Parade 07-29 by The Southern Illinoisan

S U N D AY, AY Y J U LY Y 29, 2012

Pan P an ffor or gold gold w with ith your your k kids ids

From F rom tthe he ttime ime we’re born, our w e’re b orn, o ur ssenses enses sshape hape our world. o ur w orld. IInside, nside, tthe he llatest atest behind sscience cience b ehind ssight, ight, ssmell, mell, hearing, ttaste, aste, h earing, and a nd ttouch. ouch.

Walter Scott,s

PARADE

show,” says Levine, 33. “It’s been great!”

WALTER SCOTT ASKS …

The actor, 56, talks about the fifth season of Breaking Bad (AMC, Sundays, 10 p.m. ET) and his big-screen role in Total Recall, which hits theaters Aug. 3. Breaking Bad ends next year. Will it be tough to say goodbye? It will. It’s been the role of my life. I doubt that

I will tackle a character this complex and profound ever again. I’ll miss the family that we’ve created. Can fans expect a movie? I’ve heard rumors, but I have no clue if any of the characters are going to be alive to make a movie! I think we have to wait until after the dust settles next year and see if it’s even feasible.

See the week’s funniest celeb tweets at Parade.com /twitter

You play the villain in the Total Recall remake. How does it compare to the original? The original, with Arnold

Schwarzenegger, was so much kitschy fun. This one is going to be a little more serious, and the special effects have greatly improved over the last 20 years. Who’s your favorite person to follow on Twitter? Albert Brooks’s little quips always make me smile. I like to follow people who tweet something more meaningful than “I just had a great cheese sandwich!” Send your questions to Walter Scott at personality@parade .com or P.O. Box 5001, Grand Central Station, New York, N.Y. 10163-5001.

Q: What’s the origin

overheard his order and requested “a Palmer.” Today, the drink is sold by the Arizona Beverage Company. “You can now ﬁnd it everywhere!” says Palmer, 82.

Q: Who is the blind con-

of the Arnold Palmer drink? —Janice C., Lake

testant on MasterChef?

Mathews, Calif.

Q: What is the meaning

see how far Ha, 33, gets when the show returns Aug. 14 (Fox, 9 p.m. ET) and watch video of her in action at Parade.com/ha. P MasterChef’s Gordon Ramsay and Christine Ha

—Walt A., Seattle

A: In the 1960s,

A: Christine Ha, who

the legendary golfer asked a waitress at a course in Palm Springs to mix lemonade into his iced tea. A customer

began losing her vision in 1999 due to an autoimmune condition called neuromyelitis optica, is ﬁnishing her thesis for a master’s degree in nonﬁction creative writing and dreams of starting a gastropub. Tune in to

P Arnold Palmer in a can

The success of their new album, Overexposed, is due in part to Levine’s growing fan base as a judge on The Voice. “We had a reintroduction to the world through the

P The first cast of The Real World, set in New York City

Q: How does the new Real World cast differ from the original cast in 1992? —Allison Dorsett, Baltimore

A: “It was a more inno-

cent time [in 1992],” says series cocreator Jonathan Murray, 57. “The role of drinking has changed. We don’t want an entire group that blacks out every night, but to reﬂect what life is like for young people, we don’t cast only those who drink in moderation.” Viewers of the show (MTV, Wednesdays, 10 p.m. ET) are also different now. “Our audience doesn’t see diversity as a black and white or gay and straight thing anymore,” Murray says. “It’s about personalities and values.” Catch up with past cast members at Parade.com/realworld.

of Adam Levine’s “222” tattoo? —P. Graybill, Coates-

ville, Pa.

A: Much of the

Maroon 5 frontman’s body art is inspired by his career. The 222 on his forearm is the name of the ﬁrst studio the band recorded in.

