Strange stories from around the world, some of which might be true...
- When Lisa Russell was unpacking after a trip to Barbados she got a fright when one of her bras started moving. Inside was a small gecko, since dubbed 'Barbie', which is now in the care of a specialist
reptile keeper. ● A 'megapod' of over 100 humpback whales has been filmed surrounding a boat off New South Wales, as they herded fish into a large bait ball to feed on. It is only the second time
a megapod has been witnessed off Australia. ● Scientists at the University of Auckland have trained cows to visit a special pen when they need to urinate. The cattle were found to be "at least
as good as children age 2 to 4 years, at least as quick" when it came to potty training them. The research has a sound environmental purpose - nitrogen in urine mixed with feces becomes ammonia, can
taint water with nitrates and create nitrous oxide, a gas which in 2019 accounted for 7% of greenhouse gases emitted by the US. The pen used by the cows was called the 'MooLoo'. ● Investor Ben Lamm,
noted for a project that wanted to launch a network of satellites to look for UFOs flying over the Earth, and Harvard geneticist George Church have launched a company that aims to use CRISPR gene editing to
combine elephant DNA with DNA extracted from a frozen woolly mammoth recovered in Siberia to reintroduce the currently-extinct mammoths. ● A cat that (presumably) slipped while walking along the edge of
the upper deck at Hard Rock Stadium, Miami, during a University of Miami football game last weekend was left hanging from the fabric covering by its front claws, then one claw, then it fell, to be caught by
quick-thinking fans below using an American flag. You can see the, er, catch here [BBC].
- Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and Alex Fielding, a member of the original iMac team, are launching a company with the aim of removing the debris cluttering up space above the Earth, although the methods
they plan to use remain to be declared. There are over 7,600 satellites - both active and defunct - currently in orbit, a number which could grow to over 100,000 by the end of the decade as Elon Musk and the
like launch networks of satellites. In 1978 NASA scientist Donald Kesslar warned that two satellites colliding in orbit could lead to a cascade of collisions and a cloud of debris making launches into space
too hazardous. ● The ageing International Space Station, already beset by small cracks being reported in the oldest module, was again in the news last week when fire alarms sounded and the crew aboard
reported seeing smoke and smelling burning. The incident was traced to recharging batteries in the Russian Zvedza module and was quickly dealt with. ● The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is due to be
launched on December 18th, pushed back from October. A couple of months' delay is pretty insigificant for a project started in 1996 with a hoped-for launch in 2007 and a budget one twentieth of its
current cost. The JWST will revolutionise astronomy and cosmology in the same way the Hubble Space Telescope did; its mirror is more than twice the size of Hubble's and it can view in a wider range of wavelengths.
● As a child Chandler "Chad" Keller dreamed of becoming an astronaut, but his poor eyesight as he got older precluded that so he studied aerospace engineering and worked as a propulsion specialist
for Boeing's satellite launching division for which he had to attend launch briefings at the Pentagon. On September 11th 2001 he was flying back to Los Angeles from Washington Dulles Airport after a
briefing, aboard American Airlines Flight 77. He was 29 when he, along with the passengers and crew, and 125 people on the ground, died as the hijacked plane was flown into the side of the Pentagon. A few years
ago NASA astronaut and former Navy SEAL Chris Cassidy contacted Keller's family with a proposal. NASA allows astronauts to carry a few small mementos for friends, family and organisations close to their hearts.
For his first two missions Cassidy took things belonging to his family but for his third mission "I really wanted to give that experience to others" he said. At the National September 11 Memorial &
Museum in New York City he saw a display of the stories of 9/11 victims which mentioned Chad's passion for space. When he launched to the ISS in April watched by Chad's family, Cassidy, who is the same age Chad
would have been had he lived, was carrying Chad's Boeing launch pins and university pins, his memorial service programme, a picture of Chad and his wife, a letter and some of his ashes.
