Bird buffet
A RACE is on to build the world鈥檚 largest bird feeder, to save tens of thousands of migrating birds. China鈥檚 Yalu Jiang nature reserve, near the border with North Korea, extends across 50 kilometres of estuarine mudflats. Every year, 250,000 birds, including the endangered great knot, godwits, and oystercatchers stop off at the reserve to feast on clams. From there, they continue journeys that can stretch tens of thousands of kilometres 鈥� in the case of the godwit, from New Zealand to breeding grounds in Alaska.
However, the clam population has been under pressure from pollution and environmental degradation, and a bitterly cold winter has spared little more than 5 per cent. The solution? An all-you-can-eat buffet laid out for the visiting birds, supplied by bringing in farmed shellfish from around China.
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Conservationists estimated that 500 tonnes of shellfish would be needed, and quickly began an international appeal to raise $365,000 for the food. According to the Team Piersma blog, the entire sum has been raised, just in time for the arrival of 75,000 peckish great knots.
鈥淭ony Badsey-Ellis spies a troubled truncation emanating from our own offices. Our email informs him 鈥淭he Ryman Foundation is offering a NZ$250,000 annual prize for the world鈥檚 best disco鈥︹�濃��
In the zinc
SUFFERING from the sniffles, Renee Colwell bought a box of zinc tablets to aid her recovery. 鈥淚鈥檓 not really sure if zinc helps or not, but at least I feel I鈥檓 leveraging the placebo effect,鈥� she says.
But that placebo effect is threatened by the label, which tells Renee the product is a homeopathic remedy. Despite this, the active ingredient list includes 鈥淶incum Gluconicum 1x (11 mg Zinc)鈥�.
鈥淒oesn鈥檛 including an actual active ingredient fly in the face of homeopathy?鈥� asks Renee. 鈥淢y understanding is that you鈥檝e been had if there鈥檚 any measurable substance beyond sugar in your homeopathic pills.鈥�
Feedback wonders whether it is possible to combine homeopathic and allopathic remedies in the same pill? The presence of a little additional nothing won鈥檛 affect real medicine, but we鈥檙e not sure if homeopaths would say the inverse is true. After all, how can something remain infinitely diluted if it is, er, mixed with something else? 鈥淏y the way, I still have a cold,鈥� says Renee.
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JOINING the list of those who鈥檝e had enough of experts: Anne Wojcicki, CEO and co-founder of consumer genetics service 23andMe, claiming that results of her company鈥檚 test for an inherited risk of cancer would be news better delivered by a doctor.
In an opinion column titled 鈥淐onsumers don鈥檛 need experts to interpret 23andMe genetic risk reports鈥�, published in Stat, Wojcicki wrote that the BRCA variants screened for 鈥渃ould mean an increase of 45 percent to 85 percent in the chance of developing breast or ovarian cancer by the age of 70鈥�.
Ah, except that鈥檚 not right, oncologist Steve Joffe wrote on , because this figure refers to the total lifetime risk of cancer associated with having these genes, not the increase over baseline.
Do consumers need experts to interpret genetic risk reports? From the evidence, CEOs certainly seem to.
Mice squad
POLICE officers in Argentina have blamed hungry mice for the disappearance of half a tonne of cannabis from an impounded drugs warehouse. El Patag脫nico reports that the missing drugs were part of a 6-tonne haul stored in a secure compound in Pilar, near Buenos Aires.
Four indicted officers offered the same defence in court: that mice had eaten their way through the missing drugs, a claim rubbished by experts from the University of Buenos Aires.
Other members of the animal kingdom are not so straight-edged (25 June, 2009). Bears, shrews and many more besides have been spotted getting drunk on fermented fruit, while mysterious crop circles that appeared in Tasmania were revealed to be the work of opium-addled wallabies.
Load of guff
TOM HEYDEMAN was among several of you who were 鈥渕ost surprised to see your artist鈥檚 impression of a snake farting through its tail rather than its anus (14 April). Might a dog ever be similarly caricatured, I wonder?鈥�. We are, inevitably, blaming this particular oversight on a brain fart.
Bottled bottlenose
READING about 鈥渟ound-infused water鈥� in Feedback (17 March), Jakob Tougaard writes: 鈥淚 recall a good colleague of mine, who works in a marine park. He once told me about his backup plan, in case he would ever be in serious need of money.鈥�
This, he writes, involved collecting some tap water in small, neat bottles and briefly lowering them into the dolphin pool, enticing the dolphins to investigate the bottles with their sonar. These bottles could then be sold as 鈥渄olphin-ensonified water鈥�, at a suitably eye-watering markup of course.
鈥淭he name itself would guarantee the sell,鈥� says Jakob, 鈥渁s anything involving dolphins will sell in those circles.鈥� That whistle and click you here is the sound of credit cards zipping through Feedback鈥檚 sales till. Quick, somebody get us on the phone to the folks at Goop, we have a business proposition.
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