ADAM’S TATTOO

P Adam Levine

PHOTOS, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: DAN BUSTA/CORBIS OUTLINE; COURTESY OF MTV; DAVID WOLFF-PATRICK/REDFERNS VIA GETTY IMAGES; COURTESY OF ARIZONA BEVERAGES; GREG GAYNE/FOX

Bryan Cranston

2 • July 29, 2012

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What to read, see, and do this week For more, goo to Parade.com/picks

A SENSE S S OF BELONGINGS If your house were on ﬁre, what would you take with you? Photographer Foster Huntington’s fascinating new book, The Burning House, offers a window into what everyday people consider their most priceless possessions (like the grouping above, from an L.A. student). See more photos at Parade.com/burning.

YEAR OF THE DRAGON Leaping lizards! The stage show How to Train Your Dragon Live Spectacular— based on the 2010 computeranimated 3-D film about a Viking boy who befriends one of the beasts—is bringing 23 of the high-flying firebreathers to a venue near you. For dates and locations, visit dreamworksdragonslive.com; to enter for a chance to win a trip to San Diego to see the show, go to Parade.com/dragon.

HOT LIPS

Pucker up: On July 29, dubbed National Lipstick Day, give a big ol’ wet kiss to what is arguably the most popular cosmetic on the planet (the average American woman owns seven tubes, and more than $300 million was spent on lipstick in the U.S. in the past year). So recession-proof is this little luxury that it’s given rise to the Lipstick Effect: the tendency of sales to shoot up in a weak economy, which a recent study attributes to the evolutionary desire to attract a mate with resources. To add a little color to your life, go to Parade.com/lips.

Mixing the countrypop appeal of Lady Antebellum with the vocal chemistry of the Eagles, Love and Theft (now a duo) offer songs both catchy and introspective on their new, self-titled album. Download these: the uptempo “Real Good Sign” and the bittersweet “If You Ever Get Lonely.”

Road

TRIP!

Talk about armchair travel! If you want to see the sights without leaving behind the comforts of home, nothing beats an RV. Need some inspiration for where to go mobile? The list at right shows the five most popular RV destinations, according to GoRVing.com.

1. North Rim of the Grand Canyon

Arizona

2. Devils Tower

Wyoming 3. Mt. Rushmore

South Dakota 4. Disney World

Florida 5. Outer Banks

North Carolina

2 3

PHOTOS, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP RIGHT: MINDY SMALL/FILMMAGIC; COURTESY OF WINNEBAGO; SCOTT HEINER/GETTY IMAGES; DAVID LEWIS TAYLOR/GETTY IMAGES; LISA TOMASETTI

PA R A D E

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4 • July 29, 2012

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WHAT YOUR

KNOWS

* And other amazing facts about your senses

Sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell: Our five senses are what help us make, well, sense of the world around us. But scientists are still discovering how they work—and how you can sharpen yours. Read on for a comprehensive look at the new science of your senses. BY JENNIFER KAHN COVER & INSIDE PHOTOGRAPHS BY JILLIAN LOCHNER

the human eye is an exceptional tool for gathering light; it can O distinguish among 500 shades of gray and spot the light of a candle 14 miles away. But for all the eye’s extraordinary ability, seeing is a function of the brain— humans’ visual cortex is more developed than that of any other mammal. Vision demands that the brain differentiate foreground from background, and edges from lines—skills that even the world’s most powerful computers have been unable to match. Your brain makes sense of shapes and symbols by putting them together like a jigsaw puzzle, organizing fragments into a coherent whole. (Movies work because the brain stitches a series of frames into an unbroken stream.) We develop this ability as infants—which explains why patients who grew up blind but have had their sight restored often struggle to understand what they are seeing: Their brains can’t initially distinguish an object from its background, or accurately separate two overlapping objects. (A chair and desk would be

SIGHT

Tara Smyly, photographed in South Africa in 2009 when she was 8 months old. 6 • July 29, 2012

perceived as a single ﬂat image, like an abstract painting made of rectangles.) Optical illusions work by exploiting the mind’s tendency to try to ﬁnd order in patterns—a face in the pockmarks on a cement wall—or make sense of an impossible image, like the endless climbing staircase in an Escher drawing.

