A COLLECTION OF ‘OVERHEARDS’ FROM THE PAST YEAR
“I really want to actually see the gun that’s been supposedly aimed at my head for four years.”
Jack Campbell, CEO of DVForge, who organized a contest to design a Mac Virus for his company’s computers, then cancelled it after realizing it might actually invite trouble.
“If some people decide that they want blind children and white rice, it’s their choice. I’m offering the possibility of yellow rice and no blind children. But the decision what people want to eat is theirs.”
Ingo Potrykus, the creator of controversial GM “golden rice”, in 2001. He launched the 2nd generation of the rice last week, which is suggested to contain more benefits than the last. (www.grain.com)
“We cannot stop the glaciers melting using foil.”
Raimund Rosewald, head of a landscape protection foundation, about the Swiss authorities plan to wrap glaciers in foil during the summer to protect them. (www.exploreworldwide.com) (www.ananaova.com)
“It is like a saying in Polish,” says Tryjanowski. “Artificial jewellery to the wife and real diamonds for the mistress.”
Piotr Tryjanowski at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland, on new finding showing that male birds catch bigger food ‘gifts’ for their prospective mistresses, than for their long-term partners. (www.newscientist.com)
“They have that slippery, slurpy sensation when you eat them that makes them very seductive.”
Diane Brown, the Los Angeles-based author of The Seduction Cookbook . New findings from Barry University, Florida, suggest that oysters do in fact live up to their reputation and increase libido. (www.newscientist.com)
“We think it will be particularly beneficial to those who don’t like using a toothbrush.”
Researcher Nikos Soukos on the new light-sabre alternative to a toothbrush, in development in the US. (New Scientist, Ananova.com)
“Should you be smiling while talking about cancer?”
Dr Simon Singh, the Simon Cowell-like judge at Famelab, a Pop Idol style contest to get science on television for the masses. (David Adam, Guardianunlimited.co.uk)
“They do look like gremlins, and at first sight it is hard to believe they are real.”
Caroline Brown, senior keeper of small mammals at Bristol Zoo, talking about the Aye-aye, who keepers wanted to call Gollum, after its striking resemblance to the anti-hero of The Lord of Rings. (Paul Brown, Guardian unlimited)
“There are two ways of looking at this. The first is that they were doing a ritual dance, but the other possibility is that the man and woman were copulating.”
Dr Harald Stauble, part of the archaeological team who appear to have stumbled across one pornography, from the stone age.
“I think that these findings in dogs are directly relevant to the human situation.”
Geoffrey Raisman of the Institute of Neurology at University College London, who is injecting OEG cells(capable of regeneration) into dogs with spinal cord injuries. Many of the paraplegic dogs treated are regaining some feeling.(New Scientist)
“It is kind of like finding Elvis.”
Frank Gill of the Audubon Society, an American bird conservation group, on the sighting of a woodpecker, thought to have been extinct for 60 years. (Scientific American)
“You see the toads crawling along the ground, swelling and getting bigger as they go until they are like little tennis balls, and then they suddenly explode.”
Vet Otto Horst on the rather mysterious spectacle of exploding toads in Hamburg. (ananova.com)
“She was able to look at them and apparently see what the problem was. Her ability is not x-ray vision, but she definitely has some kind of talent that we can’t explain yet.”
Professor Yoshio Machi at Tokyo University, who specialises in studying apparent superpowers in human beings. The subject, Natalia Demkina has been undergoing tests in Japan into her apparent x-ray vision which has enabled her to diagnose medical conditions. (ananova.com)
“If you get Martian soil on your skin, it will leave burn marks,”
University of Colorado engineering professor Stein Sture, who studies granular materials like Moon- and Martian soil for NASA. New findings show toxic irritants in moondust and martian matter. (nasa.gov)
“It is nice to know that society has now embraced the technology to cure the sick and take away the pain. It has been a long and hard battle for all the family and we have finally heard the news we wanted to hear.”
Mrs Shahana Hashmi, on the court ruling in the UK that means she can design her next baby to be able to help cure her six-year-old son’s Thalassaemia major, a serious genetic disorder. (UK’s Medical News Today)
“At the beginning we thought it was a big fish, but then we spotted hair on the head of the monster and his fins looked pretty strange, the front part of his body was equipped with arms.”
Gafar Gasanof, the captain of the Baku, an Azeri trawler who claims to have seen an amphibious humanoid Merman in the Caspian Sea. (ananova.com)
“It was for sale on a table next to some vegetables, and I knew immediately it was something I had never seen before.”
Conservation biologist Robert Timmins on the Rock rat, a species of rodent totally new to science, being sold as an Asian snack (New Scientist)
“We know there are people who are walking time bombs.”
Dr. Michael Lauer, on findings in the New England Journal of Medicine that suggest that people with slow heartbeats during exercise and fast heartbeats at rest are more likely to drop dead of a heart attack. (Globe and Mail)
“As far as we know, this is the oldest shoe ever found in the United Kingdom.”
Stephen Reed, who led the team from Exeter Archaeology and found a 2,000-year-old shoe in a hollow tree. (Globe and Mail)
This is the first human-poultry interaction system ever developed.”
Professor Adrian David Cheok who has been developing a system to enable people to stroke chickens over the Internet. I’m serious. (ananova.com)
“I’ve smelt one and tracked several since then and you cannot come much closer than that”
The fact that the Tasmanian “tiger” was officially declared extinct nearly 70 years ago does not deter Col and his fellow tiger hunters one bit. (BBC News)
“Wildlife and baby boys will be the losers.”
Gwynne Lyons, toxic adviser to the WWF, regarding gender-bending chemicals in plastics that leak into foods affecting male development. (New Scientist)
“The men are usually very surprised, but the babies seem content.”
Caroline Flint of the Royal College of Midwives in the UK, on how babies often suckle their fathers instinctively, as well as their mothers. (Times Online)
“If there was an Olympic team of Bynoe’s geckos, there wouldn’t be a single male on it. These geckos outperform their sexual relatives by 50 percent. They are the ‘Xena: Warrior Princess’ of the lizard world.”
Kellar Autumn, on the Bynoe’s gecko, an all-female line of lizards that clone offspring just as strong as their relatives.
“It looks like the animals use the sponge as a kind of glove… It might just give them protection against some noxious critters hiding in there.”
Michael Krützen, of the University of Zurich. His study shows that dolphins use a sponge to help them find fish on the sea floor, a technique taught from mother to daughter.
“They rise vertically and backwards, so if you come from behind you have a much better chance.”
Robin Wooton, an expert in insect biomechanics, on how to swat a fly effectively! (The Guardian)
“Also, if a family already has several girls and members of the family would like to have a boy, our laboratory can offer one of many tools to help make the selection of the sex of the baby.”
Hmmm… Yuri Melekhovets, who runs the Paragon Genetics lab in Toronto, where parents can find out the sex of their foetus as early as 10 weeks into pregnancy. (CBC)
“They only crush, put it in water, apply it on the tajine itself and they cook it at very low temperature.”
That’s all very well, Dr. Albert Nantel of the Quebec National Institute of Public Health, but it’s still a lead glaze on Moroccan tagines – no 2nd helping for me…
“We found no association between levels of mental ability and reported happiness, which is quite surprising because intelligence is highly valued in our society.”
Alan Gow at Edinburgh University, whose research proves that intelligence is irrelevant to a happy old age. That’s the text books in the river then… (New Scientist)