Through the motions
A strange feeling of relief and gratification floods through Feedback as, after years of straining, science finally plops out an answer as to how wombats produce cube-shaped faeces.
This question has been hanging in the air for some time, with preliminary results having emerged in 2018. But the job remained half-done until the publication by bioengineer and her colleagues of the definitive paper, , in the journal Soft Matter. Yang鈥檚 previous research record includes finding that all mammals weighing over 3 kilograms clear their bladders in 21 seconds (plus or minus 13 seconds), .
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Now, co-opting the massed ranks of the Australian wombat research establishment to supply intestines for dissection and employing some hardcore fluid dynamics modelling, her team concludes that wombat number twos require peristaltic contractions of gut regions varying by a factor of two in thickness and four in stiffness to produce pellets with flat faces and sharp corners.
As ever, Feedback salutes the onward march of science. But we are left with that age-old criticism: it鈥檚 very good at telling us the how, but less good at telling us the why.
Bird brain
Also asking why is Bonita Ely, who writes in from Marrickville, New South Wales, Australia, with a touching story of a loving pair of pigeons, who perch under the eaves of her neighbour鈥檚 roof on an electrical junction box. 鈥淗e brings her bits of grass to make a nest that immediately blow away in the wind,鈥� she writes. 鈥淪he coos encouragingly, and lays eggs that fall off the box and break on another box directly below. They鈥檝e been doing this for years.鈥�
Rather ruining the moment, Bonita adds that at least their genes won鈥檛 be passed on. We pause, and consider this might depend on how many years 鈥測ears鈥� is. If it extends beyond a generation, this could mean that other pigeons have taken their place and it is an instance of the inheritance of stupid behaviour, stretching once again the conceptions of evolutionary theorists.
Wrong type of software
AppleDaily in Hong Kong for up to 20 hours on 12 January when programs using the Adobe Flash Player software stopped running. This came after, in a long-trailed move, Adobe stopped supporting the software on 31 December 2020.
Whether the railway authorities apologised for the almost two-week delayed arrival of the disruption to the service isn鈥檛 stated. However, the report continues that they 鈥渇ixed the issue by installing a pirated version of Flash at 4:30 a.m. the following day鈥�.
This is, we consider, an innovative response to the problems posed to crucial computer systems worldwide by obsolete 鈥渓egacy鈥� software (7 November 2020, p 44).
Meanwhile, news from Great Britain that its railways continue to run at during the UK鈥檚 third lockdown suggests a rather more obstinate barrier to the running of an efficient railway: people wanting to travel on it.
Dare not speak its name
Feedback鈥檚 all-seeing eye spots the appearance elsewhere in this issue of Roger Kneebone, professor of surgical education at Imperial College London (page 40). We mention this so you don鈥檛 have to.
Foiled
Tony Rimmer writes in to query our ongoing references to the use of tinfoil hats to shield from unwanted electromagnetic radiation, alien mind control and the like. Surely, he asks, devotees of metallic headgear would use the much more widely available aluminium foil?
We think not, Tony. A brief survey of electromagnetic attenuation lengths in various metals 鈥� we never did get out much, and lately it has been just that bit less 鈥� satisfies us that tinfoil鈥檚 considerably higher atomic weight affords vastly superior protection against probing photons. The question, indeed, must be why the tin in our foil was replaced by aluminium in the first place. Wake up, sheeple!
Big. Very big.
Feedback sometimes mocks miscued attempts to express the size of things in terms of the size of other things that are presumed to be more familiar. But Raffi Katz fears our esteemed colleagues may be going a little too far in the other direction to prove a point.
鈥淒inosaur found in Argentina may be largest land animal鈥�, we recently titled a story (23 January, p 18). Newly emerged titanosaur fossils, we went on to say, may represent 鈥渢he largest land animal that scientists have ever found鈥� 鈥� indeed, the researchers behind the find wrote, 鈥減robably exceeding the Patagotitan in size鈥�. This latter dinosaur is itself 鈥渟ometimes claimed to be the largest land animal to ever exist鈥�, we wrote.
Regardless of the truth of that, we were told that the new find was 鈥渦ndoubtedly a huge animal, among the largest ever discovered鈥�. 鈥淲hatever happened to measuring creatures against whales or double-decker buses?鈥�, Raffi wails. We are chastened and bowed, and promise betterment in future.
To get a handle on the true size of the titanosaur, we refer you to an article from 2020, 鈥�The biggest dinosaur ever may have been twice the size we thought鈥�.
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