When Do Fish Sleep? Part 19

The Physiological Theory. Richard H. Hawkins, D.D.S., president of Medical Innovators of North America, argues that the first puff of a cigarette smells best because the olfactory nerve endings within the nasal cavity are able to interpret the smell sensation only after a rest period. "With repeated puffs, the olfaction perception goes to zero." This argument might explain why a smoker derives increasingly less satisfaction from subsequent puffs, but doesn't explain why nonsmokers, who might find cigarette smoke irritating and obnoxious, find the aroma of the first puff pleasant.

Reader Albert Wellman of Santa Rosa, California, speculates that the difference between first puffs and subsequent ones is the physical process of burning the tobacco leaves. "I suspect that once the major portion of the chemical responsible for the 'good smell' of cigarette smoke has been vaporized by the first puff of smoke, there is not enough left in the tobacco to provide a comparable olfactory experience from the remainder of the cigarette."

Wellman also hypothesizes that perhaps the olfactory nerves are temporarily blocked by some other active biochemical agent in the smoke. This theory is bolstered somewhat by research that indicates that although olfactory organs are easily fatigued, the fatigue is limited to one particular flavor. Usually, the nose will respond to a new or different smell, and there are 685 different chemical compounds found in leaf tobacco smoke.

Most of the (little) hard research we have been able to find on the sensory response to cigarette smoke doesn't corroborate these physiological explanations. Dr. William S. Cain, of the departments of Epidemiology and Public Health and Psychology at Yale University, argues that smokers don't really "taste" cigarettes in the conventional sense. The four tastes-sweet, sour, salty, and bitter-don't play much of a role in cigarette enjoyment; of the four, only the bitter is perceived by the smoker.

But Cain argues that the sense of smell is not very important either, and in the last words of the following, hints at the problem posed in this Frustable: it matters little for smoking enjoyment whether the smoke is exhaled through the nose or through the mouth. Smell may play a role at the moment the smoker lights up, but adaptation rapidly blunts olfactory impact.

The Tobacco as Filter Theory. Reader Jack Perkins of San Francisco, California, writes: As a long-time heavy smoker, I can tell you that the first puff not only smells better, it's milder. The reason for this is that the tobacco acts as a filter catching tars, nicotine, and chemicals. The further down you smoke, the greater the build-up of these substances, resulting in harsher smoke.

Rev. David C. Scott, of Bethany Presbyterian Church in Rochester, New York, agrees, adding, "The first puff has the advantage of being filtered both by the longest filter and cleanest filter.... Each subsequent puff both shortens the filter and dirties even more what remains. Andrew F. Garruto of Kinnelon, New Jersey, compares smoking the stub of a cigarette to making a pot of coffee through used grains.

All of these arguments explain why the purity of taste and smell deteriorate as a cigarette has been smoked. But none explains to the nonsmoker why the first puff smells fine but then deteriorates immediately.

The Burning Wood, Sulfur, and Butane Theory. Even if we can't confirm any of these theories for sure, we like this modest explanation the best. Perhaps the reason why the first puff smells better is that the aroma of the lighting agent, not the tobacco, is what we are responding to. We received this letter from Allison Rosenthal, of Rancho Palos Verdes, California: People have always loved the smell of burning wood. By burning tree branches, pine needles, and pine cones, many not only warm their houses but improve the smell therein. If you have ever gone for a walk in Mammoth [California] in the winter, you would surely be familiar with this wonderful scent. A burning match smells much the same, maybe even a little better. Not only do you have a form of wood on a match but also sulfur, which is very pleasing when mixed with wood smoke. If you use a large 'Diamond' wood match and pull on the cigarette hard enough when lighting it, you can actually taste the sulfur and wood mixture. Even though it doesn't taste so good, it does smell nice.

Although Allison Rosenthal hasn't noticed that the first puff of a lighter-lit cigarette smells better, several other readers, including Judith R. Brannon of Santa Clara, California, feel that the smell of butane is the hero. As connoisseurs of gas station fumes, we would agree.

