Blogger
Along with many others I am having problems posting comments
on blogs, including my own.
I assume it will pass. Strange things are happening in the world
generally. Is this the End of Days?
Social and moral decay? √
Wars and natural disasters? √
Persecution and deception? √
I do feel Nature is angry with humankind, and no wonder.
I hope Blogger soon starts to behave nicely again!
Ig Nobel
The Ig Nobel Prize has been awarded annually since 1991 to encourage public interest in scientific research. It is a parody of the Nobel Prize, and purported to be named after Ignatius Nobel, a fictitious cousin of Alfred Nobel. Though satirical in nature, most awards are for genuine scientific achievements.
The awards are presented to the winners in ten categories by Nobel laureates. Each winner gives a one-minute acceptance speech and receives a simple, cheap prize.
The Igs were created in 1991 by Marc Abrahams for discoveries ‘that cannot or should not be reproduced.’ They were designed to ‘honour achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think.’
Sometimes apparently unimportant research results in serious breakthroughs. A 2006 study by Bart Knols and Ruurd de Jong showed that mosquitoes are attracted equally to the smells of Limburger cheese and human feet. That study was awarded an Ig Nobel prize for Biology. Subsequently, traps baited with Limburger cheese have been used in Africa in the fight against malaria.
More information can be found here. Below are a few of the sometimes bizarre awards that have been made since 1991.
The 2009 Ig Nobel Veterinary Medicine award was won by Catherine Douglas and Peter Rowlinson ‘for showing that cows who have names give more milk than cows that are nameless.’
The 2011 Psychology award was presented to Karl Jalvor Teigen ‘for trying to understand why, in everyday life, people sigh.’
In 2023, Jan Zalasiewicz was awarded the Chemistry and Geology prize ‘for explaining why many scientists like to lick rocks.’
Geologists and palaeontologists lick rocks as one means of identifying their structure, texture, and mineral content. Fossils may be discovered because bone is porous and a tongue sticks to it when it is licked.
The 2025 Aviation prize was awarded to Francisco Sánchez, Mariana Melcón, Carmi Korine, and Berry Pinshow, ‘for studying whether ingesting alcohol can impair ability to fly and also their ability to echolocate.’
According to their research, when fruit-eating bats ingested ethanol, the active intoxicant in alcoholic drinks, they flew more slowly and their echolocation ability was impaired. Bats tend to avoid over-ripe fruit, which is rich in ethanol, because it slows reactions and makes them vulnerable to predation.
A full list can be seen here and is bound to raise at least a smile and sometimes a guffaw.
Three black Japanese cows were used. One had white vertical stripes painted on her, one had black vertical stripes, and one was left unpainted.
'For 30 minutes twice a day, the researchers observed the cows and counted fly-repelling behaviours, such a head throws, leg stamps, and tail flicks. At the end of each observation period, the team took pictures of the cows so they could count the numbers of flies that had landed on the cows' bodies and legs . . . a year later, three other cows were put through the same process.
The results were unequivocal: the cows with painted white stripes had significantly fewer flies on their bodies and lower frequency of fly-swatting behaviours than the others . . . offering a welfare-friendly and chemical-free option to repel pests.'
There are many agile minds and imaginations. I wonder how much research starts with ‘I wonder . . . ‘
The technology award for 2026 was given for research into ‘Pioneering the use of mosquito proboscises as high-resolution 3D printing nozzles, a process called Necroprinting.’
Lloyds Tour of Britain Men 2026
This race started on September 2nd with the opening stage starting and finishing in Lincoln. Lincolnshire is a famously flat county so having a King of the Mountains classification seems bizarre. Michaelgate is a mediaeval cobbled hill. It covers 240 metres but rises steeply on an uneven cobbled surface which can be trying on a rainy day. The riders must tackle it five times in the course of the day.
There are five stages to the race, with the second taking the riders from Boston to Skegness, a distance of 180.2 km, though not as the crow flies. This is a flat coastal route.
Stage three starts in Hull and ends in Beverley at the racecourse. The fourth stage also occurs in Yorkshire, from Helmsley to Leyburn.
The final stage takes the riders across the Scottish Borders and starts and finishes in Earlston.
The Tour of Britain does not have the allure of the Tour de France or La Vuelta and does not attract high numbers of competitors or spectators. Nonetheless, it is interesting to see local schools and residents turning out to cheer on the cyclists, who pass by in a sizzling flash of highly engineered bikes and colourful lycra and helmets.
Left or right?
Right-handed? Left-footed?
We have right and left gloves and shoes. Why don’t we have right and left socks?
Confusion
All day Saturday I thought it was Sunday. Now, on Monday, it feels like Sunday. I wished my granddaughter a happy birthday on Friday, but it wasn’t her birthday until Saturday.
I write all the family dates in my diary at the beginning of the year, but somehow I put Kiri’s birthday on the wrong date. I got my mother-in-law’s birthday date wrong every year – that was in the years before I wrote all the dates down.
I’m not the only one to be confused. My eldest daughter, who is usually extremely well organised, can never remember my wedding anniversary, and is always a day late. That’s probably because we have never made a big thing of it. I can’t really blame her – it took many years for the date to etch itself into my husband’s memory.
It would be easier if he were a shooting man. The Glorious Twelfth, the beginning of the grouse shooting season, is a date that’s never forgotten.
Not quite a full stop . . .
. . . but something has made me slow down. It may be to do with having a thirteen-year-old in the house who keeps strange hours. I’m a light sleeper and easily woken by noises in the night. I know which doors are opening and closing, which stairs creak, and while everyone else sleeps through them, I cannot.
The next couple of days will be devoted to retraining the lad’s adolescent brain to the more normal rhythm required for (whisper it) school, before he returns to London.
