That鈥檚 potty
HAVE you ever thought about what effects our words have on plants? Probably not, but that was the question posed to students at the international school GEMS Wellington Academy in Dubai. To answer it, they were presented with two Yucca plants, one to lavish with praise, and one to heap scorn on. To facilitate the experiment, recorded voices charmed and chided the two pot plants as well.
After a month, 鈥渢he results spoke for themselves鈥�, as the maligned plant wilted into a sad state. This was a 鈥渓ive experiment to highlight the negative effects of verbal bullying鈥�, according to IKEA, which installed the exhibition to mark Anti-Bullying Day. By happy coincidence, the resulting ed more than 300,000 times on YouTube 鈥� provided a generous helping of feel-good corporate advertising for the furniture giant.
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The brainchild of marketing firm Ogilvy, we are told that the experiment is 鈥渂ased on various theories in plant neurobiology and other scientific studies鈥�. It鈥檚 news to Feedback that plants have a nervous system capable of understanding human speech and feeling emotion. No less incredible is that the experimenters knew the two Yucca plants would be fluent in English.
鈥淥liver Copeley-Williams visited Gov.uk to check his retirement age. 鈥淚 was surprised to see the birthdate menu scroll down to 1896. I think I鈥檇 know I was past retirement age at 122!鈥濃��
The exhibition was presumably installed amid howls of anguish from the school鈥檚 science teachers, who must now weed out these nonsensical ideas from the fertile minds of their students. Feedback offered Wellington Academy a chance to comment, but were told 鈥渨e would like to pass on this opportunity鈥�. If only the person responsible for this exhibit had done the same.
Heaven knows we鈥檙e miserable now
DON鈥橳 worry, be happy. That鈥檚 the advice to aspiring pop stars from research into music trends over the past 30 years. Myra Interiano and her colleagues crunched the numbers on more than 500,000 songs released in the UK between 1985 and 2015, looking at characteristics like 鈥渂rightness鈥�, danceability and genre.
Writing in the journal Royal Society Open Science, they conclude that the charts are getting grumpier, with positive emotions in songs dwindling over the decades. This, they say, is 鈥渋n tune with the overall increase in tendencies towards loneliness, social isolation and psychopathology鈥�.
But the UK鈥檚 musical future isn鈥檛 all doom and gloom. Flying in the face of the overall downward trend, the top of the charts belonged to happy songs, particularly danceable ones with female lead vocals and a focus on partying. Gloomy pop stars should bear Jess Glynne鈥檚 number one hit in mind: don鈥檛 be so hard on yourself.
Infinity stones
STUART ROTH brings to our attention the discovery of sea-floor deposits of rare earth elements near the remote Japanese island of Minamitori, revealed in the journal . The deposits are so large that researchers say they are 鈥渟emi-infinite鈥�.
鈥淭his report,鈥� he says, 鈥済oes on to estimate how long the deposits of yttrium, europium, terbium and dysprosium would last.鈥� The maximum value is 780 years, meaning infinity is 1560 years. 鈥淪eems a bit low,鈥� says Stuart, 鈥渂ut at least we know.鈥�
Arms down
IN LOCAL news, Fred Nind reported on a cafe in the village of Killin named Killin鈥� Time (19 August 2017). Stuart Coutts says: 鈥淪ome businesses in Craven Arms, Shropshire, are protected by Craven Security.鈥� He says personally, he would prefer guards with a bit more bravado.
Bone of contention
AFTER Feedback discussed Francis Crick鈥檚 belief that men were missing a rib (5 May) 鈥� only put right during his undergraduate days at University College London 鈥� Guy Cox offers an anatomical correction.
鈥淭he story of Eve鈥檚 creation is even more amusing than you realise,鈥� he writes. 鈥淪omewhere along the line a translator was a bit too squeamish to mention the actual bone involved and turned it into a rib. It was the baculum, or penis bone, found in most mammals but not humans.鈥�
MORE misconceptions: 鈥淚 am intrigued by John Roberts鈥檚 childhood belief that his throat contained different pipes for different types of food,鈥� says Andrew Lane (5 May). 鈥淲hen he was small, my son was convinced that he had several stomachs, each of which processed different types of food. This, he explained, was why he could say he鈥檇 had enough of his main course, but still had room left for dessert.鈥�
Free range
IN ANOTHER fit of childhood wisdom, Raffi Katz describes learning that when women menstruate, they lose eggs. 鈥淚 knew what eggs were. Everyone knows what eggs are.鈥� It was only 50 years later Raffi鈥檚 wife pointed out that 鈥渃ontrary to my assumption, these eggs don鈥檛 have shells鈥�.
Silent but deadly
鈥淔EEDBACK tells us of unpleasant smells emanating from Uranus, but states that the lack of warmth and the other gases would get us first,鈥� writes Kevin Lee (11 May).
鈥淪trangely, the smell of hydrogen sulphide is only detected at relatively low levels, and at higher levels it paralyses our sense of smell, and thus appears to go away.鈥�
It鈥檚 this vanishing smell, he says, 鈥渨hich tells us it is now time to leave the drain, the sullage tank, or even the planet, before our stay becomes permanent.鈥�
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