Here are the winning entries from a contest for some of the most promising new scientific theories.

THE RUNNERS-UP:

4th Runner-up -- The earth may spin faster on its axis due to deforestation. Just as a figure skater's rate of spin increases when the arms are brought in close to the body, the cutting of tall trees may cause our planet to spin dangerously fast.

3rd Runner-up -- Communist China is technologically underdeveloped because they have no alphabet. The lack of an alphabet means the Chinese cannot use "acronyms"; thus, they cannot communicate their ideas at a faster rate.

2nd Runner-up -- The "Why Yawning Is Contagious" Theory: You yawn to equalize the pressure on your eardrums. This pressure change outside your eardrums unbalances other people's ear pressures, so they too must yawn to even it all out.

1st Runner-up -- If an infinite number of rednecks riding in an infinite number of pickup trucks fire an infinite number of shotgun rounds at an infinite number of highway signs, they will eventually produce all the world's greatest literary works in Braille.

Honorable Mention -- The quantity of consonants in the English language is absolutely constant. If consonants are omitted in one geographic area, 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."

Grand Prize Winner -- When a cat is dropped, it always lands on its feet; and when toast is dropped, it always lands with the buttered side facing down. Therefore, if buttered toast is strapped to the back of a cat, when dropped, the two will hover, spinning inches above the ground, probably into eternity. A "buttered-cat array" could replace pneumatic tires on cars and trucks, and "giant buttered-cat arrays" could easily allow a high-speed monorail linking New York with Chicago.