Beach poo, Mussel-bound death, Mustache negation and measuring

This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has four segments. Here are bits of each of them:

Pet contributions — … Brad D. Lee of the University of Kentucky will present his views on the topic “Companion canine nutrient contributions to peri-urban environments“ …Mussel-bound death — … “Dramatic is the fate of a Danish black-headed gull (Chroicocephalus ridibundus) that stepped on a freshwater mussel in 1952,” he writes. “The mussel closed its valves and would not let go. The (no longer living) evidence – the gull itself with the mussel still attached to its right leg – was on display in an old photo I found deep in the internet.” …Mustache negation — … A curious phrasing appears in the titles of several studies published recently in research journals in Iran. What follows are are three examples. “Analysis of the economic diplomacy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in international relations with an emphasis on the rule of negation of the mustache“ …Mustache measuring — … He pointed out that, like mustache-hair growth, “earthquakes are simply one of a host of phenomena for which logarithmic plots of number versus size are approximately straight”.