Strange stories from around the world, some of which might be true...
- Scientists studying robins believe they have identified the chemical in birds' eyes that allows them to detect the Earth's magnetic fields. They used a purified form of the chemical, cryptochrome, and found
that it formed pairs of radicals - chemically active molecules - that are highly sensitive to magnetism and activated by light. Cryptochrome is present in the eyes of migratory robins but not in the eyes of
chickens, which do not migrate. Professor Peter Hore, head of the team at Oxford University, is cautious about the result but said that it is possible cryptochrome could "give the bird information about the
direction of the Earth's magnetic field and in that way constitute a magnetic compass."
- Astronomers studying the oldest-known galaxies - so far away that even with the best telescopes available today they only appear as a few pixels on an image - have calculated when the "cosmic dawn",
the first appearance of stars in the universe took place, placing it between 250 and 350 million years after the Big Bang, which took place 13.8 billion years ago. It is hoped that the James Webb Space Telescope,
the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, will be able to image the galaxies better, which might enable a higher precision date to be found. ● The European Space Agency recently advertised for between
six and eight people to train to become full-time astronauts with up to twenty more to train as standby astronauts should further opportunities arise. A record 22,589 people applied, two-and-a-half times as many as
when the last recruitment was advertised in 2008. The successful candidates will be named and start training next year. ● It has long been thought that collisions between black holes - the heaviest known
objects in the universe - and neutron stars, also incredibly dense (a teaspoon of neutron star would weight about four billion tonnes), were unlikely because of the way galaxies form. Neutron stars have been observed
colliding with each other, and black holes with each other. Now not only have a black hole and neutron star been detected colliding, but ten days later another black hole-neutron star collision was observed, and
astronomers might have to tweak their theories of galactic formation.
- The 1981 Ford Escort Ghia given to the then-Diana Spencer by Prince Charles as an engagement present has been auctioned for more than $£52,000 ($72,000) more than 50% higher than its estimate. ●
In 1715 Rembrandt's 1642 painting The Night Watch was trimmed down to fit into a space between two doorways in the Amsterdam city hall, and the cut-offs - 2' (60cm) from the left, 2.7" (7cm) from the right,
8.6" (22cm) from the top and 4.7" (12cm) from the bottom - were lost. The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, where the painting now hangs, recently trained an AI system to recreate the missing sections using a high-resolution
scan of the existing picture and a painted copy of the original made before it was trimmed down. The new parts were printed in high resolution and have been hung around the picture to show it close to how Rembrandt
intended it, including three extra figures on the left and more detail of the boy running away from the troops. ● Paleoanthropologists wait decades for new species of early humans to be identified, then two turn
up at almost the same time. In Israel a partial skull and jaw from an ancient human dubbed the "Nesher Ramla Homo type", dated to 100,000 years ago, suggesting that Neanderthals, thought to have
evolved in Europe, instead migrated from the Middle East. Meanwhile in China a skull dating to at least 146,000 years ago, dubbed the "Dragon Man", is thought to be the closest evolutionary relative
to Neanderthals and Homo erectus, the first human species to spread across Eurasia. The skull was originally found in 1933 but only recently studied properly.
- A Greek Orthodox priest has been arrested in Athens after throwing acid on seven bishops, who were meeting to rule on defrocking him because he had been found in possession of cocaine in 2018 and was suspected
of drug trafficking. ● Iowa man Robert Golwitzer, Jr, 42, was arrested last weekend after allegedly phoning a local McDonald's restaurant and threatening to blow it up because they had not included the sauce
with his order of Chicken McNuggets. ● Aircraft hijackers usually wait until the plane is in the air, but a man was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport on Friday after attempting to gain access to
the cockpit while the United Express plane to Salt Lake City was taxiing to the runway, then opening one of the doors and activating the emergency slide to flee. ● A Maine resident arrested on an
outstanding warrant for theft has also been charged with forgery after attempting to pay his $200 (£144) bail with counterfeit banknotes. ● Police were called to a Home Depot store in Pennsylvania to
break up "an exorcism in the lumber aisle for the dead trees", according to the, er, police log. ● A man described as a "good Samaritan" who shot another man who had ambushed and killed a
Colorado police officer was then fatally shot himself by police officers responding to the incident...
