nmb

• Enter into thought about all the underplaces of London, in an interesting and highly photo-ridden post titled “London Toplogical.”
• Or entertain the thought of what “to call the food blech is an insult to blech” means, exactly. This and other insults that didn’t make the cut when slicing & dicing entries for Zagat guides.
• How to talk to a human. More specifically, how to reach a human through the tangle of touch-tone absurdity found w/ most customer support lines.
• It’s not just a tusk, oh no; it’s a tusk (tooth) with “hydrodynamic sensor capacities.” The narwhal’s secret powers finally revealed, and by none other than the Harvard School of Dental Medicine.
• Now that summer’s coming around, watch out: that honeybee down the street may actually know more than you think. And no, I’m not using ‘honeybee’ in any sort of allusive manner. (via BoingBoing)

• Charisma Explained. No, really. A British study lays bare the components of charisma. The BBC News Magazine article gives a few pointers (open body posture, let people know they matter, develop a genuine smile, be forceful and articulate, &c.). (BBC News Magazine)
• And lack thereof. Another study shows that people are more likely to make social blunders when they’re tired and/or stressed. Surprise! (EurekAlert!)
• How Marshmallows Are Made. How to make your own, anyway. (HowStuffWorks)
• One apple a day. To the max! If you’re eating apples for your health, best to chow down on red delicious or northern spry, as they’re the varieties with the most antioxidants. (Which is why you’re eating apples, right?) (EurekAlert!)
• Captivating gore. J.G. Ballard, whose books I’m always intrigued by but can never finish, has an interesting analysis of what makes C.S.I. so compelling. (Guardian Unlimited Books)
• gCensus = GoogleMaps + US Census.
• Musical furry lobster. It sings, but can it dance? This “musical” (it chirps) “furry” (its shell feels velvety to the touch) “lobster” (it’s a lobster) was recently discovered off the coast of Australia. (ABC [Australia] Science)

• More lies. The BoGlo has a quick & fluffy piece on the relevance of lie detection to modern-day struggles. On the verge of making an interesting statement, the article spends too much time bringing the presumably ignorant reader up to speed on the state of modern lie psychology (or whatever you want to call it). For more on lies, check out an earlier nmb post, Lies, All Lies. (BoGlo: “Liar, Liar,” by Christopher Shea [January 30, 2005])
• Are you the lucky 1? According to a recent Pew survey on search engine users, 92% of those who use search engines are confident about their searching abilities, yet only 38% are aware of the distinctions between paid and unpaid results. (via H20boro blog; Pew/Internet: Online Activities and Pursuits - Search Engine Users)
• The enigmatic dust mite.
  

  Research suggests that while an unmade bed may look scruffy it is also unappealing to house dust mites thought to cause asthma and other allergies.

  (BBC News: “Untidy beds may keep us healthy” [January 28, 2005])

• 2004 was Hot. The 4th warmest in recorded history, actually. Want to know what the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd warmest years were? 1998, 2002, and 2003. In unrelated news, Exxon Mobil posted the highest profits in its history, $25 billion. (NYT: “2004 Was Fourth-Warmest Year Ever Recorded,” by Andrew C. Revkin [February 10, 2005]; Guardian: “Exxon makes $25bn profit,” by David Teather [February 1, 2005])

• Nalgene, forever! Or not. Over at Grist, Umbra makes a case against Nalgene bottles. (Although the column is actually a clarification of an earlier column, so if you’re new to the Nalgene question, you may want to do a little reading.)
• How about Orangene? A research team at Cornell has apparently discovered a way to make plastics from citrus fruit. (via BoingBoing)
• It’s all just numbers. Via Alas (and on the tails of the “Summers controversy” ), here’s a mighty interesting graphic, which shows the percentage of women on physics faculty by country:
  
  (I don’t know much about the context or source of this graphic, so it’s of limited usefulness. But assuming it’s not an outright falsehood–for whatever time period–it at least goes toward debunking some of the arguments being tossed around re: women’s cognitive predispositions, etc. etc. etc.)
• Sleep thin. A new study on sleep (yes, another one) seems to indicate that body mass index increases as sleep time decreases. In other words, the thinner sleep longer. As with virtually any sleep study, no one’s sure if there’s actually a cause-effect relationship. But hey, there might be!
• Things left behind.
  

