THIS MAGAZINE鈥橲 report on speculation that the odd colours of
Jupiter鈥檚 moon Europa may be caused by traces of extremophile bacteria
(8 December, p 9)
produced a mini-snowstorm of letters complaining that we hadn鈥檛 credited the
idea to one Richard Hoagland.
Who he, we wondered. We鈥檙e getting worse at remembering facts, because we
have machines to do that for us. So off to trusty www.google.com, where the
summary of the very first hit announces: 鈥淩ichard Hoagland鈥檚 official site,
devoted to his theories about the Face on Mars, NASA conspiracies,鈥︹�� Ah, that
Richard Hoagland. And his website responds testily to the New 杏吧原创
report, pointing out that in January 1980 Hoagland 鈥減roposed that there
must be a life-bearing ocean of salt water beneath Europa鈥檚 icy crust鈥�
(www.enterprisemission. com/europa6.html). That鈥檒l be a reputable scientific
proposal, then.
But an artificial memory is a wonderful thing鈥攊t remembers things we
probably never knew. The next item in the Google search list leads to
www.math.washington. edu/~greenber/EuropaHistory.html鈥攚here Ralph
Greenberg, whose hobbies apparently include debunking Hoagland, points out that
back in 1971 (nine years before Hoagland鈥檚 assertion) Carl Sagan speculated on
life in the Europan ocean, as proposed by astronomer John Lewis that same year.
But so far as we know, Hoagland didn鈥檛 credit either Lewis or Sagan.
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We now announce our very own, currently irrefutable discovery that gravity
must be caused by knots in the p-branes of space-time. Who knows, someone might
do some work and rediscover our ground-breaking theory 30 years from now.
Credit, please.
MORE OF that metric confusion. Reader Andrew Fry saw this on the side of a
shipping container on a truck recently: 鈥淐aution鈥�9鈥�6鈥� high鈥�2.46 m
飞颈诲别鈥擟辞苍迟补颈苍别谤.鈥�
UNFORTUNATELY, we received an e-mail about 鈥淐hristmas Filter Specs鈥� too late
to be able to purchase a pair in time for the festivites, but we thought readers
might like to know about them in readiness for next year. The glasses, retailing
for only 拢500, are described as follows: 鈥淲orn just like ordinary glasses,
this seasonal device uses AI technology to detect tinsel, holly, fairy lights
and similar tat. It then deletes said items from the wearer鈥檚 view. Can be
selectively adjusted to allow wearer to see plum pudding, brandy etc.
鈥淔orthcoming add-ons include an audio filter designed to recognise and then
mute Christmas carols.鈥�
HOW DO you avoid overcharging the battery on a cordless phone鈥攁nd does
it really matter anyway? Reader Leslie Harrison had to buy a new battery for his
cordless. The instructions stated that the battery needed to be charged for 15
hours before first use, so Harrison duly inserted the battery and left the
cordless on the phone base to charge, making no calls until 15 hours later.
However, the second instruction with the battery was: 鈥淒o not overcharge
battery.鈥� Harrison was totally bemused by this, as cordless phones are normally
left on the base when not in use, meaning that battery charging continues until
the phone is next used. How would he know if he had overcharged it? And what
would happen if he had?
He decided to ignore the instruction and left the phone on its base in a
devil-may-care sort of way. The phone seems to operate perfectly well, he says,
so he has now stopped worrying about the issue.
A SIGN to be seen on the road outside bewl water, a noted trout fishery,
reads: 鈥淓uropean Open Fly Championships鈥�
HERE鈥橲 AN interesting paper title, from the journal Computers and
Electronics in Agriculture鈥斺�滵elopment of neuro-fuzzifiers for
qualitative analyses of milk yield鈥�. We鈥檙e not at all sure what a
neuro-fuzzifier is, but it sounds like something that should be related to the
consumption of alcohol rather than the analysis of milk.
AND ANOTHER paper title that got us wondering exactly how the research was
conducted. At the recent General Practice/Primary Health Care Research
Conference held in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, one of the presentations was on the
following topic: 鈥淧redictors of help-seeking behaviour for urinary incontinence
among people in a GP waiting room鈥�.
For reader Anne Warburton, who drew our attention to it, this conjured up an
image of patients being kept waiting for hours while being plied with cups of
tea and given obfuscatory answers about where the nearest toilet was, just to
see how long it took them to beg for mercy. But of course, we are quite sure
this is not what happened.
AND WHILE we鈥檙e on the subject, here are some more interesting-sounding
papers. 鈥淓ffect of sex and joystick experience on tracking performance鈥� appears
in volume 31 of the Journal of Motor Behavior, vol 31, 鈥淲ind tunnel
modelling of odour dispersion in the vicinity of a pig barn鈥� is to be found at
www.mi.uni-hamburg.de/physmod2001/programme.htm, and 鈥淧enile entrapment in a
bottle: the case for using a diamond-tipped portable glass saw鈥� is published in
the BJU International (vol 83, p 1071). Ouch!
A FEW months ago
(7 July),
we reported on the phenomenon of 鈥渃omputer
rage鈥濃�攖he uncontrollable fury that computers sometimes provoke in their
users, leading people to physically assault their machines.
Reader Rodney Coates reports a recent case. Having suffered corruption of his
Mac computer by trying to install the software for a Hewlett-Packard HP
OfficeJet G85 printer, he then tried even harder to uninstall it. His reward was
this message: 鈥淭he Application HP All-in-One Installer could not be quit. Please
quit the application and try the installation again.鈥�
At this point, Coates says, he hurled the OfficeJet out of the window.
FINALLY, reader Nigel Wilkinson keeps receiving a spam message on his
Vodafone mobile. It says: 鈥淲hy pay high mobile phone charges? Call this number
to cut your monthly mobile bill. Calls cost 拢1.00 per minute.鈥� But somehow
Wilkinson just hasn鈥檛 made that call.