Alien competition runners up
HERE, as promised, are 10 runner-up entries in the Feedback New Year competition. We asked entrants to compose a text message in no more than 160 characters, sent by an alien who has just arrived on our planet. Some of last week鈥檚 winning contributors sent more than one entry that we particularly enjoyed, and three of these are included here.
No sign of survivors. Died out 65 million years ago. No need for return mission.
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Thomas J. Lynch, Perkasie, Pennsylvania, US
Natives wonderful. Send ketchup.
Chris Mullard, London, UK
Too late. Another one overrun by Starbucks.
Len Cooke, Wokingham, Berkshire, UK
鈥淕reen鈥� site not safe, had to splash down at 鈥渂lue鈥� site. Life abundant and highly intelligent. Locals say dry land is bandit country 鈥� very dangerous.
Colin Wainwright, London, UK
Marooned! On Earth there is but one science. Based on mere observation and logic, it forbids faster-than-light travel and our star drive is refusing to work.
Clive Bashford, London, UK
鈥淎nd then there is locational determinism. Greg Taylor has noticed that the Sydney office of Birds Australia is located in the suburb of Crows Nest鈥�
3rd planet-colonisation candidate. C02 rising and almost breathable.
John Alderson, Reading, Berkshire, UK
Anthropologists will have a field day here. They鈥檝e got a creation myth that everything started with a 鈥渂ig bang鈥�. They鈥檝e even got the math to prove it.
Michael Parsons, Canberra, ACT, Australia
It鈥檚 life, Jim, but not as we know it.
Justin Byrne, Dublin, Ireland
Humans are not conscious beings but remote-controlled by little boxes pressed to the head or wires plugged into their ears.
Olaf Lipinski, Bad Homburg, Germany
This planet, mostly harmless, is chiefly remarkable for providing the best evidence so far that the limit of 160 characters on SMS messages is a universal const
Kim Bastin, Brunswick, Victoria, Australia
Troll the broken bulb
TURNING to other matters, reader Rex Last does not tell us how he came to be in possession of a Fibre Optic Musical Animated Fairy 鈥渙f unknown provenance鈥�, but he does tell us that, despite being a retired professor of modern languages, he is baffled by the instructions that came with it for changing its bulb.
These read as follows: 鈥淥perating Synopsis. If the bulb not brightness, make use of the reserve bulb elucidate as follows: 1. Turn off electrical source. 2. Fetch out the lampholder. 3. Troll the broken bulb, fetch out of it. 4. Setting in reserve bulb, troll the bulb without a reel or stagger. 5. Revert the lampholder.鈥� Can anyone help?
Audible light
AUSTRALIA鈥橲 ABC radio carried a report by Barbara Miller on Stephen Hawking鈥檚 recent proposal to set up space colonies to save the human species. John Ambrose has alerted us to the transcript of the report, which was put up on the ABC website, complete with an indication in brackets of the sound effects used. Here is an excerpt:
鈥淏ARBARA MILLER: The trouble is that travelling at the speed of light鈥� (Sound of light travelling)鈥� really still is the stuff of fantasy.鈥� We would be really grateful if ABC could send us the audio file of this section of the report.
Garage door security threat
TOWARDS the end of last year, residents of the area around Colorado Springs, Colorado, suddenly found that the remote controls operating their garage doors had stopped working. The reason, according to an Associated Press item on AT&T Worldnet that Bashir Syed has alerted us to, was to do with national security.
Air force officials at nearby Cheyenne Mountain air station were testing a radio frequency they intended to use to communicate in the event of a homeland security threat.
What they hadn鈥檛 bargained for was that the same frequency controls 鈥渁n estimated 50 million garage door openers鈥�, AT&T Worldnet says 鈥� so hundreds of local people found they were reduced to opening their garage doors by hand.
鈥淚 never thought my garage door was a threat to national security,鈥� observed Holly Strack, one of those affected.
Prehistoric Loch Ness monster
FINALLY, London鈥檚 Metro newspaper has also been excelling in its science reporting: 鈥淥ne of the most complete plesiosaur fossils has been found in Antarctica,鈥� it informed us last month. 鈥淭he skeleton of a baby reptile 鈥� which lived 70 million years ago鈥s thought to resemble the Loch Ness Monster.鈥�
Brian Russell, who spotted this, says it is nice to see Metro keeping its readers up to date with hard science.