IT HAS to be one of the greatest losses of all time to journalism, to history, to human culture. One of the buildings hit with anthrax spores in 2001, by a bioterrorist who is still at large, was the headquarters of The National Enquirer and its sister paper, the Weekly World News, in Boca Raton, Florida. Before anyone realised the risk, vacuum cleaners had blown the tiny, tough spores throughout the building, which eventually had to be gutted and disinfected. Sometime this month it will open again. But in a loss that must rank with that of the ancient Library of Alexandria, the two papers鈥� unique photo archive is now gone.
Photos in the archive gave the papers scoop after scoop. Bigfoot captured. Elvis with the waitress he married in 1992, 15 years after he 鈥渨ent into hiding鈥�. Proof that Washington think tanks are riddled with space aliens. The ape that had a human baby. The Loch Ness monster captured, then released so that it could give birth. And of course regular sightings of Bat Boy, from his discovery in a West Virginia cave in 1992 to his endorsement of Al Gore in the 2000 presidential election. Most poignantly of all, the confessions of Bigfoot鈥檚 love slave, published after the anthrax attacks but before the building was closed down.
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Now these photos are no more. But let us salute our journalistic colleagues who struggle on nonetheless, still telling the truth to supermarket checkout lines everywhere. This week the WWN carries, not just photo but video evidence of a Philadelphia bride abducted by space aliens. Go for it, guys! Don鈥檛 let the terrorists win!
AND here鈥檚 a story for the fearless hacks of Boca Raton to get working on, as we here at Feedback strongly suspect alien involvement. Farmers in Ontario, Canada, have been having trouble with their cattle, according to reports in the Toronto newspaper The Globe and Mail. The animals have been giving less milk, kicking and, the farmers swear, dancing 鈥� or as one puts it, standing up in their stalls to 鈥渨iggle their back ends鈥�.
The farmers blame this unusual behaviour on stray voltage, which builds up on farm surfaces, we are told, because electrical utilities are sloppy about how they install transformers and wiring, allowing currents to flow to ground where they shouldn鈥檛. This, the farmers say, creates electric fields that are generally too small for humans to feel 鈥� but a big animal like a cow has more voltage across itself in such a field than a human and feels a tingle.
The farmers are so upset that the law may soon be invoked to force the utilities companies to install things more carefully 鈥� and while they are at it, the farmers suggest, they might relearn what they were taught in their first-year electrical engineering classes. We鈥檙e not sure this is the whole story, though. Dancing cows? Stray voltages? Has anyone checked for corn circles as well?
FROM the University of Oxford鈥檚 online advice to people thinking of applying to study there: 鈥淐olleges receive around four well-qualified applicants per place, so on average two-thirds of those interviewed cannot be offered a place.鈥� Robert Sheehan wonders if these figures apply to the mathematics course.
鈥淲hile searching for the phone number of his local law enforcers, Will Allen was offered the opportunity to 鈥渂uy Cowley Police Station on eBay鈥�. Just as well he鈥檚 a law-abiding citizen鈥�
AN Australian company called New Water sells products and services aimed at helping its customers save water. One such, reader Robert Anker notes, is Aqua Reviva, which gives New Water鈥檚 newsletter the opportunity to propose one of the strangest units of measurement we have yet come across: 鈥淎qua Reviva has the potential to save homes 500 litres of water per day. This, applied to the 125,000 new homes built around Australia each year, saves 62 million litres of water per day. This is equivalent to an Olympic-sized swimming pool stretching from Melbourne to Darwin.鈥�
The mind boggles at the idea of an Olympic race staged in this 4000-kilometre-long pool.
READER Stan Courtney tell us that while browsing through Scientific American he came across this in an article about autism: 鈥淔or neuroscientists, this finding鈥� represents a dramatic change in the way we understand the way we understand.鈥�
Courtney says he cannot remember seeing any other sentence like this, in which a repeated phrase actually makes sense. Has anyone else?
FINALLY, Kevin Dickens has a room in a hall of residence at the University of Nottingham in the UK. On the inside of the door is a notice that reads: 鈥淩emember to always close the window and lock the door before leaving the room.鈥� Dickens wants to know how he is then supposed to get out.