Hypergunk, Nasal Warfare, and Musical-Taste Calcification

This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has three segments. Here are bits of each of them: Nihilism and hypergunk — Irreducibly collective existence and bottomless nihilism aren’t for everyone. Or maybe they are. Jonas Werner, a philosopher at the University of Bern, Switzerland, published a crisp, perhaps irresistible, 16-page-long jotting called “Irreducibly […]

Nasal Photography – new directions

“In the frontal view, delicate, 3-dimensional (3D) anatomic structures require special photographic skills. Lighting is crucial for detail rendition and 3D reproduction of the nose, and for apparent photographic bias.” The observation is provided by authors Benedikt Strub, Konrad Mende, Claudia Meuli-Simmen, and Stephan Bessler in a new paper for the Aesthetic Surgery Journal, entitled: […]

Kissing and the Common Cold?

Valentine’s Day always brings the question “Can you catch a cold by kissing?” A 1984 experiment gave this answer: “Casual social encounters or kisses between infected and susceptible individuals are probably unlikely to result in the transmission of rhinoviruses.” Here’s kissing data from the experiment. The citation and further quotations appear below it.