AS a hint of spring starts to penetrate the bleakness of the northern winter, strange creatures emerge blinking into the sunlight, making odd noises. And, if you are a writer on medical issues, even stranger things clamber into your email inbox.
鈥淓very April,鈥� one of these vernal harbingers proclaims, 鈥渁 self-serving advocacy group masquerading as an objective professional association pitches you on the dangers of sunlight and tanning鈥hey are misleading you in the hope you will ignore published scientific information from the medical and science community.鈥�
Strong stuff. It is referring, of course, to publicity put out on behalf of the manufacturers of sunscreens. In contrast, this missive promotes a very different message: 鈥淭he cancer risk has been debunked鈥unlight 鈥� natural or artificial 鈥� is vital to human health.鈥�
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So whence comes this pre-emptive and public-spirited mission to debunk? From an organisation called Wolff System Technology. And in what business might it be? Surprise, surprise, when you follow the link at the foot of the email, you arrive at 鈥淭he industry leader in indoor tanning鈥�.
It鈥檚 called Google whacking, and the craze has spread across the globe. The idea is that you put a pair of seemingly random words into the Google search box with the aim of producing only a single hit 鈥� a Google whack. Now, for bored biomed researchers everywhere, Mathew Smith and Christopher Morris of the Welsh School of Pharmacy at Cardiff University have devised a purely scientific version.
To play the game, which they have called Pubmed Whack, you enter two search words on the main Pubmed search page () with the aim of getting just one cited reference back. For example, 鈥渄endrimer endocytosis鈥� is a Pubmed whack, as is 鈥渕itochondria daffodil鈥�.
Perhaps the years working at New 杏吧原创 have affected Feedback鈥檚 brain, but we have tried this and found it strangely addictive, in a frustrating sort of way. To our chagrin, 鈥渘eanderthal spacecraft鈥� produced no citations at all, whereas 鈥渘eanderthal computer鈥� produced five. We鈥檝e been at it for hours, and we are still desperately trying to get a whack.
FROM the department of signs of the times. A colleague鈥檚 6-year-old daughter had a 鈥渂eauty night鈥� at her weekly Brownie meeting the other day. Needless to say, when he went to collect her, he found a swarm of diminutive girl scouts sporting too much blusher, gaudy nail polish, and strands of over-crimped hair.
Being the good dad that he is, our colleague took a couple of photos of his daughter with her best friend. The instant the flash died away, one of the girls ran round behind him to see how the photo had turned out鈥nly to be visibly disappointed by the lack of an LCD image on the back of his camera. It was, unfortunately, one of those old-fashioned ones that uses film.
THE FUNCTION of airline meals is not, of course, nutrition, but to keep you sitting down while you fiddle with the many layers of packaging instead of wandering around and annoying the staff. So imagine reader Andy Greenwood鈥檚 relief on being handed a pre-packaged roll as part of the in-flight meal on an Air UK flight from Amsterdam to the UK, and discovering within the packaging a slip of paper informing him that the roll had been given the minimum amount of packing material, so as to make it as environmentally friendly as possible.
鈥淧erhaps if they left the note out,鈥� he muses, 鈥渁nd then printed on the wrapper that no note is included within the wrapper explaining about the minimal use of packaging in order to save on paper in order to be more environmentally friendly, then that would be a true environmental saving.鈥�
Quite so.
READER Richard Higgs tells us he has stumbled across (but how?) a low-tech, low-mumbo-jumbo way of communicating with those on the Other Side. 鈥淔or a donation of $5 per word (5 word minimum), we can have telegrams delivered to people who have passed away,鈥� it says at . 鈥淭his is done with the help of terminally ill volunteers who memorise the telegrams before passing away鈥� At this time we only have one messenger. He has requested that his fees be donated to charity.鈥�
As Higgs notes, this assumes that the person delivering your message is going to the same place as your dearly deceased. They don鈥檛 seem to offer a 鈥渉eaven鈥� or 鈥渉ell鈥� option, and we can鈥檛 find any trace of a 鈥渞eply paid鈥� option either.
FINALLY, Jennifer Griffin鈥檚 email server automatically labels messages it thinks are spam, so that they can be spotted more easily. Earlier this month she came across this subject line in her inbox: 鈥淪PAM: The Perfect Valentine鈥檚 Day Gift.鈥�
Some people, Griffin points out, prefer chocolates or flowers.
The lifts where Mark Dunlop works have warning stickers telling the occupants: 鈥淥nly use the control buttons provided鈥�. Dunlop is still trying to work out what else anyone could do