This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has three segments. Here are bits of each of them:
- Deep Oesophagus — Scientists, as a group, like to think they behave in ways a little distinct from the herd. The herd, as a herd, likes to think so, too. From time to time, Feedback receives furtive notes from a keen observer of scientists; artful reflections on general behaviours that have caught this person’s professional eye. This observer could be described as a “senior figure in the European science community”. In homage to the famous secret source “Deep Throat”, this observer will be identified here as “Deep Oesophagus”. Here is their first confidential dispatch….
- Snoozing Grumpy Face — “Grumpy face during adult sleep: A clue to negative emotion during sleep?” is a study published not long ago in the Journal of Sleep Research….
- Deeper, Eosophageal Secrets — Biological oesophaguses, which connect the throat to the lower portions of the digestive system, sometimes harbour deep secrets. Some of these secrets, in some of these oesophaguses, have religious significance. Here are two of them. “Esophagus detection using deep learning method”, a paper given at a conference in 2021, applies a clever bit of engineering to a meaty problem. One of chicken meat….