Spacey superpowers
Some people have a superior knowledge, and maybe control, of space and direction. That is evident in the harvest from Feedback鈥檚 call to identify trivial superpowers 鈥� a person鈥檚 ability to reliably do some particular task that seems mundane to them, but that most people find impossible to do except once in a while by sheer luck. Also evident, in the views expressed by some harvesters, is that other people have an inferior knowledge.
Martin Pettinger says: 鈥淚 almost always can sense which direction is north (or east/west/south) without looking at a map or the sun. My children can also do it, but my second wife and her family, and apparently others, cannot.鈥�
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Jan Horton says: 鈥淚 have always been aware of where I was in relation to compass headings. On an ocean liner en route from Australia to New Zealand, I woke distressed in our inside cabin because we were going the 鈥榳rong way鈥�. My husband was not aware of a problem, but when we went on deck it was to find we had indeed turned back 鈥� in search of a missing crew member 鈥� and were on a reciprocal course.鈥�
Timely superpowers
Other people have a superior knowledge of time. These time-related abilities may be the most beneficial of trivial superpowers.
Bonnie Packert says: 鈥淚 have no idea whether this is common. I shared this 鈥榯alent鈥� with my father but have not heard from others who could do the same. When I set an alarm to wake up, I usually awaken just before it goes off, within a minute or two of the set time, maybe as much as five minutes early. It is nice not to have to listen to the blaring and to leave my partner sleeping peacefully.鈥�
George Greider says: 鈥淚 have a strangely unerring sense of time. I can wake up at whatever time I choose to the minute. Either in the morning or from a nap. When I put something in a microwave or other appliance with a timer, I am walking towards it when it鈥檚 done regardless of the time setting.鈥�
Earle McNeil says: 鈥淚 have never had to use an alarm clock to wake up at any required time in the morning. In fact, when I don鈥檛 have my hearing aids in I could not hear it anyway.鈥�
Life in triplicate
While perusing the latest crop of research news about estimating mesocarnivore abundance on commercial farmland using distance sampling with camera traps, Feedback happened across a , UK, who happened across some .
Caracal caracal caracal is, it is perhaps needless to state, one of several species that have been graced with a triple tautonym for their formal scientific name.
A tautonym is a name 鈥� for some particular kind of animal, plant, alga, fungus or whatever 鈥� that has the same word for both genus and species. A triple tautonym has that same word repeated a third time for the subspecies.
Caracal caracal caracal brought to mind Bison bison bison. Bison bison bison triggered memories of Bufo bufo bufo. Bufo bufo bufo led, inevitably, to recollections of Bubo bubo bubo. The floodgates thus opened, in poured many old friends. Among them: Naja naja naja, Pica pica pica, Redunca redunca redunca, Natrix natrix natrix, Gallus gallus gallus, Giraffa giraffa giraffa and good old Gorilla gorilla gorilla.
Three-parters and two-parters sometimes dwell near each other in the wild, as one sees in a in Biology Bulletin about the presence of Caracal caracal caracal and Lynx lynx in Turkey.
Tautonymicity aside, when repetitive-name dropping, it is mite-y polite to mention and , which are, each of them, as near as mites get to being tautonymic.
Man sniffs dog
A twist on the old joke about 鈥渕an bites dog鈥� is playing out in homes where well-groomed dogs live together with (presumably) well-groomed people. 鈥淒og Cosmetics: Another unexpected source of allergen exposure鈥� reads the headline of a in the journal Contact Dermatitis.
Authors Livia Francine Soriano, Shannon Kimberly Soriano and Deirdre Buckley surveyed 鈥渁ll 163 dog cosmetic products sold face-to-face in five high street pet stores in Southampton, UK鈥�, paying special attention to the lists of ingredients. The majority of the listed cosmetics include stuffs explicitly called 鈥減arfum鈥�, 鈥減erfume鈥�, 鈥渇ragrance鈥� or 鈥渆au de toilette鈥�. The report鈥檚 list of what is listed includes citrus grandis extract, linalool, limonene, the lyrically named methylchloroisothiazolinone/methylisothiazolinone, alongside other delights. A few products, sold without info about their component substances, yielded only a whiff of mystery.
Soriano, Soriano and Buckley say the UK and the EU have no requirement for ingredient labelling for pet cosmetics. The trio withhold all lurid detail about the dangers, opting instead to state a plain warning: 鈥淒og cosmetics are poorly labelled, contain chemicals banned in human cosmetics, and gloves should be worn to handle them.鈥�
The authors also withhold any discussion of an opposite set of problems: the hazards to allergen-sensitive dogs, who daily breathe the intimate nearness of perfumed people.
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