Nut deficiency
What happens when you remove most of the nuts from the bolts on three of the four sides of a tall electricity pylon? New data answers that question.
News Hub report Police said a tower collapsed in Glorito, North Island, New Zealand on June 24 after a “maintenance worker” removed some nuts from the bolts connecting the tower to its base plate.
News footage shows TransPower CEO Alison Andrew reading aloud what is likely a carefully worded statement: “In our view, the specifications and procedures for this type of work were not followed. All of the nuts securing the tower to the base plate at all three legs had been removed, causing the tower to lift off the base plate and fall. It is unprecedented and inconceivable that so many nuts would have been removed at one time.”
The outcome of the Glolitt nut removal could have been predicted by applying textbook engineering principles, but apparently it was not.
Hold on to your hat
The phrase “Hats are hard to get in Ireland” was featured in a magazine article. Clinical and Experimental Dermatology – This does not refer to all hats, but to some hats, especially sun hats.
Marion Leahy and her colleagues at Galway University Hospital have used the phrase title A 2022 study into risky head conditions in men, particularly older men, in the West of Ireland.
They note that Irish men are demographically at higher risk of melanoma and traditionally wear hats to protect themselves, but that “most hats available to the Irish male population are [do] “Does not provide adequate light protection.”
When properly chosen and worn, a hat can protect your head from the sun's relentless assault. In 1992, B. L. Diffie and J. Cheeseman penned a hymn in praise of a good sun hat and the evils of a bad sun hat: British Journal of DermatologyDiffie and Cheeseman's paper “Hats to protect against sunburn” is (or should be) famous for its main photo, so to cap off your viewing, try to find a copy online.
This portrait of scientific equipment runs counter to the typical image of rows of test tubes that has been implanted in children's minds for decades. The painting depicts six artificial heads at an angle, without plastic bodies or hair. They are outdoors, mounted at intervals along a 8-foot-long pole. Five of the six are wearing hats; the third head is bare. Each head is adorned with small squares of sunlight-degrading polysulfone film affixed with Blu-Tack to its forehead, nose, cheeks, chin and neck.
A second, less avant-garde photograph shows “28 hats worn in the study,” with seven hats or hat-like objects arranged in four rows. The styles range from a green plastic visor without a crown, an “airline pilot's peaked cap,” a “checked deerstalker,” and a “Russian fur hat.”
Diffie and Cheeseman would have us believe that much of this is dermatological insanity, manifesting itself under the hot sun.
Space superpowers
Bruce Stubbert reminds Feedback's ever-growing collection of little superpowers that talent alone doesn't guarantee success.
“I wanted to contribute to the discussion about psychic abilities in space,” he says. “My psychic sense of north is super impaired in the Northern Hemisphere, and I constantly find myself driving or walking in the opposite direction to what I intend to go.”
“Obviously the position of the sun plays a big role for these superpowers. Before you decide on a direction you have to stop and think: 'Here the sun is in the south'. I was once at a conference dinner in the US and talking to an American participant about this issue. He asked: 'Does the sun still rise in the east?' Incidentally, he was also incredulous that it was winter in Australia while we were enduring the scorching heat in Boston.”
The Limits of Goddam
Bapu Deokar and his colleagues explain the basics of water management at Goddam in their paper. Asian Journal of Environmental and Ecological Sciences“Estimation of water used for washing vehicles in Shrigonda town, India“When the dam's water level drops suddenly, local car washes explain their response by pumping more groundwater, which results in a drop in the groundwater table and a groundwater shortage,” the study warns.
Feedback learned the basics about Goud Dam by digging up a copy of a 1997 study called “Volcanic Vents in the Goud Dam Area,” a study that should be endearing given its title. Pune University JournalGoddam has been identified as being located “near Chinchini in the Poona district of India.”
recently, International Journal of Advanced Applied ResearchHanumant Dattatray Shinde of Shri Padmamani Jain College of Arts and Commerce said that in one year, “up to 1.56 TMC [thousand million cubic metres]” of water evaporates from the God Dam. Regardless of how you describe it, the “God Dam” or simply the “dam,” this structure lets a lot of water flow.
Marc Abrahams is the founder of the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony and co-founder of the journal Annals of Improbable Research. He previously worked on unusual uses of computers. His website is Impossible.
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