Find the emperor鈥檚 heart
Holy Roman Emperor Otto the Great certainly wasn鈥檛, in the purest medical sense, heartless. But now he is. The search is on to find his missing heart, though it isn鈥檛 abundantly clear who could lay legal claim to it. It isn鈥檛 even clear whether the heart still exists.
But maybe it does. And if Emperor Otto鈥檚 ticker is findable, the folks at the Monastery and Imperial Palace Museum of Memleben, Germany, want you to help them get their hands on it. Behold their .
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鈥淓mperor Otto the Great died in the Imperial Palace 1050 years ago. His burial took place in Magdeburg, but his heart is said to still rest in Memleben. The Memleben monastery takes its visitors on an exciting deep search for the heart of the emperor.鈥�
The Otto heart hunt is a reminder that some body parts do go wandering and that their journeys can be a way of bringing peoples 鈥� in whole, as well as in segments 鈥� together. Some years ago, historian Andrew Lipman mused on the humanity of this in a paper about the conflict between English colonists and the Algonquian-speaking Pequot people in North America, .
鈥淎lgonquian [Native Americans] often exchanged wartime trophies to affirm alliances, whereas the English decapitated enemies and displayed their heads to establish dominance,鈥� he wrote. 鈥淏ecause body parts were symbols of political relationships in both cultures, these acts of giving were a way for the two peoples to express and mediate their different notions of authority.鈥�
So one sees, in the long run, the potential importance for world peace of finding Emperor Otto鈥檚 missing heart.
Good vibrations
A headline at the website Everyday Health brings vibrant hope for people who feel stuck. It reads: . Lieven Scheire kindly brought this development to Feedback鈥檚 attention.
Below the headline come these details: 鈥淎s of this week, doctors can prescribe Vibrant, a first-of-its-kind alternative to conventional laxatives. The patient swallows the capsule, and it makes its way to the colon, where it vibrates to stimulate natural movement in the gut.鈥�
Feedback envisions a panel of eminent physicians sitting together on a stage being informed of this development. Each of them reacts by saying not a word. The audience gets to savour the facial expressions of the doctors as they digest this news, their stiff, professional poker-facedness slowly loosening into barely-yet-professionally restrained merriment.
Trivial superpowers
Some trivially superior people answered Feedback鈥檚 call to help us catalogue trivial superpowers (25 March). A trivial superpower is a person鈥檚 ability to reliably do some particular task 鈥� a task that seems mundane to them, but that most people find impossible to do except once in a while by sheer luck. Here are three super reports.
Paul Clapham says: 鈥淚 can solve anagrams in cryptic crosswords using subconscious thought. I first noticed this several years ago. A clue suggested the answer was an English author and that it was an anagram of a certain fourteen letters鈥� And then a voice in the back of my head said 鈥楻udyard Kipling鈥�. And so it was. I notice that ability regularly now, so I don鈥檛 bother to work so hard on anagrams so much.鈥�
John Miller, who is a nurse, says: 鈥淚 have the ability to do perfect bladder scans. A bladder scan is done with a dedicated ultrasound device. For a number of reasons the actual scan is often not optimal 鈥� not central on the bladder, too much pressure on the scanner, changing the shape of the bladder or having the scanner at the wrong angle. Unless it鈥檚 me scanning your bladder. I will get the scanner in exactly the right place without probing, I just 鈥榢now鈥� the best spot on a person. I remember a community nurse trying to scan my partner鈥檚 bladder with little success. 鈥楲et John do it.鈥� Perfect result.鈥�
And Kirsty Greenfield, who is a doctor, says: 鈥淚 magically know what time it is. I wear no watch, and can be several hours away from a timekeeping device and after recalling the last time I knew the time and what has happened since, I almost invariably can guess the time correct to within 5 minutes. This could be extremely useful but sadly is not, as my superpower becomes unreliable at times of heightened emotion.鈥�
Congratulations to each of these gifted individuals for 鈥� at least by their accounts 鈥� using their trivial powers for good or mundanity, rather than evil.
I see fields of green
The trivially superpowerful Kirsty Greenfield also says, about an unrelated data-gathering enterprise: 鈥淚 wonder whether any of your other readers have experienced a rather selfish appropriation of nominative determinism of which I believe I have an example? My sister and I, having been born with a shared and unremarkable maiden name, but a deep love of the countryside, both went so far as to marry men with environmentally pleasing surnames. Happily we now have huge amounts of daily contact with our very own small broods of Woods and Greenfields whom we regularly transport around with us.鈥�
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