The 2006 Null Review
January
At the start of the year, a northern bottlenose whale nick-named ‘Wally’ swam up the Thames into Central London. Sadly, it died of dehydration after becoming exhausted from swimming against the tide.
At the start of the year, a northern bottlenose whale nick-named ‘Wally’ swam up the Thames into Central London. Sadly, it died of dehydration after becoming exhausted from swimming against the tide.
Continuing the ocean theme, research on fish stocks suggested that some species had declined by 99.6% in the last 25 years, sparking international debate. Cod and chips please, no cod.
Also in January, they may look good, but they don’t actually do you good. Magnetic bangles were found to have “no effect on relieving arthritis”, and that any effect at all was only down to a placebo effect.
February
There was good news for stupid goldfish this month when it was found that trout were even more stupid than our orange friends. In tests, trout took up to ten times as long to respond to stimuli in a tank.
March
Clinical trials got a bad name for a while after six men were taken ill after testing an anti-inflammatory drug. Luckily, they all survived and student drug-testers everywhere breathed a sigh of relief.
If you want to live longer, get married! Studies in March revealed that married men live an extra 1.7 years on average. Sadly, the life span of married women declines by 1.4 years when wed - work that out!?Technology and tennis came together when Hawk-eye was used for the first time in a match during the Nasdaq-100 Open. The high speed computer can track the balls down to a matter of millimetres.
April
Scientists announced that dog food contained less fat, salt and sugar than a chicken korma ready-meal. But, before you go out and stock up on tins of Chum, the ready-meals did contain more protein and fibre.
A dead swan caused pandemonium in Scotland when it turned up dead in a harbour with the H5-N1 strain of bird flu. Luckily, it had been washed-up there on the tide and we were all saved from doom.
May
Great journeys of the world: a tortoise called Horace turned up at a house in Wales. Nothing unusual in that you may think? Except it had been missing since mid-2005. During his eight-month spree of freedom he had travelled just three kilometres, an average of only 12 metres per day.
June
Bill Gates quit Microsoft to concentrate on his charitable foundation. Microsoft still, however, rules the world (although Google are coming up fast).
Regulars in a Welsh pub had to drink up sharp-ish after the tubular object used for ages by the landlord’s wife as a rolling-pin was found to be a World War II shell. To say the pub had an explosive atmosphere was almost too close to the truth.
July US astronomers found a new planet, the first discovery since Neptune in 1846. They imaginatively named it 2003 UB313; sadly there are no little green men as it’s just rock and ice.
In the small Indian village of Manna, Taliparamba, the annual monsoon brought more than just the usual downpour, it brought fish. It’s thought they were picked up in a waterspout out at sea and dumped on the village, much to the surprise of the locals.
Within hours of Zinedine Zidane head-butting his Italian opponent in the World Cup Final, humorous pictures, videos, jokes and games reached all parts of the world thanks to the power of the Internet.
August
Only weeks after finding a new planet, we lost one! Pluto was deemed too small and useless for full planetary status so, to the horror of the science world, it was ousted. Poor Pluto.
September
We have always been
told sweets are bad for us, but scientists in September told us they’re more likely to make us crash a car. Research showed eating sweets or drinking from a water bottle were both as dangerous as talking on a mobile phone.We also heard more bad environmental news after it was revealed that South America’s glaciers were vanishing at an alarming rate - 2006 was a bad year for glaciers.
October
The annual IgNobels took place in the USA in October, and among the many prizes for wacky science was a paper that looked at why woodpeckers don't get headaches with all that tree tapping – bonkers.
Scientists showed that a nice cup of tea can reduce stress levels and heart attacks. A similar study in Japan found that drinking five cups of green tea per day reduced heart disease by 26%. Milk, no sugar please.
The all-conquering Google purchased YouTube for the tidy sum of $1.65m - pocket money.
November
Polonium 210 became the new buzzword after it was used to kill Alexander Litvinenko. The naturally occurring radioactive material, first discovered by Marie Curie at the end of the 19th century, may have been put in his sushi.
Jackson Pollock’s painting, No. 5 1948, became the world’s most expensive painting when it was sold for $143m – not science, but crazy none-the-less.
December In the month that some celebrate the anniversary of the virgin birth, a Komodo dragon in London Zoo decided to re-create the scene by producing offspring from eggs without being fertilised by sperm. As far as we know, none of the mini-lizards were not named Jesus.
In another huge year for mobile phones, nearly 950 million telephone handsets were sold around the world throughout 2006.
Have a peaceful 2007 - Happy New Year!
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