When Do Fish Sleep? Part 14

Even more difficult than relaying track was the task of refitting the rolling stock. Locomotives and cars were dragged into shops all along their routes. Harlow mentions that although the companies tried to return cars to their home lines for conversion, the logistics were a nightmare. Usually cars were converted wherever they were when the tracks were remodeled. Sufficient numbers of new workers had to be hired temporarily to have crews working twenty-four hours a day resetting locomotive truck wheels, removing the tires from truck wheels, and resetting them for the standard gauge.

A few gauges with oddball widths survived into the twentieth century, mostly in New England and the Pacific Northwest, but they were anomalies. The United States eventually rejected the "new and improved" and returned to the standard gauge of the English.

Why Is the Bathtub Drain Right Below the Faucet? Why Isn't the Bathtub Drain on the Opposite Side of the Bathtub from the Faucet?

"Wouldn't this configuration be easier for rinsing purposes?" asks our correspondent Pam Lebo. No doubt it would, but there are plenty of reasons why the plumbing industry is going to continue to make you and the makers of Woolite unhappy.

Now hard as it may be to believe, some people actually use the bathtub for bathing. These heathens would not appreciate having to sit on the drain (or for that matter, having the spigot clawing at their backs). John Laughton, of American Standard, raises another legitimate objection: A dripping faucet in Pam's configuration would cause a stain on the whole length of the bathtub.

Your dream configuration would have other practical drawbacks. Peter J. Fetterer, of Kohler Company, explains why: The bathtub drain is generally at the same location as the water supply because of the piping required for both. Drains and supplies run through buildings in plumbing chases, vertical s.p.a.ces for pipes that move water from floor to floor. Drains are attached to vent pipes that run through the chases and vent to the outside of a structure. These chases use up living s.p.a.ce and are kept to a minimum for economic reasons.

So must we resign ourselves to a lifetime of boring bathtubs? Not necessarily. Pam's configuration might attract some who take only showers, but it will probably never be popular. However, American Standard has created a bathtub that presents interesting possibilities for extracurricular activities besides rinsing. Their avant garde bathtub places both the faucet and the drain halfway along the bath with, offers John Laughton, "a back slope at both ends so that two could bathe together in comfort and save water." Save water. Sure, Mr. Laughton.

Submitted by Pam Lebo of Glen Burnie, Maryland.

Do Fish Sleep? If So, When Do Fish Sleep?

Our trusty Webster's New World Dictionary defines sleep as "a natural, regularly recurring condition of rest for the body and mind, during which the eyes are usually closed and there is little or no conscious thought or voluntary movement." Those strategically placed little weasel words we have italicized make it hard for us to give you a yes or no answer to this mystery. So as much as we want to present you with a tidy solution to our t.i.tle Imponderable, we feel you deserve the hard truth.

Webster probably didn't have fish in mind when he wrote this definition of "sleep." First of all, except for elasmobranchs (fish with cartilaginous skeletons, such as sharks and rays), fish don't have eyelids. So they can't very well close them to sleep. No fish has opaque eyelids that block out vision, but some have a transparent membrane that protects their eyes from irritants.

Pelagic fish (who live in the open sea, as opposed to coasts), such as tuna, bluefish, and marlins, never stop swimming. Jane Fonda would be proud. Even coastal fish, who catch a wink or two, do not fall asleep in the same way humans do. Gerry Carr, director of Species Research for the International Game Fish a.s.sociation, wrote us about some of the ingenious ways that fish try to catch a few winks, even if forty winks are an elusive dream: Some reef fishes simply become inactive and hover around like they're sleeping, but they are still acutely aware of danger approaching. Others, like some parrot fishes and wra.s.ses, exude a mucus membrane at night that completely covers their body as though they've been placed in baggies. They wedge themselves into a crevice in the reef, bag themselves, and remain there, semicomatose, through the night. Their eyes remain open, but a scuba diver can approach them and, if careful, even pick them up at night, as I have done. A sudden flurry of movement, though, will send them scurrying. They are not totally unaware of danger.

