This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has four segments. Here are bits of each of them:
- Distinguished frogs — It turns out, say Chatmongkon Suwannapoom and Maslin Osathanunkul, that a good way to distinguish one kind of fanged frog from another is to do melting analysis. Their report, “Distinguishing fanged frogs (Limnonectes) species (Amphibia: Anura: Dicroglossidae), from Thailand using high resolution melting analysis“, explains how they achieved the “rapid and accurate identification of six species of Limnonectes of the L. kuhlii complex”….
- Cats on cannabis — The full effects of cannabis – like, come to think of it, the full effects of anything – on humans still hold some mysteries. So it is with cannabis and cats. Chloe Lyons and her colleagues at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada, have made some progress about the cats….
- Stickiness — At sea, there is spice. Feedback still delights in how oceanographers decided that some ocean water can be called “spicy” and other ocean water “minty” (8 October 2022). Here’s further delight: in the air, there is “stickiness”. Reader Earle Spamer brings news of the latter. “Here’s a paper that brandishes a ‘new’ variable in climate studies: stickiness,” he writes. “An awful lot of mathematics to explain what my grandmother knew just by sitting on the front porch.” …
- Ketchup cardio claim — Feedback’s recent insights on ketchup (16 March) set at least one reader’s heart racing….