Sideswipe: July 5: What could possibly go wrong ...

Worst person in the world

Josep Maria García, a 42-year-old man from Catalonia, Spain, had no idea he had become a global internet meme until he received a call from his brother-in-law telling him not to panic but to search the phrase "worst person you know" on Google. As soon as he hit the search button his face was everywhere! How did it happen? Eight years ago his brother-in-law, a professional photographer, took a test photo of him to check the lighting. He then uploaded it to Getty Images as a stock photo. García says that he vaguely remembers his brother-in-law telling him that his photo was used for a satirical news article about the worst person in the world in 2018, but he didn't pay much attention to the news. Now Google's algorithm associates Josep's photo with the phrase. Josep told The Guardian: "I've read comments that say 'he has the face of a Nazi supremacist' or that 'there is no empathy in my look'. I've got a lot of photos with that look – that's my look."

Just out of reach

Strange science

Stool bank: Researchers suggest that we should all make a trip to the poop bank when we're young and healthy and leave a stinky sample of our gut microbiota, which we may need to "withdraw" for use later in life. It could come in handy if you ever need a faecal transplant, which you might, given that the researchers also say they could potentially be used to treat a whole host of diseases. "Conceptually, the idea of stool banking is similar to when parents bank their baby's cord blood for possible future use.

Robo-fish: Scientists have developed 13-millimetre artificial fish which can tow 5kg of material, heal themselves, and collect microplastics from the sea as they swim. The bionic fish can adsorb nearby free-floating bits of microplastics because the organic dyes, antibiotics, and heavy metals in the microplastics have strong chemical bonds and electrostatic interactions with the fish's materials. That makes them cling on to its surface, so the fish can collect and remove microplastics from the water.