Heymatt: Who hijacked the first airplane? Just curious. Not planning anything. -- Nameless, of course Jetjacking is an art we've been perfecting for 74 years. The first recorded incident was in Peru in 1930, when …
March 11, 2004
Straight from the Hip
Archived articles
Who invented skyjacking?
Earthquake, aftershock. What's the difference?
Matthew: I'm confused.What's the difference between an earthquake and an aftershock? Sometimes we have an earthquake only to be told it's an aftershock of an earthquake two years ago. How can they tell? -- Shaken, …
March 11, 2004
Clover leaves
Matt: How rare is a four-leafed clover? Is there such a thing in real life? Why is it associated with good luck? -- S.L, P.B. A four-leafed clover is an occasional mutation growing amid the …
March 11, 2004
Absolutely the last poop question we'll ever answer.
Heymatt: Why do we call urination pee and defecation poop? -- Too embarrassed to sign his name Okay, I swear this is the last poop question we'll handle until, well, until we get another one. …
March 11, 2004
Sunflowers: east-west, east-west, east, east, east
Matt: Sunflowers always face the sun, which means they must turn from east to west every day. So what do they do at night? Do they shift back at sunrise or gradually through the night …
March 4, 2004
Exactly how bad does bad cheese smell?
Dear Matthew Alice: To determine if food items have outlived their edibility, expiration dates and pungent odors are probably the two most obvious ways to make a conclusion. Recently I was given a sizable chunk …
February 26, 2004
What's I/IV of C-LI?
Matt: Given the ancient Romans' achievements in the sciences, they must have understood the concept of quantities between zero and one. So how did they notate fractions? I/VII would get cumbersome and wouldn't aid in …
February 26, 2004
Web site
Hey Matt: What happens when one species of spider accidentally falls into the web of another species? -- Black Widower Paul, San Diego Weeeel, depends, according to the staff bug guy at our sister institution, …
February 26, 2004
Bed roll
Heymatt: I seem to roll around and move a lot when I sleep. Why don't I ever roll right out of bed? -- Bedbug, La Jolla A question we've asked here in Rancho de Alice …
February 19, 2004
Dookie on a shingle
Hey Matt: My friend Ian thinks that ingesting a chunk of human dookie will kill you and that half of dookie content is bacteria. Is this true?! I don�t believe it! -- Snuggles, the net …
February 19, 2004
The answer is blowin' in the wind
Matt: Maybe I'm wrong about this, but it seems that when I'm at the beach on a windy day, I can hear sounds that are being blown toward me, but I can't hear sounds that …
February 19, 2004