In many ways, fish sleep the same way we plod through our everyday lives when we are awake. Our eyes are open but we choose, unconsciously, not to register in our brains most of the sensory data we see. A fish sleeping is in a state similar to the poor fish depicted watching the slide show in Ka.s.sie Schwan's ill.u.s.tration. We stare at the screen with our eyes open, but our minds turn to mush. If a crazed a.s.sa.s.sin burst into the room, we could rouse ourselves to attention, but if someone asked us to describe what fabulous tourist attraction we were watching, we couldn't say whether it was Stonehenge or the Blarney Stone.

If you accept that a fish's blanking out is sleeping, then the answer to the second part of the mystery is that fish sleep at night, presumably because of the darkness. Anyone with an aquarium can see that fish can float effortlessly while sleeping. They exude grace-which is more than we can say for how most humans look when they are sleeping.

Submitted by Karole Rathouz of Mehlville, Missouri. Thanks also to Cindy and Sandor Keri of Woodstock, Georgia; and Heather Bowser of Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Why Do We Seem to Feel Worse at Night When We Have a Cold?

For the same reason that your feet swell up and hurt after a long day standing up. To quote Dr. Ernst Zander, of Winthrop Consumer Products: Nasal obstruction, produced by a great variety of conditions, usually seems worse to a patient when he is lying down. This is because tissue fluids and blood tend to pool in the head more when he is rec.u.mbent than when he is standing.

Of course, one is generally more likely to feel tired and worn out at night. But the doctors who Imponderables consulted indicated that reclining for long periods of time will worsen symptoms-one reason why often we feel lousy despite the "luxury" of being able to lie in bed all day long when we are sick.

Why Do Many Dry Cleaning Stores Advertise Themselves as "French" Dry Cleaners? Is There Any Difference Between a French Dry Cleaner and a Regular Dry Cleaner?

To answer the last part of this Imponderable first, there is a BIG difference between a French dry cleaner and a regular dry cleaner: about one dollar per garment.

Sure, some justification exists for calling any dry cleaning establishment "French." Dry cleaning was supposedly discovered in the 1830s by one Jolie Belin, a Frenchman who reputedly tipped over a kerosene lamp on a soiled tablecloth and found that the oil eliminated the stains. The story of Jolie Belin might be apocryphal, but dry cleaning definitely started in France.

Most Yankees are so cowed by the image of anyone who can speak French and order fancy wines in restaurants that we not only entrust our best clothing to them but are willing to pay extra for the artistry of the French dry cleaner.

We conveniently forget, though, that the owner of the French dry cleaning store is as likely to be j.a.panese as French. And the French dry cleaner is unlikely to tell you that there is absolutely no difference between the way he and the One Hour Martinizing store down the block cleans your clothes.

Submitted by Mrs. Shirley Keller of Great Neck, New York.

Why Do Kellogg's Rice Krispies "Snap! Crackle! and Pop!"?

Kellogg's Rice Krispies have snapped, crackled, and popped since 1928. Kellogg's production and cooking process explains the unique sound effects.

Milled rice, from which the bran and germ have been removed, is combined with malt flavoring, salt, sugar, vitamins, and minerals and then steamed in a rotating cooker. The rice, now cooked, is left to dry and temper (i.e., sit while the moisture equalizes). The rice is then flattened and flaked as it pa.s.ses through two cylindrical steel rollers. The Krispies are left to dry and temper for several more hours.

The cereal then moves to a toasting oven. The flattened rice is now exposed to hot air that puffs each kernel to several times its original size and toasts it to a crisp consistency. This hot air produces tiny air bubbles in each puff, crucial in creating the texture of Rice Krispies and their unique sound in the bowl.

When milk is added to the prepared cereal, the liquid is unevenly absorbed by the puffs, causing a swelling of the starch structure. According to Kellogg's, "This swelling places a strain on the remaining crisp portion, breaking down some of the starch structure and producing the famous 'Snap! Crackle! and Pop!'"

Submitted by Kevin Madden of Annandale, New Jersey.

