Do Penguins Have Knees? (5 page)
Read Do Penguins Have Knees? Online
Authors: David Feldman
What
Does the USPS Do with Mail It Can’t Deliver or Return Because of Lack of a Return Address?
If a piece of mail is improperly addressed and does not contain a return address, it is sent to a dead letter office. Dead letter offices are located in New York, Philadelphia, Atlanta, San Francisco, and St. Paul. There a USPS employee will open the envelope. If no clues to the address of the sender or receiver are found inside, and the enclosures are deemed to have “no significant value,” the letter is destroyed immediately.
Frank Brennan, of the USPS media relations division, explains that if the enclosures are deemed to be of some value, the parties involved will have a temporary reprieve:
This allows time for inquiries and claims to be filed. After 90 days, all items that have not been claimed are auctioned off to the public. Cash or items of monetary value that are found in the mail are placed into a general fund. If it is not claimed after one year, it is rolled over into a USPS account to be used as the USPS deems necessary.
And of course we can all count on the USPS making the best possible use of any windfalls that come their way.
Submitted by Kathryn Rehrig of Arlington, Texas
.
Why
Are Baseball Dugouts Built So That They Are Half Below Ground?
If dugouts were built any higher, notes baseball stadium manufacturer Dale K. Elrod, the sight lines in back of the dugout would be blocked. Baseball parks would either have to eliminate choice seats behind the dugout or sell tickets with an obstructed view at a reduced price.
If dugouts were built lower, either the players would not be able to see the game without periscopes or they wouldn’t have room to stretch out between innings.
Submitted by Alan Scothon of Dayton, Ohio
.
Diesel locomotives work equally well traveling in either direction. Robert L. Krick, deputy associate administrator for technology development at the Federal Railroad Administration, wrote
Imponderables
that
Locomotives are turned on large turntables, or on “wye” or “loop” tracks. Railroads avoid unnecessary turning of locomotives because the procedure takes time. The locomotives being turned and the employees turning them could be employed for more constructive purposes.
When locomotives are assembled for a train, if one already faces forward it is selected for the lead position. The others will work equally well headed in either direction; they are usually coupled together without regard for their orientation.
If a group of locomotives is assembled for more than one trip, the cars will often be arranged with the rear locomotive of the group facing the rear. That group of locomotives can then be used on another train going in either direction without any turning or switching.
Using this method, a train can be returned to its original destination on the same track without any turning. Bob Stewart, library assistant at the Association of American Railroads, explains how:
When a train reaches the end of its run and is to return in the direction from which it came, the engineer moves to the cab at the other end. The locomotive can be coupled and switched to a parallel track, run back towards what was the rear of the train and switched back to the original track.
Submitted by Randy W. Gibson of Arlington, Virginia
.
Why
Is There Steam Coming Up from the Streets of New York?
Historically, of course, the rising steam served the most important purpose of providing menacing atmosphere in
Taxi Driver
and other movies set in New York City. But we still see steam rising out of manhole covers in Manhattan all the time. What causes it?
The biggest source of the steam is New York’s utility, Consolidated Edison, which still generates enough steam to service over 2,000 customers in Manhattan. Steam heat is used only in tall buildings and manufacturing plants; the equipment necessary to generate steam power is too large and inefficient for small businesses or modest residential dwellings.
When a small leak occurs in a steam pipe, the vapor must go somewhere. Heat rises and looks for a place to escape: Manhole covers are the most likely egress point for steam. Martin Gitten, Con Edison’s assistant director for public information, told
Imponderables
that when a big leak occurs, Con Ed must put tall cones over the manhole covers so that the steam is vented above the level of vehicles. Otherwise, unsuspecting drivers would feel as if they were driving through a large cumulus cloud.
Another source for steam rising out of the streets of New York is excess moisture condensing underground. The excess moisture may emanate from small leaks in city water mains, runoff from heavy rainfalls, or least pleasant to contemplate, sewer backups.
