A pine tree in your pocket
A BREATH of fresh air can be hard to come across in the city. Thankfully, Fred Riley discovers just the thing. Treepex in Tbilisi, Georgia, has a device it markets as a way to 鈥渂reathe your own forest鈥�. It resembles a cross between an e-cigarette and scuba apparatus, minus the .
The device converts polluted air into 鈥渇resh, mineral-enriched air鈥�. Feedback had assumed that the problem with smog was that it was already far too enriched with unwanted compounds, but what do we know? At the heart of the device (or to use the promotional video鈥檚 terminology, 鈥渢he brain鈥�) is a cartridge filled with mystery chloroplast goop 鈥渂ased on the DNA of the tree鈥� that comes in pine, maple and oak varieties. Having filtered out everything else, Treepex then uses this small bioreactor and some questionable chemistry to fix airborne carbon monoxide and release oxygen. So not really a heart or a brain so much as a leaf. Or, as the promotional video says, a whole tree鈥檚 worth of leaves in the palm of your hand.
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credulity has been stretched so far in the past that it now sags around our knees, but even we have our limits. And a dig online finds that only last year, Treepex was promoting itself not as a provider of hipster breathing apparatus but as a reforestation initiative, offering to plant one tree for every product sold with its logo attached. From planting trees to replacing them with vape sticks? That would be satire, Caucasus-style.
鈥淲yoming broadcaster KCWY reports that Bryant Johnson, arrested for public intoxication, told officers that aliens had filled him with alcohol so he could be sent here from the year 2048鈥�
Airbrushed from history
MORE clearing of the air: recently we found ourselves discussing Graham Stringer, a member of both the UK government鈥檚 Science and Technology Select Committee and of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, a lobby group that questions the very existence of anthropogenic climate change and lobbies fiercely against measures to curtail it (30 September).
The Labour MP鈥檚 run-ins with environmental reality seem to have been long-standing. A reader tells us that in 1995, air-quality monitoring equipment in the car-choked Manchester city centre regularly recorded breaches in safe levels of carbon monoxide. Yet these were curiously missing from the final air-quality report presented to the planning and transport committee. Why? Some suggested at the time that it was because they would have bolstered the highways committee鈥檚 demands for more bus lanes and cycle paths, proposals criticised by the then city council leader: one Graham Stringer.
What a wheeze
ALSO questioning his oxygen intake is Harris Steinman, who draws our attention to , a product described as 鈥�95% Pure Oxygen in a Can鈥�. The manufacturers say this is a 鈥渟upplement to enhance sports recovery, alleviate high-altitude effects, remedy hangovers/fatigue, and otherwise promote a heightened sense of personal health and well-being鈥�.
鈥淚f I had known how oxygen-starved my body is, and that this product could have reversed my lethargy,鈥� Harris says, 鈥淚 could have won the Nobel prize for physiology by now.鈥� Just remember to top up well away from any naked flames.
Oxy drops
AND that鈥檚 not the end of our O2 adventures. Harris also forwards Feedback details of Bettamed鈥檚 Oxygen Spray, in which the cure-all gas is somehow rendered liquid at room temperature, and now boasts wound-treating effects.
products retailer calls the spray a 鈥渕agnetic dipole stabilised solution (MDSS) with high oxidation potential鈥�. Users are advised to simply spray it on to persistent wounds to clean and promote healing.
We can鈥檛 be sure, but Feedback assumes this is hydrogen peroxide tincture with added flimflam. But with ambient oxygen levels hanging around the 21 per cent mark, we have a money-saving tip: simply leave your wounds in the open air and get your oxidative healing fix without spending a penny. Or better yet, if you really want to shift those ulcers, see a doctor.
Train strain
PLANNING his holiday, Ian MacIntosh tried booking a short train ride from London King鈥檚 Cross north to Royston in Hertfordshire. 鈥淚 am informed by the ticket website that the fastest route is 1 hour and 3 minutes, the slowest route is 59 minutes, and the average journey time is 56 minutes,鈥� he says.
鈥淓lsewhere on the same website the fastest journey appears to be 34 minutes鈥�. He鈥檇 like to know, as a traveller naive in the ways of train travel in the UK, 鈥渋s there something about which I should be forewarned?鈥� Oh Ian!
Many of us are all too familiar with the unfathomable ticketing system underpinning the UK鈥檚 rail network. Perhaps Ian has found some variant of Heisenberg鈥檚 uncertainty principle: you can know how long your train journey will take, or how much it will cost, but never both.
Citizen Cane
THE suggestion that rising obesity levels might tip the balance in favour of us using photosynthetic skin to harvest energy from the sun (23 September) 鈥渋gnores the fact that more bulbous body shapes have a reduced surface area-to-volume ratio鈥�, says Tim McCulloch.
鈥淚t鈥檚 actually skinny people who have more skin per kilo, so if our malnourished ancestors didn鈥檛 evolve green skin then neither will our descendants.鈥�
Perhaps a genetic tweak can make us skinny as beanpoles 鈥� and just as green?