(Image: Paul McDevitt)
Feedback is our weekly column of bizarre stories, implausible advertising claims, confusing instructions and more
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Naming in vain
A ROSE by any other name would smell as sweet â except to officials in South Korea, who have marked 70 years of independence by that referenced the countryâs former colonial ruler.
Hereafter, the Japanese red pine will be known as the Korean red pine, and so forth. Unfortunately, the International Code of Nomenclature for Algae, Fungi and Plants is less forgiving: it dictates that scientific names cannot be changed, even if there is a whiff of cultural imperialism about them.
But Latin names can be anti-imperialist, too. A new species of crayfish has been dubbed Cherax snowden after the intelligence analyst who leaked details of mass surveillance activities by the US and other governments, and who has remained in political exile ever since.
Of the unusual choice in name, researcher : âthe new species is named after the American freedom fighter Edward Joseph Snowden. He is honored due to his extraordinary achievements in defense of justice, and freedom.â
Sure, itâs no Presidential Medal of Freedom, but Snowden is unlikely to be collecting one of those any time soon. Feedback suspects that there is no shortage of pointedly political nomenclature shoehorned into Latin binomials around the world. We invite your best examples.
The Magnetic Swarovski Crystal Tennis Bracelets spotted by Chris Mitchell may prove awkward to wear: he is informed that ââ
The perfect one liner
BREVITY is the soul of wit, and perhaps of scientific paper citations as well. Thatâs the conclusion of a study , which analysed 140,000 papers for impact and titular terseness.
The authors speculate that shorter titles may give the impression that the paperâs contents are easier to understand, thus attracting readers.
This important work builds on an earlier investigation in 2007, which examined 1009 titles to learn whether tickling readersâ funny bones could boost the success of a paper.
âWhile the pleasantness rating was weakly associated with the number of citations,â the authors state, âarticles with highly amusing titles (2 standard deviations above average) received fewer citations.â Let nobody say that science isnât a serious business.
Feedback suspects there is a confounding factor at play: namely, what is funny? Titles rated as highly humorous by the panel of judges include âBeware the half-tailed testâ and âThe unicorn, the normal curve, and other improbable creaturesâ. Readers, weâre sure you can offer better examples.
Indeterminate sex
MORE terms of engagement: one of our US correspondents says that from his side of the Atlantic, itâs easy to see another explanation for the discrepancy between the number of sexual partners reported by men and women (22 August). As we learned during then-president Bill Clintonâs impeachment, it depends on how you define sexual relations.
Clintonâs lawyers set out a definition that rested on who touches what parts of whom. would allow Monica Lewinsky to have engaged in sexual relations with Clinton, but he wouldnât have engaged in sexual relations with her. Perhaps those surveyed carried out similar semantic gymnastics.
Not before time
DESPITE sounding like a B-movie thriller, The Sky at Night is in fact a genteel, astronomy-themed staple of British television. However, Helen Austin writes to say that proceedings threatened to take a dark turn during an episode on the New Horizons probe bound for Pluto, the dwarf planet discovered by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930.
âSadly, Clyde passed away before New Horizons launched,â said one presenter. This is probably a good thing, writes Helen, âas only minutes earlier the programme had informed viewers that Clydeâs ashes were interred in the spacecraftâ.
Stew with no clue
SOMETHING odd is stewing in Cumbria, UK, where Anthony Baker reports the purchase of a stockpot from his local Tesco. âI was more than pleased to discover it is âsuitable for use with foodstuffsâ, according to a label on the packaging,â says Anthony, âthough it makes me wonder what sort of soup Iâd be making if it wasnât.â
All washed up
PEDLARS of pseudoscience often take scientific names in vain to persuade consumers there is a solid basis for expensive guff, writes Matt Ashmore, âbut is there a specific term for when ordinary things are elevated into expensive guff by using accurate, if unfamiliar, scientific terms?â
By way of an example, he points to âmicellar waterâ, a beauty product currently that promises to gently remove make-up and dirt using tiny balls of cleaning chemicals (micelles) suspended in water.
âIâve been using micellar water to wash my dishes, and indeed my unmentionables, for as long as I can remember,â says Matt, âas it seems that it is just a way of selling some kind of weak soap solution for ÂŁ50 per litre.â
