Secrets of the ancients
We found ourselves completely lost. (Memo to self, don鈥檛 read and walk.) It was news coming out of Bali that had proved so fatally distracting for Feedback (newscientist.com/2333363). According to by Camilla Cenni and her colleagues, the long-tailed macaques there have discovered how to use stone tools in 鈥渘onforaging contexts鈥�.
For those who need help interpreting this term: the macaques use them as sex toys and are furiously indulging in 鈥渂ehaviors of questionably adaptive value鈥�. Applying scientific language to this subject is a source of endless weak humour (see above), but the researchers get the last laugh. Who says stone tool use arose in humans because we were hunters, they ask?
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鈥淵ou lost, mate?鈥� Feedback gazed about. 鈥淒own 鈥榚re.鈥� The mouse, in a cheap but smart striped suit and a little cap, had escaped from a lab, it turned out, having been subjected to various intelligence-enhancing rays and wavelengths.
鈥淚t all began,鈥� he explained, leading us to his , 鈥渨ith a by researchers from Xi鈥檃n Jiaotong University in Shaanxi, China. They found that brief, low-dose radiation from terahertz waves increased the growth of mouse neurons by nearly 150 per cent in a Petri dish.鈥�
As the mouse opened the door of his cab for Feedback, he muttered, 鈥� 鈥楥ourse, soon every bleedin鈥� rodent will be uplifted鈥� 鈥� this because radio waves in the terahertz band can boost a smartphone鈥檚 bandwidth to 1 terabit per second, making it a shoo-in for next-generation 6G communication technology.
Feedback was overjoyed, naturally: 鈥淥h, brave new world! Oh, smarter, wiser creation! Imagine what people will be able to do with their expanded brains!鈥�
The mouse adjusted his tiny rear-view mirror and caught our eye. 鈥淲hat have people got to do with it?鈥� he muttered. 鈥淣ow, where d鈥檡ou want to go?鈥�
Routemaster
Feedback was impressed to note that the mouse didn鈥檛 use GPS, and an interesting discussion was had on the profound deskilling effect of geopositioning software on an animal, Homo sapiens, that already comes hardwired to figure directions out for itself.
Feedback brought up a from 2020, in which Montreal researchers Louisa Dahmani and V茅ronique Bohbot put some startling numbers on the degree to which using GPS leaves the user clueless once the battery dies. They also remind us that unassisted wayfinding is infinitely richer even than map-reading, involving everything from wind currents and snowdrift patterns to astronomical information.
Our driver was unimpressed. 鈥淐an鈥檛 beat the whiskers,鈥� he preened, then had to swerve to avoid a four-legged snake. 鈥淧edestrians,鈥� he snarled. By this point, Feedback needed a lie down.
Reverse engineering
Not so the snakes. True, they long ago abandoned four-limbed locomotion. (A 2014 revealed that their back legs evolved into a double penis, which raises the question, why would you not want to believe in evolution?) But now, it seems, they want their limbs back, at least according to a Serious Scientific Study by YouTuber Allen Pan.
鈥淣obody loves snakes enough to build them robot legs,鈥� he complains, in his latest video. 鈥淣obody except for me. Snake lover: Allen Pan.鈥� You can follow the evolution of his experimental prostheses on . No snakes were harmed, etc. On the contrary: they look to be having a high old time of it.
鈥淪houldn鈥檛 be allowed on the road,鈥� our driver opined 鈥� which seemed a bit rich. Sensing Feedback鈥檚 discomfort, he suggested we stop off for lunch.
Rather hard on the owl
As Feedback contemplated the menu, our driver, who was something of a history buff, enthused about a huge new research programme being conducted at , which aims to digitise virtually everything we know about medieval medicine while cataloguing and conserving more than 180 manuscripts. 鈥淥ne treatment for gout,鈥� my friend explained, quoting project leader James Freeman, 鈥減roposes salting an owl and baking it until it can be ground into a powder, mixing it with boar鈥檚 grease to make a salve.鈥�
Harmonic resolution
At which point, possibly to drown out our conversation, the cafeteria鈥檚 jukebox started to pelt out Janet Jackson鈥檚 Rhythm Nation, a song that, according to a by Microsoft developer Raymond Chen, contains one of the natural resonant frequencies for a model of legacy laptop hard drive, causing it to crash.
Given the strong physiological effects of certain frequencies, it was perhaps inevitable that the light in my companion鈥檚 eyes should fade. Outside, the street was a sea of confused rodents. Meanwhile (for they had lost patience with the pedestrian lights), snakes were slithering from their prosthetic tubes and pursuing mice among the piles of little cars mounting up at each intersection. Feedback leaned back and sipped some tea, pleased normality was being restored.
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