Apple #551: Make Pantyhose Last Longer

I confess, I wear hosiery. In the winter I prefer tights because they're warmer, but in fall or spring when I don't want something as heavy and warm as tights, I like pantyhose better (much as I detest that word, or pretty much any word involving "panty").

But the dang things get holes in them after two or three wearings. Unlike socks, they can't be sewn up or fixed in some way. You can try to stop a run or a hole from getting bigger with nail polish, but sometimes the hole or run busts right through and keeps going to encompass several toes or extend all the way across the foot.


Keep wearing a pair of hose long enough and any run will turn into a ginormous thing like this, I don't care how much nail polish you use to try to stop it.
(Photo from Tanng J)


I'll also turn them around so that the hole that started on top of one toe is now on the bottom of the toe, but sometimes that hole gets bigger down there, or another one starts at the top of another toe. So my toes are poking through the dang things all over the place, which gets uncomfortable not to mention annoying. The rest of the garment is fine, but the toes are shot. The whole pair is then worthless and must be replaced.

Is there any way to make these stupid things last longer?


These fancy pairs of hosiery are pretty and they're fun to wear. But they probably don't survive many wearings at all.
(Photo from The Daily Green)


Lots of sites have many suggestions. Some of them I already do, to no avail. Other suggestions are new to me. I'll separate the suggestions that way.

Tips I Do Already

• Buy the kind with reinforced toes. I never buy sheer toes anymore. Absolutely isn't worth it. But I bust through even the reinforced toes within a few wearings.

A lot of fashion adviser people will tell you to stay away from the reinforced toe varieties because they're not exactly pretty. But those fashion adviser people probably make a lot more money than I do and can afford to replace their hosiery after one or two wearings.
(Photo from essentialapparel.com)

• Buy the thicker, sturdier kind. One woman swears by the Resilience brand. I tried those before, and I do remember noticing they were a bit more durable than usual. But they still develop holes or snags. One snag in this suggestion (ha ha pun): Hanes discontinued them in 2007.

If it says "support" on the package, those are probably going to be more durable.
(Photo and pantyhose from onehanesplace)

• Put them on properly. Bunch one leg of hosiery all the way down to the toe, work it slowly over your foot, and gently unfurl the bunched hosiery as you slide up the leg. Bunching it up at the outset keeps you from pulling or tugging at the material. In general, the more gently you handle the hosiery, the better.

• Prevent snags. Keep your toenails trimmed, trim hangnails, file rough edges on fingernails or toenails, wear lotion on your hands, put lotion on your feet and legs -- anything to smooth the whole process of putting on the nylons. Some people even suggest wearing cotton gloves. That sounds like some kind of Mommy Dearest obsession so I'm probably not going to do that.

This kind of hole and its related runs probably came about because the wearer bumped against something sharp or maybe she accidentally put her fingernail through the hosiery while putting them on.
(Photo from eHow)

• Inspect your footwear. Perhaps you have some roughened surface inside your shoes, or perhaps your shoes are too tight. Extra friction at the toes could wear the garment out sooner.

• Try upsizing. Especially if you're in between sizes, buy the next larger size up. A roomier garment means less strain. Upsizing doesn't always work for me, though. Sometimes the next size up is Saggus McBaggus. That is decidedly less attractive than a minor run across the foot.

• Rotate pairs. Don't wear the same pair multiple days in a row, or even two days in a row. Let them rest.

• Hand wash only. I used to hand wash my hosiery. It takes longer, and I always suspected I didn't get all the soap out. Now I wash them in the gentle cycle of my washing machine. I put them in an old pillow cover that zips so they won't wrap around the core of the machine. But maybe I should go back to hand washing. Sigh.

• Use Hosiery Mate. This is a special detergent designed only for washing hosiery. I used to use this too. It had a funny, over-detergenty smell that I didn't really like. I didn't notice much difference when I used this versus a regular laundry detergent, either. But one woman swears it helps her hosiery last longer -- although, reading her comment again, she says it's her tights that have lasted 10 years. Well, sure, I've had pairs of tights last that long, too. But I'm talking nylons, woman!

Suggestions That Are New to Me

• Buy the kind with more lycra or spandex. I've never looked at ingredient labels on hosiery packages, but I doubt they have the fabric contents broken down by percentages. Still, if the packaging says somewhere that they're about 15% lycra or spandex, that kind will probably last longer, since those materials are more durable than nylon.
  

• Wash before wearing. That's right, after you take them out of the package, don't put them on, wash them instead. Some people recommend cold water in the gentle cycle of the washing machine, others say only hand washing will do.
  

• Wash them with liquid starch. This is by hand washing only. Follow the instructions on the bottle of starch. No idea if it's got instructions particular to washing hosiery, but if it doesn't, I'd guess use less than a capful in a sink of cold water.

I've only ever seen spray starch in cans that my mom used while ironing. This is a gallon of liquid starch. One bottle costs about $3.
(Photo from thriftyfun)

• Freeze them. Lots of people recommend this and have done so for years, apparently. It's such a common suggestion that even Snopes investigated it to see if it's true. The only conclusion Snopes arrived at was to say that the reason this might have worked had more to do with the type of fabric used in making hosiery about 30 years ago (more nylon then than now?). Today it probably has less of an effect, they guessed, but they couldn't say anything definitive it.
  

• One science-sounding guy said he thought there might be some truth to it. I kind of doubt that he's an expert, but I'll give you his explanation in his own words:

"When you get something real cold, the molecules stop moving, then you bring it back to room temp and as the molecules warm up they rearrange and release much of the internal stress between them. This makes the material very uniform on a molecular level. Thus, internal stress is reduced as things warm back up. This reduces the weak spots in the nylon material and allows the panty hose to stand more abuse prior to tearing or 'running'."

• So, what the heck, why not give it a try?

This mom keeps her pantyhose in the freezer. You can see the large package sticking up at the left.
(Photo from The Daily Green)

• People differ in their instructions about how and when to freeze them. The variations break down into two camps, to wet first or not to wet first. Here the instructions for each:

• Before wearing the first time, keep them in the package and freeze for 24 hours.
  

