Feedback is our weekly column of bizarre stories, implausible advertising claims, confusing instructions and more

Archaeologists RIP

In July, Feedback reported that geologist characters in movies were surprisingly likely to die, often from “work related” causes like volcanic eruptions, but remarkably frequently by murder. We wondered how other scientists fared.

Andrew Hardwick flags The Avengers – not the Marvel superheroes, but the British spy series from the 1960s. “Any character introduced as a scientist was certain to be killed off,” Andrew says, due to the limited budget for hiring guest actors. “Exposition characters had to double up as victims or villains.” Feedback briefly considered performing an analysis to estimate the scientist death toll, but then we learned that the show ran for 161 hour-long episodes and decided we had better things to do.

Meanwhile, David Hawke pulls us up on a detail. We claimed that one indicator a character will die is that he is played by Sean Bean. David argues that Bean’s breakout role was the heroic Richard Sharpe, in the TV adaptations of Bernard Cornwell’s historical novels. While some of Bean’s characters “meet their doom”, David says, “surely playing Sharpe more than compensates for this”. Feedback feels David underestimates just how often Bean dies on screen. A spanning 1986 to 2016 shows him meeting his maker no fewer than 24 times.

However, our main focus here is a missive from Andy Chapman. “As a now retired archaeologist I feel fortunate to have made it this far,” he writes, “given the film death rate for archaeologists.” They are particularly likely to die in films involving Egyptian mummies. “Here the death rate must approach 100 per cent, with only the heroic/romantic leads exempted, but often not their trusted assistants.”

Andy’s argument rests in part on the Indiana Jones and Tomb Raider films, alongside the various incarnations of The Mummy. Andy notes “an unhealthy death rate” in many of these franchises, albeit with a caveat. “Much of this would apply to people unlikely to be regarded as qualified archaeologists, as I don’t believe training in weapons and explosives feature on the syllabus of many archaeology departments.”

Andy’s more sedate approach to the field appears to have kept him safe. He spent his time “working largely in British commercial archaeology ahead of quarrying and construction projects”, which tended to yield less treasure or cursed swords, and more “boxes of broken pottery and animal bone”. Such finds, informative as they are, “don’t often lead to homicide”.

Reprogram yourself

Feedback is feeling a bit wiped out from the alleged “summer holidays”, which just mean we have to work while also ferrying Feedback Jr to their various social engagements. So we wanted a wellbeing hack, and reader Graham Lansdell was on hand to tell us about one. Through a convoluted sequence of events, Graham had become aware of GEOTRAN, “a coding language for the inner bio-computers”.

Promisingly, the official website that “GEOTRAN is a numeric-geometrical dialect which speaks directly to the body’s information fields (memory fields). It works similarly to entering new information into a computer system. By erasing subconscious, self-sabotage, and de-stressing blockages resulting from personal beliefs, early childhood programming, fears, and traumatic experiences, you can reformat for a better life!”

This sounded like just the ticket. Feedback could do with a bit of mind-body reprogramming to regain our usual mild levels of vim and vigour. So we .

We learned that, unlike conventional binary computers, “The GEOTRAN language uses twelve digits (1 through 12)”. Apparently, “these number codes create the actual instructions for the field to make a correction to the existing programming. The geometry locates the place where the dysfunction is stored, and the number makes the correction.”

It seems that GEOTRAN instructions must be “entered at specific points, called ‘spin points,’ on and around the body”. These instructions are then “fed to the heart/mind which has 7 layers or 7 different functions. The heart/mind distributes this information to 12 rings that operate somewhat like a CD, which also holds coded data that is read by light.”

Alas, due to our exhaustion, Feedback was unable to comprehend the instructions. In a bid to hack our system, we tapped our arm a few times to see if it helped, but so far it hasn’t.

It’s a gas

In our quest for ever-more-niche scientific tourist attractions, we keep finding museums dedicated to gas. Upon reading our item about Fakenham Gasworks Museum (1 August), Daphne Tighe experienced a stirring memory. “I was at grammar school 1940-1945 when there was not much scope for exciting outings,” she tells us. “One I remember was arranged by the science teacher to Horsham gas works.” Daphne has no plans to visit any of the modern equivalents, because “I can still remember the smell”.

Meanwhile, Chris Kendall tells us about Leicester, UK, home to the National Gas Museum. Its website claims it is “the world’s largest and most significant gas history collection”, and also that it is shut until 22 September 2026. “Is it any good, you ask?” says Chris. “I don’t know. Despite being a short walk from where I live, I’ve never been interested enough to go and see.”

Got a story for Feedback?

You can send stories to Feedback by email at feedback@newscientist.com. Please include your home address. This week’s and past Feedbacks can be seen on our website.

The first rule of hormones was always that you don’t talk about your hormones. For decades, women have often felt the need to minimise or hide the impact that fluctuating levels of female sex hormones can have. The shifts in oestrogen levels experienced by many can be as profound as they are frequent – fluctuating monthly and also changing dramatically during puberty, pregnancy and menopause.

These hormonal ups and downs don’t just have a personal impact, but are also a nuisance for medical research, where it was long common to exclude women from studies to prevent their hormones from muddying the results.

One consequence of this exclusion was the view of ADHD as a male condition, particularly one involving hyperactive young boys. We now know that girls are just as likely as boys to have ADHD, but their symptoms can be harder to spot. Women who slipped under the radar as children are only now realising that they have the condition and seeking treatment.

Here again, hormones play a role, as scientists uncover what many women with ADHD already feel: that hormonal fluctuations and shifts can profoundly affect ADHD symptoms, sometimes undermining treatments and pushing their coping techniques to breaking point.

Hormonal fluctuations and shifts can profoundly affect ADHD symptoms and treatments

The hope, of course, is that a better understanding of how sex hormones affect brain function will lead to better treatments, but as we report, this work also gives women with ADHD a powerful self-understanding, finally allowing them to predict and work around changes in attention and motivation.

Yet how will those who most need to know ever find out? Mercifully, the taboo on talking about hormones has now been smashed, a surprisingly positive outcome of social media’s obsession with female health and wellness. What once felt unmentionable is now far from it, with hormone changes, menstrual phases and associated symptoms now commonly discussed online. The challenge is to use these conversations for progress and resist reverting back to old stereotypes.