麻豆传媒

Sturm und Drang

US president Donald Trump has previously dismissed climate change as a Chinese hoax. Feedback wonders whether at least part of his brain sees Beijing behind the force of Hurricane Dorian. After leaving a deadly trail of destruction in the Bahamas, the storm hit the US east coast last week.

The clean-up begins, but it seems Trump has the germ of a longer-term anti-hurricane plan, expressed last month before Dorian broke. He asked aides if hurricanes might be destroyed with nuclear bombs.

Yes, when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. And when you have 4000 nuclear warheads burning a hole in your pocket, everything looks like an opportunity to get some kind of return on that investment.

According to the news website Axios, , one of Trump鈥檚 aides assured him that the proposal would be looked into. This standard response of courtiers to the foibles of royalty everywhere ought to be the end of it.

But the US has a track record in declaring war on inanimate objects, like drugs and terror. Let鈥檚 not be too surprised if we鈥檙e soon treated to the spectacle of helicopter gunships strafing clouds with machine-gun fire, or modern-day Minutemen lining up on the Florida keys, pushing back storm surges with volleys of AR-15 fire.

Actually, back up a moment. Nuking hurricanes might be a terrible idea, but perhaps this sort of gung-ho attitude is what鈥檚 needed to inspire right-thinking Americans to take up arms against climate change. Repeat after us: we鈥檙e going to build a sea wall, and make the hurricanes pay for it.

A whale of a saving

Meanwhile on the less hurricane-prone side of the pond, practical measures against climate change. Having recently switched his UK energy supplier to Bulb, which boasts a renewable energy policy, John Rowlands was delighted to be informed that he would save 3500 kilograms of CO₂ per year, which, he is told, is 鈥渢he weight of an orca whale鈥�. Now that鈥檚 a killer deal.

Crocodile fears

A reminder that the fight against environmental degradation has many fronts comes from police in Devon, UK, after a dogwalker reported a crocodile lurking in Loddiswell swamp. After a 鈥渄eathly struggle鈥�, according to dispatcher Lisa Burnett, officers apprehended the beast of Loddiswell: a plastic toy crocodile.

We鈥檝e been warned about the dangers of releasing microplastics into our aquatic environments: could it be that entire ecosystems are now starting to evolve from it?

Plus size sub

We recently pondered what the most expensive mistake ever made by an individual might be after an open hatch nearly sank a 拢2.4 billion Indian nuclear submarine (22 June). Naval yards are a rich source of such costly errors, Roger Helms writes, pointing us to the saga of Spain鈥檚 new diesel-electric Isaac Pera submarine class. The arrival of the first sub has been delayed because it is 75 tonnes too heavy.

The ability to sink quickly to the bottom of the sea isn鈥檛 a terrible feature in a submarine, but it does help crew morale if it is capable of surfacing afterwards. The engineers鈥� response has been to lengthen the vessel to bring its overall density down, but this has created a new problem. The 81-metre submarine is now too big to fit in its dock at the Spanish navy鈥檚 submarine base in Cartagena. The port may have to be redesigned.

The Isaac Peral鈥檚 excess weight is reportedly the result of a single decimal point being out of place during the drafting stage. Feedback is reminded of the single missing overbar that in 1962 supposedly sent NASA鈥檚 Mariner 1 probe barrelling towards the North Atlantic shipping lanes rather than towards Mars. But what other competitors do we have for the most expensive typo of all time?

True brew

No sooner had we filed our grant application to study the extremophile bacteria that may be lurking in Thai restaurant Wattana Panich鈥檚 45-year-old stew (17 August) than Helen Waldie writes to inform us of research opportunities much closer to home.

She says that Harold Gasson, who wrote a series of books about being employed as an, er鈥� steam-engine fire stoker in the glory days of the UK鈥檚 Great Western Railway, once told of a locomotive shed in Wolverhampton 鈥渨here, allegedly, the staffroom teapot hadn鈥檛 been emptied since the shed was built in the mid-19th century鈥�. Each morning, the engineers simply topped up the pot with boiling water and another spoonful of tea.

鈥淚t was supposedly a formidable and, understandably, unique brew that became something of a test of character for visiting crewmen,鈥� says Helen. We furtively slide our own well-tannined receptacle out of view.

Send your stories to 麻豆传媒, 25 Bedford Street, London WC2E 9ES or you can email us at feedback@newscientist.com

听