• Before wearing the first time, wet them, squeeze out most of the excess water, put them in a bag, and put them in the freezer. Thaw and allow them to dry before wearing.

• There are still more suggestions, ones that have nothing to do with freezing.

• Lightly spray them with hairspray after you have put them on. I'm intrigued by this one. Some hairsprays are like shellac, so it stands to reason that they might impart some durability to nylon as well as hair.

• Wash them as soon as you get home. Some people say as soon as they get in the door, they're taking off the pantyhose and going to the sink to wash them out.

• Soak them in salt water. Not sure if you're supposed to do this before wearing or after. The person who suggested it did say to let them soak for a day.

• Double up. If you get a run in one leg, cut the bad leg off, leaving the panty (ugh, that word) intact. Match that half-amputated pair with another amputated pair and wear them together. This means that you'll have to wear both panties, one on top of the other, each with one good leg. I know I won't be trying this one.
  

• Store them in a Ziploc bag or other container where they won't get snagged on the inside of your drawer.

If you go the doubling-up route, you'll want to be careful about matching the two legs with each other, or you might get something like this, except even less fashionable.
(Photo from Just Humor Me)


After having read all these recommendations, especially the odder-sounding ones like freezing the pantyhose, I thought I'd consult the expert. Who knows more about pantyhose than Heloise? Interestingly, when I searched her site (or ran several searches for "pantyhose" and "Heloise"), I found scads of tips for what to do with those old pantyhose that you can't wear anymore. I didn't find a single tip about how to make your pantyhose last longer.


Tree Hugger is another place that has lots of suggestions for what to do with your old pantyhose.
(Photo from Tree Hugger)


Wear Something Else Instead

I thought this was kind of funny. A lot of people's suggestions about making pantyhose last longer included at least two or three ideas in this category -- simply avoid them altogether. Which says to me that it's pretty much a losing battle, trying to make these things last any length of time.

• Try thigh-highs instead. I'm not a fan of these, since they get stretched out and slide down almost immediately. But some people say they last longer than pantyhose. [shrugs]

• Wear trouser socks instead. These will only work if you wear pants, not skirts. But they're cheaper, and they're usually more durable to boot (ha ha another pun).

Trouser socks are hosiery in knee-high form, with some added durability.
(Photo and this pair available from Simply Tall)

• Wear tights instead. They're thicker and more durable. Yes, they definitely are.
  

• Wear longer skirts and no hose.
  

• Wear tall boots and no hose.

One thing that everyone agrees on: the expensive kind are no more durable than the cheap kind. You might buy the pricey kind because you like the way they look or they've got one of those built-in body-shaper things (a.k.a. girdle), but don't expect them to last longer just because you spent a lot of money on them. The reverse is also true: just because you get the cheap kind, that doesn't mean they'll fall apart faster.

So I guess the moral is, buy what you like, do your best to make them last, and move on.


If I didn't care anything about price, I'd try these. It's hard to tell from this small photo (the only one I could link to here) but they look pretty good to me. They might also be the answer to my question. They're matte tights, but they look like pantyhose. So they might last as long as tights. The drawback? They're $48.00 a pair.
(Photo and Wolford 'Fatal 15' Seamless Tights from Nordstrom)



There's also these, which are supposed to look transparent, so they're probably fragile as all get-out. But from the photo and the description, it sounds like they'd be smooth. As it happens, the description does have a percentage content breakdown. They're 96% polyamide (a.k.a. nylon), 3% elastane (generic for Spandex), and 1% cotton. They're sheer, with a sheer toe, of course. Completely indulgent purchase this would be. But if I had a kajillion dollars, I'd try them.
(Wolford Naked 8 Sheer Pantyhose, $30.00 at bare necessities)



These are more in my price range. I like the silky shiny ones, but they wear out at the drop of a shoe. These are -- get ready for this uber-long name -- Berkshire Silky Control Top Extra Wear Sheer Lycra Leg Hosiery. The color is French Coffee.
(These range in price depending on the color, but this one is $5.21 per pair through Amazon. Not bad.)


All right, that's enough of my pipe-dream hosiery shopping. You're just lucky I didn't start looking at tights!

Oh, I almost forgot: if you have tried any of those techniques that are new to me, tell us in the comments how well they work (or maybe don't work) for you.


Sources
eHow, How to Make Pantyhose Last Longer, October 11, 2011
Dollar Stretcher, Pantyhose Budget Buster
The Thrifty Couple, Daily Dose of Thrifty: Make Your Nylons and Pantyhose Last Longer
Chrissy Stewart, Wryte Stuff, How to Make Your Pantyhose and Stockings Last Longer, September 17, 2008
Snopes, Storing batteries in a refrigerator or freezer will improve their performance (that's false, by the way. They also investigated freezing pantyhose and refrigerating nail polish. Their jury is still out on the latter two.)
Ask Metafilter, Replacement for Hanes Resilience nylons?
Democratic Underground, Does freezing pantyhose really make them last longer? March 23, 2006

Apple #550: Alfred Nobel and His Prizes

All this week, they've been announcing the Nobel prize-winners. Canadian physician Ralph Steinman was announced to have won, along with two others, the prize in medicine for his development of a new treatment for cancer. Unfortunately, the prize committee learned, he had died of pancreatic cancer three days previously.

If that weren't ironic enough, the Nobel Prize has a rule that no prize may be awarded posthumously. He and his children had even had a conversation about this:

"We were like 'OK Dad, I know things aren't going well, but the Nobel, they are going to announce it next Monday'. And he's like: 'I know, I have got to hold out for that. They don't give it to you if you have passed away. I got to hold out for that.'"

--Alexis Steinman, Ralph's daughter

But he wasn't able to hold out that long.


Ralph Steinman, 2011 Nobel Prize-winner in Physiology or Medicine
(Photo from Curious Cat)


However, the committee has another rule which says that if the recipient dies in between the time that the committee decides on a recipient and when the award is given, then that person is still the award-winner. So Steinman will still appear on a list of award-winners, and his children will be given the big-money prize.

