In a competition run by Omni magazine, readers were asked to create original theories to explain everyday events.

Here are some of them:

One theory proposes that clothes dryers produce a tunneling effect that throws socks into an alternate universe. Scientists should use this to dispose of nuclear waste; just put chunks of it into socks and set the timer for 40 minutes.

Global warming was caused by the increased adoption of daylight savings time or the popularity of jalapeno peppers. One positive result of all the warming was an end to the Cold War.

A solution to the dilemma of dropping toast with the buttered side down. Since cats always land on their feet, why not strap buttered toast to the back of a cat? The two will hover, spinning, inches above the ground. With a giant buttered-cat array, a high-speed monorail could link New York with Chicago.

Why is yawning contagious? You yawn to equalize the pressure on your eardrums. This pressure change outside your eardrums unbalances other people's ear pressures, so they must yawn to even it out.

Hot-rod owners raise the backs of their cars because it's easier to go faster when you're always going downhill.

The quantity of consonants in the English language is constant. If omitted in one place, they turn up in another. When a Bostonian "pahks" his "cah," the lost r's migrate southwest, causing a Texan to "warsh" his car and invest in "erl wells."

Birds take off at sunrise. On the opposite side of the world, they are landing at sunset. This causes the earth to spin on its axis.

When subjected to extreme feminine heat and pressure, male hydrocarbons will often produce a diamond.