Why Do So Many Cough Medicines Contain Alcohol?

No, the alcohol isn't there to make you forget the taste of the cough medicine. Nothing could do that.

Some drugs don't mix well with water. Alcohol is the best subst.i.tute. Although the alcohol may help some people sleep, the alcohol in the recommended doses of most cough medicines isn't high enough to affect the average person (one teaspoon has less than 10% the alcohol of a shot of whiskey).

Why Do Letters Sent First Cla.s.s Usually Arrive at Their Destination Sooner than Packages Sent by Priority Mail?

When we send a package through the United States Postal System, we have alternatives. We can send them third cla.s.s (and for certain goods, fourth cla.s.s) for considerably less than Priority Mail, the package equivalent of first-cla.s.s mail. But our experience is that packages invariably take longer to arrive. So we asked the USPS why. Their answers: Packages are canceled and processed by hand. Almost all letters are canceled and processed by machines. Letters are sorted by OCR (Optical Character Reader) machines capable of processing up to thirty thousand letters in one hour. These machines "read" the last line of the address and sort the envelopes by zip code. Even if the OCRs can't read a letter, another machine helps humans to do so. The letter is transferred to an LSM (Letter Sorting Machine), which pops up a letter one second at a time before a postal worker who routes the letter to the proper zip code.

Samuel Klein, public affairs officer of the United States Postal Service, says that if a package is larger than a shoe box or weighs more than two pounds, it must be delivered by a parcel-post truck, which also carries nonpriority packages.

Postal workers inadvertently treat Priority Mail as fourth-cla.s.s mail. Dianne V. Patterson, of the Office of Consumer Affairs of the USPS, warns that "If the Priority Mail or First-Cla.s.s stamps or stickers are not prominently placed on the parcel, it stands a good chance of being treated as fourth-cla.s.s mail."

It isn't hard to understand the tremendous logistical difficulties in delivering mail across a large country, or even why mail might be delivered more slowly than we would like. But it is hard to understand exactly how the post office discriminates between processing a first-cla.s.s and a fourth-cla.s.s delivery. In the days when airmail was a premium service and fourth-cla.s.s mail was transported by rail, we understood the distinction. But are postal workers now encouraged to malinger when processing fourth-cla.s.s mail? Are they taught to let it sit around delivery stations for a few days so as not to encourage customers to use the slower service?

Despite our grumbling, we've found the USPS to be dependable in delivering all the free books we sent out to Imponderables posers. But we'll share a nasty secret. The books we send out at Special Fourth Cla.s.s (book rate) seem to arrive no later than the books we send by the costlier Priority Mail.

Why Isn't There a Holiday to Commemorate the End of the Civil War?

Reader Daniel Marcus, who sent in this Imponderable, stated the mystery well: We observe a national holiday to commemorate the end of World War I on November 11 [Veteran's Day], and newspapers always note the anniversaries of V-E and V-J Days regarding the end of World War II. The Revolutionary War is honored, of course, on July 4. Why isn't there a national holiday to celebrate the end of the Civil War, the second most important and only all-American war in our history?

Good question, Daniel, but one that a.s.sumes a false premise. Memorial Day (also known as Decoration Day), celebrated on the last Monday of May, now honors the dead servicemen and servicewomen of all wars. But originally it honored the Civil War dead.

In his book Celebrations, historian Robert J. Myers credits Henry C. Welles, a druggist in Waterloo, New York, for originating the idea of decorating the graves of dead Civil War veterans in 1866. Originally the holiday was celebrated on May 5, when townspeople would lay flowers on the servicemen's graves.

John A. Logan, commander in chief of the Grand Army of the Republic (a veterans' support group), declared in 1868 that Decoration Day should be observed throughout the country. New York State was the first to make the day a legal holiday in 1873. Although Memorial Day never officially became a national holiday, it is celebrated in almost every state on the last Monday in May.