This whole no-posthumous-awards struck me as unusual. Then the contingency plan seemed even more odd and specific. I wondered if there were other odd rules associated with the Nobel Prize. I also wanted to know about the money. I have the impression that they give out a pretty big sum of money. That must come from some pretty big pool of money. Who provides the funds for that?

So I started reading. Turns out, a lot of things about the Nobel Prize are pretty odd. The whole thing came about because some guy -- Alfred Nobel -- willed it into being. Literally, he put it into his will. Everybody has to abide by what his will says. So the oddities about the Prize owe first of all to the fact that this was the brainchild of one person whose interests and particularities were as unique and individual as any one of us.

You can see how various features of the Prize reflect who he was and what he did.


Young Alfred Nobel
(Photo from Nobelprize.org)


The Nobel Prize is awarded for excellence in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and Peace. Why those three science disciplines, plus literature and peace?

• Alfred Nobel was educated by private tutors in the natural sciences as well as literature and languages.

• During what were essentially his college years, he went abroad to study chemical engineering. His knowledge of chemistry turned out to be crucial to his experiments with nitroglycerine and his invention of dynamite.

• His early jobs involved building military equipment for the Russian army and designing steam engines -- both of which require a solid knowledge of physics.

Alfred Nobel in his laboratory
(This painting is all over the place. Here, sourced from the Daily News)

• As for the medicine piece, he was always sort of sickly, even when he was young. He suffered from indigestion, headaches, and bouts of depression. He sought relief at many European spas, but to little avail.

"Sickly, probably hypochondriac, he had his whole life been visiting spas and specialists to cure sore muscles, sudden fainting, nose bleeds, rheumatism, migraine, insomnia, cold sores, bad stomach, and heart problems. He disappears for days, weeks and returns with sunglasses and bandaged head."

--Karlsson on Nobel, from Svenska Uppfinnare

• His experiments with nitroglycerine may have been a contributing factor to his headaches. But later in life when he developed heart trouble, it had been discovered that nitroglycerine could be helpful in treating angina pectoris. So he wound up taking nitroglycerine for his health.

• He also maintained an interest in other chemicals that might be useful for anesthesia and conducted various tests in his laboratory to that purpose.

• He might have been appreciative of the doctors who provided some easing of his symptoms, and hoped for medicine to be able to do more for others in the future.

• As for the literature piece, he wrote poetry and plays for several years. Early in his career as a chemical engineer, he toyed with the idea of ditching engineering in favor of writing poetry for a living. He was fluent in Swedish, Russian, French, English and German by the age of 17, and throughout his life he read extensively. Friends commented on his "well-stocked library, capable of satisfying the most divergent wishes." At his death, his library housed over 1500 volumes.
  

Wait. The guy who made the Peace Prize invented dynamite?

• Yes, Nobel invented dynamite. He also invented the blasting cap, which made it possible to light dynamite with a fuse. He founded a number of companies which manufactured and sold dynamite all across Europe. It is probably the extensive sale of dynamite which formed the monetary foundation of the Prize's existence.

• Bit of a contradiction there, eh? But wait, there's more.

• In the course of his experiments with nitroglycerine and dynamite, an explosion killed his brother. So he knew how deadly dynamite could be. Yet he kept working with it and, once he'd invented dynamite, manufactured and sold it widely.

An explosion courtesy of dynamite. Here, it's used for construction purposes. Dynamite was and still is used to blow open the sides of mountains to make a way for roads to tunnel through.
(Photo from History of Science 2009)

• Albert Einstein is famously quoted as saying that Nobel must have established the Peace Prize as a way to atone for the damage he made possible when he invented dynamite. But in fact, Nobel's letters and journals suggest otherwise.

• Nobel thought that dynamite was so powerful and explosive, it surely must lead to the eradication of war. As he put it in 1891,
  

"Perhaps my factories will put an end to war sooner than your congresses: on the day that two army corps can mutually annihilate each other in a second, all civilised nations will surely recoil with horror and disband their troops."

• This was a couple of decades before World War I, so he didn't see that no troops disbanded despite horrors greater than he ever imagined. This was also the same argument behind nuclear weapons. We've seen how well that argument works.
  

• But back in his day, Nobel regarded dynamite as a deterrent to war. Though he made a boatload of money from the stuff, he apparently wished that war would not happen. As he wrote in a letter, "Good wishes alone will not ensure peace."

• That letter was written to a friend of his, Bertha von Sutter, who was an Austrian countess and a devoted peace activist. She wrote an anti-war novel called Lay Down Your Arms which was widely read and regarded. She and Nobel conducted a lengthy correspondence, and it is thought that her ideas influenced Nobel.

• After having met her, he became a member of the Austrian Peace Association and donated funds to it. So he did take some action during his lifetime in support of pacifism.
  

• All that said, the exact rationale behind his establishment of the Peace Prize is not really known.

Bertha von Sutter, peace activist and friend of Alfred Nobel. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1905.
(Photo from Skandinav i Florida)


If the Prizes were established by one guy, how come they're awarded by different groups of people from different countries?

• The short answer is because that's what he said he wanted in his will.

• His will, which is surprisingly short given all that it put in motion, said the prizes would be determined as follows:

1. Physics and Chemistry each to be awarded by the Swedish Academy of Sciences
2. Physiology or Medicine to be awarded by the Karolinska Institutet in Stokholm, Sweden
3. Literature to be awarded by the Swedish Academy
   
4. Peace to be awarded by a committee of five people elected by the Norwegian Storting (a.k.a. Parliament)

• What's interesting about this, first of all, is that Nobel spent the majority of his life in France and Italy. Paris was the city he loved best. He grew up in Russia. But he was born in Sweden, and after the family fell on hard times in Russia, they returned to Sweden. It was Sweden that Alfred chose as the seat from which his Prizes should be determined.

But if he's from Sweden, how come the Norwegian Parliament handles the Peace Prize?

