DINOSAUR footprints look pretty durable. They were made in mud, but by the time palaeontologists find them the mud has turned to rock. Inevitably, the footprint wears away over the years, but they still seem substantial enough to withstand natural assault. Or so South African palaeontologist Theagarten Lingham-Soliar thought.
When he found a rare metre-wide footprint of a giant brachiosaur in Zimbabwe, he decided it would be safe to go off and collect the latex he needed to cast a mould of the track. Alas, he hadn鈥檛 reckoned with today鈥檚 closest approximation to a dinosaur. By the time he got back to the footprint, a herd of elephants had obliterated it.
AND talking of dinosaurs, here is an unusual argument against species conservation found by Chris Eccles on the Yahoo news site. In a recent article discussing salmon conservation issues was this interesting quote from Gretchen Borck, a lobbyist with the Washington Association of Wheat Growers. 鈥淚 applaud the people that are trying to save species that are endangered,鈥� she says. 鈥淏ut it might be good that we don鈥檛 have dinosaurs now. We鈥檝e gotten oil from the dinosaurs. If we had preserved the dinosaur, we wouldn鈥檛 have that oil.鈥�
Advertisement
A COLLEAGUE got a first-hand taste of joined-up global thinking recently when the World Customs Organization teamed up with Interpol for a global conference in Brussels to spread the word on counterfeiting.
At the opening press conference two leading speakers exhorted the press to spread the word that counterfeit goods are bad for everyone except criminals. Anthony Simon, president of marketing for Unilever Foods, said: 鈥淲e have an obligation to increase awareness 鈥� together.鈥� Then Rita Hayes, deputy director-general of the World Intellectual Property Organization, encouraged the packed roomful of journalists to 鈥渓isten to the experienced speakers over the next two days鈥�.
Unfortunately, the message seems not to have reached the bureaucrats organising the shindig, who had decided that no press were to be allowed inside the conference hall and that there would be no copies of the speeches. 鈥淚 fell off my chair when I heard that,鈥� Hayes said after being asked how the press could report stirring speeches without being allowed to hear or read them.
But then our colleague discovered the organisers had set up a video link from the hall to a coffee lounge to relay pictures of the speakers and what they were saying. He happily settled down to watch and take notes 鈥� until a security guard cottoned on and pulled out the sound plug. After that there was not much else to do except enjoy the gourmet lobster lunch that everyone was given and daydream of giving up journalism for a job in Brussels.
OH, ALRIGHT, you may have heard it before. But thanks anyway to Peter White for telling us that our 鈥渁ncient鈥� syllogism 鈥淣obody is perfect. I am a nobody. Therefore I am perfect鈥� (5 June) reminded him of another one he encountered on a cubicle wall in the men鈥檚 toilet in the department of experimental psychology at the University of Oxford: 鈥淣o athlete can run a mile in three minutes. I am no athlete. Therefore I can run a mile in three minutes.鈥�
White, now at the school of psychology at Cardiff University, says he has used this with his students to illustrate why logical arguments need to be expressed in symbols, not words. He might like to add to his teaching notes something that a number of readers have written in to tell us: the nickname of John Eales, captain of the Australian Rugby Union team which won the World Cup in 1999, was 鈥淣obody鈥�, because鈥�
HARD on the heels of the low-energy light bulb that uses 鈥�400 per cent less energy鈥� (12 June), Rowland Ware draws to our attention the Verilux HappyEyes floor lamp. According to an advertisement in The New York Times, 鈥淪tudies show that after age 40 we need significantly more light to read and focus. Don鈥檛 turn on five light bulbs just to read 鈥� turn on the HappyEyes lamp! It is powered by a unique, highly efficient light source that provides 150 watts of electricity from a 27 watt compact fluorescent bulb.鈥�
IT SEEMS to rather take away the point. Liz Williams of Victoria, British Columbia, noticed a personal ad in her local weekly Monday magazine, in which a 鈥渟ingle unattached gentleman鈥� was seeking a single lady 鈥渨ho, like me, enjoys being alone鈥�. Williams wonders if they ever met up.
FINALLY, the tube of Feodora 鈥淢int for two鈥� chocolate mints that Owen Vaughan and his wife came across while out shopping carried the slogan: 鈥淢int for you, mint for me鈥�. Further down it said: 鈥�13 fine mints鈥�. Which sounds to us like a sure-fire recipe for domestic discord.
Tony Park tells us of an error message he received from Microsoft Word that said: 鈥淭here is not enough memory or disk space to complete the鈥