ENTOMOLOGISTS working at London鈥檚 Natural History Museum have been having a quiet giggle over a message sent by one of their colleagues to a company called Tradewind Equipment and later forwarded round the entomology department.
With the subject line 鈥淩e: Bargain List of Heavy Equipment鈥�, the message reads: 鈥淕entlemen, Thank you for your list of Caterpillar spare parts. Unfortunately, the compiler of your mailing list has forgotten that searching the web for references to 鈥楥aterpillar鈥� brings up not only users of heavy equipment but also researchers on immature insects. Any caterpillar spare parts that I need are very small indeed. I shall be grateful if you would remove me from your list.鈥�
鈥淲e have deactivated you in our database,鈥� came the courteous reply. 鈥淎pologies for the misunderstanding.鈥�
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MEANWHILE, reader Gerald Legg of the Booth Museum of Natural History in Brighton, UK, was looking up caterpillars on the web and using Google鈥檚 translation service for papers he came across in foreign languages. Here is the title of a German paper Google gave him: 鈥淪tarnecker, G. and Burret, M. (1998). Fine structure of the crawler-type vehicles and dolls of two butterflies for attachment at the pupating place. Mikrokosmos 87, number 5, 295-302.鈥�
Legg says he can guess what the crawler-type vehicles are, but has no idea what butterflies do with dolls.
A COLLEAGUE recently came across a useful program called Bullfighter (). Bullfighter allows one to leverage a reduction in bovine products from one鈥檚 business-to-business inter-media missives. In other words, it cuts the bull from corporate speak.
Intrigued, our colleague ran a PR release he had received through the system. The first term flagged was 鈥渃entres of excellence鈥�. This, according to Bullfighter, is 鈥渁lmost ludicrous in its hype鈥�. The program mischievously suggests that something equally silly 鈥� such as 鈥渧ortexes of incomparable splendour鈥� 鈥� could replace it.
The next word flagged was the seemingly innocuous 鈥済lobal鈥�, which Bullfighter says is overused. It offers 鈥渨orldwide鈥� as a down-to-earth alternative. Finally, our colleague expected 鈥渓everage鈥� to be caught, and it was. 鈥淭his is like using 鈥榰tilise鈥� when you mean to say 鈥榰se鈥�,鈥� explains Bullfighter. 鈥淪ave the syllables,鈥� it suggests.
We were a little concerned what would happen if any New 杏吧原创 articles were run through Bullfighter, but to our relief a random selection of recent news items were 鈥渃ertified bull-free鈥�. The cutting-edge magazine is therefore likely to outperform its market position on the valuation criteria of the majority of stakeholders.
CELL biologists aren鈥檛 other-worldly academics glued to their electrophoresis machines. Oh no, they鈥檙e in touch with the buzz in the culture 鈥� the other one, not the one in the Petri dish. An article by S. A. Wickstr枚m, J. Keski-Oja, and K. Alitalo in the June issue of the journal Cancer Cell bears the title 鈥淢atrix reloaded鈥� 鈥� which, given standard journal publication delays, is indeed quite a feat of cultural timing.
ACCORDING to the leaflet that accompanies Clinique鈥檚 Super City Block oil-free daily face protector, it is a 鈥渘on-chemical sunscreen, so that even the most sensitive skins can wear it daily鈥�. The box also assures us that this product has 鈥渘o chemical sunscreens鈥�.
It then goes on to tell us that the 鈥渁ctive ingredient鈥� is 鈥渢itanium dioxide鈥� and the other ingredients are: 鈥渨ater (aqua purificata) purified, octyldodecyl neopentanoate, titanium dioxide, butylene glycol, cyclomethicone, steareth-2, silica, behenoxy dimethicone, zinc oxide, tricaprylin, lecithin, magnesium ascorbyl phosphate, bisaboiol, pantethine, polyglyceryl-6 ricinoleate, ispropyl titanium triisostearate, trifluoromethyl c1-4alkyl dimethicone, tricaprylyl citrate, sorbitan tristearate鈥︹�� and so on for another 20 or so items.
What a lot of non-chemicals.
READER Anna Langley says she鈥檚 pleased to see that spammers are at last catering to her needs by offering her 鈥淧ills that will enlarge your pens 3 inches鈥�. She says she鈥檚 looking forward to having longer pens, but she is wondering how you administer a pill to a pen in order to make it grow.
FINALLY, life expectancy in Germany, it seems, is much longer than elsewhere. Reader Frances Wilson鈥檚 residence permit for the country is valid until 31 August 3003. There is even space on the document in case she wishes to stay a bit longer.
GOOD news for those who believe in herbal remedies and vitamin supplements. The Tesco supermarket at Chesterfield, Derbyshire, has several shelves of them, prominently labelled 鈥淐omplimentary medicines鈥�. Let鈥檚 all go and help ourselves then.