• That's because when Nobel wrote his will in 1895, the two countries were ruled as one, by a single monarch. In 1905, Norway became a separate kingdom.

The Norwegian Storting in 1905 when it voted to separate itself from Sweden.
(Photo from Wikipedia)

• Still, Nobel could have chosen to give the task to some Swedish governing body.
  

• There is a lot of speculation about why he chosen the Norwegian Parliament, the chief possibility being that the Storting was the first legislative body to vote in favor of the international peace movement.

• But that's only speculation. Again, no one knows for sure why he put Norway in charge of this piece of the prize.
  

Exactly how much money does a Nobel winner receive?

• His will doesn't stipulate a specific amount. It did say that whatever was left over after various family members and servants received relatively modest amounts should go to the prize.

• That worked out to over 31 million Swedish kronor (SEK). In today's dollars, that's $249 million.

What Swedish kronor, or crowns, look like
(Image from Visit Sweden)

• But the money Nobel left to the Prizes was also supposed to be invested in order to continue funding the prize. So the amount available would change from one year to the next. How much should the Prize winners be awarded going forward?

• That amount was settled on by the Nobel Foundation, which was formed in order to figure out the particulars of how the will should be executed. It's sort of like after Congress makes a law, a whole lot of regulations get written after the fact to govern the details. The statutes that were written by the Foundation are what deal with the particulars of the money and pretty much everything else.

• As to the amount of money awarded, the statutes say, "the amount of a prize thus awarded shall under no circumstances be less than sixty percent of that portion of the annual yield of the fund that shall be available for the prize award."

• You can see the complete table of award amounts given each year and what that translates to in 2010 SEK. But I'll give you some of the highlights.
  

• In 1901, the first year when Prizes were awarded, the amount awarded to each laureate was SEK 150,782. That's roughly $1.2 million in 2010 dollars.

• The lowest amount awarded was in 1923: SEK 114,935.

• In 1963 they apparently decided to give out round numbers. That year, each prize winner received SEK 265,000 (2010 $394,022. Apparently 1963 SEK were worth much less than 1901 SEK).

• In 2001, the prize amount was increased to SEK 10 million. That was the year that SEK were at their most valuable; the prize money awarded converts to 2010 $1.7 million.

• The award currently remains SEK 10 million.
  

• Which means they need to have 6 x SEK 10 million (why 6 instead of 5, I'll get to in a moment) available to award. And if I understand the will and its statutes correctly, the SEK 60 million would be just the interest. And only 60% of it, at that.

• That's a big pot of money they're drawing from. Which leads me to my next point:

Isn't there another prize for Economics?

• Yes, there is. This one was established long after Alfred Nobel's will, in 1968.

• It was set up by the Sveriges Riksbank, Sweden's national bank. The bank made a donation to the Nobel Foundation in celebration of the bank's 300th anniversary. That donation formed the basis of the first Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences.

• The Nobel people don't say this, but I suspect that the Swedish national bank made gobs of money from handling that Foundation pool of cash. Their donation to establish the prize probably constituted a pretty minor amount compared to what the bank earned over the decades. I bet it was really a way of saying thank you for letting us handle all that money for so many years.

• I don't know much about investing, but anybody who manages to hang onto $249 million for over 100 years, through two World Wars and a Great Depression and a global recession, and to make that amount increase substantially, I'd say they're doing a pretty good job.

This is what it looks like when they award you the Nobel Prize.
(Photo from eiffel.ps.uci.edu)


Don't the laureates get something else besides money?

• Yes, they also each receive a diploma and a medal.

• The diplomas are designed differently each year, and for each laureate. In recent years, they have had an artistically designed cover with the text of the diploma in hand-made calligraphy. I'd show you an example here but I can't because they're all copyrighted by the Nobel Foundation. But this diploma awarded to Gerardus 't Hooft for Physics in 1999 is a pretty cool-looking one.

• The medals, on the other hand, have had the same design since 1902. The front of the medals all look the same.

The front of the medal bears Alfred Nobel in profile with his birth and death dates, NAT-MDCCC XXXIII OB-MDCCC XCVI, which means born 1833, died 1896.
(Photo from Nobelprize.org)

• The medals awarded in Sweden have this inscription on the back: Inventas vitam juvat excoluisse per artes ("Let us improve life through science and art" --Virgil, The Aeneid).

• The back of the Peace medal reads: Pro pace et fraternitate gentium ("For the peace and fraternity of all nations"). The Economics medal has no quotation on the back.

Here are some other facts about Nobel's life that I think are must have been significant or that reveal more of that strange contradiction between dynamite manufacturer and peace activist.

• The year Alfred was born, 1833, his father went bankrupt.

• When Alfred was 20, two important things happened. Alfred had already founded his first company. But the Crimean War erupted, the Russian military canceled a bunch of orders, and Alfred's company went bankrupt.

• That same year, Alfred's father Immanuel was presented at the Russian court where he was awarded Tsar Nikolai's Imperial Gold Medal "for diligence and creative skill in Russian industry."

• The Crimean War hit Alfred's father hard, too. Six years after receiving his prestigious award, Immanuel went bankrupt -- for the second time.

• In 1864 when Alfred was 31, his brother Emil and several other people were killed while trying to develop nitroglycerine into a workable explosive. The city of Stockholm where the explosion occurred forbade further nitroglycerine production within the city limits. Nobel moved his lab to a barge on a lake and continued working.

• A plant of Alfred Nobel's at Krümmel in Germany blew up, twice. Both times it was rebuilt larger than before. The ground around the plant was rich in diatomaceous earth, which turned out to be a key component in stabilizing nitroglycerine in the more controllable form of dynamite.

Alfred Nobel. A riddle wrapped in an enigma
(Photo from the History of Economic Thought)

You say I am a riddle – it may be
For all of us are riddles unexplained.
Begun in pain, in deeper torture ended,
This breathing clay what business has it here?
Some petty wants to chain us to the Earth,
Some lofty thoughts to lift us to the spheres,
And cheat us with that semblance of a soul
To dream of Immortality
--Alfred Nobel, age 18

One last thing: the Prizes are awarded on December 10, which is the anniversary of Alfred's death.


