WORK OF A RESEARCHER
“Field work is always challenging,” explained Courtney Marneweck of South Africa’s University of KwaZulu-Natal in a recent journal article, but studying the sociology of a white rhino’s dung meant developing a “pattern-recognition algorithm” to figure out “smell profiles” of 150 animals’ feces–after tracking them individually to observe them in the act. Wrote Marneweck, “I think my record for waiting for a rhino to poo was 7 1/2 hours.” Conclusion: Rhinos use feces to send distinct social signals on genetically compatible herds, mating access and predator dangers. (Or, in the Los Angeles Times “clickbait” version of the story, rhino dung “has a lot in common with a Facebook post.”)
THE WAY THE WORLD WORKS
Settlement of a class-action lawsuit against a group of dairy co-ops was announced in January with milk producers agreeing to pay $52 million on charges they had conspired to fix the dairy supply for years to get top-dollar prices. Among the producers’ primary tactics, allegedly, was using what the industry calls “herd retirement,” which is “retirement” only in the sense that 500,000 healthy young cows were slaughtered–just to drive up prices by eliminating otherwise-available milk. The $52 million will be for consumers in 15 states and Washington, D.C.
WRIST-SLAPPING
Rutgers University Athletic Director Pat Hobbs, responding to the NCAA’s announcement of violations against the school’s sports programs (including failure to penalize 16 football players who tested positive for drugs), told the Asbury Park Press in January that he would immediately dismiss from teams any player testing positive for hard drugs–upon the fourth violation (if for marijuana only, upon the fifth). And in January, the Russian parliament voted 380 to 3 to amend its assault law to allow a spouse one punishment-by-“ticketing” (i.e., not criminal) for domestic violence against his partner–provided the bodily harm was not “substantial” and that it happens no more than once a year.
UNCLEAR ON THE CONCEPT
Gary Gibson, 65, of Chiloquin, Oregon, admits he is sexually attracted to little girls but never acts on his urges, and therefore, demands that people get off his case. He formed the Association for Sexual Abuse Prevention, campaigning, he says, to keep children safe from other pedophiles whose self-restraint may not match his. Gibson describes himself as a “normal, everyday person,” married to a British nurse (whom he met via a Christian singles organization), and has three children and 10 grandchildren–none so far molested (though in an interview, London’s The Sun allowed him to explain his side of various edgy events of his life, such as his having moved for a while to the South Pacific, where little girls sometimes played naked).
WAIT, WHAT?
Surgery on a 16-year-old Japanese girl, reported in January by New Scientist, revealed that her ovary contained a miniature skull and brain. Doctors say that finding rogue brain cells in ovaries is not that uncommon, but that an already-organized brain, capable of transmitting electric impulses, is almost unheard-of.
LEADING ECONOMIC INDICATOR
Doughnut lovers have legitimately mused for years how U.S. law could condemn, say, marijuana, yet permit Krispy Kreme to openly sell its seemingly addictive sugary delights on America’s streets. Sonia Garcia, 51, realized a while back that residents of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, so much needed Krispy Kreme fixes that she earns a handsome living running a black market from El Paso, Texas, bringing in 40 boxes at a time and re-selling from the trunk of her car at a 60 percent markup, pointing out to a Los Angeles Times reporter in January that her trafficking has already put one son through engineering school. (Mexico City now has Krispy Kremes, but apparently the company’s distribution system cannot yet vanquish Sonia Garcia’s car.)
CAN’T POSSIBLY BE TRUE
Reporting from Mbyo, Rwanda, in January on the success of a “reconciliation” program following the country’s bloody genocidal wars, London’s The Guardian found, for example, Laurencia Niyogira living peacefully and forgivingly alongside neighbor Tasian Nkundiye–even though, 22 years ago, Nkundiye murdered Niyogira’s entire family (except for her and her siblings, left barely alive). (Over a 100-day span in 1994, 800,000 ethnic Tutsis were systematically slaughtered by Hutus.) A survey by the country’s national unity commission showed that 92 percent of Rwandans have come to accept reconciliation.
LEAST COMPETENT CRIMINALS
Driver Joshua Concepcion-West, 27, was arrested in Apopka, Florida, with an ingenious license-plate cover that he could raise and lower remotely from his key chain (thus avoiding identification by cameras as he passed through turnpike checkpoints). On Jan. 11 at a $1.25 toll plaza, he had neglected to check his rear-view mirror before lowering the cover–and failed to notice that right behind him was a Florida Highway Patrol car with a trooper watching the whole thing.
Comments
comments