New Scientist 2018 sep

56 | NewScientist | 8 September 2018

A CONGRESSIONAL candidate in

Florida who claims to have been

abducted by aliens says she doesn’t

want to be defined by the experience.

City councillor Bettina Rodriguez

Aguilera claims that blond, Christ-like

aliens took her aboard a UFO as a child,

where she learned that Africa was the

energy centre of the world, and a cave

in Malta hid thousands of non-human

skulls. Since then, she has remained

telepathically in touch with aliens.

Florida is well-known for its

weirdness, which may explain why

the Miami Herald endorsed Rodriguez

Aguilera ahead of eight other

candidates. Although her head may be

in the clouds, an editorial praised her

“boots on the ground experience”.

After all, stranger ideas endure in

Congress, such as American

exceptionalism and trickle-down

economics.

CAR-MAKER Volkswagen is

under a cloud after installing hail

cannons at its plant in Puebla,

Mexico. After factory-fresh cars

were damaged by hail storms, VW

installed large cannons in the car

lots. These emit loud bangs every

6 seconds during threatening

weather, with the sonic wave said

to break up hailstones.

But local farmers claimed

the cannons were to blame for

a recent drop in rainfall, and

demanded $3.7 million in

damages. There is no evidence

that sound cannons can disrupt

rainfall, and even less evidence

that they can shatter hailstones.

VW has replaced the cannons

with nets, but Feedback thinks

the farmers may still have a case.

Having famously cheated on

their emissions tests, might

VW bear some responsibility

for a changing climate?

NAPOLEON’S defeat at Waterloo

might be down to the eruption of

Mount Tambora in Indonesia two

months earlier. According to Matthew

Genge at Imperial College London,

volcanic eruptions can shoot

electrified volcanic ash into the upper

atmosphere, leading to increased

cloud formation and changing the

climate on a global scale.

That could be why an unseasonable

June downpour the night before the

battle left the ground so muddy that

it had to start late, allowing time for

the Prussian army to arrive and fight

alongside the British. A reminder to

always check with your volcanologist

when drawing up battle plans.

A REGIONAL council on New

Zealand’s South Island has

proposed a ban on domestic

cats, in an effort to preserve local

wildlife. Claws are out for the

housepets, which are blamed for

killing huge numbers of birds.

Aside from two species of bat,

New Zealand has no native land

mammals, and the cat ban is

part of an ambitious project

to make the island free of all

non-native predators by 2050.

The ban would not apply to

existing pets, but no new cats

would be permitted, gradually

reducing the population to zero.

Some citizens were alarmed

by the impending cat-astrophe.

“It’s not even regulating people’s

ability to have a cat. It’s saying you

can’t have a cat,” Omaui cat owner

Nico Jarvis told the Otago Daily

Times. “It’s like a police state.”

A JAPANESE rail company has been

criticised for making employees sit

next to bullet trains passing at

300 kilometres per hour. The training

exercises were introduced at JR West

following an accident in 2015, when a

plate fell off the outside of a train and

damaged the car behind. Employees

must now huddle in a safety trench

next to the tracks as the levitating

train flies past.

“It is to give employees who

work with train cars an opportunity

to experience and understand

the importance of their work,”

a spokesperson told The Mainichi

newspaper. Graduates of the

demonstration have compared

the experience to public flogging.

Despite pleas from the

workers’ union, the company said

it had no plans to suspend the

petrifying programme.

THE mayor of a French seaside

town closed the beach following

a spate of advances by an

amorous dolphin. Zafar, as

the animal is known, has

been pestering bathers in the

Brittany town of Landévennec.

Zafar is a familiar presence

in the area, and was previously

well-behaved. But since

coming into season, he has

been rubbing himself against

boats and bumping into

swimmers. After one woman

was lifted out of the water by

the dolphin, the town’s mayor

Roger Lars issued a decree

that forbade approaching the

animal or entering the water

when it was present.

The ban was lifted, reports

the Associated Press, after the

frustrated Zafar left Landévennec

to find relief elsewhere.

WHEN life gives you lemons, make

lemonade. But what if life doesn’t

give you any lemons? That question

was answered by a 69-year-old man

in Thermal, California, who was

discovered with about 360 kilograms

of lemons in his truck, allegedly stolen

from a nearby farm. NBC San Diego

reports that the arrest was part of a

wider police investigation into fruit

rustling. Feedback notes the alleged

lemon thief was apprehended on

Grapefruit Boulevard.

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In the Czech Republic, falling water levels have

exposed “hunger stones” in the river Elbe, where

people recorded earlier droughts. Inscribed on

one stone is the message: “If you see me, weep”

PAUL MCDEVIT T