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FEEDBACK For more feedback, visit newscientist.com/feedback

NOTHING fires up a Feedback reader found to contain the bacteria, and
quite like a mystery object, and rubbing the nose also helped
officials in South Carolina have to spread the bugs.
stumbled across a huge one. Earlier The clinicians report that the
this month, a 3-metre-wide object, findings bolster the case for fastidious
looking something like a rocket nose hand-washing during flu season.
cone, washed up on Seabrook Island Feedback adds that in the absence
(see it here: bit.ly/2PzTL4v). of facilities the only alternative is to
Local news reports that, despite swallow the evidence.
resembling concrete, it was soft and
“foam-like” to the touch, and didn’t IT IS a dirty business: enterprising
appear to have spent much time in individuals in Zimbabwe have
the water as the surface was clear been selling human faeces to
of barnacles and seaweed. beleaguered travellers. Following
Shadowy “local officials” soon a cholera outbreak last month,
arrived and whisked away the officials at the Chirundu border
evidence, leaving nothing but crossing began insisting all
questions. Part of an alien spacecraft? those crossing from Zimbabwe
A colossal failed munition? Or a undergo stool testing, offering
marine buoy? No hypothesis is too laxatives to speed things along.
wildly speculative for Feedback to But it turns out that the lasting
print, and we invite yours. effects of laxatives make them
an unpopular amuse-bouche
NOTHING stirs the memory FEEDBACK has reported before RESEARCHERS at the Royal for those starting out on long
quite like smell, so for absent on the high-end fruitloopery Melbourne Institute of road journeys. Local news site
metropolitans, how about a bottle available from Gwyneth Technology in Australia have TimesLive reports that a glut of
of London fragrance? The concoction, Paltrow’s wellness brand Goop unveiled a font they claim will
prepared by artist Michael Pinsky (17 March). The store is perhaps make words written with it highly
and a team of master perfumers, best known for its brisk trade in memorable. The Sans Forgetica
evokes “an olfactory snapshot of quartz “yoni” eggs, to be inserted typeface lists drunkenly to the
Piccadilly Circus”, with “long notes into the vagina to perform a left, and each letter is missing
of diesel, and a tar accord with a spiritual detox, focus energy and some part, making it about as
butch subwoofer taste”. get in touch with your Chinese easy to read as a Captcha.
Those who wish to take a concubine ancestors. The researchers say the text
sensory trip abroad can also But yoni eggs may be works on the principles of
breathe in the gritty sulphurous causing even Paltrow to wince cognitive psychology, which
smog of Beijing, or the sharp tang lately, after a court in California Feedback takes to mean its
of rotting garbage and car fumes issued the company with a illegibility requires readers to
reminiscent of Sao Paulo, Brazil. $145,000 fine after finding spend twice as much time as
The city scents are part of a project no credible scientific evidence usual trying to work out what travellers led to a black market
to call attention to air pollution to support claims for these, nor it says. As Feedback’s colleague in clean poo, with one vendor
around the world. for a “floral blend” purported to points out, even if plain old reporting: “I could sell about
Turning perfumery on its head, fight depression. Helvetica is only half as 40 portions of stool on a good
Pinsky sought to find a use for One in the perfectly styled memorable, you could read day at $4 to even $10.”
bad smells instead of trying to mask eye for Feedback’s queen of twice as much in the same time. As the threat of cholera
them. Londoners could sample the fruitloopery. Goop’s strategy is to This all prompts Feedback subsided, the restrictions were
foul air in “pollution pods” erected offer remedies for weirdly specific to wonder if there is a font that dropped, and the bottom fell
in Somerset House in the city earlier complaints, such as the “Why Am lies at the other end of the scale, out of the second-hand faeces
this year. This installation has long I So Effing Tired?” vitamin pouch. that is to say, a typeface which market. “Now that things are
PAUL MCDEVITT since wrapped up, but those who Perhaps her in-house alchemists is immediately forgettable. back to normal‚ it’s back to
airtime and sim-card vending
Although, how can we be sure
can whip up a crystal-infused
missed it need only step outside
we haven’t seen it already?
“See You In Court” healing balm.
for me,” said the trader.
for an approximate experience.
BAD news for nose pickers:
Hefty visitors to Santorini will have to go
researchers at the Liverpool School You can send stories to Feedback by
uphill by Shanks’s pony, after officials banned of Tropical Medicine have shown that email at feedback@newscientist.com.
those weighing more than 100 kilograms from the habit, perhaps unsurprisingly, can Please include your home address.
spread pneumonia-causing bacteria. This week’s and past Feedbacks can
riding the Greek island’s famous donkeys Both wet and dry, er, deposits were be seen on our website.

56 | NewScientist | 27 October 2018