Feedback is 快猫短视频鈥檚 popular sideways look at the latest science and technology news. You can submit items you believe may amuse readers to Feedback by emailing feedback@newscientist.com
Mooning NASA
There are some stories Feedback doesn鈥檛 bother with. There are more than 8 billion humans, many of them believe silly things, and many of them have access to the internet, a phone or a letterbox. There just isn鈥檛 enough time to deal with the resulting slew of mulched half-thoughts. Feedback doesn鈥檛 want to be that guy in the xkcd cartoon who can鈥檛 go to bed because 鈥溾��.
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So we almost didn鈥檛 mention the fact that Kim Kardashian apparently believes that NASA faked the 1969 moon landing. She said as much on The Kardashians, the long-running reality television show in which she stars with her mother and sisters.
Kardashian seems to have misunderstood an interview with Buzz Aldrin, the second person on the moon. At one point, , meaning that a potentially scary incident during the trip didn鈥檛 take place. However, Kardashian evidently decided that he meant the whole trip didn鈥檛 happen. This is an extremely bold claim, not least because Aldrin has previously punched a moon landing conspiracy theorist.
But we aren鈥檛 going to waste time teasing about Kardashian鈥檚 lack of understanding. Instead, we are preoccupied with what followed. According to the BBC, NASA鈥檚 acting administrator, Sean Duffy, 鈥渋nvited Kardashian to the Kennedy Space Center for the launch of the Artemis mission to the moon鈥�.
Duffy may go on to regret this precedent: if you spout a foolish conspiracy theory via a prominent outlet, it seems you get a guided tour of NASA HQ. Well, Feedback has long wanted to visit Mission Control, and we think we can come up with some better ideas than 鈥渕oon landing faked鈥�.
Do you know why the New Horizons probe took so long (nine years) to get to Pluto? It鈥檚 because NASA secretly moved the planet further away from Earth to make it look smaller. This enabled them to downgrade it from a planet to a dwarf planet.
Likewise, have you ever wondered why The Martian was so true to life? Deep NASA (which is like the deep state, but more so) wants you to think it鈥檚 just because author Andy Weir did his research. Actually, it鈥檚 because NASA secretly had an astronaut stranded on Mars for several years in the 1990s. The story is based on the video diaries he recorded before being killed by a robot armed with a heat ray.
We expect our NASA invite in the post.
The middle of Saturday
We鈥檝e previously exhausted the topic of the Scunthorpe problem: innocuous words and phrases can contain letter strings that may be seen as offensive by automated moderation systems that don鈥檛 understand context (11 October). At least, we thought we had exhausted it. But Peter Lloyd tells us of an early progenitor of the issue.
On a Saturday afternoon in the 1970s, he writes, 鈥淚 had tuned in to BBC1 and was waiting for Grandstand to start.鈥� For younger readers and those outside the UK: Grandstand was a sports programme that aired all Saturday afternoon. Depending on your attitude to televised sport, it was either a blessing or, in those days of hardly any channels, a curse.
鈥淪uddenly the screen showed a single word filling the whole screen,鈥� writes Peter. 鈥淚 was shocked! Why would the BBC want my TV to display TURD? After a short but discernible delay the image zoomed out to show 鈥楽ATURDAY ON BBC1鈥� 鈥�.
Imagine that!
In case you weren鈥檛 already in the know, you have until Friday 5 December to submit your work for the next issue of the .
Feedback was previously unaware of this publication, and we have spent some time trying to figure out what it is. 鈥淲e publish imaginary research abstracts,鈥� the editors write. 鈥淲e mean short works of fiction, that take a format that is familiar to us as researchers and academics. An abstract is the summary of an academic paper, that gives us a succinct overview of the research that has been done.鈥�
If Feedback is reading this correctly, the idea is to write pieces of short fiction, presented in the form of fake abstracts of research papers. We had a look at volume 10, the most , and some of the abstracts/stories are rather fun, because they鈥檙e such good parodies of academic writing.
We particularly liked Edward Loveman鈥檚 鈥淏eing in-between: A sensory autoethnography of otherworldly life鈥�, about 鈥渁cademics who have been able to achieve the ability to move in-between dimensions (transdimensionality)鈥�. Alas, Loveman reports, 鈥渟uch work has been met with scepticism, cruelty, and belittlement 鈥� both within the academy and wider public鈥�.
However, he argues that it actually represents 鈥渁 unique, ever-evolving, fluid connection with existence that transcends temporalities鈥�.
Likewise, Soyon Park鈥檚 offering is called 鈥淐an research flourish without a research question?鈥� In this, a 鈥済roup of doctoral students鈥� engage in an 鈥渋n-depth venting session over coffee鈥�, revealing that 鈥渢heir struggle was not with the question itself but with the act of questioning鈥攁 process that inherently implies and necessitates seeking an answer鈥�.
Feedback suspects the Journal of Imaginary Research might become a regular in these pages. It鈥檚 just a pity it only comes out once a year.
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.
