IT'S unclear exactly how they work, but the residents of some Cambodian villages are swearing by magical scarecrows to help ward off COVID-19.
Known in the local vernacular as "Ting Mong," the home-made effigies maintain a long-held belief that the creatures are able to fend off diseases along with evil spirits, according to a Reuters report.
Anecdotally it seems to be working,with official figures claiming Cambodia has only had 307 cases in total, and no deaths, after quickly containing small outbreaks this year.
The scarecrows are usually made of hay, with a "skeleton" of bamboo and old clothes.
The report says some homeowners also provide their TIng Mongs with motorbike helmets and arm them with sticks and knives to increase their effectiveness.
FORGET mind-altering drugs - funding of a mind-reading project by the US military has seen a recent breakthrough in decoding brain signals reported by the Army Research Office.
The study was able to separate neurological impulses into those which influence action or behaviour from those that do not, according to tech website c4isrnet.com.
Potential uses of the discovery could be "silent communication" between soldiers and computers, researchers said, but warned any sort of battle-ready interface was decades away.
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