What is the white part inside an egg?

“When I crack an egg, sometimes there’s a stringy white piece attached to the yolk. What is that? Should I take it out?”

Merriam–Webster’s Visual Dictionary provided us with a labeled diagram of the inside of a bird egg, allowing us to identify just what part of the egg our patron was referring to and what purpose it serves. The stringy white bit is called the chalaza. It’s a ropy filament of egg white that’s there to keep the yolk in the center of the egg. It can also be an indicator of freshness – the more noticeable the chalaza, the fresher the egg.

The chalaza is perfectly fine to eat and its presence is not noticed in most dishes. However, it can interfere with the smooth texture of sauces and custards, so cooks will sometimes remove it.

CLEVNET carries a variety of egg-specific cookbooks, including Marie Simmon’s The Good Egg, Andrea Slonecker’s Eggs on Top, Terry Blonder Golson’s The Farmstead Egg Guide and Cookbook, and Kathy Casey’s D’lish Deviled Eggs. Any of these books can be ordered in to our library.

How did Youngstown State University get their mascot?

“How did the YSU Penguins get to be penguins? Why not something like cardinals or bears?”

One of our patrons called to ask about the origin of Youngstown State University’s mascot. While Ohio does get cold, the penguin still seems like a strange choice. We checked the YSU sports website and found a whole page about their mascot, including two stories of how it came to be.

Both stories are set on January 30, 1933, the night of a men’s basketball game at West Liberty State, West Virginia. YSU didn’t have any kind of mascot yet, though they were sometimes referred to as the Locals. Students on the men’s varsity basketball team had been tossing around mascot ideas with their friends all season, but hadn’t settled on any that they liked.

According to one story, as the team was driving to West Virginia through snow so deep that they sometimes needed to get out of their cars to push them out of snowdrifts, someone, perhaps inspired by the weather, suggested the penguin. Everyone in the car with them loved the idea, as did the rest of the team, and the penguin was accepted as a mascot by the end of the season without ever having to put it to a vote.

The other story, which has more of a ring of legend to it, tells that a spectator at the Youngstown vs. West Liberty game saw the men on the court stomping their feet and flapping their arms. They thought that the team looked like penguins, and the nickname stuck. While the first story is more likely, this one is also charming.

For more information on Youngstown history, Frederick Blue’s Mahoning Memories and Sherry Lee Linkon’s Steeltown USA are both available for borrowing. The College Basketball Book, published by Sports Illustrated, can be ordered through CLEVNET, and anyone interested in penguins can check out Tui De Roy’s Penguins: The Ultimate Guide.

What kind of snake is this?

A patron brought in a picture of a small snake she encountered. The snake is a tan color with dark brown splotches that seem to be outlined with black. It has no rattle, and its body tapers down to a rounded head.

Using resources such as Carl and Evelyn Ernst’s Snakes of the United States and Canada, Deb Platt’s article “Snakes of Ohio at a Glance” on TrekOhio.com, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources website, and the Ohio Public Library Information Network’s snake ID and information website, we concluded that our patron’s snake is most likely an eastern milk snake.

The eastern milk snake is found all through Ohio in all sorts of habitats. They are secretive and will often hide during the day. Mice and rats are among their preferred prey, so they can be found in and around barns. According to popular folklore, milk snakes got their name from the erroneous assumption that they hung around farms to drink milk from the cows.

The milk snake is not venomous. In fact, there are only three species of venomous snake native to Ohio: the copperhead, the massasauga rattler, and the timber rattler. They all have distinctive features that set them apart from non-venomous snakes, including triangular heads (the non-venomous snakes have rounded heads) and vertical pupils (whereas the non-venomous snakes have round pupils like people do).

Milk snakes are commonly kept as pets, though the eastern milk snake is one of the less popular subspecies. Honduran, Mexican, Pueblan, and Sinaloan milk snakes are favored for their bright red, black, and yellow bands of color. (The colors of these milk snakes mimic the bands of color on the venomous coral snake. Because they look similar, the milk snakes are often mistaken for the coral snake and left alone by predators. The eastern milk snake has more of a rattlesnake coloring, and will even shake the tip of its tail when threatened.)

For more information on snakes, Martin Gaywood’s Snakes and Patricia Pope Bartlett’s Reptiles and Amphibians for Dummies (which is about caring for reptiles and amphibians as pets) are both available at the Newton Falls Public Library.

What is STEM?

“I’ve heard people talking about STEM careers or STEM education. What does it mean?”

STEM is an acronym that stands for science, technology, engineering, and math. The term was coined around the early 2000s by Dr. Judith Ramaley, who at the time was working as the assistant director of education and human resources at the National Science Foundation. According to Eleanor Chute’s 2009 article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the acronym was originally “SMET.” Dr. Ramaley made the change not only because she found SMET to be an unappealing word but also because she thought putting science and math first in the acronym made it seem as though they were more important.  “STEM” gives a better balance between the four fields.

STEM has come into focus lately because educators are encouraging students to have fun with science, technology, engineering, and math, and not to shy away because they think they’re too challenging. These fields are always developing and will continue to do so in the future, and future STEM professionals could be instrumental in helping to develop new technologies and solve the problems of the world.

What do baby toads look like?

“I know that tadpoles hatch out of eggs, grow legs, and become baby frogs, but I don’t know anything about baby toads. What happens to them?”

