WE HAVE been itching to find out how JVC鈥檚 engineers in Japan hit on the idea of soaking birch wood in sake to make it pliant enough to use as a loudspeaker cone (New 杏吧原创, 24 January, p 20). So we were delighted when a colleague had the chance of meeting the inventor, Satoshi Imamura, at a technical seminar in Prague, Czech Republic.
Imamura played music through his wood-cone speakers, and our colleague says it certainly sounded good. Imamura then revealed that whisky would not work to soften the wood because it is the amino acids in the rice wine that do the job. These are lost in distillation. And he related how he has been trying for 20 years to make speakers from wood.
Yes, yes, but how did he find out that marinating in sake was the magic way to stop the flat, thin wood cracking when bent into a cone? Was it a lab accident, with wine spilt on a sample by mistake at the end of a hard day?
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鈥淥ne night I left the laboratory after another day of failed attempts to mould the wood and went to a restaurant,鈥� Imamura finally revealed. 鈥淲e were eating dried squid and I wondered why something dry was so chewy. The waiter told me that some kinds of dried squid are soaked in sake. So I went back to the lab and put some of the cone wood in sake. When I came back next day I knew I had found the answer.鈥�
In such ways are great discoveries made.
FLIPPING through publishers鈥� catalogues can make one wonder. Who on earth would commission a book like that? How did the writer sell it to an agent? How did the agent sell it to a publisher?
A conversation we would like to have heard is the pitch for The Encyclopedia of Stupidity (now in a new edition from Reaktion Books). According to the catalogue, the writer, Matthijs van Boxsel, has made stupidity his life鈥檚 work. He contends that 鈥渟tupidity is in fact the foundation of our civilisation鈥�, and reckons no one is smart enough to know how stupid they are.
Surely no one would buy such a book? But it turns out the tome was a hit when it first appeared, and a weblog tells us 鈥渁vid fans went on to found stupidity clubs in Amsterdam and Groningen, where, [van Boxsel] says, members 鈥榞ive accounts of their own stupidity and try to outwit each other鈥�.鈥�
So the publishers knew what they were doing with his book after all. But what about The Complete Idiot鈥檚 Guide to Pet Psychic Communication from Alpha Books? Bound to be a hit? We give up. It probably will be.
BBC teletext announced on 13 February that an amateur astronomer has discovered a young star emerging from a dust cloud: 鈥淛ay McNeil made the rare discovery from his observatory in Kentucky, next to the well-known gas cloud, Messier 78.鈥� Reader Ivan Towlson says he can鈥檛 understand why no professional astronomers have thought of siting their observatories so conveniently.
POTENTIALLY one of the most interesting workshops at last week鈥檚 American Association for the Advancement of Science conference in Seattle was the one entitled 鈥淏ridging the climate science policy gap: a UK-US dialogue鈥�.
Unfortunately, however, the gap remains as large as ever. This was possibly because the British embassy, which organised the event, invited the UK鈥檚 chief scientific adviser, David King, to the meeting but neglected to invite anyone to represent the American side. There were climate scientists from both countries, but no one from the US administration to explain its policy.
AND in another workshop at the conference, a scientist who we will be kind enough not to name was so enthusiastic about her subject that she would not stop talking. As she raced through her slides, 10 minutes over time, the chair, in desperation, hit on a simple way of stopping her. He unplugged her laptop.
BUT all was forgiven at a press briefing on dog genetics. Journalists and delegates who were disappointed when no dramatic results were announced were thrilled to discover that there were real, live dogs in the conference hall. This was, as the press literature proudly announced, an unmissable 鈥淧hoto/TV opportunity: this briefing will feature a live dog on-site鈥�.
FINALLY, an unusual phenomenon of optical transference seems to be at work in the Sefton Park Asda store in Liverpool, UK. Reader Lew Hunt was surprised to see a sign in the opticians鈥� department that advised: 鈥淐ontact lens patients should remember to bring their lenses with them or we will be unable to see them.鈥�
A notice beside the till in the Boots pharmacy in Catford, south London, caught reader Keith Ward鈥檚 attention. It was an offer for 鈥�3 for 2 flight socks鈥�. He wonders how many people鈥檚 anatomy predisposes them to be in need of such a bargain