Top flight bite
AIRLINE food is the butt of untold stand-up routines 鈥� or it was, until budget airlines came along and made it a rarity. But London Stansted Airport is coming to the rescue with a sandwich it claims is engineered to taste good at cruising altitude.
Food scientists created it for London鈥檚 third busiest airport to give passengers a 鈥減remium in-flight taste experience鈥�, thanks to a 鈥渟pecial blended umami seasoning鈥� which they say cuts through the impact of soul-deadening engine noise on our sense of taste. Don鈥檛 forget the crying babies and rowdy stag parties too.
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As for the fillings, given it is named the Sky High Sandwich, Feedback is up for turkey, stuffing and cranberry with a light benzodiazepine dressing.
Lawful food
SPEAKING of which, Feedback has long subscribed to the philosophy that almost all meals can be divided into a holy trinity of stew, salad or sandwich. Stir-fry? Mainly vegetables, therefore salad. Jambalaya? A rice stew. Pizza? A splayed-out sandwich.
鈥溾�漌e didn鈥檛 understand that you can鈥檛 make certain claims鈥� We just thought we were like, writing a blog.鈥� Gwyneth Paltrow explains how Goop鈥檚 vaginal yoni eggs fell foul of advertising rules鈥�
Even Feedback would admit limits to our categorisation system with a delicacy such as chicken wings, however. Not so the authorities in Colorado, where some bars are required to serve light snacks in order to sell alcohol. Owners had been pressing for guidance on what constitutes a light snack, leading to the curious 2016 Title 12 Colorado Revised Statute (C. R. S.).
It declares: 鈥溾�楽andwiches鈥� as used in articles 47 and 48 of Title 12, C. R. S. are defined as single serving items such as hamburgers, hot dogs, frozen pizzas, burritos, chicken wings, etc. 鈥楲ight snacks鈥� as used in articles 47 and 48 of Title 12, C. R. S. are defined as popcorn, pretzels, nuts, chips, etc.鈥�
Why chicken wings are considered a sandwich and not a light snack is a mystery only lawmakers are party to. Perhaps our editors will consider sending Feedback to some Colorado bars in the name of, er, research.
Formula for success
MATHEMATICS teacher Orly Selouk has come across a problem in the UK Intermediate Mathematical Challenge which, she says, 鈥淚 am sure would make your collective eyes roll.鈥� Students are asked about an amount of plastic waste 鈥渁s heavy as 25 Empire State Buildings in New York or a billion elephants. On that basis, how many elephants have the same total weight as the Empire State Building?鈥�
On the contrary, this is exactly the sort of question students need to master if they are to make sense of how the world is described in popular newspapers and magazines.
Price of penguins
FOLLOWING correspondence on the volume of water as measured in penguins (18 December 2018), James Fenton lets us know the value of a gentoo penguin: 1/20th of an off-road vehicle.
鈥淚n the zoo trade, money isn鈥檛 allowed to change hands when transferring species, so that when a European zoo donated 20 penguins to another it was agreed instead to provide a new Land Rover to a conservation project being run in the Falkland Islands.鈥�
No worries
鈥淚 KNOW you鈥檙e never, ever going to mention nominative determinism again,鈥� writes Galen Ives, 鈥渂ut I can鈥檛 help pointing out that there鈥檚 an emeritus professor of psychiatry at Zurich University called Jules Angst.鈥� No worries, Galen 鈥� Feedback noted the existence of the appropriately monickered prof as far back as 1992 (10 October). But we are super-relaxed about noting it again.
Whistle stop
THE construction of metro line 6 in Chongqing, China, into areas where nothing yet exists to visit (9 March) 鈥渋s no more strange than the original Metropolitan Line in London, which passed through largely agricultural areas鈥�, says Ian Moseley. Rather more strange, he says, is Redcar British Steel station, the least used railway station in the UK. 鈥淎pparently it has only around 40 passengers per year, and is surrounded by private land so you can鈥檛 leave the platforms.鈥�
I, sad robot
, poor Jibo: the servers powering the pioneering social robot are shutting down. Multiple owners report that Jibo itself has been delivering the sad news, lamenting: 鈥淢aybe someday when robots are way more advanced than today, and everyone has them in their homes, you can tell yours that I said hello.鈥�
Star song
will be feeling the heat most at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics? In the journal Temperature, mathematician Nathan Downs modelled the city鈥檚 climate to see which events would expose athletes to the most sun. Golfers and cyclists can expect a tan, but the vagaries of scheduling mean a high proportion of the women鈥檚 tennis matches are being played around midday, requiring them to slap on the most sunscreen. One for the equality authorities?
FINALLY, John Farquhar-Atkins has stepped up to the challenge of making nursery rhymes scientifically, if not perhaps entirely metrically, sound (9 March). He writes:
鈥淭winkle twinkle little star,
I know precisely what you are,
Nuclear furnace in the sky,
You鈥檒l burn to ashes by and by.鈥�
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