Zimmerman, et al
AUTHORITIES in Sweden, perhaps feeling that 2016 hasn’t been strange enough already, have awarded this year’s Nobel Prize in Literature to Bob Dylan. But maybe we shouldn’t be so surprised.
Last year, a team at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden discovered more than 727 references to his music in the scientific literature. There is “The CRISPRs, they are a-changin’: how prokaryotes generate adaptive immunity” and “Blowin’ in the wind: both ‘negative’ and ‘positive’ feedback in an obscured high-z quasar”.
Advertisement
In fact, in 2014, five scientists at the Karolinska divulged their longstanding bet to see who could sneak the most Dylan references into their work.
However, Dylan isn’t the king of sci-lit references. In a new unpublished paper, Ger Rijkers at the University College Roosevelt in the Netherlands and his colleagues found 211 publications since 1990 citing Dylan in their titles, but no less than 589 papers referenced the Beatles, with titles such as “I get height with a little help from my friends: herd protection from sanitation on child growth in rural Ecuador”.
But which musical icon will future researchers draw inspiration from? Feedback awaits your discoveries of lyrics from more contemporary artists lurking in the scientific literature.
“Fred Nind sends word of Illumibowl, a gadget that will light up your toilet at night. He says “I rather like the fact that the device is described as ‘motion activated’.”“
Don’t even think about it
PREVIOUSLY, Feedback wondered why so many of those discussing Britain’s post-European Union fortunes at the Conservative party conference were preoccupied with food (15 October).
Now the national conversation has shifted to the threat Brexit poses to our supply of Marmite, the black, yeast-based spread whose sharply divisive flavour makes a fitting analogy for these post-referendum days.
Thankfully, our elected representatives are working hard to establish cohesion: one Conservative councillor has launched a campaign to make supporting the EU illegal. Christian Holliday is petitioning Parliament to amend the 1848 Treason Felony Act so those who “imagine, devise, promote, work, or encourage others, to support the UK becoming a member of the European Union” could be jailed for life.
If enacted, this change could mean that scientists hoping to secure their EU-funded grants would risk being plucked from their ivory towers and thrown into the Tower of London by Councillor Holliday’s beefeaters. But with our Marmite supply in jeopardy, don’t we need them now more than ever to create those sought after innovative jams?
Fortune teller
THE DIVINE Steve Morris sends us a truly exceptional case of nominative determinism involving a US businesswoman and “Democratic strategist” who offered her insights as a co-host of MSNBC’s afternoon news show The Cycle. Here’s looking at you, Krystal Ball.
Far out research
PEDRO SARAIVA chances upon news of a lesser-known hormone secreted by the pineal gland. tells us that this chemical is a “higher octave” version of the timekeeping hormone melatonin, and “modifies the borders of consciousness by temporarily reprogramming our brain circuitry in a unique way”. Such unbounded action might be explained by one of Metatonin’s main components: the powerful hallucinogen DMT.
The authors note that “higher intelligence and consciousness exists at the quantum-entangled time transcendent holographic infinitely intelligent universal macro-micro all-pervasive level. Humans exist on a limited mental/physical single-track time-space macro level”. Sadly, this potential avenue of research will remain unexplored by scientists seconded to produce innovative jams, unless they come up with a DMT-based breakfast spread.
On call clown
AN EPIDEMIC of scary clown sightings has been terrifying the public both here and abroad (15 October, p 5), leading the professional variety to complain that their craft is being vilified. Finally then, some news that may turn those grease-painted frowns upside down.
A colleague tells us that the latest issue of the Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health reports on “the effectiveness of pre-operative clown intervention on psychological distress”. After compiling eight studies, researchers found that clowns are almost always less distressing to children than pondering imminent surgery. A victory, of sorts?
Chill out
WHAT kind of life-extending techniques are doctors using in New Zealand? While checking the clinic attendance records at his hospital, Martin Necas was informed by computer: “Sorry, cannot check whether this patient is frozen.”
Parse with care
A SIGN on the highway tells Penny Jackson: “Picking up your litter puts roadworkers lives at risk”.
“It took me a while to work out why they wanted me to save lives by leaving it on the ground,” she says.