Posts by Marc Abrahams:

Nit-picking Robinson Crusoe; Wrong cocktail; Baby radar; Much-lettered

This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has four segments. Here are bits of each of them: Nit-picking literature — Little things bother some people. Elizabeth Kowaleski Wallace wonders why little things failed to bother Robinson Crusoe, the hero of Daniel Defoe’s 1719 novel, who spent 28 years documenting his plight as a castaway […]

Texting & falling, Many-Lettered, Autophagy for all, Jarring, Pleasing

This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has five segments. Here are bits of each of them: Down, with texting — Want to guess what might happen if someone walks while texting? If you prefer a formally educated guess to an autodidactic supposition, Paulo Pelicioni and his colleagues at the University of New […]

Al’s AI ailment, Tooth charcoal, Orthodontist and Éclairs, Lambe to slaughter

This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has four segments. Here are bits of each of them: Al’s AI ailment — AI spells trouble for all the Alanas, Alannas, Alannahs, Alainnas, Alans, Alains, Allans, Allens, Alens, Alins, Aluns and other persons whose names begin with the letter pair “A then L” or the pair […]

Coca-Cola in a Cat

This month’s selected study about Coca-Cola in a cat is: “Endoscopic administration of Coca-Cola for medical management of a wedged intestinal trichobezoar in a cat,” Savanah Wilson, Devin Dobbins, Lukas Kawalilak, and Joseph C Parambeth, The Canadian Veterinary Journal, vol. 64, no. 8, 2023, pp. 747-752.  

Suspicious eyes, Dad’s superpower, Poo proofs, Apple-a-day

This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has four segments. Here are bits of each of them: Suspicious eyes — In the year 2001, US president George W. Bush foreshadowed a hope that decades later would pervade the robotics industry. Bush stood next to Russian president Vladimir Putin at a press conference in Slovenia […]