  An estimated 11,300 laptop computers, 31,400 handheld computers and 200,000 mobile telephones were left in taxis around the world during the past six months, a survey found Monday.

  Taxi drivers in nine cities also said they had found a range of other items left by passengers, including a harp, 37 milk bottles, dentures and artificial limbs. One driver said he even found a baby in his taxi.

• No more secrets. Exxonsecrets.org is “the first chapter of a larger Greenpeace project provide a research database of information on the corporate funded anti-environmental movement.” An interactive flash-based tool with lots of information. (via MeFi)
• 35.
  

  Minimum number of countries with a greater capacity to produce nuclear weapons than Iraq at the time of the U.S. invasion.

  (via Harper’s)

• Snow.

• Prisons are America’s “primary supplier of mental-health services.”¹
• Make a face. Change it. Craft your new identity. Morphases.²
• Dolphins and humans are fairly similar, brain-wise.³
• Struwwelpeter/Shockheaded Peter, online.⁴
• Tired of original speech? Cliche Finder to the rescue.⁵
• “I think that it could be done.”⁶
• Send me your brains. Sterling Courier Systems, please.⁷
• They have a list. They’re checking it twice.⁸
• Woobie: feel the warmth.⁹
• This is now. 10×10.¹⁰

Sources & additional commentary-type crap:

1. NYT: “A Death in the Box,” by Mary Beth Pfeiffer [October 31, 2004] - Above and beyond this startling factoid, the article is worth a read. While it approaches the subject through the story of one woman, it is by no means a straightforward case-study/human interest type article.
2. Morphases - Go see it—you get to play with faces; it’s fun. (Though shouldn’t that be Morfaces?)
3. Science Blog: “Humans and dolphins: If brain size is a measure, we’re not that different” - Human brains are 7 times larger than you’d expect, based on comparisons to similar-sized animals. For dolphins, it’s 5 times.
4. with pictures, and English translations alongside the original German. Good fun. (link via MeFi)
5. type in a word, find cliched substitutions.
6. CalTech News: “The End of the Age of Oil,” by David Goodstein - adapted from talk
7. Actually, don’t send me your brain. But feel free to check out the New York Brain Bank’s recommended procedure for packing and sending a fresh brain. And yes, the instructions do say “fresh” brain. That’s what the Ziploc bags are for, I guess—keeping the brain(s) fresh. Mmm. Fresh brain. (link via BoingBoing)
8. NYT: “What Wal-Mart Knows About Customers’ Habits,” by Constance Hays [November 14, 2004] - As a matter-of-fact, it’s a database. And Wal-Mart’s checking it waaay more than twice.
9. Double-Tongued Word Wrester defines “woobie” as
   

   a security blanket; a blankie; a favorite toy or object. Also wooby.

10. The pictures that define the times.

• D.C., where art thou? Rick Lyman cobbles together an article that’s surprisingly readable—and interesting—despite the fact that it revolves around his (Mr. Lyman’s) inability to actually connect with his subject, the inscrutable Dick Cheney. “Desperately Seeking Dick Cheney” is, almost astonishingly, hilarious, and you ought to read it. (NYT: “Desperately Seeking Dick Cheney,” [local version] by Rick Lyman [September 19, 2004])
• Mae West, Pt. 2. And, because Mae West references are apparently coming back into style (not that they ever went out), there’s no sense in breaking the trend. Thus: Catherine Orenstein at Ms. Magazine starts off (and ends) an article on Little Red Riding Hood with mentions of Mae West. (Ms. Magazine: “Dances with Wolves: Little Red Riding Hood’s Long Walk in the Woods,” by Catherine Orenstein [Summer 2004], via MeFi)
• Syrupy Swim. FYI, just in case you were wondering, it’s no more difficult to swim in syrup than it is in water. This is because the drag experienced by swimming through a liquid that’s more viscous than water is essentially cancelled out by the additional force generated with every stroke. According to Edward Cussler of the University of Minnesota, anyway.

