Curious
Times No. 306
July 21, 2005
EITHER
TELEVISION MAKES YOU STUPID OR STUPID PEOPLE WATCH MORE TELEVISION
Three separate studies have recently been completed and all three
point to the conclusion that the more television you watched as
a child, the less intelligent you probably are (at least in terms
of academic achievement). The longest-running study was carried
out at the University of Otago in New Zealand and monitored 1000
children from the age of 5 to 15, comparing them again at the
age of 26. The research found that the children who watched the
least TV between the ages of 5 and 11 were most likely to graduate
from university, while those who watched the most TV between the
ages of 13 and 15 were most likely to drop out of high school.
Two other studies from the United States reached similar conclusions,
finding that third-grade pupils with televisions in their bedrooms
consistently scored lower on standardized tests and children who
started watching TV before the age of three had lower math and
reading scores. (news.com.au)
AT
LEAST WE THINK IT’S A DOG
Gaze in horror at Sam the dog, who easily took his third consecutive
championship title at the World’s Ugliest Dog competition
down in California last week. “He’s so ugly even the
judges recoiled when he was placed on the judging table,”
gushed Sam’s owner. (Santa
Barbara News Press)
WE ONLY TELL YOU WHAT WE WANT YOU TO HEAR
By now I hope you take every new scientific study you read with
a ton of salt, considering that most research these days is funded
by corporations entirely uninterested in “objective”
science. And if that isn’t bad enough, the first ever large-scale
survey of several thousand American scientist found that one third
of them admit to having carried out dishonest research practices.
The study found that six percent of researchers had failed to
present data which contradicted their conclusions, 15 percent
ignored data based on a “gut feeling” that it was wrong,
and 15.5 percent had changed the design, methodology or results
of a study due to pressure from a funding source. (Nature)
?
A Chinese novelist is offering almost $17,000 as a reward to the
first person who can decipher his latest work which consists of
14 punctuation marks in 5 sections. The novel is called “?”
and goes like this:
:?
:!
“‘……’”
(?)·«,»
;——
Hu Wenliang claims that these marks tell “a touching love
story” which took him an entire year to develop. If you can
decipher it he promises a hefty reward. “The interpretation
should cover the description of characters and the plot of the
story,” said Wenliang. “I will reward someone who can
guess 80 percent the hidden story correct.” (China
Daily)
A MONSTER OF AN INSURANCE POLICY
The organizers of Scotland’s largest triathlon have taken
out insurance to protect the athletes from the Loch Ness Monster
in next week’s competition. The £1 million insurance
policy will be paid out if “Nessie” bites or attacks
any of the athletes during the swimming portion of the event,
which will be held in Loch Ness’s Urquhart Bay, the location
of many of the most famous sightings of the sea serpent. “With
so many top athletes in the water of Loch Ness at one time, we
couldn’t take the risk of one of them being attacked by Nessie,”
said one of the organizers of the event. “The competitors
will all be very psyched up and very driven, so there’s going
to be a lot of noise and a lot of splashing going on, just the
sort of thing that might annoy a prehistoric lake monster. Or
even worse, give it an appetite.” However, the geeks over
at the Loch Ness Monster Fan Club weren’t impressed with
the news. “Everyone knows she is friendly; she has been present
in the loch for centuries and never hurt a soul in all that time,”
said the club’s chairman Gary Campbell. (The
Guardian)
OF COURSE, IT’S NOT A SECRET IF IT’S SLAPPED UP ON A
WEBSITE
If you’re hiding a deep dark secret which you desperately
would like to share with someone (or better yet, if you want to
read other people’s deep dark secrets), there is a brilliant
website where thousands of people have sent in postcards expressing
one of their long-hidden secrets. Not only is this an interesting
peek into the psyches of those around you, but the postcards themselves
are each quite unique works of art. Check it out at www.postsecrets.com.
HOT DOG!
World hot dog eating champion and world record holder Takeru Koyayashi
won his fifth consecutive Mustard Yellow Belt at the infamous
Coney Island hot dog eating championships held every fourth of
July. The five-foot-seven, 144 pound dynamo beat competitors twice
his size by polishing off 49 frankfurters in 12 minutes, just
a few dogs shy of his world record mark of 53.5 hot dogs which
he set at last year’s competition. (sky.com)
83,431 PLACES OF GEEK
A 59-year-old Japanese man has captured a new world record and
the unofficial title of world’s biggest math nerd by memorizing
83,431 digits of pi. (Japan
Today)
Copyright
2005 by Andreas Ohrt
