Are Lobsters Ambidextrous? (28 page)

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 is 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.

Maino says that her company knows of no “English muffins” that are marketed in England today, but “We have learned that a product very similar to our Thomas’ English Muffins did exist in England until about 1920.” Why an item would fade in popularity in England while gaining popularity in the United States is anybody’s guess. An explanation of the gustatory preferences
of the English—a culture that deems baked beans on white toast a splendid meal—would require an exegesis far beyond our mortal powers.

 

Submitted by Rosemary Bosco of Bronx, New York
.

 

What
are those beanbaglike packs found inside electronics boxes that warn, “
DO NOT EAT
”?

We’ve always thought that instead of having “
DO NOT EAT
” plastered on them, a little self-disclosure would help. Why not identify what is inside? (Come to think of it, what is inside regular beanbags?) Most of us don’t go around eating beanbags, after all.

It didn’t take much digging around to find out that inside those packets is silica gel. Silica is the dioxide of silicon. (Did you know that there is more silicon in nature than any other element except oxygen? You do now.) The “gel” part of the equation is a little more puzzling, since the stuff inside the bag is actually in the form of crystals, but heck, we’re not purists.

The sole purpose of the silica gel packet is to absorb moisture (silica gel’s most common industrial use is as a drying agent in air conditioning equipment) and help keep your electronic gear in top shape. So that it can fall apart, dependably, the day after your warranty runs out.

Randy Acorcey, of Diversified Electronics Corporation, told
Imponderables
that silica gel isn’t used much by American manufacturers. Most often, you will find them inside boxes of goods manufactured in the Far East, because the merchandise is shipped by boat, where it can be exposed to high humidity (and in some cases, water) for weeks.

 

Submitted by Megan Baynes of Richmond, Virginia. Thanks also to Mary Warneka of Perry, Ohio
.

 

What
is the purpose of the sign “
THIS DOOR TO REMAIN UNLOCKED DURING BUSINESS HOURS
” found atop many doors in retail establishments?

This sign, long present on the West Coast, is spreading throughout the United States. Surprisingly, most of the retail trade associations and architects we consulted didn’t understand its purpose. The signs never made much sense to us, since they are often placed aside clearly marked
EXIT
signs.

The key phrase in the sign, for our purposes, is “business hours.” Fire codes specify how many exits are required for each business during operating hours. The required number of exits, and the width of those exits, are based upon the hypothetical stress created by an emergency when the place of business is at maximum occupancy.

But what about when the business is closed and a few employees are working inside? Does a K Mart store have to open every fire exit while a skeleton crew is conducting inventory? Absolutely not. Bruce Hisley, of the National Fire Academy, said that in many localities, doors that are ordinarily used as exits can be locked when only employees are present if the door is marked with these signs. The sign serves as a reminder to store owners and managers to unlock the doors when the store opens.

Mike Fisher, vice-president of sales and marketing at door manufacturer Besam, Inc., told
Imponderables
that these signs are also a reminder to the public to remember their rights. If a door sporting this sign is closed when you are in the store, blow the whistle—unless you are an employee doing inventory, of course.

 

Submitted by Bryan J. Cooper of Ontario, Oregon. Thanks also to Derek King of Huntington Beach, California
.

 

What
causes the clicking sound inside a car when you put your turn signal on? Why don’t some turn signals make that clicking noise?

The mechanics of the turn signal are simple. Frederick Heiler, public relations manager for Mercedes-Benz of North America, explains the technology:

 

The electrical current to make turn signals blink usually comes from a relay—a small box enclosing an electromagnetic switch. Whenever the electromagnet is energized, it mechanically pulls together a pair of contacts, sending a pulse of current to the signal lights and, at the same time, making a clicking sound.

 

Why do some cars not have clicking turn signals? It’s all up to the manufacturer. Most car makers choose to make the clicking noise loud and obvious just in case the driver leaves the turn signal on unintentionally.

What’s the big deal if the turn signal is left on too long? If a pedestrian is thinking of jaywalking and sees an oncoming car signaling for a right turn, the pedestrian is lulled into a false sense of security. Oncoming cars and pedestrians often make their decisions about when to proceed based on turn signals, and a little gratuitous clicking is a small price to pay for added safety.

 

Submitted by Michele Al-Khal of Allentown, Pennsylvania
.

 

Why
is there a white paper band around the envelopes in a box of greeting or Christmas cards and not the cards themselves?

Would you be shaken to your core to find out that the band exists for the manufacturer’s benefit, not yours? We got this less than startling response from Hallmark spokesperson Barbara Meyer:

 

The white paper bands are put around our envelopes to speed up the packaging process. It is much more efficient to work with one bundle of envelopes instead of 20 or 21 single ones. The reason a band is not put around the cards is because damage to the cards could occur in this process of banding.

 

Gibson Greetings doesn’t use a band around their envelopes, but Sherry Enzweiler, manager of their Fall Seasons division, says that

 

many card companies buy envelopes from outside vendors already counted out and banded. They are then placed in the box, precounted and banded, by an assembly line worker.

 

Submitted by Rev. Ken Vogler of Jeffersonville, Indiana
.

 

Where
do computer files and programs go when they are erased?

Not to heaven. Not to hell. Not to Silicon Valley. Not even to Dubuque. For the sad story is that deleted files go nowhere at all. David Maier, professor at the Oregon Graduate Institute of Science & Technology’s department of computer science and engineering, elucidates:

 

The bits and bytes representing the programs and files on the computer disk are generally unchanged immediately after an erase (or delete) command. What changes is the
directory
on the disk. The directory is a list of the names of all the files and programs on the disk, plus a pointer to the portion of the disk where the contents of the file or program are actually stored. When you issue an erase command, all it generally does is to remove the file or program name from the directory and to record elsewhere that
the storage space on the disk formerly used for the file or program is now “free”—that is, available for reuse.

 

The mechanism for changing the directory is amazingly simple. Although the deleted files remain on the disk, programmer Larry Whitish told
Imponderables
that the first letter of the file name is deleted and replaced with a symbol that looks like “
,” (ASCII character number 229):

 

This signals the computer that the disk space the files occupied is available for use by new files and programs and simply ignores their existence…

When new files are copied to or created on a disk, they seek the first available space not being used to begin writing their data. If this space is occupied by a file that has been erased, then kiss your old file goodbye! The old file will be overwritten by the new file.

Erased files and programs can be recovered easily
if they have not been overwritten
. A program like the Norton Utilities can restore these files simply by replacing the symbol “
” in their name with any letter of the alphabet.