Contents
Weird Wildlife
Sensational Science
Last month the Annals of Improbable Research held their Ig Nobel Prizes award ceremony for 2009. For those of you who don’t know, the aim of these awards is to honour achievements that ‘first make people laugh and then make them think’. Here in the Bugle science lab, once we had stopped singeing our eyebrows after one of our more dramatic chemistry experiments (Q: Does sodium tend to over-react in times of stress? A: Well, it’s not as laid back as silicon, that’s for sure) we were pleased to see that a piece of scientific research that we reported on earlier this year has won a prize. In February we brought you the startling discovery made by a team at Newcastle University that happy cows give more milk—or to be more accurate, that cows given names by farmers have a higher milk yield than cows who remain anonymous. The reasoning behind this is that farmers who give their cows names are more likely to have a caring relationship with their animals. Anyway, moving rapidly on…. the team from Newcastle University won the Ig Nobel Prize for Veterinary Medicine. Dr Catherine Douglas, spokesperson for the research group apparently dedicated the award to Purslane, Wendy and Tina - “the nicest cows I have ever known”.
Now that we have got our scientific caps on (modified crash helmets complete with inflatable canaries, spirit levels and emergency sprinkler systems) we are mindful of the need to avoid intellectual plagiarism. So we’ll give you our original source for this story right now: if you follow this link - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8285380.stm - you will find a great report and a full rundown of the runners and riders. In the meantime, we’ll just highlight a couple of other awards that attracted our attention. The Peace prize went to a Swiss team from the University of Bern for ’determining whether it is better to be smashed on the head with a full bottle of beer or with an empty bottle’ (this was obviously a controlled study and unlikely to have been carried out in Malia). The Economics prize went to the directors of four Icelandic banks for ’demonstrating that tiny banks can be rapidly transformed into huge banks and vice versa (and for demonstrating that similar things can be done to an entire national economy)’. And, finally, the award that attracted most attention in the press was the one for Public Health. This went to a research team from Chicago who invented a bra that can be rapidly transformed into a pair of gas masks if needs be.
English Wine by Satellite
‘English wine’ may seem like a strange concept to some of our readers, but we promise you that it does exist. It isn’t generally thought of as one of the country’s best known exports, but wine production is apparently on the increase in the UK (the editor is trying hard to remain diplomatic as she types while savouring a glass of one of Crete’s finer reds). Anyway, recently a number of English vineyards have signed up to a satellite imaging service as a means of improving their grape harvests (still trying very hard to remain diplomatic, but that Cretan red tastes really good. Time for another glass). The Oenoview system, developed by the Institut Cooperative du Vin in France (mais oui, cheri, where else?) measures the reflectivity of a vineyard, and outputs coloured images that help wine producers determine which grapes are good to pick, which grapes are not ready yet, and which ones are just merde.
Not confident at this stage that I can adequately explain the technical stuff (glug, glug), so best just to give you a quote from the Oenoview programme manager who has what might be described as a somewhat unfortunate name (especially given the current uproar about EU expenditure and the cost of French President Sarkozy’s golden shower).
But it’s not the guy’s fault and we shouldn’t poke fun. Henri Douche says “If there is an even distribution of blue or red images in a field the leaf area index suggests that the grapes can be harvested together”. Julia Trustram Eve from English Wine Producers elaborated as follows: “Innovation is at the heart of the English wine industry and vineyard owners are keen to use technology that complements their wine-making skills. Developing a pilot programme to use space technology is a smart and exciting new step”. Bring on the Chateau Bognor Regis and pop that cork!!!!
Crimes of the Month
Sensible message time: We absolutely do not condone drinking and driving and nor do we condone burglary. However, that being said, we felt that the next two reports about inept criminals might gladden the hearts of those of you who haven’t already seen them. First off is the drink driving offence. In Minnesota, US, a man has been convicted of being drunk in charge of driving an armchair.
Dennis LeRoy Anderson apparently souped up his La-Z-Boy chair (making it not so lazy) with a lawnmower engine, steering system, stereo and cup holders.
He then got smashed, took the chair out for a ride, and crashed it into a parked car. Luckily nobody got hurt, and Dennis was appropriately punished. As we were going to press the police were auctioning the chair on ebay.
And finally, while we are still in the US, and having just celebrated Halloween and all, here’s a story about how not to be inconspicuous when planning a break in. Two would be burglars in Iowa who were recently arrested by police were described as being ‘the dumbest of dumb criminals with the worst disguises ever ’.
Matthew Allan McNelly and Joey Lee Miller tried to disguise themselves by drawing fake beards and masks on their faces with black marker pen. They then made a bungling effort at a robbery, creating a lot of noise as they tried to speed off in their getaway car. They weren’t exactly difficult to track down, and they weren’t exactly sober, either.
