Love formula
IS ALL fair in love and war? The UK鈥檚 Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) thinks not, since it has . 鈥淪tep aside, fate. It鈥檚 time science had a go at love,鈥� London commuters were told, 鈥渆Harmony鈥檚 scientifically proven matching system decodes the mystery of compatibility and chemistry so you don鈥檛 have to.鈥�
The complaint was filed by a man who should know: Lord Lipsey, the joint chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Statistics, and himself a former member of the . The body ruled that consumers were likely to interpret the advert as meaning there was significantly more chance of finding love through eHarmony than alternative methods, a feature the company could not demonstrate in the evidence submitted to the regulator.
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The ASA鈥檚 report noted that while the site鈥檚 couplings boasted fewer break-ups than competing websites, the rate of matrimonial disharmony was still higher than that found among couples who had met more organically on the web.
It鈥檚 not the first time the eHarmony love boat has sailed into choppy waters. Famously exacting in its standards (the site will not accept applications from those who are too depressed, too married, or too-frequently divorced), eHarmony also faced lawsuits over its refusal to offer matchmaking services to gay and lesbian couples, a problem it claimed was too difficult for its love scientists to crack. eHarmony settled one lawsuit in 2008 by creating a separate service for same-sex couples, Compatible Partners, which was not linked from the eHarmony website at the time. Subscriptions were not linked either, so bisexual singles had to pay twice to see matches from both genders across the .
Why the reticence? An educated guess might point toward co-founder Neil Clark Warren, a clinical psychologist and graduate of the Princeton Theological Seminary, who launched the company in 2000 with help from Focus on the Family, a non-profit . In a 2002 interview, Warren said that he took 鈥渁 real strong stand against same-sex marriage鈥�, and the site 鈥渕ay as well be鈥� a Christian organisation.
鈥溾�漈hai penis whitening raises eyebrows,鈥� reports the BBC. Terry Jeffries says: 鈥淚 bet customers weren鈥檛 expecting that.鈥濃��
The ruling is a dent in eHarmony鈥檚 quest to be seen as 鈥渢he science behind the butterflies鈥�; a matrimonial algorithm that perhaps requires being faithful in more ways than one.
Flight of fancy
THE UK government is keen to crack down on the use of drones, perhaps because people keep using them to deliver drugs to prisons, or maybe because they undermine the state鈥檚 monopoly on airborne surveillance platforms. However, these are not compelling arguments, so the government commissioned a report into the consequences of a collision between a drone and a commercial aircraft, which became a key factor in introducing regulations.
Yet the results were never released in full to the public. We may now know why: having obtained a copy of the study, reveals test crashes failed to penetrate aircraft cockpit windows, and serious damage was only recorded during less rigorous preliminary tests, where javelin-like drone components were fired at panes of leftover glass held down with laboratory clamps. Reassuring for airline passengers, but less so for a government keen to make the case for tighter rules on drones.
When the official summary was published, these less-rigorous tests were presented alongside the full-scale impact studies, giving the appearance that the threat from errant drones to UK aircraft was particularly acute. A registry of drone users was announced soon after.
Dirty mouth
PLANETARY scientist Sarah H枚rst wanted to talk to her Twitter followers about a paper in Deep-Sea Research Part II that her colleague spied: 鈥淎ssessing the apparent imbalance between geochemical and biochemical indicators of meso- and bathypelagic biological activity: what the @$#! is wrong with present calculations of carbon budgets?鈥� , plant developmental biologist Tom Bennett offered a more succinct article from Cell Press, titled 鈥淐analization: What the flux?鈥� , readers.
Pack your trunk
THE first incomprehensible units of the new year are upon us. Gillian Peall spotted the strange measurements in January鈥檚 Into the Blue, a magazine published by The Bolsover Cruise Club. This tells her that the new Royal Caribbean cruise liner, Symphony of the Seas, will weigh more than 17,000 African elephants. Gillian says 鈥淔rankly, I can鈥檛 imagine one African elephant, let alone 17,000鈥�.
Why, Gillian, it鈥檚 about the same as 1280 blue whales unit for an ocean vessel?
Life of the party
THE curing power of candles: 鈥淚 would like to take issue with an item in Feedback on birthdays,鈥� says Colin Jacobson (6 January). 鈥淵ou report that 鈥榖irthdays cause ageing鈥�, when it is really the complete opposite. They are, in fact, extremely beneficial to one鈥檚 health.鈥�
Colin says it is 鈥渋ndisputably proven鈥� that the more birthdays you have, the longer you live.
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