even as we age, our eardrums remain finely tuned—they can pick up sounds so faint that the eardrum itself moves a distance less than the diameter of a hydrogen molecule. (This sensitivity developed to protect us from predators.) Our brain processes sounds a thousand times faster than images and registers sounds even as we sleep. This constant bath of noise affects everything from our concentration to our health. Researchers have found that living in loud areas can raise blood pressure by an average of 5 to 8 percent. Even our ancestors understood how sound could damage as well as delight: The word noise comes from nausea, the Latin word for sickness. But sound can also be a positive force. A study conducted on premature infants, for instance, found that they were able to leave the hospital sooner if soft music was played while they slept.

taste, designed in part to help us reject harmful foods, has long O ser ved as the body ’s primary defense against poison. As beﬁts its role, the system is lightning fast: The body can detect taste in as little as .0015 seconds, compared with .0024 seconds for touch and .013 seconds for vision. To be tasted, food molecules must fall into a cluster of cells called a taste bud, more than 10,000 of which are spread over the tongue, palate, and inner cheek. The taste bud sends a signal to the brain, which then determines everything from whether a food tastes “safe”—which in most cases means it’s not too bitter—to whether we enjoy it. In a part of the brain known as the anterior cingulate, tastes get married to an emotional reaction: disgust for rotten meat, say, or delight for a sweet strawberry. But while some tastes are innate— nearly all humans are born with a sweet

TASTE

in south sudan, near the border with Ethiopia, a tribe known as the O Mabaan reportedly live in a place of such quiet that their ability to hear has become astonishingly acute. Legend has it that even the oldest Mabaan can make out the words of another tribesman whispering to him from across a wide ﬁeld. In theory, at least, any one of us could do the same, provided we spent our lives similarly sheltered from noise. At birth, our ears are pristine organs, capable of discerning among more than 300,000 sounds. (After years of exposure to loud noises, the hair cells on the cochlea, in the inner ear, ﬂatten, becoming less sensitive.) Yet

HEARING

4 THINGS YOU DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT … SIGHT

1. Having 20/20 vision, the standard for normal visual acuity, means you can clearly see an image—like the letters on an eye chart—from a distance of 20 feet. (Having 20/100 vision means you need to be ﬁve

times closer, just four feet away, to see the same letter clearly.) 2. The world record for human vision was set by Dr. Dennis Levi in 1985. He was able to identify a bright line a quarter of an inch thick from one mile away. 3. Sitting too close to the TV may

adept at assessing how 5 THINGS YOU DIDN’T KNOW far away the source is. ABOUT … HEARING 4. Ninety percent of a 1. Even small noises cause the pupil of the eye to dilate. This may be why surgeons, jewelers, and others who perform delicate manual operations tend to be bothered by uninvited noise: It subtly blurs their vision. 2. A large meal will temporarily make your hearing less sharp. 3. Your ears can determine the direction from which a sound comes quite well, but are less

young child’s knowledge is attributable to hearing background conversation. More than a third of children with even slight hearing loss, researchers estimate, will fail at least one grade. 5. Tinnitus—a buzzing or ringing sound in the ears—afﬂicts roughly 15 percent of the U.S. population. The condition is ancient; it’s described on clay tablets from Assyria.

tooth—there’s also evidence that taste can be nurtured. Studies have shown that babies prefer foods they first “tasted” in the womb, or while nursing. (Traces of certain flavors, including garlic and vanilla, turn up in amniotic fluid, and also in breast milk.) More recently, food scientists have found ways to manipulate our likes and dislikes. One chemical, extracted from a West African fruit, binds to taste receptors in a way that makes even the sourest lemon taste as sweet as lemon pie. Food scientists have jumped on the discovery, scrambling to devise additives that would trick our taste buds into perceiving sweetness in the absence of actual sugar.

give you a headache, but it won’t wreck your vision. The same is true of reading in dim light. 4. One in 20 men is at least partially color-blind, and color-blindness is 10 times more common in men than in women. All babies are color-blind at birth. July 29, 2012 • 7

