Down, with texting
Want to guess what might happen if someone walks while texting?
If you prefer a formally educated guess to an autodidactic supposition, Paulo Pelicioni and his colleagues at the University of New South Wales, Australia, can supply it. Having studied the matter, they say: 鈥淯sing a mobile phone to text while walking may compete with locomotor tasks, threat assessment and postural balance control mechanisms, which leads to an increased risk of accidental falls in young adults.鈥�
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The researchers analysed the adventures of 50 鈥渉ealthy young adults鈥� in a 10-metre-long hallway. They tell the story by implication 鈥� note their efficiency in choosing the word 鈥渋mpact鈥� 鈥� in the title of their study: 鈥淚mpact of mobile phone use on accidental falls risk in young adult pedestrians.鈥�
To summarise: while texting, a spring in the step can lead to a fall. What happens to people who have passed the 鈥測oung adult鈥� stage of life and reached the winter of their existence? The report does not presume. Instead, meticulously, it states: 鈥淔uture research should further investigate the impacts of mobile phone use in other cohorts including鈥� older adults.鈥�
Man of more letters
The lengthy list of 16 academic abbreviations attached to a person鈥檚 name, as noted by Feedback last month (15 July), failed to impress Ian Glendon.
He says: 鈥淵our correspondent鈥檚 piffling 16 post nominals falls short of those in correspondence I had with an erstwhile colleague at the end of 2022 鈥� who may have added more since 鈥� but who had these 22 at that time: BEd, BSc, MSc, MBA, MPH, MLitt, PhD, DLitt, MIIAI, MIEnvSc, FEPS, FSyI, PFHEA, FCIEHF, C.ErgHF, CGeog, CMgr, CSyP, CFCIPD, CPsychol, FAcSS, CCMI.鈥�
Rendered curious, but possessing only the information Ian provided, Feedback turned to Google, which turned up exactly one person who fits Ian鈥檚 description. A certain research chair in risk and resilience at the University of Glasgow Business School, UK, comes thusly adorned: BEd, BSc, MSc, MBA, MPH, MLitt, PhD, DLitt, MIIAI, MIEnvSc, FEPS, FSyI, PFHEA, FCIEHF, C.ErgHF, CGeog, CMgr, CSyP, CFCIPD, CPsychol, FAcSS, CCMI.
Feedback notes that anyone who trudges, unslowed, through life with that many letters affixed to their name is a banner example of resilience.
Autophagy for all
Some guidelines are brief, others a lot less so. A research journal article called is less so. The article is 382 pages long. It includes a reference list that has 4068 items.
It also has approximately 2930 co-authors. (Feedback counted them, but isn鈥檛 confident in the accuracy of that count. The co-authors seem a bit shaky about their own ability to count. They say: 鈥淚n a rapidly expanding and highly dynamic field such as autophagy, it is possible that some authors who should have been included on this manuscript have been missed.鈥�)
The article was published in 2021 in a journal called Autophagy. In the tradition of specialist journals that are distinctly not aimed at non-specialists, nowhere do the guidelines tell the meaning of the word 鈥渁utophagy鈥�. Rather the opposite. The article says: 鈥淚t is important to note that in this set of guidelines the term 鈥榓utophagy鈥� generally refers to macroautophagy.鈥�
Non-specialists must go elsewhere (the usual elsewhere: an internet search engine, a paper dictionary or a clever 10-year-old child) to find the meaning of the word 鈥渁utophagy鈥�. But the article isn鈥檛 without interest for non-specialists, if only for the mention on page 114 of the word clockophagy.
The article points to an informative future: 鈥淭hese guidelines are likely to evolve as new methodologies are developed and current assays are superseded.鈥�
A jarring superpower
Ken Bradley adds a numberific trivial superpower to Feedback鈥檚 ever-expanding catalogue.
He says:鈥漈wo years ago, our 9-year-old grandson J., at his school in Australia, won no less than four competitions for the best estimate of the number of sweets (or, in one case, pencils) in a large jar. This month, now aged 11 and at school in England, he again won a prize, at a summer fete, by estimating that there were 584 sweets in a jar. The correct answer, according to the organisers, was 鈥� 584! J. had no 鈥榠nside knowledge鈥� and tells me it isn鈥檛 guesswork. His twin sister has many talents; but not this one.鈥�
Pleasing everyone
鈥淵ou can鈥檛 please everyone,鈥� says a report (鈥溾��) by Shubham Atreja, Libby Hemphill and Paul Resnick at the University of Michigan School of Information.
Their conclusion echoes many conclusions, from many times, about many subjects. The lament always reduces to those same four words: 鈥淵ou can鈥檛 please everyone.鈥�
Is the statement true? Or, au contraire, is there something that DOES please everyone?
If you know of just such a thing 鈥� a thing that pleases everyone 鈥� please send reliable documentation to 鈥淧leasing Everyone鈥�, c/o Feedback.
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