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(黑色条纹) delighted Palestinian(巴勒斯坦的) kids at a small Gaza zoo recently who had never seen a zebra in the flesh(活着的).
With their long ears, drooping(下垂的) heads and sleepy eyes, the impostors(冒名顶替者) 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(马戏团的斑马) suit of cartoon strips(连环漫画).
Nidal Barghouthi, whose father owns the Marah Land zoo, said the two female donkeys were striped(给…划上条纹) using masking tape (遮蔽胶带,绘画时用以遮盖、保护无需着色部分的胶带) and women’s hair dye, applied with a paint-brush. “The first time we used paint(颜料) 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(封锁的) 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(一辆公共汽车的载客量) 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(日产汽车公司,日本第二大汽车公司,创立于1933年) have been studying fish and the way they are able to swim in schools(鱼群) and avoid colliding with(与…相撞) each other. The result is a robot that can travel in a group of up to seven, avoiding bumps(撞击) 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(测距仪), which measures the distance to an obstacle, and radio communications(无线电通信) 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.