This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has five segments. Here are bits of each of them: Biting biting remarks — …Bite-mark analysis hoo-ha, so far, mostly applies to identifying human biters. Mostly, but not entirely. Enter a new paper called “Forensic determination of shark species as predators and scavengers of sea turtles in […]
Old rattlesnake research gains new bite, with the news reports of a man who decapitated a rattlesnake, and then was bitten by the detorsoed snake head [“Texas Man’s Near-Fatal Lesson: A Decapitated Snake Can Still Bite” — New York Times]. The most pertinently focussed study was published almost 20 years ago: “Envenomations by Rattlesnakes Thought to […]
Those involved in the field of ‘Texture Studies’ (with regard to food) often find a need to measure and categorize crispness, crackliness and crunchiness of various foodstuffs (* see example below). For such measurements to be meaningful, however, the methods and terms need to be accurately defined first. In 2008 considerable steps towards definitions of […]
Those in the business of marketing desserts might be interested in new research from Donya Shabgard at the University of Manitoba, US, who has investigated, possibly for the first time, the influence of an advertisement’s dessert portrayal on consumer perceptions of desirability. Specifically, should advertisements show desserts with a bite taken out of them or […]
A new patent from inventor Yee Chong Leung of Shatin, Hong Kong provides a warm cap for a pet (say, for example a dog) – but its key feature is that it also operates as an electronic ‘Visual Muzzle’. Wearing the cap, the pet is obliged to look though goggles made of smart glass or […]
We reproduce only a portion of the image for this medical report. To see the full image, follow the link to the NEJM site. “A Viper Bite,” Tajamul Hussain [pictured here] and Rafi A. Jan, New England Journal of Medicine [NEJM], vol. 373, no. 11, September 10, 2015. The authors, at Sher-i-Kashmir Institute of Medical […]
The clip above shows (amongst others) the now-famous 2014 FIFA World Cup biting-incident featuring Luis Suárez. One might ask, and indeed some have, what are the ethical and philosophical implications of such an act? Bearing in mind that : “A prohibition against biting an opponent is not included in the rules of most contact sports, […]
This study presents a cheery attempt to see if cat bites lead to human depression (or maybe vice versa): “Describing the Relationship between Cat Bites and Human Depression Using Data from an Electronic Health Record,” David A. Hanauer [pictured here], Naren Ramakrishnan, Lisa S. Seyfried, PLoS One. 2013 Aug 1;8(8):e70585. (Thanks to Constanza Villalba for […]
Lead Sentence of the Week honors go to Alister Doyle of Reuters, whose news report begins: Indigenous Sami peoples in the Arctic may have found a way to help their reindeer herds cope with climate change: more castration. (Thanks to investigator John Karp for bringing this to our attention.) Further detail appears in a pair […]
Philosophy and medicine join forces because of a donut, in the study: “The ethics of eating a drug-company donut,” Karl Broznitsky, Canadian Medical Association Journal, 1996 March 15; 154(6): 899–900. It concludes with this passage: “He bit into the donut, as content with his rationalization as his staffmen were with theirs. A blob of grape […]