How to make pigs really fly
QUESTION If pigs could fly, what would their wingspan be?
Your average market pig weighs about 300 lb (135 kg), while others might grow to as much as 900 lb (410 kg). This brings them into the range of the largest-known flying animal, a dinosaur called Quetzalcoatlus northropi. This is believed to have weighed from 300 lb to 500 lb (135 kg to 225 kg). It had an estimated wingspan of 30 ft to 35 ft (9 m to 10.5 m).
However, Q. northropi was physically different from a pig. It was hollow-boned, stood a little shorter than a giraffe, and acted like a giant heron.
Perhaps a better bet would be to compare our pig to a light aircraft. In the late 1960s, u.S. aircraft designer Jim Bede created the Bede BD-5, a small, singleseat home-built aircraft. This had a weight, when occupied by a pilot, of 500 lb to 600 lb (225 kg to 275 kg), so in the large pig range. This aircraft had a wingspan of 21 ft 6 in (6.55 m). We can safely say that a large pig would require a wingspan of 20 ft to 30 ft (6 m to 10 m) to fly, creating a very strange animal indeed.
simon Wright, Bristol.
QUESTION Who was the very first known ‘whistleblower’?
WHISTleBloWerS are informers who expose criminal acts, corruption, bullying and harassment. Some point to the actions of u.S. politician Benjamin
Franklin when, in 1773, he exposed confidential letters showing that the British-endorsed governor of Massachusetts, Thomas Hutchinson, had intentionally misled Parliament to promote a military build-up in the Colonies.
There is some ambiguity about that case, so a better bet might be the acts of u.S. seamen richard Marven and Samuel Shaw of the Continental Navy, during the American War of Independence. In 1777, they provided evidence that their commander-in-chief, esek Hopkins, was torturing British prisoners.
The term ‘whistleblower’ emerged in the 19th century and meant ‘one who blows a whistle’, a piper or a figure of authority such as policeman or referee.
It wasn’t until 1974 that the term was defined by the u.S. consumer advocate ralph Nader as ‘an act of a man or woman who, believing that the public interest overrides the interest of the organisation he serves, blows the whistle that the organisation is [engaged] in corrupt, illegal, fraudulent or harmful activity’.
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