A CZECH biochemist, once a prodigy who published his first scientific paper at the age of 19, has become a zither-playing busker on Prague鈥檚 famous Charles Bridge, the Czech daily, Mlada Fronta Dnes reports.
Jiri Klenha, whose speciality was the biochemistry of the skin, told the paper that when he quit science four years ago, he was earning less than 3000 crowns (拢70) a month. Now he is earning his living from his lifelong hobby 鈥� music. Klenha says he is not only pleased to be free of the scientific rat race, he is also considerably better off financially.
IT SOUNDS like the research project from hell. A South African mining firm, the Rare Earth Extraction Company, wants to take advantage of Nelson Mandela鈥檚 new South Africa by reopening an old mine that once produced monazite, a mineral containing a phosphate form of the radioactive element thorium.
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The mine in Namaqualand, South Africa, has been shut since 1963. It is now full of thousands of radioactive bats. Once blasting starts, the company says, 鈥渢he total bat population will probably be killed off鈥�. So, before this fateful day, it wants researchers to investigate the mutant beasts, which 鈥渃ould possibly have high levels of radiation damage鈥�. Feedback will put any intrepid bat-persons in touch.
鈥淢EDICINAL leeches apparently like their blood neat,鈥� Physician鈥檚 Weekly informs us. Anders Baeheim and colleagues at the University of Bergen, Norway, have been looking for a way to stimulate the appetite of the little bloodsuckers to improve their usefulness in microsurgery.
They found that garlic, sour cream and Guinness were useless aids. When introduced to a garlic-smeared arm, the leeches keeled over and died. Those fed on sour cream fared better, but instead of fuelling their urge to latch onto a human arm, the cream seemed to stimulate the animals鈥� desire to suck on the walls of their holding container.
Guinness didn鈥檛 help much either. Leeches, it seems, have a familiar reponse to the stuff: once they have drunk it, they completely lose their grip and fall onto their backs.
NAOMI and Ally Davies write to tell us that Sainsbury has introduced new labelling for its meat products. Their local store is now kind enough to tell people the 鈥渨eight per kilogram鈥� of the meat they buy.
The manager on duty was very apologetic about this, and when Ally Davies suggested that to be consistent with the local gravitational field strength, the manager should put 鈥渢en Newtons鈥� in the 鈥渨eight per kilogram鈥� box, she gratefully wrote down the advice.
鈥淲e鈥檙e looking forward to Sainsbury opening its first store on Mars, so we can see an alternative value in this box,鈥� the Davieses write.
MERCURY announced last December that it was to cut its losses on payphones, close the service and junk all the 鈥渟treet furniture鈥�. The Italian company Interphone is now taking over Mercury鈥檚 1500 sites and replacing the old Mercury phones with its own new ones.
We reckoned this gave the green light for an experiment we have been itching to perform. The Mercury payphones use cards with a magnetic strip. According to a security expert we know, Mercury devised a clever check to stop people fooling the system. When the card is pushed into the slot, its cash value is read and stored in the payphone. The phone then writes a value of zero onto the card. When the call ends, the phone writes a new value on the card, depending on how much credit is left.
According to the expert, this process was designed to stop people tying a piece of string to the card and yanking it out of the phone during a call, to get free time. The yanked card would, of course, come out with a zero value.
We duly drilled a hole in a Mercury card, attached a length of fishing line, made a call from a payphone and yanked out the card. The call was immediately stopped and, sure enough, the card had lost all its value.
This is obviously very clever technology, but wouldn鈥檛 it have been a lot easier and cheaper to use payphones that terminate a call as soon as the card is removed? Or was the zero value trick built in simply to punish anyone who dared even to try and pull a fast one on a Mercury payphone?
PRESS events aren鈥檛 what they used to be. If you are a member of the technical or scientific press, forget those evening trips to Paris for dinner, lunch at The Lainsborough, or even a bottle of Bollinger in the reptile house at London Zoo; instead, get down to your local off-licence and buy a bottle of plonk.
Yes, the Natural History Museum seems to be setting a new trend with its summer press and PR party by asking all guests to bring a bottle. Let鈥檚 hope that the money they save goes to conserving the museum鈥檚 excellent collections, and not to enhancing salaries in the boardroom.
BUT at least the museum provided enough information to get to its party. The computer company Apple has just informed us that it is reinstating a once proud tradition 鈥� 鈥渢he Apple summer journalist party鈥�. This year鈥檚 event will be 鈥減reposterously prestigious鈥� and 鈥渃elebrate the launch of the new Power Macintosh range鈥�. The invitation is required on the night but please reply to 鈥済uarantee entry鈥�.
Feedback would love to oblige, except that there is one thing missing from the invite. There is no date given for the event. Which proves, yet again, that even the smartest technology is no use if the user is dumb.
ENTRIES to the Feedback Summer Competition are beginning to arrive, and very welcome they are too. You are invited to describe a famous historical event which would have turned out very differently with the benefit of modern scientific or technological knowledge.
For the three best entries, Cognac Courvoisier is offering an original limited edition print, worth around 拢450, called Light up the Senses by Jake Tilson. Twenty runners-up will each receive Courvoisier鈥檚 Book of the Best, a guide to the world鈥檚 best hotels, restaurants, clubs and galleries.
Entries must reach us by 25 August. You can enter by post, fax or e-mail (FAO Feedback, edit@feat.newsci.ipc.co.uk). Please be sure to include your address and a daytime telephone number. You may submit as many entries as you like. The editor鈥檚 decision is final.