We humans

Innovation prizes, no guns, and virtual reality for … chickens?

May 20, 2014 /

There’s a million-dollar prize for that
Innovation prizes have become quite the hot thing in recent years, as groups like the X Prize have proven the efficacy of offering a bounty to work on outrageous goals. (TED even launched one!) The Longitude Prize is the UK’s version, with details just released of six challenges in fields such as food, flight and water.

No guns, please. We’re British.
Most of us likely have little in common with Esquire writer and British soldier Lt. Col. Robert Bateman, who describes himself as defending his house “with a machete and a kukri” (a what?). However, Bateman and I do have one thing in common besides our Britishness: an attitude towards guns. In this powerful piece, he writes, “I have an 11-month-old daughter. Her house will not have guns, and I will never, ever, allow her to go to a home where there are guns.” Yep.

Virtual reality for chickens
Can’t do better than the headline on the original piece, published in Modern Farmer. It’s a real suggestion — Second Life for livestock, if you will. So far, humans have been able to test out a chicken’s-eye-view of a virtual free-range life, though there’s no word on when (or if) it might be tested on chickens themselves. File under: conversation starter.