Do Sparrows Like Bach?: The Strange and Wonderful Things that Are Discovered When Scientists Break Free Read online

  Do Sparrows Like Bach?

  THE STRANGE AND WONDERFUL THINGS THAT ARE DISCOVERED WHEN SCIENTISTS BREAK FREE

  NewScientist

  PEGASUS BOOKS

  NEW YORK

  DO SPARROWS LIKE BACH?

  Pegasus Books LLC

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  New York, NY 10004

  Copyright © 2010 by NewScientist Magazine

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission from the publisher, except by reviewers who may quote brief excerpts in connection with a review in a newspaper, magazine, or electronic publication; nor may any part of this book be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or other, without written permission from the publisher.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

  ISBN: 978-1-60598-114-7

  Distributed by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

  www.pegasusbooks.us

  Contents

  Introduction

  1 Mad inventions, mad ideas

  2 Mad research

  3 The yuck factor

  4 Death, doctors and the human body

  5 Blunders—big and small

  6 Love, sex and all that stuff

  7 Animals and their ilk

  8 The world looked different back then

  Introduction

  Charles Darwin turned science (and religion) upside down with the publication of his research, but he has no chance of appearing in this book. In 2009, while the scientific establishment celebrated 200 years since his birth, we took a less enthusiastic view of his work. His theory of evolution may have startled the world and he may have been a meticulous experimenter but, as far as we can see, all that Darwin did to reach his conclusions was merely observe, record and rigorously document, before piecing together the—admittedly very clever—theory for which he is famous.

  And that, quite frankly, doesn’t put him in the same bracket as the rather more intrepid researchers you will find here—people like August Hildebrandt or Mark Grabiner.

  In order to find a strong anaesthetic that worked without knocking a human out, Hildebrandt’s tutor injected the student’s spine with cocaine. Hildebrandt asked his tutor to tickle his feet—he felt nothing. He then handed his tutor a needle and asked him to stab him in the leg. There was no pain. So Hildebrandt demanded that a knife should be plunged into his thigh. When he still smiled benignly, the tutor stubbed out a cigar on his leg. Nothing. But Hildebrandt wasn’t finished. To check the anaesthetic was remaining local to his lower body, his pubic and nipple hair was ripped out. Only the nipples hurt. After surviving hammer blows to his shins and a hearty tug at his testicles, presumably with some relief, he deemed the experiment a success. An important experiment for medical science, indeed, but a pretty bonkers way of going about it.

  All of which goes to show, as surely everyone would agree, that Darwin had it easy. If he’d wanted to find fame in this book he should at least have injected himself with the droppings of one of his famous finches just to see if it caused him to grow an oddly shaped, but strangely useful beak. Even better, he should have dressed himself up as a finch, sat among them and waited to be fed.

  By the same token Mark Grabiner is in the book, but Isaac Newton isn’t. From observing a falling apple Newton came to the conclusion that something was pulling it down. But Mark Grabiner wasn’t prepared just to sit and watch apples. He used gravity to more spectacular effect—tripping people up to see what kind of injuries they were likely to sustain and how such falls might be avoided. Coalface research at its best. And so Grabiner made it, Newton didn’t.

  Of course, August Hildebrandt’s outlandish experiment had a positive and beneficial outcome. But he remains one of the few true success stories in this book. Plenty of science is dead-end research. We can learn as much from the experiments that fail as from the ones that succeed. Quite often research is dull and repetitive (even Darwin would have had days when he couldn’t wait to break for a cup of tea). And anybody who has studied science at school will know what a serious and sometimes dull business it can be. Note: can be…But occasionally, and sometimes unexpectedly, the routine becomes outrageous and outlandish, absurd even. That’s why we are prepared here to celebrate the likes of Oscar Pike of Utah who proved that eating old odds and ends of food that people have found lying around in their cellars or outhouses needn’t kill you. This has produced no discernible benefit to society but, as we said, nobody died (surprisingly) and it’s earned him a place in this book.

  The experiments of Hildebrandt, Grabiner and Pike are, in fact, a microcosm of what this book represents. Science can be intense, creative, often amusing, but beyond all that, science can fire the imagination like nothing else. And sometimes it’s daft. That’s because science researchers question everything and are prepared to tackle anything (just check out the chapter on love and sex). Scientists are used by governments to wage war, they are used by private companies to invent frivolous nonsense, and they are used by sports bodies to make better equipment and—in some cases—better athletes. How do you fancy airbags up your rectum to make you swim better? There is very little on this planet and beyond that remains untouched or unconsidered by the minds, if not the hands, of scientists.

  So we’ve plundered the archives of 53 years of New Scientist magazine to bring you the science of farts and how to recycle your urine. You’ll find out how to get rid of underpants in space and how two lager bottles brought a particle accelerator to a stuttering halt. And while we realise that science in many of the fields covered in this book will have moved on somewhat since most of these reports appeared, we are happy to print them almost as they first appeared in the pages of New Scientist. We are certain readers will spot that events and more recent research have rendered one or two a little obsolete—nuclear-powered aeroplanes anyone? However, we make no apology. Our bunch of free-thinking, no-holds-barred scientists will remain stuck in their own era, beacons to their limitless enthusiasm and seemingly boundless flights of fancy.

