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John Major’s recent ministerial reshuffle seems to have done science no good
at all.

At the Office of Public Service and Science, William Waldegrave’s number
two, Robert Jackson, has been replaced by David Davis, previously a whip.
Jackson, although famed for his statement that the brain drain was a myth,
took a keen interest in science. For example, when Waldegrave went to select
committee meetings, Jackson usually went along too. Davis, however, was
conspicuous by his absence from Waldegrave’s latest visit to the Lords
Science and Technology Committee. The OPSS says he will be concentrating
more on non-science duties, particularly ‘openness’.

Much the same has happened over at the Department of Trade and Industry,
where Edward Leigh has been replaced by Patrick McLoughlin. Whereas Leigh
was the technology minister, responsible for the DTI’s innovation budget,
McLoughlin is the trade and technology minister, and he is also responsible
for environmental matters and South America trade.

In both cases, it is quite plain that the new boys will have less time for
science than their predecessors. But is this their choice or their master’s?

* * *

Meanwhile William Stewart and David Phillips have written to Feedback this
week to complain about their treatment at the hands of New Å®ÉúСÊÓƵ. They
don’t look a bit like their photos, they say. Bill, for example, insists
that his appearance is ‘thirty-something with a beard’.

A postcard saying ‘Stop whingeing’ was just about to be dispatched, when the
address at the top of their letter sank in. No, this pair are not Britain’s
most powerful science boffins, but senior environmental health officers who
share the same office at Northampton Borough Council.

The duo admit to some concern over the future direction of science policy in
Britain, but say: ‘Lucky for us, then, that we still have our day jobs with
NBC.’ Indeed.

* * *

‘Extreme vertical deceleration trauma’ is the subject of an intriguing, if
somewhat upsetting, article in The Journal of the American Veterinary
Medical Association. Otherwise known as ‘high-rise syndrome’, EVDT is what
happens to cats and dogs when they fall out of the windows of very tall
buildings.

The five-page article is packed with information drawn from a survey of the
subject. It explains, for example, that cats reach terminal velocity after
falling five storeys – and that cats (but not dogs) exhibit a phenomenon
known as ‘secondary bouncing’.

Feedback was also interested to learn that 75 per cent of the dogs in the
study jumped out of the buildings voluntarily – the other 25 per cent
emerged accidentally by such means as being thrown out by an unruly child.

The figures on this point for cats were harder to ascertain, since most
cats’ descents were not witnessed by anybody. Perhaps cats prefer to be
alone when they decide to end it all.

* * *

All magazines make mistakes, including this one. So our hearts go out to
Business Week, whose annual ‘R&D Scoreboard’ is regarded as a bible by those
who need to keep track of corporate R&D spending. A correction in the
magazine acknowledges that this year’s offering is slightly flawed: ‘The
International R&D Scoreboard (June 28) omitted Daimler-Benz, which, with
1992 R&D spending of $5.965 billion, should have ranked first.’

* * *

Neutral networks, as regular readers of the Technology section will know,
are computer systems which are good at making predictions of how things and
people will behave, once they’ve been taught on a few examples.

Six of Feedback’s colleagues fed some personal information – their ages,
number of children, newspapers they read and how often they go on holiday,
for example – into a program devised for Thomas Cook by Neural Technologies
of Petersfield. Thomas Cook wants to predict where existing customers might
want to travel next, so that it can send out more glossy brochures and be
confident that they will go to the right people. The network takes in up to
198 pieces of information about each customer. It has been trained on 10 000
examples of what previous customers were like and where they went.

New Å®ÉúСÊÓƵ’s staff found the exercise interesting, but were rather
sceptical about its predictions for their next holiday. (Admittedly they
only answered eight questions, not 198.) Five were told to go to the
Caribbean and one to China. The odd one out? One of our secretaries.

Congratulations to the network for thinking it would be the secretary who
would choose the most unusual holiday – but unfortunately, in this instance
it was wrong. The secretary actually wanted to go to the Caribbean and the
other five would have preferred China.

* * *

The Seacat has not given fast ferries a good name. As Feedback discovered on
a recent trip across the Channel, even in moderate seas the vessel bobs
around most unpleasantly – to such an extent that local people in
Folkestone call it ‘the vomit comet’.

* * *

Don’t forget to rush in your entries to Feedback’s ‘2020 Vision’ summer
competition, announced last week. Readers are invited to help to compile an
almanac for the year 2020 by sending in up to 10 prophesies of events that
will take place in that year. All should have some connection with science
and technology, however tenuous.

The 20 winning entries will be awarded a copy each of Harry Collins and
Trevor Pinch’s fascinating The Golem: what everyone should know about
science, kindly donated by the Cambridge University Press. The editor’s
decision on the winners is final.

The competition closes on 27 August. The winning entries will be published
in this column in September.