Welcome to the second iteration of On the Q! Remember if you have any questions, queries or conundrums that you would like to submit, please fire me an email at canvas.Schleizer@gmail.com. I have picked up a couple of goodies that were “In The Queue” previously and added two other interesting questions for this go-around. Today, we tackle the topics of physiology, meteorology, fluid mechanics, and cereal. You can review the categories and background in the premiere episode from the last Canvas.

On the Q

Q1: Why does the body sweat to cool itself in an atmospheric temperature of 80 degrees (for example) when the core body temperature is 98.6 degrees?

A1: I was playing tennis two weeks ago outside in Chicago, it was forty degrees (Fahrenheit) and I was sweating. Although simple diffusive properties are one way to assist thermoregulation, it is only one of many processes that humans use to achieve a homeostatic internal environment. Humans are homeothermic (a.k.a. warm-blooded) and require a stable temperature to have optimum performance of internal processes (like metabolism, brain activity, digestion…) and keep a dynamic equilibrium. These bodily activities create the need to get rid of waste materials and dispel heat from reactions that occur. Thus, regardless of atmospheric temperature, there is a need to sweat. Human sweat is a vehicle to get rid of waste material (a lot of salt, for instance) out of the body. The evaporative cooling that occurs does indeed cool the body as well, but that is not always the primary purpose. Sweating also happens as a psychosomatic response to external stimuli, such as fear or stress. And those also happen without a temperature restriction.

Q2: Last year, the Atlantic had a record high hurricane season. I find it interesting that this year the season has switched oceans. What are the likely culprits for this change to the usual [sic] peaceful Pacific?

A2: This question revolves around one of my favorite topics, global climatology and meteorology. I gave you a bit of a teaser last time with this particular question: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibo40FQjG40. The Atlantic hurricane season is officially winding down on November 30th and had much lower activity than 2005 and less than was predicted with snazzy climatological models at the beginning of the year. There are two major reasons for this: the first being the complex El Niño phenomenon (or menamena http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyJjv0cgtbQ). The El Niño-Southern Oscillation, as its formally known, is an anomaly in the surface temperatures of the Pacific Ocean typified by a significant increase of water temps on the west coast of South America. Really, El Niño and its converse La Niña fuck with normal weather patterns. The warming of the waters in the eastern equatorial Pacific causes a reduction in the cyclonic activity in the Atlantic ocean, go figure. It also causes droughts in Australia, floods in southwestern United States, and warm winters in Chicago. The second reason for the reduced hurricane formation in the Atlantic basin in 2006 was due to another climatological condiction known as the Saharan Air Layer. The SAL is warm, dry, dusty air mass that hangs over the part of the Atlantic Ocean where many tropical systems form. The SAL inhibits formation by limiting the normal conditions that are favorable for tropical systems (humid, hot, well-mixed, light winds, etc.).

The Pacific Ocean typically has a more active tropical environment than the Atlantic. The Pacific has two major zones of activity: the hurricanes in the eastern basin and the typhoons in the western basin. The forecast and actual activity for the Pacific hurricane season was the opposite of the Atlantic—below average forecast and higher activity than expected. Again, this is most likely the cause of dastardly El Niño.

Q3: Do birds experience turbulence like airplanes?

A3: The simple answer to this question is yes. But, I am here not to just give you a simple up or down type answer; I am here to educate you on the mysterious processes that affect us everyday. I am going to try not to ‘dork out’ on you with any differential calculus or anything, but turbulence is a matter of fluid mechanics and physics. Turbulence is a very general term, which describes flow that is stochastic and not laminar—rough not smooth. Additionally, it is an organization that supports the commissioning and supporting of “Net Art”, www.turbulence.org.

Back to the issue at hand—Turbulent flow is created from many sources including differences in pressure and temperature, molecular structure and diffusive properties, and is a topic that makes physicists either cringe or salivate. The turbulence experience while flying in an airplane is called “Clear Air Turbulence” because it is not visible like other types of chaotic flow (like a river rapids or smoke in the air). Clear Air Turbulence is caused from the erratic movement of air masses moving at differing speeds. So if you are in plane and are flying along nicely and then meet an air mass moving faster than the one you are currently in, then you will feel a bump in your trajectory due to that difference. Clear Air Turbulence usually happens at higher elevations, so it is unlikely that many birds experience the same thing unless they’re coasting around at 28,000 feet. But since there are many different types of turbulence, birds definitely experience it. In fact, birds create turbulence to help keep them aloft. A bird wing causes air to go from a laminar flow to a turbulent flow and creates air pockets that help a bird use less energy to stay in flight.

If birds are planning any migration, they can check out www.turbulenceforecast.com to see where turbulent conditions may be present (you could check it out, too, if you are planning on any air travel).

Q4: What’s the deal with grape nuts? No grapes. No nuts.

A4: I was hoping that my investigation into this question would reveal some corporate cover-up or mysterious addictive formulation. Alas, the answer is quite bland…much like the cereal itself. Grape-Nuts came to market in 1897 and was one of the first ready-to-eat cereal products. In fact, it must have been confusing to consumers because original labeling included “A Food” printed rather largely on the packaging.

Grape: there seem to be two different ideas around why the product is called Grape-Nuts (as opposed to say Sugar-Nuts, although really that would have been a much better seller!). Charles Post, the creator of this dandy product, originally claimed that grape sugar was formed during the baking process—and that is why it was given its namesake. However, another theory says that grape sugar was not created during baking, but was intentionally added at the beginning of the process. Grape sugar is mainly glucose, a monosaccharide, unlike most other sweeteners, which are primarily comprised of sucrose, a disaccharide. Yet another explanation suggests that maltose was once known as “grape sugar” and that was original sweetener used in the cereal.

Nut: the nut part of the name, comes from the “nutty flavor”, which seems to come from the combination of wheat and malted barley. An alternate possibility is that the little pieces of the product look like grape seeds, which are reportedly also known as “grape nuts”.

The product has had a long history of marketing campaigns, but the one that I found the most monumental is that it was the first product to use a coupon as a sales promotion.

In the Queue

I1: Little yapper dogs. What gives?
I2: Are you more of a post-structuralist kind of guy, or does logical
positivism strike your fancy?
I3: Why are you so hot? Ha. Do it that would be hilarious!
I4: If Count Chocula, Frankenberry, and Tony the Tiger got into a fight against Captain Crunch, Snap, Crackle, Pop, and Mikey from Life Cereal, who would win?
I5: In "The Little Prince" how was his tiny asteroid B612 able to support an atmosphere to provide for the rose and the baobob trees that kept cropping up?

Missed the Q

M1: At Christmas, why do we use mistletoe, a parasitic plant that kills other plants, as a holiday symbol?

Not sure on this one, but we also use Poinsettias—another toxic plant.

M2: Why is traditional German food so awful?

Dear reader, you are quite mistaken, German food is not awful. It uses a different part of the sensory palette, one that may be underdeveloped for you. I may be a bit partial in this one, as I am of German ancestry.

M3: Consider a compact 3-dimensional manifold V without boundary. Is it possible that the fundamental group of V could be trivial, even though V is not homeomorphic to the 3-dimensional sphere?

Thank you, but no.

M4: What, exactly, is so tasety [sic] about fish roe and pureed duck liver?

Having just binged over the Thanksgiving holiday, I am having problems thinking about food. But the simple answer to this is nutrient-rich tissue…yummy yum yum, love those proteins.