Quick Takes

Scare dance

According to the best guesses of port officials in Astoria, Ore., sea lions despise inflatable advertising icons known as air dancers. Overrun by as many as 2,500 interloping sea lions that ground port commerce to a halt, officials with the local port installed the brightly colored, wavy-armed air dancers all around the port on March 17. It has worked, so far. “The thing about the sea lions is, they’re very intelligent animals,” port official Robert Evert told Portland NBC affiliate KGW. “And so if they realize these are not a threat or harm to them, it’s possible they’ll get back on the docks.” The air dancers seem to be more effective than last year’s solution—a fake inflatable orca that sank.

All dried up

Scientists from the University of Surrey have been watching paint dry for years. And despite the apparent boredom, the researchers say their work has not been in vain. According to a March 18 article in the journal Physical Review Letters, the scientists claim paint “spontaneously forms into two layers” during the drying process. Study author Andrea Fortini called the paint drying experiment results “exciting.”

Careless whisper

Officers searching a woman’s car in Hatfield, Mass., received an assist from an unlikely source on Feb. 17—the suspects themselves. Officers with the Massachusetts State Police found drug paraphernalia in a car owned by Carrie Tutsock of Haverhill, N.H., after a routine traffic stop and search. A second, more comprehensive search turned up drugs and more paraphernalia. In the back of a police cruiser en route to the police station to question and charge the three New Hampshire travelers, officers allege they heard Tutsock whisper to another suspect, “I don’t think they found all the stuff in the car.” With the new lead, police searched the vehicle a third time, finally turning up 230 baggies of heroin. Authorities charged each of the three New Hampshire residents with felony possession with the intent to distribute.

Getaway trot

A pair of zebras that had escaped from a traveling circus confused Oakland, Calif., residents when they were spotted making a clean getaway down Hegenberger Road toward an In-N-Out Burger at Interstate 880. Oakland residents who witnessed the March 18 event took to Twitter to express confusion. Circus workers were able to round up the two black-and-white animals after police spotted the zebras. In November, two zebras escaped from the same traveling circus in West Philadelphia.

Decades and a doctorate

For Colette Bourlier, 33 years of persistence paid off. On March 15, an academic jury questioned the 90-year-old French woman for more than two hours at the Université de Franche-Comté and then awarded her a doctorate in geography. The former geography teacher retired in 1983 to begin work on her graduate program. “I did the best that I could,” she explained to local press. “I received much encouragement from my advisers, and I think the jury was satisfied.” Despite completing her study on immigration in France in the 20th century, Bourlier said she doesn’t plan on returning to teaching. “I am old,” she said. “Now, I just want to relax.”

Housing crisis

A neighborhood squabble about a tree house has turned into a dispute in which one litigant is claiming human rights violations. In January, bureaucrats in Jasmine Dellal’s London neighborhood ordered her to demolish a tree house she had constructed for her 4-year-old son in her backyard. Neighbors had complained that the 14-foot-tall structure ruined their view. And one neighbor, Heleen Lindsay-Fynn, said the tree house violated her “right to peaceful enjoyment of all their possessions” afforded to her under the United Kingdom’s 1998 Human Rights Act. Rather than take the case to court, Dellal recently acquiesced and lowered the structure by 6 feet.

Sound wave

Police in Fargo, N.D., may have suspected a crime wave when they received numerous reports of gunshots in March. The culprit, however, was an American Crystal Sugar factory in nearby Moorhead, Minn., using an unorthodox method to scare away geese. The company set off a sound cannon multiple times to disperse the large flocks of geese that have invaded sugar beet piles on company grounds and have disrupted business. Residents of the Fargo-Moorhead metropolitan area may need to brace for more loud noises this spring: The local airport plans on using sound cannons to alleviate its geese problem.

Name dropper

Police in Panama City, Fla., didn’t have a problem identifying one of the suspects in a Jan. 16 robbery: Devonte Levoris Pace, 28, reportedly dropped his own wallet, with an ID in it, as he and two accomplices allegedly held up men in a car outside a bar and robbed them of about $600. A surveillance camera filmed the crime. Police on March 22 arrested Pace.

Watch your step

A bill proposed in the New Jersey legislature could soon make it illegal in that state to text while walking. Democratic Assemblywoman Pamela Lampitt sponsored the bill in light of a 35 percent increase nationwide in the number of accidents attributed to distracted walking. “If a person on the road—whether walking or driving—presents a risk to others on the road, there should be a law in place to dissuade and penalize risky behavior,” Lampitt told WCBS-TV in March. Lampitt’s bill calls for a penalty of up to a $50 fine and 15 days in jail per offense.