Bicycles that pedal for you, robot fish, crime-fighting leeches—the world of science has it all.
THIS FISH TASTES FUNNY
In 2009 computer and electronic engineering scientists at the University of Essex in England announced that they’d created a new kind of fish: a robotic one. The faux fish are about five feet long and look and swim like real fish—so they won’t scare real fish—and are fitted with complex sensors that detect hazardous pollutants in water, such as oil from a leaking ship or pipeline. They’re set to be released for a test run in 2011 in the port of Gijon, Spain, where they will swim around, gathering information that will be sent to a control station via wi-fi technology. The robots are even programmed to return to “charging areas” every eight hours to get their batteries recharged. If the test run is successful, robo-fish may soon be swimming in rivers, lakes, and oceans all over the world.
In 2001 two men broke into the home of 71-year-old Fay Olsen on the Australian island of Tasmania, tied her to a chair, “poked her with sticks,” and robbed her of $550 ($504 U.S.). Police found no evidence at the scene except for a leech—fully engorged with blood from a recent meal—on the floor. Officers checked the woman and themselves for signs that the leech had been attached to one of them, and determined that it must have fallen off one of the robbers. DNA samples were taken from the blood in the leech. Seven years passed. In 2008 a 56-year-old Tasmanian man was arrested on drug charges and a routine DNA sample was taken from him and cross-checked against a database. It matched the DNA taken from the leech. Peter Alec Cannon eventually confessed to the seven-year-old crime and was sentenced to two years in prison. (His accomplice was never apprehended.) Tasmanian police said that, to their knowledge, it was the first time DNA from a leech had assisted in solving a crime anywhere in the world.
For sale on eBay in 2004: Britney Spears’s chewed gum, used Kleenex, and used bar of soap.
At the Copenhagen Climate Change conference in December 2009, engineers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced the release of their “Copenhagen Wheel”—a bicycle wheel they hope will revolutionize bike riding around the world. Features: When you’re pushing hard on the pedals to go uphill, sensors activate a small, powerful motor in the wheel’s hub to help you along. And the battery that powers the motor is constantly being recharged as you ride. In addition, the wheel communicates, via wireless Bluetooth technology, with an iPhone application on the handlebars to let you know your speed, direction, distance traveled—even traffic and smog conditions. Best of all: You can just buy the wheel—it fits on virtually any bike.
Which is safer: riding a bike with or without a helmet? It might not be as clear as you think. Dr. Ian Walker of England’s University of Bath published the results of a 2007 study in the journal Accident Analysis & Prevention. Walker, an avid cyclist, fitted his bicycle with sensors that could detect how close cars came to him as they passed him, then rode through the city for a couple of months—with and without his helmet on. During that time, he was passed by more than 2,300 cars. Result: Overall, cars, trucks, and buses passed his bike at a distance of about four feet. But drivers passed 3.35 inches closer, on average, when he wore his helmet than when he didn’t. “This study shows that when drivers pass a cyclist,” Walker wrote, “the margin for error they leave is affected by the cyclist’s appearance.” The reason, Walker says, is probably because drivers feel more comfortable when passing a helmeted biker rather than a helmetless one, so they may actually be more dangerous to bikers wearing helmets. (Statistics, it must be noted, still show that non-helmeted bikers are much more likely to be seriously injured or killed in an accident.)
Bonus: Walker occasionally wore no helmet and a long brown wig while biking, giving him the appearance, he said, of a woman. Result: Cars gave him an extra 5.5 inches of room.
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“Life is just a bowl of pits.” —Rodney Dangerfield
Can you? A lab/golden retriever mix named Shadow can water ski, snow ski, and scuba dive.