EVER on the lookout for cutting-edge research, Feedback was impressed to read that the University of Bonn Institute of Agricultural Engineering in Germany is researching worldwide manual dishwashing habits. It was, therefore, 鈥渓ooking for test persons from Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Korea and the Middle East who are interested in washing up the dishes under scientific conditions鈥�.
Each participant would receive 鈧�30 and 鈥渋t will only take about 1陆 hours to complete the test鈥�. That, no doubt, is a better rate of pay than you would get in the kitchens of most restaurants, so they probably found willing subjects.
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An earlier study was written up as 鈥淢anual dishwashing habits: an empirical analysis of UK consumers鈥� (a snip at $52). We are disappointed that they missed a rich froth of puns about soft-soaping the statistics. It鈥檚 your turn now.
鈥淲hile using the online search Guy Cox was exhorted to 鈥淕et African diseases now!鈥� He passed, and carried on looking for the 鈥�
RECEIVING sustenance from The Fine Cheese Company in Bath, UK, Pete and Anne Taylor became concerned about physics education there. 鈥淪tore cheese in the warmest place in the fridge, usually the salad compartment in the bottom,鈥� the instructions told them, and continued: 鈥�(for the technically minded 鈥� a fridge is a vacuum, so the usual rule about heat rising doesn鈥檛 apply).鈥�
Could this be right 鈥� even though a fridge is not a vacuum? Being Feedback readers, they decided to experiment 鈥� and established that the top shelf of their fridge was in fact 5 掳C warmer than the bottom.
CRYOGENICS are Simon Dicker鈥檚 job, so he was deeply interested when a friend pointed out a company called Avanti offering a 鈥渃ompact SUPERCONDUCTOR refrigerator鈥� (bit.ly/a2PL55). 鈥淭his could really make our budget go further,鈥� he muses: it costs a mere $99 for the 1.7 cubic foot (48 litre) model. 鈥淚t should not be too hard to adapt it to cool the national power grid and help global warming.鈥� Looking closely at the product description, it features 鈥淯nique State-of-the-Art Thermoelectric Technology鈥� 鈥� probably using far-less-sexy-sounding semiconductors 鈥� but there is no mention of actual superconductivity. Shame.
SEARCHING the Feedback archive for something entirely different, we stumbled on a piece about the Long Bets Foundation, (25 May 2002). We were particularly interested in one bet, between Vint Cerf, who (among other things) co-wrote the Internet Protocol, and Jacob Epstein, who founded On Demand Books.
鈥淏y 2010, more than 50 per cent of books sold worldwide,鈥� Epstein bet, 鈥渨ill be printed on demand at the point of sale in the form of library-quality paperbacks.鈥�
We found this in the week when it was reported that sales of electronic books in the US had overtaken those of hardbacks, whether printed on demand or not (). 鈥淚 think it is clear that ebooks are starting to show traction,鈥� Cerf commented from his new office at Google. 鈥淚 think more books are still published the old way than the e-way but there is a clear trend.鈥� We are still waiting for a response from Epstein, who has some catching up to do before the bet closes.
WHICH brings us to the vital question of flushing ebooks. Immersion of iPods and iPhones in the toilet is old news (8 September 2007), and Feedback wondered how many Kindle electronic book readers might have suffered the same fate.
It took several tries with a famous web search engine to uncover a , which the Kindle somehow survived. Is this because there are fewer of the readers to be dropped, their owners are more embarrassed by dropping them, or because Kindles don鈥檛 get put in pockets like smaller gadgets, only for them to fall out?
鈥淪EX in the footprint bed鈥�, by Geoffrey Tresise, was published . It saves our blushes by turning out to be about sexual dimorphism, revealed by the relative sizes of footprints in the fossil bed.
Recursive rationalisation, part 3
FINALLY: the team tried hard鈥� but achieved an own goal. Many readers suggested sporting excuses based on the Coriolis effect (31 July). 鈥淚t has been stated often enough that, south of the equator, bath water spins clockwise,鈥� we observed at the time: 鈥渇rom which it follows that the behaviour of footballs will be similarly affected. Of course, the whole thing has no foundation鈥︹��
John Watkinson noted that the effect on footballs is real and measurable, if not significant. We replied that we meant to say the bathtub spin is an urban legend. But we didn鈥檛 say that. John asks whether 鈥渢here is a technical term for making excuses for an article that was about making excuses鈥�.
There is now. We would confess to 鈥渞ecursive rationalisation鈥�, but we have run out of space鈥