5 THINGS YOU DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT … TOUCH

1. The skin is your body’s largest organ and contains more than 4 million sensory receptors. 2. Among the body’s most sensitive areas are the lips, the back of the neck, the ﬁngertips, and the soles of the feet. The least sensitive is the middle of your back. 3. Being touched can reduce stress, by lowering levels of hormones like cortisol. 4. Pain is the body’s

warning system, and it’s thorough: People have more receptors for pain than for any other sensation. 5. Thermoreceptors perceive sensations related to temperature. But they stop being stimulated when the surface of the skin drops below 41 degrees (which is why your skin starts to feels numb in icy temperatures) or rises above 113 degrees (at which point pain receptors take over to avoid burns).

smell may be our most evocative sense. Studies have shown that people O can recall a scent with 65 percent accuracy after one year; visual memory sinks to 50 percent after just a few months. And because smells are processed by the same part of the brain that handles memories and emotions—the temporal lobe—we respond to them with rare intensity. Decades later, a passing scent may summon a memory of our ﬁrst-grade classroom, one so vivid that we seem transported across time and space. Though not on a par with our canine friends’, the human nose is still something of a marvel. An ordinary person can pick up a whiff of skunk when the amount of scent in the air is less than one ten-trillionth of an ounce. The nose can also determine where a smell is coming from, pointing you—for better or worse—toward the source. Still, our sense of smell is deeply individual: Some people can’t smell mushrooms; others can’t sniff out freesia. These differences are mostly genetic, but simpler things—small physiological changes and factors like mood and medication (antibiotics, statins, and blood pressure drugs can all affect our sense of smell)— enhance or diminish our ability to detect odors. In fact, it’s believed that we never experience a smell the same way twice, since the sensitivity of our nose changes from hour to hour and day to day.

SMELL

ARE YOU A SUPER-TASTER? Find out (all you need is a little blue food coloring) at Parade.com/senses

of all your senses, touch is the most difficult to fathom doing O without. With hundreds of nerve endings in every square inch of skin, your body functions like an antenna, receiving a constant stream of information ranging from the ﬁrmness of the chair you’re sitting on to the heat of the sun through the window. Touch is the ﬁrst sense we develop in utero, and it is crucial to survival. Babies can die

TOUCH

4 THINGS YOU DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT … TASTE

from lack of it, and as adults, touch helps to protect us from harm. Some nerves are specialized to feel texture and pressure, others to detect temperature or register pain. Nerves known as proprioceptors sense the position of our body parts in space—enabling us to cross our arms with ease, or lean out a window without falling. But touch inﬂuences us more subtly as well. A recent study from Yale University found that people seated on soft chairs during mock negotiations with a car dealer were likely to make an offer several hundred dollars greater than people who were seated on hard chairs—a sign of how the brain interprets comfort (the physical sensation) as evidence of broader well-being.

distributed across the tongue. 2. French nutritionist Philippe Besnard recently discovered 1. The taste map you learned growing up (the one that showed taste buds that seem to respond specifically to the flavor of fat. the tip of the tongue registering 3. It’s believed that roughly sweet flavors; the back, bitter; and the sides, salty and sour) is a one-quarter of all Americans are myth. While receptors for the five “super-tasters,” and another basic tastes do exist, they’re not quarter are “non-tasters.” Superconfined to specific areas but are tasters have more taste buds and

are often sensitive to bitter foods. Non-tasters have fewer taste buds and tend to have a high tolerance for spicy foods. 4. Your taste buds die off and regenerate every few days. As you age, the cycle slows, dulling your ability to taste—which explains why older people tend to like their foods saltier and spicier.

