z_Ideas

A.A. Gill hates England

You don't have to take our word for it -- you can read it for yourself here in this Times of London book excerpt by the writer AA Gill titled "I hate England."

Gill, who spent one year as an infant in Scotland and thus insists he is not English -- in spite of living there ever since -- hates "the lumpen and louty, coarse, unsubtle, beady-eyed, beefy-bummed herd of England." He hates so many things about England that it is hard to know where to start, but one peeve stands out above the rest: English humour.

English humour is the sound of the bullies. The overtold story of the English underdog overcoming the big man with laughter is simply not true. The English constantly use their humour as an indiscriminate bludgeon. Jokes come one at a time and then gang up on victims, relentlessly pillorying Indians, West Indians, Jews, Gypsies, Scots, Irish, French, Germans, Essex girls, blondes, Catholics, Hindus, Muslims, gays, northerners, southerners, Brummies, yokels, cripples, spastics, epileptics, midgets, lunatics, prostitutes, vicars, the Queen, the unions, Tories, chickens, dogs, donkeys, publicans, the devil and God.

There is hardly anyone who hasn’t at some point been slapped with the famous English humour. The bullying and teasing laughs pervade almost every aspect of life. Newspapers are a constant patter of punning headlines, would-you-believe-it human interest stories and columns of unkind personal observation written to raise a smile.

If you don't know who AA Gill is (we didn't either), there's a bit of info about him here. Basically, he's a newspaper critic and columnist for the Times.

The first Scooter Libby

How far back do you have to go to find the last time a high White House official was indicted? All the way back to 1869 and the presidency of Ulysses Grant, according to the History News Network.

Orville Babcock, a West Point graduate, had been in the army with Grant, serving with him in the difficult days of the Wilderness and Spotsylvania campaigns, among others. Grant subsequently had hired him in the White House to serve as his chief of staff (though the position formally was known as secretary to the president). Babcock was a very energetic, very well-organized assistant and Grant liked him immensely. Grant probably spent more time with Babcock than with any other member of his administration, putting him at a desk located just outside the president’s office door. Babcock loved Grant, loved working with him in the White House, but Babcock, a newlywed, had a great love of money, too. And in 1869, just a year into the administration, he found a way to make lots more money than was due him as Grant’s assistant.

Last Friday, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, was indicted on charges of perjury, obstruction of justice and making false statements in connection with the CIA leak investigation. He resigned the same day.

Rodent rock

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis say they've discovered that male mice sing during courtship, the same way that songbirds and whales do. [EurekAlert]

You can even listen to the mouse songs here.

Dial-a-drunk

Everyone's talking about it so it must be true. The electronics company  LG apparently has a huge hit on its hands in South Korea with a cellphone that includes a breathalyzer. Users breath into it and are told how drunk they are. Presumably they then order a cab to take them home. Or maybe they just compare their results with everyone else's, have a laugh and order another round.

Here's an idea: the breathalyzer technology should prevent people who are drunk from subsequently using the phone to call ex-boyfriends/girlfriends at 2 a.m.

Good thing he doesn't sell toilets

A super-rich Australian who made his money hawking cellphones wants to build a skyscraper in Melbourne that's shaped like one of his products. That's right -- a giant cellphone with 160 luxury apartments in it, not to mention ground-floor retail outlets. [Herald Sun]

Daily Science Briefing: Bird scare grows; rocket damage; headway against malaria

Wild migratory birds seem to have become the world's public enemy number one since the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus spreading in Asia was detected this month as far west as European Russia, Turkey and Romania. Last week, students who visited Hong Kong's Mai Po wetlands, a crucial feeding stopover for wild birds on the north-south migratory route, were seen wearing protective masks. [Reuters]

The rocket that will carry NASA's New Horizons Pluto probe into space suffered damage as hurricane Wilma blew through Florida last week. However, mission managers do not think the incident was serious enough to delay the planned January launch. [New Scientist]

A malaria vaccine could be available within six years if new trials of the most promising candidate prove successful, say experts. Malaria vaccine research received a $107.6 million injection of funds on Monday, part of a $258.3 million donation from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for the study of malaria and its treatment. [New Scientist]

Scaretography

Bored? Feeling complacent? Want something to do? Check out the BBC's interactive map to see how avian flu is spreading across the world.

The problem-solving power of sleep

A new study in Nature magazine explains why "sleeping on it" can help people solve a problem. As reported in The Guardian:

The answer... lies in the hidden goings on in our brains while we slumber. In different stages of sleep our brains piece together thoughts and experiences, then file them in a structured way, giving us clearer memories and ultimately, better judgment.

Superspeed downloads

A Japanese company has developed technology to transmit a two-hour movie in 0.5 seconds, the world's fastest speed achieved with fibre-optic cables in the field, it said Thursday. [AFP, via Physorg.com]

The science of email

A physicist at Notre Dame University in Indiana says people respond to email pretty much the way they used to respond to snail mail -- by prioritising some letters for instant response and putting others off for a later reply.

As New Scientist reports:

The behaviour might seem obvious –- most people will respond quickly to an email from their boss, even while less important emails linger for days or weeks in their inboxes. But for those dealing with big, complicated networks like the Internet, understanding these sorts of bursty patterns could be the difference between a system crashing or not.