amusements, science

No Sense of the Ridiculous

Three snippets from the “Feedback” column of this week’s New Scientist. Some people really do have no sense of the ridiculous.

“Generations of medical students and doctors have been taught to tell their patients to ‘never put anything smaller than your elbow in your ear’,” Michael Glanfield, himself a doctor, assures us. The Asda supermarket chain has clearly taken this advice to heart. The warning on its own brand “D” battery, which has a diameter of 3.3 centimetres, states “…if swallowed or lodged in the ear or nose seek prompt medical attention”.

Geoffrey Hardman is grateful to transportdirect.info for warning him: “Certain combinations of outward and return journeys would result in you needing to leave your destination before arriving at it”.

“By now you will have noticed that the sole purpose of our exotic expeditions is to gather gems for Feedback,” says regular contributor Jenny Narraway. Her latest is the multilingual wording on a waste bin seen on a walking holiday in the Azores. It said: “Lixo Indiferenciado” for Portuguese speakers, “Poubelle Indiferencie” for French speakers and, for the English, “Undistinguished trash”.

Why is the waste bin on a walking holiday, one wonders?

amusements, links, science

Sublimely Ridiculous

This week’s selection of things which attracted my attention and which you may have missed …

Can the human body combust spontaneously? Most of us think not, unless you’re an Irish Coroner.

Fake degree? Check. Fake Rolex? Check. Fake girlfriend? What? You want fake girlfriend? OK, then see here and here.

Bored with your current home? Fancy your own Lord of the Rings film set? Then build your own Hobbit home. Must admit it looks comfy, but where’s the bathroom?

Now you’ve mastered being an architect here’s just the thing for your design studio … Use your Amazon Kindle as an Etch-a-Sketch. Sadly available only in the US.

And finally the big news of the week: Wasabi fire alarm scoops Ig Nobel prize! Yes, it’s that time of year when the Ig Nobel awards are announced. If you’ve missed out on them before they are serious scientific prizes which honour achievements that “first make people laugh, and then make them think”. Full reports here and here.

Enjoy your weekend!

books, memes, quotes

Quotes of the Week

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Well there’s just one good quote this week …

I have a very proper present for your Lordship. I know your love of antiquities makes you a little superstitious. I have an elderstick, that was cut in the minute that the sun entered Taurus. Such a planetary cutting of it gives virtue to stop bleeding to which you know you are subject. If you desire to know more of the time and manner of cutting it, you must consult Aubrey’s Miscellanies. You may meet with it without doubt amongst your father’s collection of mad books.
[Dr William Stratford writing to Edward Harley (son of the Earl of Oxford), 28 June 1711, quoted in Anthony Powell, John Aubrey and His Friends]

beliefs, memes, words

Word of the Week : Chimera

Chimera.
1. A fabled fire-breathing monster of Greek mythology, with a lion’s head, a goat’s body, and a serpent’s tail, killed by Bellerophon.
2. A grotesque monster, formed of the parts of various animals.
3. An unreal creature of the imagination, a mere wild fancy; an unfounded conception.
4. An organism (commonly a plant) in which tissues of genetically different constitution co-exist as a result of grafting, mutation, or some other process.
5. A horrible and fear-inspiring phantasm, a bogy.
6. Any fish of the family Chimæridæ.

amusements, books, memes

Listography : Celebrity Beer

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I’ve not taken part in Kate’s weekly Listography for the last couple of weeks largely because I’ve struggled to be motivated by the themes. Well that’s life. But I thought that I should try to make an effort again this week. And as often that’s proven to be harder than I expected as Kate is asking us to nominate five celebrities we would like to go for a beer with.

Surely that can’t be difficult? Well yes, because first one has to decide what “celebrity” means. The mind goes to TV persons, footballers, WAGS, pop singers and actors. Well if that’s what it means count me out because almost to a woman (are only of them actually men?) they bore me rigid — if I’ve even noticed them to start with. And then there is the question as to whether they have to be alive, or if dead celebrities count?

Therefore I decided that “celebrity” was whatever I wanted it to mean and I could include anyone I liked as long as they had a public persona and were alive. So here are five, who at the final reckoning may or may not be the top five. Who knows?

Alice Roberts. I’ve mentioned Alice any number of times before here because she’s just all-round brilliant: qualified medic, teaches anatomy, anthropologist, archaeologist, author, broadcaster and an excellent artist. I also think she’s hot! One of the people I would love to sit in the pub with and just talk the evening away.

Professor Mick Aston. The original lead archaeologist with the stripy jumpers on Channel 4’s Time Team. He’s another who I would love to just be able to chat with over beer, partly because I imagine a fascinating conversation but also because of his interest in the development of English churches and monasticism.

Dalai Lama. Another old friend of these lists — and not just because I am more attracted to Buddhism (albeit Zen) than any other philosophy. How can one not want to talk with one of the world’s most important spiritual leaders. But not just that, he seems to have a slightly wicked sense of humour!

Tony Benn. Yes, the British Labour Party politician, former Cabinet Minister and campaigner, now well into his eighties. I’d want to have a drink with him not for his politics (I disagree with much, but not all, of what he believes in) but because he is such a respected parliamentarian and constitutional historian with great insight into the workings of both history and state.

And now it is awful to say it but I get a bit stumped for my fifth nomination. There are so many people one could choose: Astronomer Patrick Moore, chefs Brian Turner and Rick Stein, BBC Weather Presenter Laura Tobin (a cheeky little pixie if ever I saw one!), authors Terry Pratchett and AN Wilson, historian Simon Schama, comedian Rory Bremner … But I think for my final choice I’ll pick …

Dick Strawbridge. Yes, him of the giant moustache. He’s another broadcaster, engineer, ecologist, ex-army Colonel and an absolute all-round nutter! I first noticed him presenting the BBC series “Crafty Tricks of War” in which he built — and usually blew up — all manner of nefarious military devices.

