inkycircus

Random medical cure o the day

IF YOU DON'T HAVE A WART BUT YOU DO HAVE DUCT TAPE YOU COULD ALWAYS MAKE A LITTLE HOUSE FOR YOUR BRUSSEL SPROUTS. (PHOTO: !ALEX!)
Got a wart? Fearing social rejection and humiliation? Fear not. All you need to re-enter society as a newly smooth individual is a roll of duct/duck tape. Nobody knows why it gets rid of warts, but it does. All you have to do is put a piece of tape over your wart and leave it for a week or so, then have a go at the weakened wart with a pumice stone, and you'll be sorted. That's if you can stand the shame of walking around for a week with tape on your face, but we have to suffer to be beautiful.

And if you ever find yourself in a late night pub argument about whether the versatile silvery tape is named after a vent or an aquatic bird, the answer is that there is no answer. It was developed in WW2 as a waterproof sealing for ammunition cases, and rumour has it that was made to withstand water like a duck's back. But it's certainly used to fix ducts, and plenty more besides, and has been since long before any mention of ducks came along. A company sells the tape under the brand name 'Duck Tape', but wikipedia opts for the duct spelling. Duct or duck, the fact remains that the tape is fabulously useful. And it gets rid of warts. So there.

Via The Boston Globe.

A blackcurrant flavoured David & Goliath story

As far as I can determine, every family has their own Miracle Cure for when sickness strikes. Many of my close friends are Jewish, so obviously chicken soup features fairly high on their lists. For my boyfriend's family, it's scrambled eggs that is the cure for all ills. In my family, the miracle cure is ribena. It's partly a comfort thing, when you're poorly people bring you treats, and one of those treats is a nice, sweet flask of iced ribena for you to drink while you snuggle on the sofa under a duvet, and it's partly a health thing, to do with the claims printed on the ribena labels that the drink contains health boosting vitamin C. Well, apparently that's a Big Fat Lie.

Back in 2004, two schoolgirls in New Zealand were trying to think of a science experiment to do, and decided to test a couple of popular drinks to determine their vitamin c levels. Despite the ambitious claims from ribena owner Glaxo SmithKline that their drink contains four times the amount of vitamin c that orange juice has, 14 yr-olds Anna Devathasan and Jenny Suo found that the blackcurrant beverage had almost no detectable vitamin c. They were so suprised that they did their test again, but found the same result. No vitamin c to speak of. Whoops. They fired off a letter containing their claims to the pharmaceuticals giant and got no reply (quel suprise). But they refused to take no for an answer, and got the Commerce Commission (the New Zealand consumer watchdog), on board, and they set a court action in motion. Fast forward three years, and GSK have been fined £80,000 for making misleading claims, and ordered to put ads in major metropolitan newspapers to atone for telling whoppers. A drop in the ocean for a megabucks corporation, but a truly fantastic one in the eye nonetheless.

(PHOTO: PASI)

Humbled by Largess

The Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society has a life size blue whale online. How did they squish this 180 tonne gargantuan mammal onto a website? Well, there's a little thumbnail of the whale inset on a larger window of it's various body regions that are correctly scaled to real life.

Now it mind sound boring but in fact, it's totally calming. Me, I've had him open on a tab on my browser for about a day. Every so often I'll go over and gently drift by to say hi. Go see for youself. 

Healthy pizza pie

Americans eat up to 90 acres of pizza a day (not each, obviously), and while dough+cheese+tomato+toppings=delicious, it's not the most healthy dinner you can eat. So a group of food scientists have taken a closer look at the circular supper, and tried to make it a bit better for you. The health rating they've picked is the level of antioxidants. They found a couple of ways to boost the antioxidant level by a significant amount, the top three are leaving the dough to ferment for an extra day, baking it at a higher temperature and baking it for a longer time. Not all of these are applicable in your kitchen at home, though, I don't know about yours but my oven definitely doesn't bake that hot. And a word to the wise - boosted anti-oxidants or no, that cheesy snack will never actually make a healthy meal. But if you're going to bake yourself a pizza anyway, it can't hurt to take advantage of these handy tips.

Via Guardian Unlimited. (PHOTO: SH0DAN)

Science vs Science

Ever felt very strongly that one particular vein of science is just that much better than other ones? Well now's your time to have your say and vote before the world in the Spring Science Showdown of 2007 over at World's Fair blog. The first and second round have now finished narrowing down the competition. But make sure to get in on the third round where Fossil fuels vs. Erlenmeyer flask, General Relativity vs. Bosons,  Invertebrates vs. Photosynthesis Phylogenetics vs. HIV, Kuhn vs. Theory and Corporate vs. Darwin duke it out.

Stay up to speed at the Spring Science Showdown Press Center where links to results are released as they come in.