- Builders in France renovating a C13th mansion in Bigouden in 2019 discovered a metal box containing gold coins hidden inside a wall and a purse with more coins hidden above a beam. The 239 coins,
dating between 1638 and 1692 will be auctioned later this month, with an estimated value of up to €300,000 (£356,500; $493,000). The proceeds will be split between the builders and the owners of the
mansion. ● A gold mask believed to be more than 3,000 years old and hundreds of relics have been uncovered in sacrificial pits at Sanxingdui, outside Chengdu in southwestern China. ● A gold Bronze
Age pendant discovered by metal detectorist Bob Greenaway in 2018, and described as one of the most significant finds in Britain over the last 100 years, has gone on display for the first time, in Shrewsbury.
● In 2019 dozens of skeletons, many with their hands tied behind their backs, were uncovered on land being prepared for development. The skeletons date from Roman times to the C18th, and were
seemingly buried without ritual or grave goods. Beyond the assumption that some of them were prisoners archaeologists are at a loss to explain the burials. ● A small, Chinese porcelain bowl valued at £500
($690) has sold at auction for £320,000 ($442,500) after it turned out to be 900-year-old Ru ware. ● English Heritage is to conduct the first repair work on Stonehenge for more than 60 years, to
repair cracks and holes caused by weathering. The repairs will also see the concrete mortar added to some of the stones in the 1950s replaced with lime mortar and two fallen stones will be put back in place.
When the repairs were made in 1958 Richard Woodman-Bailey, then aged 8 and the son of the chief achitect for ancient monuments who oversaw the work, placed a halfpenny coin under one of the stones. English
Heritage and the Royal Mint have collaborated to produce a 2021 commemorative coin with which Woodman-Bailey, now aged 71, has been invited to replace his halfpenny coin.
- An Austrian man has been arrested for keeping the body of his late mother in the cellar of his house for a year while continuing to receive her pension payments. After she died of natural causes he froze
the body with ice packs, wrapped it in bandages to contain any fluids and covered it in cat litter until it was mummified. ● Drivers caught speeding on Maybray King Way in Southampton between 2015 and
2017 are calling for more than £5m ($6.9m) to be reimbursed after Hampshire Police revealed that they have found a fault with a speed camera on the road. ● Police in the Netherlands thought they had
arrested Sicilian mafia crime lord Matteo Messina Denaro last week, on a European arrest warrant, only for the man to prove that he was a Liverpudlian Formula 1 fan in the country to watch the Italian Grand Prix.
● Jacqueline Hernandez, kidnapped from her Florida home by her father in 2007 when she was six, has made contact and been reunited with her mother. Hernandez, now 19, had been taken to Mexico and several US
and Mexican government agencies collaborated to confirm her identity and arrange for them to meet at the US-Mexico border. ● Police have revealed that they are looking for thieves who stole a haulage
container in April. The container held more than £25,000 ($34,500) worth of mouthwash and chewing gum. ● A woman who got to the airport gate too late to board a flight at Fort-Lauderdale-Hollywood
International Airport has been arrested after telling staff that there was a bomb in her already-checked-in luggage in an attempt to delay the flight; the plane was evacuated and the luggage searched - no bomb was
found. Marina Verbinsky was charged with false reporting of planting a bomb. ● A stand-off between Florida police and an armed teenager was interrupted when a golf cart was driven through it by a naked
woman who ignored instructions to turn around. Jessica Smith, 28, was arrested for resisting arrest without violence after she refused to get out of the cart, and had "a distinct odour of an alcoholic
beverage coming from her person". The armed teenager - who had no connection to Smith - was also arrested. ● Hampshire Police are searching for a man who has twice been spotted standing in woodland
near the A34 turning close to Highclere, naked except for a black, latex bondage-style mask. [Highclere is best known as the location used for Downton Abbey - what would the Dowager Countess say??? -Ed]
- An analysis by the BBC has found that the number of days per year when the temperature passes 50oC (122oF) somewhere in the world has doubled since the 1980s. Although the places where
the high temperatures were reached were in the Middle East and Gulf states this summer's record temperatures of 48.8oC (119.84oF) in Italy and 49.6oC (121.28oF) in
Canada suggest that the high temperatures will affect other areas unless warming can be reduced by cutting fossil fuel use and greenhouse gas emissions. ● The first factory to capture carbon dioxide from
the air and embed it in stone has started operating in Iceland. The Orca plant can capture 4,000 tons of CO2 a year, which is mixed with water and pumped deep underground where natural mineralisation
traps it in stone within two years. ● Scotland has recorded its highest temperature in 115 years, with thermometers in Charterhall in the Borders reaching 28.6oC (83.48oF).