Well now, that’s a strange set of bedfellows if ever there was one. But in tell you what, I bet they’d all get on well together over some beer, after all in their own ways they’re all completely out to lunch on a variety of ancient bicycles!

amusements

Where does it all come from?

Our local auction houses seem to have had a quiet time recently, presumably because of summer holidays, but one has a bumper sale coming up this week. It contains the usual curiously described and strangely juxtaposed tat amongst a selection of rather nice (if boring) old silverware, fish knives etc. Here’s a selection that caught my eye. As so often the sting is in the tail with many of these.

Two portraits of young women, said to be Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice-Davies, each bearing signature Stephen Ward and dated (19)62, framed as a pair.
[Framed as a pair they were indeed!]

A silver ‘toy’ cherub on a bench, another by an incomplete easel, another playing patience at a separate table, London import marks … and an indistinctly marked cherub on a pig.

A collection of Golliwog china.
[Thought you weren’t supposed to say Golliwog these days?]

An impressive pair of Indian part-silver anklets, hinged and with pin fastening, each chased with a lion amongst foliage. circa 1900
[Duh?]

Six early bike and street lamps.

A Pedigree doll with opening eyes
[I hope it’s registered with the Kennel Club]

A quantity of early vales.
[¿Que?]

A varied and interesting lot to include 1960′s wallpaper sample books, sewing items including wool, thread, buttons, buckles, embroidery items, fabric, ladies’ clothes, bags, umbrellas, purses, cane, etc.
[The contents of the back of someone’s wardrobe?]

A wooden double stoned doll’s house with metal windows and ’tiled’ roof …
[One spliff not enough, eh?]

Miscellaneous small items including three green glass eye baths and one blue example, brassware, ceramics, etc., and a Billy Bunter book.

A lion mask bras doorknocker.
[Brings a whole new concept to the meaning of “knockers”]

A stuffed pheasant and a similar owl.
[You know you always wanted one!]

A pair of ibex horns on a wooden mound.
[Just to complete the medieval great hall]

An interesting lot including a quantity of university graduation robes with makers’ names, including Ryder & Amies, Cambridge (red and black); also a carton of related objects including sashes, ermine trimmed capes, mortar boards, velvet berets, etc.
[Bought your degree? Complete the set with some cast-off robes]

And no, I really don’t make these up!

current affairs, environment, links, medical, science, sexuality, topographical

It's Been a Busy Week!

There seems to have been a lot going on this week which drew my attention but which I didn’t get to write about here. So here’s a summary (in no particular order) …

First an interesting item on how belief can kill. It’s a curious phenomenon but even so I can’t bring myself to read the book. See The Dark Side of the Placebo Effect: When Intense Belief Kills.

Much more interesting and useful is a long article on the National Geographic site about the workings of Teenage Brains and how this should be seen as a sensible evolutionary trait. It might also help all of us understand and relate with teenagers. It certainly seems to explain quite a lot.

Next an investigative journalism piece about the Fukishima Disaster and especially the long-term effects on the Japanese population. The suggestion is that the effects of stress etc. will be far more significant than the actual radiation doses (I guess excluding the immediately affected workers). For my money the article still doesn’t delve deep enough — but the journo writing it probably couldn’t get access to do so.

Law and Lawyers has written several pieces about the worrying machinations of the Metropolitan Police in attempting to get The Guardian to reveal some of its sources. First they were going to use the Official Secrets Act, then PACE 1984. For now though it seems the dogs of war remain caged.

Also this week Obiterj at Law and Lawyers has pointed out that the Fixed Term Parliaments Act 2011 comes into force. This means the next General Election will be on 7 May 2015 — unless both Houses of Parliament decide otherwise by a two-thirds majority.

Which for a scientist somewhat pales into insignificance beside the apparent result from a team at CERN that they have detected neutrinos doing the impossible and travelling faster than light. But hold on guys, they don’t quite relieve it either and they’re asking the scientific community for help to test their results. Good scientific commentary by Adrian Cho at Wired and Phil Plait of Bad Astronomy.

Finally back to earth. There’s been lots of twittering in the dovecotes about female orgasm, how it relates to evolutionary pressures and to male orgasm. Also some good demonstrations on how to demolish a (supposedly) scientific study. The best of the critiques I’ve seen is from Scicurious. Maybe you girls should just be allowed to enjoy it?

Have an orgasmic weekend!

science, thoughts

We Live in Peaceful Times

What do you mean, you don’t agree? According to Michael Shermer in his article The Decline of Violence in the October 2011 issue of Scientific American, there is very much less violence now, per head of population, than there was in times of old.

English philosopher Thomas Hobbes​ … argued in his 1651 book, Leviathan, that … acts of violence would be commonplace without a strong state to enforce the rule of law. But aren’t they? What about 9/11 and 7/7, Auschwitz and Rwanda … What about all the murders, rapes and child molestation cases we hear about so often? Can anyone seriously argue that violence is in decline?
…
Take homicide. Using old court and county records in England, scholars calculate that rates have plummeted by a factor of 10, 50 and, in some cases, 100—for example, from 110 homicides per 100,000 people per year in 14th-century Oxford to fewer than one homicide per 100,000 in mid-20th-century London. Similar patterns have been documented in Italy, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Scandinavia.
…
As for wars, prehistoric peoples were far more murderous than states in percentages of the population killed in combat, [Harvard University social scientist Steven] Pinker told me: “On average, nonstate societies kill around 15 percent of their people in wars, whereas today’s states kill a few hundredths of a percent.”

I have no reason to doubt either Shermer or Pinker, but, yes, I was surprised too.