Q: Safariing too far from home, you find yourself sinking into a quicksand quagmire. Should you (a) try to run or splash-paddle toward firmer ground (b) swim slowly to safety (c) stay motionless and wait for help to arrive?
A: Best bet is (b), never to panic or move fast, because that can cause the sand and water mixture to thicken momentarily (anti-thixotropy), says Massachusetts Institute of Technology mechanical engineering professor Gareth McKinley. It'll seem as if you're being sucked in. It's not really sucking, just making your agitated movements more difficult, putting you at risk of fatigue and drowning. But quicksand is denser than water, so if you keep your wits about you, you can float in the stuff.
So easy does it, try to raise your legs and swim oh-so-slowly toward shore, or maybe float onto your back and gently roll off the stuff onto terra firma.
Another tip: In quicksand territory, carry a pole, suggests McKinley. Though the movies show it, this would not be in the desert — insufficient water — but on riverbanks or beaches, or near underground springs or marshes.
Q: Who hasn't complained of being forgetful from time to time? Have you ever met someone with TOO GOOD a memory?
A: The Russian reporter Shereshevskii (known as S. in psychological circles) was once criticized for not taking notes at a staff meeting — until he proved to his boss he could play it all back verbatim from memory.
S. was also able to recall long lists of unrelated words. When each word was presented to him, report Camille Wortman et al. in "Psychology," he would form a concrete image of it, then place it mentally in a location along Gorky Street in Moscow. To recall the list, he would take a "mental walk" and as he passed familiar locations, the associated words would pop into mind.
The psychologist Aleksandr Luria who studied S. said the mnemonist could recall up to 50 words presented one after another, and could still reel them off 15 years later.
But S.'s "perfect" memory had its downside. Much of what he had seen, read or heard — pleasant or unpleasant, trivial or important, from childhood to old age — stuck in his thoughts, shifting, piling up. Often, unable to see the forest for the trees, he felt confused and frustrated.
Q: Do left-handed target shooters need special guns?
A: Many weapons can be fired effectively with either hand, including most revolvers, self-loading rifles and pistols, and shotguns, says George Washington University forensic scientist Walter F. Rowe. At most, the left-handed target shooter might have special grips fitted.
Other weapons, such as bolt-action military rifles, are generally designed for right-handers. Lefties learn to adapt — see Barry Pepper's sharpshooter in "Saving Private Ryan" — or have these weapons modified.
An overlooked problem for righties as well as lefties is "cross-dominance" — e.g., right-handed but left-eyed. To test dominance, aim a finger at an object, both eyes open.
Then close one eye at a time. The eye for which the aim stays true is your dominant eye. Cross-dominant handgun shooters can simply tilt the head to accommodate, says gun expert Mark Duncan. Rifle and shotgun shooters sometimes change sides. Or sighting with dominant eye closed may work to some degree, but there are plenty of focusing pitfalls.
Send STRANGE questions to brothers Bill and Rich at strangetrue@compuserve.com