Do Penguins Have Knees? Read Free

off to deposit her eggs, assuring the world that the mosquito will not soon make the endangered species list.
    A few sensitive souls feel a mosquito’s bite immediately. But most of us are aware of itching (or in some cases, pain) only after the mosquito is long gone not because of the bite or the loss of blood but because of the saliva left behind. The mosquito’s saliva acts not only as a lubricant in the biting process but as an anesthetic to the bitee. For most people, the saliva is a blessing, since it allows us to be oblivious to the fact that our blood is being sucked by a loathsome insect. Unfortunately, the saliva contains anticoagulant components that cause allergic reactions in many people. This allergic reaction, not the bite itself, is what causes the little lumps and itchy sensations that make us wonder why mosquitoes exist in this otherwise often wonderful world.
     
    Submitted by Alesia Richards of Erie, Pennsylvania .
     
     
    Why Doesn’t Milk in the Refrigerator Ever Taste As Cold As the Water or Soda in the Refrigerator?
     
    Actually, milk does get as cold as water or soda. If you are having a particularly boring Saturday night, you might want to stick a thermometer into the liquids to prove this.
    Milk at the same temperature as water or soda just doesn’t taste as cold to us because milk contains fat solids. We perceive solids as less cold than liquids. Taste experts refer to this phenomenon as “mouth feel.”
    If the milk/water/soda test wasn’t exciting enough for you, run a test in your freezer compartment that will demonstrate the same principle. Put a pint of premium high-butterfat ice cream in the freezer along with a pint of low-fat or nonfat frozen yogurt. Consume them. We’ll bet you two to one that the yogurt will taste colder than the ice cream. For the sake of research, we recently performed this experiment with due rigor, and because we wanted to go out of our way to assure the accuracy of the experiment, we conducted the test on many different flavors of ice cream and yogurt. Oh, the sacrifices we make for our readers!
     
    Submitted by Pat O’Conner of Forest Hills, New York .
     
     
    Why Are Address Labels on Subscription Magazines Usually Placed Upside-Down?
     
    Our usually reliable sources at the United States Postal Service struck out on this Imponderable, but we were rescued by our friends at Neodata Services. Neodata, the largest fulfillment house in the United States, which we profiled in Why Do Dogs Have Wet Noses? , is the company that processes all those subscription forms you send to Boulder, Colorado.
    By luck, we rang up Neodata’s Biff Bilstein when he was in a meeting with sales executives Mark Earley and Rob Farson. The three share over seventy-five years of experience in the magazine business. “So,” we implored, “why are address labels placed upside-down?”
    They conferred and answered as one. Even though the folks at the USPS don’t seem to know it, the labels are placed upside down to accommodate the postal carrier. All magazines are bound on the left-hand side. Our hypothetical postal carrier, being right-handed, naturally picks up a magazine by the spine with his or her right hand to read the address label—the magazine is thus automatically turned upside down. But the label is now “right side up” and easily read by the postal carrier. Nifty, huh?
     
    Submitted by Geoff Grant of Barrie, Ontario. Thanks also to Beth Jones of West Des Moines, Iowa .
     
     

     
     
    Why Are There Dents on the Top of Cowboy Hats?
     
    Of course, not all cowboy hats have dents. How about country and western star George Strait’s? Or Bonanza’s Dan (“Hoss”) Blocker’s?
    Yet the vast majority of cowboy hats do have dents, and no one we spoke to could give us any other explanation than that dents are there “for style.” Ralph Beatty, director of the Western/English Retailers of America, theorizes that early cowboy hats may have acquired dents by wear, and