English for Chemists

 
 

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74 
4. Try to identify individual parts in the following abstracts. Do they all have the same 
structure? 
 
 
Tumbling toast, Murphy's Law and the fundamental constants 
We investigate the dynamics of toast tumbling from a table to the floor. Popular opinion is that 
the final state is usually butter-side down, and constitutes prima facie evidence of Murphy's Law 
('If it can go wrong, it will'). The orthodox view, in contrast, is that the phenomenon is essentially 
random, with a 50/50 split of possible outcomes. We show that toast does indeed have an inherent 
tendency to land butter-side down for a wide range of conditions. Furthermore, we show that this 
outcome is ultimately ascribable to the values of the fundamental constants. As such, this 
manifestation of Murphy's Law appears to be an ineluctable feature of our universe. 
http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/0143-0807/16/4/005 
 
Chickens prefer beautiful humans 
We trained chickens to react to an average human female face but not to an average male face (or 
vice-versa). In a subsequent test, the animals showed preferences for faces consistent with human 
sexual preferences (obtained from university students). This suggests that human preferences arise 
from general properties of nervous systems, rather than from face-specific adaptations. We 
discuss this result in the light of current debate on the meaning of sexual signals, and suggest 
further tests of existing hypotheses about the origin of sexual preferences. 
 
http://www.physicsforums.com/archive/index.php/t-93336.html
 
For more information on unusual scientific research see http://improbable.com/ig/ 
(Everyday Chemistry Quiz answers: 1d, 2a, 3d, 4a, 5b, 6b, 7a)