Learning from mole rats
Feedback anticipates a bonanza of pharma-medico-lifestylish new-product announcements offering to boost everyone鈥檚 level of hyaluronan, a substance recently shown to somewhat protect your cells against inflammation and early death if you are a naked mole rat.
Marketers who specialise in inflammation of the populace won鈥檛 have missed the Journal of Experimental Biology鈥榮 appreciation of hyaluronan. Beneath the headline 鈥溾��, the journal says: 鈥淢ost cells live in a blanket of molecules and minerals called an 鈥榚xtracellular matrix鈥�. In naked mole rats, this blanket is woven from a thicker fabric: naked mole rats produce a heavier and larger version of the molecule hyaluronan, which is the backbone of this extracellular matrix.
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鈥淎s Andrei Seluanov and Vera Gorbunova鈥檚 team at the University of Rochester, USA, show, this extra padding protects cells from inflammation and early death.鈥�
The report ends with this almost poetical wink: 鈥渢he Fountain of Youth may be embodied in the heavy hyaluronan of naked mole rats 鈥� nearly blind rodents, with lots of wrinkles and yellowed teeth鈥�.
Anarchist cookbook tip
Books can be dangerous in little-anticipated ways.
Feedback reminds you to be careful when using . If you don鈥檛 cook your anarchist to the proper temperature, there may be problems.
Similarly with . If you don鈥檛 properly shred your vegan chef, distress can result.
If your hobby is astrophysics, the warning applies to .
Post-deadly encounters
After the world became aware two decades ago of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard duck, more reports of 鈥淒avian behaviour鈥� found their way into the public record. Here is a quick update.
The subject got its big boost in 2003 when Dutch ornithologist Kees Moeliker was awarded an for his now-famous paper 鈥淭he first case of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard Anas platyrhynchos鈥�. Moeliker told of two ducks that had an avian Davian encounter. Necrophilic behaviour is here called 鈥淒avian鈥� because, in 1960, US ornithologist Robert W. Dickman gave necrophilia a new name 鈥� 鈥淒avian鈥� 鈥� in his paper 鈥溾��, published in the Journal of Mammalogy.
Now, Michal 艠e艡icha and colleagues at the Czech University of Life Sciences Prague have published a report that documents the practice among ladybirds (known as 鈥渓adybugs鈥� in some places). The report鈥檚 title smacks of horror: 鈥溾��.
This comes just three years after a report by Amber Lea D. Kincaid at Mote Marine Laboratory in Florida and colleagues, about necrophilia at sea: 鈥溾��.
Attention-grabbing, grim accounts can take a literary turn, as happened in a 2015 paper, about South American snakes, called 鈥溾��, by Ra铆ssa Siqueira at the University of S茫o Paulo, Brazil, and colleagues. They write: 鈥淲e observed a young male copulating, with the hemipenis fully inserted into a headless female. Specimens were collected, dissected and measured鈥�.
Literary works inspire other literary works, as is evident in a 2020 paper by Marco Colombo and Emiliano Mori at the University of Siena in Italy. The title is: 鈥溾��.
Happily horrific titles
Some medical papers have titles so intriguingly horrifying that 鈥� to anyone who loves a good horror story 鈥� the title almost begs the reader to NOT read the study itself.
Why avoid the complete study? Because one鈥檚 imagination, when overstimulated, can conjure up wonders. In comparison, the actual you-could-go-see-it-yourself details might seem mundane, dull, even comparatively dreary. Reading them could produce literary disappointment and disgruntlement 鈥� maybe even the death of curiosity.
For example, consider a paper written by a medical team in Chiba, Japan. To a non-professional, it tells how doctors solve accidental jigsaw puzzles 鈥� puzzles each made of odd parts from some person鈥檚 digestive organs. Chew, please, on the paper鈥檚 title: 鈥溾��.
Feedback invites you to send easily over-imaginable titles of actual published scientific reports, should you run across any. Please include full citations and links to the papers. Send to: 鈥淗appily horrific titles鈥� c/o Feedback.
Marc Abrahams created the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony and聽co-founded聽the magazine Annals of Improbable Research. Earlier, he worked on unusual ways to use computers. His website is聽.
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