News

This week, Collected Wisdom sinks back into the leather seats of the luxury airliner's first-class compartment (a Globe and Mail expense account is such a wonderful thing!) and ponders the existence of an artifact from another era.

THE QUESTION: "Smoking is banned on commercial airliners, so why are there ashtrays on even the newest of aircraft?" asked Carolyn Lane of Richmond Hill, Ont.

THE ANSWER: Flight attendant Robyn Davis of Toronto says that, if someone starts to smoke on a plane, "there needs to be a safe place to put out the cigarette. Aviation regulations require ashtrays at certain locations on board all aircraft."

That's right, says Paul Brault of Winnipeg. "The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration regulations continue to require removable ashtrays 'located conspicuously on or near the entry side of each lavatory door.' "

In addition, the regulations state: "If smoking is to be allowed in any other compartment occupied by the crew or passengers, an adequate number of self-contained, removable ashtrays are provided for all seated occupants."

He also points out that smoking on passenger planes is not banned everywhere in the world, but planes are sold worldwide.

And while we're up in the clouds …

THE QUESTION: Why are storm clouds black? asked Thomas Rendell Curran of Ottawa.

THE ANSWER: Madeleine Phillips, a Grade 7 student in Collingwood, Ont., says that when clouds first form, the droplets of water vapour within them are very fine and close together. Therefore, sunlight cannot penetrate far into the cloud before it is reflected back, making the cloud appear white.

As the water droplets combine and become larger, writes Carla Hagstrom of Toronto, the cloud appears black because the droplets have a fair amount of space between them, allowing light to enter farther into the cloud and not be reflected back.

FURTHER NOTICE

Last week, one of our correspondents explained that tea has more caffeine on a pound-for-pound basis than coffee, but that a cup of tea contains less caffeine because it takes only one teaspoon of tea leaves to make a cup of tea compared with three tablespoons of ground coffee to make a cup of java.

That should have been three teaspoons (or one tablespoon) to make a cup of coffee. CW discovered the error after brewing up a pot of java using last Saturday's formula. We didn't get to sleep until Wednesday.

HELP WANTED

Some public washrooms have paper towels, others have air dryers. Which is more hygienic and which is more environmentally friendly? asks Douglas McArthur of Toronto.

Kirsti and William Fry of Milton, Ont., say their 9-year-old son William stumped them with this autumnal question: "If the leaves on the trees take carbon dioxide from the air and produce oxygen, what happens when the leaves fall off the trees? Does the amount of carbon dioxide in the air increase?"

Why are the Republican states in the U.S. defined as "red" and Democratic states as "blue"? asks David Brewer of Kanata, Ont. "This is contrary to common practice, which associates blue with conservative (as in Tory blue) and red with the left, be it socialist or communist."

Send answers (and questions) to wisdom@globeandmail.com. Please include your name, location and a daytime phone number.