What Makes Flamingos Pink?

by Bill McLain

  Major cities drained water from the Sierra Madre. Soon forests vanished and game died. Poverty and illness plagued the Huichol. As they heard of environmental pollution in other parts of the country, they blamed themselves. There were no more white-tailed deer in the forests and they could no longer perform the ancient ceremony. That was why the earth was sick. They knew they had to find a way to heal the earth.

  The Huichol made an incredible journey. They left their mountain homeland and made a 600-mile pilgrimage to the heart of Mexico City, the largest and most polluted city in the world. They were hoping to obtain some white-tailed deer from the zoo so they could perform their sacred ceremony. They thought it was their duty to save the earth for the benefit of humans everywhere.

  The devoted Huichol got their white-tailed deer. In 1988 they were awarded the National Ecology Prize of Mexico. But will their selfless acts and ancient ceremony save the earth from environmental destruction?

  Only time will tell.

  Where can you find the original words for Taps? (Fare thee well, day has gone.)

  Bugle calls were designed to give signals to soldiers. They originated because the sound could be heard over the din of battle; they were not intended to be sung. In modern times, however, people have written words for well-known bugle calls.

  It is believed that Taps was part of an earlier French bugle call, the Tattoo. The word tattoo originated in the middle of the 17th century. Soldiers used to spend their evenings at taverns near the army post. When it was time to return to the base, military police would sound a signal to tell the tavern owners to shut the taps on their kegs and the soldiers to return to the post. Tattoo started out as the Dutch word taptoe (tap, meaning “faucet,” and toe, meaning “to shut”). When shifting from Dutch to English, the word toe become “too,” and then “taptoo.” The name Taps comes from “taptoo.” Further corruption of “taptoo” resulted in the word tattoo, which is still used today.

  Anyone who has ever heard Taps knows it is an eloquent and haunting tune, yet its origin is still argued today. The most widely accepted explanation is that it was created by a Civil War general, Daniel Adams Butterfield.

  At that time the Union Army used the French final bugle call Lights Out to signal the end of the day. Butterfield thought it was much too formal. He recalled Tattoo, instructed his aide to write it down, and had the brigade bugler play it. Butterfield made some notes longer and some shorter but did not deviate from the original melody. He then had the bugler sound Taps at the end of every day.

  Butterfield’s rendition of Taps is the one we still hear today being played at the end of the day, at funerals, and at memorial services. With only 24 notes, this poignant and eloquent bugle call still stirs the emotions of all who hear it.

  FACTOIDS

  When England’s King George III introduced bugle calls, he had a special call written for waking the troops. The call was named Reveille, from the French for “to wake.”

  The soldiers in the Roman legions were awakened by horns playing Diana’s Hymn. Today the French term for Reveille is La Diana.

  There are 25 bugle calls used at a typical Army installation today. Of these, 20 are almost always used and 5 are optional. The more common calls are: First Call, Reveille, Assembly, Mess Call, To the Color, Retreat, Tattoo, and Taps.

  The bugler’s First Call is the same melody commonly heard today at the start of horse races.

  Taps was first played at a military burial because the commanding officer thought that the traditional three-volley salute would provoke the enemy encamped nearby.

  DID YOU KNOW?

  When recalling the history of Taps, it’s easy to conjure up a mental picture of the famous 7th Cavalry coming to the rescue of besieged settlers, the blaring bugler at the front of the charge.

  If Taps ever moved anyone, the soldiers of the 7th Cavalry must have been choked with emotion when they heard the bugle play for over 200 of their dead comrades who had been annihilated by the Sioux in the Battle of the Little Big Horn, commonly known as “Custer’s Last Stand.”

  Only one member of the army survived the battle, but it wasn’t a soldier. It was a horse, named Comanche, who had been ridden by one of Custer’s officers. Comanche’s body was pierced by seven arrows, but he was given medical attention and nursed back to health until he fully recovered. Given the freedom of the fort grounds, Comanche was always saddled for official occasions, but the commanding officer ordered that he never be ridden again. When Comanche died, newspapers throughout the country published his obituary.

  After his death, Comanche was stuffed and put on display in the Museum of Natural History at the University of Kansas. He’s still there today.

  Some anonymous author composed five verses for Taps. Although Comanche couldn’t read, he probably would have fully understood the last comforting verse:

  Thanks and praise, for our days,

  ’Neath the sun, ’neath the stars,

  ’Neath the sky.

  As we go, this we know,

  God is nigh.

  What is the name of the dog in the Maytag commercials? (I don’t give a fig for this one.)

  The canine companion of the “Lonely Maytag Repairman” or “Ol” Lonely” is a basset hound named Newton. The word basset is from the French for “low,” and basset hounds are definitely that.

  The first lonely Maytag repairman was played by veteran character actor Jesse White, who died of a heart attack in 1997 at age 78. He had been a regular on four television series, including Private Secretary and The Danny Thomas Show, and was the voice on three other television series. He also appeared in many other television shows and movies.