Why do these liquids rise up as steam? Because they come in contact with the scalding hot steam equipment below ground.
Submitted by Chris McCann of New York, New York
.
How
Did They Keep Beer Cold in the Saloons of the Old West?
Just about any way they could. In the nineteenth century, guzzlers didn’t drink beer as cold as they do now (the English often imbibed pints of ale warm, for goodness’ sake, and still do—as do the Chinese) but even grizzled cowboys preferred their brew cool.
In colder areas of the West, saloons used to gather ice from frozen lakes in the winter. John T. McCabe, technical director of the Master Brewers Association of the Americas, says that the harvest was stored in ice houses, “where the blocks of ice were insulated with sawdust. This method would keep ice for months.”
Even where it wasn’t cold enough for ice to form, many saloons in the Old West had access to cool mountain streams. Historical consultant William L. Lang wrote
Imponderables
that saloon workers would fill a cistern with this water to store and cool barrels of beer.
And if no cold mountain stream water was available? Phil Katz, of the Beer Institute, says that up until about 1880, many saloons built a root cellar to house beer. Usually built into the side of a hill, root cellars could keep beer below 50 degrees Fahrenheit.
And what if you wanted cold beer at home? According to Lang, “Beer was served in buckets or small pails, and often kids delivered the beer home from the saloons.” Consumers in the mid-nineteenth century thought no more of bringing home “take-out beer” than we would think of ordering take-out Chinese food.
Beer expert W. Ray Hyde explains that we needn’t feel sorry for the deprivation of Old Westerners before the days of refrigeration. In fact, those might have been the “good old days” of American beer:
Beer in the Old West wasn’t cold in the modern sense of the word—but it was refreshingly cool. Evaporation kept it that way. Beer in those days was packaged in wooden barrels, and the liquid would seep through the porous wood to the outside of the barrel, where it would evaporate. And basic physics explains the cooling effect of evaporation.
Also, it should be noted that beer then was not artificially carbonated. The slight natural carbonation required only that it be cool to be refreshing and tasty. Modern beer, with its artificial carbonation, needs to be very cold to hide the sharp taste of the excess carbon dioxide.
Submitted by Dr. Robert Eufemia of Washington, D.C
.
What
Is the Official Name of the Moon?
Along with our correspondent, we’ve never known what to call our planet’s satellite. Moon? The moon? moon? the moon? Dorothy?
We know that other planets have moons. Do they all have names? How do astronomers distinguish one moon from another?
Whenever we have a problem with matters astronomical, we beg our friends at two terrific magazines—
Astronomy
and
Sky
&
Telescope
—for help. As usual, they took pity on us.
Astronomy’s
Robert Burnham, like most senior editors, is picky about word usage:
The proper name of our sole natural satellite is “the Moon” and therefore…it should be capitalized. The 60-odd natural satellites of the other planets, however, are called “moons” (in lower case) because each has been given a proper name, such as Deimos, Amalthea, Hyperion, Miranda, Larissa, or Charon.
Likewise, the proper name for our star is “the Sun” and that for our planet is “Earth.” or “the Earth.” It’s OK, however, to use “earth” in the lower case whenever you use it as a synonym for “dirt” or “ground.”
Alan MacRobert, of
Sky
&
Telescope
, adds that Luna, the Moon’s Latin name, is sometimes used in poetry and science fiction, but has never caught on among scientists or the lay public: “Names are used to distinguish things from each other. Since we have only one moon, there’s nothing it needs to be distinguished from.”
Submitted by A. P. Bahlkow of Sudbury, Massachusetts
.
Why
Is Rhode Island Called an Island When It Obviously Isn’t an Island?
Let’s get the island problem licked first. No, technically, the whole state isn’t an island, but historians are confident that originally “Rhode Island” referred not to the whole territory but to what we now call Aquidneck Island, where Newport is located. Christine Lamar, an archivist for the Rhode Island State Archives, endorses this view.
