The Furious Spinner

Mario is reading an interesting book (and telling me the good parts version) called Our Own Devices: the past and future of body technology by Edward Tenner. Tenner says that bears in Yosemite "recognize specific brands and models" of cars "that are most vulnerable to attack and use similar techniques on each model." They seem to know which model of cars have the easiest access to the trunk. For instance in Hondas, the bears just have to rip out the back seats to get to the trunk—where the bears have learned the food is most likely to be.

In nineteenth century London, rats somehow knew that water ran through the lead pipes underneath homes and businesses. They'd chew through the soft lead to get to the water. Not all the pipes contained water, however. Some of them were gas and "the holes left by the disappointed rodents added to the risk of explosions." Also, match sticks were covered with wax in the early days. Rats apparently loved the wax and would steal the match sticks and take them back to their dens. When they chewed on the sticks to get the wax, they often "ignited the phosphorus with their teeth" and caused lots of fires! (I'm not sure how anyone ever figured out this was what was causing the fires.) Never underestimate the resourcefulness of rats...

And speaking of....presidents, here's an amusing parody: "New Purported Bush Tape Raises Fear of New Attacks" reported by the Disassociated Press.
0 comments

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

All photographs and written material copyright © 2003-2008 by Kim Antieau unless otherwise indicated. May not be used without permission.