Catochromatograph
Laboratories looking to purchase a highly efficient coiled parallel gas chromatograph could save money by instead adopting and adapting a cat. Perhaps.
A study called 鈥� in PLoS Computational Biology explains the capabilities of the cat.
Advertisement
The idea, composed and presented to you here, now, is speculative. One would need to do further assessment, both technical and legal. The researchers neither suggest nor advocate using a cat nose or an entire cat for this purpose. They present no information about the cost of converting a cat nose or an entire cat.
Headaches and nations
Italy is a country that openly, unembarrassedly, institutionally studies and tries to deal with headaches. Such efforts can take many forms. For example, the Italian Society for the Study of Headaches celebrated in March 鈥� though the society did not use the word 鈥渃elebrate鈥�.
Italy does not stand alone. At least 43 other nations have .
Four nations have a Headache Association, rather than a Headache Society: Guatemala, Iran, Mexico and the UK. The UK鈥檚 is named the British Association for the Study of Headache; it goes by the acronym BASH.
Two nations, Kyrgyzstan and Turkey, each have a Headache Chapter. Another two each go their own way: Romania has a Headache Group, Colombia has a Headache Committee. (Feedback notes that the phrase 鈥渉eadache committee鈥� has a painful ring to it. Almost every organisation, everywhere, has a headache committee.)
All these nations are famous for causing headaches, as well as trying to cure them. They also all have an affiliation with , which is based in the UK.
The International Headache Society鈥檚 headquarters hunker down high on the sixth floor of a building on London Wall Place, a short stroll from Lloyds Bank. Symbolically, this demonstrates that proximity to wealth doesn鈥檛 eliminate all headaches.
Rosetta stone of plants
Plant nyctinasty (usually pronounced 鈥淣ICK-ta-nasty鈥�) is one of the squat, ignoring-it-won鈥檛-make-it-go-away mysteries that most scientists ignore. Day after day, night after night, there it is: the rhythmic shape-sloshing of plants as their parts reconfigure in concert with the coming of light and/or darkness.
A century ago, the clever polymath Jagadish Chandra Bose rigged up some machinery to amplify and record the gymnastic movements of plants. Bose shared his findings in the 1927 book .
He sprinkled his pages with gripping phrases, such as 鈥淭he Night Watch of Nymphea鈥�, 鈥淭he Praying Palm of Faridpore鈥� and 鈥淭he Balanced Crescograph鈥�. (Of the latter, Bose wrote: 鈥淚n the Balanced Crescograph, a train of revolving clockwork actuated by the fall of a weight, lowers the plant at the same rate at which it is growing鈥�.)
The why and, in many ways still, the how of plant nyctinasty was 鈥� and remains 鈥� elusive. Mystery pulses through the pages of recent papers such as Minoru Ueda and colleagues鈥� 鈥溾�� in New Phytologist.
Where there is mystery, there is wonder鈥� once people have noticed what鈥檚 happening. The day and night shape-shifting of werewolves and vampires inspires many sci-fi, fantasy and horror fiction writers. They know that animal nyctinasty intoxicates audiences.
Yet year after year, century after century, plant nyctinasty tempts relatively few fiction writers to put pen to paper, tongue to palate or fingertips to keyboard to create plant nyctinasty fiction. When, if ever, will that imbalance change, Feedback wonders.
Middle-ear superpower
Rob Holmes reports a trivial superpower that is both mild and hereditary, thus establishing a new category in Feedback鈥檚 catalogue of trivial superpowers.
He says: 鈥淚 was being put through a battery of hearing tests by an audiologist friend of mine. One of which was measurement of eardrum impedance. Seizing the opportunity, I commented that I could flex my middle-ear muscles. 鈥極h yes?鈥� he responded. 鈥楬ave a look,鈥� I said, as we viewed the online display while I wiggled my middle ear muscles. 鈥楪oodness!鈥� he (politely) exclaimed. 鈥榊ou have mild superpowers.鈥� As I had never thought of mentioning it, I related the story to my younger daughter, now in middle age. 鈥楥an鈥檛 everyone do it?鈥� she replied.鈥�
A man of letters
Andrea Sella tells Feedback how he discovered that a fellow scholar is an impressive man of letters.
Sella says: 鈥淎cademics revel in their post-nominals, an alphabet soup thought to help establish one鈥檚 dominance in a highly insecure world. I recently received an invitation to a conference in an exotic location. My host鈥檚 signature read as follows: BSc (Honors), MASc, PhD, MTMS, MGDMB, MCIM, MSME, MAIST, MISIJ, MSigmaXi, MIFAC, MACS, MASM, MMRS, MACerS, MECS. Could this be a record? I think we should be told.鈥�
Got a story for Feedback?
You can send stories to Feedback by email at feedback@newscientist.com. Please include your home address. This week鈥檚 and past Feedbacks can be seen on our website.