While sleep leaves them more vulnerable to predators, it is all that keeps birds from an exhausting 24-hour-a-day hunt for food.
Simply standing motionless with their eyes closed or open provides rest for most birds. Birds that live in the Arctic or Antarctic regions and have to contend with periods of twenty-four—hour sunlight, often take short catnaps throughout the day and night, but require no long sessions of sleep.
For diurnal birds, like mockingbirds, the daytime is full of activity, but they don’t sleep peacefully throughout the dark hours, as anyone who has ever attempted to sleep near a male mockingbird knows all too well.
Submitted by Kathi Sawyer Young, of Encino, California.
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Why Were Phillips Screws and Screwdrivers Developed?
The straight-bladed screwdriver was popular long before the advent of the Phillips. Was the Phillips merely a marketing ploy to make old hardware obsolete?
Fred A. Curry, a retiree of Stanley Works and now an educational consultant, has a large collection of Stanley tools and old catalogs.
While trying to find an answer to our query, Mr. Curry found a 1938 article in Stanley’s Tool Talks, which, to use a hardware metaphor, bangs the nail on the head:
The most recent major improvement in screw design is the Phillips recessed head, self-centering screw and bolt. This type of screw is already extensively used in many of the major industries, and is even replacing the common wood screw for home repairs.
Stanley has the No. 1 license to manufacture the screwdrivers, hand and
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power driven bits required by the Phillips screw, and now offers a complete line of these Stanley quality drivers and bits.
The main selling point of the Phillips was clearly the self-centering feature. Straight-bladed screwdrivers tended to slip out of the screws’
slots, ruining wood or other material, occasionally even injuring the worker. The recessed Phillips screws allowed a closer and tighter fit than the conventional slots. It may be harder, initially, to insert the Phillips screwdriver, but once it is in place, the Phillips is much less likely to slip.
Why Do Trucks Now Say Their Contents Are
“Flammable” When They Used to Say
“Inflammable”?
The prefix “in” usually means “not.” If you are insensitive, you are not sensitive. If you are in coherent, you are not coherent. If you are in flammable, you are not flammable.
Oops! You are flammable if you are inflammable.
The English language is less than a logical construct. “Flammable”
and “inflammable” have identical meanings: “easily set WHY DO CLOCKS RUN CLOCKWISE? / 207
on fire.” So why did the trucking industry bother to change its warning notices?
Fire-insurance underwriters are usually given credit for starting the changeovers. They felt that foreigners, unaware of this exception to the usual meaning of “in-,” might misconstrue “inflammable” signs, so they lobbied to change labels on containers and tanks to “flammable.” Scientists, always sensitive to the need for international understanding, have also adopted “flammable.”
Ironically, although the purpose of the change from “inflammable”
to “flammable” was to facilitate the understanding of nonnative speakers, almost all of the international agencies responsible for regulating the labeling of (in) flammable materials, such as the United Nations, have chosen “inflammable” as their standard. A. N. Glick, president of the Conference on the Safe Transportation of Hazardous Articles (COSTHA), told Imponderables that the International Maritime Dangerous Goods Code of the International Maritime Organization uses the term “inflammable” but permits the use of
“flammable” if there is a footnote reference.
The Harper Dictionary of Contemporary Usage had its panel of language experts (a group so concerned with preserving the English language that they still don’t quite trust Edwin Newman) vote on whether they used “flammable.” Most didn’t, but they couldn’t work up much enthusiasm for trying to fight its use, as it is less ambiguous to nonnatives.
I am surprised that nobody bothered to ask what an intelligent foreigner might think about a country in which companies bothered to put signs on their trucks announcing that the truck was carrying cargo that was not easily set on fire.
Submitted by Warrine Ahlgreen, of Tallmadge, Ohio. Thanks also to: Allen Johnson, Ph.D., of Kennewick, Washington.
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Why Can’t They Make Newspapers That Don’t Smudge?
Reading a newspaper might be good for the mind, but it ain’t great for the hands. After a bout with the Sunday paper, your hands are likely to look as if they have been engaged in a mud-wrestling contest rather than an intellectual endeavor.
What is that junk all over your hands? It is ink. And as much as these smudges annoy you, they bother the people within the newspaper industry even more. As Ralph E. Eary, who is responsible for the production and engineering of Scripps Howard’s newspapers, told Imponderables, “Ink rub-off has been my mortal enemy for forty years. I have experimented with various inks, dyes, and water-based inks over the past twenty-two years and each comes up a failure.”
Black news inks have changed little over the past forty WHY DO CLOCKS RUN CLOCKWISE? / 209
years. Inks consist of pigments, which produce colors, and “vehicles,”
liquids that carry the pigments. Conventional newspaper inks have an oil base. Oil never dries completely, which is why these inks smear on your hands and clothes. Black inks usually contain between 10 percent and 18 percent carbon black pigment content, with the balance consisting of mineral oil similar to automobile lubricating oil. Inks designed for letterpress machines have less pigment than ink used for offset presses.