8 • July 29, 2012

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Homemaker Invents A Shine That Lasts

Miracle Polish Ends Struggle With Tarnishing Metals. By D.H. Wagner

ately I have noticed quite a few newspapers and magazines praising a polish formulated by a homemaker. The articles report that Donna Maas grew frustrated with rubbing and scrubbing her silver, brass and other metals only to see them quickly become dull and tarnished again. Determined to put an end to her constant battle with tarnish Donna formulated a metal cleaner and it’s transforming the industry. Anita Gold, nationally syndicated columnist and expert on the restoration of antiques calls MAAS (named after its inventor) “The best and most amazing polish in the world.” Ms. Gold wrote in her column, “A truly miraculous polish referred to as “miracle polish” that’ll turn the most disastrous pieces into the most de-brightful is MAAS Fine Polishing Creme For All Metals, which cleans, restores, preserves and polishes to perfection any brass, copper, chrome, silver, stainless steel, aluminum, gold or any other metal with amazing results – no matter how badly stained, spotted, discolored, flood-damaged, weathered, dirty, dingy, drab, or dull they may be.” Since I had an old brass lamp in desperate need of restoration, this journalist decided to put MAAS to the test. The lamp had been stored in the garage and was in far worse condition than I remembered. I was flabbergasted as I watched the polishing creme wipe away layers and years of tarnish. Never have I used anything so easy. The lamp actually looks better than when I purchased it. Better yet, months later it’s still glowing! The polish worked so effortlessly, I decided to refurbish my mother’s collection of antique brass and copper cookware. The badly stained pots and pans developed black spots that had been impossible to remove. MAAS wiped away the years of built-up residue even from the most discolored pieces. While polishing the pots and pans, I noticed MAAS applying a shine on the stainless steel sink. So I cleaned the entire sink with the creme. WOW! The shine is unbelievable

and although I wash dishes every day, the shine keeps-on-shining. And it’s no longer covered with ugly water spots – water just rolls off the protective finish and down the drain. An independent consumer study of 28 metal polishes reports, “MAAS Polishing Creme has no equals in all around polishing performance...” MAAS retained its shine longer than every polish tested. Good Housekeeping Institute recommends MAAS for restoring heavily tarnished heirlooms stating, MAAS cleans best and gives lasting results.” The Miami Herald says “Polishing product can renew old silver.” The Chicago Tribune headline sums it all up by saying “One Amazing Polish Is The Best At Everything.” How did a homemaker come up with something the industry’s experts couldn’t? The reporter in me had to find out. During our interview Donna explained, “I enjoy the warmth that beautifully polished metals add to a home. However, not the hours it took to keep them tarnish free. The harsh cleaners always left my hands dry and burning – one instant silver dip smelled so bad I felt sick. When I read the label, I discovered it contained cancercausing ingredients. That's when I became determined to find a better way to care for the metals in my home.” And that she did. Her formula developed in conjunction with a chemist friend quickly restores and leaves a deep, rich one-of-a-kind luster beyond anything I've ever seen. “To my surprise,” Donna reveals, “the formula far exceeded my original goal. MAAS restores glass fireplace doors, clouded crystal vases, fiberglass, linoleum and even plastic.

The restorations were so remarkable everyone suggested that I sell my invention on television.” Donna sent samples of her polish to televised shopping channels and both QVC and The Home Shopping Network asked Donna to personally appear on TV to demonstrate her product. 17,000 viewers called during MAAS’ debut and encore performances quickly brought a million dollars in record-breaking sales. Leona Toppel was about to throw away a brass chandelier. “No amount of elbow grease could shine it up. With very little effort (a big plus for me because I suffer from arthritis) MAAS made that chandelier look like new. It’s been years and to everyone's surprise it’s still glowing.” “MAAS outperforms every polish I’ve tried,” Donna beams with satisfaction. “So if you’re as tired as I was of cleaning metals just to see tarnish reappear a few weeks later, MAAS it!”

At Last, A Polish That Keeps Metals Shining! Finally, you can restore every metal and more to it’s original beauty with MAAS easy wipe-on, wipe-off, no-wait polish. Just send $12.95 plus $5.95 S&H for one large 4 oz. tube of MAAS. Save when you order two tubes and receive a FREE polishing cloth (total value $33.85) for only $19.95 plus $5.95 S&H. Illinois residents add 7.25% sales tax. Mail your order to: MAAS – DEPT. P3729 7101 Adams Street, Suite 3 Willowbrook, IL 60527-8432 (Please make checks payable to MAAS) Order online at www.maasinc.com/P3729 © PARADE Publications 2012. All rights reserved.