  Since 1989, the lonely Maytag repairman has been played by Gordon Jump, probably best known for his role as the general manager of WKRP in Cincinnati. He has been in 4 television series and 25 movies, including Conquest of the Planet of the Apes. He has made guest appearances in over 40 television shows, including Seinfeld, Caroline in the City, Love Boat, The Brady Bunch, and Get Smart, to name just a few.

  In Canada’s French-speaking Quebec, the lonely Maytag repairman is played by Paul Berval.

  FACTOIDS

  Although a basset hound may look strange, there is a reason for its appearance. It is trained as a hunter, and its long ears stir up scents on the ground that are detected by its large nose. The folds of skin under its chin help retain the scent. It is a sturdy dog because of its large feet and heavy bones. Short legs let the hunter keep up with him when chasing prey.

  Basset hounds are very lovable and are often called “armchair clowns” because of the funny positions they take when sleeping.

  Very few dog breeds love people as much as basset hounds do.

  Because a basset hound has very short legs and two-thirds of its weight is in the front part of its body, it can swim only very short distances with great difficulty.

  DID YOU KNOW?

  Perhaps you don’t often think about what a wonderful invention the washing machine is. Before its invention, people used sand as an abrasive to free the dirt from clothes and then washed them by first pounding them on rocks and then washing the loosened dirt away in streams. The scrub board was not invented until 1797.

  It took another 75 years before the first washing machine appeared. An Indiana merchant, William Blackstone, built it as a birthday present for his wife. He took a large wooden tub and put in a flat piece of wood with six small pegs. When a handle was turned, the pegs snagged the clothes and swirled them about in hot soapy water.

  Blackstone’s idea caught on, and competitors started copying his machine and adding improvements such as metal tubs and a wringer. Just one year after Blackstone built his machine, there were over 2,000 patents for various washing devices.

  In the first part of the 20th century, new methods of powering the washers were tried. At first, gasoline engines were used; later, electric motors became the power source. An enterprising California gold miner and carpenter built a mac
hine that could wash 12 shirts at a time. The power to run it was supplied by 10 donkeys.

  Inventors of washing machines tried different methods to get the dirt out of clothes. Some machines had rollers that squeezed out dirt, some had mechanisms that “stomped” the clothes as if they were pounded on a rock, and some slammed the clothes against the sides of the tub to free the dirt. All of these devices dragged clothes through the water. It wasn’t until 1922 that the Maytag Company created a device that did just the opposite: it forced water through the clothes. The device was called an agitator.

  Of all of the methods tried, only two still exist today, the cylinder system that tumbles clothes inside a moving tub and the agitator.

  Today’s washing machines have multiple cycles and features that let you wash clothes as efficiently and quickly as possible.

  The next time you wash your clothes, rather than getting upset about how much work it is, just remember one thing. It’s a lot better than pounding them on a rock.

  More questions? Try these Web sites.

  BOY SCOUT SONG BOOK

  http://members.iinet.net.au/noneilg/scouts/songs

  Contains collections of various songs that can be sung by scouts or at campfires. This Web site has links to a great variety of songs, not only from the United States but also from Australia and South Africa. You can also download complete songbooks if you’d like.

  INTERNET MOVIE DATABASE

  http://us.imdb.com/

  This site contains the names of the top movies of the week, news features, upcoming movies, and a great deal of other information about movies. You can type in your city or zip code and find out local show times.

  You can search the huge database for just about any film that’s been made. It will give you a short plot description as well as a complete cast list.

  WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

  http://people.aol.com/people/where_now/

  If you want to know what yesterday’s famous movie, television, and music stars are doing today, this is the site for you. Just click on “Movie Stars,” “TV Stars,” or “Music Stars” and then click on the celebrity you want information about. For example, you’ll learn that Gary Burgoff (Radar O’Reilly in M*A*S*H) now earns a living selling his paintings of animals which can bring as much as $25,000 each.

  SEEING STARS

  http://www.seeing-stars.com/

  If you plan to make a trip to Hollywood, check out this site before you go and you’ll stand a much better chance of running into a movie star. It lists where they shop, where they eat, where they play, where they go to school, and where they go to church.

  The site also lists Hollywood landmarks, famous streets, and how to find the locations where specific movies have been filmed.

  THE NETWORK AND CABLE TV GUIDE

  http://www.geocities.com/TelevisionCity/9348/tv_guide.htm

  A wonderful site for the television enthusiast. It has detailed information on just about every show every televised. Scroll down to select a program by name or by star. The site also lets you hear music from some of the more popular shows. The site includes prime time schedules from 1970 to 1994, trivia, and links to other sites.

  11

  Science

  Why are there C and D batteries, but no A and B batteries? (Flashlights and model trains have a lot more in common than electricity.)

