Your Interesting Links

So here we are again with another round of links to interesting items you might have missed the first time around. Again not too much heavy science but a lot of oddities …
Cats vs Dogs. Who wins? Well from an evolutionary perspective scientists have concluded that cats are better.


Since when has a Goth Chicken been a thing? Quite a while apparently as it is a recognised breed with black feathers, black meat and even a black heart. And they are highly prized.
We all know we eat too much animal protein, so it’s no surprise that the trend for replacing red meat with chicken isn’t actually helping.
George Monbiot considers evidence that obesity is an incurable disease and asks why then governments are intent on punishing sufferers.
So what is it like if you lose your sense of smell?
There are lots of medical screening tests available but which are really useful and what are the drawbacks?
Michael Ignatieff looks at the ongoing human impact of the Fukushima accident and subsequent clean-up.
So which shall be the master: the Meridian or GPS? It seems they don’t agree where the Greenwich Meridian is by a small matter of 102 metres. which is fine, apparently.
Galileo looked at a pendulum and thus begat GPS. Or how seemingly trivial observations and inventions can have long-lasting and profound effects centuries later.
And while we’re on inventions, a creative man has built a machine to feed his cat — but only when the cat hunts and finds a hidden ball and puts it in a slot machine!
Mention of Galileo makes us turn to history, but let’s start even further back in time … An English academic working in America has been looking hard at the walls of Tutankhamun’s burial chamber and thinks he’s spotted the bricked up entrance to Queen Nefertiti’s tomb.
Now here’s an equally puzzling conundrum. Was Shakespeare stoned when he wrote his plays? Well maybe, because pipe remains found in Shakespeare’s Stratford-upon-Avon garden have been analysed and found to contain not just tobacco but also cocaine and cannabis.

Struan Bates at www.EnglishCivilWar.org takes a further look at London’s York House Water Gate, this time as represented by various artists.
Has anyone got a couple of million to spare? If so, Dungeness is up for sale — yes, that large expanse of shingle on the Kent coast. And as it’s a very environmentally sensitive area it needs a suitable owner. Now if I can just win the lottery …

After which it is all downhill (or do I mean down the beach?) …
Guys … Do you want to increase your fertility? If so, take a tip from the Scots and wear a kilt!
Don’t want to wear a kilt? OK, so nudism is another option. Here are two items where young ladies look at the experience of social nudity: the first talks of the challenges of being a lifelong nudist and the second tackles nudity in the interests of research.
Meanwhile Amnesty International has found some sense and now backs the worldwide decriminalisation of prostitution. Is it too much to hope the politicians might now listen? Yes, I thought so.
And finally some words from a working, legal (albeit American) prostitute on the misconceptions people have about the job she has chosen for herself.
That’s all. More anon.