International Spat Over Who Owns Aurora Borealis Heading For The Courts

Aurora Borealis-FNT-Small.pngOTTAWA – A leaked classified document from foreign affairs, has confirmed that bureaucracies from seven different northern countries are now quibbling over ownership of the aurora borealis. The negotiations are cloaked in mystery and secrecy, but insiders have hinted that if the parties cannot reach a resolution the matter may wind up being decided by the World Court.

No one, however, has been able to answer the question: why do they want ownership?

A spokesperson for the department, who agreed to speak briefly off the record because he feared reprisal, explained the rationale behind the highly-charged contretemps.

“No comment!” he said, and abruptly hung up.

FauxNews Today was able to reach an analyst on contract with the National Research Council who was able to shed some light on the subject. He gave his name as “Bob Galileo”, (which, upon reflection, might well be false).

He explained that the aurora borealis was actually potential energy stored in Earth’s magnetosphere and released in the form of light under certain conditions involving the solar wind and a couple of other factors. All governments therefore were anxious to stake their claim on one of nature’s most spectacular wonders.

“It used to be about oil,” said Bob Galileo. “But oil’s now passé. So whoever can nail down ownership of the northern lights will have their hands on enough green energy to power every single city in the high latitudes and sell the surplus to the rest of the country.”

Before he rang off, Bob then tried to interest the reporter in buying shares of a solar-wind-farm company he and some colleagues had recently founded near the International Space Station. Source: FNT Staff  

Photo credit: Original images at: Mental Floss, Dreamstime,

Patent Approved for World’s First Self-Suspending Suspension Bridge

Self Suspension Bridge-FNT-small.pngCOPENHAGEN – A Danish engineering firm has successfully pioneered the world’s first self-suspending suspension bridge. Jensanders Engineering Inc., a small family-owned company from Roskilde has been awarded a worldwide patent on the design.

The bridge, designed and modeled in part on driverless vehicle software technology, and with a free-floating road deck, is the first in the world to suspend itself to span a waterway, without foundations and abutment anchors of any type.

The patent was granted only after the company was able to demonstrate that the bridge could operate in fully autonomous mode, with no danger to vehicles and humans crossing the full span.

Magnus Petersen, the CEO of Jensanders Engineering, outlined some of the challenges the company faced in bringing the groundbreaking project to fruition.

“Well, our biggest problem was finding a spot for field testing the prototype where our competitors wouldn’t get wind of it,” he said.  “A suspension bridge is not something you can set up in your garage.

“That was our third biggest problem, actually,” said Hagen Peterson, the Chief Software Officer for the company. “The biggest one was getting the thing to levitate in the first place, and the second biggest was finding the right type of shielding for the main chip so someone working his iPad a block away wouldn’t suddenly send it a hundred metres to the left or right of the approaches, without any warning.”

Hagen Peterson explained that he and his brother Magnus, worked on the revolutionary self-suspending design for six frustrating years before they had a breakthrough. The prototype would spin out of control and crash into the water once a month, for no apparent reason.

“We finally traced the source of interference to the Northern Lights,” he said. They nearly drove the lidar sensors nuts. But after I covered the motherboard with aluminum foil, that settled it right down. I can operate it now on manual override from my smartphone”

His brother was quick to point out the hurdles that were still ahead.

“The prototype is only approved for a fifty metre span and a hundred and seventy tonne load,” Magnus said. “So we’ve really got a lot of work to do yet on the technology before we can take it to the market.” Source: FNT Staff

Photo credit: Original images at Pixabay,