The Wise Book of Whys (21 page)
Read The Wise Book of Whys Online
Authors: Daven Hiskey,Today I Found Out.com
Why It’s Nearly Impossible to Tickle Yourself
It’s very hard to tickle yourself because your brain anticipates things going on around you in order to help speed up response times
. More technically, the cerebellum monitors body movements and can also distinguish between expected sensations and unexpected ones, generally resulting in diminishing or completely discarding expected sensations, while paying much more attention to unexpected ones.
So your brain is actively anticipating touch sensations
. When it is doing this, it is also actively discarding sensations that it deems unimportant, like when you are typing and it significantly dulls the touch sensation in your fingertips so that you don't really notice it unless you consciously think about it. This same type of thing happens when you try to tickle yourself.
Researchers at University College London tested this by scanning the brains of subjects while the palms of their hands were touched by themselves and by experimenters
. The brain scans revealed that when the touch was externally produced the somatosensory cortex (involved in processing touch) and anterior cingulate (involved in processing pleasure) parts of the brain reacted much more strongly than when the touch was produced by the subjects themselves. In these latter cases, the brain was using information it had on hand, such as motor movements of the finger and arms to anticipate the touch.
Results from a different study showed that the same internal anticipated response applies when subjects manipulated a robot, which then in turn manipulated another robot to touch the subject's palms
. This was only true, however, when the associated touch from the second robot happened right away. When this happened, the cerebellum sends information on the sensation to expect to the somatosensory cortex. With this information, some yet unknown cortical mechanism is triggered that inhibits the tickling sensation from activating.
Interestingly
, if the subsequent robotic touch is time delayed, even delayed by as little as one-fifth of a second, the subjects felt stronger touch sensations, similar to when the touch was not self-produced.
I
n short, you can't usually tickle yourself because there is no element of surprise. Your brain is using the various internal sensory data it has available to anticipate exactly what is going to happen based on your movements and visual data. When the anticipated reaction and the actual reaction line up, your brain diminishes or even sometimes completely discards the sensation as a result of that action. On the other hand, when someone else is tickling you, there are unexpected sensations on the skin and these can result in the tickling sensation being activated.
Why Crackers Have Holes
It turns out the holes exist
for a reason, not just for decoration or for convenience in some manufacturing process, as one might expect. In actuality, without these holes, crackers wouldn't bake correctly. Holes allow steam to escape during cooking. This keeps the crackers flat, instead of rising like a normal biscuit as the steam tries to escape; these holes also help to properly crisp the crackers.
When crackers are made, dough is rolled flat in sheets
. These sheets then travel under a mechanism containing "docker" pins that put the holes in the dough. The positioning and number of holes vary depending on the size and shape of the cracker. If the holes are too close together, the cracker will be extra dry and hard, due to too much steam escaping. If the holes are too far apart, parts of the cracker will rise and form little bubbles on the surface of the cracker, which is undesirable in most types of crackers.
BONUS FACT
The name "cracker" for crackers was coined by cracker pioneer Josiah Bent in 1801,
supposedly
after he accidentally burned a batch of what we now call crackers. As the crackers burned, they made a crackling noise, which inspired him to name them as such. Bent was also the one who pioneered the cracker as a snack food, rather than just selling it for sailors’ rations as his competition were selling them for at the time. To make them popular as a snack food, he knew he'd have to improve on the flavor, so he experimented until he eventually came up with soda crackers, which were precursors to saltine crackers. By 1810, Bent's cracker business was incredibly successful, and the National Biscuit Company (Nabisco) eventually acquired it. Nabisco, using Bent's recipe, released the saltine cracker in 1876. Their slogan for this new cracker was "Polly wants a cracker?"
Why Movie Advertisement Clips are Called “Trailers”
The first movie trailers occurred, not at the beginning of films as they do today, but rather at the end. They were called “trailers” because the advertisements would be spliced directly on the end of the reels, so that the movie advertisement’s film “trailed” the actual film.
The first known movie trailer to appear in a theater was in November of 1913
. It was made by Nils Granlund, advertising manager of Marcus Loew theaters in the United States. The trailer was for the musical
The Pleasure Seekers
, which was shortly to open on Broadway. In this trailer, he included short clips of rehearsals of the musical. This idea caught on and trailers began appearing routinely after films. This was particularly the case with cartoon shorts and serials that would often end in climactic situations where you needed to watch the next episode in the serial or cartoon to see what would happen. Thus, these trailers, in particular that advertised the next episode, made a lot more sense at the end of the serial or cartoon than at the beginning.
However, it didn’t take long for movie studios to realize that film advertisements would be a lot more effective if they showed up before the movie, instead of after, and by the end of the 1930s the switch had been made
. Despite the industry’s sincerest attempts over the last 60 or 70 years to get the name changed from “trailers” to some form of “previews,” among industry professionals and English speaking audiences the world over, “trailer” is still a very popular term for these advertisements. Although, this has begun to change very recently among the general public when referring to trailers shown in theaters, which are now synonymously known as “previews.”
