24 August 2019 | New Scientist | 53The back pages Feedback
Fire in the hole
Nature continues its fightback
against human depredations by
attacking a home in Florida with
an improvised explosive device.
Florida’s WINK News reports that
a couple in Port Charlotte were
watching TV when their home was
shaken by a loud bang. They soon
discovered their toilet had exploded,
scattering fragments of porcelain
throughout the bathroom.
A plumber concluded that their
outdoor septic tank had been struck
by lightning, igniting a pocket of
methane gas trapped inside and
culminating in an explosion that
destroyed their toilet. Feedback
shares the sentiment Marylou Ward
expressed to reporters: “I’m just
glad none of us were on the toilet.”
Given the usual direction of travel
of greenhouse gas emissions under
such circumstances, we can think
of no more appropriate context in
which to use the term “blowback”.
But we also think increased
vigilance is necessary. Readers of
a certain age will remember being
told not to use the telephone during
thunderstorms for fear of electrical
surges up the copper cables causing
singed ears and worse. With the
shift to wireless technologies,
is nature’s strategy evolving?
Kiss of the octopus
In a possibly related fightback
incident – or maybe we have just
crossed the fine line between bad
luck and brazen stupidity – a
participant in a fishing contest
near the Tacoma Narrows bridge
in Washington state needed
hospital treatment after putting
a recently caught octopus on her
face to win the competition’s
photographic prize.
Jamie Bisceglia’s only reward
was to have her chin chewed by
the irate cephalopod, leading to
swelling and paralysis down one
side of her face. “This was not a
good idea,” she told reporters.
“I will never do it again.”
As with toilet blowback,
Feedback is relieved the outcome
wasn’t worse. We recall incidents
for a viable post-Brexit industrial
strategy, Feedback wonders
whether this could be why fusion
resonates so strongly with the
UK’s political class.Clean calculation
Talking of spin: more unusual
units, this time courtesy of
41 Action News in Kansas City,
Missouri. It reports the appearance
of a sinkhole “roughly the size of six
to seven washing machines” in the
northbound lanes of the State Line
Road. Would that be front-loading
or the other kind?Game theory
Ah, the weekend: a chance to catch
up with friends, drink a few beers
and discuss the merits of killing
your childhood pet versus the owl
carrying your acceptance letter to
Hogwarts. That is the premise of
Trial by Trolley, a card game basedon that classic of moral
philosophy, the trolley problem.
In this game, developed by
Skybound Games and internet
comic creators Cyanide and
Happiness, opposing teams
must draw random cards – each
containing innocent or not-so-
innocent victims – to build a
length of track and then argue why
their runaway trolley should be
sent down their opponent’s branch
line to squash all in its path.
This is probably not the
outcome Philippa Foot had in
mind when she came up with the
trolley problem in 1967, but how
better to engage the public with
philosophy than through friendly
competition and point-scoring?
Feedback is looking forward to
the chance to weigh up some
interesting combinations. Which
would you value more: a team
with a working nuclear fusion
reactor or one that claimed to have
a lightning-proof septic tank? ❚when dolphins have been
suffocated by octopuses or
seen with them clamped to their
genitalia. Feedback’s golden rule:
if it has more limbs than you,
don’t mess with it.Heavy water
In the UK, meanwhile, nature’s
tactical bombardment with rain –
ever a feature of the great British
summer – pushed the Toddbrook
Reservoir dam in Derbyshire to
breaking point.
“BBC News has repeatedly
reported that the dam has
protected the town of Whaley
Bridge for 200 years,” writes Perry
Bebbington. “Protected it from
what? From the water behind the
dam? The water that wouldn’t
be there at all if the dam hadn’t
been built?”
Perry, you aren’t wrong –
though whether residents prefer
to risk small annual floods or a
1-in-200-years deluge thanks to
a dam collapse will surely depend
on which year they happen to be
living there.Political power
In an address to the nation
streamed live on Facebook,
the new UK prime minister
announced the easing of visa
restrictions for scientists coming
to the country. One reason why,
we are told, is that during a visit
to Culham Science Centre near
Oxford, enterprising physicists
assured Boris Johnson that they
were “literally only a few years
away from being able to provide
UK-made fusion reactors for sale
around the world”.
Ah yes, “literally”. Feedback
notes that progress on fusion
energy follows the trajectory of
Zeno’s arrow: with every advance,
success edges a little further away.
Working fusion has been a few
years away for half a century.
The billions spent so far
on fusion power has generated
ample promises, but little in the
way of concrete success. While we
doubt that fusion can form a basisGot a story for Feedback?
Send it to New Scientist, 25 Bedford Street,
London WC2E 9ES or you can email us at
[email protected]Liana Finck for New Scientist