Why do some chickens lay brown eggs and others lay white eggs?
The color of eggs comes exclusively from the pigment in the outer layer of the shell and may range from an almost pure white to a deep brown, with many shades in between. The only determinant of egg color is the breed of the chicken. . . .
A simple test to determine the color of a hen’s eggs is to look at her earlobes. If the earlobes are white, the hen will lay white eggs. If the earlobes are red, she will produce brown eggs.
—David Feldman, from Why Do Clocks Run Clockwise? and other Imponderables, 1988.
Why is seawater blue and tap water clear? Why does the color of the ocean range from blue to red?
White light consists of all the primary and secondary colors in the spectrum. Each color is distinguished by the degree to which it scatters and absorbs light. When sunlight hits seawater, part of it is absorbed while the rest is scattered in all directions after colliding with water molecules.
When sunlight hits clear water, red and infrared light absorb rapidly, and blue the least easily. According to Curtiss O. Davis . . . ‘only blue-green light can be transmitted into, scattered and then transmitted back out of the water without being absorbed.’ By the time the light has reached ten fathoms deep, most of the red has been absorbed.
Why doesn’t tap water appear blue? Curtiss continues: ‘To see this blue effect, the water must be on the order of ten feet deep or deeper. In a glass there is not enough water to absorb much light, not even the red; consequently, the water appears clear.’
Thus if clear water is of a depth of more than ten feet, it is likely to appear blue in the sunlight. How can we explain green and red oceans’
Both are the result not of the optical qualities of sunlight but of the presence of assorted gook in the water itself. A green sea is the combination of the natural blue color with yellow substances in the ocean—humic acids, suspended debris, and living organisms. Red water (usually in coastal areas) is created by an abundance of algae or plankton near the surface of the water. In open waters, comparatively free from debris and the environmental effects of humans, the ocean usually appears to be blue.
—David Feldman, from Why Do Clocks Run Clockwise? and other Imponderables, 1988.
rainbow jellies
“Go where the branching coral hives
Unending strife of endless lives,
Where, leagued about the ’wildered boat,
The rainbow jellies fill and float;
And, lilting where the laver lingers,
The starfish trips on all her fingers;”
—Rudyard Kipling, from The Palms, the poem which opens A Matter of Fact.
the great god Krishna
“‘They prayed, an’ the butter-fires blazed up an’ the incense turned everything blue, an’ between that an’ the fires the women looked as tho’ they were all ablaze an’ twinklin’. . . . The women were rockin’ in rows, their di‘mond belts clickin‘, and the tears runnin’ out betune their hands, an’ the lights were goin’ lower an’ dharker. Thin there was a blaze like lightnin’ from the roof, and that showed me the inside av the palanquin, an’ at the end where my foot was, stood the livin’ spit an’ image o’ mysilf worked on the linin’. This man here, ut was.’
He hunted into the folds of his pink cloak, ran hand under one, and thrust into the firelight a foot-long embroidered presentment of the great god Krishna, playing on a flute. The heavy jowl, the staring eye, and the blue-black moustache of the god made up a far-off resemblance to Mulvaney.”
—Rudyard Kipling, The Incarnation of Krishna Mulvaney.
’Er petticoat was yaller
“‘Er petticoat was yaller an’ ’er little cap was green,
An’ ’er name was Supi-yaw-lat’jes’ the same as Theebaw’s Queen,
An’ I seed her first a-smokin’ of a whackin’ white cheroot,
An’ a-wastin’ Christian kisses on an ’eathen idol’s foot:”
—Rudyard Kipling, from Mandalay.
Have you ever seen an opal?
“Have you ever seen an opal? Well, the Burmese sky has just that sort of white glow, tinted here and there with iridescent flecks of light. To see marble towers spiraling up against such a sky makes you feel as if you are dreaming.”
—Michio Takeyama, Harp of Burma, translated from the Japanese by Howard Hibbett, 1966.
the famous Burmese rubies
“With the help of the natives and of the monks from a nearby village, I managed to bury these corpses in the sandy river bank. And while digging in the sand one day I found a large ruby—one of the famous Burmese rubies. it shone like a deep red flame of dazzling brilliance.
As I held it in my hand this jewel reminded me of the souls of the dead. Since I could not carry their ashes around with me, I regarded this ruby as symbolizing the spirits of all the men who had died here in Bruma; and thereafter I always kept it on my person. Whenever I visited a temple I placed it on the altar to worship.”
—Michio Takeyama, Harp of Burma, translated from the Japanese by Howard Hibbett, 1966.
scarlet
“It is not the black clothes that are trying to the sight—black is the steadiest of all colours to work at; white and all bright colours make the eyes water after looking at ’em for any long time; but of all colours scarlet, such as is used for regimentals, is the most blinding, it seems to burn the eyeballs, and makes them ache dreadful . . . everything seems all of a twitter, and to keep changing its tint. There’s more military tailors blind than any others.”
—Henry Mayhew, quoting a tailor in London Labor and the London Poor, 1862; quoted by Robert Hughes in The Fatal Shore: The Epic of Australia’s Founding, 1987.
Why do nurses wear white? Why do surgeons wear blue or green when operating?
Florence Nightingale always wore a white uniform. White, of course, is a symbol of purity, and in the case of a nurse, an appropriate and practical one—white quickly shows any dirtiness.
Surgeons also wore white unitl 1914, when a surgeon decided that red blood against a white uniform was rather repulsive and needlessly graphic. The spinach green color he chose to replace it helped neutralize the bright red.
At the end of World War II, the lighting was changed in operating rooms, and most surgeons switched to a color called “misty green.” Since about 1960, most surgeons have used a color called “seal blue,” which contains a lot of gray. Why this latest switch? . . . [S]eal blue shows up better on the TV monitors used to demonstrate surgical techniques to medical students.
—David Feldman, from Why Do Clocks Run Clockwise? and other Imponderables, 1988.
What is the purpose of the white half-moons on the bases of our fingenails and toenails?
Those white moons are called lunula. Lunulae are nothing more than trapped air prevented from moving up the nail by the closer fit between the finger and nail from where the lunula ends. These air “pockets” serve no apparent purpose.
—David Feldman, from Why Do Clocks Run Clockwise? and other Imponderables, 1988.