Strange stories from around the world, some of which might be true...
- The Monteray Bay Aquarium has released the first known video of a bloody-belly comb jellyfish (actually a ctenophore rather than a true jelly) defecating, and it is quite unusual. At the depths at which it lives
the bloody-belly's diet consists of significant numbers of bioluminescent organisms. Its deep red colouring not only means that the bloody-belly is, itself, almost invisible at its depths, but also conceals the
organisms as they pass through its digestive tract - until it poops their remains out that is. In a follow-up tweet, the aquarium stated "Move over, unicorns". ● A cotton-top monkey has been born at
Chester Zoo. The extremely rare miniature species is only about 4" (10cm) in height and weighs around 1.4oz (40g) when fully grown. There are thought to be only around 2,000 in the wild. ● TobyKeith, a
chihuahua living in Florida has been officially recognised as the oldest living dog, at 21 years. The typical lifespan for chihuahuas is 15-17 years. ● A wallaby that escaped from its enclosure at Memphis Zoo
as the four wallabies were being evacuated during a storm sparked a 36-hour search before finally being found hiding in bushes behind the enclosure. ● Pertinax, a west lowland gorilla who was brought to
Paignton Zoo in 1997 when he was 15 has celebrated his 40th birthday, making him the oldest west lowland gorilla in the UK. Keepers gave him a special cake and boxes filled with treats. ● Car
manufacturer Vauxhall has donated 50 fire hoses to Chester Zoo, who will use them to make hammocks for its apes and toys for its elephants. A zoo spokesman told reporters that fire hoses are perfect for the job because
of their durability.
- If you are looking for an extra-rare piece of old computer hardware, two modules - a CPU and an input/output processor - of an IBM model AP-101 that flew on several Space Shuttle missions were up for auction
earlier this month, and were expected to sell for up to $50,000 (£38,300). ● The James Webb Space Telescope is getting nearer to operational status, with its UK-built Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) reaching
its operational temperature of -267oC (-448.6oF), just above absolute zero. The MIRI is one of four instruments on the telescope, and the only one that needs an active cooling system. The next
few months will be spent calibrating the instruments. ● A 'flying whirpool' photographed over Hawaii has been confirmed as the remains of part of a SpaceX rocket. ● NASA has used a Microsoft Hololens to
'holoport' a live 3D image of flight surgeon Dr Josef Schmid to the International Space Station. ● NASA has developed a new alloy, GRX-810, reportedly 1,000 times better than current materials used in rocket
engines. Previous materials were a compromise between strength and flexibility but GRX-810 is claimed to be twice as strong, three-and-a-half times more flexible and more than a thousand times stronger under stress
at high temperatures. ● Scientists in the UK are appealing for help to locate fragments of a meteorite that landed near Shrewsbury last week. It is though that the meteorite weighed about 1.1lb (500g) and
broke into four pieces south of the town. Professor Katie Joy of Manchester University said that the largest fragment may be the size of an Easter egg, the smallest the size of a Creme Egg, and they would be a glossy
black or brown. She urged people not to pick them up with bare hands to avoid contaminating them. ● Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have measured the largest comet on record. Its nucleus is 85 miles
(137km) wide and weighs 500 trillion tonnes. The comet, which was first detected at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile over a decade ago, is travelling at 22,000mph (35,400km/h) and will pass the Sun
well outside the orbit of Earth in 2031.
- The well-preserved remains of an 80'- (24.4m)-long 13th-century ship, thought to be a Hanseatic cog - a clinker-built, oak-timbered and single-masted trading ship - have been found by construction workers
building offices in Tallinn, Estonia. The ship was lying 5' (1.52m) below a street. The ship would have sunk close to the mouth of the Härjapea river when the area was under water. It predates the oldest-known
existing cog, found in Bremen, Germany, in 1962, by 82 years. ● It is not uncommon for politicians to cite history during debates, but Tennessee state senator Frank Niceley (R), speaking during discussions on
making camping or soliciting along state highways or exit ramps a misdemeanor drew gasps of astonishment and condemnation by telling his fellow senators that homeless people looking for inspiration and hope should
consider Adolf Hitler, because "for two years, Hitler lived on the streets and practiced oratory and his body language and how to connect with the masses, and then went on to lead a life that got him into
history books"...
- A would-be car thief stopped by officers of the Tulsa Police Department had an unusual defence. Randy Cantwell had been told by an Audi dealership that he could not take a car out for a test drive, so he told
them that the dealership had stolen the car and, as a federal marshall, he had the authority to repossess it. Employees at the dealership blocked all the exits as he attempted to drive off so he got out and walked
away. Police who spoke with him said that he had shown them identification but no evidence that he was a marshall other than claiming that he had become one when President Trump had "enacted martial
law". The Twice-Indicted Former Guy never enacted martial law. Cantwell was arrested for false impersonation of law enforcement. ● A carjacker who beat up a 72-year-old Texas grandmother to steal her car
at a filling station in San Antonio was later killed when he crashed it on a nearby interstate. A GoFundMe campaign had raised over $15,000 (£11,500) towards buying Shirlene Hernandez a new car at the time
of reporting. ● Brian Donaciano Olguin Verdugo, known as "El Pitt", a wanted Mexican drug trafficker linked to the cartel of the jailed Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzmán was arrested in
Columbia earlier this month after his girlfriend persuaded him to let her take a selfie of them kissing in front of Los Cristales, a well-known hilltop Christ statue, which she then posted publicly on Facebook...
