A sticky fix
快猫短视频 headlines tell a gripping, simple tale: (Wales Online). (Daily Mail). (International Business Times).
The Guardian a UK navy source as saying: 鈥淚t鈥檚 a disgrace. You can鈥檛 cut corners with nuclear. Standards are standards. Nuclear standards are never compromised.鈥� But of course you can, and they are.
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The British navy has a history of money-saving innovation. The was awarded to the Royal Navy for ordering its sailors to stop using live cannon shells, and to instead just shout: 鈥淏ang!鈥� Invitations to the navy to participate in the Ig Nobel ceremony got lost in a sea of naval bureaucracy. Nobel laureate Richard Roberts, who helped present the prizes that year, accepted temporary custody of the navy鈥檚 trophy. Roberts has still, these 23 years later, not managed to find a navy official who will officially take the prize on board.
A coffee a day
The word 鈥渃ould鈥� carries a lot of water (so to speak) that could be used to brew a lot of coffee (so to drink) in a US study called . The study enlivens the sometimes death-centric journal Food and Chemical Toxicology.
The authors begin by saying: 鈥淩ecommendations and guidance from scientific bodies do not provide clear messages about potential health risks or benefits of coffee consumption.鈥� They proceed to brew and serve a clear message. Attention focuses on the study鈥檚 impressive special ingredient: computed statistics called 鈥渄isability-adjusted life years [DALYs]鈥�.
Things do go on to get a little complicated, but the basic theme is almost transparent. In the US, 鈥淢ore than 3.5 million DALYs, or approximately 3.35% of estimated years of healthy life lost could be prevented by consuming one cup of coffee per day鈥�. The study adds that even more estimated years of healthy life lost could be not lost 鈥渋f consumers all drank 3 cups of coffee per day鈥�.
The paper鈥檚 final paragraph offers a caffeine-joltish fillip of joy for readers who are habituated to scouring mystery stories for exciting clues: 鈥淭he authors are all employed by ToxStrategies, a consulting firm鈥� ToxStrategies received consulting fees from the National Coffee Association鈥�.
Alternatively, people can benefit from making cups of coffee without drinking them. In 2006, Tokyo Denki University researchers asked six right-handed young men to use their left hand to make coffee. The resulting study is called . It reports that, by the ninth cup, most of the off-hand baristas had measurably improved their eye-hand coordination.
Wipe without whining
A in the journal Applied Acoustics includes an intellectual treat: a short history of humanity鈥檚 attempt to grasp and solve a small, annoying problem. The specific issue: when a windscreen-wiper changes direction, it makes a noise.
Xue Yang and colleagues at Shanghai University of Engineering Science report two kinds of good news. Firstly, they have made headway on the windscreen-wiper direction-reversal frictional-vibration problem: 鈥淚t is concluded that properly reducing the length of blade tip is an effective way to reduce vibrations of the system.鈥� More importantly, they see this as groundwork for future progress.
Yang鈥檚 team dutifully tells of previous efforts to overcome windscreen wiper harshness. In Japan, researchers tried to discern a general , while a South Korean effort investigated . A group in France established, as a theory, . At least one scientist .
Those investigations looked strictly at what happens as a blade traverses glass in a single direction. The noise problems that happen when a wiper blade changes direction have their own history of attempts and advancements 鈥� a history quietly growing as we watch and listen.
CSI: Gorham
Fiction overflows with police officers who use good scientific technique to solve mysteries and journalists who use clear, terse prose to inform the public. Carmen Nobel reminds Feedback that such people do exist. The Gorham Times, in Gorham, Maine, features 鈥渢he blotter鈥�, a summary of incidents as noted by local law enforcement. The 19 January edition tells an entire detective story in just 35 words:
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