The Straight Dope 01/20/2006

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

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THE STRAIGHT DOPE 01/20/2006

Dear Cecil:

I've noticed that when people want to "prove" that humans are capable of
amazing things under stress, they often cite the 90-pound mother who
lifts a car off her trapped child. I know humans can do incredible
things, like the guy who chopped his own hand off to get free from a
fallen boulder, but have mothers really hoisted cars? Has anyone
actually seen this happen or is it an urban legend? Are we talking about
a Yugo here or a 1956 Caddy? Let me know soon, Unca Cecil--I'm trying to
walk more these days, and if I get run over I need to know whether to
call mom or a tow truck. --Eric Rapp, Los Angeles

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Cecil replies:

Always smart to be prepared, Eric. I haven't gotten to the bottom of
this yet, but my interim judgment is: (1) This sure sounds like an urban
legend. (2) But maybe it's not. I just got off the phone with a woman
who lifted, if not an entire car, at least a nontrivial fraction of the
weight of one off her trapped son.

The woman's name is Angela Cavallo, and she still lives in
Lawrenceville, Georgia, where the incident happened on April 9, 1982.
(An Associated Press account didn't appear till April 14, but Angela
remembers the date because it was Good Friday.) Her then-teenage son
Tony had a 1964 Chevy Impala jacked up in the driveway--he'd removed a
rear tire and was working on the suspension. A neighbor kid came to the
kitchen door to tell Angela there'd been an accident. She rushed out to
find Tony pinned under the car--something had been stuck and in trying
to loosen it he'd rocked the car off the jack. Now he was caught in one
of the rear wheel wells; all she could see of him was from the waist
down. Ancient Chevies being big ol' cars with a lot of room around the
wheels, Tony wasn't immediately crushed. But he was out cold.

For more, see:
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/060120.html

STAFF REPORT

Dear Straight Dope:

Ever since I took sex ed in high school I've been wondering: How exactly
do men get STDs from women? The gym teacher explained that STDs are
transmitted in body fluids and, as far as I know, men don't intake
bodily fluids from women. Can you help me out? --Josh

Guest contributor Mojave66 replies:

Pardon the metaphor, but while a gusher may be spectacular, a swamp can
be just as wet.

Transmission from females to males is dependent on a lot of factors such
as open sores on the penis and vulva, vaginal trauma in women and
circumcision in men (non-circumcised males have a higher risk of penile
cancer). Female arousal includes a lubrication phase that squeezes water
out of vaginal cells through vasodilation. The lubricant that forms is
mostly water with a mix of squamous vaginal cells, cervical mucus and
small amounts of blood. Luckily for us women, that can help reduce the
risk of transmission to partners since more lubricant keeps the vagina
safe from the cuts and scrapes of enthusiastic partners, and therefore
less blood is introduced into the mix. It pays to keep your girl happy.

For more, see: 
http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mF2M-stds.html

STRAIGHT DOPE CLASSIC - 03/09/1990

Dear Cecil: 

I understand a few of the reasons behind our complicated English
measurements. For instance, an acre was the area plowable in one day
using draft animals. But where, pray tell, did the mile and, while we're
at it, the yard come from? I mean, 1,760 yards or 5,280 feet can't
possibly hold any mystical significance, even to the Illuminati.
--Michael Hollinger, Herndon, Virginia

Dear Michael:

Never underestimate the Illuminati, chum--I'm still stumped by the 17/23
correlation. (See More of the Straight Dope, page 297; 
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_295.html) The mile, though, is
more the result of congenital British half-arsedness than conspiracy. It
originated in the Roman mille passuum, a thousand paces, or more
precisely, a thousand strides. Each pace consisted of five Roman feet,
giving us a mile of 5,000 feet. Since the Roman foot (the pes) was
smaller than today's foot, the Roman mile was about nine-tenths the
length of our mile.

For more, see:
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_024.html

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