BONUS FACT
While the first known trailer to appear in a theater was that listed above, Lou Harris, an executive at Paramount in the 1960s, states that the first trailer ever to show anywhere was at a New York area amusement park in 1912. One of the concessions workers at that park hung up a white sheet and showed the serial
The Adventures of Kathlyn
. At the end of the episode, Kathlyn is thrown into a lion’s den. The concessions worker then spliced into the reel some film that showed the text, “Does she escape the lion’s pit?” This simple text is considered to be the first ever rudimentary attempt at a trailer.
The first major trailer company was the
National Screen Service. They began making crude film advertisements from transferred film stills without the permission of the film studios. They would then sell these film advertisements to be added on to the endings of films. Rather than sue this company and have them shutdown for their innovation, as studios would most certainly do today, the film industry chose to embrace this novel format for trailers and began providing the National Screen Service with film footage they could use in these advertisements. As a result, the National Screen Service secured a virtual monopoly on movie trailers for a time. It wasn’t until the late 1920s that studios began commonly making trailers of their own.
Why People On Planes and Ships Use
the Word “Mayday” When in Extreme Distress
In 1923, a senior radio officer, Frederick Stanley Mockford, in Croydon Airport in London, England, was asked to think of one word that would be easy to understand for all pilots and ground staff in the event of an emergency.
The problem had arisen as voice radio communication slowly became more common, so an equivalent to the Morse code “SOS” distress signal was needed
. Obvious a word like “help” wasn’t a good choice for English speakers because it could be commonly used in normal conversations where no one was in distress.
At the time Mockford was considering the request, much of the traffic he was dealing with was between Croydon and Le Bourget Airport in Paris, France. With both the French and English languages in mind, he came up with the somewhat unique word “Mayday
,” the Anglicized spelling of the French pronunciation of the word “m’aider,” which means “help me.”
Four years later, in 1927, the International Radiotelegraph Convention of Washington made “Mayday” the official voice distress call used only to communicate the most serious level of distress, such as with life-threatening emergencies.
When using Mayday in a distress call, it is traditional to repeat it three times in a row, “Mayday, Mayday, Mayday.” This is to make sure it is easily distinguishable from a message about a Mayday call and from any similar sounding phrases in noisy conditions or garbled transmissions.
In situations where a vessel
merely requires assistance, but is not in grave and imminent danger, a distress call of “pan-pan” can be used instead. Essentially, it means you need aid, but you don’t need support personnel to necessarily drop what they’re doing right that instant and come help you, as with a Mayday.
Like Mayday, pan-pan is the Anglicized spelling of a French word, in this case “panne
,” which means “broken / failure / breakdown.” Also, as with Mayday, one should state it three consecutive times: “pan-pan pan-pan pan-pan,” followed by which station(s) you are addressing and your last known location, nature of your emergency, etc.
If there is no reply to a Mayday or pan-pan call by the Coast Guard or other emergency agency, and a couple minutes have
passed since the last call, some other radio source, such as another ship or plane that received the call, should transmit their own Mayday call, but on behalf of the ship or plane that first made the call, repeating the pertinent information they heard when they received the Mayday message.
BONUS FACT
“SOS” was officially adopted during the 1906 Berlin Radiotelegraphic Conference. Today, it is commonly held that “SOS” is an acronym for “Save Our Ship” and thus often written “S.O.S.” In actuality, “SOS” isn’t an acronym for anything, which is why it is incorrect to put full stops between each letter.
So why was SOS chosen to signify a distress signal
? This was explained in the 1918 Marconi Yearbook of Wireless Telegraphy and Telephony: “This signal [SOS] was adopted simply on account of its easy radiation and its unmistakable character. There is no special significance in the letters themselves…”
Why Getting Kicked in the Testicles Causes Pain in the Abdomen
You may have wondered why getting kicked in the testes causes pain in the abdomen, as well as nausea, despite these areas not being directly physically impacted. Wonder no more!
Testes originally form in the abdomen near the stomach and kidneys
. The nerves and blood vessels remain attached in that region, even after the balls drop. So when a guy gets kicked in the testes or otherwise has his sensitive bits squished, the pain involved travels up from each testicle into the abdominal cavity via the spermatic plexus, which is the primary nerve of each testicle, and then to the spine.
In addition to the pain in the stomach area, many men also experience severe nausea
. This is thought to be caused by a huge rush of sympathetic nervous system discharge. So the body’s tolerance level for that rush determines whether that person will be someone susceptible to actually vomiting when kicked in the testes.
BONUS FACT
Getting kicked or hit in the testes can actually damage a man’s reproductive abilities. Further, if the force is severe enough, it can sometimes require removal of the testicle(s) itself. This, in turn, can cause other significant medical problems, especially if both need removed. Because of this, kicking or hitting a male in the testes in non-self-defense situations is considered sexual assault in many countries in the world.