“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962)  

Cat’s paw inspires impact-resistant composite

Inspired by a cat’s ability to land silently and safely on its paws from great heights, researchers from Zhejiang University in China and Bristol Composites Institute in the UK have designed a soft, flexible and energy-dissipating material.

Publish and be ...

The publisher Springer Nature has retracted over 40 papers from its Arabian Journal of Geosciences. One of the notices succinctly states: The Editor-in-Chief and the Publisher have retracted this article because the content of this article is nonsensical. Why would anyone doubt such scholarly works as: “Simulation of sea surface temperature based on non-sampling error and psychological intervention of music education”; or even “Distribution of earthquake activity in mountain area based on embedded system and physical fitness detection of basketball”?

Men from Mars and Penguins from Venus?
Earlier this year we had the saga of phosphine gas indicating life on Venus. Possibly, perhaps and finally not even there. Now we have the Daily Star, that doyen of scientific journals, suggesting that penguins might be extra-terrestrials due to phosphine being detected in their guano. Never mind phosphine, perhaps we have a surfeit of nitrous oxide.

North and South 
Analysis of the backgrounds of over 1,000 authors involved in the 100 most cited climate change research papers from 2016-2020 found that 90% of these scientists were affiliated with academic institutions from North America, Europe or Australia. Fewer than 1% of the authors were based in Africa, while only 12 of the papers had a female lead researcher. The worry being that this lack of diversity creates blind spots to the needs of some of the most vulnerable people to climate change.

Do conversations end when people want them to?
A Harvard study earlier this year found conversations tend to go on for too long because people are too polite to end them. Adam Mastroianni, who led the study, explained there is generally a “coordination failure” about when to end conversations. “People feel like it’s a social rupture to say, ‘I’m ready to go’… Because of that, we are skilled at not broadcasting that information.”

Thought for the month
“It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit”.
Harry S. Truman, US President, Politician (1884-1972).

 Van Eyck’s eye

 Flat?

 Laser cooking

 Eggcellent mathematics

 Brain shrinkage

 Potty?

 Surprising stuff

 Paws for thought

 Thought for the month

“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.”
Maire Curie, Scientist (1867-1934).

 Stellar bullies

 Metallic water

 Time ebbing away?

 It’s thin

 Let there be matter

 Charming

 Thought for the month

"The intelligent man finds almost everything ridiculous, the sensible man hardly anything.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Writer (1749-1832).

 Excelling errors

 Modern Luddism