- As if the collected idiocies of QAnon and anti-vaxxer conspiracy theories were not enough, one of the latest to do the rounds is claiming that between 1959 and 1971, presumably because they were fed up with
cleaning bird mess from their cars, the directors of the CIA ordered refitted B-52 bombers to drop poison to kill 12 billion birds before replacing them with robots which spy on American citizens, with the program
continuing to this day using the "Turkey X500" robot to dispatch living birds. Whether the "Birds Aren't Real" conspiracy theory is honest, a satire or just a merchandised money-making scheme
is not known, but what is known is the name of the, er, bird-brain who concocted it - 20-year-old English and philosophy student Peter McIndoe. [Maybe in the early 2000s the CIA arranged for a human to be developed
who would dream up a daft conspiracy theory about the CIA to distract from their real operations... "Peter McIndoe Isn't Real" anyone? -Ed]
- The Scottish Brewdog brewery, already under fire after complaints about working conditions, is now under investigation by the Advertising Standards Authority over its "gold can" promotion, in which
ten gold cans, described by the company as "solid gold" and worth £15,000 ($20,776) were hidden in cases of its beers. One of the winners, Adam Dean, from Shrewsbury, told reporters that after
finding the can, with the message "you've won a £15k 24 carat gold Hazy Jane can" on it he thought he had better add it to his house insurance, so he contacted Thomas Lyte, the company that had
made it. They told him it was 24 carat gold plated brass. A jeweller then valued it at just £500 ($693). Brewdog have apologised and described the use of the phrase "solid gold" as a mistake, but
stand by their claim of the cans' value because they are "collectible items". ● The High Flyer pub in Ely, Cambridgeshire, is under investigation by the local council after a 12'- (3.6m)-high
statue of a white tankard appeared outside it. The pub is located within a conservation area and the majority of comments in online forums agree that the tankard is an "eyesore". The pub is closed until
COVID restrictions end next month [hopefully... -Ed].
- When heat records are broken it is usually by less than 1oC (1.8oF). The heat dome currently sitting over the Pacific North West of Canada and the USA has seen the temperature record for
Canada rise to 49.6oC (121.28oF), 4.6oC (8.28oF) higher than the previous record. The record was set in Lytton, 155 miles (250km) east of Vancouver, British Columbia.
Lytton lies at 50o13'N, about the same latitude as South Devon in England, although the differing geography means a similar heat dome over the UK is unlikely. It is not just humans that have been
affected by the heat, of course. A family in British Columbia recorded a mother bear and her three cubs having a splash about in their swimming pool before leaving over the garden fence. ● Last month
the Texas State Climate Extremes Committee confirmed the inaugural record for the largest hailstone to fall in the state as one that fell in Hondo in last April, measuring 6.4" (13.7cm) across and 12" (30.48cm)
around, and weighing more than 1b (454g). It had been kept preserved in a freezer, allowing officials to measure it; a social media post showed a potentially larger hailstone from the same storm, but that one had,
apparently, been broken up for margheritas...
- Visitors to Brighton Pier on the south coast of England pay £25 ($34.63) for an adult and £13 ($18) for a child, for an unlimited day pass for the rides, but hundreds have found themselves charged more than
£2,000 ($2,770) per ticket. Brighton Pier PLC, which operates the attraction, apologised to all those affected, and explained that the mistake was made by Worldpay, which handles the ticket payments. It
seems that an error at Worldpay resulted in the numerical value of the date, rather than the price, being used as the price paid. Worldpay have, according to Brighton Pier, accepted full responsibility but
are reported by out-of-pocket customers as taking their time over compensation.
