NO REPTILE ROMANCING
QUESTION Is it possible for an alligator and a crocodile to mate and produce offspring?
DESPITE superficial similarities, the alligator and crocodile are very different species. The Order Crocodylia split into the Alligatoridae and Crocodylidae families between 93million and 100million years ago.
In most other animal groups, such a split would have led to significantly different physical differences. For example, camels, pigs, giraffes, hippos and whales are all members of the Artiodactyla family and have a common ancestor that is 48million years old.
Though alligators and crocodiles share many physical similarities, they are unable to breed. The key way to tell the two species apart is the way their teeth fit together when they close their mouths. Members of the alligator family have an overbite: the teeth of the upper jaw fit outside the lower jaw and only the teeth of the upper jaw are visible when the mouth is closed.
In crocodiles, the teeth interlock, so teeth from both the upper and lower jaw are visible when the mouth is closed. Alligators do not have salt glands – an organ in the tongue for excreting excess salt – unlike their distant cousins, which means crocodiles are more tolerant of saline water. Mr M. N. Wren, Brighton.
QUESTION Are there any pop hits about snow that aren’t Christmas songs?
KATE Bush released an entire 2011 album on the theme, 50 Words For Snow. None of the seven tracks – Snowflake, Lake Tahoe, Misty, Wild Man, Snowed In At Wheeler Street, 50 Words For Snow and Among Angels – refer to Christmas.
The idea for the song 50 Words For Snow came from the myth that the Inuit Eskimos have that many words for snow. Bush decided to make up increasingly fantastical words and recruited Stephen Fry to recite the 50 synonyms.
The 1944 song Baby, It’s Cold Outside, popularised by Dean Martin in 1959, implies snow with references to a ‘blizzard’ and hands ‘just like ice’. It has become associated with Christmas, but its lyric does not mention the festival. F Harvey, Bristol. THERE have been many hit records with snow in the title or lyrics that don’t reference Christmas, including that well-known classic, Frosty The Snowman.
There’s Amid The Falling Snow by Enya, First Snow In Kokomo by Aretha Franklin, Snow In San Anselmo by Van Morrison, Little Bit Of Snow by Howard Jones, December Snow by The Moody Blues, White As Snow by U2 and Snow Girl by Haircut 100. The Snow They Melts The Soonest is a 19th-century folk song covered by Sting and Cara Dillon. Then there is Clear As The Driven Snow by The Doobie Brothers, Snow Queen by Carole King and When Snowflakes Fall In The Summer by the sultry-voiced Julie London.
Let It Snow has been recorded by countless artists from Dean Martin to Kylie Minogue. It was a double A-side by The Carpenters with The First Snowfall. Another double-sided snow record was Olivia Newton John’s Every Time It Snows/Angels In The Snow.
John Lennon and Yoko Ono pitched in with Listen, The Snow Is Falling. Even Johnny Rotten got in on the act with Sandcastles In The Snow with his band Public Image Ltd.
Country and Western singers love the snow. There’s Snow In His Hair by Johnny Cash, Snow In July by Garth Brooks and the Chet Atkins novelty I Still Write Your Name In The Snow. The aptly named Hank Snow didn’t miss a trick with three albums, Snow in Hawaii, Hits Covered By Snow and Snow In All Seasons.
Finally, Don’t Eat The Yellow Snow advises Frank Zappa And The Mothers Of Invention.
Danny Darcy, by email.
QUESTION Can you still buy an indulgence from the Catholic Church?
IN the teaching of the Catholic Church, an indulgence is a full or partial remittance by the Church of the punishment for sins. The Church has never approved the sale of indulgences. However, this widespread abuse in the 15th and 16th centuries led directly to the Protestant Reformation.
In Catholic theology, there are three grades of sin – original, venial and mortal. Original sin dates back to Adam and Eve and can be absolved by baptism.
Venial sins are minor and their extent determines the amount of time a sinner will spend in Purgatory, a place of purification or temporary punishment, distinct from hell, before passing on to Paradise. Mortal sins are great evils such as rape, murder and incest that result in banishment to hell. No indulgence can alleviate this.
The Church established an elaborate machinery for dealing with venial sin. Most important was the act of Confession. The other way to reduce your sentence in purgatory was to be granted an indulgence. To obtain one, repentant sinners had to perform spiritual and corporeal works of mercy, such as the saying of prayers, helping the needy, giving alms or going on a pilgrimage.
Gradually, the use and abuse of indulgences became widespread. In 1095, Pope Urban II offered a full indulgence to those who joined the Crusade against the Turks. Financial transacting of indul- gences escalated in 1476 when Pope Sixtus IV issued Salvator Noster, a papal bull extending indulgences to the deceased individuals, meaning their time in purgatory could be paid off by relatives performing the penitence.
The Church began to use indulgences to help fund church buildings. This came to a head after Pope Julius II issued a Jubilee Indulgence in 1507 to support the construction of St Peter’s Basilica. At that time, Archbishop Albert of Hohenzollern had an enormous debt he owed to the Bank of Fugger for money he had used to buy the bishoprics of several cities. He charged Dominican friar Johann Tetzel as Commissioner of Indulgences to sell indulgences, claiming they were for the basilica, but, in fact, were used to service his debt. This so enraged young church lawyer Martin Luther that in 1517, he nailed his Disputation On The Power of Indulgences (also known as The 95 Theses) to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany. In 1567, the sale of indulgences was restricted, but it was too late to stop the Protestant Reformation.
Indulgences through good works are still available to the penitent and have been used increasingly by modern popes, notably John Paul II and Benedict XVI. Martin Nicholls, by email.
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