Feedback is 麻豆传媒鈥檚 popular sideways look at the latest science and technology news. You can submit items you believe may amuse readers to Feedback by emailing feedback@newscientist.com
No laughing matter
Feedback had a birthday within the past 12 months, and Feedback Jr gave us a card that read: 鈥淢y ambition in life is to be as funny as you think you are.鈥�
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Still, we persist with our dad jokes, if only because our offspring鈥檚 exasperated reactions are so much fun. So we were delighted to learn that two psychologists, Paul Silvia and Meriel Burnett, have taken a scholarly interest in dad jokes. They have written an on the topic.
It鈥檚 called 鈥淲hat鈥檚 brown and sticky? Peering into the ineluctable comedic mystery of dad humor with a handful of machine learning models, hundreds of humans, and tens of thousands of dad jokes鈥�. The abstract begins, if you hadn鈥檛 guessed, 鈥淎 stick, of course.鈥�
The authors collated more than 32,000 jokes from the r/dadjokes community on Reddit. This dataset is available alongside the paper, so Feedback naturally downloaded the whole thing. It includes such gems as 鈥淗ow can you find out how old a boat is? Look at its berth certificate.鈥�
However, this isn鈥檛 just an excuse to trot out puns: this is serious research. The psychologists gathered data on how popular the jokes had been on the site, and showed some to volunteers. This allowed them to pose the key question: 鈥渨ho finds these quirky jokes funny?鈥� For this, panel members were asked questions about their personalities, political views and so forth. It turns out that people who are what the paper calls 鈥渃ulturally conventional鈥� 鈥� for instance, 鈥渕ore educated鈥� or 鈥渕ore religious鈥� 鈥� found the jokes funnier.
A key factor, identified as 鈥渢he most intellectually profound question on the survey鈥�, was whether people identified as cat people or dog people. Both groups found the jokes funnier, as did those who liked both animals, than those who didn鈥檛 like either type of pet. Which tracks. As the researchers say: 鈥淥ne does wonder what people who don鈥檛 like kittens and puppies happen to find funny.鈥�
Finally, the researchers found that gender and parenthood affected people鈥檚 perception of the jokes. Or as they put it: 鈥淚n these fraught and uncertain times, rife with mistrust of expertise and reason, it is perhaps reassuring to know that science has found that dads find dad jokes funnier.鈥�
United in urination
Asleep at the wheel as ever, Feedback missed the publication in June of Jo-Anne Bichard and Gail Ramster鈥檚 book . Fortunately, reader Brian Reffin Smith is on the case.
The book鈥檚 argument is simple: public loos need to work for all, but they often don鈥檛. 鈥淭his book provides a critical overview of public toilet design in the UK and presents an urgent need to re-evaluate the accessibility of, and culture around, these essential spaces,鈥� the publisher鈥檚 website explains.
Feedback is immediately on board. We have autistic relatives, for whom the high-pitched whine of some hand dryers is enough to cause a sensory overload, and who also have a lot to say about public toilets鈥� fluorescent lighting. Although we will note that the hardback has a recommended retail price of 拢70, which doesn鈥檛 seem very inclusive.
However, following Brian鈥檚 lead, we do want to flag the book鈥檚 subtitle. You might expect something dry and long-winded, like 鈥淗ow to design public conveniences to be accessible to everyone, regardless of gender, ethnicity, disability or neurodivergence鈥�. But it is, in fact, 鈥淲ee the people鈥�.
The end is kind of nigh
When you make a big claim and it gets some pushback, there are a few ways to respond. Maybe your critics made some good points, so you add some caveats or otherwise moderate your statements. Or maybe you decide you鈥檝e been misunderstood, so you try to clarify your views.
This is not a story like that. Last month (18 October), Feedback reported the dispiriting news that humanity is on track to go extinct in the year 2339. This was based on a paper by demographers David Swanson and Jeff Tayman, who had noted a decline in fertility between 2019 and 2024, and gaily extrapolated 300-odd years into the future. This, Feedback suggested, might be somewhat unsupported.
To our surprise, Swanson got in touch. 鈥淭hanks,鈥� he writes, 鈥渇or acknowledging that our piece on human extinction was serious.鈥� Which eliminates, once and for all, our lingering suspicion that the whole thing was a practical joke.
Swanson also sent us version 2 of the paper. It contains significant updates, perhaps because they have added in data from 2025. The extinction of the human species has consequently been postponed by almost a century: instead of 2339, we are now set to vanish in or around 2415. So that鈥檚 a relief.
However, the more significant change is encapsulated in the paper鈥檚 new title: 鈥溾��. You see, the researchers have now broken down their forecast by continent. 鈥淎sia will be the first region to experience extinction (2280), Europe, the second (2295), followed closely by the Americas (2300), then Africa (2360) and finally Oceania (2415),鈥� they write. Buy that beachfront property on Easter Island, folks.
Feedback can鈥檛 help imagining a third version of the paper, which will forecast the precise Polynesian island where the very last human being will snuff it.
Got a story for Feedback?
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