FEEDBACK is pleased to offer probably the first description in a scientific publication 鈥� or, at least, near one 鈥� of 鈥渧ortex therapy鈥�. This is a specialty of Lililas Curtin, the latest alternative healer to be favoured by noted lawyer Cherie Blair whose husband is prime minister of the UK. Curtin is reported in The Scotsman as saying: 鈥淚t鈥檚 fabulous. You place a hand on the part of the body from which the negative energies need to be drawn out, and point a long rod at a small block which is filled with corresponding negative energies.鈥�
The temptation to cry 鈥淎h! So that鈥檚 where those weapons of mass destruction have been hiding!鈥� was almost irresistible. But then we discovered that Google knoweth it not. All it finds about 鈥渧ortex therapy鈥� are that newspaper story, rehashes of it, bloggings about quackery and a goth/fetish club in San Diego. So we are led to ask: if an alternative therapy soothes chakras in the forest, and there is no web page to sing its praises, does it really happen?
READERS in Australia of the Queensland-based Courier-Mail must have been especially frantic over Christmas weekend. 鈥淣ASA has issued its highest threat warning giving asteroid 2004 MN4 a rating of four on the 10-point Torino Scale used to rate intergalactic threats,鈥� the paper revealed. So, as Bill Allen comments on his asteroid news blog, there鈥檒l be no point getting out of the solar system to avoid it.
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鈥溾�漈esco鈥檚 Ironing Water鈥� is sold to prevent scale in steam irons. Reader Therion Ware was impressed to see that the only ingredient listed is 鈥減reservative鈥濃��
OUR mention of the phenomenon whereby appliances work perfectly in the presence of, but only in the presence of, a repair technician produced dozens of responses (Feedback, 11 December 2004). Glyn Williams of Derby, UK, notes that in work environments this depends on the presence of 鈥渢echies鈥�. With colleagues he concluded that the effect, whatever it is, is mediated by particles which must be 鈥渢echyons鈥�.
Martin Bastian, like many readers, points out that the effect is a special corollary of Murphy鈥檚 law 鈥� 鈥渋f it can go wrong, it will鈥�. He calls it 鈥渢echnician proximity syndrome鈥�, and he is precise about what it entails: 鈥淭he further I walk across our campus to fix a fault, the more likely it is that the problem will resolve itself before I enter the room.鈥�
Computer programmers have long identified the similar 鈥淗eisenbug鈥�, which as Neil Golightly reminds us is 鈥渁 bug that disappears or alters its behaviour when one attempts to probe or isolate it鈥�. More worrying, given that almost everything contains computer code these days, is the 鈥淪chr枚dinbug鈥�, which doesn鈥檛 appear until someone reads the program code and realises it鈥檚 only working because no one has until now understood that it ought not to. As Tim Gossling writes, there is a corollary covering displays of new products: 鈥淭he chance of a demonstration going wrong is in direct proportion to the number and importance of the people watching it; unless they are service engineers, in which case the proportion is inverse.鈥�
Finally, Torge von Zengen writes from Hamburg in Germany to point out that there is a proper, official word for the effect. It is the Vorf眉hreffekt 鈥� which he translates literally as 鈥減resentation effect鈥�. As von Zengen says, if English speakers can live with kindergarten, perhaps we can live with this.
ELGOOG may have surprised us for its practical applications (see page 28, and Feedback, 18 December 2004). But inevitably it has prompted readers to put it to misuse. Edward Mulcahy extends the game of finding Googlewhackblatts 鈥� single words which produce exactly one web page. He points out that if you find such a word using elgooG 鈥� the search engine at in which everything is displayed sdrawkcab 鈥� you can safely publish the results online. Unlike Googlewhackblatts, they will retain their uniqueness even after your page announcing them is indexed. But what to call them? Oh heck, it鈥檚 going to have to be (deep breath鈥� relax鈥�) sttalbkcahwelgooG.
THERE is something odd about the students at the University of Durham in the UK. For example, the 鈥淪tudent statistics鈥� page at tells us that there are 345 females and 76.5 males in the university鈥檚 psychology department. These students and, presumably, half-students are part of a total of 1625 females and 2081.5 males in the science faculty.
Over in the faculty of arts things are even stranger. In the philosophy department there are 93.3 females, and the number of students in the faculty as a whole is 1744.3 females and 1002.5 males, making a total of 2746.8 students overall. Steve Lewis, who noticed these figures, is studying for A-level exams that he hopes will get him into university. He wonders if cutting himself in half would increase his chances of being accepted at Durham.