  Apparently, the most difficult (or “troublesome,” in the article’s words) part of the experiment was obtaining the necessary permits and whatnot in order to fill a swimming pool with syrup.

  (news @ nature.com: “Swimming in syrup is as easy as water,” Michael Hopkin [September 20, 2004])

• Bye E.T.! Any chances of aliens finding Earth may soon disappear. Which isn’t to say that there ever was a chance, really, but if there was, it’s soon to be gone, mostly thanks to the decrease in signal leakage from the technology around us. Television broadcast antennas—which put out a fairly significant amount of radio-waves—are giving way to less leak-prone technologies, such as cable and satellite TV. What the NewScientist article fails to address, however, is whether any alien civilizations receiving our broadcasts would actually interpret it as evidence of intelligent life; personally, I have my doubts. (NewScientist: “Chances of aliens finding Earth disappearing,” by David L Chandler [August 9, 2004])
• Stain remover not required. Fashion Victims is not what it sounds like, probably. (Though this ultimately depends on what it sounds like to you.) It’s an exhibit of clothing and accessories, what C&A interact with cell phones, bleeding in response to the objects’ radiation.
  
  If nothing else, it’s an interesting exercise in rendering the invisible visible.
• “When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin.” You’re in a bookstore, or a library, looking for something to read; what’s the first thing you look at? Openinghooks is a website based on the premise that the first thing you look at—and the most important thing—is the opening hook, that first killer sentence that reels you in (or fails to, as the case may be). The site is a database of the beginnings of books. You can browse by author, genre, title, or ranking. And yes, you can rank already-entered opening hooks and submit more. (via MeFi)
• And they’re tasty, too! Apparently chicken liver, of all things, has long been a necessary part of diagnosing particular gastrointestinal disorders, generally following the procedure of: patient has problems, doctor injects chicken liver with radioactive tracer, patient consumes radioactive chicken liver, doctor discovers problem. Needless to say, chicken liver isn’t high on most people’s to-eat list. Now there’s an alternative. Medical students recently discovered that something by the name of “Carborate Pancake Mix,” a soy-based mix, actually works better than chicken liver. (AllHeadlineNews/Medical College Of Georgia: “Medical College Of Georgia Students Discover Medicinal Role For Pancake Mix” [August 10, 2004])
• Tough Luck.
  

  A superstitious Romanian, who refused to leave his house throughout Friday the 13th to avoid bad luck, died after he was stung by a wasp in his kitchen, police said.

  Florin Carcu, 54, had even taken the precaution of asking his boss for permission not to go to work on the inauspicious Friday, the police in Cluj, central Romania, said in a statement.

  “It was the strangest request I’ve ever received but I ended up giving him permission to stay at home because he seemed to be really scared of something bad happening to him on that day,” Carcu’s boss Gheorghe Domsa told the press.

  Doctors from the emergency services in Cluj said Carcu had been making coffee when he was stung by a species of wasp nicknamed “the wolf”, which is very rare in Romania and whose sting is very poisonous.

  He died on the spot.

  (AFP/USA Today: “Avoiding work on Friday the 13th proves deadly for man” [August 18, 2004])

• New Scientist looks at trials of a drug thought to hold potential in treating vCJD. The trial will look at an anti-malarial drug (of all things) that seems to have some promise in the whole mad cow arena.
• The Guardian provides a handy-dandy Q&A format article on BSE/vCJD—giving, among other things, a straightforward, helpful explanation of the CJDs (Sporadic, Variant, etc.). Curiously, the article does not mention the “mad cow” appellation, assuming—probably—that by now people have heard the acronym BSE knocked around often enough to know it’s mad cow disease.

