Technology Dafter and dafter… Only the terminally dishevelled escape the chore of ironing. For everyone else, listening to the radio can make the drudgery of heat-assisted garment flattening more bearable. That doesn't mean combining these two old inventions—the electric iron and the radio—is patentable, but Ruben Jones of Toledo, Ohio, is going to try (WO 0209327). Jones's iron combines … News
Westminster diary THE fate of the tiny island of Gruinard, just off the Scottish mainland between Ullapool and Gairloch in the Highlands, has long been an interest of mine. During the Second World War it was the site of an anthrax test on sheep to investigate the possibility of using the bacterium as a biological weapon. So … Opinion
Weather report GEORGE MERRYWEATHER was a dab hand with a leech. He was a doctor, tending to the needs of the people of Whitby on the North Yorkshire coast, where he applied the worms as often as a modern GP might prescribe antibiotics. Merryweather was also an observant and educated man. He had read a poem by … Features
If you go down to the woods today Among the Bears by Benjamin Kilham and Ed Gray, Henry Holt, $26, ISBN 0805069194 CONFRONTED by two hungry black bears, most people would immediately know what steps to take: long, fast ones. But the bears that arrived on Ben Kilham's doorstep in 1993 were orphaned cubs weighing a couple of kilos each. So he set … Books & Arts
Feedback A RECENT announcement from The Scientific World website has thrown the chemical information mailing list CHMINF into a tizzy. Apparently, the medical database MEDLINE is to abstract The Scientific World journal. But how will it be referenced? The official name is TheScientificWorldJOURNAL. And, yes, all those capital letters really should be there. The worry is … Regulars