As with most holidays, the average person does not necessarily celebrate the occasion with the solemnity the founders of the holiday envisioned. In his study of the Civil War era, The Expansion of Everyday Life, 1860-1878, historian Daniel E. Sutherland notes that the new Memorial Day conveniently filled the void left by the declining popularity of George Washington's birthday: "Bra.s.s bands, picnic lunches, baseball games, and general merrymaking soon attached themselves to the new holiday, as it became as much a celebration of spring as a commemoration of the nation's honored dead." Today, the holiday is more often viewed as a kickoff to summertime than a serious tribute to the war dead.

Southerners, as might be expected, didn't particularly cotton to the concept of the northerner's Memorial Day. They countered with Confederate memorial days to honor their casualties, and many southern states still observe these holidays today. Florida and Georgia's Confederate Memorial Day is April 26; and Alabama and Mississippi celebrate on the last Monday of April. Not coincidentally, the president of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis, was born on June 3. Kentucky and Louisiana celebrate the day as a state holiday.

Submitted by Daniel Marcus of Watertown, Ma.s.sachusetts.

Is It True that Permanents Don't Work Effectively on Pregnant Women?

No, it isn't true, despite the fact that our correspondent has been told that it is true by her hairdressers. And you are not alone; we have been asked this Imponderable many times.

Everett G. McDonough, Ph.D., senior vice president of Zotos International, Inc., is one of the pioneers of permanent waving (he has worked at Zotos since 1927), and he is emphatic. He has seen or read the results of fifty thousand to one-hundred thousand perms given in the Zotos laboratory over the past sixty years. He has never seen the slightest evidence that pregnancy has any effect on permanent waving. And for good reason: a hair fibre after it emerges from the skin has no biological activity. Whether it remains attached to the scalp or is cut off, its chemical composition will remain the same. In either case the chemical composition can be altered only by some external means.

Louise Cotter, consultant to the National Cosmetology a.s.sociation, reiterated McDonough's position and explained how a permanent wave actually works.

A hair is held together by a protein helix consisting of salt, hydrogen, and disulphide bonds. The words "permanent wave" refer to the chemical change that takes place when those bonds are broken by a reducing agent having a pH of 9.2. The hair, when sufficiently softened, is re-bonded (neutralized) with a solution having a pH of 7.0-7.9. This causes the hair to take the shape of the circular rod on which it is wound, creating full circle curls or a wave pattern, depending upon the size and shape of the rod.

Although Cotter says that poor blood circulation, emotional disturbances, malfunctioning endocrine glands, and certain drugs may adversely affect the health of hair, none of these factors should alter the effectiveness of a perm on a pregnant woman. Pregnancy isn't an illness, and none of these four factors is more likely in pregnant women. Even if a pregnant woman takes hor mones that could conceivably affect the results of a perm, a cosmetologist can easily compensate for the problem.

John Jay, president of Intercoiffure, answers this Imponderable simply: I have never had a permanent-wave failure due to pregnancy. Should failure occur for whatever reason, pregnancy may be the most convenient excuse available to some hairdressers.

Submitted by Jeri Bitney of Sh.e.l.l Lake, Wisconsin.

Why Do Some Escalator Rails Run at a Different Speed from the Steps Alongside Them?

The drive wheel that powers the steps in an escalator is attached to a wheel that runs the handrails. Because the steps and the rails run in a continuous loop, the descending halves of the stairs and handrails act as a counterweight to their respective ascending halves. The handrails, then, are totally friction-driven rather than motor-driven.

If the escalator is properly maintained, the handrail should move at the same speed as the steps. The handrails are meant to provide a stabilizing force for the pa.s.senger and are thus designed to move synchronously for safety reasons. Handrails that move slower than the accompanying steps are actually dangerous, for they give a pa.s.senger the impression that his feet are being swept in front of him. Richard Heistchel, of Schinder Elevator Company, informed Imponderables that handrails were once set to move slightly faster than the steps, because it was believed that pa.s.sengers forced to lean forward were less likely to fall down.

Submitted by John Garry, WTAE Radio, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Thanks also to Jon Blees of Sacramento, California; Robert A. Ciero, Sr. of Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania; and David Fuller of East Hartford, Connecticut.