(New Scientist: “Trial of treatments for vCJD to launch,” by Andy Coghlan [August 5, 2004]; Guardian: “vCJD,” by James Meikle [August 6, 2004])

• No dope? Lincoln Allison has an article in the Guardian that asks whether performance-enhancing drugs are really something that should be shied away from. He has lots of thoughtful points (e.g., that in sports where knowledge of doping is fairly public, fans don’t mind that records are “tainted” by drugs; that a strict anti-drug policy is obscene when the athlete’s performance ultimately relies on judgement, strategy, and skill—things not in the least bit enhanced by the drugs, etc.), and the article as a whole provides an interesting contrast to the “default” assessment that doping’s a bad thing. Give it a read. (Guardian: “Faster, stronger, higher,” by Lincoln Allison [August 9, 2004])
• Giant, Millenia-Old UFO. Scientists are just now beginning to probe the depths of an Antarctic lake that is 40 times larger than Lake Tahoe. This is a lake buried under two miles of ice. A lake, the contents of which (water, yes, but possibly also microbes and such) have been undisturbed for probably several hundred thousand years. Which is kinda neat, and also obvious fodder for sci-fi movies. Also, curiously, planetary scientists are interested in Lake V, because it probably shares numerous similarities with places like some of the moons of Jupiter. Go figure. Scope out a Google for Vostok on the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory if you’re itching for more info. (SFGate: “Beneath Antarctica’s ice lies mysterious Lake Vostok High-tech tools help scientists detail underwater features,” by David Perlman [August 2, 2004])
• I suppose you liked Savage Bees? While we’re on the topic of undiscovered treasures, let me just say that the Agony Booth is a gem. It is, in its own words, “an ongoing inquisition into some of the worst movies humanity has to offer.” The site offers absurdly long reviews of hilariously awful movies—what movies’ hilarity is all the more amplified by someone else seeing them in your stead. (via LII)
• Better late. Than never. I had no idea it was National Punctuation Day on Sunday. If I had I would have, er, celebrated.
• No ninjas. I don’t usually throw any pure-blog entries into the rundown mix, but this item over at onepotmeal is worth a glimpse, if only for the “Dear Denouement” format (a keeper) and the P.S., which really cinches the whole thing.
• Speaking of ninjas. Reuters “reports” that you ought to check the symmetry of your opponent’s extremities before picking a fight. The article cites a study that purports to show people with asymmterical extremities (hands, ears, etc.) had shorter fuses, due to stressors during pregnancy. It doesn’t give you enough of the details to really make heads or tails of, but golly, doesn’t it make a nice headline. If I were you, I’d wait till I had my hands on the actual study before I started picking fights with symmetrical people. (Also, contrary to the headline of the article, I have my doubts that the original study actually advises people to “Check Ears Before You Pick a Fight.” Though of course I’ve been wrong before.) (Reuters: “Check Ears Before You Pick a Fight, Study Advises” [August 23, 2004])

• When you feel like there’s something missing from your life…
  

  You will not see him at the Athens Olympics, but Bob Brown is one of Britain’s leading athletes. A veteran of long-distance races across the world, he is now at the front of a pack of runners attempting one of their sport’s greatest challenges—a run across the US. … Brown and the six other competitors are attempting to run the distance in 70 days—the foot-busting equivalent of a double marathon each day.

  …

  However, Brown is not coming to all this without training or a track record. The last country he ran across was Australia and, in the mid-90s, he was ranked among the highest in the world at extreme endurance events, which are known to competitors and fans as ultra sports.

  …

  For that event, which Brown describes as the hardest in the world, he trained himself to sleep for one hour at time, spent entire nights on his exercise bike before going to work the next morning (so he could cope with sleep deprivation) and spent seven-hour training sessions in his local pool to gear his mind up to the boredom of a 24-mile swim.

  (via Guardian: “Keep on running,” by Simon Jeffery [July 19, 2004])

• Are you feeling run-down? Tired? Not John Corson:
  

  “I’m feeling like my body is light. It’s the best I’ve probably felt as far as energy in 10 years,” said John Corson, 56, the day after he was struck by lightning while working outside his home.

  (via AP: “Lightning Strike Energizes Maine Man” [July 23, 2004])

• Bubbling out. I have no idea what the hell to make of this MeFi blurb on “sustainable oil,” but after sniffing out a couple of the pieces cited ([1] [2] [3]), I have serious doubts. The articles claim that oil’s maybe not something formed over millions of years by the compression of dead stuff, but in fact a geological product. The research paper mentioned by just about everybody seems quasi-legit, but I’m somewhat troubled by the fact that it doesn’t seem to be referenced by anyone other than quack news services. Because, conspiracy theories aside, the fact is that major scientific revelations do not generally crop up unannounced and without much fanfare. I’m gonna go with my gut and ignore this one for now.