Teenagers experience many changes in their lives – the body developing in startling ways, the mind posing problems and not solving them, social hurdles, academic expectations, misconceptions, skewed perceptions, peer pressure, and the awful awareness of self as neither child nor adult, not fitting any group, perpetually on the outside looking in. The grass is not greener on the other side, but it seems like it.
Add to this the change in their circadian rhythm which means that melatonin is released around two hours later than for adults or young children. This results in them wanting to stay up later and sleep longer in the morning, often in direct opposition to a requirement to rise early and prepare for school.
It is recommended that teenagers have eight to ten hours sleep a night, while they are still growing and their brains are developing rapidly. Fewer than seven hours a night leads to exhaustion, irritability, and difficulty in coping with the demands of family and school.
I remember my early teenage years, but not with great pleasure, so I have sympathy for my adolescent and pre-adolescent grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
They will survive.
Waiting for the kettle to boil
While decanting tea leaves to the tea caddy I found two cards in the bottom of the Brew Tea Co box. One was about recycling, which was helpful, although the information about tea bags seemed redundant as the tea was loose leaf.
The second card was about ‘retro tea vernacular,’ and had on it three phrases I’ve never heard before.
Apparently from the 1800s, the first was ‘Prattle broth’. Prattle is idle chatter or gossip, and broth is a hot infusion, in this case tea. It was exclusively women who were thought to be involved in this pastime. Other terms from the same period included ‘chatter broth’ and scandal broth.’
The second idiom was a 19th century expression to indicate excess or extravagance. ‘Butter upon bacon’ has much the same resonance as ‘gilding the lily’ or ‘over-egging the pudding.’ It can occasionally be heard among older generations in Northern England.
The last phrase is ‘nanty narking.’ It originated in the first half of the 19th century in public house slang, and means having a fantastically enjoyable time, sometimes becoming excessive and riotous.
‘Nanty’ may derive from the Italian ‘niente’ for nothing. ‘Nark’ means to annoy or irritate, though it has a secondary meaning of being a snitch or informer. Spelt slightly differently as narc, it is associated with narcotics.
Unusual
When they do bark it sounds quite fearsome – deep, big dog voices warning all and sundry to steer clear. In fact, one delivery company (we have many deliveries) warned their employees that there were dogs at our house. I could hardly explain for laughing that our Labradors love people and would be more likely to smother them in slobbery kisses than attack.
Our first Labrador, decades ago, a rescue dog, once ‘attacked’ my husband. He had arrived home late at night from the streets of Belfast and Whisky was protecting me and our children. She didn’t recognise him and barged him over, thinking him an intruder. When she realised, she was mortified. The only things she ever barked at were ladders and double decker buses.
Anyway, early this morning, while we were still in bed, Gilbert was barking energetically at the patio door. We hadn’t realised he had gone downstairs. I decided later to check the garden camera to try and discover what had set the boy off.
The playback function has proved useful in the past, but on this occasion, nothing could be seen. Gilbert’s barking, the cries of several birds, and the trees and shrubs swaying in the breeze were all captured on film, but the cause of Gilbert’s alarm remains a mystery.
Heron, rat, fox, squirrel? Who knows?
Relax!
I came
across this from seven years ago. It made me smile then and it made me smile again today.
Nebbish
This word is from Saturday’s Polygon, which asks for 34 words of at least four letters, each of which must include the central letter, in this instance, ‘s.’ I found 19 before I gave up.
‘Nebbish’ was unknown to me. Although it sounds like an adjective, it is a noun for an ineffectual, anxious person who lacks confidence and allows himself to be pushed around. It derives from the American Yiddish term ‘nebbish’ or ‘nebekh’ for unfortunate.
A nebbish is not despised but pitied as he stands back, allowing others to take the credit, or to push in front of him in a queue. He is a figure of fun.
Nebbish entered the English lexicon in the late 19th century as slang for an incompetent lightweight.
Cyanobacteria
Anvilcloud pointed out that cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) were crucial in developing Earth’s atmosphere into one which would support human life. I was intrigued by that so investigated. It's straightforward but far from simple.
Cyanobacteria exist anywhere where light and moisture are found, from salty oceans to freshwater lakes, hot deserts and cold soils. In symbiosis with plants and algae they provide nitrogen to their hosts.
Three billion years ago there was little oxygen in the atmosphere. Cyanobacteria in the oceans used energy from the sun to split water molecules and produce oxygen. During millions of years, the level of oxygen in the atmosphere rose to a point where it could support life. This process is referred to as the Great Oxidation Event and allowed the evolution of animals and eventually human beings.
Cyanobacteria created the ozone layer, a protective barrier against the sun’s harmful ultraviolet rays.
Scientists continue to study cyanobacteria.
A Day Out
I found this comment: ‘I was once on a road that had this sign. I had to do 110 mph to catch up to be two chevrons apart from the car in front of me.’
It was followed by ‘Have you ever seen what happens when 2 chevrons get together?’
The answers were:
‘Citroens are born,’ and ‘They turn into a Corporal.’
It took us about two and a half hours to reach our destination, where we picked up the item we were collecting, and then we drove home again.
It wasn’t an exciting day, on the busy motorways, but it made a change. We didn’t talk much, apart from commenting on the areas we were travelling through and discussing the names of the hills (Quantocks) and what National Highways traffic officers do.
Bakers Dolphin is a coach operator in the south-west of England. It has been in existence since 1889 and has won awards for its services. It is one of the largest operators around. I’ve never seen them before!
We were able to go out for the day because Susannah had come home earlier than anticipated. Although she was ‘working from home,’ she was also on hand to serve Jellicoe and Herschel their meals and provide company and chews to Gilbert and Roxy.
