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Meat jerky
Rifling through our extensive piling system, we come across the tumescent category 鈥渜uestions we wish we鈥檇 never asked鈥�. We recently mentioned a researcher whose duty it was to paint eyes on the buttocks of cows to deter predators (5 September). Unwisely, we solicited similar stories of unglamorous tasks performed in the service of science. You have not failed us.
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A common theme seems to run through the correspondence. Graeme Coles writes from New Zealand of three months inducing cows to urinate by 鈥渕oderately vigorous sub-vulval massage鈥�. He doesn鈥檛 specify why, yet 鈥渢he splashes when success was achieved were bad enough, but when the cow behind you decided to defecate, the glamour quotient declined dramatically鈥�, he writes. Rosalinda Hardman of Portsmouth, UK, paints an only slightly more refined picture of unintended public horror and revulsion as she checked the intimate areas of an unnamed museum鈥檚 bronze statuary for corrosion during opening hours.
Pride of place, however, goes to Frank Smith and Andrew Taubman, both of Australia, in differing ways. They write in independently, in eye-watering detail, of services rendered down under in the field of porcine fertility studies. We shall spare readers all the details, but feel ourselves very much the wiser, if also in some way very much older, for having read them in their full extension.
We are left thinking that you have all made an eloquent case for the robots to take over, as discussed on 鈥�Covid-19鈥檚 AI surge: Will robots take over in a socially distanced world?鈥�. More bad jobs, if we can stomach them, next week.
Facepalm
If nothing else, the coronavirus crisis has had makers of sanitising gels rubbing their hands.
We observe this as we examine our fingers more closely than normal for coded warnings. The reason is an envelope shoved under Feedback鈥檚 door by an anonymous well-wisher, or possibly trouble-maker. Inside is a paper from journal Early Human Development entitled 鈥淯nderstanding COVID-19: A hypothesis regarding digit ratio (2D:4D), ACE 1/D polymorphism, oxygen metabolism and national case fatality rates鈥�.
Ah, digit ratios. The central idea is one propounded with enthusiasm over the decades by a co-author of the paper, John T. Manning, and to which we feel duty-bound to prepend the adjective 鈥渃ontroversial鈥�.
It says the ratio between the lengths of a person鈥檚 index and ring fingers is determined by prenatal exposure to various sex hormones, and thereby indicates everything from personality to susceptibility to heart disease to sexual orientation. That last one is all the more controversial .
To this list, we must now putatively add likelihood to die from covid-19, if you are a man. We had previously ascribed the UK鈥檚 scandalously high covid-19 death rate to what the old military 7 Ps adage says proper planning and preparation prevents.
But we now see that the average UK male right index finger is 98.5 per cent the length of the average UK male right ring finger. Contrast this with Germany, with an average male digit ratio of just 98.3 per cent 鈥� and deaths per 100 confirmed covid-19 cases less than a third of the UK鈥檚 back on , and it becomes easy to put your finger on what is going on.
Before we don our tin-foil face mask and head for the hills, however, we are arrested by small details of the study. Why, for instance, did Belgium鈥檚 apparently stubby index fingers 鈥� mirroring in form, we can only presume, that nation鈥檚 delicious frites 鈥� not save them from one of the world鈥檚 worst covid-19 case fatality rates?
Feedback is a great fan of correlation, especially in those statistically rare instances in which it indicates causation. Yet, even leaving aside the varying competence of countries鈥� responses to covid-19, and differences in testing regimes and reporting criteria, we humbly submit that anyone seeing any correlation between national covid-19 case fatality ratios and anything else whatsoever is possibly more than a little in hock to, how shall we say, wishful thinking.
Over-recycling
A public wildcard entry in the undesirable job stakes: police in Vietnam announce the confiscation of an estimated 345,000 used condoms from a gang that had been cleaning them and Criminal or with a deep desire to reduce the planet鈥檚 reliance on single-use plastics?
A colleague claims to remember a time when everyone had reusable prophylactics they washed and hung out t鈥檅ack. Feedback recalls something similar only with teabags on the line, but suggests that we have led a sheltered life.
Too hot to handle
Finally, some more public health advice: John Gibbs鈥檚 new thermos flask warns that it shouldn鈥檛 be used with hot liquids, because these 鈥渕ay cause burns or scald user鈥�. Feedback agrees that you can鈥檛 be too careful, but would welcome statistical analysis of how digit ratio influences the danger of serious injury.
Got a story for Feedback?
You can send stories to Feedback by email at feedback@newscientist.com. Please include your home address. This week鈥檚 and past Feedbacks can be seen on our website.