Are Lobsters Ambidextrous?

by David Feldman

  To gain efficiency in winter, some of the engine’s excess heat is used to warm the interior of the car, by routing some of the engine coolant through the heater’s coils and blowing inside air over the warm coils. Two experts we spoke to, one a Federal Highway Administration official who wishes to remain anonymous, and the other, automotive historian Keith Marvin, speculate that the cardboard is probably a makeshift attempt to compensate for the inability of the coolant to get warm enough to operate the heater effectively.

  By putting the cardboard over their grills, drivers are blocking air flow to the radiator to decrease the ambient air’s cooling effect on the coolant. The theory: If the temperature of the fluid is raised, the heater can better withstand the demands of subzero weather.

  Why wire and cardboard? Presumably because they are light, cheap, and easily available materials. But aluminum and twine would do the job, too, or any materials that will shield the grill and can withstand the elements.

  Submitted by Mason Jardine of Russell, Manitoba, definitely cardboard-on-the-grill country.

  Why do judges wear black robes?

  American law is derived from English common law. English judges have always worn robes, so it follows logically that American judges would, too. But the road from English garb to American robes has been bumpier than you might expect.

  Actually, there wasn’t such a profession as judge in England until the last half of the thirteenth century. Until then, high-level clergymen, robe-wearers all, arbitrated disputes and expounded law. But the church eventually forbade its clergy from the practice, and a new job category was born. From the very start, judges, like most important people, wore robes.

  Not too long after the first judge donned his robe, Parliament enacted several laws (between 1337 and 1570) dictating just who could wear what kind of robe. Judges’ gowns were often elaborate affairs, usually made of silk and fur. (High judges wore ermine; sergeants, lambskin.)

  Green was the most popular color for judges’ robes at first; later, scarlet gowns and, to a lesser extent, violet gowns, predominated. Black robes did not appear until 1694, when all judges attended the Westminster Abbey funeral of Queen Mary II dressed in black, as a sign of respect for the queen. The mourning period went on for years, and some, but by no means all, lawyers and judges wore black gowns into the next century.

  Our founding fathers actually argued over whether our justices of the Supreme Court should wear robes at all. Thomas Jefferson railed against “any needless official apparel,” but Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr favored them and won the argument. At the first session of the court, Chief Justice Jay wore a robe of black silk with salmon-colored facing. By the early nineteenth century, Supreme Court judges donned black robes of the style worn today.

  The solemn costumes of the Supreme Court were not necessarily mimicked by lower courts. Some colonial court judges in the eighteenth century, such as those in Massachusetts, wore gowns and powdered wigs. But in reaction to the Revolutionary War, most trappings of English aristocracy were banished. In fact, the wearing of robes was discontinued in Massachusetts until 1901.

  Judges in the West and South tended to be a little less formal. In his book The Rise of the Legal Profession in America, Anton-Hermann Chroust described one of the first judges in Indiana as having a judicial costume consisting of “a hunting shirt, leather pantaloons, and a fox skin cap.” Most legal scholars believe that the majority of judges in colonial and pre—Civil War times did not wear robes at all.

  One reason why so little is known about the dress of judges in early America is that few laws or regulations govern what judges wear. Only Michigan prescribes a dress code (“When acting in his or her official capacity in the courtroom, a judge shall wear a black robe”), and nothing can stop judges from wearing a chartreuse robe if they desire, or none at all.

  Still, the vast majority of judges do wear black robes today. The only reason they aren’t wearing more colorful attire is because Queen Mary II died three hundred years ago.

  Submitted by Susie T. Kowalski of Middlefield, Ohio. Thanks also to Karen Riddick of Dresden, Tennessee.

  Why does the whitewall of a new tire usually have a bluish or greenish tinge?

  Isn’t there any truth in advertising anymore? Our correspondent wonders why manufacturers don’t call them “bluewalls” or “greenwalls.”

  Ironically, the blue-green stuff on new tires is paint. And it is put there to make sure the whitewall stays white.

