битые поезда

2006 October 31 Oldster s View

Twenty-three cars are setting off on a remarkable race across the desert.

From a distance, the cars look like any other rally cars tearing down the dusty roads. But closer inspection reveals that something odd is going on. There s no-one sitting in the driving seat of any of the cars. Nor are they being steered by remote control.

This is the Grand Challenge, the worlds toughest race for robot vehicles cars that drive themselves. There is $2m £1m on offer to the car that completes the 135 mile course in the fastest time. To win it the cars will have to drive 20 times further than any robot car has ever driven itself before.

Crows: Bird brains, but notstupid

Bird brained they might be, but crows are the MacGyvers of the avian world, able to turn twigs and even their own feathers into tools for getting at hard-to-reach food. But while young crows are born with a propensity for crafting tools, it s only after watching their elders make and use tools that they become truly proficient, a new study suggests.

Compared to other crows, those from the Pacific island of New Caledonia, located east of Australia, are master tool makers and users, second only to humans and on level with chimps when it comes to finding novel uses for everyday objects. In their natural forest environment, the midnight-black birds fashion twigs, leaves and even their own feathers into tools for rooting out insects in dead wood.

It s a crappy job but someone has to doit

So many bats have infested the town s historic district that the sky turns black with each sunset and the neighborhood is calling on Batman to come to the rescue.

That s what the local bat remover goes by. George Perkins often makes public appearances in the caped crusader s costume and drives his own Batmobile a retro-styled Chrysler Prowler with bat emblems. Callers to his office in Eufaula, Ala., known as Bat Cave 1, or Union Springs, Ala., known as Bat Cave 2, hear the Batman TV show theme while on hold.

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