Hail Eris, goddess of discord!
HAIL Eris! The mildly gravitationally challenged planet formerly known as 2003 UB313 now has an official name. It had previously, if unofficially, borne the seemingly quite adequate name Xena, after the feisty warrior princess of fiction. So why the change?
Feedback asked Eris鈥檚 discoverer, Mike Brown, whether fictional deities had been barred. 鈥淭here were never clear International Astronomical Union guidelines,鈥� he told us, 鈥渂ut given that the naming of dwarf planets turns out to be the most bureaucratic naming process for anything in all of astronomy, we figured there was no chance of some non-standard deity making it through.鈥� Not that this really solves the issue of fact and fiction: 鈥淚鈥檓 pretty sure that all deities are fictional,鈥� he adds.
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Be that as it may, Brown and his colleagues proposed the name Eris, and Eris鈥檚 daughter Dysnomia for her satellite. Eris is a traditional Greek goddess of discord. She is, however, rather better known as a deity of Discordianism 鈥� which is described variously as an elaborate joke disguised as a religion, or a religion disguised as an elaborate joke, and is much beloved, in an ironical sort of way, by computer geeks in particular. Consider this extract from its sort-of holy book, the Principia Discordia: 鈥淚s Eris true?鈥� 鈥淓verything is true.鈥� 鈥淓ven false things?鈥� 鈥淓ven false things are true.鈥� 鈥淗ow can that be?鈥� 鈥淚 don鈥檛 know man, I didn鈥檛 do it.鈥� Discordians can sometimes be spotted by their unaccountable fondness for the number 23.
鈥淎 sign that Bill Johns saw in a Hawaiian hotel made him worry that he might be thrown into jail any minute because he is a non-smoker. It said 鈥淣o smoking prohibited by law鈥濃��
Brown says the naming opportunity was 鈥渏ust too good to pass up鈥�. And Feedback can exclusively report his revelation that: 鈥淥f course, Dysnomia, being the daimon spirit of lawlessness, is a tip of the hat to Lucy Lawless [the actress who played Xena in the eponymous TV series], who must be sad to no longer have a planet named after her character.鈥�
All hail Eris! All hail Dysnomia! All hail Discordia! Geeks everywhere shall rejoice (unless their interpretation of Discordianism mandates skulking in basements painting their nails purple and not rejoicing).
THE free London newspaper Metro seems to know something about the cause of environmental damage that the rest of us don鈥檛. A recent article entitled 鈥淭he blame game鈥� stated: 鈥淎ccording to a growing group of scientists, our guilt complex when it comes to the environment is getting in the way of unbiased scientific fact. We have become so used to accepting that Homo erectus is the creature to blame for all that goes wrong we are failing to look at other possibilities.鈥�
Justin Pollard is disappointed. 鈥淲ho am I going to blame for global warming if I can no longer blame those pesky early hominins?鈥� he asks.
AS WE have said more than once before, punctuation matters. The lack of a comma in the BA Science News Digest that Jonathan Elphick was sent the other day gave rise to a sentence of fascinating ambiguity. Here鈥檚 the whole item: 鈥淐limate change features heavily in the news this week: 鈥榙rastic鈥� shrinkages in Arctic sea ice have been observed by NASA satellites and new research suggests that increases in hurricane intensity are due to greenhouse gas emissions. Plus, a nationwide shortage of sperm donors and hallucinogenic drugs may offer a new solution for headache sufferers.鈥�
ARE the authorities in Western Australia entirely clear about what it takes to be a juror? According to the website of the WA Department of the Attorney General, you are deemed not to qualify as a potential juror if 鈥測ou have been convicted of an offence and sentenced鈥o death (and the sentence was not carried out).鈥� Gregory Smith and Keith Simpson have both written to us wanting to know if this means you can join a jury if they did carry out the sentence.
ON 16 September we published a message from 鈥渢he internet鈥�. We have now received a second message from the same source saying: 鈥淚 see that you have put forth my message. I thank you. As a token of my gratitude I shall spare you 10 per cent of the next two months鈥� spam.鈥� How nice.
HOW do they do that then? The packaging of Growing Success Organics plant-extract-based rat killer boasts that it is 鈥渇ree from poisonous chemicals鈥�. Jonathan Wallace wants to know if it kills the rats by some mysterious other means or if this simply means that the product does not work.
FINALLY, Elisabeth Compton was puzzled by the new timetable at her local swimming pool at Hexham, Northumberland, in north-east England, which stated: 鈥淎qua Babes: A six week course for babies, toddlers and parents aged one to four with supervision from qualified staff鈥�. She wonders which species was expected to turn up for this opportunity.