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Specimen of the Week: Week Seventy-Seven

By Emma-Louise Nicholls, on 2 April 2013

I love it when Specimen of the Week lands on an interesting date. The 1st April is known for a few things, most obviously it is April Fool’s Day. Perhaps less obviously, it is the 31st anniversary of the birth of one of our staff members. An internet search of the date introduced me to the world of housing benefit changes, the new tax year, an Easter egg hunt (which I subsequently signed up for) and the fact that if you want cheaper tickets to some music festival or other, you should have booked before today’s date. What it doesn’t mention however, not even by page 4 or 5, is an article on howler monkeys that was written with the help of information gleaned from several reference resources including an online encyclopedia of animals that to write the aforementioned article was accessed at 15:23 GMT on the 1st April 2009. That reference to the 1st April is shockingly lacking from more high profile spots in the search engine results. In a small and questionable effort to correct this oversight, this week’s Specimen of the Week is… (more…)