Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, July 14, 1994 TAG: 9408050007
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Joel Achenbach
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
A: Bugs have a standard choreography of death. Tremble. Lurch. Collapse. Flip. Wriggle. Expire.
The lurching part is unsettling to watch, the flip is puzzling, and the wriggling is absolutely disgusting. We realize some of our readers are squeamish about insects, so we will only mention just one last time that as they die their legs are constantly wriggling, wriggling, wriggling. (Next week: Sordid facts about egg sacs.)
We spoke to Dick Froeschner, an entomologist at the Smithsonian Institution who has watched many bugs die in various situations in the laboratory - another example of a job that's fun and you get paid to do it - and he said the back-flip is merely a function of gravity and inertia.
Think of a barstool. The seat is perched high atop long legs. If one or two of those legs were to suddenly collapse the barstool wouldn't drop straight down but would topple over to one side. The same thing happens to bugs, and that gets things rolling, so to speak, for them to turn upside down.
We should remember that insects have six legs, spiders eight. (Rush Limbaugh, 10.) In a diagram you'll see the legs evenly spaced and roughly in the same position. In reality, they are continually moving in different directions, some splayed wide, some pulled in close. When the insect starts to die, its legs will fold up, but not simultaneously. One or two or three legs will collapse first. The insect doesn't collapse straight down but topples over with some angular momentum.
It doesn't always roll onto its back of course. Sometimes it will be on its side, a-wrigglin' like there's no tomorrow. The flailing will usually knock it the rest of the way over. Once on its back, there's no return. The legs are up in the air and they have nothing to push against.
``It's just the physical condition of things, there's nothing psychic or fancy. It's just what happens and how gravity works on it,'' says Froeschner.
There are exceptions. If a bug has something on which to clamp the claws on the end of its legs - there are itty bitty claws down there - it can die standing up straight, with legs locked in place.
Makes you want to rush right out and get some Roach Motels, huh?
\ Q: Why do some planes leave contrails in the sky but not others?
A: This is the kind of thing a child will sometimes ask. What we always do is crouch down so we're on the same level as the child, and then explain in clear, simple sentences that the white stuff in the sky is the smoke billowing from fires raging aboard the plane. Kids love it!
You may want to try a different, more accurate approach: The white stuff is ice. It's condensed water vapor at high altitudes, eight miles up or so, where the air is really cold, way below freezing.
As you know, a jet's turbine engine sucks in air through a large opening on the front, then spews out the exhaust through a small opening on the backside. As water vapor gets squeezed through the engine it gets denser. As it emerges into the cold air behind the plane it goes through a transition called sublimation, in which it changes directly from vapor to ice without ever being a liquid. How very sublime!
A plane at a low altitude can have a liquid water trail behind the engine but it's not a contrail, per se, because it dissipates too quickly. A real, proper contrail stretches across the sky. Multiple factors are in play: temperature, humidity, wind. The type of jet engine doesn't matter, we're told by Boeing.
Of course, you won't remember any of this the next time a child asks you about it. Go with smoke.
\ Q: Why does Mazda call its new luxury car the Millenia and not the Millennia?
A: A car name is supposed to communicate an idea, a feeling, a spirit. The Chevrolet ``Corvette,'' for example, sounds fast, snazzy, and communicates the idea, ``Won't Dad have a coronary when I wrap this baby around a tree.'' The Lincoln ``Town Car'' says, ``My dream is to own a car that gets 4 miles to the gallon.'' The Honda ``Accord'' says, ``We started teaching our child about world peace when it was still a fetus.''
The Mazda ``Millenia'' makes the most original statement we've ever encountered in car: ``We have no idea how to spell.''
Mitch McCullough, spokesman for Mazda Motors of America, told us, ``We only use one N, and that's a style thing. It's a trademarked name.''
He said he wasn't exactly sure why the company chose to spell the word that way, but he said the word Millenia was picked because it appealed to consumers. ``Mazda did some consumer clinics on the name. The consumers liked the way it sounded and they said it sounded like a car that will last. Durable. Solid.''
In Europe the car will be called a Xedos 9. Mazda tested that name on Americans and it didn't fly.
``Consumers said that sounded too much like science fiction,'' he said.
Right. Sounds like the moon of a distant planet. The thought it communicates is, ``I have countless home videos of Star Trek conventions.''
Washington Post Writers Group
by CNB