If you ever go on a camping trip to Australia, you might be told to beware the dreaded drop bear. There won’t be a chase. You’ll just be walking along, minding your own business, when a dark shape plummets onto you from above, pinning you down before your realize that you’re being eaten alive by an overgrown koala. The only way to protect yourself, the locals will advise, is to slather yourself in Vegemite and speak in an Australian accent. The efficacy of changing your name to Bruce is unknown.

This is all nonsense, of course. There are no carnivorous koalas with a taste for tourists hanging around the eucalyptus trees of Australia. Yet, despite the fact that the