Apr 19, 2005
Also spotted on the science writers’ discussion list I mentioned earlier, a press release came in with the subject line: “Happiness Related to Biological Fun”. Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be as spicey as some had hoped, biological fun, they thought, being a nice euphemism. Apparently, it was nothing more than a truncation, and the full subject read: “Happiness Related to Biological Function”. Borrrring. I linked this to to the apocryphal “a penis” story told of …
The original ChavMeister, Charles Dickens, whose satirical soaps have entertained the chattering classes for decades is to get his own theme park. It’s not going to be a bit like DollyWood or even Peter Gabriel’s yet to get off the ground interactive concept park. Instead, it will be built in Chatham at a cost of 60 million quid (ish) and feature an Ebeneezer Scrooge ride, cobbled streets with a replica of the Old Curiosity Shop, …
It’s not the most hilarious of typos, but I spotted someone “Using Goole” on a science writers’ discussion group this week. Goole is, of course, a famous search engine in East Yorkshire.
Apr 18, 2005
Most people will have seen the ludicrous healthscare stories that emerged when scientists discovered the almost ubiquitous bacteride, triclosan, releases small amounts of chloroform (a suspect carcinogen infamous for its anaesthetic effects in TV thrillers). I say ludicrous, because the amounts that are released are so small and presumably nothing compared to the much greater amounts of “chemical nasties” released by household air fresheners, shoe polish, bleach, etc etc. However, when you see a statement …
It was rather heartening to learn that a study by researchers at two Pittsburgh universities has demonstrated that newspaper and magazine articles do a better job of teaching students how chemists work than most high-school textbooks. But, at the same time its’s rather disheartening that if students are not reading outside the curriculum box then they are going to leave education with a very distorted view of what chemists do. Source: Chemists say high school …
Apr 15, 2005
An NMR-based quantum computer will require an exponentially increasing number of experiments as the number of quantum bits (qubits) used rises. But, a Japanese team believes they can side step this major obstacle to quantum computing simply by eliminating a part of elements used so they will only require one ancillary qubit and two different experiments. Read on at SpectroscopyNOW
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