  Huh? We never said tackling Imponderables was going to be easy, did we? Actually, all will become clear in due time. We heard from General Tire and Goodyear about this subject, but the most complete explanation came from a retired Firestone executive, K. L. Campbell, who wrote a veritable treatise on the subject:

  If black rubber is allowed to be in contact with white sidewall rubber for a few days, the white rubber begins to absorb some of the oils and antioxidant chemicals from the black rubber compound and the result is a permanent brown stain. The longer the black rubber is in contact, the darker the stain. The white rubber compound must be made without any of these oils or antioxidants in order to stay white. Furthermore, it must be protected by barriers so that when it is assembled into a tire, the ordinary black rubber compounds in the rest of the tire, the ordinary black rubber compounds in the rest of the tire are not in contact with it.

  Before World War II, manufacturers separated the two by wrapping the white sidewalls with paper at the factory. During the war, whitewalls were not allowed to be manufactured. Once the restriction was lifted, whitewalls became a fad, and tire manufacturers looked for a way to eliminate the expensive paper and concomitant labor expense of unwrapping it.

  The answer? The blue or green coating you see on tires now. This paint protects the white rubber from contact with the chemicals in the black rubber. According to Campbell, this paint was always intended to be completely washed off before the purchaser took possession of the tires. Bright colors were probably chosen to make it obvious that the paint should be removed to expose the white-as-the-driven-snow rubber underneath.

  How do tire dealers (or you) remove the protective paint? Jean Bailey, of General Tire, recommends a good dose of soap and water. Campbell says that even a scrubbing with a stiff brush will usually do the trick. But the way that dealerships solve the problem is by utilizing a steam jet, the type you see at the beginning of most car washes.

  Submitted by Lori Videla of Berkeley, Illinois.

  Why does inflating tires to the proper pressure help gasoline mileage?

  Do you remember, as a child, how hard it was to ride a bicycle with a flat or seriously soft tire? It was harder than trying to pedal a Stairmaster for an hour now, wasn’t it?

  When you drive an automobile, the same principle applies. The mission of tires is to soften the bumps and bruises you would otherwise experience while negotiating roadways, but a tire that bends too much, whether from underinflation or overloading, is going to take a lot of extra energy to push. Tire pressure can actually affect your gasoline mileage. K. L. Campbell explains:

  About 80% of the energy in the gasoline you buy is used up within your car engine. Of the 20% that is available to move the car, a small percentage goes into friction losses in the various rotating and moving parts outside the engine. Most of the available energy goes into overcoming wind resistance and in rotating the tires, or in climbing grades.

  In order for tires to perform their function of softening the ride of the vehicle, they must deflect under the load of the vehicle and the irregularities encountered on the road. When they deflect, there is internal movement throughout the tire that absorbs energy. The greater the deflection, the more energy the tire consumes as it is rolling.

  Tire deflection is increased either by putting more load on the tires (filling up your trunk for a vacation trip or piling a few passengers in the rear seat) or by reducing the pressure in the tires.

  When you inflate the tires to the proper pressure, you r
educe the rolling resistance. In other words, as Jean Bailey puts it, “It requires much more force or energy to rotate a tire that is underinflated than it does to rotate a tire that is inflated to the proper pressure.”

  Campbell estimates that by decreasing a typical radial tire pressure of 32 psi (pounds per square inch) to 24 psi, a car traveling at 55 miles per hour would increase fuel consumption by about 2 percent. Perhaps 2 percent does not sound earth-shattering, but to put the matter in perspective, the Department of Energy estimates that if all Americans kept all of their vehicle tires inflated to the manufacturers’ recommended pressures, four million gallons of gasoline could be saved every day.

  One of the reasons why modern radial tires perform much better than their bias-ply predecessors is that radials distribute the deflection around most of the tire, whereas bias plies concentrated the deflection near the road surface. Unfortunately, the byproduct of this technological improvement is that it is difficult to see with the naked eye when a radial is underinflated. A pressure gauge is a necessity.

