Guess the planet
Feedback has always been mildly sceptical of, not to say narked by, requests to click on pictures of bicycles and fire hydrants to prove we aren鈥檛 a robot. True, no one has ever seen an algorithm riding a bicycle, but when the shape-shifting terminator bots finally arrive, they will probably take on innocent forms such as fire hydrants. It might take one to know one.
At least they won鈥檛 be able to get social security benefits in Spain. Gen铆s Cardona from Solsona, Catalonia, reports accessing an official Spanish government portal for tax and welfare services and being requested to answer a quiz question: 鈥淲hich of the following is a planet? A. Banana; B. Pluto; C. Scissors; D. Bee鈥�.
Advertisement
A decade and a half on, Pluto鈥檚 controversial demotion from planethood clearly still rankles in some quarters. Like Gen铆s, we appreciate the spirit of this open defiance of the International Astronomical Union鈥檚 edicts. Come to think of it, though, does anyone know which side the robots are on?
Flipping bird
Our mention of 鈥淣ew Zealand鈥檚 most annoying t奴墨鈥� (1 January) prompts Matthew Arozian to write from Baltimore, Maryland, with the heartfelt insight that the Carolina wren 鈥� Thryothorus ludovicianus, we savour on our tongue 鈥� weighs approximately 18 to 22 grams .
He asks us to imagine the cacophonous circus of a brood being taught to fly just outside his home-office window. We close our eyes, rapidly open them again and sympathise. Mind you, the transcendent benefits for our well-being of being within and bonded to nature are well known, Matthew. Call it home delivery.
Polly the pickled parrot
Staying with our feathered frenemies, our Australasia correspondent Alice Klein provides an addendum to our item last week about alcoholic overindulgence in the animal kingdom with the story of Broome Veterinary Hospital in Kimberley, Australia, which ABC News reported in December was treating a .
As Michael Considine, a biologist at the University of Western Australia, pointed out, volatile compounds released by the fermentation of fallen mangoes attract the birds, encouraging them to propagate the plant鈥檚 seeds 鈥� even if, by whumping into windows, falling over and generally sitting around dazed and vulnerable to predators, the parrots鈥� own chances of survival aren鈥檛 exactly enhanced.
Evolution in the raw, and a reminder to the rest of us not to drink and fly.
Can鈥檛 find the words
The Guardian of the . For those who haven鈥檛 yet fallen down this rabbit hole, Wordle confronts its players with a blank series of five letters to fill in, giving them six attempts to arrive at the actual five-letter word that the computer was thinking of, once told whether their letters appear in that word.
As Fields medal-winning mathematician , this gamifies entropy in an information theory sense, as the information required to specify a given object. This makes it Solid Science, but Feedback has now fallen down the rabbit hole at the bottom of the rabbit hole with , a game that does the same thing with a more limited set of four-letter words, and , which gives a maximum of 26 goes to guess a single letter. We know all of this is contributing to the heat death of the universe, but we can鈥檛 stop now.
Tin lid on it
Of which, many thanks to those of you who wrote in varying degrees of delight and distress over our fiendishly difficult holiday word search featuring the names of all the known fundamental particles, the chemical elements and the amino acids that make up life鈥檚 proteins (18/25 December 2021, p 43). We are treating it as a slow-burning abvent calendar 鈥� a term we just invented, and we expect letters about 鈥� finding one a day as Christmas recedes.
For those of you whose year is off to an even slower start, we forward Bob Ladd鈥檚 query, which we take as expressing both delight and distress, asking how you might design the same word search with no accidental instances of TIN 鈥� apart from those required in TIN and ASTATINE, say. That sounds like a case for the entropy theory of information to us. And in response to Mike Clark鈥檚 query, we don鈥檛 know whether it is SULPHUR or SULFUR yet, either.
Whale units
Still in holiday mode, Harry Lagoussis writes from Athens concerning our statement that a lump of ambergris, or ancient whale poo, the size of a human head 鈥渃ould fetch you 拢50,000 or more鈥� (18/25 December 2021, p 56).
鈥淒oes that make the 鈥榮hithead鈥� the standard unit of ambergris volume? And, perhaps more importantly, if 1 shithead = 拢50,000, does that justify the use of the selfsame unit when discussing the global financial system, celebrity net worth etc.?鈥� he asks. At a punt, it鈥檚 no and no, but we will ask our ever-vigilant subeditors. And with that, we tiptoe out of the room.
Got a story for Feedback?
Send it to feedback@newscientist.com or New 杏吧原创, Northcliffe House, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5TT
Consideration of items sent in the post will be delayed
You can send stories to Feedback by email at feedback@newscientist.com. Please include your home address. This week鈥檚 and past Feedbacks can be seen on our website.