The match/lighter argument is the only theory that explains how an odor perceived as pleasant by smoker and nonsmoker alike can suddenly turn unpleasant, at least for the nonsmoker. If the hard research in sensory reactions to cigarette smoke can be believed, what a smoker perceives as a response to the taste of the flavor of a cigarette is actually a camouflage, masking a chemical response to the relief from nicotine deprivation.

A free book goes to Allison Rosenthal of Rancho Palos Verdes, California.

FRUSTABLE 8: Why Do Women in the United States Shave Their Armpits?

The recorded history of armpit shaving is a spotty one indeed. The earliest reference we have found was that the ancient Babylonians, more than one thousand years before the birth of Christ, developed depilatories to remove unwanted body hair.

Julius Caesar reported that the early Britons "had long flowing hair and shaved every part of their bodies except the head and upper lip," but this quotation may refer only to men. We do know that barbers removed superfluous hair from the eyebrows, nostrils, arms, and legs from male customers around this time.

The first direct reference to the specific topic at hand is contained in Ovid's Art of Love, written just before the birth of Christ: "Should I warn you to keep the rank goat out of your armpits? Warn you to keep your legs free of coa.r.s.e bristling hair?"

In Chaucer's day (the fourteenth century), the mere sight of any hair was considered erotic. Women were required to wear head coverings; caps were worn indoors and out by women of all ages.

These ancient antecedents predict our current duality about body hair on women. On the one hand, underarm hair is considered unsightly and unhygienic, and yet on the other, s.e.xy and natural.

None of the many razor companies or cosmetic historians we contacted could pinpoint when women first started shaving their armpits. The earliest reports concerned prost.i.tutes during the gold rush days in California. Terri Tongco, among other readers, posited the theory that prost.i.tutes shaved their underarms to prove they had no body lice, which were rampant in the old West.

Many older readers were able to pinpoint when their mothers and grandmothers started shaving their armpits. Not-so-old historian C.F. "Charley" Eckhardt of Seguin, Texas, is the only person we have found who has actually studied this Frustable: My paternal grandmother, born in 1873, and my maternal grandmother, born in 1882, did not shave their armpits. My wife's maternal grandmother (1898), my mother (1914), and my mother-in-law (1921) all did or do.

Eadweard Muybridge's photographic studies of the nude human figure in motion and Hillaire Belloc's photographs of New Orleans prost.i.tutes, all taken before or immediately after the turn of the century, show hairy armpits, as do nude photos of prost.i.tutes known to have been taken in El Paso, Texas, prior to 1915. In addition, still photographs taken from p.o.r.nographic motion pictures known to have been made prior to 1915 show the women with unshaven armpits, as do surviving p.o.r.nographic photographs of the "French postcard" variety which are doc.u.mented as having been made in the United States prior to 1915.

Theatrical motion pictures released about and after 1915, including Cleopatra (starring Theda Bara), the biblical sequences from D.W. Griffith's Intolerance, and several others, show shaven armpits. Something, then, happened about 1915 that would cause not merely stars but impressionable teenagers (as my wife's grandmother was) but not necessarily older family women (like my grandmothers) to start shaving their armpits.

So what caused these women to start shaving their armpits around 1915? Many readers, including Charley Eckhardt, give the "credit" to Mack Sennett: The first moviemaker to show the feminine armpit extensively in non-p.o.r.nographic films was Mack Sennett, in his Bathing Beauty shorts...Sennett's Bathing Beauties had shaven armpits, and they are the first direct evidence we have of the armpit-shaving phenomenon. Whether or not Mack actually said 'That looks like h.e.l.l-have 'em shave' is a moot point, though the statement is completely in character with what we know about Sennett.

We do know that flappers of the Roaring Twenties adopted the sleeveless clothing that seemed so daring in the Sennett shorts.

