symbolized independence for the former bachelor.

  Why was the hat square? Square hats called birettas were already in vogue at the time, but they weren’t totally flat like the mortarboard that Oxford established as the standard. In her book The Story of Caps and Gowns, published by graduation uniform giant E. R. Moore Company, Helen Walters offers three theories:

  1. The shape was derived from the master workman’s mortar board.

  2. The cap was meant to resemble the quadrangular shape of the English university’s campus.

  3. The shape symbolized the “squareness” of both the scholar and his books. In those days, we presume, squareness was a positive trait.

  Early academic caps sported tufts where we now have tassels. Tassels appeared in the eighteenth century, and appear to be merely cosmetic additions.

  Americans were quick to adopt English university customs in graduation garb all the way back to colonial times. Several Ivy League universities and prestigious small colleges used gowns and mortarboards from the start.

  Only around 1885 did the practice extend to most colleges. In 1894, a commission was authorized to choose a standard for graduation uniforms. Its conclusions have determined our uniforms for the last hundred years:

  Bachelors—wear black gowns with worsted material and long, pointed sleeves.

  Masters—wear black silk or black woolen gowns with long, closed sleeves that have an arc of a circle near the bottom and a slit for the arm opening.

  Doctors—wear black silk gowns with full, round, open sleeves that are faced with velvet and have three bars of velvet on each sleeve.

  All three graduates wear a mortarboard, but only doctors’ caps may be velvet, and only doctors and presidents of universities may wear gold tassels.

  English universities vary clothing and color schemes from school to school. The United States is one of the only countries to have a standardized code.

  In 1911, E. R. Moore introduced the Official High School Cap and Gown. It was gray to differentiate it from the university gown, its sleeves were full and round, and the matching gray cap was the typical Oxford mortarboard with a silk tassel.

  Although E. R. Moore’s motive might have been commercial, the popularity of caps and gowns for secondary school graduations spread quickly, not only because parents appreciated the pomp and circumstance at a momentous occasion, but for financial reasons. In the early twentieth century, students of affluent families might pay forty or fifty dollars for a graduation outfit when the caps and gowns could be rented for $1.50. The caps and gowns allowed poor students to “compete” with their richer comrades.

  Of course, every school soon wanted caps and gowns. Normal schools, and later their descendants, junior colleges, chose blue for the color of their gowns. Some grammar schools even started using caps and gowns—maroon became the most popular color.

  Several of the readers who posed this question also asked about the tradition of moving the tassel from left to right to signify graduation. Obviously, the tassel shift symbolizes the graduation itself, but we have been unable to trace its exact origins. We do know that this practice goes in and out of favor. While some schools retain the practice, many, if not most, universities do not, insisting that the tassel remain hanging on the left side of the mortarboard while the commencement speaker drones on and on and on.

  Submitted by Andrew Kass of Staten Island, New York. Thanks also to Michael Silverson of Exeter, New Hampshire; Lisa Coates-Shrider of Cincinnati, Ohio; Linda Galvao of Tiverton, Rhode Island; Gina Guerrieri of Shawnee, Oklahoma; and Jamie Hubert of Spring Lake, Michigan.

  Why aren’t skyscrapers ever made out of brick?

  We consulted many architects about this question, and they flooded us with reasons why bricks weren’t particularly desirable material for skyscrapers. In no particular order, here are some of the problems involved:

  1. Bricks are more expensive than the alternatives. Not only are they relatively expensive to manufacture, but laying bricks is extremely labor-intensive, which is one of the reasons we see fewer bricks even in ranch style suburban homes than we used to.

  2. In order to support a skyscraper, the walls at the base of the building must be extremely thick, wasting valuable space. David Bahlman, of the Society of Architects, indicated that bricks would need to be two and one-half feet deep at the base to support even a six-floor building.

  3. Bricks need a substructure of steel beams to support them. According to architectural consultant Bill Stanley of Buellton, California, skyscrapers with steel frames can be covered (or “clad”) with brick panels, but “brick is a poor material for cladding because of its weight, and the possibility of coming loose and falling.”

  4. The size of individual bricks is not large enough aesthetically to fit the scale of a skyscraper.

  Notwithstanding this brick bashing, we have a confession to make. The premise of this question is incorrect. There are skyscrapers made of brick. Indeed, one of the first skyscrapers in the world, the Monadnock Building in Chicago, built in 1889, rests mainly on brick. The Monadnock Building is sixteen stories high and is often studied by urban architects.

  The design problems inherent in such a tall brick building are elucidated by Lynn S. Beedle, director of the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. The bricks make the building so heavy that the walls must be made thicker and thicker on the lower floors, so that the walls at the base are almost six feet thick. You couldn’t build a brick building much higher b
ecause “there wouldn’t be much space left on the ground floor for elevators.”

  Charles N. Farley, director of the Brick Institute of America, wants Imponderables readers to know that brick is being used on newer skyscrapers, too. Most laymen don’t realize that the gargantuan Empire State Building contains brick because it is clad with limestone panels. Two recently built New York City skyscrapers, the fifty-three-story World Wide Plaza and the sixty-story Carnegie Hall Tower, both use brick for the exterior skin. Brick remains a feasible exterior for those who can afford it.

  Submitted by Herbert Kraut of Forest Hills, New York.

  Why are nine-volt batteries rectangular?

  Most of the best-selling battery configurations (e.g., AA, AAA, C, D) are 1.5 volts. Nine-volt batteries, formerly known as “transistor batteries,” contain six 1.5-volt batteries. The 1.5 cells within the casing are cylindrical.

  If you were to stack six cylinders in the most economical shape, wouldn’t a rectangle be the most natural choice? Just try putting six cylinders into a square or cylindrical casing without wasting space.