• Song parody. Web site JibJab strikes out into allegedly charted waters with “This Land Is Your Land” political parody, running into unexpected hot water from the nefarious copyright-holders of the Woody Guthrie song. EFF strikes back. (via MeFi, etc.)
• Security, what security? Respectful of Otters has an interesting anecdote about security, what anecdote essentially points out that seeming security measures are sometimes nothing more than economic security measures. Anyway, innerestin’ story.
• Some Noise. Belle Waring on Crooked Timber calls attention to a New Yorker piece on, um, Dick Cheney:
  

  As a quick-thinking senatorial aide switched on the Senate’s public-address system and cued up the infamous “Seven Minutes of Funk” break, Mr. Leahy and Mr. Cheney went head-to-head in what can only be described as a “take no prisoners” freestyle rap battle…

  Unfortunately, as other senators (along with assorted aides and support-staff members) were casting their votes to decide the winner, using the admittedly subjective but generally accepted “Make some noise up in here!” protocols, Mr. Cheney and Mr. Leahy took the proceedings to what one aide accurately described as “the next level.”

  Edward M. Kennedy (D.-Mass.) was the first to notice that the two men were circling each other, Mr. Cheney brandishing a switchblade and Mr. Leahy the jagged neck of a broken bottle.

  “Oh, snap!” Mr. Kennedy recalls thinking at the time. “It’s getting kind of hectic up in this piece.”

  The whole article, in case you hadn’t noticed, is really worth a read (if only for the revelation of where Cheney and Leahy are kept during non-business hours, and how they’re fed).

• The End. How To Save The World has an interesting (if somewhat lengthy) post on eco-collapse. I am from time to time a firm believer in the insolubility of present-day troubles, so this post quite naturally piqued my curiosity. After all, we’d all like to know what the end’s going to be like, and HTSTW paints as realistic a portrait as any.

• Listen, Stop & Roll. The World Of Stuart has a neat little project, Big Songs for Little Attention Spans: 100 songs you can download. Not only 100 songs, but 100 short songs; 100 songs that actually fit on one compact disc.
• Movie Magic. And, from the people who brought you The Shining, reenacted by bunnies (mentioned here previously), comes: Alien in 30 seconds, re-enacted by bunnies. (via the ever-helpful MeFi)
• You’ve got questions? So do we. Question: What would happen if bees disappeared? Question: When is Assassination in Order? (The former is informative, if only slightly, whereas the latter [in the comments section] covers some interesting ground.) (Science Actualitßs: “What would happen if bees disappeared?” by Jacques Tarnero)
• Clear as Stone. BoingBoing mentions translucent concrete that’s being developed by a Hungarian architect, ferrying you along to an AP article and to the National Building Museum exhibit on liquid stone, where you can learn that concrete is the second most widely consumed substance on earth. (BoingBoing [July 8, 2004])
• It’s Aboot time. PLANetizen guides you to a pretty interesting article about the differences between Canadian and US cities (and between Canada and the US in general). Not too long, with plentiful illustrations along the way. Requires PDF reader. (Funder’s Network for Smart Growth: “Canadian Cities American Cities: Our Differences Are the Same,” by Patrick Condon [February 2004])
• Quotes to Live By.

  1. Just think Teletubbies—with a hint of Hooters. Eleven-inch, flat television screens adorn the fronts of T-shirts worn by winsome women deployed to be, in the words of the product’s developer, “aggressively friendly.”

  2. “There are so few people in the world saying, ‘I wish advertising were a little more intrusive,’ ” says David “Jelly” Helm, a longtime adman now at Wieden & Kennedy in Portland, Ore.

