Nest: Still abandoned

Be prepared. A neglected bird's nest still remains in the mouth of a large ancient stone sculpture of a human face, hanging high on the wall at the northern end of the outdoor garden known as the “Michelangelo's Corridor” at the National Roman Museum in Rome, reports a professor at University College London (UCL). The professor discovered the nest during a visit to the museum in April this year and reported it to a colleague who is the director of a natural history museum in the Netherlands. The colleague visited the National Roman Museum the next day and asked if he could take the nest back to the museum in Rotterdam to add it to his biological curiosities collection, rather than having the staff remove it and destroy or dispose of it. The request was greeted with enthusiastic gratitude from two staff members at the Roman Museum, but a third staff member who happened to come across the scene with a ladder when the first two climbed the ladder to remove the previously unnoticed nest from the sculpture's mouth, and warned that no twig or pebble should ever leave his museum.

Photos of the nest in question can be seen in the May 8th feedback.

In early June, the UCL professor quietly revisited the National Museum of Rome and shortly thereafter sent out a “it's still there” report to Feedback.

Feedback: We are more than happy to receive reports from future visitors to Michelangelo's Cloister observing whether the empty nest (one might call it an “amuse-bouche”) is still nestled in the statue's mouth.

Not Your Way

Reader Ashok Khushalani contributes to Feedback's collection of inspiring and admirable organizational slogans that have been replaced, supplanted, or clearly abandoned, though not always obvious to the general public (May 18). Classic examples include IBM's “THINK” and Google's “Don't be evil.”

Khushalani laments the disappearance of Burger King's slogan, “Make it your way,” from everyday life, and he suggests that its absence has meaning.

If you know of a hot slogan that was highly promoted and is now in storage, please don’t say it with any ill intent and keep it to yourself.

Instead, please send it along with the documentation as feedback to “Mourning dead slogans”.

A weak theory

North Americans' fascination with rod-shaped objects and the human habit of proposing and then rejecting theories are two factors that have led to theDoes size matter? Penis dissatisfaction and gun ownership in America” “.

Reader Matthew Hall sent a copy to Feedback.

“To our knowledge, this is the first study to formally examine the association between penis size and individual gun ownership in the United States,” Terence D. Hill and colleagues from Texas and Florida wrote. “Our findings do not support the psychosexual theory of gun ownership.”

The same team will be joined by two other researchers in 2021.Sexual Dysfunction and Gun Ownership in the United States: When hard data meets unfounded theory”.

They poured cold water on the often heated public debate, saying: “Our key finding is that [sexual dysfunction] They are no more likely to own a gun than men without SD.”

BustaOr so they apparently said in their previous paper, but that didn't stop them from continuing to write about it. Busta”Ultimately, these arguments are counterproductive to society because they distract us from tangible realities like penis dissatisfaction and gun ownership.”

Smell

The June 12 article about a famous pathologist's inability to smell led reader John Adams to reflect on his own journey as a medical professional.

“As for Sir Bernard Spilsbury's anosmia, I was told as a medical student that this was common because pathologists are exposed to large amounts of formaldehyde fumes which destroy the olfactory nerves. One of the reasons I avoided this specialty is because I want my patients to have answers.”

Feedback suggests that a similar (but milder) preference for conversation leads people to choose dentistry.

Telltale Title

Ideally, the title of a scientific report clearly summarizes its entire content. To encourage this habit, Feedback has compiled a collection called “The Title Tells You Everything You Need to Know.”

Let's look at two examples.The man's fractured sternum was likely caused by the weight of the snake during the fall.” appears British Medical Journal 1997.Experimental replication reveals knife made from frozen human feces doesn't work” was decorated Journal of Archaeological Sciences: Reports 2019.

If you find similarly impressive examples, please submit them as feedback to “Telltale titles,” along with details of the citation.

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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Source: www.newscientist.com