  Don’t think that you can get even better mileage if you overinflate your tires. Once you get above 35 psi, a diminishing effect occurs. Not only do you not increase fuel efficiency, but you will be rewarded with a harsh and potentially wild ride.

  Submitted by Linda Seefeldt of Clark, South Dakota.

  What do coffee companies do with the caffeine left over from making decaffeinated coffee?

  You wouldn’t want them to throw away the caffeine, do you? If they flushed caffeine down the drain, it could end up in the ocean, and we wouldn’t want to see the effect of a caffeine jolt upon killer sharks. It might be enough to turn a blowfish into a slayfish. If they discarded caffeine in the trash, could the caffeine wake up organic garbage in landfills?

  We’ll never have to worry about these contingencies, for the decaffeination process used in coffee yields pure caffeine, a marketable commodity. Coffee companies sell caffeine to soft drink companies (who need a little less now that many of them are selling caffeine-free sodas) and pharmaceutical companies.

  When coffee companies justify the higher cost of decaf by citing processing costs, they rarely add the information that they get reimbursed on the back end for the caffeine they “eliminate.”

  Submitted by Glenn Eisenstein of New York, New York.

  How do they get rid of the remains of dead elephants in zoos?

  When an elephant in a zoo dies, a necropsy must be performed. In most cases, the necropsy is conducted by a licensed veterinarian or veterinary pathologist from tissue and blood samples extracted from the carcass.

  Most zoos we contacted remove selected organs from the dead elephant, pack them in ice or Formalin, and ship them to various research institutions for reproductive or physiological studies. Typical is the response of San Francisco Zoo’s Diane Demee-Benoit. She reports that her zoo has a binder full of requests from universities, zoos, and museums for various animal parts. Forensic labs might need DNA to help identify other creatures. A natural history museum might want skulls or a particular set of bones to perform comparative studies. Zoos make sure that all animal parts are used for research and educational purposes only and are not permitted to sell or donate parts to private individuals.

  After organs and other body parts are removed, the least pleasant task is performed—cutting the elephants into smaller pieces, for even elephant parts are heavy. The parts are carried by forklifts and cranes and placed on flatbed trailers, dump trucks, or whatever vehicles are available.

  Where do the trucks take the remains? That depends upon the zoo. The preference is always for burying animals on the premises. Alan Rooscroft, manager of animals at the San Diego Wild Animal Park, said that out of respect for the animals, their elephants are buried on the grounds of the zoo. But not all zoos have room enough for this “luxury.”

  Many zoos, such as the San Francisco Zoo, incinerate or cremate elephants. Ed Hansen, president of the American Association of Zoo Keepers, indicated that in areas where such disposal is legal, some elephants are buried in licensed landfills.

  Some elephants, particularly those from circuses, meet a more ignoble fate—they are sent to rendering plants. Mark Grunwald, of the Philadelphia Zoo, told Imponderables that such boiled elephants end up as an ingredient in soap.

  Submitted by Claudia Short of Bowling Green, Ohio. Thanks also to Richard Sassaman of Bar Harbor, Maine; and David Koelle of North Branford, Connecticut.

  Why do modern gas pump nozzles have rubber sleeves around them? And what are those red, blue, and green things near the nozzle?

  Newfangled gas pumps sport nozzles considerably “pumped up” compared to the puny nozzles of yore. Why is it that as soon as most gas stations became self-service, the pumps became five times as bulky?

  The rubber bellows are not there for show. The new nozzles, known as Stage II nozzles, help protect us from harmful fumes emitted by the gas going into our automobiles’ tanks. J. Donald Turk, of Mobil Oil’s public affairs department, explains:

  These nozzles are part of the vapor recovery system at the service station. The rubber sleeves create a seal between the delivery hose and the car’s gas tank so that gasoline vapors are returned to the underground storage tank. From there, the vapors are returned to a gasoline terminal so that no [polluting hydrocarbon] vapors are released to the atmosphere.