Much hope was held out for the durability of water-based inks, but they have not proved to be a solution. In an article about ink for the journal of the American Newspaper Publishers Association, Presstime, technical writer Paul Kruglinski states the newspapers’
continuing dilemma: “Ink rub-off is a relative problem: Its cause and elimination are not dependent on any one variable. The incidence and amount of rub-off hinge on the ingredients in inks, the kinds of inks used in each printing process and the type of newsprint used.
It takes more than just changing chemicals to eliminate rub-off, researchers have learned.”
Two factors have exacerbated the rub-off problem in recent years.
The first is the changeover, by many newspapers, from letterpress to offset presses. In the letterpress process, the relief plate literally imprints the ink into the paper. The offset process works by what is called a “kiss” or “touch” impression, in which ink is deposited on the surface of the page, where it is more likely to smear.
The second and perhaps more significant trend over the past few decades has been toward publishers using heavier ink (adding extra pigment and oil to a particular area of page space) to make the paper more easily readable. The New York Times, for example, is extremely dark; the Wall Street Journal is printed with much lighter ink. Unfortunately, the Times and other newspapers pay a price for their high contrast—higher rub-off and higher “show-through” (the tendency of the print on the back side of a page to be visible on the front).
Newspaper publishers and ink manufacturers fight over who 210 / DAVID FELDMAN
is responsible for ink rub-off. The publishers blame the ink manufacturers for providing low-quality ink. The ink manufacturers insist that if the newspapers were willing to pay for better-quality ink, they would be glad to provide it.
The issue, clearly, is money. Now that most cities are monopolized by one paper, or by two papers owned by the same company, readers are literally a captive audience. It isn’t clear to the newspapers that reduced rub-off would lead to increased sales. According to the American Newspaper Publishers Association, ink constitutes less than
one percent of operating costs for most newspapers that don’t publish in color.
Rub-resistant inks are more expensive. They work by neutralizing the carbon black in conventional inks by means of additives, such as resins and waxes. Resins trap the carbon black particles, making them stick to the surface of the newsprint. Wax works to cut down smearing by lubricating the surface of the page, reducing the friction between the ink and the fingers. The more resin and wax added to ink, the more rub-resistant it is—and the more expensive it is.
Conventional black ink designed for the letterpress process costs newspapers about thirty cents a pound; offset ink costs about fifteen cents more per pound. Most rub-resistant inks add at least ten cents more per pound to the bill. If these additives totally eliminated rub-offs, most newspapers would probably buy them, but as of now, they only improve the situation. The industry is still looking for rub-off-free ink.
Is there any solution to the rub-off problem? Ralph Eary, of Scripps Howard, and many other printers think the answer will probably come with flexography presses, which use a water-based ink. Eary believes that when the current generation of presses needs to be replaced, most publishers will choose flexo presses. Adds Presstime’ s Paul Kruglinski,
Letterpress and offset inks are said to “dry” through the dispersion of the vehicle into the newsprint. They actually don’t dry; the fibers absorb the oil. But because the vehicle in flexo inks is water,
WHY DO CLOCKS RUN CLOCKWISE? / 211
there is evaporation. Not only that, the latex additives bind the pigments in flexo inks to the surface of newsprint. With flexography, newspapers may be able to use a thinner newsprint stock for their products without quality degradation.
And we newspaper fanatics won’t have to wear gloves to carry our treasures home.
Submitted by Jeff Charles, of St. Paul, Minnesota. Thanks also to: Cassandra Sherrill, of Granite Hills, North Carolina.
How and Why Do Horses Sleep Standing Up?
Horses have a unique system of interlocking ligaments and bones in their legs, which serves as a sling to suspend their body weight without strain while their muscles are completely relaxed. Thus, horses don’t have to exert any energy consciously to remain standing—their legs are locked in the proper position during sleep.
Most horses do most of their sleeping while standing, but patterns differ. Veterinarians we spoke to said it was not unusual for horses to stand continuously for as long as a month, or more. Because horses are heavy but have relatively fragile bones, lying in one position for a long time can cause muscle cramps.
While one can only speculate about why the horse’s body evolved in this fashion, most experts believe that wild horses slept while standing for defensive purposes. Wayne O. Kester, D.V.M., executive director of the American Association of Equine Practitioners, told us that in the wild, the horse’s chief means of protection and escape from predators was its speed. “They were much less vulnerable while standing and much less apt to be caught by surprise than when lying down.”
Submitted by Carole Rathouz, of Mehlville, Minnesota.
212 / DAVID FELDMAN
Why Is Seawater Blue and Tap Water Clear? Why Does the Color of the Ocean Range from Blue to Red?
White light consists of all the primary and secondary colors in the spectrum. Each color is distinguished by the degree to which it scatters and absorbs light. When sunlight hits seawater, part of it is absorbed while the rest is scattered in all directions after colliding with water molecules.
When sunlight hits clear water, red and infrared light absorb rapidly, and blue the least easily. According to Curtiss O. Davis of the California Institute of Technology’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
“only blue-green light can be transmitted into, scattered, and then transmitted back out of the water without being absorbed.” By the time the light has reached ten fathoms deep, most of the red has been absorbed.