  Both quotes are from an article in CSM on the new trend of placing “billboards” (the TV-in-a-T-shirt) in high foot-traffic areas. (CSM: “‘Billboards’ that walk, talk, and even flirt a little,” by Clayton Collins [July 8, 2004])

• You may be a rock star.¹
• You may be a terrorist.
• You may be overweight.²
• You may be ill in the head.³
• You may be running out of gas.⁴

Notes:

1. via All Facts and Opinions; I’m a WRCL—yes, that’s right, I may be a rock star. Find out today what you may be!
2. AlterNet: “Keep Yer Flab On,” by Lakshmi Chaudhry [July 15, 2004]
3. BMJ: “Bush plans to screen whole US population for mental illness,” by Jeanne Lenzer [June 19, 2004], via How To Save The World
4. CSM: “EPA’s m.p.g. ratings get an inspection,” by Mark Clayton [July 15, 2004]

• Wonder Dog? In Toronto, a dog may well have prevented a massacre. The dog—whose identity has yet to be confirmed (sounding more and more like a superhero)—approached a man who was planning a killing spree, thus defusing the situation. The man’s plan was to load his weapons and then drive around, killing at random, etc., etc.; fortunately for everyone involved (or not involved), the plucky pooch melted his heart, averting disaster. Said Det. Nick Ashley: “He happens to be a pet lover, and decided that since there was such a nice dog in the area, that people were too nice and he wasn’t going to carry out his plan.” Police found the following in the man’s car:
  • 6,000 rounds of ammunition
  • two rifles
  • a shotgun
  • a semi-automatic pistol
  • a revolver
  • an air rifle
  • a machete
  • a hunting knife
  • a throwing knife
  • a camouflage mask
  • netting

  People are betting it’s either Elvis Presley, a black border collie, or Dante, a husky-Australian shepherd mix, though it also could’ve been park regular Mattie.

  (Reuters: “Friendly Dog Prevents Killing Spree?” [June 25, 2004]; and Reuters: “Mystery Hero Dog Captures Toronto’s Imagination” [June 28, 2004])

• A Gamble. In other news, less civic-minded dogs were found gambling in Atlantic City (right). To be fair, it wasn’t entirely their fault. Employees at Sands Casino used dogs to re-create the scene of the famous painting with dogs playing poker (called “Looks Like Four of a Kind” and painted by C. M. Coolidge around 1910, for all you trivia buffs). Here’s the original (below, center), if you’re itching to make a comparison:
  

  (via AP/CNN: “Dogs gamble in Atlantic City” [June 24, 2004]; other informative links above left uncited)

• Rest Easy. In July of 2003, something appeared on a beach in Chile. A very large something: 13 tons, more or less; a giant, amorphous blob. To the dismay of those hoping for proof of some as-yet-unknown species of enormous deep-sea squid (keeping in mind that known deep-sea squid can get large enough, thankyouverymuch), scientists have recently proved that the blob and others like it are nothing more than the remains of dead whales. These same scientists put to rest the question of numerous other beach blobs, including
  

  …the “giant octopus of St Augustine” from 1896, the 1960 Tasmanian west coast monster, two Bermuda blobs from the 1990s and the 1996 Nantucket blob…

  (New Scientist: “Beach blob mystery solved at last” by Jon Copley [June 27, 2004])

• Pentrix. I’ve never been able to master the 360 degree normal—that annoyingly absent-minded trick where somebody (we’ll call him “Ace”) spins a pen effortlessly around his thumb. Then again, I’ve never really been good with pen tricks in general. But now there’s a web site that can help. Well, maybe it can’t help me, but it could help you. (via MeFi)
• Those Crazy Apes. Mischievous apes (well, chimpanzees) at the brand spanking new Regenstein Center for African Apes now have the opportunity to surprise unsuspecting visitors with bursts of air. It’s a neat-sounding place, as ape houses go; it’s designed to be more natural for the apes (airy and spacious and green with a mulch-covered floor), and has fans that the apes themselves can control (to, as the article puts it, “moderate the effects of Chicago’s muggy summers and icy winters”). (AP: “Lincoln Park Zoo Apes Get to Take Revenge” by Lisa Schenker [June 26, 2004])
  
