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Unleaded Costs More?
Posted by Dr. Science on 07/23/2014
How come unleaded gas costs more when it’s missing something?
———- from Wallace Smith of Portland, Oregon
I know. Less lead means more money. An unlisted phone, you pay more. Salt-free food, you pay more. Fat-free potato chips? Ditto. In some stores, you can even buy a small box which states: “No sugar, no salt, no meat, no calories. No tar, no nicotine, no caffeine, no iodine, just add water.” But when you open this box, a small blast of stale air assails your nostrils. Fortunately, there’s a new public service provided by NutraSweet and the U. S. Post Office. For a small handling fee, they’ll distribute these missing ingredients free of charge to anybody who wants them. These so-called “Care Less” packages contain lead, nicotine, sugar, iodine, alcohol, caffeine, more calories than you could ever burn off and, of course, numbers. Pages and pages of numbers…
I know. Less lead means more money. An unlisted phone, you pay more. Salt-free food, you pay more. Fat-free potato chips? Ditto. In some stores, you can even buy a small box which states: “No sugar, no salt, no meat, no calories. No tar, no nicotine, no caffeine, no iodine, just add water.” But when you open this box, a small blast of stale air assails your nostrils. Fortunately, there’s a new public service provided by NutraSweet and the U. S. Post Office. For a small handling fee, they’ll distribute these missing ingredients free of charge to anybody who wants them. These so-called “Care Less” packages contain lead, nicotine, sugar, iodine, alcohol, caffeine, more calories than you could ever burn off and, of course, numbers. Pages and pages of numbers… Four Seasons
Posted by Dr. Science on 07/21/2014
If January in Colorado is winter and it’s summer in Argentina, is it spring or fall at the Equator?
———- from Lloyd Lindsey-Young of Sacramento CA
Well, are the leaves turning weird colors or what? You weatherpeople really annoy me, sometimes. Any fool knows all four seasons occur randomly at the equator, usually in the same day. You can have a blizzard at dawn, a heat wave at noon, brown leaves by sundown and hailstones at midnight. I advise you never to visit the Equator. Aside from the obvious discomfort, no living creature can survive there longer than 20 minutes, excepting the equatorial snake, distantantly related to the Mamba, which is so deadly that merely looking at it can kill you. Don’t listen to your travel agent. Sure, you can book a SuperSaver to the equator but you won’t be alive to use the return portion of your ticket. So in addition to being dead, you’d just be losing money.
Well, are the leaves turning weird colors or what? You weatherpeople really annoy me, sometimes. Any fool knows all four seasons occur randomly at the equator, usually in the same day. You can have a blizzard at dawn, a heat wave at noon, brown leaves by sundown and hailstones at midnight. I advise you never to visit the Equator. Aside from the obvious discomfort, no living creature can survive there longer than 20 minutes, excepting the equatorial snake, distantantly related to the Mamba, which is so deadly that merely looking at it can kill you. Don’t listen to your travel agent. Sure, you can book a SuperSaver to the equator but you won’t be alive to use the return portion of your ticket. So in addition to being dead, you’d just be losing money. Bad or Good? How’s Santa Know?
Posted by Dr. Science on 07/18/2014
How does Santa Claus know if you’ve been bad or good? Does he use surveillance equipment? If so, can it be jammed?
———- from Flannery McAlber & Molly Allison-Baker of on behalf of all the kids in the USA
As far as I’ve been able to tell, kids, Santa uses the standard maritime band of 15 to 40 meters. The signals are usually single sideband in nature, and if reception is bad on either band, due to sunspots or an arctic storm, he may drop all the way to 160 meters. But there he’s competing with the Navy’s submarines in their VLF range. Most of Santa’s transmissions have to do with specific instructions to his reindeer and messages back to his elves at home base at the North Pole. Santa respects our rights as citizens and would never illegally eavesdrop on a child – no matter how good or bad the child may be, unless he got permission from the Attorney General, and I doubt that many kids behave badly enough to elicit such a response from the Judiciary Branch. If you receive a lump of coal, demand an independent counsel.
As far as I’ve been able to tell, kids, Santa uses the standard maritime band of 15 to 40 meters. The signals are usually single sideband in nature, and if reception is bad on either band, due to sunspots or an arctic storm, he may drop all the way to 160 meters. But there he’s competing with the Navy’s submarines in their VLF range. Most of Santa’s transmissions have to do with specific instructions to his reindeer and messages back to his elves at home base at the North Pole. Santa respects our rights as citizens and would never illegally eavesdrop on a child – no matter how good or bad the child may be, unless he got permission from the Attorney General, and I doubt that many kids behave badly enough to elicit such a response from the Judiciary Branch. If you receive a lump of coal, demand an independent counsel. Blue Food
Posted by Dr. Science on 07/16/2014
Why is there no blue food?
———- from Frances of Ann Arbor MI
You simply must define your terms. If you mean blue in the sense of sad, there are many blue foods. Some foods are melancholy in mood – such as salt-free TV dinners, sugar-free chocolates and diet sodias. Some foods are sad in appearance, such as overcooked broccoli, damp potato chips and blanched tomatoes. Actual blue food occurs only at the equator, where all food is blue by government regulation. Here in the western world, well, if you want blue food, you have to dye it…or leave the roast beef on the counter for a couple of months. It’s a lot of trouble and not worth the effort.
You simply must define your terms. If you mean blue in the sense of sad, there are many blue foods. Some foods are melancholy in mood – such as salt-free TV dinners, sugar-free chocolates and diet sodias. Some foods are sad in appearance, such as overcooked broccoli, damp potato chips and blanched tomatoes. Actual blue food occurs only at the equator, where all food is blue by government regulation. Here in the western world, well, if you want blue food, you have to dye it…or leave the roast beef on the counter for a couple of months. It’s a lot of trouble and not worth the effort. Raison d’Something
Posted by Dr. Science on 07/14/2014
Does the French phrase “raison d’etre” mean “seedless raisin”?
———- from Ardys Karney of Rockford, IL
Oui. In Russian, for instance, it means “large potato of fire,” which is what the Siberian peasants called Haley’s Comet the last time it passed closed to Earth. Incidentally, there is a Russian proverb that says if a man eats seedless raisins, he will be destroyed by Haley’s Comet on its next approach. Millions of Russian tax dollars are being spent to prove the validity of this proverb. In one testing facility, dissident poets, playwrights and scientists are being force fed a diet of seedless raisins. After the comet passes earth, a special United Nations investigation will try to determine if these dissidents are still around. If not, well, chalk up one for , well, seedless raisins, I guess.
Oui. In Russian, for instance, it means “large potato of fire,” which is what the Siberian peasants called Haley’s Comet the last time it passed closed to Earth. Incidentally, there is a Russian proverb that says if a man eats seedless raisins, he will be destroyed by Haley’s Comet on its next approach. Millions of Russian tax dollars are being spent to prove the validity of this proverb. In one testing facility, dissident poets, playwrights and scientists are being force fed a diet of seedless raisins. After the comet passes earth, a special United Nations investigation will try to determine if these dissidents are still around. If not, well, chalk up one for , well, seedless raisins, I guess. 