Senses | from page 8

5 THINGS YOU DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT … SMELL

in trust experiments and even offered to make more charitable donations. (Salvation 1. In general, your Army bell ringers, take sense of smell is weakest in the morning note: You might want to swing a bag of lemons and grows stronger instead.) as the day wears on. 2. Smells can affect your 3. Your sense of smell behavior. A recent study becomes more acute when you’re hungry. showed that people sitting in a citrus-scented 4. The ability to detect scents is boosted by room cooperated more

estrogen, which is why women (and especially pregnant women) tend to have more sensitive noses than men. 5. Astronauts in space often lose their senses of smell and taste. Because of the lack of gravity, their sinuses fill up with fluid, causing stuffiness like from a cold.

get the same “hit” of ﬂavor). But if you abstain from salty or sugary foods for just one week, your sensitivity will return.

Quit smoking. Cigarettes damage your taste buds, but they regenerate every 10 days, so if you give up the habit, your sense of taste should improve in a few weeks.

5 WAYS TO

SHARPEN YOUR SENSES Breathe in warm, moist air before eating. Taste is about 75 percent smell, so clearing your nasal passages will enhance ﬂavors. Alternate foods with each bite. It will keep your palate “awake” and make each mouthful distinct and interesting.

Limit salt and sugar. It is easy to become desensitized to these two ﬂavors (the more you consume, the more you need to

Relax your jaw—or smile! Both improve your ability to hear faint sounds. Tiny muscles in your jaw can disrupt the action of your eardrums and eustachian tubes (the latter, which control inner ear pressure, are what make your ears feel blocked on an airplane). Practice listening. Sitting in a quiet spot, try to identify all the sounds around you and the direction each comes from. (Most people can detect more sounds coming from in front than from behind.)

Close your eyes. In general, you hear more when your eyes are closed or when you can’t see well (as when walking in the dark). Vision—translating light waves into familiar images—takes up a lot of brainpower; turn it off and your

10 • July 29, 2012

mind has more resources to devote to the other senses.

Spend an hour in a completely silent place. You’ll notice that your hearing will gradually become more acute. That’s because constant noise overstimulates the delicate nerves that register sound.

Pick sunglasses with 100 percent UV protection— ideally ones with amber, orange, or brown lenses (best for blocking the blue-violet rays at the ultraviolet end of the spectrum). The greater the UV exposure, the higher your risk of developing cataracts or macular degeneration.

Take a break from anything that involves prolonged staring, like surﬁng the Web or reading a book. Focused work means you’re not blinking as frequently, so the delicate cells of your eye dry out, blurring vision. —J. K.

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CARTOON: HARLEY L. SCHWADRON

Parade

“It’s not just me. It’s the budget deﬁcit, the universe ... Everything is expanding.”

Goldhounds meet the second Friday of every month at the Veterans Memorial Hall in Auburn, Calif. On a recent night, a burly member named Mike Bowers was at the podium, sharing the tricks he’s used to unearth gold nuggets over nearly three decades. In the audience, men with wild beards and weathered faces seemed to be channeling the forty-niners who first settled this historic town in the Sierra foothills. But they were joined by moms in sweatpants, retirees in golf jackets, and hipsters in knit caps. What brings them together is one of the nation’s fastestgrowing pastimes: gold hunting. In the past five years, membership in the Gold Prospectors Association of America (GPAA) has risen 83 percent, to 45,000. The reason isn’t hard to fathom: Since 2008, as household budgets have tightened, the price of gold has doubled, soaring past $1,500 an ounce. And the U.S. Geological Survey estimates that 18,000 metric tons remain undiscovered, scattered through two dozen states. “There’s gold from Alaska to Alabama if you know where to look,” says GPAA spokesman Brad Jones. Seasoned prospectors consult vintage maps, geological records, even diaries from prospectors of yore. In the field, they “read” the ground for telltale signs, like quartz outcroppings or gravel bars. But for newbies, the surest way to learn how to pinpoint the shiny stuff—and extract it—is to join an organization like the GPAA or the Goldhounds, which can offer training, equipment, and weekend outings. “We’re getting more and more families,” Jones