- Apple left users confused this week after warning that iPhone cameras can be damaged by vibrations from motorbike engines and so should not be mounted on the handlebars, then releasing a video at the launch
of the iPhone 13 a few days later showing the latest-model phone mounted on a delivery driver's motorbike and being used for route-mapping. [With prices - in the UK - ranging from £679 to £1,079
($939-$1490) perhaps they are looking to sell more replacements... -Ed]
- Mystery surrounds a sighting of a woman in Hull General Cemetary last weekend, dressed as a nun and dancing with a prop human skeleton and playing with what appeared to be a prop dog skeleton. A small crowd
gathered to watch and film the woman from a nearby road at about midday on Saturday. It is not known whether the performance was a stunt or part of an art project. The cemetary has not been used for burials
since 1972.
- Lake Motro, a small lake near the Dead Sea in Jordan has turned a deep red, and nobody knows why. While one online commentator compared it to the Biblical plague of blood more sensible people suggested
several biochemical or man-made pollutants that could cause the change in colour, including iron oxide or algae. Jordan's water ministry is analysis samples from the lake. While the lake is isolated, last
year the Alexander River in Israel turned red, which was due to blood - from slaughterhouses built beside it.
- The magnitude-seven earthquake which hit Maxico's pacific coast near Acapulco last week caused minor damage and blackouts but also caused earthquake lights, a rarely-observed phenomenon that was caught on
camera by several people. The lights are unexplained, with theories ranging from downed power lines (although historic reports of earthquake lights predate electricity generation) to the release of electrical energy
from rocks broken during the earthquake.
- This year's IgNobel Prize winners, for published research that "makes people LAUGH, then THINK", have been announced at an online (due to the pandemic) ceremony. The winners were:
- ECOLOGY: Leila Satari, Alba Guillén, Àngela Vidal-Verdú, & Manuel Porcar, for using genetic analysis to identify the different species of bacteria that reside in
wads of discarded chewing gum stuck on pavements in various countries.
- BIOLOGY: Susanne Schötz, for analyzing variations in purring, chirping, chattering, trilling, tweedling, murmuring, meowing, moaning, squeaking, hissing, yowling, howling, growling and
other modes of cat–human communication.
- CHEMISTRY: Jörg Wicker, Nicolas Krauter, Bettina Derstroff, Christof Stönner, Efstratios Bourtsoukidis, Achim Edtbauer, Jochen Wulf, Thomas Klüpfel, Stefan Kramer & Jonathan
Williams, for chemically analyzing the air inside cinemas, to test whether the odours produced by an audience reliably indicate the levels of violence, sex, antisocial behavior, drug use and bad language in the film
the audience is watching.
- ECONOMICS: Pavlo Blavatskyy, for discovering that the obesity of a country’s politicians may be a good indicator of that country’s corruption.
- MEDICINE: Olcay Cem Bulut, Dare Oladokun, Burkard Lippert & Ralph Hohenberger, for demonstrating that sexual orgasms can be as effective as decongestant medicines at improving nasal breathing.
- PEACE: Ethan Beseris, Steven Naleway & David Carrier, for testing the hypothesis that humans evolved beards to protect themselves from punches to the face.
- PHYSICS: Alessandro Corbetta, Jasper Meeusen, Chung-min Lee, Roberto Benzi & Federico Toschi, for conducting experiments to learn why pedestrians do not constantly collide with other pedestrians.
- KINETICS: Hisashi Murakami, Claudio Feliciani, Yuta Nishiyama & Katsuhiro Nishinari, for conducting experiments to learn why pedestrians do sometimes collide with other pedestrians.
- ENTOMOLOGY: John Mulrennan, Jr., Roger Grothaus, Charles Hammond & Jay Lamdin, for their research study "A New Method of Cockroach Control on Submarines".
