When Do Fish Sleep?

by David Feldman

  Why don’t astronomical telescopes use erector lenses? For the answer, we return to Jeff Kanipe:

  Most astronomical objects are very faint, which is why telescopes with larger apertures are constantly being proposed: Large lenses and mirrors gather more light than small ones. Astronomers need every scrap of light they can get, and it is for this reason that the image orientation of astronomical telescopes are not corrected. Each glass surface the light ray encounters reflects or absorbs about four percent of the total incoming light. Thus if the light ray encounters four glass components, about sixteen percent of the light is lost. This is a significant amount when you’re talking about gathering the precious photons of objects that are thousands of times fainter than the human eye can detect. Introducing an erector into the optical system, though it would terrestrially orient the image, would waste light. We can afford to be wasteful when looking at bright objects on the earth but not at distant, faint galaxies in the universe.

  And even if the lost light and added expense of erector prisms weren’t a factor, every astronomer we contacted was quick to mention an important point: There IS no up or down in outer space.

  Submitted by William Debuvitz of Bernardsville, New Jersey.

  Why Are the Rolls or Bread Served on Airlines Almost Always Cold While Everything Else on the Tray Is Served at the Appropriate Temperature?

  We won’t even comment on the taste of airline food (this is a family book). But if McDonald’s can separate the cold from the hot on a McDLT sandwich, why can’t the airlines get their rolls within about 50 degrees of the right temperature?

  The answer lies in how airline meals are prepared aloft. The salad, bread, and dessert are placed on trays that are usually refrigerated or packed in ice. Entrees are loaded onto separate baking sheets. When it is time to start the meal service, the flight attendant who prepares the meals simply sticks the trays of entrees into ovens (not, by the way, microwaves).

  The rolls are cold because they have been sitting all along with the salad and cake. Most airlines offer customers a choice of entrees. The flight attendant who is serving the meal simply selects the entree from the sheets they were cooked in and places it alongside the rest of the meal. Except for the entree choice, every flier’s tray will look identical. Note that although most airlines vary the vegetable according to the entree, the vegetable is always cooked on the same plate as the main course because the entree plate will be the only heated element on the tray.

  If the bread and salad taste cold, why doesn’t the dessert? Airlines, almost without exception, serve cake for dessert. Michael Marchant, vice president of Ogden Allied Aviation Services and the president of the Inflight Food Service Association, told Imponderables that the softness of cake fools us into thinking it is being served at room temperature. The gustatory illusion is maintained because in contrast to the roll’s hard crust, which locks in the coldness, the soft frosting of a cake dissipates the cold.

  The folks in first class, meanwhile, are munching warm rolls, which have been heated. Certainly it is worth an extra five hundred dollars or so to get heated rolls, isn’t it?

  Why Do Chickens and Turkeys, Unlike Other Fowl, Have White Meat and Dark Meat?

  Other birds that we eat, such as quail, duck, or pigeon, have all dark meat. Chickens and turkeys are among a small group of birds with white flesh on the breasts and wings.

  Birds have two types of muscle fibers: red and white. Red muscle fibers contain more myoglobin, a muscle protein with a red pigment. Muscles with a high amount of myoglobin are capable of much longer periods of work and stress than white fibers. Thus, you can guess which birds are likely to have light fibers by studying their feeding and migration patterns.

  Most birds have to fly long distances to migrate or to find food, and they need the endurance that myoglobin provides. All birds that appear to have all white flesh actually have some red fibers, and with one exception, all birds that appear to be all dark have white fibers. But the hummingbird, which rarely stops flying, has pectoral muscles consisting entirely of red fibers because the pectoral muscles enable the wings to flap continuously.

  The domestic chicken or turkey, on the other hand, lives the life of Riley. Even in their native habitat, according to Dr. Phil Hudspeth, vice president of Quality and Research at Holly Farms, chickens are ground feeders and fly only when nesting. Ordinarily, chickens move around by walking or running, which is why only their legs and thighs are dark. They fly so little that their wings and breasts don’t need myoglobin. In fact, the lack of myoglobin in the wing and breast are an anatomical advantage. Janet Hinshaw, of the Wilson Ornithological Society, explains why chicken and turkey musculature is perfectly appropriate:

  They spend most of their time walking. When danger threatens they fly in a burst of speed for a short distance and then land. Thus they need flight muscles which deliver a lot of power quickly but for a short time.

  Next time you fork up an extra fifty cents for that order of all-white meat chicken, remember that you are likely paying to eat a bird that racked up fewer trips in the air than you have in an airplane.

  Submitted by Margaret Sloane of Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Thanks also to Sara Sickle of Perryopolis, Pennsylvania; and Annalisa Weaver of Davis, California.

  Why Haven’t Vending Machines Ever Accepted Pennies?

