What happened at Shingle Street?
AS WE recently reported, you can get to wander with binoculars round the Ministry of Defence weapons testing grounds at Foulness on the English east coast simply by booking a birdwatching lunch at the island鈥檚 government-owned pub (Feedback, 27 May). Curiosity piqued, the other day we ventured further up the coast to a little place called Shingle Street.
Set in a triangle between Bawdsey and Orfordness, where wartime experiments on the use of radar were conducted, and British Telecom鈥檚 labs at Martlesham, Shingle Street is now not much more than a shingle beach with a few cottages. In 1940, following the fall of France to the Germans, the coastline became a target for invasion, and the villagers were sent packing with virtually no notice.
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The internet is awash with stories about what happened next, but the common theme is that as part of the defences built to protect the research labs at Bawdsey and Orfordness, the British army devised a system that could 鈥渟et the sea on fire鈥�. Soon after that, locals spotted burnt bodies washed up along the beach. Was it a foiled German raid or a trial with Allied troops that went horribly wrong? Or is it all just folklore?
We can offer only one piece of wholly unscientific evidence. A family dog, which is usually only too keen to walk on any beach, became hysterical as soon as it was led towards the Shingle Street beach. It ran off and was later found howling outside one of the cottages. The spooked animal then dug in its paws and refused point-blank to be dragged anywhere near the beach. The only way to get it back to the car was to walk inland and down a track well away from the shoreline. The dog did not return to its normal self until the next day, when it was 100 miles away from Shingle Street. Make of that what you will.
鈥淚n Louisa Shen鈥檚 school science department in Auckland, New Zealand, there is a set of biology textbooks entitled Living Things. Shen can鈥檛 help finding it surprising that they are written by V. Slaughter鈥�
WE really hope and expect that the engineers and flight crew at airline Flybe are more numerate than their marketing department. Bill Lockhart forwards an email advert sent him, which proclaims in orange and red on a purple background: 鈥�100 per cent savings! 40 per cent off hotels 鈥� 40 per cent off parking 鈥� 20 per cent off car hire.鈥�
If only they could fly us to a place where mathematics allows us to add percentages like that. We would be quite content to drink 1 per cent less wine, eat 1 per cent less bread and 1 per cent less cheese, use 1 per cent less sunscreen鈥nd so on until the cost of our holiday dwindled to zero.
THIS week鈥檚 鈥渕ost inept attempt to popularise science鈥� award goes to for the headline it gave a report that begins as follows: 鈥淩ecent investment by the University of Leicester in the Virtual Microscopy Centre and the Nanoscale Interfaces Centre has put the University in a key position to take a lead in Casimir force measurements in novel geometries.鈥�
Evidently, someone thought this was a bit too esoteric for the average reader and decided to beef it up with the following headline: 鈥淲hat Do Raquel Welch And Quantum Physics Have In Common?鈥� Sadly, the answer to this question does not appear in the report. Anyone who can see its relevance to the story must be a lot smarter than we are.
NUTRITIONISTS sometimes miss what people really care about in food. Take, for example, the US Department of Agriculture, which in the middle of a July heatwave proclaimed that to bring watermelons to their peak nutritional condition, they should not be refrigerated. Levels of carotenoids increased up to 139 per cent, the USDA reports, when freshly picked whole watermelons are stored for 14 days at 21 掳C 鈥� room temperature with air conditioning 鈥� but remained unchanged when refrigerated.
So you should keep the watermelon out of the fridge if you want to make the most of its nutrients. On the other hand, if you want to really enjoy watermelons, we recommend slicing them fresh from the fridge on a hot summer day.
THE Quality Water Company offers a range of products 鈥渇rom a basic inline filter which removes chlorine to a reverse osmosis drinking water purifier delivering 95 per cent pure water鈥�. Grant Denkinson, who spotted the ad in his local health food shop, wonders precisely what the other 5 per cent is and concludes: 鈥淚 think I鈥檒l stick with water straight out of the tap.鈥�
FINALLY, Hotmail鈥檚 login page recently invited Sofia Graves to click on an advertising link: 鈥淗ow to pamper your poo鈥�.
鈥淯nsure how I had been neglecting that side of me all these years,鈥� she reports, 鈥淚 quickly clicked it 鈥� to discover it was all about the well-being of dogs.鈥� Or pooches.