The New England Journal of Medicine recently published what looks like a before-and-after photograph documenting the ravages of sun exposure – but the image is actually an undoctored photo of a 69-year-old truck driver … [who] drove a milk delivery truck for 28 years, and the left side of his face – the side closest to the window – looks about 20 years older than his right side.New England Journal of Medicine
Half a faceful of sun
"If you're hesitant to put on sunscreen, one shocking picture may change your mind," says Yahoo!News. "The image: The New England Journal of Medicine recently published what looks like a before-and-after photograph documenting the ravages of sun exposure – but the image is actually an undoctored photo of a 69-year-old truck driver … [who] drove a milk delivery truck for 28 years, and the left side of his face – the side closest to the window – looks about 20 years older than his right side. What we're seeing, says Dr. Jennifer Gordon, the Northwestern University dermatologist who wrote the case study, are the 'very stark' effects of unilateral dermatoheliosis, or photo-aging, from UVA rays streaming through the glass: 'We are used to seeing photo damage, photo aging every day, [but] for it to be so one-sided? We were taken aback.'"
Celebrating in Antarctica
"Fancy a game of croquet in 64 km/h winds and temperatures of minus 30 C?" writes Andrea Thompson for Our Amazing Planet. "That's just one of the activities that a group of British scientists and technical staff wintering over at the Halley Research Station on Antarctica's Brunt Ice Shelf participated in to celebrate the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. The 14 winterers, as they are called, also held a 'mad hatter's' tea party. … Those who winter over at Halley and other Antarctic stations are essentially cut off from the rest of the world because the frigid Antarctic winter temperatures make it impossible for planes to operate. The crew at Concordia Station, a joint French-Italian research station, was told that it was easier to escape the International Space Station than Concordia in winter."
A visitor from Down Under
"Officials at a British swannery said they do not know how an Australian black swan ended up among the facility's 600 white swans," reports United Press International. "Staff at the Abbotsbury Swannery in Dorset, England, said the appearance of the Cygnus atratus at the facility, which is home to 600 Mute swans, is a mystery, but they are intent on catching it because black swans are known to kill their young and the swannery is in the middle of hatching season, The Mirror reported."
The appeal of stink bombs
"Imagine being hit by a smell worse than anything you've ever encountered," says the New Scientist. "It combines the reek of sewage with pungent rotting meat. … That is what it would be like to experience a malodorant – a non-lethal weapon being developed by the U.S. to drive targets out into the open. … Stink bombs do not cause injury, but the intense, unfamiliar foul smells affect the amygdala and trigger an unthinking fear reaction that causes the target to flee. This has led to a long history of Pentagon interest in malodorants …"
No grants for the dull
"Middle-aged scientists should not receive financial support because they are dull and do not take risks, the Nobel Laureate James Watson told an audience at Hay Festival," The Daily Telegraph reports. "… He suggested supporting scientists within the ages 30 to 40 because 'they are more likely to take risks. Men of 50 don't like to fail, which is why they are so dull.' He said no one took him seriously until he and Francis Crick discovered the double helix and published their landmark paper in 1953. … 'I just want to do science for the next five years of my life,' said Dr. Watson, aged 84. But he also confessed 'I spend more time now as a writer than I do trying to be clever as a scientist.'"
Taking two days in a row
"[W]ho do we thank for that greatest of mankind's inventions: the two-day weekend?" writes Francis Storrs in The Boston Globe magazine. "As it turns out, lots of people. In the early 1900s, American labour unions waged strikes for a 40-hour workweek. Meanwhile, Jewish-immigrant factory workers were making it clear that their Sabbath, Saturday, should be a day off, just like Sunday was for Christians (in response, a New England factory became the first to adopt a two-day weekend in 1908)."
Thought du jour
"Ninety per cent of all human wisdom is the ability to mind your own business." – Robert Heinlein (1907-88), science-fiction author