Sources
All my sources are from the Official site of the Nobel Prize
It's a huge site, with lots of information buried within links within links. Here are some of the pages I found most useful.
Timeline of Alfred Nobel's life
Alfred Nobel - His Life and Work
Alfred Nobel on War and Peace
Alfred Nobel and His Interest in Literature
Alfred Nobel - St. Petersburg
Short Facts about the Prizes
Nobel Prize Facts
Table of Nobel Prize Amounts
Full text of Alfred Nobel's Will
Statutes governing the Prizes
About the Nobel Foundation
Then there's also this: "Cancer kills Nobel physician before he hears of Prize," Reuters, October 3, 2011

Apple #548B: White Caterpillars, part II

A couple of weeks ago, I posted an entry about some caterpillars I encountered in the woods. Since I do occasionally get things wrong, especially where plant and animal identification is concerned, I posted my photos along with my best guesses of what the caterpillars were and invited feedback.

I got no responses.

Nobody told me I had guessed right, but nobody said I'd got it wrong, either. So I'm going with my best guess.

Now allow me to officially introduce to you the caterpillar of the American dagger moth, and the caterpillar of the Hickory tussock moth, respectively.


American Dagger Moth


American dagger moth caterpillar
(Photo by the Apple Lady)

• This is the caterpillar of the American dagger moth (Acronicta americana).

• This caterpillar ranges in color from yellow to white.
  

• All varieties have those dense fuzzy hairs (setae) all over the body and long spiky things (lashes) that stick up higher than the setae. On this caterpillar, the lashes are on segments 1, 3, and 8.
  

• Most of the caterpillars that are very hairy or fuzzy-looking like this are in some way unpleasant or even painful to the touch. Touching the hairs (setae) of this one can give you a reaction from a minor irritation to an allergic rash.
  

• These freddies live East of the Rockies, primarily in woodlands and forests, especially ones that are swampy.

• They like to eat the leaves of deciduous trees of typical hardwoods like ash, elm, maple, oak, hickory, walnut, and willow

• Caterpillars are out from June through October

• They're in the cocoon during the winter.

• In April, the moths come out and fly around until September.

• The adult moths look far less exciting than their caterpillar, or larvae, version.

American dagger moth in its adult form
(Photo by Cindy Mead at Red Planet)


Now for white caterpillar number two.

Hickory Tussock Moth


Hickory tussock moth caterpillar
(Photo by the Apple Lady)

• My best guess is that this is the caterpillar of the Hickory tussock moth. The reason I'm not 100% confident is that hickory tussock moth caterpillars have black or a mix of white and black lashes. This one has only white lashes.

• But it does have the black bands across the top of its abdomen and the white fuzzy setae. So I'm going with Hickory tussock moth (Lophocampa caryae).

• These are one of several types of tussock moths caterpillars. "Tussock" refers to the way the setae get clumped together in groups, or tussocks.
  

• I find it interesting that the common name of the species refers to something distinctive about the caterpillar rather than the moth. I think that's because the caterpillars look way more exciting than the adult moths do.

• Another type of tussock moth that you might be more familiar with is the gypsy moth.

Asian gypsy moth caterpillar -- another tussock moth caterpillar
(Photo from the Agricultural Experiment Station Archives at the Global Invasive Species Database)

• Gypsy moths are native to Europe and Asia. They were introduced to the US in the 1860s and, without a natural predator, have been on a tear through our trees ever since.

• In the Eastern part of the US alone, European gypsy moths (which have a shorter range than the Asian gypsy moths) defoliate an average of 4 million acres each year.

• As a relative of the gypsy moth, the Hickory tussock moth can also defoliate entire trees, but they tend not to be quite as damaging in the long run.

• This is probably because they're native to the states, so they have some natural predators: lizards, frogs, wasps, and some types of birds.

• True to their name, the Hickory Tussock moth caterpillars like to feed on the leaves of hickory trees.
  

• That's only in the south, though. In the north, they like to eat the leaves of beech and oak and other nut trees.

• For reasons which entomologists can only guess, there are an especially high number of these out and about this year.

• Caterpillars wander about in the fall, eating as much as they can and looking for a good spot to make their cocoon. The moths come out in July.

The adult hickory tussock moth. Doesn't look much like its caterpillar version, does it?
(Photo from What's That Bug?)

• Some people have been passing around emails about VENOMOUS black and white caterpillars with all sorts of WARNINGS in the messages.

• The caterpillars to which they're referring are these, the Hickory tussock moth caterpillars.

• It's probably not as dire as those messages would have you believe, but it's true, touching one of these with your bare skin can be painful. That's because the hairs do contain a very small amount of venom. Most likely you'll get a stinging sensation and maybe you'll even develop a poison ivy-like rash.

Another view of the hickory tussock caterpillar. Noli me tangere!
(Photo from Old Dominion Wildlife)

• It can be unpleasant enough, though, that entomologists say you don't even want to come in contact with the hairs that might have fallen off the caterpillar. They suggest wearing gloves while cleaning up dead leaves in your yard.

• If you do get stung, wash thoroughly with soap and water to get rid of any lingering venom.

• Spines might even get stuck in your skin. If that's the case, use a piece of Scotch tape to pull out some of the broken spines.
  

• You may even want to use an ice pack because you may experience swelling.

• If you're having allergic reactions that are especially severe, or if you've been stung in the eye, see a doctor immediately.