  Of course, Darwin’s great idea runs and runs and is developing still, something that you can’t say for the majority of researchers and projects that appear in this book. Which is why, frankly, they deserve a second airing. The rigorous examination of the universe around us knows no bounds and is limited only by imagination, a surfeit of which imbues this collection of researchers.

  Welcome to Do Sparrows Like Bach? which, if we’d had more room on the cover, might have been titled ‘What scientists will get up to if you give them half a chance’.

  Mick O’Hare

  London, 2009

  Especial thanks are due to Jeremy Webb, Helen Thomson, Catherine Brahic, Sandrine Ceurstemont, Liz Else, Richard Webb, John Hoyland, Paul Marks, Justin Mullins, Lucy Dodwell, Eleanor Harris, Ben Longstaff, Judith Hurrell, David Prichard, the staff of New Scientist down the years, illustrator Christian Northeast, and Paul Forty, Valentina Zanca, Andrew Franklin and Lisa Owens among many at Profile Books whose enthusiasm for this project has seen it overcome many obstacles. And our heartfelt thanks to all those contributors of the original articles featured in these pages. Lastly, special thanks must go to Sally and Thomas for putting up with the grumpy man by the computer…

  1 Mad inventions, mad ideas

  It may be apocryphal, but it’s a story too delightful to igno
re. A minor researcher in the physics department attending a Princeton University party was writing in his notebook, and failed to recognise Albert Einstein, who had sat down next to him. ‘What are you writing?’ asked the great physicist. ‘Whenever I have a good idea, I write it down to make sure I don’t forget it,’ replied the researcher. ‘Perhaps you’d like to try it.’

  Einstein shook his head sadly, and said: ‘I doubt it. I have only had two or three good ideas in my life.’

  Of course, not everybody who has an idea turns out to be an Albert Einstein, as this chapter reveals. Nonetheless, as Newton’s third law of motion states, ‘to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction’. Or, in other words, Einstein’s genius needed its counterbalances, which—as you can find out below—the likes of Louis Douglas III seemed more than happy to provide. Douglas cleverly invented an entertainment aid for anybody using a public convenience. Eat your heart out Albert.

  Of course, Douglas’s urinary invention is scientifically about as far from Einstein’s special and general theories of relativity as it is possible to get. But while relativity may have transformed our knowledge of physics, space-time and the cosmos, it never had a chance of making it into this chapter. That’s because, in the main, the ideas here are more earth-grounded…and more ludicrous, outlandish and in the spirit of this book, entirely bonkers.

  You see, Einstein cleverly thought about light bending around galaxies, while Sean McKee, instead, thought about making ice lollies in the shape of pop star Madonna and other sex icons to encourage people to lick them. Einstein considered how time could slow down when humans travelled at high velocities. Eugene Politzer, on the other hand, decided to use a laser to burn off his beard.

  So none of them were ever likely to steal Albert’s cleverness crown, but without them and their esoteric endeavours we wouldn’t have this chapter, which pays homage to the archetypal idea of the ‘mad scientist’, beavering away in the lab, attempting to out-invent Heath Robinson.

  The lonely, impoverished artist in his garret has his scientific counterpart in the undiscovered, bespectacled boffin. Hidden behind bubbling test tubes and clouds of noxious gas, he feverishly devotes a lifetime to coming up with a pointless idea that will baffle or, better still, outrage the world at large (not that he ever actually participates in the world at large). New Scientist has, down the years, been keen to counter this stereotype—indeed you’ll never find the word ‘boffin’ in the pages of the magazine. But, we have to admit, there are times when it would serve us well. Take this batch of ideas. So many things you really didn’t know you needed…

  Sobering thoughts

  Normally it takes between 4 and 10 hours to sober up a drunk. In 1997, the University of Georgia tried patenting a high-speed method. The drawback? A catheter had to be pushed up the nose or the rectum.

  The patient was given an enzyme to drink, yeast alcohol dehydrogenase, mixed with an acetate buffer to stabilise the stomach’s pH. A catheter was then inserted. This fed pure oxygen into the small intestine. The enzyme and oxygen together would accelerate the conversion of blood alcohol into acetates and regenerate enzymes in the liver. This technique could lower the concentration of alcohol in the blood to below the lethal level of about 1 per cent in less than half an hour.

  Clearly there are numerous advantages to be gained from this form of internal ventilation…

  Sporting chance

  In his book Gut Reactions: Understanding symptoms of the digestive tract, W. G. Thomson wrote that in preparation for the 1976 Olympics, East German swimmers had 1.8 litres of air pumped into their colons to improve buoyancy. Thompson said: ‘It apparently helped crawl and backstroke specialists, but a breaststroker complained that his gas-filled gut caused his feet to stick out of the water. Perhaps sports authorities will need to test athletes for flatus, as well as steroids.’

