Can software automatically recognise celebrities? Hewlett-Packard (motto: Let’s do Amazing) believes so, and has recently published a paper on the feasibility of ‘Wikipedia-based Online Celebrity Recognition’.
Researchers Demiao Lin, Jianming Jin, and Yuhong Xiong, from HP Labs China have been investigating so-called Smart-Browsing on the www, and point out that : “Obviously, recognizing celebrity names is important for smart browsing.”

It was back in 2005 that inventor  Boris Volfson was granted a US patent for a device which has been erroneously summarised by some as a 'Flying Saucer'. But which is more accurately described as a Space Vehicle Propelled by the Pressure of Inflationary Vacuum State. Although the patent explained at length how  “A levitating, rotating, superconducting disk“ might be able to develop a temporary egg-shaped space-time anomaly sufficient to allow a passenger vehicle to travel faster than light, the exact physics behind the crucial component known as the ‘Phonon Maser’ may have remained opaque to many readers.

The number of scholarly authors who have formally studied the significance of verbal (and physical) interactions at Fawlty Towers is very limited. Nonetheless, professor Annjo Klungervik Greenall, of the Department of Modern Foreign Languages, at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, has recently done so – examining in detail the many (often heated) exchanges between Manuel and Basil Fawlty, and asking how they might contribute to the idea of Linguicism.

“Viewing a stressful soccer match more than doubles the risk of an acute cardiovascular event.”

This disturbing conclusion was published in a 2008 study based on data regarding 4,279 Bavarian medical emergency cases. The number, and character, of adverse cardiovascular events which occurred during the FIFA World Cup (held in Germany from June 9 to July 9, 2006) were compared with those in a control period. Not only was there double the incidence of cardiac problems, but their time of onset starkly correlated with the beginning of the matches. [see graph at right]

A recent discovery regarding injuries to baseball pitchers’ elbows can be described, in round terms, thus : the faster the pitch, the more likely the injury.

Brandon (Brad) Bushnell M.D. (pictured) and colleagues at the Harbin Clinic Orthop(a)edics and Sports Medicine, Rome, GA. explain the background:

Can people tell how appetizingly fresh a cabbage is, just by looking at photos of the leaves?