  And what about those colored doohickeys around the nozzle? According to Mobil Oil’s Jim Amanna, those are scuff guards used to protect the car from being scratched by the nozzle.

  Submitted by David Kroffe of Los Alamitos, California.

  Why do “sea” gulls congregate in parking lots of shopping centers where there is little food or water?

  The reason why “sea” is in quotation marks above is that there are many different species of gull, and quite a few of them spend little time near the sea. Several species live inland and survive quite easily.

  Nancy Martin, naturalist at the Vermont Institute of Natural Science, told Imponderables that ring-billed gulls, the most common inland species, display great affection for fast-food restaurant dumpsters as a feeding site. Ring-billed gulls are happy to leave wide-open landfills to the more aggressive herring and great black-backed gulls.

  But even gulls who normally feed at the shore might have reason to visit the local mall parking lot. Little-used areas of parking lots are safe and warm. And don’t assume there is nothing to eat or drink there. Humans, whether the intentional bread crumb tossers or the unintentional litterers, leave a veritable smorgasbord for the birds, and gulls can take advantage of puddles on the surface of the pavement to take a drink or a quick bath. Martin adds that near the ocean, “hard pavement is good for dropping clams or mussels onto to break them open, although gulls will usually choose an area away from other gulls to carry on this activity.”

  Tim Dillon, researcher at the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, speculates that the open space of a parking lot provides “sea” gulls a terrain “similar to a sandbar or beach where they naturally congregate in large numbers.” Just as we may occasionally go to the beach as a break from the dull routine of parking lots and shopping, so might gulls take a spiritual retreat to the natural glories of the shopping center parking lot.

  Submitted by Marilyn Chigi of Clarkstown, Michigan. Thanks also to Doc Swan of Palmyra, New Jersey; Annie Bianchetti of East Brunswick, New Jersey; Melanie Jongsma of Lansing, Illinois; and Tim Poirier of Silver Spring, Maryland.

  How do they keep air out of light bulbs when they are manufactured? Is a vacuum important for a bulb to function?

  As we learned in fire prevention class, oxygen is fire’s best friend. If oxygen were inside a light bulb while it operated, the filament would melt as soon as electricity was applied. So at the last stage of manufacture, the air is pumped from the incandescent bulb through a glass exhaust tube that is part of the filament support assembly. Richard Dowhan, GTE’s manager of public affairs, told Imponderables that the exhaust tube i
s shortened and sealed so that air cannot reenter and so that the screw base can be installed. Any air that remains is removed with a chemical called a “getter.”

  An old friend of Imponderables, GE Lighting’s J. Robert Moody, surprised us by saying that not all bulbs do have a vacuum inside the glass bulb:

  The vacuum is not necessary for the operation of the lamp. In fact, if the lamp is 40 or more watts, a fill gas, usually a mixture of nitrogen and argon, is added after the air is pumped out.

  Inert gases allow the filament to operate efficiently at higher temperatures, and simultaneously lessen the rate at which the tiny pieces of tungsten evaporate from the filament, yielding a longer bulb life.

  Submitted by Mitchell Zimmerman of Palo Alto, California.

  Why can’t you find English muffins in England?

  Probably for the same reason you can’t find French dressing in France or Russian dressing in Russia. Or why you’re more likely to encounter a New York steak in Kansas City than in New York City. Locales mentioned in food names are more often marketing tools than descriptions of the origins of the product.

  At least Samuel Thomas, the inventor of the English muffin, was actually born in England. Thomas emigrated to the United States in 1875 and opened his own bake shop in New York City in 1880. According to Kari Anne Maino, of Best Foods Baking Group, the division of CPC International that markets Thomas’ English Muffins, Thomas was probably inspired by the crumpets, scones, and cakelike muffins that were popular in England when he left the country. And he was smart enough to realize that the word “English” would lend his product a certain panache in the United States.