MIKE PESCA, host:
Welcome back to the Bryant Park Project from NPR News, online all the time at npr.org/bryantpark. So Rachel, the best way to attack a rabbit is head on.
RACHEL MARTIN, host:
Really?
PESCA: Yeah, because its eyes are on the side of the head.
MARTIN: Why do you want to attack a rabbit?
PESCA: If one were a hawk, you know? Predators generally have the eyes in the front, and the prey have the eyes on the side.
MARTIN: OK, OK.
PESCA: But we, you and I...
MARTIN: Yeah.
PESCA: Are not rabbits.
MARTIN: No, we are not.
PESCA: We enjoy more of the circuitous route, if you will. The non-direct approach.
MARTIN: Using the peripheral.
PESCA: It satisfies us to some extent. In that vein...
MARTIN: Interesting things happen on that fringe.
PESCA: In that long and winding vein, we give you The Ramble.
(Soundbite of music)
MARTIN: Indeed we do.
PESCA: Indeedeloo (ph)!
MARTIN: A new security system has been installed on thousands of commuter and tourist busses in New York. It allows authorities to remotely control the speed of a bus, seriously, slowing it down to as low as five miles per hour. That's according to the New York Post. I think history has shown us that slowing the bus down isn't always the best way to fight a terrorist.
(Soundbite of movie "Speed")
Mr. DENNIS HOOPER: (as Howard Payne) Pop quiz, hot shot! There's a bomb on a bus. Once the bus goes 50 miles an hour, the bomb is armed. If it drops below 50, it blows up. What do you do? What do you do?
MARTIN: What do you do, Mike? "Speed."
PESCA: I'd hire Keanu Reeves to be in my movie.
MARTIN: Yeah. Not really clear, I'm pretty sure they're not installing these to ward off terrorists that might take over the busses, but the Department of Homeland Security is involved, and they paid for the security system in hopes of, indeed, maybe it could happen. And a terrorist might jump on that bus. It costs 1,500 dollars per vehicle. The system is reportedly being installed on privately-owned tourist busses, New Jersey Transit commuter busses that go from New Jersey to Port Authority. But the 4,500 New York City transit busses don't have them because they don't have the necessary GPS technology.
PESCA: Yeah, another way to slow a bus down to five miles an hour is just to drive into Manhattan where most acts of terrorism would be aimed anyway. Jurors in a drug-conspiracy trial in Sydney, Australia, were busted for played Sudoku when they should have been listening to the evidence.
The judge said he noticed something was wrong when the jurors were writing vertically instead of horizontally at the end of the trial, which has been running for 66 days. That's probably the best thing for the two defendants, who are facing possible life sentences. The jury foremen told the judge that Sudoku actually helps them pay more attention and didn't distract them from the proceedings. And then, he added three, seven, eight, no wait, four. A new trial is expected to begin soon.
MARTIN: OK, remember Strawberry Shortcake?
PESCA: Mm-hm.
MARTIN: Did you have one?
PESCA: Uh...
MARTIN: The character, not the cake.
PESCA: I'm a boy.
MARTIN: So?
PESCA: I was a boy.
(Soundbite of laughter)
PESCA: I had G.I. Shortcake.
MARTIN: Matt Martinez wanted one.
PESCA: No, really?
MARTIN: OK, so Strawberry Shortcake, the character, not the food, again, clarification, got a makeover this week for modern times, modern kids. The New York Times reports today that the It character of the '80s just wasn't working for modern children. We found the theme song from the 1980 Strawberry Shortcake special.
(Soundbite of song "Strawberry Shortcake Theme Song")
Unidentified man: (Singing) What's it like to stay in a cake made of strawberries? Work can play in a cake made of strawberries? Learn the way of little Miss Strawberry, Strawberry Shortcake.
MARTIN: I was a big Strawberry Shortcake fan, and I don't remember that song.
PESCA: I'm just very worried that the way to make her appeal to kids today is to literally tart up Strawberry Shortcake.
MARTIN: I guess the only - I mean, the thing is now, she doesn't eat candy like she used to. She eats fruit. Instead of talking to her cat Custard, she talks on the cell phone. As for her friends Blueberry Muffin, Raspberry Tart and Huckleberry Pie, I had all these little girls, it's so fun.
PESCA: Oh, boy. Did you have My Little Pony also?
MARTIN: No, I did not. I didn't like horses, but I really liked - and all their hair smelled like whatever they were.
PESCA: Oh, yeah, that's got to be natural.
MARTIN: Yeah. Not at all. Yeah.
PESCA: All right, apparently, it's just as bad for you to sleep too much as it is to sleep too little. And sleeping eight and a half hours a night might actually be worse than sleeping only five hours.
MARTIN: I do not believe this.
PESCA: I disagree. At least that's what insane person Daniel Kripke of the Scripps Clinic Sleep Center in La Jolla, California, told Time Magazine. This clearly insane person said that he looked at the death rates of people who had reported how much sleep they got as part of a different study. People who reported sleeping between six and a half and seven and a half hours a night lived the longest. People who slept eight hours or more, or less than six and a half hours didn't live quite as long. So do you see what we're saying here?
MARTIN: It's a small window.
PESCA: If you sleep less than six hours, it's pretty bad. If you sleep, you know, right under eight, it seems pretty good. And if you sleep a lot, it seems terrible. This doesn't surprise me. That could be a sign of depression or something, sleeping too long. All right. Kripke says he doesn't know if setting your alarm clock to ring earlier will make you live longer, but he says this information could help some people with sleeping problems simply because, quote, "We can prevent a lot of insomnia and distress just by telling people that short sleep is OK. We've all been told to sleep eight hours, but there has never been any evidence."
MARTIN: It's true, because psychologically, if you think you have to get a certain amount of sleep - I'm victim to this all the time. I sit there and stress out about the fact that I'm not sleeping.
PESCA: Oh, OK. So maybe Daniel Kripke...
MARTIN: Must sleep!
PESCA: Is not as insane as we thought.
MARTIN: Maybe not. OK, last story. A group of zoology students from the University of Cambridge are working to impose a code of conduct on the summer sport of crabbing - you know, crabbing, when you go out and catch crabs.
PESCA: Is that a sport?
MARTIN: Yeah, I don't know if it is - it's a hobby, an extreme hobby. Not extreme. It's a thing to do.
PESCA: A thing to do.
MARTIN: A hobby.
PESCA: It's a way to get some crabs in your life.
MARTIN: You can build up a sweat, though, if you crab.
PESCA: Powerful sweat. Crab-inflicted sweat.
MARTIN: You get the crab. You spend some quality time with it. Then you release it back into the wild. That's crabbing. Often when people catch crabs, they put them in a bucket, then the crabs fight each other, and they can get hurt, even lose a limb. The students think that's cruel, and they want to educate kids, especially, about a kinder, gentler kind of crabbing. I thought people also killed the crabs, though, and ate them.
PESCA: Yes, they do. Just don't let them play "We Don't Need Another Hero," and have that last version of Mad Max while they do it, yeah.
MARTIN: They plan to distribute 10,000 fliers to people at a Norfolk resort called Wells Next the Sea - Wells Next the Sea, interesting - which is the crabbing capital of Britain. The fliers advise that no more than 10 crabs should be placed in a bucket. Local fishermen estimate that average Wells Next the Sea crab is caught and released several times a day. You know what, folks? That's your Ramble. These stories and more on our website, npr.org/bryantpark.
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