Jay Taylor, age 9, of Shreveport, Louisiana, for his question:

Why does water spin clockwise down the drain?

As you know, our solid round globe spins day and night toward the east. The spinning globe changes the directions of objects moving above the ground. This is because the solid globe is moving eastward below their paths, Winds headed due north or south swerve off course as the ground below them spiny toward the ezst.

This way figured out by Gaspard Coriolis of France, so we call it the Coriolis effect. North of the equator it curves winds and other flying objects to the right. South of the equator, their paths are veered to the left. The Coriolis effect also twists a stream of water running down a drain. Our drain water spins to the right, as the hands of a clock move when we face the dial. But south of the equator, the drain water spins to the left.; in the opposite direction. All this water would drain straight down if the earth stopped spinning.