Josie Ford
Branson pickle
The world was agog in July as two grown men squared off about who would be the first to reach space on their own rocket. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos looked set to win when he announced his Blue Origin take-off for 20 July – only to see Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson pip him to the post with an 11 July flight.
That wasn’t the end of the cockpit fighting, though. As the Virgin Galactic trip wouldn’t be quite high enough to meet the international definition of space flight, Blue Origin cast aspersions on the size of Branson’s, ahem, trajectory.
Feedback had to watch coverage of the missions through our fingers, because space flight isn’t the kind of endeavour that should be rushed. It wasn’t just safety on our mind, but also what Branson might do in front of cameras. He has been known to demonstrate his manliness by picking up the nearest woman and brandishing her aloft like a human trophy, as documented on a blog called “Richard Branson picking up women”. We were glad to see he didn’t attempt this stunt with his two female fellow crew members.
Hardly rocket science
Thankfully, both missions were successful, but it has emerged that Branson’s flight didn’t go entirely smoothly. During the ascent, first a yellow warning light came on, to signal that the rocket-plane was going off-course, then a red one, indicating a need to take corrective action or to abort the mission, it has been reported.
While a company spokesperson said the flight was never in danger, anonymous company sources told The New Yorker that the safest response would have been to abort. And a Virgin Galactic pilot has previously said such a red light should “scare the crap out of you”.
In the meantime, the US Federal Aviation Administration has grounded the company’s space flights until the incident has been investigated. The reduction in emissions from keeping the rocket-planes in their hangars is something the planet can be grateful for, if not Branson.
Just a minute
Talking of living dangerously, a colleague sent us a press release from a new flavoured water brand using “retronasal technology” – translation: it smells nice – which claims that every soft drink we consume cuts our lifespan by 12.5 minutes. Can this be true?
Feedback is sceptical. Putting aside the fact that different studies regularly assert that the worst dietary sin is, by turns, sugar, fat, starch, meat or, indeed, any major food group depending on what day of the week it is, the press release has an implausible level of precision over our allotted time on Earth. It seems unlikely that a 20-year-old innocently quaffing a can of cola today is condemning themselves to die, not 60 years hence, but instead in 59 years, 11 months, 29 days, 23 hours and 47.5 minutes. Still, we have come to expect such unscientific pronouncements from press releases.
An apple pie a day…
Except… what’s this? A paper in respectable, peer-reviewed journal Nature Food, which calculates the same implausibly precise lifespan metric for food items ranging from chicken wings to macaroni cheese. A hot dog, for instance, takes 36 minutes off your life, while apple pie lengthens it by 1.3 minutes.
Sadly, when one of the authors announced their findings on Twitter, the reception was… impertinent. One respondent said that they had eaten so many hot dogs that they should have died 56 years ago, while others used unkind terms such as “pseudoscience”, “garbage” and other words that shouldn’t be repeated in a family publication.
Taking the results at face value, though, a quick calculation suggests that if you must have a hot dog, just follow it with 27.7 apple pies and there will be no net change. Incidentally, the most life-lengthening food, according to this study, is peanut butter and jam sandwiches, each one making you live half an hour longer. Eat nothing but these and you would presumably live forever – or perhaps it would only feel like that.
Horsing around
One item not in that paper’s catalogue of life-extending substances is ivermectin, the horse dewormer that is a covid-19 wonder drug, according to conspiracy theorists. Judging by their communications on social media, it seems to be the same people who don’t trust coronavirus vaccines – tested in tens of thousands in carefully monitored randomised trials – who are placing their faith in a drug that is untested and unlicensed for covid-19.
While ivermectin is used in people to treat parasitic worms and head lice, most doctors won’t prescribe it for covid-19, so conspiracy theorists are resorting to buying the veterinary version of the drug. This comes in a more concentrated form, though, so is sadly leading to overdoses, causing vomiting, diarrhoea and seizures.
Veterinary stores are now quizzing prospective ivermectin buyers on their horse breed and insisting on production of a horse selfie. The US Food and Drug Administration has a diplomatically written advice sheet on why it is inadvisable for people to take animal medicines, but whoever runs their Twitter account was more succinct, saying simply: “You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it.” Words to live by – literally.
Got a story for Feedback?
You can send stories to Feedback by email at feedback@newscientist.com. Please include your home address. This week’s and past Feedbacks can be seen on our website.
Source: Humans - newscientist.com
