鈥楾IS the season of goodwill and stench to all men. According to the Ananova online news service, the University of Minnesota is spraying some 500 spruces that grace its grounds with skunk odour in an attempt to deter thieves after a free Christmas tree.
In cold weather, the skunk smell on the trees will apparently soon cease to be noticeable 鈥� but as soon as a thief steals a tree and takes it indoors, it will warm up and begin to stink.
Grounds superintendent Les Potts told the Minnesota Daily: 鈥淲e鈥檒l probably still lose some trees, but I have some satisfaction in knowing that it鈥檚 not going to work out the way the thief thinks it will.鈥�
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Now there鈥檚 a seasonably charitable thought for you.
WHO needs ballot-box stuffers or the graveyard vote when you鈥檝e got a computer on the job? Election officials in Boone County, Indiana, were amazed when their electronic voting system reported 144,000 votes cast at a recent election, given that fewer than 19,000 people were registered to vote.
When the computer-generated vote tally displayed the spurious totals to a crowd at the county courthouse, county clerk Lisa Garofolo told the Indianapolis Star: 鈥淚 about had a heart attack.鈥�
A lengthy discussion of the type that is all too familiar to computer users then ensued between county officials and employees of MicroVote, the Indianapolis company that supplied the software. Between them they managed to smooth out the glitch, and the count was reduced to 5352 votes.
THE hit animated movie Finding Nemo seemed calculated to promote awareness of nature conservation. Sadly, it isn鈥檛 quite turning out that way.
The movie tells the story of a small orange fish named Nemo who is captured from the wild, taken to Australia and eventually rescued by his father. And it did indeed succeed in interesting many people in clownfish, the type of tropical fish that looks most like the animated Nemo. Lots of children asked for their own little Nemo, and lots of mums and dads went out to buy one.
The result? Australian radio reports that such vast quantities of clownfish are now being taken from the reefs around the Pacific island of Vanuatu that they are thinning fast and are in danger of disappearing completely.
THE Grand Canyon, one of the wonders of the natural world, is the result of the Colorado river eroding its way through rock over millions of years. Or so reader Steve Morris thought until he was at a friend鈥檚 house admiring her collection of mugs. He noticed one bought in the Grand Canyon National Park that revealed: 鈥淓stablished in 1919, the canyon still continues to bring awe and inspiration to all who visit this amazing piece of America.鈥�
HERE鈥橲 an ambitious claim from the British Post Office. Reader Maggie Berney has written to report that outside her local post office in Wokingham, Berkshire, there are three postboxes in a row, each of which displays a notice reading: 鈥淭his postbox has the latest collection in this area.鈥�
Berney goes on to observe that the only way she can imagine this being achieved is by three postmen standing side by side and engaging in synchronised postbox emptying. She adds that, entertaining though this must be to watch, it seems a bit excessive, given the Post Office鈥檚 current drive for efficiency.
DO spellcheckers understand context better than we think? Perhaps. When one of our colleagues was running through his report from a NASA press conference on returning the space shuttle to flight, his spellchecker suggested replacing 鈥減rioritisation鈥� with 鈥減rocrastination.鈥�
Now is positively your last chance to enter the Feedback annual competition.
For this year鈥檚 competition, you are invited to invent a new scientific word that we need and define it in an appropriately pompous way.
You may submit up to three entries per person by letter, fax or email. Thanks to the generosity of its makers, 10 lucky winners will each receive a bottle of Labrot & Graham鈥檚 award-winning Woodford Reserve bourbon whiskey, and thanks to Cambridge University Press, they will also receive a copy of Climate: Into the 21st century, the outstanding overview of our weather edited by William Burroughs.
The winning entries will be chosen on the basis of their wit and originality. All entries must reach us by Monday 8 December.
The winners will be announced in the 20/27 December issue. The editor鈥檚 decision is final.
Good luck!
From the department of superfluous warnings: on the box of insulin syringe needles made up for reader Paul Trotman by his local pharmacy is the prominent advice 鈥淣ot to be taken鈥