  In the second half of the twentieth century, when a child is more likely to think that penny candy is the name of a cartoon character rather than the actual price of a confection, it is hard to believe that in the early days of vending machines the industry would have loved to be able to accept pennies. When a candy bar cost five cents, vendors undoubtedly lost many sales when frustrated kids could produce five pennies but not one nickel. Now, when a candy bar might cost half a dollar, payment in fifty pennies might clog a receptacle. But why didn’t vending machines ever accept pennies? We spoke to Walter Reed, of the National Automatic Merchandising Association, who told us about the fascinating history of this Imponderable.

  The vending machine industry has always been plagued by enterprising criminals who inserted slugs or relatively worthless foreign coins into machines in the time-honored tradition of trying to get something for nothing. In the 1930s, a slug rejector was invented that could differentiate U.S. coinage from Mexican centavos of the same size. The slug rejector worked by determining the metallic content of the coin. Although the slug rejector could easily differentiate between silver or nickel and a slug, it couldn’t tell the difference between a worthless token and the copper in a penny. For this reason, vendors hesitated to accept pennies in the machines.

  The slug rejectors of today are much more sophisticated, measuring the serration of the coin, its circumference, its thickness, and the presence of any holes. Whereas the 1930s slug rejector was electromagnetic, current rejectors perform tests electronically.

  The vending machine industry was instrumental in pushing for the clad-metal coins that were introduced in 1965. Since that year our quarter, for example, which used to be made of silver, now has a center layer of copper surrounded by an outer layer of copper and nickel. The copper-nickel combination reacts to the electronic sensors in vending machine rejectors much like silver. The government also loves the clad coins because the constituent metals are so much cheaper to buy.

  Except in gumball machines, the vending machine industry has never accepted pennies, although they once gave pennies away to consumers. In the late 1950s, a cigarette tax was imposed that drove the retail price of cigarettes a few cents above its long-held thirty-five-cent price. Stores simply charged thirty-seven cents, but vending machines couldn’t, for they were not equipped to return pennies.

  Vendors had to decide whether to keep charging thirty-five cents and absorb the loss of the two cents on every pack, or charge forty cents and risk loss of sales when grocery stores could undercut them by 10%. So they compromised. Vending machines charged forty cents a pack, but pennies were placed in the pack to restore equity t
o the consumer.

  Submitted by Fred T. Beeman of Wailuku, Hawaii.

  Now that Most Products Sold in Vending Machines Sell for Fifty Cents or More, Why Don’t Most Vending Machines Accept Half Dollars or Dollar Bills?

  The problem with the half dollar is that the public does not carry it in its pocket. Half dollars are too bulky and heavy. Allowing half dollars would necessitate increasing the size of coin slots in the machines.

  The American public loves quarters. Unfortunately, studies have shown that people resist putting in more than two coins in vending machines. And two quarters aren’t enough to buy even a soft drink anymore.

  So isn’t the dollar bill acceptor the panacea? The technology exists to accept dollar bills in vending machines, but the same hassles that plague the consumer using dollar-bill changers are also a nightmare for the vendor. Bills must be placed in the proper position to be accepted. Worn or slightly torn bills are rejected routinely even though they are perfectly legal tender. And worst of all, dollar bills can’t be counted easily by machine. The labor involved in counting paper money is not insignificant.

  The vending machine industry lusts after the resuscitation of the silver dollar. Frustrated by the unpopularity of the Susan B. Anthony dollar, trade groups are now pushing for a new gold-colored dollar with a portrait of Christopher Columbus on the obverse. The Treasury supports the proposal, for although coins are more expensive to manufacture than bills, they last much longer in circulation. Walter Reed points out that no other industrialized nation has an equivalent of a one dollar bill in paper currency anymore. The Canadians were the last to fall, with the Looney dollar, the same size as the ill-fated Susan B. Anthony, replacing their dollar bill.

  Why Is a Blue Ribbon Used to Designate First Prize?

  Most sources we contacted give credit to the English for introducing the blue ribbon. In 1348, King Edward III of England established the Order of the Garter, now considered one of the highest orders in the world. Ribbons had traditionally been used as a badge of knighthood. Members of the Order of the Garter were distinguished by wearing their dark blue ribbon on their hip.

  A second theory presented by S. G. Yasinitsky, of the Orders and Medals Society of America, was new to us:

  Another version of the blue ribbon as meaning the highest achievement may have originated among British soldiers who practiced abstinence by belonging to the various army abstinence groups, especially in India, in the latter part of the nineteenth century. Their basic badge for the first six years’ total abstinence was a medal worn on a blue ribbon. Hence a ‘blue ribbon unit’ was one which was comprised of all men who were sporting a blue ribbon in their buttonhole to denote their sobriety. ‘Blue ribbon panel’ and ‘blue ribbon selection’ followed this, I’m sure.

  Yasinitsky and others have speculated that our ribbon color schemes might have had an astronomical basis. Blue, the highest award, represented the sky and the heavens, the highest point possible. Red (second prize) represented the sun, which was high up in the sky. Yellow (third prize) represented the stars, once thought to be lower than the sun. Yasinitsky mentions that runners-up in fairs and festivals are often given green ribbons as consolation prizes. The green color probably represents the lowly grass on the ground.