The caterpillar of another type of tussock moth, the White-Banded tussock moth. Crrrazy-looking, isn't it? This one is venomous, too.
(Photo from Henderson State University)


Related posts: White caterpillars, part I, Woolly Bear caterpillars

Sources
Bug Guide, Species Acronicta americana - American dagger moth
Paklinks, Science & Nature forum, Stinging Caterpillars: Cute, Fuzzy ... but Itchy
Diana Bowley, Entomologists: Beware of Hickory Tussock caterpillar, Bangor Daily News, August 30, 2011
USGS, Caterpillars of Eastern Forests, Hickory Tussock moth (Lophocampa caryae)
Global Invasive Species Database, Lymantia dispar (Asian gypsy moth)
Ask the Exterminator, Hickory Tussock Moth
Butterflies and Moths of North America, Lophocampa caryae

Apple #549: Losing Your Voice

So I went to a really great concert this week. Whoo, that was good. I sang along with just about every song, and since so many people were there and the whole thing was generally loud and huge and a whole lot of fun, I was singing more loudly than I realized. When the concert was over, the lights came up and everyone was leaving and talking at more normal volume levels, and that's when I discovered that my voice was hoarse and cracking. The next morning when I woke up, I tried to speak but no sound came out except a whisper.

That lasted only a couple of hours. But I'm a bit proud of this, I have to say. That's the first time I ever lost my voice because I was so into a concert, I was singing and yelling and whooping like mad.

Dave swears a lot in this. That's the way he is.



But of course I had to know more about losing your voice.

• The medical term for losing your voice is laryngitis.
  

• I had always thought of laryngitis as something official and medically serious that happened in connection with some sort of illness. Duh me. It's far more general than that. Any time you lose your voice, regardless of the reason, it's laryngitis.

• You lose your voice because the vocal cords in your voice box, or larynx, become inflamed. The word "laryngitis" literally means "larynx, swollen."

As this diagram shows, your larynx is at the top of your trachea, or wind pipe. It's not connected up with your esophagus but sits next to it.
(Image from HowsHealth)


From the top down, the larynx looks rather like a vagina. So you may be rather startled by these images, but relax. It's just the larynx.


This is the best image I found of what laryngitis looks like compared to vocal cords that are healthy. The vocal cords turn red and swell up.
(Diagram from emedicinehealth)

Here's a video that shows how the larynx and vocal cords works, and what happens to them when you get laryngitis. (I'd embed it here but that's not allowed.)


Of course after I looked at pictures of laryngitis and watched that video, I wanted to know more about how the larynx / vocal cords work in general. So I've got a couple visuals for you as part of that detour.


This seems counter-intuitive to me, but when the vocal cords are open, that means you're breathing and not making any sound through your trachea. When they're closed, that means you're talking or singing.
(Diagram from vocal clinic)

Finally, because I'm fascinated by the whole vocal cord (or vocal fold) thing in general, here's a video of a woman's larynx in action as she breathes and then sings. There's a spot in the middle where all the action stops, but after that, you can see what her vocal folds like like as she sings the National Anthem. It's pretty amazing that such sound comes out from such a little thing.

• Okay. Now back to the more specific topic of laryngitis.
  

• By the way, you don't have to lose your voice entirely to have laryngitis. Hoarseness alone can be an indicator of laryngitis.

• All kinds of things can cause you to lose your voice:

1. Overusing your voice, like I did
2. Cold or flu (this is the most common cause)
3. Acid reflux
4. Irritation from smoke or other harsh fumes, or due to allergies

• By the way, I think someone ought to study Dave Grohl's larynx. He screams like a madman for hours, night after night, and he seems to be completely unaffected.
  

• For most people in most situations, the swelling in the larynx subsides after a few days.

• If the laryngitis lasts longer than two weeks, then it's time to go see the doctor. You may have a viral or a bacterial infection, or some other situation going on that requires further treatment.

• But if you've lost your voice for relatively minor reasons and you're about as irritated by it as the vocal cords are themselves, here are some tips.

What Not to Do

• Losing your voice is common enough that a there a lot of suggestions out there for home remedies. Many of them don't do anything or they may even make the situation worse.

• Lemon -- People often recommend drinking hot tea with lemon, or warm water with lemon, or sucking on lemon lozenges. Lemon is an acid. Acids irritate things, including vocal cords. Acids also contribute to acid reflux, which is the most common cause of chronic laryngitis. If you've lost your voice, avoid lemons and lemon juice.

• Hot tea -- This is another acid. Even the much-lauded green tea. Not a good idea for an inflamed larynx.

• Acids in general -- Lots of foods out there are acidic, and it's a good idea to avoid these if you've lost your voice. Some other acids to avoid are any citrus fruits, tomatoes, and -- sob -- chocolate.

• Hot toddies -- for those of you younger than 109, a toddy is a warm alcoholic beverage. Some people recommend warm whiskey with lemon (as to the lemon, see above), or warm brandy or rum for laryngitis. Alcohol is a desiccant. That means it will dehydrate you. Anything inflamed will get worse if you take the moisture away. So alcohol is the opposite of what your inflamed larynx wants.

• Whispering -- Since you can't speak in your normal way, you may be tempted to whisper. But whispering actually puts extra stress on the vocal cords. You're effectively constricting the vocal folds, holding them back out of the way while allowing sound to pass through them. This keeps them from rubbing together, and it dries them out. As we know, dry vocal folds are unhappy vocal folds. So whispering may actually make your vocal cords take longer to heal.

• Clearing your throat -- Like whispering, clearing your throat puts added stress and vibration on your already inflamed, sore vocal cords. You may be tempted to do it as a way to make the hoarseness go away. But it will only hurt, not help.

What Makes No Difference

• Slippery elm -- this is one of those botanicals that people have recommended for years to treat sore throats or laryngitis. It's essentially gooey, and people think the gooiness helps coat and soothe the throat. But there is so far no scientific evidence that shows this helps at all. There's no evidence that shows it hurts, either. So it's a placebo.

What Does Help

• Drink lots of water -- yes, I know, you hear this so often it's boring. But it's true. Good old water is plain good for you. Inflammation is often caused by or characterized by not enough moisture. So an inflamed larynx will be helped and soothed the most by giving it all the nice, soothing, life-giving moisture you can: water. As an added bonus, if there's anything floating around in there like smoke or bacteria or some other irritant, the water will help flush that out.

• Use a humidifier -- a humidifier or a vaporizer are other good ways of getting more of that soothing, life-restoring moisture to the larynx. If your laryngitis is due to a cold, the extra humidity will help break up the stuffiness in your sinuses.
  

