READERS often point out the strange titles that grace some scientific papers. We have several favourites, but possibly the most bizarre reached us courtesy of Seranne Howis: 鈥淭he idiot鈥檚 guide to the zen of likelihood in a nutshell in seven days for dummies, unleashed鈥� has the helpful subtitle 鈥淎 gentle introduction, for those of us who are small of brain, to the calculation of the likelihood of molecular sequences鈥�. If that sounds like your kind of paper, you can see it at .
Howis鈥檚 email arrived with what we think was a signature line reading 鈥淲arning: I cannot be held responsible for the above text, as apparently my cats have learned how to type.鈥� Or was this a comment from the Virtual Institute of Bioinformatics (脡ire), which published the paper?
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Meanwhile, we are pleased to hear from reader Jason Turner that IBM is apparently helping us out on the kitchen appliances front: 鈥淛ava without the coffee breaks: A nonintrusive multiprocessor garbage collector鈥�. We鈥檙e not even going to attempt to explain what part of computer language design we think the paper () is about.
And here鈥檚 one we can鈥檛 wait to read: Colleen A. Reilly鈥檚 鈥淪exualities and technologies: How vibrators help to explain computers鈥�, which appears in Computers and Composition, vol 21, p 363. Clearly, we鈥檝e been missing out on something.
鈥淭hey keep on coming. Several readers have pointed out that the head of the European Space Agency鈥檚 oceans and ice unit is Mark Drinkwater鈥�
On a more sombre note, in Neurology, vol 62, p 1638, there is a paper entitled: 鈥淩eally, most sincerely dead: Policy and procedure in the diagnosis of death by neurologic criteria鈥�.
And last but not least, Simon Scarle noticed this in the Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition, vol 39, p 448: 鈥淐hildhood constipation: Is there new light in the tunnel?鈥� You may well ask.
OVER the past year Microsoft and Intel have been telling us we should listen to music, record TV and watch movies on a Windows PC instead of those dreadfully old-fashioned TV sets, CD and DVD players, and VCRs.
Feedback has been to several slick demonstrations of Windows Media PCs that have been carefully set up beforehand by skilled IT support engineers. And we have yearned to be a fly on the wall when the slick demonstrators are home alone without any free IT support. Do they wait while their PC grinds into gear before doing anything useful, then needs software upgrades and falls over because of program conflicts or the viruses that flood in from the internet? Or do they perhaps secretly give up and go back to using a TV set, hi-fi and disc player that switches on (and off) at the touch of a button, and does one thing properly rather than a whole range of things not very well?
Bill Gates himself gave the keynote speech at the giant Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas recently. Needless to say, he used it as an opportunity to promote how Microsoft鈥檚 Windows was an ideal platform for home entertainment. Unfortunately for Gates, everything that could go wrong did go wrong, and his promised slide show repeatedly refused to perform.
鈥淲ho鈥檚 in charge of this company?鈥� quipped the presenter, late-night TV comedy host Conan O鈥橞rien, as Gates looked all at sea and pushed buttons to no avail. 鈥淟et me mention that there鈥檚 gambling in this town,鈥� O鈥橞rien continued, trying to keep things moving as more blank screens unfolded. 鈥淚f anyone wants, they can hit the tables and come back when we get this thing working.鈥�
Let鈥檚 hope that when Gates was safely back in his mansion, he was able to get his Windows home entertainment system to work a bit more smoothly. Or does he too play safe, and watch TV the easy, relaxing old-fashioned way
THANKS to Matthew Lancey, who thinks he has found out what happens to the half-students at the University of Durham we mentioned in Feedback (15 January). The Independent newspaper carried a report on 20 January about the rust-prevention liquid WD-40. It stated that within three years of inventing the stuff, Rocket Chemical Company had doubled in size to seven people. At some stage, Lancey concludes, the company must have taken on a couple of those half-graduates from Durham.
FINALLY, the contribution of cattle to global warming is far greater than previously suspected, if an article spotted by Stuart Bell in The Daily Telegraph is to be believed. In the paper鈥檚 motoring section on 8 January, correspondent Stephen Bayley explained: 鈥淵our average cow produces several hundred litres of noxious, sulphurous methane a day. Experts suggest that the aggregate is 60 million tonnes expelled per cow per year.鈥�
Leaving aside the conspicuous lack of sulphur in your typical methane molecule, that is an awful lot of methane per cow 鈥� so much so that Feedback is thinking of cancelling a planned rural break next month. The countryside sounds like the sort of place best avoided.