Why doesn’t tap water appear blue? Curtiss continues: “To see this blue effect, the water must be on the order of ten feet deep or deeper. In a glass there is not enough water to absorb much light, not even the red; consequently, the water appears clear.”
Thus if clear water is of a depth of more than ten feet, it is likely to appear blue in the sunlight. So how can we explain green and red oceans?
Both are the result not of the optical qualities of sunlight but of the presence of assorted gook in the water itself. A green sea is a combination of the natural blue color with yellow substances in the ocean—humic acids, suspended debris, and living organisms. Red water (usually in coastal areas) is created by an abundance of algae or plankton near the surface of the water. In open waters, compar-atively free from debris and the environmental effect of humans, the ocean usually appears to be blue.
Submitted by Jim Albert, of Cary, North Carolina.
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Why Don’t Kitchen Sinks Have an Overflow Mechanism?
That little hole on the inside near the top of your bathroom sink or that little doohickey near your bathtub faucet is known in the plumbing trade as the “overflow.” Its sole purpose is to prevent un-necessary spills when forgetful users leave water flowing unattended.
Most bathtubs and bathroom sinks have such safety features, but we have never encountered a kitchen sink that did. Is there a logical reason?
Yep. Three, at least.
1. Most kitchen sinks, especially in homes, are actually double sinks. The divider between the double sinks is markedly lower than the level that would cause an overflow. Thus, excess 214 / DAVID FELDMAN
water in one of the sinks is automatically routed to the other side.
2. The kitchen sink is less likely than bathroom basins to go unattended for long periods of time. Because it takes so long to fill a bathtub, many a potential bather has answered the telephone, reached out and touched someone, and found much to his consterna-tion that overflow mechanisms in bathtubs are far from infallible.
3. Perhaps the most important reason: kitchen sinks are usually made out of hard cast-iron surfaces, which tend to accumulate germs and fats more easily than china bathtubs, for example. Most kitchen overflows become quickly clogged, not only defeating the purpose of overflows, but creating unsanitary conditions.
Robert Seaman, the retired marketing manager of American Standard, told Imponderables that there is a current movement in the plumbing industry away from putting overflows into bathroom sinks. Germs can breed and spread inside overflows, and most get clogged eventually anyway. Many localities, however, have code requirements that mandate overflows in all lavatory sinks, where they are likely to remain until these codes are relaxed.
Submitted by Merrill Perlman, of New York, New York.
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Why Do You Have to Dry-Clean Raincoats?
Actually, the majority of raincoats are washable. If the label indicates that a raincoat must be dry-cleaned, one or more components or fabrics of the coat are not washable. The most common offenders: linings (especially acetate linings), buttons, most wools, pile, satins, rubber, and canvas.
Most laymen assume that the care label instructions for rainwear refer to the effect of cleaning on water repellency. Actually, the water-resistant chemicals with which raincoats are treated are partially removed by both washing and dry-cleaning. Strangely, washing is easier on water repellency than dry-cleaning, as long as the detergent is completely removed through extra rinse cycles. According to Londontown Corp., makers of London Fog raincoats, the “worst enemies of water-repellent
216 / DAVID FELDMAN
fabrics are (in this order) soil, detergents, and solvents.” Dirt damages water repellency far more than cleaning, and stains tend to stick to raincoats if not eliminated right away.
Some of the solvents that dry cleaners use are destructive to water repellency. Before the original energy crisis, most dry-cleaning solvents were oil-based and were relatively benign to raincoats.
/> When the price of oil-based solvents soared, the dry cleaning industry turned to the synthetic perchloroethylene, which can contaminate water-repellent fabrics. Michael Hubsmith, of London Fog, said that if dry cleaners would rerinse garments in a clear solvent after dry-cleaning, the problem would go away. Likewise, if dry cleaners used clean dry-cleaning solution every time they treated a new batch of clothes, raincoats would retain their water repellency. But dry cleaners are as likely to blow the money for new solvent for every load as a greasy spoon is to use new oil for every batch of french fries.
Fred Shippee, of the American Apparel Manufacturers Association, adds that for many garments, clothing manufacturers have a choice of recommending either or both cleaning methods. Shippee speculates that some manufacturers might tend to favor dry-cleaning over washing for reasons of appearance. A washed raincoat needs touching up. A dry-cleaned, pressed raincoat looks great. When people like the way their garments look, they are likely to buy the same brand again.
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What Is the Purpose of the White Half-Moons on the Bases of Our Fingernails and Toenails? And Why Don’t They Grow Out with the Nails?
Those white moons are called lunulae. The lunula is the only visible portion of the nail matrix, which produces the nail itself. The matrix (and the lunulae) never moves, but new nails continually push forward, away from the matrix.
Why does a lunula appear white? Dermatologist Harry Arnold explains:
The nail beds distal to the lunulae look pink because capillaries with blood in them immediately underlie the nail plate. The lunulae look white because the thin, modified epidermis of the nail bed is three or four times thicker there, being the busy factory where nail plate is manufactured. The lunula is avascular [without blood vessels], so it looks white.
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