• Stop smoking -- you need to do this anyway for all sorts of reasons. You'll also want to avoid second-hand smoke too.
  

• Don't speak -- your vocal cords are tired. They've been overstrained, or overloaded by some external badness like a cold or an allergen or smoke. They need to rest. Don't speak. Let them sleep.

Take Helen's advice.



Sources
WebMD, Laryngitis
Mayo Clinic, Laryngitis
ABC News Cold and Flu Coverage, Losing Your Voice: 5 Myths for Remedies
Vox Daily, Vox Health: The Dangers of Whispering for Your Voice
Anahad O'Connor, The Claim: Whispering Can Be Hazardous to Your Voice, The New York Times, February 7, 2011

Apple #548A: White Caterpillars, part I

I'm terrible at plant and animal identification. When I manage to find a description that comes close to fitting the plant or animal in question, there are nearly always one or two features that differ slightly from the description. Does this mean the description I've found is for a different species entirely, or does this mean I'm looking at a lesser-known variant?

Recently, I came across two very fuzzy white caterpillars. I took pictures of them, thinking I would identify them later. But of course that's a more difficult task than I expected.

One of the caterpillars I'm reasonably sure I've identified correctly. I'm pretty sure this is the caterpillar of the American dagger moth (Acronicta americana).


American dagger moth caterpillar, I think. I almost stepped on this one.
(Photo by the Apple Lady)


This freddy can be yellow or white, but most of the pictures online are of the yellow version. So that was one thing that gave me trouble.

It also looks a whole lot like another kind of caterpillar, which I'll get to in a moment. First, some terminology.

The dense fuzzy hairs on the caterpillar are called setae. The caterpillar pictured above has white setae.

The long spiky things that stick up farther than the setae are called lashes. This particular caterpillar has black lashes. One of the tools of identification that entomologists uses is to note on which abdominal segment the lashes appear. In this case, the black lashes are on segments 1 and 3 and 8. The lashes on segments 1 and 3 are paired, but there is only a single black lash on the 8th segment.

These details about the color of the setae and the lashes and the placement of the lashes all match up with descriptions of the American dagger moth, so that's why I'm pretty confident I've got the right name for this dude. Or dudette, as the case may be.

The other one has me stumped.


Hickory tussock moth -- but a variant with white lashes?
(Photo by the Apple Lady)


When I was searching on phrases like "white fuzzy caterpillar black spikes" to identify the previous caterpillar, I kept getting hits for the Hickory tussock moth (Lophocampa caryae). But the one above doesn't have black bands on its abdomen, so I ruled out this species for that caterpillar.

This freddy, however, does have those black bands or spots on its abdomen. It also has thick white setae like the Hickory tussock moth does. It has lashes on what look like maybe the first and seventh segments. But the Hickory tussock moth's lashes are black. This dude's lashes are white.

I can't find a description of any species of caterpillar that has white setae, black spots, and white lashes. So I'm very tempted to say it's a variant version of the Hickory tussock moth caterpillar.


For sure a Hickory tussock moth caterpillar.
(Photo by Brookhaven National Lab)


I've got a couple other tricks up my sleeve to try to identify this freddy. But in the meantime, I thought I'd call on the power of the internet. Does anyone out there know for sure what species of moth caterpillar this is?

Once I've got them both identified with a fairly strong level of certainty, I'll tell you some facts about the life and times of these caterpillars. Here's a teaser: if my identifications are correct, these dudes have some caterpillar-sized amounts of venom in those lashes. So if you touch them, you'll feel a sting like from a mosquito bite or you may get an itchy rash like from poison ivy.

Good thing I didn't actually step on that first one, eh?

Here's the follow-up entry

Apple #547: Cotton Balls

I've lately taken to polishing my toenails. When I want to change the polish color, I rely heavily on our good friend, the cotton ball. A fairly genius little invention.


Cotton balls are so soft and fluffy and nice.
(Photo from Just for Life)

• Cotton balls are uniquely good at absorbing liquids. They're used in medicine to treat wounds as well as in cosmetics for applying make-up and other liquids.

• Some cotton balls are not actually made of 100% cotton but are made of synthetic fibers in part or entirely. Those cotton ball pretenders won't absorb whatever liquid you want to put on it nearly as well as 100% cotton. Other types of fibers will also tear and break apart much more quickly.

• One bale of cotton can make 680,000 cotton balls.

• You can use cotton balls as miniature air fresheners. Just plain cotton balls in the refrigerator has the same smell-absorbing effect as baking soda. And if you have small spots of mildew in your bathroom, soak a cotton ball or two in bleach, wedge the cotton ball against the mildew spot, and let it sit there for a few hours. When you come back, the mildew will be gone.

• If you're having trouble starting a fire, soak a cotton ball in melted Vaseline (or any petroleum jelly). The petroleum jelly acts like an accelerant and the cotton ball acts like a super-packed wick. The fire will last a pretty long time, people say.

That looks like someone dropped their marshmallow into the fire, but no, that's a cotton ball soaked in Vaseline, used to start the fire.
(Photo from Off Grid Survival)

• Despite all their fluffiness and niceness, there is a phobia of cotton balls. It's not very common, but some people do have it. They cannot bear to touch cotton balls. Something about the texture of them, or the sound when they're being ripped apart, gives people the shivers to such an extent, they won't go near them.

• This phobia is known as Sidonglobophobia or Bambakophobia. It sounds like I'm making this up, especially after that one entry I did about the fear of being watched by a duck (which is a made-up phobia). But this one is for real. Apparently Michael Jackson is one of the few people who had it.

• Here's more cotton ball weirdness: there is a diet that involves eating cotton balls. It's an insane diet because it can cause major digestive problems, to say the least. But people have done it. The idea is to eat cotton balls before your meal so that the fiber in the cotton makes you feel full and you eat less. Some people soak the cotton balls in something like orange juice to make them palatable at least. But this only makes me sigh. There are no shortcuts, people. Not even via cotton balls.

