This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has five segments. Here are bits of each of them:
- Cosplay coral-ation — Getting anyone, anyone at all, to notice what you have discovered is a problem for almost every scientist. (It’s a problem also for almost anyone anywhere who discovers almost anything.) Mark Patterson at Northeastern University in Massachusetts and his colleagues tried being theatrical to raise awareness about marine microplastics. They found success (“attentive engagement”) by doing cosplay at a Comic-Con convention in San Diego. Patterson wore a giant coral costume and wielded a swordlike “microplastics sampling device”…
- What’s on your mind? — Feedback wonders whether people who professionally think about thinking really think anyone really thinks those thinkers know much about it. Those thinkers who think about thinking are called many things: cognitive scientists, brain scientists, neurologists, neuroeconomists, philosophers, neurophilosophers, psychologists, neuropsychologists, psychiatrists, neuropsychiatrists, therapists, neurotherapists, theologians, neurotheologians, intellectual historians, et al….
- Exploding insights — Questions arising from underground explosions, including those of buried, embalmed corpses, and toxic groundwater (Feedback, 20 July) continue to spur thought. William Drennan, a law professor at Southern Illinois University, casts a cold eye at the practice of embalming. He writes in the Dickinson Law Review that: “Attempts to make caskets air-tight and water-tight have led to a phenomenon termed ‘exploding casket syndrome.’ Basically, efforts to make caskets air-tight and water-tight lead to a disturbing conclusion because heat, gas, and liquid build up inside the coffin as the body decomposes, eventually causing an explosion.” Leaving aside the intrinsic value of tradition, Drennan says “there appears to be no benefit to embalming after the public viewing”….
- Saying it all — We have two additions to Feedback’s collection called The Title Tells You Everything You Need to Know….