  The letters assigned to battery types were selected by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) in the 1920s.

  Although there were A and B batteries at that time, the only sizes that caught on in a big way commercially were AAA, AA, C, and D.

  Sizes available today range from AAAA to G, and there are also J and N batteries.

  If you were to take apart a large 6-volt lantern battery, you’d find it actually consists of four F batteries.

  A battery is nothing more than a container for a substance that produces electrons. There are both wet and dry batteries. In both cases the battery contains some type of chemical that acts as a conductor of electricity. Wet batteries contain a liquid chemical, while dry batteries contain a moist paste.

  In concept, a battery is a rather simple device consisting of two electrodes that are inserted into a container holding chemicals that produce electrons. One electrode, or terminal, is positive and the other is negative. As the chemicals produce electrons, they accumulate on the negative terminal. It is said that opposites attract, and electrons are no different. They are attracted to anything positive. If something is connected between the terminals, such as a small electric motor, electrons on the negative terminal are attracted to the positive terminal and flow to it as quickly as possible. This flow of electrons is called electricity, which passes through the motor and starts it running.

  Most batteries we are familiar with are “dry cell” batteries, used in flashlights, wristwatches, calculators, and other similar products.

  The dry cell battery consists of a metal container filled with a moist paste. A metal electrode or graphite rod is inserted into the center of the paste and the container is capped. The metal case itself is the negative terminal and the rod is the positive terminal. When you look at a battery and see the “bump” on top, it’s actually touching the top of the rod. When something such as a miniature light bulb is connected between the case (the metal is usually exposed only at the bottom of the battery) and the “bump,” electricity will flow through the bulb and light it.

  When the flashlight was first invented, the cover of the Eveready Battery Company catalog displayed the biblical quote, “Let there be light.”

  FACTOIDS

  The Eveready Battery Company, now called Energizer Holdings, Inc., produces more than 6 billion batteries every year.

  Batteries will not last longer if they are stored in a refrigerator or freezer. In fact, they probably won’t last as long because the cold and condensation will damage them.

  Of all the batteries sold, one out of every five is used in flashlights.

  Batteries have a long history. Over 200 years ago, in 1799, Alessandro Volta invented the battery (guess where we got the word “volt”). The flashlight was invented 100 years later, in 1899.

  DID YOU KNOW?

  Joshua Lionel Cowen founded the American Eveready Company, yet some people said he was a very foolish man.

  Cowen wanted to revolutionize the photography of his time. He invented a fuse to set off the photographic flash powder, but it didn’t work very well, at least not for photography. However, the U.S. Navy bought 24,000 of the fuses to set off underwater explosives.

  He next tried creating lighted flowerpots, but had so much difficulty perfecting the design that he got bored and gave away both the project and his company to a salesman named Conrad Hubert.

  Hubert wasn’t interested in flowerpots at all, but he liked the idea of a metal tube with a light bulb and a dry cell battery. He modified the basic idea and came up with the world’s first flashlight. The idea that Cowan gave away made Hubert a multimillionaire. That’s why some people called Cowan a foolish man. But that’s not the end of the story.

  Cowan was still fascinated with electrical devices and created a window display to draw customers into a store. It was a battery-operated toy train that sped around a circular track. There was a problem, though. Onlookers came into the store to buy not the sale merchandise but the display. Many thought the train would look wonderful under the Christmas tree. So Cowan started a company to make model trains and ended up making a fortune. He used his middle name for the company name.

  You guessed it. It was the Lionel Train Company, perhaps the most famous model train company that ever existed.

  If you could hollow out a sphere in the exact center of the earth large enough to hold a person, would that person feel gravity? (Hot and heavy.)

  We know that in reality this would not be possible, because the temperature at the center of the earth is around 9,000°F, hotter than the surface of the sun, and the pressure is more than 3.5 million times that of our
atmosphere. So it would just be a question as to whether you burned up or were crushed first.

  However, if you could be put in the center of the earth, the gravity from the earth’s mass would pull you in every direction at the same time. In essence, there would be no gravity. You would not be able to distinguish among up, down, or sideways. You would have a sense of weightlessness, similar to that experienced by astronauts in outer space.

  Suppose you dug a tunnel down to the center core and then dug another, parallel tunnel back up to the surface. If you were to use the first tunnel to get to the center of the earth, you would have an exciting ride.

  As you started falling down the tunnel, you would go faster and faster until you reached the center of the earth. Because of your momentum you’d then start shooting up the second tunnel. However, as you got farther from the center, gravity would start slowing you down. You’d almost reach the surface before falling back again, going faster until you reached the center, when you’d start zooming up the first tunnel. But this time gravity would slow you down even more, so you’d be farther from the surface this time. You’d do this over and over and over again, traveling less each time until you finally came to a stop, suspended at the center of the earth.

  It’s a wild ride that is definitely not recommended.