We heard from several women who were more concerned about why the custom persists rather than how and when it started. Typical was this letter from Kathy Johnson of Madison, Wisconsin: I am one of the apparently few U.S. women who has never shaved her armpits or legs. It never made logical sense to me, so why do it? I've heard the argument that shaving those regions is more sanitary. Then why, I volley back, don't men shave their armpits? Why, in fact, doesn't everyone shave their heads if lack of hair is so sanitary? Stunned silence...

Several psychologists and feminists have speculated that men like the shaven look because it makes women look prep.u.b.escent-young, innocent, and unthreatening. Diana Grunig Catalan of Rangely, Colorado, who subscribes to the prep.u.b.escent theory, speculates that "American women, unlike their European counterparts, were not supposed to do anything with all those men they attracted with their revealing clothing. A childlike, helpless look can be a protection as well as an attractant."

In defense of men, it has been our experience that many women have visceral reactions to the presence or lack of body hair in men. Why does the same woman who likes hair on the front of the torso (the chest) not like it on the back? Why is hair on the arms compulsory but excess hair on the hands considered repugnant? Are women, as well as men, afraid to face the animal part of our nature? Hairy questions, indeed.

Submitted by Venia Stanley of Albuquerque, New Mexico.

A free book goes to C.F. "Charley" Eckhardt of Seguin, Texas.

FRUSTABLE 9: Why Don't You Ever See Really Tall Old People?

This Imponderable-turned-Frustable was submitted by Tom Rugg, who stands six foot six inches and understandably has a vested interest in the answer.

Many readers sent us lists of reasons why people get shorter as they get older. Some of the reasons include gravity; the degeneration, rigidification, and compression of the vertebral column as we get older; osteoporosis; curvature of the spine. All of these phenomena explain why we might lose two or three inches over a life-span, but don't explain why we haven't seen the six-foot-nine person who has "shrunk" to six foot six.

Several people wrote to say that improved nutrition has made our population taller than it used to be. Presumably, our generation will grow old and "really tall" with a lifetime of Twinkies and Diet c.o.ke in our systems. Yes, we have grown taller but on average little more than a half inch in the last twenty-five years and fewer than two inches since the beginning of the century.

Dr. Alice M. Mascette of Tacoma, Was.h.i.+ngton, and Cindy West of Towson, Maryland, mentioned that a portion of our really tall population is afflicted with Marfan's syndrome, a genetic affliction of the connective tissue of the body. Sufferers of Marfan's syndrome have abnormally large hands and feet and a subpar heart. Many die of a ruptured aorta after an aneurism.

So far, these Marfan's syndrome sufferers-only a small fraction of all very tall people-are the only identifiable group of tall people who have been proven to have a short life-span. But it is not at all clear that the tallness per se is what causes their deaths.

The way to unlock this Frustable is by asking: Do very tall people have shorter life-spans than other people? Surprisingly, there is no scientific data to support the proposition. We heard from more than fifteen doctors, health agencies, and insurance companies, and none of them study mortality based on height alone. Metropolitan Life conducts countless studies on the relations.h.i.+p between height-weight ratios and longevity, but doesn't feel that there is any reason to believe that tall people have a higher morbidity rate than the population as a whole.

In fact, the only quasi-scientific study we've seen (sent to us by reader David Jordan) that claims that very tall people live shorter lives was conducted by an aeros.p.a.ce engineer, Thomas T. Samaras. He tracked the life-spans of three thousand professional baseball players and found that the tallest players (six foot six or taller) lived, on average, to only the age of fifty-two. On the other hand, the shortest group (under five foot four) lived more than sixty-six years on average.

All of the medical and insurance experts we spoke to doubted the validity of Samaras' results, as well as his reasoning. Samaras speculated that the heart of a tall person must work overtime to pump blood a longer distance than a short person. Johns Hopkins University heart specialist Dr. Solbert Perlmutt disagreed with this argument and added, "Besides, you don't see mice living long. But you see elephants doing quite well."

