The Daily: January 21
Message in a bottle
One of my dreams as a child was to send a message in a bottle, and receive a reply from a faraway land. As I grew older, I realised that it was an unrealistic and frankly ridiculous idea, or so I thought. I was proved wrong by Sunderland schoolboy, Cade Scott. Then eight years old, Cade threw a bottle into the North Sea from Tyne and Wear in August 2011, along with the message: "I love Dr Who. If found, please send back with your name and address and how old you are. Cade". Seventeen months later, on January 7th, Cade received the following reply from Matthew Ellam, 25: "Hi Cade, thanks for your postcard. I found it whilst celebrating Christmas on the beach in Perth, Western Australia! Happy New Year!". If messages in bottles can travel over 10,000 miles, and Kate Middleton is the living example that you really can grow up to be a princess, maybe childhood dreams aren't so futile after all.
HAPIfork
Traditional British etiquette dictates that a lady should rest her fork and knife in between each bite, leaving you feeling fuller more quickly, and thus avoiding over-eating. It seems that nowadays, there is even an 'app' for that. The 'HAPIfork', a product of HAPIlabs, based in Hong Kong and the US, contains an electronic circuit which counts the number of mouthfuls per meal; eat too fast, and the HAPIfork vibrates. Whilst it is clearly not essential, the HAPIfork is likely to sit alongside the rest of the electric gadgets based upon traditional objects and mannerisms which make our lives forever easier.
Queen's letter-writing vacancy
At the age of ten, I received a letter from the Queen's Lady-in-waiting thanking me for my letter of best wishes on our sovereign's birthday. Whilst times have moved on from the days when I would sit and write such letters at the table with my grandmother, it appears the Queen's attitude towards the art of letter-writing has not. The Queen has released a vacancy for a Correspondence Officer to be based at Buckingham Palace, with the ability to "read and digest a large number of letters in a short space of time". Perhaps the Queen's message is to stop polishing the screens of our smart phones with our fingers and put them to better use with a nib and paper.
The importance of earthworms and honeybees
Though beautiful, the penetrable frost and snow covering our gardens this week makes it difficult to imagine such scenes in full summer bloom. Scientists however, appear not to have forgotten. Friends of the Earth have called on the UK government to remove certain chemicals from pesticides in an attempt to protect the already dwindling numbers of honey bees, the essential traditional pollinators of the British garden. This follows a report published last week from The European Food Safety Authority, in which it stated for the first time that neonicotinoid was only acceptable "on crops not attractive to honey bees.". Similarly, it has been revealed in a recent study by Open Air Laboratories that garden earthworms are thriving. Earthworms are essential for maintaining healthy soil, and it seems that without them, and our beloved pollinating honeybees, our gardens would be, in the words of Opal director Linda Davis, "very drab indeed".
Chimpanzees demonstrate human levels of fairness
The next time we think someone is behaving unfairly, rather than dealing with them ourselves, perhaps we should be directing them towards our animal friends. Scientists at the National Primate Centre at Emory University in Atlanta; have revealed that chimpanzees have a similar sense of fairness to humans. The "Ultimatum Game" was played with both children and chimpanzees, in which a reward division must be propositioned by one individual to another, and accepted by the other before both parties' rewards can be obtained. Both humans and chimpanzees were recorded to offer similarly generous portions such as 50% to their partners. Researchers say this opens the door for future studies looking at human-like behaviour in chimpanzees.
One of my dreams as a child was to send a message in a bottle, and receive a reply from a faraway land. As I grew older, I realised that it was an unrealistic and frankly ridiculous idea, or so I thought. I was proved wrong by Sunderland schoolboy, Cade Scott. Then eight years old, Cade threw a bottle into the North Sea from Tyne and Wear in August 2011, along with the message: "I love Dr Who. If found, please send back with your name and address and how old you are. Cade". Seventeen months later, on January 7th, Cade received the following reply from Matthew Ellam, 25: "Hi Cade, thanks for your postcard. I found it whilst celebrating Christmas on the beach in Perth, Western Australia! Happy New Year!". If messages in bottles can travel over 10,000 miles, and Kate Middleton is the living example that you really can grow up to be a princess, maybe childhood dreams aren't so futile after all.
HAPIfork
Traditional British etiquette dictates that a lady should rest her fork and knife in between each bite, leaving you feeling fuller more quickly, and thus avoiding over-eating. It seems that nowadays, there is even an 'app' for that. The 'HAPIfork', a product of HAPIlabs, based in Hong Kong and the US, contains an electronic circuit which counts the number of mouthfuls per meal; eat too fast, and the HAPIfork vibrates. Whilst it is clearly not essential, the HAPIfork is likely to sit alongside the rest of the electric gadgets based upon traditional objects and mannerisms which make our lives forever easier.
Queen's letter-writing vacancy
At the age of ten, I received a letter from the Queen's Lady-in-waiting thanking me for my letter of best wishes on our sovereign's birthday. Whilst times have moved on from the days when I would sit and write such letters at the table with my grandmother, it appears the Queen's attitude towards the art of letter-writing has not. The Queen has released a vacancy for a Correspondence Officer to be based at Buckingham Palace, with the ability to "read and digest a large number of letters in a short space of time". Perhaps the Queen's message is to stop polishing the screens of our smart phones with our fingers and put them to better use with a nib and paper.
The importance of earthworms and honeybees
Though beautiful, the penetrable frost and snow covering our gardens this week makes it difficult to imagine such scenes in full summer bloom. Scientists however, appear not to have forgotten. Friends of the Earth have called on the UK government to remove certain chemicals from pesticides in an attempt to protect the already dwindling numbers of honey bees, the essential traditional pollinators of the British garden. This follows a report published last week from The European Food Safety Authority, in which it stated for the first time that neonicotinoid was only acceptable "on crops not attractive to honey bees.". Similarly, it has been revealed in a recent study by Open Air Laboratories that garden earthworms are thriving. Earthworms are essential for maintaining healthy soil, and it seems that without them, and our beloved pollinating honeybees, our gardens would be, in the words of Opal director Linda Davis, "very drab indeed".
Chimpanzees demonstrate human levels of fairness
The next time we think someone is behaving unfairly, rather than dealing with them ourselves, perhaps we should be directing them towards our animal friends. Scientists at the National Primate Centre at Emory University in Atlanta; have revealed that chimpanzees have a similar sense of fairness to humans. The "Ultimatum Game" was played with both children and chimpanzees, in which a reward division must be propositioned by one individual to another, and accepted by the other before both parties' rewards can be obtained. Both humans and chimpanzees were recorded to offer similarly generous portions such as 50% to their partners. Researchers say this opens the door for future studies looking at human-like behaviour in chimpanzees.