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<\/div>Splitting hairs<\/h2>\n
\u201cAcademics are often accused of \u2018splitting hairs\u2019,\u201d David Taylor tells Feedback. \u201cWell this year my team and I have done just that. We built a machine which can literally split a single hair from end to end. This is the first time that anyone has been able to split a hair in the laboratory under controlled conditions and thus quantify the phenomenon. Perhaps you were planning some exciting cosmetic treatment, like changing the colour of your hair or curling it? I can tell you whether it\u2019s going to give you split ends or not.\u201d<\/p>\n
He and his team wrote up their adventure in a paper called \u201cThe biomechanics of splitting hairs<\/a>\u201c, published in Interface Focus<\/i>.<\/p>\n This built on research done in the 1980s by Y. K. Kamath and H.-D. Weigmann, who took a crack at minutely examining what happens when a strand of hair splits.<\/p>\n In a Journal of Applied Polymer Science<\/i> paper called \u201cFractography of human hair<\/a>\u201c, Kamath and Weigmann managed to restrain their excitement. They went only so far as to say \u201celectron microscopic evidence suggests that fracture propagation occurs by secondary cracks generated as a result of stress concentrations building up at the periphery of the primary crack\u201d.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Researchers in Brazil looked for the remains outside a cemetery of the remains of people who are buried inside that cemetery. Their main question: are the decomposing bodies contributing nastiness to the region\u2019s deep groundwater? Elias Saba and his colleagues wrote it all up with a ghoulishly geeky title: \u201cEvaluating the impact of a cemetery on groundwater by multivariate analysis<\/a>\u201c.<\/p>\n The team took data from three \u201cmonitoring wells\u201d dug in the cemetery and compared that with the local sewage water company\u2019s data about water in household cisterns in the neighbourhood. A round of multivariate analysis brought both good and not-so-good news.<\/p>\n Both within and without the cemetery confines, the researchers explain, the soil was absorbing most of the problematic body waste substances, \u201cpreventing surface contaminants from reaching the aquifer\u201d. That\u2019s the upside. Here\u2019s the but: \u201cWater samples collected in areas outside the cemetery do not meet Brazilian standards for drinking water.\u201d<\/p>\n Off-water from our forebears isn\u2019t a new concern. Perhaps the splashiest look at the question came in 2008 in the Journal of Environmental Health<\/i>.<\/p>\n Reader Russ Hodge sent Feedback a copy of the article, titled \u201cDrinking grandma: The problem of embalming<\/a>\u201c, by Jeremiah Chiappelli, a lawyer, and Ted Chiappelli, a health sciences professor at Western Carolina University, North Carolina.<\/p>\n The Chiappellis explain: \u201cThe modern practice of embalming replaces organic blood with various toxic and carcinogenic chemicals, particularly formaldehyde. Then the embalmed body is placed underground where, despite the casket, the body\u2019s fluids will inevitably leak into the groundwater\u2026 The initial reasons for the use of embalming and the rationale given for the continuance of the practice fail to justify the potential public health and environmental risks presented by embalming.\u201d<\/p>\n The Chiappellis also tell of research, done by others, as to why so many people in the US opt to embalm: \u201cIn states that require funeral directors to be embalmers or have embalming facilities, cremation rates decrease due to funeral director inducement.\u201d<\/p>\n Nothing cuts the social ice in a strange pub quite as sharply as axe throwing. But the sport can bring hazards for some of the people who are exposed to it in a dutiful, professional way.<\/p>\n Word is out, from researchers Kusha Davar, Arthur Jeng and Suzanne Donovan, that blastomycosis is one of those hazards. Blastomycosis is a fungal disease \u201cmanifested as pulmonary disease\u201d that can also affect the skin, bones and genitourinary tract.<\/p>\n Further detail is on display (including in colourful photographs) in the trio\u2019s study, \u201cBurying hatchets into endemic diagnoses: Disseminated blastomycosis in a novel occupational exposure<\/a>\u201c.<\/p>\n The patient had been \u201cworking at an axe throwing factory upon moving to Los Angeles\u201d where \u201chis duties included chopping wood for customers to use\u201d.<\/p>\n This disease, Davar, Jeng and Donovan contend, \u201cis not a routine diagnosis\u201d in southern California. They surmise that the Blastomyces<\/i> fungus was in the wood before it decamped into the patient.<\/p>\n Here are two of the recent additions to Feedback\u2019s collection called The Title Tells You Everything You Need to Know:<\/p>\n \u201cImpact of wet underwear on thermoregulatory responses and thermal comfort in the cold<\/a>\u201c, which appeared in Ergonomics<\/i> in 1994.<\/p>\n And \u201cThe possible pain experienced during execution by different methods<\/a>\u201c, which perhaps brought surprise to readers of the journal Perception<\/i> in 1993.<\/p>\n If you find an equally striking example, please send it (with citation details) to: Telltale titles, c\/o Feedback.<\/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>\nWater from the remains<\/h2>\n
Drinking grandma<\/h2>\n
Burying the hatchet<\/h2>\n
Telltale titles<\/h2>\n