By Bob Krauss
Advertiser Columnist

In the course of my extensive scientific research, I once wrote a column about left-handed sea shells. These shells spiral from the center in the opposite direction from right-handed sea shells. Ask any malacologist at the Bishop Museum and he'll tell you.

That's why I perked up when Caroline Ledford on Kahala Avenue sent me a newspaper clipping from Australia about a theory regarding left-footed and right-footed slippers that wash up on beaches. To wit:

"Cary Carlos was intrigued by tales from fishermen who, puzzled by a lack of matching pairs of thongs, noticed there seem to be right-foot beaches and left-foot beaches."

Before formulating his theory, Carlos examined the footwear drifting onto Queensland's north coast. "My proposal is that right-foot thongs will be separated from left-foot thongs as they drift down the ocean currents," said Carlos.

"So, in theory, left thongs should be pushed to the outside of the South Pacific and right thongs should be pushed to the center of the South Pacific."

This proposal is based on the fact that currents flow in opposite directions north and south of the equator, just as water in a basin swirls clockwise as it drains in the Northern Hemisphere but swirls counterclockwise in the Southern Hemisphere.

What Carlos seems to imply is that right-footed slippers will drift in one direction while left-footed slippers will drift in the other direction.

According to this hypothesis, Australia's east coast and countries on South America's west coast, such as Peru, would attract left-footed thongs. But islands in the center of the Pacific such as French Polynesia and, perhaps, Samoa, would attract right-footed thongs.

Carlos didn't speculate whether Hawai'i beaches have a left-foot or a right-foot bias.

So I consulted Dr. Paul Jokiel out at Coconut Island, an authority on the long-range dispersal of stuff that drifts in the ocean. In the course of his studies he has come across thongs that have drifted in the Pacific Ocean so long they have coral growing on them.

In 1992 he wrote tongue in cheek for a publication called "Reef Sites" and speculated that thongs from the right foot are for the Southern Hemisphere while thongs from the left foot are for the Northern Hemisphere. Therefore, thongs from the Great Barrier Reef would be getting off on the right foot.

Jokiel said there is one other complication. It could be that slippers don't become separated in the ocean because they drift in the opposite direction. It may be because people tend to lose them one at a time.

In any case, the next time you see a slipper on the beach, don't just ignore it. Look whether it's for the left or right foot. You may contribute to science.

Reach Bob Krauss at 525-8073.