Ghost road
NO SOONER had German traffic troubles been soothed by a visit from an elf whisperer (22 September), self-described 鈥渋nternational medium鈥� (US small?) Mike Brooker claims that ghosts are causing accidents on the UK鈥檚 M6 motorway.
Brooker told Cheshire Live: 鈥淭here is no clear evidence either way to support or substantiate these claims,鈥� a statement that ought to preclude any further comment. And yet he continued, likening the M6 to the Bermuda Triangle, despite it being neither a triangle nor anywhere near Bermuda. Many will agree, however, that the road exudes a 鈥渞eal negative energy鈥�.
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Brooker told reporters that the stretch from junctions 16 to 19 was especially prone to collisions because of a nearby Roman burial ground, or perhaps an ancient battleground. 鈥淭here are so many variables and possibilities,鈥� he said. But none so mundane as tired drivers and ageing infrastructure.
The M6 is currently undergoing work costing 拢250 million to improve signage and provide emergency bays. Surely the local council can find money in the kitty for an exorcism?
鈥溾�滺astings, New Zealand, once boasted the sign: 鈥楾ombs and Grub Furniture Makers and Undertakers鈥�,鈥� says Bruce Martin. 鈥淚 guess the furniture included coffins.鈥濃��
Pass-word
MOST readers, we hope, could pass the Turing test and convince a human that they were human too. Now a paper in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology asks: what if you had to do so using just one word?
A survey of 1000 humans came up with 鈥渓ove鈥�, 鈥渞obot鈥�, 鈥渂anana鈥� and 鈥渕ercy鈥� among other shibboleths, all suggested as passwords likely to have come from a human mind.
The 10 most popular words were sorted into pairs and a second round of voting began, with 2000 people asked which of these two words they thought came from a robot. Neither did, of course, but the survey still identified the most human-esque word: 鈥減oop鈥�.
Ample proof that if machines don鈥檛 think like us, .
Off key
ANOTHER bum note has been struck for science. Counterfeit medicines are a global problem, but sensors to check the contents of a medication are expensive, prohibitively so for many poorer nations.
Researchers at the University of California, Riverside, have come up with a solution based on the mbira, the African 鈥渢humb piano鈥� played by plucking metal tines attached to a wooden board.
They replaced the tines with a thin metal tube. Samples are poured into the tube and the instrument plucked. Real medication will make sweet music, but any change in fluid density caused by adulterants will result in a flat note. Will the musical medicine technique catch on? Feedback will, er, .
Self censor
A LETTER written by Galileo Galilei in 1613 has turned up in a misdated library catalogue in London, revealing that he toned down his argument against the church鈥檚 geocentric doctrine.
The letter was thought to be lost, but a postdoctoral science historian found it in the Royal Society鈥檚 library.
Writing to his friend Benedetto Castelli, Galileo set out for the first time his argument that Nicolaus Copernicus鈥檚 heliocentric model was not incompatible with the Bible. But the letter is strewn with amendments, thought to be in Galileo鈥檚 hand, softening the wording before he asked Castelli to send it to the Vatican.
鈥淭he authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual,鈥� Galileo once wrote. Just be sure to make it suitably humble.
Meow meow
A PAIR of pet owners in Bristol, UK, found their cat sleeping off a night on the town, curled up beside a sizeable bag of class A drugs. The unnamed moggy discovered a plastic bag containing hundreds of pounds worth of suspected heroin and crack cocaine in the district of St Pauls.
Following the unusual pickup, Avon and Somerset Police tweeted: 鈥淔orget police dogs, .鈥�
Burglar alarm
A YOUNG family haunted by a ghostly voice singing a nursery rhyme discovered that spiders were to blame. Gregory Baker sends news of a woman in Ipswich, UK, who reported hearing a child sing It鈥檚 Raining, It鈥檚 Pouring in the dead of night for several months.
With the help of sound abatement officers from the council, they tracked the sound to a nearby industrial estate. There, they discovered that managers of the site had rigged up an alarm system that deterred trespassers by playing the eerie music.
The motion sensors that triggered the unusual alarm were being set off by spiders crawling across the lens.
Residents are now sleeping more soundly 鈥� so long as the knowledge that Ipswich is infested with spiders that love spooky nursery rhymes doesn鈥檛 freak them out.
Dark web
IN OTHER spider news, a beach by the town of Aitoliko in western Greece has been covered by a 300-metre-long cobweb. Vast numbers of mosquitoes have led to a population explosion among spiders of the Tetragnatha genus on beach vegetation.
鈥淭he spiders are taking advantage of these conditions, and are having a kind of a party,鈥� biologist Maria Chatzaki told reporters.
On the bright side, at least these spiders are not broadcasting spooky nursery rhymes to local residents in the dead of night. Yet.
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