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Digest

The skinny

By TIMES WIRES
Published March 22, 2007

ANIMAL KINGDOM

CUTE CUB SAVED FROM ANIMAL ACTIVISTS

Animal rights activists were calling for the death of cute, fuzzy polar bear cub Knut, above. Huh? We had to read it twice, too, but that's what they were saying. It appears the cub and its twin, born in a German zoo, were rejected by their mother. As a result, the twin died, and zookeepers began taking care of Knut to help him avoid a similar fate. But animal rights activists thought that cute Knut would be better off dead than raised by humans. "He'll rely on humans forever and this cannot be right," said Frank Albrecht, himself not all that cute or cuddly. The controversy has made Knut a celebrity, and he was recently voted Berlin's top citizen. So, it looks like Knut is safe.

Global warming cured with pill

If you haven't heard, gas is a huge cause of global warming. And by "gas," we mean the kind that passes naturally through the digestive system of cows. But there may be a solution to the wind-breaking problem, reports the British Web site Orange World. German scientists have developed a pill that will break down the methane in the cows system before it can, well, pass it. Not only that, but they think that this will benefit the cow, because it will make more energy available for metabolism. Imagine: Converting gas into energy! There are no plans to devise a version for middle- or teen-age human males. Yet.

Find, but don't touch, goose eggs

The city of Chicago wants volunteers to search 11 parks for goose eggs. The fact that this is happening so close to Easter is purely coincidental. What officials want is to find the eggs so they can have professionals come in and render them unhatchable, because there are just too many of the aggressive, smelly birds in the parks. "I can't stress enough, this is not an Easter egg hunt," said Susan Hagberg of Wild Goose Chase. "This is very regulated. If people think they can do this on their own, they can't." So there. Volunteers get training, the gist of which is: Don't touch the eggs. The Humane Society supports the effort.

MATH THEORY

Problem solved ... or so they say

An international team of 18 mathematicians says it has cracked a 120-year-old puzzle, above, that researchers say is so complicated that its handwritten solution would cover Manhattan. We have to believe them, because otherwise it just looks like a spirograph doodle. The group was convened by the American Institute of Mathematics in Palo Alto, Calif., to map a theoretical object known as the "Lie group E8." And they did. Good for them. "To say what precisely it is is something even many mathematicians can't understand," said Jeffrey Adams, the project's leader. Wait, they don't even know what it is? The researchers say the calculation does not have any obvious practical applications. Good work, guys.

[Last modified March 22, 2007, 01:59:58]