Do Sparrows Like Bach?: The Strange and Wonderful Things that Are Discovered When Scientists Break Free

Do Sparrows Like Bach? THE STRANGE AND WONDERFUL THINGS THAT ARE DISCOVERED WHEN SCIENTISTS BREAK FREE

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NATIONAL LIBRARY BOARD

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Do Sparrows like Bach 7

experiment for medical science, indeed, but a orettv bonkers way of going about it. All of which gOt'''; tn ..;how, as "urply everyone would agree, that Darwin had it easv.lf he'd wanted to find fame in this book he should at least have injected himself with the droppings of nne of his famous finches just to see if it caused him to grmv an oddlv shaped, but strangely useful beak. <';,1 t [ \ t'll he "h,lUld haH' dressed himself up ;1::; a "U1"tul\S thfn1 ~lti ..j ·~~·,J:t('j t~~ 'be fed By the same tllh'n l\1d rk Grabiner is in the book, but Isaac l\!('w tt1 1l i"n'r Frn[11 nh";l'rvinl! a fallinl! 'lpple Newton came it down. But Mark Grabiner wasn't prepared He used gravIty to more spectdculdr dle·1..! ­ up to ..;ee what kind of injuril's thev werc likcly to sustain and how such tails might be avoided. Cu,llface resedrch elt its bt'st. And so Crilbiner made it, Newton didn't. Of course, August Hildebrandt's outlandish had a positiVl' dnd beneficial outcome. But he remains one of the fe\\' true success stories in this book. Plenty of science is dead-end research. We can learn as much from the experi­ nwnts that fail as from the ones that succeed. Quite often research is dull and r
Introduction

be intense, creative, often amusing, but beyond all that, science can fire the imdgination like nothing else. And some­ times it's daft. That's because science researchers question and are prepared to tackle anytlm,g (just check out the c11dpter un lu\ t: dl\d "c.\). Scientists ,11'(' used ernments to wage war, they are used by prinlte com Danit's to invent frivolous nonsense, and they are llsed to make better equipment "nd in snnw cases - better ath­ up your rectum to make you swim better? There is 'erv little on this planet dlll1 beyonci that re'mains untolllhed or unconsidered bv thc minds, if not ot SCIl'ntlsb. the So we've' plunderl·d the archive'S of 5j years of Nnl' 5cicll­ li,{ 1l1,)g,1/int' to bring vou till' science of farts "no how to recydc \ our urine. Yllu'll find (lut how to get rid 01 undpr­ in SPdCl' and how two Idg..'r hottles brought ,1 arcch.'rator to d stuttering halt. And while we re,)lise that science in many of til(' fields c(l\'pr('d in thi" bllOk vvill havE' moved on somewhat since most of these reports appcdfed, we are happy to print them almost as they first appeared in the pdge" of Neii ' 5[1(,II{i.,I. W,' arc ccrt.lin re,lders \Nill that ('\'cnts and more recent reseclrch h,I\'C rendered onl' or "eroplan('s anyone? two a little obsolete ­ Our bunch of tree-thinking, However, Wl' make no no-holds-bilTred scientIsts wIll remalll stuck 111 their (lV' n era, beacons tn their limitless enthusiasm emd se'cmingly bound­ kss flights of tancy. Of course, Darwin's great ide'l rUlls and runs and is dcvel­ oping still, something thdt you can't say for the majority of that appear in this book. Which is Jescr\c " second ,llnng I hI' ngnroll;" examination of the universe around us knows no bounds and is limited onlv bv imagination, a surfeit of which imbues this Lullt',tiun ,if l'l'SC,Hcher::.. Welcome to Do Like Bach? which, if we'd had more room on the cover, might have been titled 'What

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