The Great Polar Bear Debate

ORPHANED POLAR BEAR CUBS. KILL THEM NOW. (PHOTO: NOAA)

Unless you have been living under some sort of Internet-based rock, you will know about the tiny baby polar bear at the center of an animal rights brouhaha in Germany. Activists say it's better to kill the wee cubby than let it life an artificial, human-reared life, after being rejected by mommy shortly after birth at the Berlin Zoo. One pro-death zoo keeper says it will be torture for the tiny cub, named Knut, to develop a bond with it's human parents, only to be separated from them at the end of every day. Others, claim that the bear is just too, you know, soft, to really be called a bear anymore. From the Times article:

Only Knut survived, and was fed with human milk and cod-liver oil every half hour. In the Arctic, the minus 35C (-31F) temperatures destroy viruses and bacteria and make it easier for cubs to live. Knut has been brought up as a pampered baby. He is fed chicken purée, was given his own Christmas tree, sleeps with a teddy bear, plays with a football and his pony-tailed keeper strums Elvis Presley songs to improve his mood. The keeper, Thomas Doerflein, says the cub falls asleep when he sings You’re the Devil in Disguise.

By GoogleNews counts, 123 news outlets have covered the story - most lured by the prospect of the damn cutest photos availability to, like, humanity. I mean even Annie Liebovitz has photographed him for a big global warming campaign. But seriously...how is it, like, a story, when a couple nut jobs say in public that a ridiculously cute bear-cum-adored-mascot-for-an-entire-city should die? And how are their criticisms that different than for any animal raised or bred in captivity? Because the mom - an ex CIRCUS bear - rejected Knut, we should take the hint from "nature" and let him go?

Next thing you know and we'll be putting old people on ice floes to die. Oh wait. There aren't anymore ice floes and that's why the polar bears are dying.

Feed the birds. Actually, on second thoughts...

The Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, doesn't like pigeons. He calls them rats with wings. It was Ken that outlawed the highly entertaining practise of buying birdseed in Trafalgar Square and feeding the bids, as immortalised in the Mary Poppins song 'Feed the birds (tuppence a bag)'. It's true that there's an awful lot of quite manky pigeons in London, but Ken is on a mission to rid the city of its birds. But Liverpool is streets ahead. They are soon to be employing Robops - robot Peregrine Falcons - to sit on the tops of buildings and squawk and flap their wings and scare away the pigeons.

I have several problems with this plan. Firstly, Robop? Dumb name. Surely they could have done better. Secondly, one of the reasons given for trying get rid of the pigeons is because their droppings are slippery and dangerous. Guys, invoking health and safety is not a way to get support for your scheme, however clever your robots. And finally, speaking of clever robots, does anyone else get the impression that this'll never work? As well as being pretty disgusting, city pigeons have a look of wily cunning about them. I can't see them being fooled by some plastic bird of prey for terribly long. I say to heck with the robots, spend the money on airguns instead and just go round shooting the beastly birds. It's either that or just ignore them and go about your daily business anyway. Hang on, that's what we all already do...

Via BBC News. PHOTO: LINDER6580.

Parlez-vous chickadee?

Every different type of bird has a different song, but a researcher in Washington has found that nuthatches seem to have learned to 'translate' chickadee. Christopher Templeton played a tape of chickadees issuing a warning chirp that signals the presence of an owl, to a tree full of nuthatches, and they all responded appropriately and aggressively. The number of dees on a chickadees chick-a-dee-dee-dee call relates to the level of threat, and this is clearly obvious enough that other birds take note of the warning too. So far, only birds like the lyre bird can actually imitate another bird's call, but being able to understand what your friendly feathered neighbour is shouting about has got to be pretty handy.
PHOTO: BRANDYCORC

Just when we thought we'd seen it all...

People. If you have some time on your hands, put it to good use by knitting some sweaters for penguins. That's right. Use your skills of knit and purl for good, not fashion!

The Tasmania Conservation Trust has long completed its "Penguin Jumper Project" where 15,000 mini-sweaters were collected to help save Little penguins (Eudyptula minor) in the event of an oil spill but hey, it's still news to us. The idea goes like this. Oil spills. Gets everywhere. Clogs seagoing bird feathers and wrecks their ability to insulate and waterproof. Plus, the penguins preen themselves to clean off the gunk, but get poisoned instead. This makes for sick and cold penguins. Solution? four ply wool + one pair No. 10 needles (old measurement) + one pair No. 12 needles (old measurement)  = penguin jumper!

The pattern's here.

VIA Adorablog

Wherever I lay my geeky hat

GEEKY HOTEL ROOM, INKYCIRCUS STYLE. ALSO KNOWN AS A MESSY HOTEL ROOM. OOPS.

Staying in hotels is fun at the best of times, but how much better is it when your room is stacked to the ceiling with gadgets and gizmos? Fun as all the little mini shampoos and shoe polishers are, it's the little extras like top speed (ideally free) wifi, flat screen tvs and motorized curtains that really make the hotel experience a special one. A specially geeky one, that is. Well, if you are a geek who likes to stay in swanky hotels, the kind folks over at Hotel Chatter have drawn up a list of their Top Five Geek Hotels in the World. From New York's Tribeca Grand istudio suites complete with ipods and G5 computers, to the switched-on Hotel @ MIT in Boston via the hobbit-themed round-windowed Woodlyn Park in New Zealand, there's something there for everyone. I might have to go and pay a few of these hotels a visit. Purely in the name of research, of course.