Quick Takes: Speed bumps

When Welsh lawmakers passed a 20-mph default speed limit in developed areas, they anticipated saving lives and preventing crashes. They didn’t expect to cause chaos in a youth bike race. Organizers for the Junior Tour of Wales had to scramble to shorten and amend the planned route for the five-stage, 237-mile race because support vehicles following the teenage bicyclists simply couldn’t keep up without speeding. Bicycles are exempt from the new law. The event, which ran Aug. 23-26, featured some of the United Kingdom’s most talented young racers. And while the new 20-mph rule in Wales wouldn’t pose a problem on uphill portions of the course, the young riders could easily hit 40 mph downhill. Rather than let the 100 competitors race away from the chase cars, organizers changed the route to avoid towns and cities that carried the lower speed limit. Organizers managed to reroute the race in time for the first day but lost some of the favorite pathways in finding a solution. “In the process we’ve lost a large part of the character and challenge the event is famous for,” race organizer Richard Hopkins told the BBC. “It’s massively demoralizing.”

Captive audience

Employees of an Australian mining giant are expected to come to work in the morning and leave in the afternoon. And there will be no stepping out to fetch lunch or a coffee. That was the message from Mineral Resources managing director Chris Ellison during an earnings presentation Aug. 29. Railing against a lax work culture that gives employees excuses to waste time, Ellison said he wants “to hold them captive all day long. I don’t want them leaving the building … I don’t want them walking down the road for a cup of coffee.” According to Ellison, the firm’s headquarters has a restaurant, gym, and childcare on-site to keep employees “glued in there.”

A buggy system

The beginning of school in Durham, N.C., has uncovered some glitches at Riverside High School as well as some computer bugs. That is to say, actual bugs are in the computers. During freshman orientation, school officials passed out Google Chromebooks to students. Unbeknownst to the officials, bed bugs had infested some of the computers while in storage at the school over the summer. By the time classes began Aug. 26, school officials were asking parents to return the computers to school and to inspect their homes for infestations.

Mouse apocalypse

During an August meeting of BirdLife South Africa, conservationist Mark Anderson pledged to kill “every last mouse” on Marion Island. Such drastic action is needed, Anderson told the AFP, because mice on the remote island feed on live adult seabirds, including the vulnerable wandering albatross: “Mice just climb onto them and just slowly eat them until they succumb.” Anderson said the Mouse-Free Marion Project has picked 2027 to initiate the mouse apocalypse, when project members plan to bombard the island with rodenticide.

Guarded by a fox

While foraging for mushrooms in the Italian Alps near the Swiss border, 89-year-old Giuseppina Bardelli slipped and fell 20 feet into a gully. Unable to climb out—and with her family and rescue workers initially unable to find her—Bardelli prepared for the worst by reciting the rosary for four nights. Eventually rescue workers located the elderly grandmother on Aug. 25 and retrieved her from the pit. According to her son, Bardelli survived on rain water from puddles and passed the time with her rosary and with visits from a fox that periodically approached her. After making it through the ordeal in relatively good shape, Bardelli rejected a neck brace medical personnel attempted to apply, telling them, “Now you’re trying to kill me.”

Flushed foundations

Score one for the dogs. A San Francisco business owner said he has watched for more than 15 years as dogs marked their territory on a telephone utility box on the sidewalk outside of his coffee shop. In August, the AT&T-owned junction box fell over when the base of the structure detached from the concrete. Castro Coffee Company owner Ken Khoury told KNTV that he believes the box deteriorated over time primarily from dog urine, but also from the elements. Khoury said the box has been a favorite for neighborhood canines as long as he can remember. According to the NBC affiliate, dogs marking their territory were also responsible for a light pole collapse in a San Francisco neighborhood.

Not a flight risk

Park officials at Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield leapt into action when they discovered a bald eagle waddling around the Missouri park. After observing that the national bird couldn’t fly away, park officials thought it was injured, so they captured the eagle and sought medical attention. But, according to an Aug. 21 park social media post, an X-ray revealed that the raptor wasn’t actually hurt—just stuffed. “The bird, originally reported to be injured, was found to be healthy but engorged with raccoon—in other words, too fat to fly,” a park official reported. Park officials worked with other government agents to release the eagle back into the wild.