- TRANSPORTATION: Robin Radcliffe, Mark Jago, Peter Morkel, Estelle Morkel, Pierre du Preez, Piet Beytell, Birgit Kotting, Bakker Manuel, Jan Hendrik du Preez, Michele Miller, Julia Felippe, Stephen Parry
& Robin Gleed, for determining by experiment whether it is safer to transport an airborne rhinoceros upside-down. [Spoiler: it is. -Ed]
IN BRIEF: The Arc de Triomphe in Paris is being wrapped in fabric sheets in tribute to the late artist Christo, who wrapped famous landmarks but died before he could wrap the Arc. ● Organisers of
last weekend's Brighton Marathon have apologised after it was discovered that the course was 0.35 miles (568m) too long. ● The auction of two rare classic Ferraris donated by a late supporter has raised
£8.5m ($11.75m) for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, part of which will fund a boathouse on the Welsh Llyn Peninsula. ● A copy of Amazing Fantasy #15, featuring the first comic-book
appearance of Spider-Man, has auctioned for a record $3.6m (£2.6m). ● French Prime Minister Jean Castex has apologised after a low-level exercise involving an Airbus A330 aand a Rafale fighter jet
near Paris on the 20th anniversary of 9/11 caused concern. ● Grace Chambers, 93, has completed her 100th 5km (3 mile) parkrun; she took up running after undergoing open heart surgery
at the age of 85. ● John Trotman, a former World War II pilot who flew 70 missions for Bomber Command and won the Distinguished Flying Cross twice celebrated his centenary with a flight over Shropshire;
he only started flying again 60 years after the war ended, and his instructor acted as his co-pilot. ● The British Government's Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) marked National Coding
Week with a press release urging people to learn to code. Unfortunately it was headed "<b>It's National Coding Week!<b>". As anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of HTML, the markup language
in which web pages are coded, would know, the second <b> should have been </b> to revert back to normal type, otherwise the entire text would display in bold. Perhaps someone at the DCMS needs a
refresher course...
CORONAVIRUS ROUND-UP: A number of doctors in the US are refusing to treat patients who have not been vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus. ● Preacher Bishop Climate Wiseman, 46, of the
Kingdom Church in south London has been accused of selling "COVID-19 protection kits" for £91 ($126); the kits contain an oil mixture and red thread. He is charged with fraud and two charges
under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations. His trial is scheduled for July 11th 2022. ● Musician Nicki Minaj tweeted that she was not attending the Met Gala because it
required attendees to have received a COVID vaccination, adding that "My cousin in Trinidad won't get the vaccine cuz his friend got it & became impotent. His testicles became swollen. [..]" Experts
around the world, including Dr Anthony Fauci weighed in to ridicule the claim, the Trinidadian government reported that there was no such case on record and Twitter suspended her account. In urban folklore
studies such a story is usually referred to as FOAF (friend of a friend), and is always untrue.
UPDATES: The Suez Canal was briefly blocked again on Thursday when the bulk carrier Coral Crystal ran aground in the northern section of the canal while heading south. It was refloated after
a few hours during which shipping was diverted to a parallel channel. ● The section of driveway tarmac where the Winchcombe meteorite impacted has been (carefully) removed and will go on display at the Natural
History Museum in London. ● There have been more sightings of the "big cat" in Heswall, on the Wirral, and a photograph appearing to show the rump and tail of a large cat similar to a puma.
● There were five zebras on the loose in Maryland; bizarrely congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) issued a statement denying that she had released them. Norton is known for her opposition to
the fences put up around the Capitol after the January 6th violent attempted insurrection by supporters of the twice-indicted former guy - it is presumed her public dislike of fences led to the
(hopefuly humerously-intended) accusation.
Little Jennifer's class were learning about ships. "Now, children," the teacher said, "remember that if you are facing the front - or prow - of the
ship, port is to the left and starboard is to the right. Now who can tell me what the kitchen on a ship is called?"
Little Simon's hand went up. "The galley, Miss."
"Quite right, now who know what the room where you steer the ship is called?"
Little Mary raised her hand. "That's the bridge, Miss!"
"Very good. Now... who can tell me what the toilet on a ship is called?"
The class pondered for a moment, then Little Jennifer's hand shot up. "The poop deck, Miss!"
