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 […]
Improbable’s Call for Papers on “The nutritional value of comets” Mini-Annals of Improbable Research, Issue Number 1994-02, June, 1994, is still open. For inspiration with your submissions, what better time is there to prepare a Lovejoy Comet (Cock)Tail? Here is the recipe – inspired by chemical components that are all readily available on Comet Lovejoy […]
The answer, it seems, depends on many factors. Gender for example, and also when you ask(ed) the drinkers. A report in the journal Addiction, (Volume 101, Issue 10, pages 1428–1437, October 2006) examined the 1979, 1995 and 2000 US National Alcohol Surveys, and found that : “The mean reported number of drinks to feel drunk […]
Cocktails can be ultra-chilling. This medical report provides evidence to that effect: “A lethal cocktail: gastric perforation following liquid nitrogen ingestion,” James Scott Pollard, Joanne Elizabeth Simpson, Moatasiem Idris Bukhari, BMJ Case Reports, 2013;10.1136/bcr-2012-007769. The authors, at the Royal Lancaster Infirmary [pictured below], Lancaster, UK, write: “We report a case of gastric perforation in an […]