This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has four segments. Here are bits of each of them:
- Full of beans — On a gut level, what happens after a person becomes full of beans? Flatulence is what happens. But attempts at mitigation, explain Iowa State University researchers Donna Winham, Ashley Doina and Abigail Glick, can bring medical risk. They presented a paper at a recent conference in Denver, Colorado, called “Anti-flatulence supplements raise blood glucose after bean-based meals”. The particular supplement they tested, alpha-galactosidase, “reduces gas production by breaking complex carbohydrates into smaller, less fermentable, components [but it] can significantly increase glycemic response even in healthy adults”. Fewer farts, but at the expense of higher blood sugar levels….
- Survival of whistling — “Whistling,” a study called “The spiritual exploration of the whistling art in China” reminds us, “has the function of expressing personal emotions and lifting the mood”. Yet, explain authors Su Wang and Qingqing Xiao, the practice barely survived a Long, Dark Age of Whistling….
- Fruit, now like flies — Even before scientists discovered that a chemical called DNA transmits genetic information from generation to generation of all known living things, much of our understanding of inheritance came from fruit flies. Fruit got less attention. Now, things are catching up for fruit. Especially melons….
- Mourning dead slogans — A very few slogans stand as fading testimony to the good intent of the people who ran a particular organisation. Two of the most outstanding are IBM’s “THINK” and Google’s “Don’t be evil”. Those have both been retired. Presumably, each retirement marked the discovery of a nobler ideal. Something more profitable for humanity, or a portion thereof….