• Speaking of Apes… There’s been a rumor going around (maybe you’ve heard it, maybe you haven’t) that that much-loved fruit, the banana, is in mortal danger of extinction. I know I’ve read the terrible rumor in some relatively respectable (or at the very least, glossy and picture-filled) science publication. Well, it turns out the rumor’s a little bit over-the-top; a little too alarmist, if you will. Yes, it’s true that the Cavendish (the variety most familiar to the American consumer) faces potential dangers, and yes, it’s true that bananas are essentially clones, which dramatically cuts down on crop diversity. And yes, it’s true that a once-popular variety, the Gros Michel, was totally wiped out by disease in the space of a decade (paving the way for the Cavendish). But Snopes says bananas are here to stay—for now at least—and I tend to believe them. Until I hear otherwise. Don’t worry, I’ll keep you posted as the banana saga unpeels. (Snopes: “Banana Peal; Claim: Bananas will be extinct within ten years,” by Barbara Mikkelson [September 23, 2003]; via BoingBoing)

• Numerous Lines about 106 Claims. Popular Science has an interesting article wherein the writer lists all the science claims he hears in a day—from cereal boxes to e-mail spam to radio natter—and then looks at the foundations for the claims. Not surprisingly, most of the claims are outright hooey, which simply makes the article that much more enjoyable. Ahh, the fragrant aroma of pseudoscience.

  An excerpt:

  Me: “So how does CortiSlim work to reduce cortisol?”
  Seller: “It decreases the level of cortisol in your body, just cancels it all out.”
  Me: “OK, but how does it do that?”
  Seller: “CortiSlim evaporates it and absorbs it and decreases it and cuts it down. So I want to tell you about a ‘buy two get one free’ special we’re running this week.”

  You get the picture. (Popular Science: “106 Science Claims and a Truckful of Baloney” by William Speed Weed [May 2004])

• In the Cards. A page on the Jay Card Throwing Technique (including photographs), via BoingBoing. Once you’ve mastered the basic Jay Card Throwing Technique, you can move on to more advanced techniques, and from there you can move on to card throwing as self-defense.
  
• Aliens? Merely thinking about traumatic memories can be stressful, with a whole host of bodily responses accompanying the memory, from a faster heart rate to increased sweating and so forth. These reactions are often interpreted by people as some kind of indicator of the truthfulness of the memory. But a new study on alien abduction “survivors” by the fine folks at Harvard seems to indicate that a bodily response to any kind of account—be it a contrived memory or a genuine one—depends only on whether or not the account is traumatic, not whether or not it’s truthful. (Psychological Science / EurkeAlert: “Probing the world of alien abduction stories” [June 21, 2004])

• Superkid. One of the best lead sentences ever:
  

  “Somewhere in Germany is a baby Superman, born in Berlin with bulging arm and leg muscles.”

  So crazy you know it’s true, the article is a neat trip through the land of genetic mutations an internet-only bodybuilder supplements. (AP: “Doctors discover a toddler muscle man” by Linda A. Johnson [June 23, 2004]; originally via diepunyhumans)

• Echinacea… The debate rages on. A study by the Marshfield Clinic seems to indicate that echinacea might not help reduce the duration of the common cold. Which is fine and good, except that I’d always thought it was intended as a preventative—as something to strengthen the immune system so as to reduce the occurrence of colds—not something to cut the duration of already-acquired colds. Of course, there are numerous questions to be raised about herbal supplements like echinacea, most of them having something to do with the lack of standardization (there’s nothing like government-mandated quality control) and the fact that no one is quite sure which part of the plants (or which plants, what with there being different kinds of echinacea). Maybe time will tell, and maybe it won’t. (Marshfield Clinic / EurekAlert: “Echinacea may have no benefit in treating common cold” [June 21, 2004])
• “Cough” Medicine? Okay, so maybe you knew that herbal remedies weren’t necessarily the panacea some people think they are; but what about cough medicine? The results of a study by researchers at the Penn State Children’s Hospital were that “[n]ight-time cough and sleep quality were no better with cough mixtures than with a simple, non-medicated syrup.” (BBC: “Cough medicines ‘have no benefit’” [July 6, 2004])

