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<\/div>Time for love<\/h2>\n
Valentine\u2019s Day celebrates coupling. Alan McWilliam tells Feedback about an offer he received, before the most recent Valentine\u2019s Day, from a US-based biotechnology company. It couples charm with other qualities.<\/p>\n
Alan says: \u201cI received the marketing email below. I\u2019ve never been offered a \u2018complimentary breeding pair of genetically modified mice\u2019 for Valentine\u2019s Day before. What says romance more than gazing into your mouse\u2019s eyes, over a Bunsen burner flame, before implanting a tumour and humanely euthanising it a few weeks later?\u201d<\/p>\n
This is the note:<\/p>\n
\u201cDear Alan,<\/p>\n
Love is in the air, and at [REDACTED], we\u2019re sharing the love with a special Valentine\u2019s Day promotion just for you!<\/p>\n
Theme: Perfect Pairings in Research<\/p>\n
Promotion: This Valentine\u2019s Day, Receive a Complimentary Breeding Pair of Genetically Modified Mice with Our Gene Targeting Services.<\/p>\n
Coupon Code: FREECOUPLE<\/p>\n
This limited-time offer is designed to enhance your research and provide you with the perfect research companions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Whatever this offer may accomplish for romance or commerce, its most powerful use could be as a psychological test. How does a person respond, at first blush, to this opportunity?<\/p>\n
Political restraint<\/h2>\n
A growing treasury of top-dog data almost begs UK psychology researchers to sift it for lessons about leadership. Feedback infers this from news accounts.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n The BMJ<\/i> (formerly formally called The British Medical Journal<\/i>) makes medical note<\/a> of news reports that prime minister Rishi Sunak \u201cfasts for 36 hours at the beginning of every week\u201d. Sunak\u2019s past and present medical data might intrigue and inspire physicians, psychologists and nutrition researchers. Over time, does the body in evidence inflate or deflate? How much of that inflation or deflation can be attributed to the leader\u2019s first-person management of food?<\/p>\n More complete data may already be available about the effects and effectiveness of self-imposed restraint (or at base, self-claimed restraint) by former prime minister David Cameron, who held office and his urine from 2010 to 2016.<\/p>\n New Scientist<\/i>\u2018s report<\/a> in 2015 about Cameron fluidics explained: \u201cBefore important speeches or negotiations, Cameron keeps his mind focused by refraining from micturating. The technique may be effective \u2013 but it also appears to help people to lie more convincingly.\u201d<\/p>\n (In a happy twist of serendipity, the 2011 Ig Nobel medicine prize was awarded<\/a> to researchers in the UK, the Netherlands, Belgium, Australia and the US for testing the effectiveness of the delayed-urination technique. That award was made bare weeks before Cameron revealed his pee proclivity to the public.)<\/p>\n Additional varieties of data will be tappable by researchers, should it some day become apparent that other UK prime ministers also exercised restraint.<\/p>\n Juicy, surprising delights about living things sometimes lodge in the reference sections of scientific papers about long-extinct things.<\/p>\n Trilobite researchers still chatter about the study \u201cFrontal auxiliary impressions in the Ordovician trilobite Dalmanitina Reed, 1905 from the Barrandian area, Czech Republic<\/a>\u201c, published a few years ago in the Bulletin of Geosciences<\/i>.<\/p>\n But only the most diligent of them noticed \u2013 deep in the references section, at the end of the paper \u2013 something unexpected: mention of a paper called \u201cCoupling between the heart and sucking stomach during ingestion in a tarantula<\/a>\u201d by Jason Dunlop, John Altringham and Peter Mill, published in 1992 in the Journal of Experimental Biology<\/i>.<\/p>\n And deep inside that heart\/sucking-stomach paper lurks a different kind of surprise, a reminder that scientists need to proceed always with caution: \u201cIn the absence of detailed information about fluid flow in tarantulas, any model is speculative.\u201d<\/p>\n Dave Kirby has noticed another cookbook that, like The Anarchist Cookbook<\/i>, maybe needs to come with a warning (Feedback had suggested<\/a> something along the lines of: \u201cIf you don\u2019t cook your anarchist to the proper temperature, there may be problems\u201d).<\/p>\n Dave says: \u201cIn addition to the books you mentioned, you could add The River Cottage Baby and Toddler Cookbook<\/i>. A local restaurant has a bookshelf full of cookbooks and I spotted this one there months ago.<\/p>\n \u201cI hesitated to look too closely into the small print on their menu.\u201d<\/p>\n Comforting news, maybe, for people who dread any temporary absence from their cats.<\/p>\n A study from California called \u201cA comparison of people\u2019s attachments to romantic partners and pet cats<\/a>,\u201d published in the journal Anthrozo\u00f6s<\/i>, reports that some people \u201cdid not necessarily need reassurance from their cat or feel distress when their cat was unavailable to them the way they might about a romantic partner\u201d.<\/p>\n Marc Abrahams created the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony and\u00a0co-founded\u00a0the magazine Annals of Improbable Research. Earlier, he worked on unusual ways to use computers. His website is\u00a0<\/em>improbable.com<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n Got a story for Feedback?<\/b><\/p>\n You can send stories to Feedback by email at feedback@newscientist.com<\/a>. Please include your home address. This week\u2019s and past Feedbacks can be seen on our website<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\nDown the tarantula hole<\/h2>\n
Tender youth<\/h2>\n
Depending on cats<\/h2>\n