Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, February 18, 1993 TAG: 9302170156
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Joel Achenbach
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
WHEN IT COMES TO ASTEROIDS, WE'RE LUCKY LOSERS
Q: Why are we suddenly menaced by asteroids from space?A: We thought we were really hilarious when, a few years ago in this column, we urged people to become alarmed about asteroids. We didn't realize that asteroids would become not only a media sensation but a major source of scrutiny by NASA and, wouldn't you know, the Strategic Defense Initiative crowd at the Pentagon.
Last year NASA issued a report saying there was a 1-in-10,000 chance that during "our lifetime" an asteroid at least one-third of a mile wide would strike the Earth and "possibly end civilization as we know it." Scientists have suggested that we might use SDI technology (developed, you recall, to save us from the Soviet Union's nukes) to divert or destroy incoming asteroids.
Now you have to ask yourself: Why play the lottery, which offers you only about a one-in-a-million chance of a big payday, when there's an even better chance that the sky will fall?
First you have to realize where this scary 1-in-10,000 figure comes from. The thinking is that once every million years or so, a big rock hits Earth. Any given period of 100 years - meaning every "lifetime" in the NASA calculus - has a 1-in-10,000 chance of having an asteroid problem.
The reason you play the lottery is that you know there will be a payoff. There's always a winner. The reason you shouldn't worry about asteroids is that, in most centuries, there will be no losers. No one will die. You could live to be 500,000 years old, in fact, and you'd still have only a 50-50 chance of experiencing a catastrophic asteroid collision.
And let's be serious for a second: Why worry about rocks from space when we're already wrecking the planet?
"There are lots of risks that we will face in the next century. There are things that are right in our face, but people have a tendency to think of things that are way up in the sky," says Steven Ostro, who studies asteroids for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. He says we should perhaps survey the near-Earth asteroids better than we have so far, because "it would be nice to know if there's something coming toward us, say, in the next century."
Doomsayers we ain't, but we'd bet that if civilization comes to an end in the next century it will be either because of the environmental and economic costs of human overpopulation or because some highly educated, well-meaning world leaders manage, somehow, to start a nuclear war. Which would, of course, simulate rather strikingly the effects of a rogue asteroid.
Q: Why is the toenail on the little toe so hard?
A: And deformed! The deformity is a result of bad footwear, says James Michelson, an orthopedic surgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. Women in particular suffer from these bent-over digits. The condition is called "onychogryphosis."
As for the hardness of the toenail: "The reason the small one seems stronger is that it's smaller," Michelson says. The big toenail is actually thicker, he says, but because it's wider it doesn't seem as hard.
Do you need that little toe? Not at all. "You can amputate the fifth toe and you can walk completely normally." However, "the big toe is important in ambulation; it acts as a stabilizer."
And, we'd add, as a stubbing device. It lets you know where the chair legs are in a darkened room.
The Mailbag:
Recently we heard through the grapevine that some readers say they are put off by the attitude in the column. We have to wonder which of our attitudes, precisely, this refers to. Our rapacious curiosity? Our trademark insouciance? Our gratuitous use of big words? Our petty vindictiveness when challenged? Or is the problem here just . . . dare we say it . . . jealousy?
Here's our solution: You try writing this dadgum thing. Instead of sending a question, send an entire item of your own composition and research, and we'll publish it, with your name of course. We offer no prize, only enormous fame. Send both the Q and the A. Keep it short. (Brevity - another trademark.) Above all it must be both factual and funny. If you can't be funny, be wry. If you can't be wry, be arch. (But watch your attitude!)
Write to: Joel Achenbach, c/o The Washington Post, 1150 15th St. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20071.
Joel Achenbach writes for the Style section of The Washington Post.