IN LAST week’s New Scientist (15 October, p 21), Debora MacKenzie observed that internet pundits follow the objects of their obsession far more, well, obsessively than journalists and even scientists can ever hope to – thus providing sometimes indispensable alerts for us all.
The very day the article was sent off to be printed, MacKenzie got better proof of this than she could have made up. New Scientist‘s website ran a separate piece by her saying no one had yet found a healthy migrating wild bird carrying and shedding the dangerous H5N1 bird flu virus. This is a crucial and highly sensitive issue in regard to establishing how the disease spreads to countries so far unaffected by it.
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MacKenzie had asked two of the biggest names in flu science if such a bird had been found and got in return some surprisingly evasive spluttering. Of course, the virus must be carried by wild birds, they huffed, but they offered no evidence such as “yes, there was a healthy infected widgeon in Tomsk”. Surely, if they had known of any such bird they would have told her about it.
But within hours, Henry Niman, the top honcho of internet flu-watchers, weighed in. “Your article appears to be flat out wrong. It might be a good idea to issue a retraction,” his email said. MacKenzie clicked on the link he provided, and there it was: not a widgeon, but a “great crested grebe without clinical signs of influenza” carrying the virus – in Novosibirsk, Russia, this summer. Further details haven’t been published yet, and it isn’t clear whether the grebe was actually healthy enough to migrate. All we have is that one cryptic remark that accompanied the posting on GenBank, the US gene database, of a viral gene sequence taken from the bird.
But the point is, Niman the internet pundit knew about this, and the eminent scientists didn’t. Or maybe they had just forgotten. That’s the great thing about being obsessive. You don’t forget.
AND talking of obsession, on 1 October we mentioned Hal Koun’s architect who was obsessed with intricate assemblages of buildings and thus had a complex complex complex. Now Ian Cutter points out that this obsession presents in two forms, one of which is simple. If the person suffers from the other form, then they have a complex complex complex complex.
To this, Stephen Gould adds that when there is a group of buildings dedicated to the treatment of this latter form of the condition, it is known as a complex complex complex complex complex.
And Dale Waterson then points out that a person obsessed with such groups of buildings would have…but no, let’s not go there.
SOME innovative biology spotted by Allan Jones on the UK’s NHS Direct website. “The medical name for long-sightedness is hypermetropia,” it tells us. “People with long-sightedness have difficulty seeing close-up objects. This is because the eyeball is too short, causing the light rays around objects to travel behind the retina, because they haven’t been bent enough by the cornea and lens.”
Amazing what can go on in one’s eyes without one knowing about it.
HOW many of London’s urban fox population suffer from hearing problems? There are so many foxes in the city nowadays that citizens who want to keep them away from their gardens can buy fox repellents that emit an ultrasonic tone. But the packaging of the one that Colin Matthews bought warned: “This product will not work with deaf foxes”.
“The EziBuy Summer Highlights catalogue surprised Rob Reed with its Grace Hill Pure Silk Kaftan, which is “100 per cent cotton””
THE instruction manual for a mini fridge Jo Smith bought for her daughter’s return to university included this puzzling phrase: “The temperature control is located inside the fridge and as a safety feature the control can only be adjusted with the door open.”
How else, Jo wonders?
This colour is privately owned
IT SEEMS that the UK’s Royal Mail owns the colour red. Michael Eaton has discovered that if you visit its websites you will be warned: “Royal Mail, the Royal Mail Cruciform and the colour red are registered trademarks of Royal Mail Group plc.”
Eaton speculates that this presumably means he can trademark the colour green. Then he and the Royal Mail can together hold the world’s traffic lights to ransom.
Aggressive limpets and seasick fish
TWO more interesting paper titles, both supplied by Robert Bielger, a reader who clearly keeps his eye on the literature. One is “Aggression by limpets against invertebrate predators” (Animal Behaviour vol 27, p 408) and the other is “A drop-tower experiment to determine the threshold of gravity for inducing motion sickness in fish” (Advances in Space Research, vol 34, p 1592).
FINALLY, Andy Best wonders if he was right to be concerned that when he went to his local supermarket’s pharmacy counter to buy some cream labelled “For external use only”, the till flashed up the company’s motto, “Making life taste better”, and printed it on the receipt.
