It’s long been a peeve of mine that some computer programs are programmed to try to sound friendly, cheerful, or just colloquial. It seems out of place to me, forced, overly artificial. I don’t mean that I want all the output from computers to sound like the stilted science-fiction stuff, saying “affirmative” instead of “yes”, and the like. But neither do I ever want to see (or hear) things like “Oops!”, “Hurray!”, nor even “I’m sorry,” coming from my laptop, mobile phone, car, or washing machine.

Some examples:

It’s common when you’ve finished installing new software on your computer for the installation package to wrap up with a message like, “Congratulations!

Fish in a wind tunnel?   How else will you learn how they fly?

It turns out flying fish can remain airborne for over 40 seconds and cover distances of up to a quarter mile hitting a top speed up to 40 miles an hours, says Haecheon Choi, a mechanical engineer from Seoul National University, Korea.

Choi said a children's science book inspired him to look into the aerodynamics of flying fish, and a paper of his results appear in The Journal of Experimental Biology.  Choi and colleague Hyungmin Park posted similar results in a poster for the American Physical Society meeting in 2006.

22 scientists have published a study they say provides clear evidence about the effectiveness of Non-pharmacological Therapies in Alzheimer's disease and are calling on governments to make these useful treatments readily available.

 A cure for Alzheimer's is not in sight and available drugs have worthwhile but limited benefits the study says scientifically developed and rigorously tested Non-pharmacological Therapies can significantly improve the lives of people with dementia and their caregivers. 

They say he strongest evidence is for individualized intervention packages for family caregivers which can improve the well-being of caregivers and help delay admissions to care homes.