IS IT JUST us, or are the plugs for remedies for the gullible getting more complicated? John Noble alerts us to a remarkable offering at promoting a substance (or is it a homeopathic non-substance?) called Aulterra.
Here鈥檚 a sample: 鈥淒NA unwinds when the hydrogen bonds that hold the helix together are broken by noxious stimuli. As it recovers, it spontaneously rewinds. However, when in an environment of harmonic electromagnetic fields, the unwinding and rewinding become oscillatory in nature鈥hen this oscillatory pattern is a constant, quantum coherence occurs. Aulterra induces this quantum behaviour in DNA. 鈥楺uantum鈥� as defined in Taber鈥檚 Cyclopedia Medical Dictionary is 鈥榓 unit of radiant energy鈥�. Therefore this quantum behaviour produces radiant energy. 鈥楻adiant鈥� is defined as 鈥檈mitting beams of light鈥欌�esus said 鈥榊e are the Light of the World鈥欌�ulterra takes the possibility of living in the Light to new and profound realities.鈥�
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Whoa! From hydrogen bonds to quantum coherence to Jesus. How much else can they fit in? Ah, yes: 鈥淚n 1988, Lockheed Martin conducted another study to determine if Aulterra could neutralise radioactive elements. After six months, Aulterra successfully reduced the gamma radiation of the control substance by 80 per cent.鈥� Really? Surely the Men in Black should have seized all samples long ago and whisked them away to Area 51.
COSMOLOGY has rarely seen such stinging prose. 鈥淚n a recent paper on wormholes,鈥� writes Stanford University鈥檚 Leonard Susskind in a physics preprint at , 鈥渢he author of that paper demonstrated that he didn鈥檛 know what he was talking about.鈥�
Harsh words indeed from one of the grand architects of string theory. And there鈥檚 more. The author of the paper, Susskind goes on mercilessly, 鈥渟tupidly assumed鈥� various properties of the wormhole, failing to ask questions that 鈥渁ny competent physicist would have asked鈥�.
Ouch! But what is the paper Susskind so witheringly dismisses, and who wrote it? Reference 1 in the footnotes of the diatribe reveals that the culprit is 鈥淲ormholes and time travel? Not likely鈥�, a physics preprint at . And the author of that paper is 鈥� Leonard Susskind.
We presume this is humorous self-deprecation on his part, and not an innovative approach to doubling his citations.
SEARCHING for campsites in Germany, Candida Frith-Macdonald came across . She suggests that English speakers with a few minutes to kill on a dull day could do worse than visit and click on the little flag that gives you the site in English. Or at least, she corrects herself, 鈥渟omething loosely approximating English鈥�.
After all, how often are you offered a holiday including activities such as 鈥淧ancake shoes鈥� and 鈥淪ausage crickets at the campfire鈥�, in surroundings 鈥渄etermined by natural wood and extreme substances鈥�?
Most of the site reads as if its creation involved generous amounts of extreme substances, but Frith-Macdonald suspects that a web translation service such as Google or Babelfish is responsible. Our world, she suggests, will be a sadder and duller place when translation programs improve enough to eliminate this sort of thing.
COASTERISE, verb (US coasterize): the word used in her office, Erica Bower informed us, for the process of turning a blank recordable CD into an object useful only for resting drinks on. We were amused, and out of interest did a Google search to see if the term was also used elsewhere. It is indeed, so much so that if it hasn鈥檛 already been pencilled in for the next versions of Merriam-Webster and the Oxford English Dictionary, it will be any time now. Isn鈥檛 language wonderful?
鈥淔rom the department of double negative negatives: Manjir Mamanta-Laguhton鈥檚 bottle of L鈥橭real Elvive conditioner proudly proclaims 鈥渦p to -95 per cent less breakage from brushing鈥濃��
IF YOU ever need to know exactly how badly a pile of manure stinks, all you have to do is contact Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences in University Park, Pennsylvania, and ask for its 鈥渙dour evaluation service鈥�.
鈥淎rmed with maps, compasses and a working knowledge of odour emission and dispersion, an assessor will visit a proposed site and offer an opinion of the site鈥檚 suitability in relation to the potential for odour conflict,鈥� says Bob Mikesell, the college鈥檚 educator in dairy and animal science. 鈥淭he assessor will evaluate separation distances from neighbours, prevailing wind direction, topography, surrounding vegetation, community sociology, surrounding land-use patterns and manure application areas.鈥�
But there is one piece of equipment that seems to be missing from all this. Will the odour assessor possess a nose? If not, how will they detect the pong?
FINALLY, we鈥檙e not quite sure what this is an example of, but it amused Claude James, who teaches English at Picardy University in Amiens, France. In his class, fourth-year engineering students were producing career r茅sum茅s in English. One of them summoned him. Under 鈥淟anguage skills鈥� he had got as far as writing 鈥淚 am鈥︹��
鈥淧lease,鈥� he asked James. 鈥淗ow do you say 鈥榖ilingue鈥�?鈥