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Something just for fun to start off the new year.


 


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Feedback: 'Alien texts' competition winners


*	05 January 2007 
*	Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition.

Feedback New Year Competition results

This week we publish the winning entries in our New Year Competition.
The challenge was to compose a text message of no more than 160
characters, sent home by an alien who has just arrived on our planet.

The 300-plus entries we received have been entertaining and
thought-provoking. It has been sobering to discover how many readers
think an alien would not be impressed by Earth, and especially not by
the way we humans are looking after it. This view is expressed in many
entries by the simple phrase: "No intelligent life found." Many other
readers focused on climate change as evidence of this, chillingly
summing it up with the words: "Thermostat broken".

A number of entries also implied that technology on our planet has gone
out of control - a notion that seemed all too pertinent when the New
Scientist computer system malfunctioned on the very day of the
competition deadline. Our apologies for the frustrations this may have
caused correspondents - but in the end we did consider all entries,
including those held up by technical problems.

Here, then, in no particular order, are the 10 winners, as chosen by a
ballot among staff at the magazine.

 

Arrived safely. Weather chilly, but improving steadily over the next
century or so. Found out why Aunty didn't come back from her Roswell
trip.

Stephen Harrowing, Flitwick, Bedfordshire, UK

Arr. Earth. Dominant species "car". Colourful exoskeleton and bizarre
reproduction via slave biped species. Aggressive but predictable.
Intelligence uncertain.

David Armstrong, Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, UK

We followed the wormhole, and have now discovered the source of the wet
socks (of the singular kind) which are spontaneously materialising on
our planet.

Peter Hicks, Harrogate, North Yorkshire, UK

See pic. This one will look good on veranda. We can come back for the
ones with rings.

John Alderson, Reading, Berkshire, UK

Send help! Under attack, lost half fleet already. Attackers are huge,
armoured, 6 legs, well organized, show no mercy. All attempts to
negotiate unsuccessful.

John McCluskey, Redwood Park, South Australia

No need to exterminate, they're doing it themselves. Radiation level
increasing nicely, prospect of large increase imminent. Warm and getting
warmer. Come soon.

John Cannell, Brentwood, Essex, UK

Source of electromagnetic pollution located. Initiating steps to turn it
off. Will ensure solution is permanent.

Michael Parsons, Canberra, ACT, Australia

Parallel evolution of intelligent life. One carbon based, one silicon
based. Carbon form domesticated by silicon form to feed it with all its
needs.

Dennis Fox, Loughborough, Leicestershire, UK

OMG you have to see how they procreate.

Justin Byrne, Dublin, Ireland

Our assumptions were wrong. Their diet is so full of unhealthy chemicals
they don't taste at all like chicken. Even their chickens don't taste
like chicken.

Yonatan Silver, Jerusalem, Israel

 

Thanks to the generosity of Profile Books, these winners will each
receive three of its most popular new titles, Four Elements: Water, Air,
Fire, Earth by Rebecca Rupp; Richard Mabey's Gilbert White, a biography
of the author of The Natural History of Selborne; and The End of the
Question Mark, a compilation of questions and answers from the Any
Questions Answered text service - plus a copy of New Scientist's very
own bestseller, Why Don't Penguins' Feet Freeze?

We would also like to give a special mention to two English schools, LSU
The Grays Convent High School and The Heathcote School, both in Essex.
Each sent in dozens of lively entries from pupils, and while none quite
made it to the final 10, they had a character of their own that we
greatly enjoyed - as in, for example, Luke Henaghan's "I tried 2 tlk 2
sum ppl but they lukd at me as if I ws crazy and ran away scremin nd now
I'm upset". Thanks to them and to everyone else who entered the
competition.

Because of the high standard of submissions and the difficulty of
choosing the best, next week we will publish another 10 entries to the
competition from the runners-up.

From issue 2585 of New Scientist magazine, 05 January 2007, page 76

 

 

"Work hard to find something that fascinates you. When you find it you
will know your lifework" -- Richard Feynman

Dennis Schatz, Vice President for Education

Pacific Science Center, 200 Second Ave. No., Seattle, WA 98109

Phone - 206-443-2867; Fax - 206-443-3631

Pacific Science Center

A non-profit bringing science and kids together

in every county of Washington State

 

 


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