- The sea around Scotland has turned a vivid turquoise colour, more usually associated with the Mediterranean. Lockdown conditions mean scientists are unable to take and analyse samples, but it is thought that
the colour is due to a bloom of cocolithophore, microscopic algae that live just below the water surface. The sun hits white platelets they shed from their bodies and the refraction of the light reflecting through
the water results in the turquoise colouration. Cocolithophores are the second most common algae in the ocean but have not been observed around Scotland since the 1980s. Dr Paul Tett, from the Scottish Association
for Marine Sciences speculated that thy might have been washed over the Mallin shelf between Ireland and the West of Scotland then spread into the Firth of Clyde and northwards.
- Neuroscientist Thomas Andrillon and his team at the Paris Brain Institute have identified sleep-like slow brain waves in the frontal lobes of conscious subjects that could be an indication of the moment
someone's concentration starts to drift and they start daydreaming. The same waves also occur further back in the brain, where they are associated with slow responsiveness and mind blanking. The paper, published in
Nature Communications proposes that "identifying a proximate mechanism of attentional lapses could inspire novel applications leveraging brain-machine interfaces in educational or professional
settings", so if you are ever asked to wear an electroencephalograph helmet while sitting under a bucket of water during a lecture or a meeting, watch out...
IN BRIEF: Andrew Devers, 25, disappeared while hiking in the Snoqualmie National Forest, Washington State, on June 18th. Eight days later he was found by a trail runner, having survived on
berries and river water; the King County Sheriff's Office confirmed that he had been taken to hospital for evaluation. ● The Ministry of Defence are investigating how classified documents including one
on the likely reaction by Russia to HMS Defender's transit through Ukranian waters last week came to be left beside a bus stop in Kent. ● More than 3,000 people from around the world entered the recent
Homemade Marmalade Awards, with Best in Show awarded to nine-year-old Flora Rider from the Isle of Wight; Fortnum & Mason's are now selling their reproduction of her Seville orange and orange blossom
marmalade. ● A petty dispute over birds sitting in the branches of a tree on a property boundary led to a resident of Waterthorpe, Sheffield, lopping half the branches off the 25-year-old 16'- (4.9m)-tall fir
tree; every branch that was overhanging his driveway was removed. ● Ringo Starr has dropped his trademark dispute with the manufacturers of the Ring O sex toy. ●
The owner of a San Francisco house designed like the Flintstones's house, complete with dinosaurs and statues of Fred and family, as well as other figures like aliens, has reached an agreement with town
authorities to let it stay after the town of Hillsborough sued owner Florence Fang vor violating local codes and she counter-sued.
CORONAVIRUS ROUND-UP: Chile has started including those who died of COVID-19 among the number of people who have recovered because they "are no longer contagious" according to Health Minister
Jaime Manalich... [It is a good thing the twice-impeached Former Guy is no longer US president; if he had heard of the idea he would have claimed bigly huge recovery figures... -Ed] ● A street party attended
by hundreds of students in Hyde Park, Leeds, last weekend has been condemned by health officials. The area has the second-highest COVID-19 infection rate in England. Police are attempting to identify the
organisers. ● A Washington, DC, resident identified only as 'Jackie' decided to prank her colleagues at the start of the pandemic by always wearing the same Hawaiian shirt for online Zoom meetings. More than
a year and 264 meetings later the joke was on her as nobody had apparently noticed until she told them on her final day at the business...
UPDATES: Last year atronomers claimed to have discovered significant levels of phosphine gas in the atmosphere of Venus, leading to speculation that there could be microscopic life there. While that finding
is yet to be confirmed or disproved another study at Queen's University, Belfast, has found that water levels in the acidic clouds are far too low to support life, even "extremophile" microbes that can survive
in the harshest conditions. ● The US government's interim report into unidentified flying objects has said that of the 144 reports made only one could be explained (as a deflating weather balloon), but there
were "no clear indications that there is any non-terrestrial explanation" for the sightings, but did not categorically rule it out.
In music class Little Jennifer had been learning different dances. That evening her mother walked into the kitchen to see her daughter dancing on the spot with a jar of sweets in her hand.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
Little Jennifer stopped, and smiled as only she could, "Well, Mummy, I wanted a sweetie and the top of the jar says 'twist to open'".
