MICHAEL LIPSCHUTZ, who studied the first rocks brought back from the Moon in
1969, tells us he remembers public concern about the possibility that the rocks
might harbour pathogens. So NASA spent millions of dollars on quarantine
facilities—even after Lipschutz’s research director pointed out in a
letter to a scientific journal that, with the escape velocity on the Moon being
only 2.4 kilometres per second and the Moon being only around 384,000 kilometres
away, some Moon rocks were bound to have made their way to Earth already.
Nobody knew about lunar meteorites at the time, but NASA doesn’t have the
same excuse for introducing similarly strict quarantine facilities for Martian
rocks today. Lipschutz says he has offered to eat the first returned gram of
Martian rock to check it’s safe, but NASA has yet to take him up on the
offer.
DO YOU remember when telecoms stocks were flying high a year ago? It is
astonishing how far they have crashed.
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For example, if you had invested $1000 in Nortel stock at the peak, it
would apparently be worth about $75 today. An anonymous
source—presumably a burned investor—quoted in Infoworld
calculates he could have done better investing in Budweiser beer. He’s not
talking about the stock, but the beer itself.
He says that if he had bought $1000 worth of beer in a shop where you
pay a 5 cent deposit per can, drank the beer, and returned all the cans to
collect the deposit, then he would have got back $79.
We found this hard to believe until we tried the calculation. It works if the
beer costs 63 cents a can, a price that can be found in many American discount
liquor stores. Anyone who invested their savings in Nortel stock should try it.
They could probably use a few drinks.
SOME MIGHT say that philosophy and football don’t mix very well. Even so,
there’s a website called www.philosophyfootball.com that sells footie
merchandise emblazoned with philosophical quotes. James Walley tells us that he
was browsing it the other day, looking for a gift for his cousin, a Liverpool
fan, when he found this in the terms and conditions: “You will receive your
goods within 21 days of the order being placed. Overseas orders are posted by
airmail and will be delivered within 28 days. Goods are posted by Royal Mail in
indestructible, and biodegradable, plastic envelopes.”
How these envelopes can have both these qualities is a question only a
philosopher could answer.
PEOPLE RUNNING airlines are understandably nervous at the moment, but even so
we are surprised by reader Michael Quail’s experience travelling with budget
airline Go. Quail says he took up his allocated 14A window seat, and began to
watch the boarding of the other passengers. As the person directly in front took
their seat, Quail was puzzled to find it was denoted 12A. Where had row 13 gone?
Had someone made an error in the seat markings? What would those allocated to
row 13 do when they boarded the plane?
Fortunately for the passengers, the same error—if that’s what it
was—was made by the seat allocation system. No one was without a seat.
A case of corporate triskaidekaphobia?
MEANWHILE, British Airways has been nominated for this week’s Feedback plain
English award. According to its website, one of the many stated goals of the
airline’s security measures is the “positive reconciliation of passengers with
their baggage”.
Reader Kevlin Henney, who spotted this, says that up till now he had merely
been happy that his baggage had not been lost. He now realises that he has been
missing out on a vast range of emotional experience.
MORE FUN with the AltaVista Babel Fish translation website. Reader David
Whittle tells us that he wanted to swot up on CarnaudMetalbox in order to apply
for a job with the company, so he translated its French homepage using Babel
Fish. He discovered that the company’s business involves the “manufacture of
limp metal light for the market tomato, fish, milk, aerosols, paintings and
various. Our annual capacity of production is 250 million limp.”
Whittle is now wondering whether to make that job application after all.
SURPRISE OF the week comes from a paper in the October issue of The
American Journal of Psychiatry: “Successful treatment of erectile
dysfunction in depressed men can lead to marked improvement in depression.”
A BURGLAR ALARM from hardware store B&Q comes in several opaque cardboard
boxes sealed with labels reading: “Warranty seal—check contents before
DZԾԲ”
AND CONTINUING with our theme of semiopathy—unintended emotional
responses to signs (22 September and 6 October)—reader John Ball tells us
he sometimes sees a sign saying “Please no dogs”. Ball says he is no dog lover,
but still resents being told to keep the entire canine population in a state of
displeasure.
Ball’s problem, of course—or rather, the problem with the sign—is
that the same word can perform different grammatical functions. New
Scientist’s Brussels correspondent Debora MacKenzie tells us she recently
came up against this when reading a headline on the Ananova Internet news site.
“Forest planting genetically altered squirrels,” it said, leading her to wonder
how a forest can plant a squirrel, and why would you want to plant one anyway,
let alone genetically altered ones. She was quite disappointed when she realised
that “forest” was acting as an adjective, “planting” a noun and “altered” an
active verb.
FINALLY, reader Jo Morley tells us how she was leaving a terminal at Stansted
airport to walk to her plane when she saw a sign that read: “All refuse to be
thrown in skip on exit.” She and her friend, she says, informed the airline
staff that they were glad everyone was agreed on this point and that they too
refused to be thrown in the skip. But the staff didn’t seem to be amused.