And evidently some old people only slightly shorter than elephants are doing pretty well, too, though the scarcity of the really tall old person is evidenced by the fact that of the hundreds of thousands of people who read Why Do Clocks Run Clockwise? only one person stepped up to the plate and offered himself as a specimen. Robert Purdin of Tinton Falls, New Jersey, is sixty-five (is that old?) and six foot five (is that really tall these days?).

Dr. Emil S. d.i.c.kstein of Youngstown, Ohio, says that he sees many tall old people, as does Gwen Sells, a member of Tall Clubs International. Reader George Flower, who once encountered a six foot seven man in his seventies, reminds us that Jimmy Stewart, if not "really" tall, is pretty tall.

But our favorite sighting was sent in by Andy Stone of Denver, Colorado, who told us about Randy "Sully" Sullivan, who weighs trucks at the Port of Entry in Cortez, Colorado: Sully is six foot ten inches. I've never asked his age but his hair is white, his posture stooped (that's right, stooped), and I estimate he's about seventy.

So, Tom Rugg, there's hope for you yet.

Submitted by Tom Rugg of Sherman Oaks, California. Thanks also to Joanna Parker of Miami, Florida.

A free book goes to David Jordan of Greenville, Mississippi.

FRUSTABLE 10: Why Do Only Older Men Seem to Have Hairy Ears?

How appropriate that we saved the most frustrating Frustable for last. In Why Do Clocks Run Clockwise?, we mentioned that we consulted endocrinologists who professed ignorance on the subject. "If this condition is only found in males, why don't you speak to geneticists," they chimed in unison.

So we talked to geneticists. Guess what they said.

"Why don't you talk to endocrinologists? They'd know about this stuff."

So we put this in as our last Frustable and waited for the mail to roll in. It did.

Most of the mail had much the same answer as this one, from Bryan, Texas: I am Stacey Lero, a seventh grader at Anson Jones School.... We are studying genetics in science. On the Y chromosome there is a gene for hairy ears. It matures throughout your lifetime and as men reach the late forties or early fifties (sometimes earlier or later), it has matured enough to be expressed and the hair begins to grow. I hope I've answered your question.

What??? Heads of genetic departments at prestigious universities can't answer this Imponderable and Stacey Lero is studying it in a seventh grade science cla.s.s? What's going on here?

Then several other readers, including Richard Landesman, a.s.sociate professor of zoology at the University of Vermont, and R. Alan Mounier of Vineland, New Jersey, sent me clips from genetics textbooks that confirmed Stacey Lero's letter. One text said that hypertrichosis (excessive hair) of the ear is pa.s.sed directly from father to son.

Feeling humbled by the knowledge of our readers, we consulted some more geneticists. They replied that the Y-chromosome theory had been largely discounted-no hard research supports this belief. "Why don't you talk to an endocrinologist," said one soothingly.

Are we the only ones who feel a little queasy about medical textbooks printing untrue facts? Or are scientists and doctors not believing what is in medical textbooks?

Peter H. Lewis, a reporter at the New York Times-the paper of record, for darn's sake-called us excitedly to say that they had run an article in 1985 about hairy ears being signs of susceptibility to heart attacks. In 1984, two doctors in Mineola, Long Island, reported to the New England Journal of Medicine that there was a "significant statistical link" between men (but not women) who had hair in their ear ca.n.a.l and people they had treated for coronary artery disease. The doctors did not overplay the significance of this finding. In fact, the hubbub their findings released prompted Dr. Richard F. Wagner and Dr. Karen Dineen to issue a poetic disclaimer: If on the ear there is a crease Do not a.s.sume that life will cease.

If hair is noted in the ear, Do not a.s.sume that death is near.

So, if when walking down the street An ear with hair and crease you meet, Don't give the gent a dreadful fright- Don't hint infarction is in sight.

Needless to say, the medical authorities we consulted would neither affirm nor deny the viability of the androgen theory.

We give up. Some Frustables are too frustrating even for us, and we're m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.ts.

