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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
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It鈥檚 a gas
Feedback is feeling bold, so here is a prediction: the research we are about to describe is going to win an Ig Nobel award within the next decade. The entire project feels tailor-made for the Igs. It is an effort to objectively measure human flatulence using biosensors, or 鈥淪mart Underwear鈥�.
We learned of this from a from the University of Maryland, flagged to us by physics reporter Karmela Padavic-Callaghan with the phrase: 鈥淪urely, Feedback can do something with this.鈥�
The essential problem is that we do not know the normal range for flatulence, unlike other key biomarkers like blood glucose. Most studies have relied on self-report, which doesn鈥檛 really work because people often don鈥檛 remember all their farts and are poor judges of how big each was. Plus there is 鈥渢he impossibility of logging gas while asleep鈥�: anyone who has shared a bed with anyone else knows that everyone farts in their sleep.
Hence the Smart Underwear developed by Brantley Hall and colleagues. The press release calls it 鈥渁 tiny wearable device that snaps discreetly onto any underwear and uses electrochemical sensors to track intestinal gas production around the clock鈥�. Wondering what constituted 鈥渢iny鈥� in this context, Feedback checked , and it turns out the sensor is 26 脳 29 脳 9 millimetres 鈥� which we concede is pretty small, but participants in the experiment might like to avoid skinny jeans.
Based on the first round of studies, 鈥渉ealthy adults produced flatus an average of 32 times per day鈥�, which is about twice as often as previously thought. People vary a lot, though: daily totals ranged between four and 59 farts.
As the Smart Underwear is rolled out more widely, the data it gathers will be fed into a larger project, the Human Flatus Atlas. This has a website (flatus.info) where one can sign up to have one鈥檚 farts tracked. Participants are enticed with the prospect of discovering if they are a Hydrogen Hyperproducer, a Zen Digester who barely farts even on a diet of baked beans, or in between.
Feedback wonders how resilient the sensors are against substantial farts. We recently learned of a gentleman who visited a French hospital after inserting from the first world war into his bottom, forcing staff to operate with assistance from a bomb disposal squad. We assume anything emanating from that quarter might have been too much for the Smart Underwear.
Meanwhile, the lead researchers have founded to exploit the tech. Its website is minimal, just an animation of some gas, a slogan (鈥淢easure. Master. Thrive.鈥�) and a promise: 鈥淭he future of gut health is coming soon鈥�. Feedback suspects the imminent arrival of an app with a monthly subscription.
Ghost in the machine
As AI companies introduce their tech into every aspect of our lives, we need help to understand it. Since most of us don鈥檛 really get AI, and aren鈥檛 going to without a crash course in pretty advanced maths, we turn to metaphors and analogies.
Feedback has been made aware of some literary devices that may help readers to get their heads around the AI phenomenon.
First, someone who goes by on Bluesky suggested the phrase as a guide to whether you are using AI sensibly. She says that if you can substitute 鈥渉ungry ghost trapped in a jar鈥� for 鈥淎I鈥� in your description of what you are doing, and it still kind of makes sense, you are probably using AI in a plausible way.
鈥淭ake 鈥業 have a bunch of hungry ghosts in jars, they mainly write SQL queries for me鈥�. Sure. Reasonable use case,鈥� writes hikikomorphism. 鈥溾�楳y girlfriend is a hungry ghost I trapped in a jar鈥�? No. Deranged.鈥�
Second, we now find ourselves confronted with endless AI-written content that we didn鈥檛 ask for: fake romance novels, AI summaries of search queries, AI summaries of meetings, just AI everything. We need a way to sum up our reaction to these texts.
Well, one of the most popular abbreviations of the internet era is 鈥渢l;dr鈥�, which stands for 鈥渢oo long, didn鈥檛 read鈥�. Hence , the meaning of which should be clear from context.
Finally, Feedback has been inundated by anecdotes of people using AI to do important tasks, only for it to foul up in spectacular ways. Perhaps you have seen the one where the venture capitalist asks an AI tool on his wife鈥檚 computer, only for it to say 鈥渙oops鈥� because it had deleted 15 years鈥� worth of photos (he later got them back).
Or the one where .
With these stories in mind, we are going to give the last word to writer Nick Pettigrew. He : 鈥淚鈥檓 convinced AI is our generation鈥檚 radium 鈥� a discovery with genuinely useful applications in specific, controlled circumstances that we stupidly put in everything from kid鈥檚 toys to toothpaste until we realised the harm far too late where future generations will ask if we were out of our minds.鈥�
Feedback had more to say about this, but our AI deleted it 鈥� a phrase that is sure to become the new 鈥渢he dog ate my homework鈥�.
Cue bits
Somehow, Feedback has gone all these years without learning of the existence of quantum information theorist .
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.
