Question:"Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink." Is it ever life-savingly useful to drink seawater?Answer: Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner" got it right. Seawater is saltier than blood and drinking it only leads to further dehydration, says Texas A&M University oceanographer Robert Stewart. It would only be helpful if someone had sweated out too much salt and desperately needed some (lacking salt tablets).
Cornell physiologist Alan Weinstein calculates it this way: A body normally has about 40 liters of water at maybe 300 milliosmoles of salt per liter. Drinking 1 liter of seawater at 1,200 milliosmoles per liter pushes overall body concentration to 330 milliosmoles. In trying to expel the salt, the body dumps off even more water, salt concentration rises even higher — a coma will ensue.
Adrift in a lifeboat without fresh water, better hope for rain. Or if you can catch some fish, says Weinstein, eat them. They harbor plenty of less-salty fluids.
Out of luck on these, you just might be able to construct a solar still using clear plastic over salt water and with some way to catch the condensed water when the still is set out in the sun, suggests Stewart. The sun warms the salt water, fresh water evaporates, and condenses on the thin plastic covering. "Condensed water runs down the plastic into a reservoir." Drink up!
Question: Some people say they can awaken themselves at a predetermined arbitrary time without an alarm clock. Can they really do this?
Answer: These claims have been verified in sleep labs, and the precision of the awakenings is impressive — often within 10 minutes one way or the other, says Peretz Lavie in "The Enchanted World of Sleep." Most self-awakers exit sleep during a dream period. "If, for example, we asked a subject to wake up at 3:30, he or she would awaken from the REM (dreaming) sleep closest to the target time — say, at 3:15."
Most have no idea how they do it. But the brain is more aroused during REM, and may now be capable of the cognition necessary to recognize the time and to recall the instructions to awaken, says scientist William Moorcroft in the journal "Sleep." Possibly the brain actually "clocks" the hour by counting the number of dream periods elapsed through the night.
Question: Science teacher asked the class how a barometer could be used to determine the height of a tall building. One student came up with five creative ways — though not the "right" way based on measuring air pressure difference from ground level to roof. Can you guess what she suggested?Answer: This Barometer Fable illustrates how iconoclastic thinking can challenge standard textbook solutions. After some debate, the student got full credit.
- Take the barometer to the roof and drop it off. Count the seconds to when it hits the street. Distance fallen = 16 feet x the number of seconds squared.
Tie the barometer to a long rope, lower it from roof to street, then measure the rope.
On a sunny day, measure the barometer's shadow and the building's shadow. Barometer shadow is in proportion to full barometer as building shadow is to full building.
Measure the barometer's length, then count off lengths to the roof as you climb the stairs. Now multiply.
Knock on the building superintendent's door and say, "Hey, Mr. Super, I've got this cool barometer I'll give you if you tell me the height of this building . . . "
Send STRANGE questions to brothers Bill and Rich at strangetrue@compuserve.com