And now, let me direct you to Odontomachus bauri, otherwise known as the Trap-jaw Ant. Boasting the fastest bite in the world, O. bauri can snap its jaws together in a mere 0.13 milliseconds - their mandibles closing as fast as 145 miles per hour! This is so fast that if their jaws strike a solid surface, the little nippers are propelled backwards through the air in a none-too-graceful leap. Researchers at Berkeley, California, captured these acrobatics on film, and plan to take their ants on tour with a troupe of dancing fleas in the new year.
See the video!
November 19th, 2006
Recently I wrote about Nathan Efron and his insidious formula on the Beer Goggle Effect, and pondered the BBC’s infatuation with printing this kind of fluff. God help me, because I punched in a simple search into the BBC News engine, and a tide of pseudoscientific nonsense was vomited into my lap. Think I’m exaggerating?
Currently the BBC has “news articles” detailing how to make the perfect toast, what makes scary movies so scary, when to sack football managers, where to find the perfect shopping street, how to hold chopsticks, the key to good biscuit dunking, which bread is best for mopping gravy, the perfect holiday resort, the perfect beach, the perfect pint, the perfect romantic comedy, the perfect commentating voice, how to make chemistry on-screen, how to build sandcastles, both the best method of pulling crackers and how to choose a Christmas tree, therefore the perfect Christmas (not actually related), the perfect sitcom, what makes a perfect marriage, perfect pork crackling, the perfect cup of tea, how to make the perfect film, a scientific solution to pancake flipping, the most depressing day, how to make the perfect free kick, the perfect cheese sandwich, the secret of the perfect golf swing, the small matter of everlasting perfect happiness and, inevitiably, an article entitled “the formula for a perfect formula“, which, as it turns out, is an article on spurious formulas published by err… the BBC!
That’s not even starting on formulae published by other outlets, with the (Australian) Sunday Times getting in on the act with a formula for the perfect bum, and the multitiude of companies who shout this trash from their own websites - M&S with their perfect strawberries & cream ratio, as well as our own experience with Carpe Diem.
It’s really enough to make a grown man weep. Harmless fun or epidemic of trash? You decide.
November 19th, 2006