This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has four segments. Here are the beginnings of each of them:
- A spoonful of sugar? — Should one take sugar in one’s tea? Feedback is mindful of two things about this question. For one, nearly everyone, in the UK especially, considers (or pretends to consider) the question to be of life-and-death importance; and secondly, they consider (or pretend to consider) one answer to be clearly correct. The Annals of Internal Medicine has published a 280-word item that – let’s be blunt about this – throws a spanner in the teacup. A necessary and welcome spanner….
- Packaging philosophy — Mark Dionne tells Feedback of his surprise on learning that you can become a Doctor of Philosophy in packaging. It is Michigan State University’s school of packaging that confers the necessary degree. “We all have questions about packaging,” reads its website, “such as, what is packaging and why is it important to society?” That statement is a little vague as to who, exactly, the “we” is. One question we (whoever we are) might ask about packaging is…
- Leftist food — The preference of Canadians as to which side of a bento (a traditional Japanese lunch comprising rice and vegetables with meat or fish, usually served in a lacquered box) should have the largest, most calorie-heavy component of the meal hadn’t been determined – not with investigative rigour – until now. Lisa Poon and Lorin Elias at the University of Saskatchewan presented 483 Canadians with a photo of a bento box and another of its mirror image. They published a report about it, called “What’s in the box? Preference for leftward plating of food in bentos“, in the journal Food Quality and Preference. Citing earlier research by others, Poon and Elias say…
- Ex-superpowers — Rex Waygood adds two entries to Feedback’s growing catalogue of trivial superpowers, along with a sad warning that some trivial superpowers can be temporary….