UP TO two million owners of personal computers are being recruited to run the biggest climate prediction experiment attempted.

It aims to reduce the uncertainty in predicting future climate by running programs that model the climate millions of times, using idle time on home PCs.

Volunteers will be able to watch their own experiment as it proceeds, having downloaded the Met Office’s climate model from www.climateprediction.net. Each volunteer will have a different set of starting parameters built in by the organisers.

The program will not interfere with normal computing, but it may need to be turned off when some of the most demanding computer games are run.

Dotty cure for smokers

Smokers who feel the urge to light up may soon be able to find relief by looking at a flickering pattern of dots on a hand-held computer.

Jon May, a psychologist from Sheffield University, told the festival that cravings begin when an image of the desired object, for example a cigarette, forms in the mind.

Laboratory tests had shown that looking at the dots on a screen interrupted the image and therefore reduced the cravings. Six bursts of 15 seconds looking at the patterns were enough.

Dr May added that a program had been written for hand-held computers and he now wanted to test it on smokers to see if it helped them to kick the habit.

Heading off hat danger

Hundreds of hats owned by the Victoria & Albert Museum could be a hazard to staff and the public because they contain mercury or mercury salts, Professor Graham Martin, Head of the museum’s Science Section reported.

Mercury was commonly used by hatters in preparing felt, and often led to odd behaviour. Hatters in the 19th century suffered such strange mental disturbances from mercury poisoning that they often appeared mad.

Hats from 1820 to 1930 have been identified as containing mercury. Some may have to be put in bags to prevent the risk of mercury contamination, meaning that visitors could not see them.

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