wrapping

With Venice and Telluride over and the Toronto Film Festival wrapping, Times columnist Glenn Whipp looks at an Oscar season that seems delightfully unsettled.

Australian researchers, who spent years towing seal-shaped decoys through waters infested with great white sharks, have determined that wrapping the lures in very bright lights — sort of like aquatic Christmas trees — seems to turn sharks away.

So wrapping the body of a fake seal in bright, horizontally striped LED lights seems to break the silhouette into smaller pieces that no longer look like a seal, said researcher Nathan Hart, head of the School of Natural Sciences at Macquarie University in Sydney.

With Venice and Telluride over and the Toronto Film Festival wrapping, Times columnist Glenn Whipp looks at an Oscar season that seems delightfully unsettled.

The only thing lacking was shiny wrapping paper and a bright red bow.