5 questions you've always wanted answered

SALT LAKE CITY — When you're young, the toys you own determine how cool you are. When you're a teenager, the way you look makes all the difference. As an adult, your Fonzie cool factor goes way up if you can ramble off random information that everyone else has always wondered about.

Here are five questions you've always wanted answered, guaranteed to make you the most popular geek around the water cooler.

Is it really a law in Utah that men are held responsible for whatever crime their wife commits in their presence?

It was Abraham Lincoln who wisely said, "Don't believe everything you read on the Internet." But with that said, the only evidence I found of this law ever existing — was on the Internet.

Obviously, today it would be unheard of for a husband to take the fall for his wife's crimes simply because they were married. So where did this popular rumor stem from? It's possible a copy of the book, "The Compiled Laws of the State of Utah, 1917," is to blame. In chapter two it gives a list of those who are incapable of being held liable for punishment. Among those are,"children under the age of 7," "lunatics," "idiots," and "married women, acting under the threats, command, or coercion of their husbands."

(Just a side note: Women don't like being placed in the same category as lunatics and idiots.)

Like the game "Telephone" that we play as kids, this little bit of trivia was passed on again and again, and people eventually left out the details and the time period from which it came. I'm guessing the law was probably thrown out of the books after officials caught on that women were very capable of committing crimes and then simply saying, "My husband made me do it!"

Why is it so hard to remember dreams?

Dreams are fascinating. You fall asleep and the next thing you know you're free falling ... you're flying ... you're walking around with Leonardo DiCaprio trying to infiltrate the secrets of businessmen, taking care not to die. (We all know what happens if you die in a dream, right?) But when you wake up, the details are fuzzy.

University of Utah Dr. Kevin Walker, board certified in both neurology and sleep medicine, explains why dreams are often too vague to recall:

"The average person goes through 4-6 sleep cycles a night, which means the average person has 4-6 periods of dreaming during the night. Dreams account for 20-25 percent of our total sleep time, which means we may spend roughly 1.5-2 hours a night dreaming," explains Dr. Walker. "That's surprising to most people because we often don't remember dreaming at all; we certainly don't remember two hours of dreams each night.

"The most likely reason that we don't remember dreams is that the brain has a process of converting information from short-term memory into long-term memory, and this process doesn't happen when we're asleep. If we wake up while dreaming or shortly after dreaming, this process can occur, which allows us to remember our dreams. However, if we fall right back to sleep or are distracted for any reason, this process can be interrupted and we forget the dream before it's stored in long-term memory. Because of this, we typically only remember those dreams that happen toward the end of the night just before we wake up."

Why does urine smell so badly after you eat asparagus?

Sure, sure. It's potty talk. But a meal featuring asparagus might leave some people with sulfur-scented urine wondering, "What gives?"

The scientific community hasn't entirely solved this mystery, but it's safe to say that there are three types of people in this world. Those who produce the scent and can smell it. Those who produce the scent, but can't smell it. And those who don't produce the scent at all. It really should be one of the eHarmony personality questions to help people find their perfect match.

"Asparagus has compounds that are degraded upon digestion into the volatile sulfur-containing compounds that are then excreted through the urine. Some people have that enzyme to degrade it, but even when produced, not everybody can smell it," explained University of Utah Dr. Alfred Cheung. "These two are apparently genetically determined phenomena."

Do fish drink water when they're thirsty?

You were too busy passing notes in your high school science class, and now the question of how fish quench their thirst haunts you. Thankfully, Giacomo Bernardi of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of California, has an answer.

"Marine fish drink, but freshwater fish don't," said Bernardi.

"In freshwater, fish are 'saltier' than their environment, so by osmosis water tends to go into their body at the gills. They are so full of water that the last thing they want is to drink even more water. So they don't drink, but excrete water that has rushed in through their gills during the breathing process," he explained.

"The sea is saltier than saltwater fishes, so water leaves their bodies at the gills. To compensate for this loss, marine fishes need to drink a lot. The problem is that by drinking, they also get in a lot of salt. They get rid of the salt with specialized cells called chloride cells that are found in the gills," Bernardi explains.

Why do we have to wash bath towels? Aren't we clean when we use them?

Even though you're probably somewhat clean after a shower, dead skin cells rub off on your towel every time you dry off. A damp towel in a humid bathroom for days on end can become the perfect home for bacteria and germs. That's why towels that go unwashed eventually have a dingy smell to them. It's advisable to wash bath towels after they've been used three times to prevent them from becoming your very own petri dishes.

What other questions have you always wanted answered? Ask them in the comments or send an email and we might get your question in our next article.

Nicole Pollard currently resides in Canyon Country, Calif.