1 Canines in court make you more content
To alleviate stress and make the court-room experience less intimidating for crime victims and trial witnesses, “therapy dogs” have been introduced in some courts. In January, Judge Lynn Roberts, the designated family judge for Essex and Suffolk, first decided to brings dogs into Chelmsford county court. She was perhaps inspired by AOR band Journey and their song “Don’t stop retrievin’”, and was presumably aware of the dog-eat-dog nature of most court situations. Volunteers from Pets as Therapy and Canine Concern, who usually take their therapy dogs into care homes and special schools, agreed to bring their pets into the court building to visit everyone from the judges and staff to the court users and their families. These so-called “courthouse facility dogs” are proving increasingly popular, although those suffering from bark psychosis have been advised to bring a leash.
2 By Jupiter! Nasa spacecraft skims distant planet’s clouds
Five years ago, Nasa spacecraft Juno left Earth, passing through wind and fire to reach the outer limits of Jupiter. This record-breaking mission was accomplished last Saturday: the probe had to go into interstellar overdrive to soar 2,600 miles above Jupiter at 130,000mph. No spacecraft has flown so near to the giant planet before: the previous record for the closest approach was set by Nasa’s Pioneer 11 spacecraft, which passed at a distance of 27,000 miles in 1974, which in relative terms could be considered bloody awful. A British team from the University of Leicester is playing a key role in the mission, focusing on Jupiter’s powerful magnetic field, its spectacular auroras and its dynamic atmosphere.
3 Car hack to the future
Gary Numan may have felt “safest of all” in cars – indeed, he deemed it “the only way to live” – but it has been reported that automobiles of the future may not, after all, require human control. Driverless automobiles are looking increasingly likely, and yet what happens, ask systems engineers, when you experience not just car trouble but malfunction? At hacker convention Defcon, security researcher Charlie Miller and IOActive’s Chris Valasek demonstrated that they were able to wirelessly seize control of a Jeep using a laptop connected to the internet miles from the vehicle, cutting the brakes and transmission at the flick of a switch. Self-driving cars, scientists say, use a number of sensors for various purposes. Those sensors, however, can be jammed, spoofed or muted, and that’s without factoring in the cataclysm likely to result from said sensors working overtime.
4 Mmm … Skyscraper, we don’t love you
Inhabitants of Britain’s capital city believe it’s getting mighty crowded, particularly regarding the number of monolithic buildings: ones that are tall, tall, tall, as big as a wall, wall, wall. With more than 400 high-rises planned, a major survey shows residents want the amount curbed, unlike Skyline, the new single by Beyoncé protege Sophie Beem, which is widely regarded as a perfectly sized piece of R&B architecture. Barbara Weiss, co-founder of the pressure group Skyline Campaign, insists there are simply too many towers of London, blaming former mayor Boris Johnson and his desire to boost London’s international profile.
5 Choo-choo’s sorry now?
Jeremy Corbyn’s closest ally – John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor – has called for Sir Richard Branson to be stripped of his knighthood, days after Branson’s company Virgin released CCTV footage casting doubt on the Labour leader’s claim of overcrowding on a train. In an interview with the Sunday Mirror, McDonnell called Branson, who lives in the Caribbean, a “tax exile who thinks he can try and intervene and undermine our democracy”. McDonnell’s comments follow days of acrimony between Labour and Virgin after Corbyn’s team released a clip, filmed earlier this month, showing the Labour leader sitting on the floor of a Virgin train, claiming he could not find a seat and highlighting his policy to nationalise railways. Virgin released CCTV footage – which Branson tweeted on Tuesday – claimed to show Corbyn’s team walking past vacant seats before filming the clip. Just an illusion, then?
