奇聞趣事

Gaza (加沙，地中海沿岸一港市) Donkeys Get Dye-job， Take on Zebra Role

From Reuters

Two white donkeys dyed with black stripes(黑色條紋) delighted Palestinian(巴勒斯坦的) kids at a small Gaza zoo recently who had never seen a zebra in the flesh(活著的).

With their long ears， drooping(下垂的) heads and sleepy eyes， the impostors(冒名頂替者) probably would not have fooled the zoo’s only lioness. But the effect achieved by the zoo owners’ dye job looks not so bad—to the unpractised eye， and from a distance. On closer inspection it resembles the classic striped convict(馬戲團的斑馬) suit of cartoon strips(連環漫畫).

Nidal Barghouthi， whose father owns the Marah Land zoo， said the two female donkeys were striped(給…劃上條紋) using masking tape (遮蔽膠帶，繪畫時用以遮蓋、保護無需著色部分的膠帶) and women’s hair dye， applied with a paint-brush. “The first time we used paint(顏料) but it didn’t look good，” he said. “The children don’t know so they call them zebras and they are happy to see something new.”

A genuine zebra would have been too expensive to bring into Israel-blockaded(封鎖的) Gaza via smuggling tunnels under the border with Egypt， said owner Mohammed Bargouthi. “It would have cost me $40，000 to get a real one.” Bargouthi’s zoo charged an entrance fee of just $15 for a full busload(一輛公共汽車的載客量) of children.

Cars May One Day Mimic Fish to Avoid Collisions

From AFP

Engineers in Japan say they are a step closer to developing technology they hope will cut the risk of car crashes—by mimicking the behaviour of fish.

The experts at Nissan Motor(日產汽車公司，日本第二大汽車公司，創立于1933年) have been studying fish and the way they are able to swim in schools(魚群) and avoid colliding with(與…相撞) each other. The result is a robot that can travel in a group of up to seven， avoiding bumps(撞擊) by sharing information with its peers. The firm hopes to use the technology in its vehicles in future.

The three-wheeled robot uses a laser range finder(測距儀)， which measures the distance to an obstacle， and radio communications(無線電通信) to recreate the behaviour of fish， which can change direction and travel side by side without colliding.

“We， in a motorised world， have a lot to learn from the behaviour of a school of fish in terms of each fish’s degree of freedom and safety，” said Toshiyuki Andou， the principal engineer in the project. By sharing information， the group can travel safely， changing its shape as needed， Andou said.