AMERICAN

STORIES

Going for the

Gold Looking for a fun—and profitable—way to spend your next free Saturday? Join the thousands of amateur prospectors digging for buried treasure. BY KENNETH MILLER

the parking lot of an Auburn diner, then caravan down a muddy track into a pine-forested canyon, where we park near a mine abandoned in the 1850s. As the others fan out through the gullies, Julie and I follow Bowers up a red clay dome. We pass a rusty tin coffeepot hanging from a branch—left by a 19th-century prospector, dug up by a modern one. The air is crisp and the view is gorgeous, with snowy peaks lining the horizon. After taking in the scenery for a few minutes, we get down to business. Gold hunters choose their tools to suit the setting: pans and sluice boxes

From left: A one-ounce nugget; sweeping views of the American River, in the gold-rich Mother Lode; a prospector hoping to strike pay dirt.

says. “Kids love to dig around looking for treasure.” Bowers, 57, leads expeditions through the Mother Lode—the 120-mile ribbon of mineral-rich outback that inspired California’s original gold rush. His biggest ﬁnd: a nugget worth $5,000. But

coming home empty-handed hardly fazes him—he just loves the thrill of the hunt. “When you’re out there digging, you feel like part of the old miners’ clan,” he says. The morning after the Goldhounds’ meeting, my wife, Julie, and I join a group of members in

for probing river muck; motorized dry washers for sifting desert dust. Today, we’re using metal detectors, ideal for locating nuggets hidden under thin topsoil. “You can find gold the old-time miners never knew was there,” Bowers says. He shows us how to calibrate our borrowed detector and listen for the shift in its mosquitolike whine that indicates a “hit.” Within minutes, Julie gets one. Bowers scrapes up soil with a plastic scoop and pours it out incrementally. At last, a nugget the size of a rice grain glitters in the sun. I find my own fleck soon after; by late afternoon we’ve collected half a dozen more.

PHOTOS, FROM LEFT: DAMIEN MALONEY; PICTURELAKE/ALAMY; DAMIEN MALONEY

he mother lode

12 • July 29, 2012

THERE’S GOLD IN THEM THAR HILLS

HERE’S HOW TO FIND IT JOIN UP. The Gold Prospectors Association of America (goldprospectors.org) offers organized outings, plus information on tools, tactics, and locations where the novice miner can practice. For a list of local clubs, go to goldminershq.com. READ UP. Fists Full of Gold by Chris Ralph is a great guide to prospecting techniques, essential gear, and geology fundamentals. Visit goldfeverprospecting.com to ﬁnd other useful books and DVDs. GEAR UP. The basic prospecting kit consists of a gold pan (available from many online retailers), a shovel, and a pick. A fancy metal detector can cost thousands of dollars, but you can rent a simpler model—or buy one used for under $200 on eBay or Craigslist. Look for one designed speciﬁcally for gold hunting. —K. M.

Back at the cars, Bowers weighs everyone’s take; ours is onetwentieth of an ounce, worth about $80—not bad for a few hours of playing in the dirt. Another member, Dante LaVelle, has found only half as much, but he’s grinning like a lottery winner. The 32-year-old sheet metal worker has been prospecting since his teens; during a recent stretch of unemployment, the hobby paid some of his bills. Still, he says, “I’m not in it for the money. I love being out in nature, enjoying what God gave us. Finding gold is just a bonus.”

SundayDinner Rice, Rice, Baby!

cle

THIS SALAD GOES PERFECTLY WITH HOT DOGS AND BURGERS.”

