After I return from Prague, Flegr informs me that he’s just had a paper accepted for publication that, he claims, “proves fatal feline attraction in humans.” By that he means that infected men like the smell of cat pee—or at least they rank its scent much more favorably than uninfected men do. Displaying the characteristic sex differences that define many Toxo traits, infected women have the reverse response, ranking the scent even more offensive than do women free of the parasite. The sniff test was done blind and also included urine collected from a dog, horse, hyena, and tiger. Infection did not affect how subjects rated these other samples.

Snot is your body’s best defense mechanism, a sticky moat of protection against invading bacteria, viruses, and fungi. When it comes to where your body is open to the outside world, snot (more properly, mucus) provides a barrier against these alien invaders.

As my junior high school algebra teacher, “Coach” High, put it, “You may think it’s mucus, but I say it’s snot.”

So what can this unusual library tell us? First, there is the simple parts list. The most common component was organic material, present in 40 of the 63 particles – exactly what is unclear, but it could be anything from pollen to sloughed-off bits of researcher. Quartz, found in 34 particles, came next, followed by carbonates (17 particles) and gypsum (14). “The minerals blow in,” says Coe. “They come from all over the world.” Other ingredients included air pollutants and fertiliser chemicals.

Anyone counting will also have noticed that there are already more components than particles. That is because most specks of dust are conglomerates, which means they may take an infinite variety of forms, much like snowflakes. The next obvious step was to find out what individual conglomerates looked like, but pinpointing exactly which speck corresponded to which spectrum wasn’t going to be easy. So Coe launched a competition. The first person to capture an electron microscope image of a particle that had already been analysed with infrared light would get to name it. And, if that was not enough, there was a free dinner on offer too. What student could fail to rise to that challenge?

“Hi this message is for Luis I’m calling from Doctor alexander’s(?) Atlanta to confirm your appointment for Monday at two o’clock for his vehicle immediately. If you could give us a call back here blaming me for Monday at two o’clock. Thank you.”

I can understand Lois->Luis and Allegar->alexander, but it took me a while to figure out that vehicle was the translation for physical. Why they asked us to “call back here blaming me for Monday” still totally eludes me.

My parents are a doctor and nurse respectively and both would like to donate their bodies to science. They both agree that they would not like any medical intervention to keep them living longer. Also, my dad has tendencies to not get medical attention when needed. I was a day away from being admitted to a hospital with pneumonia, as both parents thought I just had an upper respiratory infection. I’d like to see an article about children of medical professionals and their thoughts about dying.