‘Wheelchair’ for goldfish?

A Texas goldfish with a disorder preventing it from controlling its own buoyancy is once again swimming upright thanks to a ‘wheelchair.’

Taylor Dean tweeted a photo of the goldfish ‘wheelchair’ her friend Derek, a worker at a San Antonio aquarium, created for a customer whose fish suffered from swim bladder disease, also known as flip over.

“Wasn’t able to hold himself upright and was stuck on the bottom. Not anymore! Thought you would get a kick out of it,” Derek wrote in a text message to Dean.

The ‘wheelchair’ consists of airline tubing wrapped around the fish along with valves at the bottom that act as the ‘chair.’ The device features Styrofoam at the top and weights at the bottom to keep the goldfish upright.

“Just wanted to let you guys know wheelchair fish is still doing well and got an even more comfortable wheelchair,” Dean tweeted.

The bizarre ‘Owl cafes’ of Japan

Owls fluff up their feathers and preen beneath the stroking fingers of customers at Owl Village, one of the many owl cafés that have popped up around Japan amid the nation’s pet café boom.

Here children can play and pet the eight owls, while adults take photos with the birds that are often tied by their feet with a rope so that they don’t fly away.

The café, located in the Tokyo’s Harajuku entertainment district is fully booked most days, animal activists show a lot of concerns for the welfare of the birds.

Many visitors to the cafés think the cafe need to be more careful in the way they are managing the birds as it is disrupting the natural sleep cycles of owls, which are nocturnal, and tying their feet to perches as many cafés do, can constitute animal abuse.

The situation for owls is especially difficult since they are birds of prey used to hunting in expansive habitats at night. Their keen sense of hearing and vision are also poorly adapted to dealing with the brightness and noise of crowded cafes.

In addition, they can also develop neurotic and self-destructive behaviour such as pulling at their feathers, pacing, and rocking back and forth, activists say. The owl is a particularly significant animal in Japanese culture as it is commonly considered to be a symbol of good luck.

Drone-like ‘hoverbike’ unveiled

A team of Russian engineers have unveiled the latest model of their ‘hoverbike,’ an airborne vehicle inspired by quadcopter drone technology.

The Hoversurf team posted a video to YouTube showing the Scorpion 3 hoverbike, which bears a stronger resemblance to a giant recreational drone than it does to a bicycle. The team said the hoverbike could have applications in extreme sports as well as transportation.

They said there are plans to use the Scorpion platform to build flying cars, taxis and cargo transport vehicles.

Published in Dawn, Young World April 1st, 2017