The Straight Dope 05/06/2005

The Straight Dope -- By Cecil Adams
http://www.straightdope.com

You are subscribed as: [[email protected]]

To unsubscribe CLICK on the URL below this line:
mailto:[email protected]
If you can't "click" above, then send a blank email to:
[email protected]
____________________________________________
THE STRAIGHT DOPE 05/06/2005

Dear Cecil:

We have friends who insist they won't eat
microwave-cooked items and refuse to own a microwave
oven, claiming it has deleterious effects on the
nutritional value of food. I chuckle over their
sensitivity--seems most restaurants today serve many
items that are cooked rapidly using microwaves, so I'll
bet our friends eat some of these foods unknowingly. My
wife, however, is becoming alarmed over their queer
beliefs. Please give her peace of mind. Are our friends'
fears groundless, or am I the goat on this one? --Norm,
via e-mail

~~~~~~
Looking for the perfect gift for that wedding, birthday,
or bar mitzvah? Straight Dope books are the very thing! 
See http://www.straightdope.com/store.html
~~~~~~

Cecil replies:

Probably your friends are getting worked up over nothing,
but this is one subject where you want to resist sweeping
pronouncements. On its face, antimicrowave propaganda
(you'll find loads of it on the Web) is none too
persuasive--some of these people have yet to comprehend
the crucial distinction between ionizing and nonionizing
radiation. (Ionizing radiation is the nuclear, i.e.,
dangerous, kind, which includes X rays, gamma rays, etc;
nonionizing is everything else, e.g., microwaves, not to
mention light.) When you dig into the research, though,
you realize the controversy isn't all hooey. On the
contrary, what we've got here is one of the great
coal-mine fires of science--an argument that, in this
case, has been smoldering for 50 years without
resolution. Unexpected recent developments, though, make
me think we may get to the bottom of this pup yet.

For more, see:
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/050506.html

STAFF REPORT

Dear Straight Dope:

I just got a book on ancient civilizations. In the
chapter dealing with written languages, they list
Egyptian hieroglyphics, Mesopotamian pictographs, and
Indus script as the three oldest known written languages.
The book goes on to say Indus script has never been
deciphered even though over 2,500 examples of it exist.
Maybe I've watched too many sci-fi movies where a master
linguist deciphers alien languages, but I really thought
we had terrestrial languages mastered. What's the deal
with Indus script? Is the art of linguistics still held
hostage by our inability to decipher ancient languages
without a "key" a la the Rosetta Stone? --Troy Dayton,
Fargo, ND

SDSTAFF bibliophage replies:

Too much science fiction? No such thing. Star Trek, for
example, teaches us that a good communications officer
can send a message that transcends mere language,
especially if she has legs down to here and a hemline up
to there. Mmmmm. Mm-HMMMmmmmm . . . er, sorry. Was I
saying something?

Yes, I was. The Indus script, which was written in and
around Pakistan over a period of several centuries
centered around 2500 B.C., is the most famous
undeciphered script, but there are many others. Other
mystery writing systems include Linear A (Greece, 1800
B.C.), Zapotec (Mexico, 500 B.C.), Meroitic (Sudan, 300
B.C.), Isthmian (Central America, A.D. 200), Rongorongo
(Easter Island, A.D. 1800) and Joycean (Ireland, A.D.
1900). Okay, maybe not that last one.

For more, see:
http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mindusscript.html

STRAIGHT DOPE CLASSIC - 05/31/1985

Dear Cecil:

I've saved a newspaper clipping reporting that during the
height of a meteor shower on August 11, 1979, three
oozing, purple "blobs" were found on a lawn in Frisco,
Texas. These blobs were not your ordinary garden
variety--they had some very strange properties. Surmising
that the blobs fell from space, NASA removed them for
testing. I've finally given up waiting for a follow-up on
this in the newspapers, and have decided to turn to you.
Cecil, what do NASA's secret files say about these blobs?
Were they really some sort of smegma from space, or just
lumps of grape Jell-O that some kid flung out the window?
--Greg T., Chicago

Dear Greg:

Cecil has gotten to be very chummy with the folks at the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration in Houston,
and therefore they do not get mad and slam down the phone
when he calls up to ask about weird blobs from space. [NOTE: 
This was written before Cecil's latest inquiries about sex in
space.] If only some of the other victims of my
interrogations would be as considerate. Here's the whole
story, as told by NASA geochemist Doug Blanchard:

The blobs were found by Mrs. Sybil Christian on the front
lawn of her home in Frisco, a farming town near Dallas.
She described them as looking like "smooth whipped cream,
[only] purple." The blobs, which were about the size of a
telephone and weighed a couple pounds apiece, were warm
to the touch and contained small chunks of lead. One
melted away on the lawn, but police took the remaining
two to the Heard National Space Museum nearby, and
eventually one ended up at NASA.

For more, see:
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_285.html

____________________________________________
Here's how you can get your OWN FREE Subscription:
Send a blank mailto:[email protected]
____________________________________________
Copyright 1995 - 2005 Chicago Reader, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
You may forward this document by email ONLY if you
include the entire document INCLUDING the information
at the bottom of this publication
____________________________________________
Visit our good friends at Joke A Day
http://www.jokeaday.com
They're kind enough to mail THE STRAIGHT DOPE for us.
Join the World's Largest Daily Humor List and receive
daily laughs in your email by sending mailto:[email protected]