News

We're in a crash

“The Milky Way's neighbourhood may be teeming with invisible galaxies, one of which appears to be crashing into our own,” New Scientist magazine reports. “In 2008, a cloud of hydrogen with a mass then estimated at about one million suns was found to be colliding with our galaxy. Now it appears the object is massive enough to be a galaxy itself. Called Smith's cloud, it has managed to avoid disintegrating during its smash-up with our own, much bigger galaxy. What's more, its trajectory suggests it punched through the disc of our galaxy once before, about 70 million years ago. To have survived, it must contain much more matter than previously thought, in order to provide enough gravity to hold it together. Calculations … indicate that it has about 100 times the previously estimated mass. Many more such dark galaxies may be out there, says Leo Blitz of the University of California, Berkeley.”

Fatal attraction

Ocean acidification, BBC News reports, could cause fish to become “fatally attracted” to their predators. An Australian team studying the effects of acidification – caused by dissolved carbon dioxide – on ocean reefs found that it leaves fish unable to “smell danger.” Young clownfish that were raised in acidified water became attracted to rather than repelled by the chemical signals released by predatory fish. The scientists' findings were published in the journal Ecology Letters.

The tell-tale neck

“Aware that when people are insecure, troubled, scared, concerned, worried or nervous, they covered or touched their neck, I never appreciated the potential use of this very telling behaviour until I joined the FBI as a special agent,” Joe Navarro blogs at Psychologytoday.com. “In 1979, while working in Yuma, Arizona, my partner and I went to talk to the mother of a wanted fugitive [who] was considered ‘armed and dangerous.' When we knocked on her door she seemed tense, but allowed us in anyway. I asked her numerous questions about her son – she knew he was wanted – and she answered all of them without hesitation. However, when I inquired, “‘Is your son in the house?' for the first time during that interview, she put her hand to her suprasternal notch (neck dimple) and said, ‘No, he's not.'” He noticed this and during the conversation asked again twice, and she covered her neck both times. “I asked for permission to search the house. Sure enough, her son was hiding in a closet under some blankets and stuffed animals – unwisely sitting on a gun.”

Cheers

R&D Magazine has named an Iowa State University professor Inventor of the Year for his innovations in making a purer vodka and a better pig feed. Hans van Leeuwen's vodka-distilling process uses ozone and activated carbon to reduce unwanted substances. “People want purity in their vodka,” Prof. van Leeuwen said of the process, called Mell03z. The R&D award has been called the Oscar of inventions, United Press International reports.

E-ho ho ho

“Social media has become the newest holiday strategy for some retailers, who are hoping the technology can bring some lustre to their efforts to reach customers who are holding tight to their money this year,” Jackie Crosby writes for The Minneapolis Star Tribune. “Retailers have created gift-giving games on Facebook and shopping applications for iPhones. They're pushing coupons and daily deals on Twitter. Even Santa is giving text updates from his North Pole workshop. … About 47 per cent of retailers surveyed last month by the [U.S.-based] National Retail Federation planned to increase their use of Facebook, Twitter and other online social networks this holiday season. As for shoppers, three out of five say they're planning to use social media to look for discounts, coupons and sales, according to Deloitte Research.”

Aha ho ho ho

“Shoppers typically pay 10 to 50 per cent of the cost of a product to insure it beyond the term covered by the manufacturer's guarantee,” The Economist reports. “The terms of these deals vary … but they usually promise to repair or replace a faulty device for between one and four years. Yet products rarely break within the period covered, and repairs tend to cost no more than the warranty itself. That makes warranties amazingly profitable: They generate over $16-billion annually for American retailers, according to Warranty Week, a trade journal.”

Don't be sarcastic

“Miyuki Hatoyama, wife of Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, and Taiwanese actor Jerry Yan were among the winners of this year's awards for wearers of jeans,” Kyodo News reported last month. “‘This was an award I really yearned for as I have worn jeans almost every day,' Japan's first lady told a ceremony for the winners of the Best Jeanist 2009 awards organized by the Japan Jeans Association.”

Thought du jour

“Amongst my most prized possessions are the words that I have never spoken.”

– Orson Rega Card