“American,” perhaps. “Scientific,” I don’t know.
Long ago, in an economy far far away, I had a job at Holtzbrinck Electronic Publishing. Holtzbrinck, a German company with many American-publishing holdings, also owned Scientific American, at least at that time; also at that time, CD-ROMs were considered the next big wave on Personal Computing Beach (…I know, right? That’s 1995 for you, I guess), so my boss frequently sent me into the SA archives to see if I could find anything worth slapping onto a disc and selling.
I couldn’t, really, but my time in the musty archive room is still my fondest memory of that job, and not just because nobody else in the entire organization ever went in there, leaving me free to nap if the urge struck. I actually liked leafing through the ancient folios; I think SA is a monthly now, but at various times in its history it was a weekly, and reading back through the issues from the turn of the last century, all the breathlessly reported updates on the progress of the tunnels from New York to New Jersey, I could look through a window into a different time and see what we as a culture cared about then.
But the magazine also breathlessly reported on just about anything that had even a casual relationship with science — or engineering, or nature, or the acquisition of patents, which from what I could tell had become a nation-wide craze. I swear to God, every adult male with access to a forge and a first-class stamp had gotten a patent on some variation of the pennyfarthing, and Scientific American dutifully published each one, along with a little drawing. “Wilberforce’s Pennyfarthing,” “Tripworth’s Pennyfarthing,” a gigantic mutation called the nickelfarthing which permitted the rider to lie prone while pedaling with his hands (the gentleman in the illustration had on goggles and a scarf, like a barnstormer)…why, all the pennyfarthinging scarcely left room for the profile of the potato battery spotted at the World’s Fair!
I’m exaggerating…but not much.
Anyway, Scientific American could get pretty hilarious, and after a while I began keeping a list of the most ridiculous SA headlines in my little notebook. I’m sure I don’t know how the list survived five moves, but I came across it today while file-diving for another item entirely, in a folder marked, fittingly, “random.” I’ve reproduced it for you below, in alphabetical order, and I assure you, it is authentic.
Career of a Billiard Ball
A Caution to Hard Drinkers
Coffee as an Antiseptic
Dying Usually a Painless Experience
Electricity in Insects
How Deer Act in a Snowstorm
An Imprisoned Fish
The Inhabitants of Cheese
Kerosene and Spiders
The Kite as Life-Saving Apparatus
The Little Red Ant
The Little Toe
Loss in Keeping Manure
A Mysterious Olive Disease
Pineapple Fiber
Relief of the Idiot
Spontaneous Combustion of Hay
Taking Care of Rope
The Weight of Earth Worms
The Worst Smelling Substance Known
Tags: publishing
Everybody, I am a patent examiner and let me tell you: The acquisition of patents is still a nationwide craze. Whenever I tell people what I do, they always take the opportunity to Tell Me Their Idea and ask if I think it could get a patent. I work in biotechnology, i.e. tissue engineering and stem cells, which I thought was pretty cool and high-tech — but my friend at the patent office told me that she told a woman at a party once that she was a patent examiner in biotechnology and the woman said, “Well, maybe if you’re there long enough, they’ll let you work on the really cool inventions, like the toys!” Urgh.
Also, being a former biologist, I can inform you with great authority that two of the foulest-smelling compounds known to man are those called “putrescine” and (no lie) “cadaverine.” They are both major components of the smell of rotting flesh.
Finally, reading shampoo labels is something I actually have had to do for my work at the patent office. It’s not just a job, it’s an adventure!
Must…consult…father…
My dad has had a subscription to Scientific American for as long as I can remember. And he KEEPS THEM ALL. In boxes, arranged chronologically, of course. Sars, I don’t suppose you noted down the issue/volume numbers on any of these articles, did you? Because I desperately need to know about the Inhabitants of Cheese, as I am an incorrigible cheeseaholic.
I didn’t — but we’re talking 1890s through 1920s here. I’m guessing your dad didn’t collect back that far.
awesome. hee, “mysterious olive disease”…
And, hey, science is still cool!! is too! Though I recently read a paper titled “How To Write Consistently Boring Scientific Papers.” hee. Maybe we need to bring back ridiculous headlines like the SA ones.
more cool science:
http://webs.wichita.edu/facsme/nitro/cream.htm
http://www.funsci.com/fun3_en/dna/dna.htm
Hee…. “The Little Red Ant”. I wonder if that is a sequel to “The Little Red Hen”.