  And presumably their tummies suffered somewhat from bloating…

  Gutted

  In 1999, James Stage of Aberdeen came up with a simple idea for helping overweight people hold their bellies in. A small device that looked like a pager was worn on the trouser belt. The ‘pager’ had a microswitch which rested against the stomach. Pressure on the switch closed a circuit and current flowed through a small motor with a deliberately unbalanced weight on its spindle. So every time the wearer let their belly sag, the motor caused uncomfortable tickling around the waist. This encouraged the wearer to hold their stomach in.

  Some inventors are prepared to plumb even greater depths.

  Aim ‘n’ squirt

  Back in 1990, Louis Douglas III of San Francisco filed a patent application for what he tastefully described as ‘an amusement device for urinals’.

  The problem with urinals, said the inventor, especially in nightclubs, was that people who used them were often inebriated and hence their aim was poor. What was needed was something to capture the attention and imagination of even the most drunken user. The patented solution was a pressure and heat sensor built into the base of the bowl, to sense the presence of warm urine. This then triggered an electrical circuit, which produced an audible or visible signal.

  In its simplest form, this could be a lamp or a buzzer. But more impressive systems would have an array of lights and a sound synthesiser. ‘This,’ said the inventor, ‘induces the user to express his or her artistic talents by creating an appropriate light show or symphony through a loudspeaker.’

  And the following garment might come in handy when fitting the new system.

  Shirt rolls up its own sleeves

  In 2001, a shirt which rolled up its own sleeves when the wearer got too warm was unveiled by a tech-savvy Italian fashion house. And what’s more, its inventors claimed it would never need ironing.

  The fabric for the prototype shirt was woven from fibres of the shape-memory alloy nitinol, interspersed with nylon. The alloy could be deformed, and then returned to its original shape when heated to a certain temperature. It was this shape memory property that was key to how the ‘memory metal shirt’ worked. ‘The sleeve fabric is programmed to shorten as soon as the room temperature becomes a few degrees hotter,’ said Susan Clowes, a spokeswoman for Corpo Nove of Florence, the shirt’s developer. ‘Even if the fabric is screwed up into a ball, pleated and creased, a blast from a hairdryer pops it back to its former shape,’ Clowes said. This meant the shirt could be ‘ironed’ as you wore it. ‘It’s a traveller’s dream,’ she said.

  But fashion victims could not readily expect to buy one of Corpo Nove’s intelligent shirts on their next shopping trip. The prototype cost around £2,500 to make, and was available in any colour you liked—provided you had a tendency to wear metallic grey. ‘But it does look distinctly bronze-coloured in some lights,’ said Clowes.

  Some inventions, of course, are less easy to categorise. Although one might consider placing this inventor in the file marked ‘logically challenged’.

  The ears have it

  Some animals prick up their ears to get messages across. Karola Baumann of Düsseldorf believed, therefore, that we could communicate better with animals if they could see us pricking up our ears. In 1998 Baumann and colleagues described a device that they hoped would transform the wearer into a latter-day Doctor Doolittle. It was a skullcap with two short ‘masts’ at either side over the ears, each carrying a large replica of an animal’s ear. These ears could be moved as the human ‘talked’ to an animal, so the beast’s attention was, Baumann claimed, grabbed and held.

  And is there really a social requirement for this next idea?

  Here we go round the dining table

  Want to get away from a crashing bore at Christmas dinner? Or escape from an unruly toddler who’s flicking food at you? In 2001, Paolo Rais came up with a solution: a dining table whose chairs kept moving so that nobody spent more than ten minutes sitting opposite anyone else.

  It was while sitting at a wedding dinner that Rais, a civil engineer from Lugano, Switzerland, realised that the traditiona
l rectangular dining table meant he could only talk to a few friends seated around him. ‘So I wondered how I could help people talk to more of the people around a long table,’ he said.

  His answer was an 18-seater, mains-powered rectangular table that cleverly concealed what might otherwise be an ugly drive mechanism in a neat central pedestal. An electric motor drove two hidden chains: one hauled the chairs around while the other, beneath the wooden tabletop, pulled around wooden trays on which you placed your food or documents. ‘So your tray of stuff always stays in front of you,’ said Rais. The chairs’ connection to the drive chain was covered by a foot platform, so there was no chance of getting your feet trapped in the mechanism. And at a steady speed of 9 centimetres per minute, diners didn’t really feel they were moving at all, said Rais—and they could leave or join the table at any time without problems.

  Rais tested his table out in a restaurant and a hotel meeting room—with mainly positive reactions. And he also had some grander designs. ‘I’ve written to the British royal family, because such a table would be a great way for the Queen to meet all her guests at banquets,’ he said. ‘But I have had no reply.’

  Nor, indeed, is there a pressing requirement for any of the following, all of which are indicative of the desire of scientists to fulfil social needs which we’d suggest don’t even exist…