Butter smeared on bridge hinders suicide attempts, and more

Butter smeared on bridge hinders suicide attempts

Chinese officials have smeared butter along a 1,000-foot-long steel bridge in Guangzhou to stop people from jumping off it. Officials had tried everything else, said a government spokesman, including “special fences and notices asking people not to commit suicide here.” Despite that plea, eight people jumped to their deaths in a single month. But since the butter made the bridge’s girders and railings so slippery that no one can climb on them, there have been no jumpers.

Goldfish survives seven hours out of fishbowl

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A goldfish that jumped out of his bowl survived for seven hours before being returned, alive, to the water. Paula Dunster, 46, of Britain, searched for her pet fish, Sparkle, for half a day until she found him motionless behind a dresser, covered in dog hair and lint. As she rinsed him off in preparation for a traditional burial by toilet, Dunster noticed signs of life and quickly rushed Sparkle back to his bowl. “I couldn’t believe it,” said Dunster. “It was a miracle.”

Studying human cognition with Guitar Hero

New York University is giving a freshman class a chance to study Guitar Hero, the videogame. Professor Gary Marcus says his course, “Guitar Heroes (and Heroines): Music, Video Games, and the Nature of Human Cognition,” will use the wildly popular game to explore such thorny psychological questions as, “Why are human beings so easily sucked in by videogames?” Glen Jackson, father of an incoming NYU freshman, was irate. “I just wrote a big check here,” said Jackson. “I’m not paying for him to study videogames.”