Is this the raciest conference invite ever?

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Electric dreams

Recently, the comments were delighted to browse the most rated conference invitation that we have ever received. We get a lot of invitations to the conference of organizers who work under the illusion, we do something that looks like scientific journalism, and they are above all a little prosaic: which is new in the signaling of G proteins, more results on the biology of molluscs, this kind of thing. But not this one, about a future event in Shaoxing, in China.

Here is the opening line: “From its revolutionary creation in London to its spectacular evolution in the vibrant heart of China, the Love and Sex With Robots conference is preparing for its most exciting chapters: its 12th international edition, scheduled for June 2026.”

Before you start to imagine a kind of cybernetic sodom and Gomorrh, remember: this is an academic conference, although with TED media levels. We are told to “prepare for a dazzling convergence of visionary scientists, renowned researchers and revolutionary thinkers who redefine human intimacy through advanced robotics and AI”. In addition, “participants will experience breathtaking revelations, revolutionary demonstrations and provocative discussions that boldly explore the future of love, company and technology”.

Elsewhere, the invitation describes the conference as an “electrifying event”: we do not trust. Here again, he encourages “practical demonstrations with functional robotic technologies, innovative software or interaction concepts”, so who knows?

By studying the conference website, the comments learned that he had a “supreme advice” which “guides the vision and management of the conference”. The five members are men: do what you want. The “supreme chief” (we promise that we did not invent that) is a David Levy, who has long New scientist Readers can remember as the author of the 2007 book Love and sex with robots. Our criticism said that “Levy’s enthusiasm for the carnal aspects of robotics leads him so often to the absurd that it is difficult to take his arguments seriously”.

However, the conference organizers clearly know what it is. The invitation announces that “this is the conference that the whole world will talk about”, and here the comments speak about it.

Defense of drones

In a recent New scientistCan the contributor David Hambling asked: “Can a nation protect against a Ukraine-style drone style attack?” (June 21, p 8). Hambling discussed the construction of physical barriers like nets or “hardened aircraft shelters”, using electronic jamming to disrupt drones, and “kinetic measures, otherwise known as drone decrease” – finally concluding that all of this was a bit difficult.

Which is very good, but the reader Robert Bull stresses that the answer was there in the first expert quoted in history: Robert Bunker, professional of security and the fight against terrorism.

Smashed

The editor -in -chief of the US News, Sophie Bushwick, sent comments a really scary press release: “The cheese can really make you nightmares, the scientists find”. Please, we thought, for the love of all that is dairy, that it is not true. We have so few joys in life. Do not delete cheeses.

The press release led us to a study in Borders in psychologyEntitled “More dreams of Rarebit Fiend: Food sensitivity and food correlates of sleep and dreams”. If you are confused by the reference to Rarebit, you can be insufficiently Welsh: Rarebit, explain the authors, is “a toast with spicy melted cheese”.

The authors wanted to know if certain foods really affect your sleep, as folk mythology suggest. They interviewed 1082 people online and found that around a fifth thought that certain foods improved or aggravated their sleep, and a smaller fraction thought it had affected dreams. At this stage, feedback has not been slightly impressed, because all this demonstrates, it is that some people believe that certain foods affect sleep, which, we cannot put the accent strongly, is not the same that it is true.

However, the paper goes further – or perhaps out of the deep end. The researchers found a solid link between relationships on worse nightmares and lactose intolerance reports, which led them to suggest that lactose intolerant people have more nightmares due to the painful symptoms they experience after eating cheese.

At this point, feedback was slid if we have left a brand. Lactose is, of course, the sugar found in milk, which, until relatively recently, could only be digested by babies. During the last millennia, some populations have evolved the ability to digest lactose in adulthood: those who without this line are lactose intolerant, and drinking milk makes them poorly dying.

The fact is that most cheeses are fairly low in lactose. The cheese manufacturing process eliminates lactose, which could be the reason why the first pastoralist groups invented it: cheese was a means of guesing dairy products without subsequent anxiety. It therefore seems unlikely that a little cheese before the bed will cause a lactose intolerant person to spend a terrible night.

What a trip we made. You thought it was just a funny story on cheese, but it is actually a starting launch for a new recurring article: the firms of feedback, in which we will describe the many insignificant hills on which we are ready to die. You have been notified.

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