We figure that Stacey Lero will be going to high school soon. She's obviously very bright and will probably become a science major in high school. She will then enter college, where she will become a double endocrinology/genetics major. She'll choose between MIT and Cal Tech for her graduate work. In the year 2011, Stacey will win the n.o.bel Prize for answering this Frustable. The world will be a better place. And it will all be due to that seventh-grade science teacher in Bryan, Texas. Well, and maybe a little to the inspiration provided by that free copy of When Do Fish Sleep?

A free book goes to Stacey Lero of Bryan, Texas.

Letters We have received more than two thousand letters since the publication of Why Do Clocks Run Clockwise?. Most of them posed Imponderables or tried to answer Frustables. But some corrected or added information to our answers or contained priceless comments about the topics in our first two volumes of Imponderables. Here are some of our favorites.

On the Relative Merits of Round vs. Flat Toothpicks We commented that even the manufacturers of flat toothpicks couldn't provide any reason why they were superior to round toothpicks, except for their lower price. Who would have thought that this topic could rouse emotions? Some letters were thoughtful, others pa.s.sionate.

Flat toothpicks have uses round ones don't have, such as smearing small amounts of various kinds of goo onto surfaces (epoxy cement is one) and in being able to enter crevices closed to round toothpicks. Flat picks, with their greater surface, are in my experience superior to round ones for testing doneness of cakes, custards and so on....

MAX HERZOG.

Augusta, Georgia

When I read your slam at flat toothpicks in Imponderables, I thought, "Gee, I hope I can find this guy's address so I can straighten him out." And lo and behold, there it was. You even invited comment. You must be a brave man. If you can't stand the thought of reading a defense of flat toothpicks, skip this part.

I hate round toothpicks, The d.a.m.n things are too fat and too close to their little pointy ends, which means that they won't go between my teeth at the gum line far enough to push out the bits of whatever gets stuck in there. Flat toothpicks will. So what if I have to throw a few away when they break before I can accomplish much; they're cheap, as you pointed out.

Furthermore, being pointed on both ends, round toothpicks are worthless for polis.h.i.+ng the front surfaces of my teeth, unless I chew them down a bit first. I think the makers of flat toothpicks should square off those big ends, but at least those ends aren't pointy as on those round jobbers, and I can do some good with them Whenever a restaurant has only round toothpicks, I take out my pocket knife and whittle 'em down so they'll go through the gaps. I haven't worked up the nerve yet to do this in front of the maitre d', but one of these days I will, scattering toothpick slivers on the carpet, to make sure the message is absorbed.

ALAN M. COURTRIGHT.

Seattle, Was.h.i.+ngton

On Why Countdown Leaders on Films Don't Count Down to One Your information is correct until you reported that the number one is the start of the picture. Although there isn't a one on Academy Leader, the picture actually starts on what would be zero. The forty-seven frames of black film that follow the single frame bearing a "2" are for the projectionist to open the dowser and allow light through the projector. A quick "beep" is usually heard along with the number two, indicating that the sound is in sync with the picture.

In theaters that alternate between two projectors, there is a mark that appears in the upper right-hand corner of the picture, which tells the projectionist to start the other projector up to speed, and then a second mark, which is when the projectionist actually should change over to the new reel. This countdown leader allows a precise amount of time for the projector to get up to speed, so that when the changeover occurs the viewer will not have missed any of the movie.

BRIAN M. DEMKOWICZ.

Chief Projectionist, IMAX Theater Baltimore, Maryland

On Why American Elections Are Held on Tuesday Election day is not the second Tuesday in November but is the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.

STEVEN J. RIZZO.

Islip, New York

On Why b.a.l.l.s Are on Top of Flagpoles I was always taught that the answer was longevity of the pole. In the days when flagpoles were wooden, the end grain of the wood was exposed if not capped by a ball or other type of finial. End grain absorbs dampness more readily than any other part of the wood....

GAVIN DUNCAN.

Tabb, Virginia