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Next SynchroBlogging effort on April 1st?
Martin Fenner
Saturday, 08 March 2008 19:53 UTC
Fellow Nature Network bloggers,
we still have plenty of time, but I would suggest another collective blogging effort. April 1st is a perfect date for a not so serious post and some of you may need some time for a little background research on your topic.
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Is April 1 international?;-) When I was young, we were always firmly told that we had to get our April fools’ in by noon or else the joke is on the fooler. This presents quite a challenge for time zones.
(Apologies for the nerdish comment.) -
Neat idea Martin.
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Broadly speaking, this is “Day” and not morning.
April Fools Day wiki
From Reference 1:- Also known as ‘All Fool’s Day’, this is a day where people play tricks on each other and it takes place on 1 April. Most of the tricks involve getting someone to believe something ridiculous, if only for a second. For example, if you tell them ‘there is a tarantula on your shoulder’ and, startled, they look to see if it’s true, it is then that you may shout out ‘April Fool’.
In some countries (eg, Ireland and Cyprus) the tradition goes that after 12 noon you can no longer play tricks. In the afternoon, whoever does play a trick becomes the fool. This scenario may have been designed by adults to give themselves a bit of a rest.
There is a rhyme that children recite if anyone attempts an April Fool trick after 1 April:
April Fool is dead and gone, You’re a fool to carry it on -
Very good Dr Gee. Hopefully, you’ll be tempted again….
CONGRATULATIONS to Nature for giving in to temptation and running an April Fool’s story at the beginning of the month—on the web, if not in the magazine itself. An article by Henry Gee, ostensibly about the debate among palaeontologists over the origin of birds, discusses the significance of feathered dinosaurs such as Protarchaeopteryx. It is known that these dinosaurs could not fly, but now, says the article, the whole picture has changed with the discovery of “a near-complete skeleton of a theropod dinosaur in North Dakota”
“A report in the April issue of the Plains Paleontologist by Randy Sepulchrave of the Museum of the University of Southern North Dakota and his colleagues reveals a three-metre-long dinosaur similar to Velociraptor. The researchers believe that the dinosaur, now named as Smaugia volans, could have flown.”
It all sounds very convincing. But no such publication, researcher or university exists. And—the real giveaway—Smaug is the name of the dragon in Tolkien’s The Hobbit.
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I like the idea! But perhaps we should try and coordinate efforts, so that we don’t sate our readers with miscellaneous spoofs.
One idea: Nature could announce that it’s closing down, because finally everything has been discovered, and then we can all react to this in our own way. Dr. Gee can announce he’s finally got his dream job as Richard Dawkins’ publicist.
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Nature has run April fools’ items in the past, but pre-web (1997 in _Nature_’s case) the rule was that we (the editors) were only allowed to run one when April fools’ day fell on a Thursday. My favourite was a whole News and Views article by Robin Weiss, which fooled a lot of people (apologies if this is one of Henry’s links, i have not checked those out).
These years, with our daily news service, our scope for April fools’ is limitless (well, annual at least), so watch out. -
Maxine,
you must be referring to the Dorian Gray mice. Wonderful name for these mice that don’t age and lots of nice details in the paper. Hard to beat, especially since a Nature News and Views article carries so much respect.
This year April 1st will be on a Tuesday.
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Oh, this is going to be good.
Brilliant idea, Martin!
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Sounds a great idea, Martin.
I’m sure Nature’s efforts have been superb over the years, but for me the greatest spoof in print journalism has to have been the Guardian’s San Serriffe feature in 1977. I was at university, and still remember the total collapse it caused when people got it. (I find it very amusing that the Wikipedia entry on it has a moan from the hierarchy ‘this article or section may fail to make a clear distinction between fact and fiction.’ That’s the whole idea, guys!)
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