Octopus鈥檚 garden
FEEDBACK is buzzing at the startling news that octopuses fed MDMA go all huggy (29 September, p 18). Cephalopods can change skin patterns, maybe to communicate (6 October, p 39). We wondered what might signal 鈥渋t鈥檚 not that stuff they put in the water, I really, really love you鈥�, but then realised that it may be impossible to differentiate that message from 鈥渓et鈥檚 dance to dawn鈥�.
It inspired us, though, to begin a search for hug-related research. We immediately found 鈥溾��, in the August edition of IEEE Spectrum and about a talk by Alexis Block and Katherine Kuchenbecker of the haptic intelligence department at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart, Germany, on 鈥溾��.
鈥淎ndrew Shearman saw the rolling banner on Sky News say Donna Strickland is the first woman for 55 years to win the 鈥淣obel Peace Prize for Physics鈥�. As opposed to the other physics prize?鈥�
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They found that people generally welcomed the soft and warm hugs from their HuggyBot. But when it persisted for 5 seconds after they attempted to disengage, this caused 鈥渓ow-key panic鈥�. Not dissimilar to some dance-floor experiences, then. We鈥檇 welcome more examples of scientists embracing the study of embracing.
Chains got a hold
THE press releases our colleagues receive are sometimes weird and wonderful. Presently prominent are those promising exciting applications of blockchain technology, best known for enabling bitcoin 鈥� despite its soaring energy consumption (4 November 2017, p 8). A recent example promises the 鈥渋nspiring story of two entrepreneurs who teamed up on the soccerfield back in 1990鈥�.
So far, so heart-warming. This one gets better. They promise 鈥渢o leverage blockchain technology to drive real business decisions鈥�. How? With a 鈥済round-breaking Visual Workflow Designer that gives anyone the ability to craft powerful Blockchain-based solutions with no coding skills鈥�. The goes on: 鈥済enerated code is deployed, maintained and updated as blockchain specific smart contracts鈥�.
So they have a blockchain-based solution to the problem of developing blockchain-based solutions. Suggestions for third-order solution solutions will be routed by our resident neural-network wetware filter to the cylindrical file under the desk.
Maxwell鈥檚 silver harmoniser
MORE old-fashioned pseudoscience continues, meanwhile, unabated. Galen Ives recently came across a full-page advert on the back of a magazine for 鈥淨uantogram phone and wifi harmonisers鈥�. These are, apparently, designed to protect us from the horrors of 鈥渆lectronic smogs and EMFs鈥�.
As a Feedback reader, Galen is duty-bound to research his initial scepticism. A quick look at revealed a good deal of waffle about quantum mechanics, with the priceless observation that 鈥渟ome Quantum Physicists are having great difficulty explaining Quantum Mechanics as the research is now going into parallel dimensions, multiple states, and other findings with which most people struggle to comprehend鈥�.
Taking his responsibilities seriously, Galen emailed the purveyors of this waffle to ask how their Quantogram harmoniser actually works. They replied quickly, telling him: 鈥淚nside the self-adhesive Quantogram Phone Harmoniser is specific calculated mathematical equations that are embedded to effect change and provide strength and protection for the user.鈥� Are the equations then written on parchment as a kind of talisman?
Science in the home
ANOTHER duty of Feedback readers is to spot non-obvious and possibly genuinely important connections. We reported on one of science鈥檚 unsung heroes, James Croll, the janitor who first linked ice ages to variations in Earth鈥檚 orbit (25 August, p 34). John Reid recalled that Croll did in fact get some credit, notably in Robert Ball鈥檚 1890 book The Cause of an Ice Age (Letters, 29 September).
Penelope Stanford zoomed in on Reid鈥檚 observation that his copy of the book was presented as an English prize in a girls鈥� school. 鈥淪omewhere,鈥� she writes, 鈥減robably at the end of the 19th century, a scientific work was presented as the prize鈥� to a girl. I wonder about the teacher, presumably a woman, and the girl: which one made the choice, and what happened to the prizewinner afterwards?鈥� We eagerly await the next instalment.
Beetle-black bloc
WE REPORTED the theft of creepy-crawlies valued at $40,000, including scorpions, millipedes and a six-eyed sand spider, from the (15 September). Alan Wills writes to observe that none of these arthropods that we cited as examples is actually an insect. 鈥淣o wonder the ex-employees who supposedly perpetrated the theft were disgruntled,鈥� he posits. 鈥淒oubtless they know their taxonomy better than the marketing people who dreamed up the name of the place, and simply sought to adjust the exhibition so that it actually contains what it says on the label.鈥�
The movement for taxonomic exactitude has until now expressed its correct fury in letters to our editor. The suggestion that it has acquired a direct-action wing is disturbing.
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