Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 3, 1993 TAG: 9306020175
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Joel Achenbach
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
A: It's so annoying: You're late for work, frenzied, desperately trying to get out the door. You break open a new package of pantyhose. You slide and wriggle and tuck yourself in, only to discover that you've already got a run, a massive scarring of fabric that makes you look like you've had some kind of horrible leg surgery. Worse yet, you remember that the pantyhose belongs to your wife - socks are what you're supposed to be wearing, dumb-dumb.
There is "run resistant" pantyhose, but it's not terribly comfortable. So we're told by Frank Oswald, spokesman for the apparel fibers division of Du Pont. The run resistance is created by a knotting process that makes the fabric rougher. Mostly it's sold through Vegematic-style TV ads, featuring people shoving knives and sticks through the pantyhose and revealing no damage.
The real question is, why do women wear pantyhose at all? The industry will tell you that it keeps the legs warmer in cool months, but that doesn't explain pantyhose during summer. There's also the pantyhose-as-fashion-accessory argument. "Legwear is becoming less of a necessity and more of an integral part of a fashion look," says Michelle Hubacher, spokeswoman the National Association of Hosiery Manufacturers.
But hold on: Isn't most pantyhose still rather plain and boring? Why does anyone wear it? Here's another reason: Flesh suppression. Hubacher points out that "control-top" pantyhose is a rapidly expanding part of the business. She says, "Pantyhose provides a support to hold things in that you might not want bulging out."
We'd argue that the ultimate purpose of pantyhose is to hide skin. Women are still, even today, not supposed to show the skin on their legs. It's one of those societal rules. Hose creates a smoother, more polished, more mannequin-like look. It's part of the dress code in many offices that women have to have legs that appear to be made of fiberglass, or plastic. Anything but flesh.
Q: Why are bats blind?
A: Who told you that? Bats aren't blind at all. They have eyes. They see just fine. The only thing is, most bats use echolocation to fly around in dark places.
The weird thing about bats is that they're not birds. Bats are more closely related to human beings than they are to blue jays or any other feathered flying creature. "Bats are furred mammals that have taken to the air," says Janet Tyburec, spokeswoman for Bat Conservation International (now there's a "Why" question begging to be asked).
Echolocation is not a "sense," exactly, but rather a form of hearing. But while thinking about this we got to wondering:
Q: Why do we have only five senses?
A: We're bogged down at five unless you count "that creepy feeling that you are being stared at by Shirley MacLaine."
We have five senses because we don't need more - it's that simple - but there are certainly more senses out there to be had, should someone decide to evolve in an ostentatious fashion. A "sense" is the ability to detect and use cues in the environment, and by that definition there are plenty of six-sensed creatures, and some may have 10 or more senses. (It's hard for us to sense what they sense when we lack that sense. Does that make sense?)
Rattlesnakes and pit vipers use infrared heat detectors on the sides of their heads to locate warm-blooded animals at night. Electric fish (such as knife fish) create electric fields that reveal the presence of other fish. Homing pigeons, dolphins and tuna can sense the Earth's magnetic field. Elephants and sperm whales detect infrasonic sounds using cavities in their heads. Whales may also be able to register small fluctuations in the Earth's gravitational field.
But the honeybee is the sensory king. It has magnetite in its abdomen, and by detecting the Earth's magnetic field can orient itself when the sky is overcast and the sun obscured. It has humidity detectors in its antennae, which are helpful in finding water. It can somehow sense distant storms, so it knows when to start heading back to the hive. And when the hive gets too full of carbon dioxide, the bee's CO2 detectors sound the alarm and it starts fanning fresh air into the place.
"There are even bacteria that have magnetic compasses," notes James Gould, a Princeton ecologist.
We don't mind being less sophisticated than birds and insects. But we hate being one-upped by germs. Tomorrow, we start the iron supplements. The Mailbag:
We'll entertain any question here in the Why bunker, including this one from Everett J. of Washington, D.C.: "Why are home toilet seats generally a closed circle, while `institutional' toilet seats are generally an oval open at the front?"
Dear Everett: We spoke to Nancy Deptolla, of the toilet-making Kohler Co., and she explained that public seats are governed by health codes, and have that opening "for sanitary reasons." We can safely report that those reasons are unspeakable. The bottom line (hah!) is that public seats are designed to be not-all-there, because even though you probably can't catch anything from a toilet seat, you definitely can't catch anything from a gap in a seat. Washington Post Writers Group
Joel Achenback writes for the Style secion of The Washington Post.
by CNB