• Yes, it's true, Marlon Brando put cotton balls in his cheeks when he played the Godfather.

Cotton balls played a crucial role in this scene.
(Photo from Celebrity Picnic)

• Peter Sellers spoofed this to great effect in Revenge of the Pink Panther. As a master of disguises, you kneauw, he disguised himself as a rotund exaggerated version of the Godfather, complete with cotton balls in his cheeks. Except he started choking on them in front of the bad guys. When one of them clapped him on the back, the cotton balls flew out of his mouth.

• Artist Zimoun created an art installation featuring 138 cotton balls. He put each one on in its own cardboard box, attached each to a motorized stick, and rolled them back and forth over the cardboard, and recorded the sound. It's surprisingly loud.

• You can make tons of crafty things yourself out of cotton balls. Here is a sheep made out of cotton balls and a toilet paper tube.

Instructions for making this cotton ball sheep and all sorts of other cotton ball crafts at Artists Helping Children.



Here's another picture of cotton balls because I just couldn't resist. They're so round and soft and friendly. I definitely do not have Sidonglobophobia.
(Photo from Daily Glow)


Sources
Cotton Catchment Communities, Cotton Fun Facts
Cotton Incorporated, Personal Products: What Are They Made Of?
Fear and Phobias.uk, Phobia and Fear of Cotton Balls
Phobia Fear Release, Comments for Fear of Touching Cotton Balls
Clean Your Home, Cotton Balls Cleaning Secrets
ScoutmasterCG.com, Vaseline and Cotton Fire Ball starter
Neatorama, 10 Craziest Diets in History
Everyday Health, Outrageous Diet Fads
Flixster, Marlon Brando Best Movies and Characters

Apple #546: Piggy Banks

I was in Target the other day and I saw a whole shelf of piggy banks on sale. I wondered, why do we put our money in pigs? Is it because money is associated with greed, which is in turn associated with gluttony, and our best representative of gluttony is the pig?

Time for the Apple Lady to find out.


Piggy banks on sale at Target
(Photo by the Apple Lady)

• One site I found suggested that, just as farmers feed piglets all sorts of scraps until they are ready for slaughter, which in turns give the farmer a lot of food, so too we feed our little banks with scraps of money (change) until that builds into a great big nest egg.

• I've mixed my metaphorical farm animals. But you understand my point.

• That's a nice little story, but most sources agree, the reason we put our money into ceramic pigs has nothing to do with the animal itself. It is, in fact, another instance of etymology at work. (That's word origins, not bugs.)

• Long, long ago, back in the Middle Ages when the English that people spoke was very different from the English that we speak today, people made pots and jars and various pottery items from a particular orange clay. Their word for that clay was "pygg."

I post this image with a high degree of skepticism. There is no information about this image apart from the caption you can see on the photo. It was posted on Photobucket by Imaginary Rofler, which sounds like the name of someone into playing practical jokes. But we can at least say this is someone's approximation of what a pygg jar might have looked like once upon a time. Though probably in real life, pygg jars didn't quite look like this. The piggy bank on the right does seem to have come from the National Museum of Indonesia, though.

• It's thought, by the way, that at that time, the y sound was pronounced like a short u, so that word probably sounded more like "pug."

• At some point or other, some enterprising person dedicated one of their pygg-clay jars to be a receptacle for coins.
  

• Pretty soon, everybody was doing it. Putting their change willy-nilly into their pygg jars, saving money all over the place. Dang kids.

• Over the centuries, the way people spoke their English changed a lot. But that habit of tossing spare change into a jar did not go away. Thus, though people still kept tossing their spare change into the same receptacle, they started to change the way they pronounced said receptacle. Instead of pronouncing it like pug, pretty soon they were pronouncing it like pig.
  

• Eventually, they also changed the way they spelled the word. They cahnged the y to an i and dropped the extra g. I'm also thinking that the phrase "piggy jar" was easier to say than "pig jar." And that -ggy ending looks more like the original "pygg" spelling, too.

• The word "bank" showed up around the same time that "pygg" did. The word did mean a financial institution, but that meaning was a bit more open-air, if you will. It literally referred to a money-lender's table.

• It wasn't until around the 1700s that the word "bank" became a verb. So this is just a guess, but I'm thinking that it was probably around the same time that people switched from calling their spare-change jars "pygg jars" to "piggy banks."

• When piggy banks began to be manufactured on a wider scale, initially there was no hole in the bottom where you could retrieve your cash. If you wanted to get anything back out of the pig, you had to break the thing open.

Uh-oh. Someone raided the piggy bank.
(Photo from Boston Catholic Insider)

• For a while, piggy banks were pretty much ubiquitous. But people are saying that these days, they're a dying breed, as children are given savings accounts rather than ceramic toys as a place to keep their money, and as inflation has chipped away at the buying power of loose change.
  

For those of you looking for a whimisical or decorative spare-change jar, here are a few piggy bank options for you:


This is a nice friendly-looking piggy bank.
(Photo from Wikipedia)



Piggy bank from South Africa, with polka-dots.
(Photo from topnotch car rental)



This one looks like it might be made out of wood.
(Photo from Tom in Philly at BartCopE)



These are piggy banks made out of clay with no opening on the bottom, but they're made in the present day. You can buy one for $20. Which I think is kind of funny.
(Photo and banks available from Posie Row)



Sitting-up sailor-like piggy bank, available from Piggy Banks of America. They boast that they have the widest selection of piggy banks in the world, they allow you to choose whether you want a hole with a stopper in the bottom or not, but they don't say how much their piggy banks cost.
(Photo from Piggy Banks of America)



I also find it funny that these piggy banks were marked down.
(Photo by the Apple Lady)



Sources
The Straight Dope, What's the Origin of the Piggy Bank?
Consumer Watch, Insider Reports, Piggy Banks - A Short History
The Corner Stork, The History of the Piggy Bank
About.com, Inventors, Piggy Bank
The Great Idea Finder, Did you ever wonder why it's called a piggy bank?
Piggy Bank World, History of the Piggy Bank
Online Etymology Dictionary, bank