P “Vegetarians can substitute water for the chicken broth when preparing the rice.”

P “You can use pecans or any other nut in place of cashews. If you don’t like nuts, leave ’em out!”

Wild Rice Salad with Cashews 1 cup uncooked wild rice 4 cups chicken broth 3 Tbsp olive oil 1½ cups chopped red or green bell pepper ¾ cup cashews, coarsely chopped 2 green onions, sliced DRESSING: 3 Tbsp seasoned rice vinegar or apple cider vinegar 2 Tbsp olive oil 1 Tbsp Asian sesame oil 1 clove garlic, minced ¼ tsp salt Dash of freshly ground pepper

1. In a strainer, rinse wild rice under cool running water. Drain well. 2. In a 3-quart saucepan, bring rice and chicken broth to a boil over high heat. 3. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, for 45 to 50 minutes or until rice is tender. Drain excess liquid and set rice aside. 4. In a medium skillet, heat 3 Tbsp oil over medium-high heat. Add peppers and cook for 3 to 5 minutes or until tender. 5. Add cashews and green onions. Cook for

2 to 3 minutes or until nuts begin to brown. Remove from heat. In a large bowl, stir wild rice with bell pepper mixture. 6. For dressing, combine vinegar, oils, garlic, salt, and pepper in a jar with a tight-ﬁtting lid. Shake well. Pour dressing over salad and toss to coat. Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours. SERVES: 6 PER SERVING: 350 calories,

32g carbs, 8g protein, 22g fat, 0mg chol, 840mg sodium, 3g ﬁber

For a chance to win a copy of Patricia’s latest book, Red Mist, visit

dashrecipes .com/cornwell

PHOTOS, CLOCKWISE FROM BOTTOM LEFT: GINA CROZIER; MARK THOMAS, FOOD STYLING BY SUSAN OTTAVIANO, PROP STYLING BY MARINA MALCHIN; ISTOCKPHOTO (3). NUTRITION CONSULTING/ANALYSIS: JEANINE SHERRY, M.S./R.D.

P “This salad can be eaten at room temperature or chilled. To serve chilled, spoon the salad onto a lettucelined platter or into a large bowl.”

Author Patricia Cornwell airlifts this favorite picnic dish to friends

I’ve had my pilot’s license for more than 12 years and have ﬂown hundreds of times. One trip is especially memorable. Close to a decade ago, I woke up early one day, packed a wooden picnic basket, and took off in my helicopter to visit my friend and mentor Ruth Graham, a childhood neighbor. I still vividly remember skirting the bare trees to land in the foothills of western North Carolina just to share this favorite dish with Ruth. Cooking is my way of sharing part of myself. And this salad, which goes perfectly with hot dogs and burgers, is one of my favorites to make for friends. (It also tastes delicious the next day as leftovers.) And if I happen to get hungry when I’m flying, I can always count on this dish to keep me going when I make fuel stops!

Patricia’s Tips

14 • July 29, 2012

Ask Marilyn By Marilyn vos Savant

My daughter is carrying triplets, gender unknown. We’re trying to determine the odds of each possibility. My thinking: There are four possible combinations (BBB, GGG, BGG, and GBB), and birth order doesn’t matter. So the chances are 25 percent for any of them. Correct? —David Cissel, Mobile, Ala.

No; just because four combinations are possible doesn’t mean they’re equally likely. Say you call the babies 1, 2, and 3. They could be any of the combinations BBB, BBG, BGB, GBB, BGG, GBG, GGB, and GGG. So assuming the triplets are fraternal, the chances are 25 percent that they will be either all boys (12.5 percent) or all girls (12.5 percent). And the chances that they will be two of one sex and one of the other are 75 percent. (Two boys and one girl = 37.5 percent; two girls and one boy = 37.5 percent.)

Numbrix

Complete 1 to 81 so the numbers follow a horizontal or vertical path—no diagonals.

ILLUSTRATION: GRAFILU

Eat Yourself Skinny!”

“

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Fefe LOST

70 lbs

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