IF YOUR image of an American dairy farm is one of happy black and white cows
on verdant hillsides, forget it. Michael Pariza of the University of Wisconsin
recently found that conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), a fat humans do not produce,
is found in cows鈥� milk, and not only reduces incidence of many cancers, but also
fights atherosclerosis.
This was great news, so researchers at the US Department of Agriculture
researchers went to work on making cows produce more CLA. They found a diet that
caused them to produce five times more CLA than cattle fed 鈥渁 conventional
诲颈别迟鈥�.
The secret? Letting them graze on verdant hillsides. Or, as the USDA puts it:
鈥淭hese studies may increase interest in grazing for dairy cows. Currently, only
10 to 12 per cent of US dairy cows are grazed.鈥�
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How many Americans, we wonder, realise that the milk they drink usually comes
from cows that never see a pasture?
A BITTER wrangle about sex has set French, Japanese and American biologists
at each other鈥檚 throats. According to FAST, a science news bulletin put
out by the French embassy in the US, the argument centres on the sexual
inclinations of fruit flies.
Two teams of French and Japanese geneticists have been looking at a mutation
discovered a few years ago by American researchers which means that male fruit
flies equipped with normal sexual organs and showing normal sperm counts do not
reproduce. For the Japanese these fruit flies are homosexual, for the French
they are sexually disoriented or asexual, while the Americans claim they are
bisexual.
The three groups are still on speaking terms, but no one group has managed to
convince the other two of its position on the issue.
READER Therese Lewis has a sneaking suspicion that the Scan 鈥減rofessional
flower cutters鈥� a friend gave her recently were not made in an English-speaking
country.
Why? Stuck on the handle was a small label saying: 鈥淣o moisten negative.
Endure high mildly. Nil poison nature.鈥�
IS THE European Space Agency trying to get itself into The Guinness Book
of Records? Or was there some other reason for the agency鈥檚 recent press
release on the first observations with the Ultraviolet Visual Echelle
Spectrograph attached to the European Southern Observatory Very Large
Telescope?
At 48 kilobytes of pure text incorporating 7578 words, this is the longest
press release we have ever seen. By itself it would almost fill the features
section of this magazine.
But then again, perhaps a very large telescope needs a very large press
release to do it justice.
A USEFUL leaflet comes with Metatone Tonic, made by Warner Lambert. The tonic
is a vitamin drink to make you feel better after an illness.
鈥淢etatone is suitable for most people,鈥� the leaflet advises you, 鈥渂ut a few
people should not take it. Ask yourself the following question to check whether
Metatone is suitable for you: Have you ever had a reaction to Metatone or to any
of its ingredients? If you answer yes to the question, do not take Metatone
before talking to your doctor.鈥�
Isn鈥檛 that helpful鈥攅specially if you are taking the tonic for the first
time.
STILL skirting around the subject of nominative determinism, thanks to K. H.
Green for telling us that his sister Eileen Gladys Green worked as secretary to
a man named A. N. Thomas.
House rules where they worked meant that all memos had to bear the initials
of the boss and the secretary, so all their missives carried the tag 鈥淎NT/EGG鈥�.
They quickly became known as the Goldfish Department.
MICROSOFT Word鈥檚 spell-check facility insists there is no such word as
鈥渇alsifiable鈥�. What this says about the philosophical rigour of the testing
procedures involved in its production we leave you to decide.
HERE IS some information for city dwellers who are unfamiliar with the
strange ways of nature. Kathleen Truran has a friend who succumbed to a
promotional offer of free trees on the back of her Alpen cereal packet. She duly
collected the appropriate number of tokens and sent off for some silver birch
trees.
When they arrived, each tree was individually packed, with planting
instructions that included this statement: 鈥淭his tree is deciduous. It is not
dead. Leaves will appear in the spring.鈥�
A COLLEAGUE who visited the National Tramways Museum in Derbyshire reports
that the blackboard menu in the museum cafe was completely blank apart from the
following phrase written at the bottom: 鈥淥ur menu is completely GM food
蹿谤别别.鈥�
This, our colleague points out, was one of those instances where this claim
was indubitably true.
FINALLY, what is the meaning of this conundrum? John Bark recently bought a
Black & Decker electric drill. The instruction manual contains the following
鈥渉andy hint鈥�: 鈥淲hen drilling ferrous metals, use a lubricant. Iron and brass are
drilled without a lubricant.鈥