00:01 05 November 03

NewScientist.com news service

Biologists have linked a mysterious, underwater farting sound to
bubbles coming out of a herring’s anus. No fish had been known to emit
sound from its anus nor to be capable of producing such a high-pitched
noise.

“It sounds just like a high-pitched raspberry,” says Ben Wilson of the
University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada (Listen here, .wav
file). Wilson and his colleagues cannot be sure why herring make this
sound, but initial research suggests that it might explain the puzzle
of how shoals keep together after dark.

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http://perlmonks.org/index.pl?node_id=153046

http://www.takahata.comm.waseda.ac.jp/~yoshida/work04.swf

A helicopter was flying around above Seattle yesterday when an
electrical malfunction disabled all of the aircraft’s electronic
navigation and communications equipment.

Due to the clouds and haze, the pilot could not determine the
helicopter’s position and course to steer to the airport.

The pilot saw a tall building, flew toward it, circled, drew a
handwritten sign, and held it in the helicopter’s window. The pilot’s
sign said “WHERE AM I?” in large letters.

People in the tall building quickly responded to the aircraft, drew a
large sign, and held it in a building window. Their sign said “YOU ARE
IN A HELICOPTER.”

The pilot smiled, waved, looked at his map, determined the course to
steer to SEATAC airport, and landed safely.

After they were on the ground, the co-pilot asked the pilot how the “YOU
ARE IN A HELICOPTER” sign helped determine their position in Seattle.

The pilot responded “I knew that had to be the MICROSOFT building
because, similar to their help-lines, they gave me a technically correct
but completely useless answer.”

Q: How many subscribers to an email list does it take to change a light
bulb?

Answers:
1 to change the light bulb and to post that the light bulb has been changed
14 to share similar experiences of changing light bulbs and how the light
bulb could have been changed differently 7 to caution about the dangers of
changing light bulbs 27 to point out spelling/grammar errors in posts about
changing light bulbs 41 to correct spelling/grammar flames 6 to argue over
whether it’s “lightbulb” or “light bulb” … another 6 to condemn those 6 as
anal-retentive 2 industry professionals to inform the group that the proper
term is “lamp” (hey, I got this from a British group) 27 to post URL’s where
one can see examples of different light bulbs 12 to post to the group that
they will no longer post because they cannot handle the light bulb
controversy 4 to suggest that posters request the light bulb FAQ 44 to ask
what is a “FAQ” 2 to post reasons why the light bulb burning out is the
result of a government conspiracy. 4 to say “didn’t we go through this
already a short time ago?” 43 to say “do a Google search on light bulbs” 1
lurker to respond to the original post 6 months from now and start it all
over again