A GADGET from Intelligent Health Systems supposedly 鈥渆liminates itchiness and inflammation鈥� from mosquito and other insect bites 鈥渋n just a few clicks鈥�. Mosquito-Click works by piezoelectricity, and its maker claims that 鈥渁ny irritating or poisonous substance introduced under the skin by an insect is altered and therefore inactivated by the application of electric pressure鈥�.
Being sceptical by nature, we showed this to a colleague who edits medical features for New 杏吧原创. 鈥淭he mechanism it describes is definitely nonsense,鈥� he commented. 鈥淏ut it might work another way: the electrical impulses could affect the nerves causing the itching sensation. A quick search reveals a couple of papers which show that electric currents can both ease and cause itching sensations, though it鈥檚 not clear if the Mosquito-Click generates strong enough current to have any effect.鈥�
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His conclusion: 鈥淭his might be a new category for Feedback: a product that works, but not for the reason its manufacturers claim.鈥�
MUCH has been written about call centres and helplines outsourced to far-off lands. The reward for getting past the wall of recorded announcements most companies surround themselves with may be 鈥渉elp鈥� that is a lot less helpful than you would wish 鈥� if you can understand it at all.
A colleague recently tried sending a written query by email in the hope of bypassing internet giant AOL鈥檚 automated call centre and helpline.
鈥淎 notice on a the window of a restaurant on the south bank of the Thames in London states: 鈥淪orry, no children allowed inside or out.鈥� Carla Pittau wonders how this can possibly be accomplished鈥�
鈥淒ear Member鈥� came the prompt reply, 鈥淲ith reference to your mail sir in this case we will request you to kindly get in touch with our member services鈥� and they will do the need full for you. And that鈥檚 about all for now.鈥�
Just for the heck of it our colleague phoned the number as he had been so quaintly advised, only to be plunged back into a maze of recorded announcements and 鈥淧lease press 1, 2, 3 or 4鈥� options.
ON A map of walks in Cornwall in south-west England, Eddie Street found the legend 鈥淣on-existent footpath鈥�. Why they should have decided to mark this particular non-existent footpath out of all the other non-existent footpaths in the area he does not know 鈥� and nor do we.
EVIDENTLY, the science books need updating, says Phillippa Bricher. She鈥檚 referring to page 1 of the March issue of Australian Science which casts doubt on all previously held theories about the history of science.
鈥淎pproximately 46,000 years ago Australia鈥檚 megafauna 鈥� including giant wombats, kangaroos and marsupial lions 鈥� suddenly became extinct,鈥� the journal states. 鈥淪ince then the scientific community has been divided over whether climate change or the arrival of humans brought about their demise鈥� 鈥�
Perhaps the science community also devoted time to peer-reviewing aboriginal rock art when it wasn鈥檛 too busy pondering these issues, Bricher suggests.
CONGRATULATIONS to the website for contributing to our collection of odd units of measurement. An article about computing that Olaf Lipinski was reading said: 鈥淭o illustrate the point for non-computer experts, this means that Albert2 is capable of performing 12,288,000,000,000 floating-point arithmetic operations per second. To equal this computing power, all the inhabitants of the city of Munich (1.3 million) would have to multiply two eight-digit numbers every three-and-a-half seconds for a year.鈥�
Phew. We wonder how long it would take the citizens of Munich to work out that comparison.
FROM a review of the Nintendo Wii at the Tomshardware site: 鈥淭he higher sales figures are primarily attributable to the Wii, which launched in November and sold over two million units in as many months.鈥�
鈥淭wo million months,鈥� queries Nathan Kitchen. 鈥淒id I miss out the last few millennia? Is it really AD 168,673? Time to check the savings account.鈥�
THIS week鈥檚 dreadful punning award goes to David Reed, Jessica Light, Julie Allen and Jeremy Kirchman for their paper 鈥淧air of lice lost or parasites regained: the evolutionary history of anthropoid primate lice鈥�, published in BMC Biology (7 March).
CITIZENS of the US are accustomed to obeying highway signs in the imperative, such as 鈥淯se Caution鈥� or 鈥淪low Down鈥�. Some understandable confusion can therefore be caused by the occasional switch to a declarative, such as 鈥淓nd Road Work鈥� or the common 鈥淓nd Construction鈥�. K. Roeyer, who pointed this out to us, wonders if 鈥溾�� and Help Stamp Out Progress鈥� should be added to the latter.
FINALLY, the packet of Jordan鈥檚 cereal purchased by Perry Bebbington stated that it was 鈥淭he Original鈥�. Above this, however, it said: 鈥淣ew recipe with 10 per cent more fruit鈥�. So which is it, Bebbington wants to know. New or original?