Stone the crows
MORE human jobs lost to AI 鈥� that is, Avian Intelligence. The Puy du Fou theme park in the west of France has hired six corvids to pick up litter. The rooks have been trained to retrieve cigarette butts and other small bits of detritus, which they can deposit in a box to earn a food reward.
So far, so good. But Feedback suspects the site owners may be underestimating their feathered employees. How long before the six birds grow tired of working for chicken feed and decide to unionise? Or will the canny corvids begin subcontracting the work to sparrows, taking a cut for themselves? A paper on the economic policies of .
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Comedian bombs
GOING down like a lead balloon: a suspicious package attached to a red parachute fell from the skies over New Jersey causing alarm, thanks to a note stuck to it with a message for US President Donald Trump. The note read: 鈥淣ASA Atmospheric Research Instrument NOT A BOMB!鈥� If this lands near the President, we at NASA wish him a great round of golf.鈥� The president was indeed staying at a golf resort nearby. Police intercepted the package, which they say was making a hissing sound.
鈥淩eader Joanne Wheeler finds herself puzzled by the many jigsaws available to buy on Amazon that are marked by the website as 鈥渘o assembly required鈥�. 鈥淭hey must be very boring puzzles,鈥� she says鈥�
NASA confirmed that the device was one of six weather balloons launched to measure ozone. The note was a 鈥渕isguided attempt to be lighthearted鈥� by a student researcher, who has since been removed from the project.
Lazy bones
to get out of bed in the morning? Spare a thought for Homo erectus, an early species of human that researchers claim went extinct through laziness. (It鈥檚 lucky you can鈥檛 libel the dead 鈥� or extinct species.) Ceri Shipton of the Australian National University found stone tools were typically made by H. erectus with whatever rocks were to hand, despite there being better stone available nearby.
From this, Shipton reaches the conclusion that H. erectus followed 鈥渁 least-effort鈥� strategy. Twinned with an inability to adapt to a changing environment, this sealed their demise. 鈥淭he environment around them was changing, but they were doing the exact same things with their tools,鈥� says Shipton. Thank goodness Homo sapiens would never make such a foolish mistake鈥�
Current events
WHEN is a lake not a lake? When it is the Caspian Sea.
The world鈥檚 largest enclosed body of water has seen decades of wrangling between the five countries lying on its shores. Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and Iran are all keen to exploit the oil and gas deposits beneath the body of water. If the Caspian is a sea, territorial claims only extend a certain distance from the shoreline. But if the Caspian is a lake, no such rules hold, and the countries are free to divide up the oil fields.
Now the nations have reached an agreement. The wet bit of the Caspian will be treated as a sea, available for common use, while the land underneath is a lake bed, which will be carved up. This means these five nations will be the first you can reach from international waters .
Killer app
, Don Dennis was alarmed to read about a hospital sanitation robot that 鈥渃an eliminate virtually all organisms in just 10 minutes, using the power of ultraviolet radiation鈥�.
There鈥檚 only one metal monster we know of capable of that level of extermination, Don. Are you sure you weren鈥檛 reading that other fine BBC title, Doctor Who Magazine?
Hedging your bet
WITH much of Australia in drought, Tim McCulloch is informed by the Australian Broadcasting Network that 鈥渢he official forecast is that there is a 50 per cent chance the rainfall over the next 12 months will be less than the median鈥�. Isn鈥檛 that a given, he says. Well, they鈥檙e not wrong. Who said long-term forecasts were unpredictable?
Hair today
WEARING clothes made of fur and leather is so pass茅, darling. Why not instead wear a garment made from an extinct animal? Vladimir Ammosov, from Yakutsk, Siberia, acquired a bag of woolly mammoth hair, had it verified at the local mammoth museum, and hired a hat maker to crochet it into a Yakutian style hat. It鈥檚 basically a beanie made of the most itchy material you can imagine. 鈥淚 kept looking at the bag, wondering what to do with the hair, and then thought why not try to make a hat?鈥� says Ammosov. Better than a G-string, we suppose.
Cow parade
AND finally, cows in Sweden are celebrating the ruling that they are allowed to visit nudist beaches. Vaxjo鈥檚 Culture and Leisure Department ruled the cows 鈥渉ave just as much right to be there as the human visitors鈥�.
A representative from the Vaxjo herd confirmed to Feedback that the bovids are looking forward to mooving in.
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