● A man who was barred from a Hyatt Place Hotel in Bloomington, Minnesota, was confronted by staff when he tried to enter the building. He shouted abuse but eventually walked out followed by an employee, but
then turned round and pointed what appeared to be a makeshift wizard's wand. Before he could incant any spells the employee drew a legally-carried gun, at which point the man ran away without even attempting an
Expelliarmus...
- The butterfly effect is one of the best known elements of chaos theory. First suggested in the 1960s by Edward Lorenz it suggests that a tiny change, like a butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon, can have
huge consequences far away, such as a tornado in Texas. A team at the RIKEN Center for Computational Science in Japan, who developed computer simulations of weather systems now believe that they are close to identifying
where small changes can be made to prevent later extreme weather events like typhoons and torrential rain.
- As this issue is being written it is three days since Easter, and we applaud anyone who still has some chocolate egg left. Sally Evans, 83, still has an egg bought for her by brother with his first pay packet
in 1951, when she was 11 and wartime food rationing was still in force. "It was just something that was too valuable to eat", she told reporters, adding that her mother would not let her even hold it. The
egg stayed in her mother's bedroom cupboard until her death in 2002, since when Sally has kept it in her wardrobe, carefully wrapped in clingfilm to keep the air out.
IN BRIEF: In April 2013 8-year-old spectator Martin Richard was killed in the Boston Marathon bombing. His brother Henry, now 20, ran and completed the race this year "for both of us". ● A man who
complained to police that his neighbour was a paedophile has been jailed by Liverpool Crown Court - for being a paedophile. ● Dublin Airport received just over 13,600 noise complains in 2021, of which 12,272
came from the same man. ● Children at an elementary school in Austin, Texas, were accidentally given Easter eggs containing packets of condoms, after a woman who had dressed as the Easter Bunny for a safe sex
presentation at a clinic went to collect her child from the school without changing out of her costume and was mobbed. She was prepared and gave out chocolate-filled eggs but ran out and asked her husband to fetch some more from their
car. He picked up the wrong box... ● Florida resident Ramiro Alanis has watched Spider-Man: No Way Home 292 times, setting a new world record for "most cinematic productions attended of the same
film". ● During lockdown Barnard Castle in County Durham achieved some notoriety as the rule-breaking destination of Boris Johnson's adviser Dominic Cummings, who claimed to have driven there to test his
eyesight. Budget supermarket chain Lidl is opening a store there, and could do with some eyechecks itself - its local advertising announced that it was "Big on Bernard [sic] Castle"... ● When
Maryland teacher Robyn Meija had a rough week her husband bought her a $5 (£3.85) lottery scratchcard to help cheer her up. It won her $50,000 (£38,300). ● When a mother in Guanzong County,
China, called firefighters after discovering that her son had fallen into a well, they found that it was too narrow for them to get down, so they lowered an oxygen tank to the child, then, after teaching her basic
rescue technique, lowered the woman head first into the well to rescue her son. ● A man who paid $2.9m (£2.2m) for a non-fungible token (NFT) of Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey's first tweet has said
that he might never sell it after putting it up for sale but receiving offers of only around 2% of what he paid. NFTs, where buyers own digital-only 'collectibles' are widely considered to be the latest tech 'bubble'.
UKRAINE: The Spanish village of Fuentes de Andalucia, east of Seville, has changed its name to Ucrania (Ukraine) and renamed streets after Kyiv, Odesa and Mariupol to raise awareness of the conflict and
show support. ● The story of a Russian attack force being struck by lightning after a Ukranian soldier phoned his father and asked him to pray for divine intervention is certainly apocryphal, but a mobile phone
did save one Ukrainian soldier after a round fired by a Russian hit it in the pocket of the Ukrainian and was deflected. The make and model of the phone is unknown, but online commentators speculated that it must have
been a (legendarily-indestructible) Nokia.
UPDATES: The Ever Forward, sister ship of the Suez Canal-blocking Ever Given, which itself got stuck in Chesapeake Bay - becoming the biggest ship to run aground there - has been successfully
refloated after five weeks in which floating cranes transferred 500 of its 5,000 shipping containers to other ships and dredgers cleared the equivalent of 64 Olympic-sized swimming pools of mud from around it.
Little Jennifer's mother went to tuck her in for the night and found her daughter sitting up in bed eating what was left of her Easter chocolate. "Little Jennifer," she said,
"it's really not good for you to go to sleep on a full stomach."
Little Jennifer looked up at her mother and smiled as only she could. "That's alright, Mummy, I'll sleep on my side."