Baby toads are much the same as baby frogs! Both creatures are amphibians, and both lay eggs that develop into tadpoles. There are a few ways to tell frog and toad eggs and tadpoles apart. While frogs lay their eggs in clumps, toads lay theirs in long strands. Both kinds of tadpoles are black when they first hatch, but frogs change to a mottled brown while tadpoles remain black. Also, toad tadpoles will hang together in groups, called shoals, which isn’t something frog tadpoles will do. [Info from http://www.froglife.org/info-advice/spawn-tadpoles-identification/]

Ohio is home to the Eastern Spadefoot toad, the Eastern American toad, and Fowler’s toad. According to OhioAmphibians.com, it takes about two to ten days for their eggs to hatch and two to eight weeks for the tadpoles to fully develop.

Of all the frogs and toads, the Surinam toad has the most interesting way of hatching its eggs. After fertilization, the eggs sink into the mother’s back. A layer of skin grows over them. The eggs hatch in the pockets on her back and the tadpoles spend three to four months developing under her skin before hatching out as fully-formed tiny little toads. The mother then sheds her skin, ready to undergo the whole process next breeding season. While this aquatic toad is native to South America, the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo houses dwarf Surinam toads in its Rainforest exhibit for anyone to visit.

For more information on frogs and toads, Chris Mattison’s Encyclopedia of North American Reptiles and Amphibians, William W. Lamar’s The World’s Most Spectacular Reptiles and Amphibians, and Frogs: A Chorus of Color by John and Deborah Behler are available for borrowing here at the Newton Falls Public Library. 

What are these bugs in my garden?

“A few weeks ago, I noticed a lot of strange insects on my magnolia tree. They were black in color with antennae and wings folded over the top of their bodies. When you looked at them from the side, they have a kind of pointed teardrop shape, but from above they looked very narrow. They were clustered in pretty large circular groups all over the bark and branches of my tree. I sprayed them with a hose and they scattered. Do you know what they were?”

We brought out Insects by George C. McGavin and The National Audubon Society Field Guide to Insects and Spiders. First we looked up termites, which is what our patron thought their insects were. However, they turned out to be the wrong shape, their antennae were too short, and their wings were too pale. We flipped through the color plates at the beginning of the Audubon Society Field Guide, and that’s where our patron recognized their mystery insect as a type of aphid.

We were surprised, as we’re used to thinking of aphids as tiny, plump, wingless bugs, usually green in color. (These wingless aphids are sometimes called “ant-cows” because ants will “milk” them for the honeydew they secrete.) Winged female aphids will migrate to a new host plant and establish a new colony through a kind of asexual reproduction called parthenogenesis. (Eggs produced this way can develop into young without being fertilized.) The aphids produce several wingless generations this way, eventually producing more winged female aphids, which then fly back to their original host plant to mate with males and lay fertilized eggs.

According to Rodale’s Vegetable Garden Problem Solver by Fern Marshall Bradley, the best way to deal with aphids is to lure beneficial insects, like ladybugs and lacewings, to the aphid-infested plants. In the meantime, hosing the aphids off every three or so days for two weeks should help keep them at bay.

What are the requirements for donating hair? Will they take grey hair? What if I dye it?

One of our patrons regularly donates her hair and was wondering if she could continue to do so if she dyed her hair, or as her hair started to go gray. Looking around online, we found several organizations that accept donated hair, and all of them have their own particular requirements. One thing that they all have in common is that hair must be clean, dry, in good condition, and gathered into a ponytail or a braid. They all have minimum lengths for donated hair, from eight to twelve inches depending on the organization, but most of their websites specify that curly hair can be stretched straight while measuring it. It can take up to twelve ponytails to make a hairpiece.

Locks of Love is one of the most well known. They provide hairpieces to children who are suffering from long-term hair loss because of a medical condition. Most of the children they serve have alopecia areata, an autoimmune disorder that causes the hair follicles to stop working. (It was founded, in fact, by someone with alopecia.) Ponytails or braids donated to Locks of Love must be at least ten inches long. They don’t accept bleached hair or dreadlocks, but they will accept permed or otherwise colored hair, along with grey hair. While they don’t use it in their wigs for children, they’ll sell it, along with hair that’s too short or otherwise doesn’t meet their criteria, to help defray costs.  

CWHL (Children With Hair Loss) was founded in September 2000 with the goal of helping kids with cancer, but they’ve since expanded their reach to include children with alopecia, burns, and other medical issues. They pride themselves on providing their hairpieces at no cost. Donated hair must be eight inches or longer. They accept grey hair, and, while they prefer hair not to be chemically treated, they will accept that as well.

Wigs for Kids is another organization providing wigs free of cost to kids and their families. They were founded around thirty years ago by Jeffrey Paul, a hairdresser who wanted to help his fifteen-year-old niece after she was diagnosed with leukemia. Hair donated to Wigs for Kids must be at least twelve inches long and cannot be colored, permed, or otherwise chemically treated.

Wigs 4 Kids, a completely different organization, has the same mission as Wigs for Kids and CWHL but is focused solely on helping kids in Michigan. Anyone can donate hair, but it must be at least ten inches long, not colored or chemically treated, and not “more than 10% grey.”

While the above organizations focus on helping children, Pantene Beautiful Lengths provide free wigs to women who have lost their hair through cancer treatments. They accept hair that is at least eight inches long, and, as with Wigs for Kids and Wigs 4 Kids, it cannot be colored or chemically treated.

We found our information on the charities’ websites. For more information on how to help out charitable organizations, Karl T. Muth’s Charity and Philanthropy for Dummies is available for borrowing through CLEVNET.