• Early to bed, early to rise. Hamida Musulmani says, “I only eat what I grow. I am fine, it is only my eyes that cannot see properly.” The Lebanese woman has documents that put her age at 126. (The New Zealand version of the Reuters article adds: “Many titleholders [of the world's oldest living person] have been exclusively or largely vegetarian, but others have bucked the trend by being cigar-smoking, chocolate-loving, alcohol-imbibing carnivores.” Sadly, it lists none of them. A web page titled simply “The Oldest Human Beings” lists a whole bundle of record-holders of the title, but does not mention their eating/drinking habits.) (Reuters: “Lebanese Woman Could Be World’s Oldest — at 126″ [June 15, 2004])
• Watch Lobster. It’s always fun when an article takes a complete non-story—something that would possibly pass as an interesting anecdote in casual conversation—and tries to pretend it’s actually something worth reporting. I’m not saying I don’t enjoy these articles, because, after all, they provide good excuses for using sentences like “[w]hatever the motive, the lobster has nothing to worry about.” But you have to wonder where in the chain of editorial responsibility someone actually had the thought, “wow! they found a lobster next to a watch—and in the ocean, no less!” and then proceeded to think “I bet that’ll make a good news article.” (AP: “Lobster found guarding watch off England” [June 17, 2004])
• I’ll bet that’s funny. Ha ha. A preliminary study at Dartmouth indicates that humor “detection” and humor appreciation are handled by two separate areas of the brain. An interesting study, but obviously not the last laugh. More questions raised than answered and so forth. (Scientific American: “Sitcoms on the Brain” by Marina Krakovsky [June 14, 2004] via BoingBoing)

• Green Rights. A new charter is up for vote in France that would make the right to live in a healthy environment a constitutional issue. By the look of things, it’s one of those deals where compromise has slightly mangled the original intention of both parties—the Green Party saying it’s disappointed with the final charter and others balking at the potential imposition—but at least it’s a start. The most glaring disagreement is over a provision that would give the state permission (essentially) to intervene in an action that’s deemed “to pose a ’serious and irreversible’ threat to the environment.” Detractors are worried that the courts will become involved in “every little thing” (my words, not theirs) somebody happens to think threatens the the environment. In the world imagined by these people, the global economy would grind to a halt under such an impossible burden. In the real world, interpretation notwithstanding, serious and irreversible threats are kinda important. (Guardian: “French split over green charter” by Kim Willsher [May 27, 2004])
• Yeah? Well sustain this. An experiment in “sustainable living” is set to go forward near Lisbon (Portugal). The 1 billion euro project (approx $1.2 billion USD) will take 10 years to finish, cover 5,300 hectares (approx 20 mi²), and be home to 30,000 people. It’s an interesting, warm-hearted, feel-good sort of thing they’re doing, reminding everyone how sustainability’s not, you know, impossible. What would be maybe even better, though, would be a project—say, a 10,000 hectare plot of land—to show what the end result of current trends would be. It would be nice (though nice really isn’t the right word) if people could see what’s going to happen if they keep buying things like there’s literally no tomorrow and throwing them away almost as rapidly; nice if they could see what’s gonna happen if they keep blow drying and airconditioning and stereoblasting and tv-watching and lighting ad infinitum. (BBC: “Lisbon to try sustainable living” by Alex Kirby [May 28, 2004])
• Worried At The Top. In case you haven’t heard, Ron Oxburgh, chairman of Shell, said in an interview that “[n]o one can be comfortable at the prospect of continuing to pump out the amounts of carbon dioxide that we are at present.” This, from the head of Shell. Go read the interview. (Guardian: “‘I’m really very worried for the planet’” by David Adam [June 17, 2004])

Avifauna in the News:

(1) Outside of Medina, North Dakota, 27,000 white pelicans mysteriously disappear from Chase Lake National Wildlife Refuge; (2) along a strip of road in western England, a buzzard (which, for AmE speakers, is a hawk) terrorizes passing motorists and cyclists; and (3) in London, researchers found, ducks are noisier than their countryside brethren, most likely owing to the need to be heard over the many airplanes, trains, and police sirens found in the city.

UPDATE on (2): the dive-bombing bird, much to the dismay of many, including one of the cyclists who was attacked, is no more.

(AP: “Pelican disappearance drawing widespread interest; still unsolved” [June 15, 2004]; Reuters: “Angry Buzzard Terrorizes English Country Road” [June 11, 2004]); Reuters: “If It Quacks Like a City Duck, It’s a City Duck” [June 9, 2004]; Reuters: “Dive-Bombing Buzzard Flies Last Mission” [June 18, 2004])