  What Is the “Cottage” in Cottage Cheese?

  Food historians speculate that cottage cheese was probably the first cheese. And it was undoubtedly made by accident. Some anonymous nomad was probably carrying milk on a camel in the desert and at the end of the day found lumps rather than liquid. And much to the nomad’s surprise, the lumps tasted pretty good.

  According to the United Dairy Industry Association, cottage cheese was made in the home all over Europe as far back as the Middle Ages. “It was called ‘cottage’ because farmers made the cheese in their own cottages to utilize the milk remaining after the cream had been skimmed from it for buttermaking.”

  Submitted by Mrs. K. E. Kirtley of Eureka, California.

  Why Are There So Many Ads for the Yellow Pages in the Yellow Pages?

  Yellow Pages publishers are smart enough to realize that if you’ve got a copy of their directory in your grubby hands, you already are convinced of the efficacy of their medium. So why must they pummel us with promotional ads? Phone companies make profits from their directories by selling advertising space—you would think they’d rather have a local plumber buy a small display ad than toot their own horns.

  The simple purpose of the promotional ads is to fill space between paid ads. Kenneth Hudnall, executive director of the National Yellow Pages Agency Association, explains why there is a need for filler:

  Mechanically, the composition of the Yellow Pages is quite involved. For a variety of reasons there will be small bits of space left at the bottom of a column of listings or between display advertisements. Rather than leave this space blank, the publishers will throw in “justifiers” to fill up the space. And what is more natural than to put promotional copy for Yellow Pages in this space?

  If all advertisements in the Yellow Pages were the same size, it would be easy for designers to lay out the directory without need for filler. But the ads, whether listings or display, come in all different sizes. A catering company won’t want its advertisement stranded alone when all the other caterers in town are listed on the two pages before. Justifiers, then, have been a way to make the life of the designer easier and soothe the complaints of advertisers about the placement of their display ads.

  One man, Arnie Nelson, had the kind of brilliant idea that can make fortunes: Why should Yellow Pages publishers “waste” the filler space when they could sell advertising in it? Nelson founded a company called Yellow Spots, Inc., whose purpose is to sell small-space display advertising to companies who traditionally do not advertise at all in the Yellow Pages.

  According to Nelson and Yellow Spots executive Gabe Samuels, initially there was some resistance from the regional phone companies to giving Yellow Spots an exclusive right to sell display ads. But Yellow Spots mustered some strong arguments to convince them, the most compelling one economic: it would provide a windfall. According to Yellow Spots, anywhere from 6 to 20% of the Yellow Pages consist of filler. Adding 5 or 10% more to gross revenues through new display ads would be most profitable.

  Some of the publishers were also reluctant to introduce a new type of advertising into a medium that had thrived without it for more than a hundred years. Nelson and Samuels argued that the Yellow Pages were actually used more by consumers as an information source, a magazine, rather than as an advertising medium. The editorial matter of the Yellow Pages Magazine are the directory listings. Yellow Spots would deliver the advertising, billboard ads without addresses or phone numbers. The ads that Yellow Spots would solicit were designed to promote a product rather than tell consumers where to buy it, thus not alienating Yellow Pages’ traditional retail clients.

  Yellow Spots’ second obstacle was to convince corporations, mostly big, national advertisers, to promote their companies in a medium that had heretofore not been considered. There had never been a category in the Yellow Pages that would allow Coca-Cola to promote the image of its beverage, although local bottlers or distributors might have had their addresses and phone numbers printed.

  So how did Yellow Spots attract national advertisers and have the temerity to ask up to $8 million from one potential client? They touted the unique advertising climate that the Yellow Pages presents:

  The circulation of all the Yellow Pages directories in the United States is about 100 million, 10 million more than there are homes in America. The Yellow Pages, of course, is usually used by more than one person.

  50% of all customer references to the Yellow Pages result in a sale.

  18% of all adults use the Yellow Pages at least once on any given day (and they average one and one-half uses per day). This is the equivalent of a rating of 18 on TV, emblematic of a successful show.

  Advertisers operate in a nonhostile environment in the
Yellow Pages. Whereas the clutter of TV commercials is a bone of contention among viewers, users of the Yellow Pages do not feel oppressed by the number of ads. In a recent survey, 65% of Americans surveyed felt the number of ads in the Yellow Pages were “just about right”; 18% said they wished there were more ads; and only 8% complained there were too many ads.

  Yellow Pages are kept in the home all year long and, in many cases, much longer. Magazines—even those passed around within a family—tend to be thrown out within weeks.

  Yellow Spots has already signed up Budget car and truck rentals and Sears Discovery card as major accounts, with others soon to follow. Although we admire the ingenuity of Yellow Spots, we’re glad that the homely graphics of the promotional fillers won’t totally disappear. Even Nelson and Samuels concede that they’ll never take over all of the possible remnant space. They will be quite content with about 50 to 60% of it, thank you.

  Submitted by Calvin Wong of Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

  Why Is Flour Bleached?