Toad in the hole
If we are looking a little lorn this week, with our mouth opening and closing to little effect, it is principally because we are staring at 鈥淔inding love in a hopeless place: A global database of misdirected amplexus in anurans鈥�. This is a in the journal Ecology by Filipe Serrano and his colleagues at the University of Sao Paolo in Brazil. No amount of science words can gloss over the fact that it amounts to a of all the instances recorded in the scientific literature in the past century of frogs attempting to mate with things that they shouldn鈥檛.
It can鈥檛 be easy being an amphibian, as evidenced by the touching 鈥� in a very real, excessive sense 鈥� story recently reported in this magazine of male Santa Marta harlequin toads in Colombia that cling to females鈥� backs for up to five months in hope of mating (23 April, p 19).
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The new database conveniently tags misdirected encounters with hour, month, year and geographical location. 鈥淲e recorded a total of 282 interspecific amplexus, 46 necrophiliac amplexus and 50 amplexus with objects or non-amphibian species, with USA and Brazil being the countries with the highest number of records,鈥� the authors report.
鈥淲hy?鈥� asks a colleague. Ah, well, if we knew why we were doing science in the first place, that wouldn鈥檛 be science, would it?
Broken-down wind
Many of us have a special place we go when we want to think. In Feedback鈥檚 case, we are often accompanied by Think, a journal of the Royal Institute of Philosophy that promises 鈥減hilosophy for everyone鈥�.
We think it may be getting a little too Everyman with a contribution in the latest issue entitled . If the last item brought the sound of the barrel scraping, listen to us now drill right through.
What is a fart? An act, that of breaking wind, or a thing, the resultant smell? Author Brian Capra tackles this question head on, highlighting contradictions between the 鈥渆ssential-bum-origin鈥� and 鈥減henomenological鈥� views that, he submits, mean both can鈥檛 be true.
Via a thought experiment asking if two people fart in a lift, how many farts there are, and the obvious answer 鈥� does it matter? 鈥� he concludes that a fart-thing must proceed from a fart-act, but a fart-act doesn鈥檛 necessarily produce a fart-thing, and, so, 鈥渨e are led to an outlook similar to Descartes鈥檚 view of the mind: on the phenomenological view, the essence of a fart is given to us in our olfactory experience鈥�.
Desfartes, as a nameless colleague supplies indelicately. Ignore them, dear readers: this sort of thing is what makes philosophy and thinking such valuable activities. Now, could someone open that door? It is closer than two toads in the mating season in here.
Got my goat
We note in passing 鈥� noiselessly, of course 鈥� that the same author wrote an article in Philosophy Now that uses elementary principles of model logic to prove that . For those still asking 鈥渨hy?鈥�, we merely note the goat鈥檚 genus is Capra, and there may be more than a hint of solipsism in the argument.
On a roll
We would personally prefer it if everything were cake. Our thanks to the very, very many of you who provided ever so slightly muffled feedback on our recent item on legal definitions of cake (30 April). Space fortunately does permit us to delve into the details, suffice to say that the rigour with which you treat the subject convinces us that Feedback is all one happy family with shared values and priorities.
We particularly savoured Liz Tucker鈥檚 tangential mention of a talk she went to on the history of the Lyons tea-and-cake empire that was a feature of the British landscape for many years, which stated that, at one time, the company produced 35 miles of Swiss roll a week. This conjures a mental image of a truly majestic, if slow-moving, machine. It prompts us to ask 鈥淗ow do you make a Swiss roll?鈥�, to which we are sure you can .
Like a lead鈥�
Carl Zetie is perplexed by the appearance in his Facebook feed of an advertisement from a software company called Zeplin, whose corporate logo is an airship of almost that name. 鈥淐ompanies ship 20% faster using Zeplin,鈥� it promises. Historically speaking, this seems an odd choice of corporate metaphor, and we do hope there is no crashing and burning on arrival.
Talking tough
Those were unsettling times, as are these. So it is good to know that the defence of the realm is in no-nonsense hands, as per a from the University Royal Naval Unit Edinburgh, sent to us by Ceri Brown. 鈥淥ur first training evening after Easter was a very detailed and informative brief from the Defence Nuclear Organisation on the UK Nuclear Deterrent. Thank you to Captain Tough and his team for the briefing.鈥� With that exemplar of The Name Thing That Shan鈥檛 be Mentioned, and to employ a military phrase whose correct usage has generated lively debate from you before (3 April, 24 April and 8 May 2021), it is, from this Feedback, over and out.
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