Strange stories from around the world, some of which might be true...
- Travellers on the New Jersey Transit railway line near Newark Penn Station found their journeys delayed by around 45 minutes earlier this week after a bull was seen on
the tracks. It was sedated and safely removed to a sanctuary, but not before rather a lot of people warned others online to 'steer' clear of the service... ● Two
Mitchell's lorikeets, one of the rarest and most endangered parrot species, have hatched at Chester Zoo. It is thought that there are only seven left in the wild in their
natural habitat on the Indonesian islands of Bali and Lombok. ● Round-leaved byrum, a critically-endangered moss, has been found growing at the Threipmuir Reservoir
near Edinburgh. Plans are afoot to reintroduce it elsewhere to prevent it from dying out. ● Fagilde's trapdoor spider, considered possibly extinct for almost 100
years has been rediscoverd in Portugal by a team from the Re:Wild charity. As part of their mating ritual the spiders 'sing' and 'tapdance' [Don't tell Ron Weasley... -Ed].
- Rocket engineers in Japan have tested a new rocket engine powered by liquid methane sourced from cow dung. The test engine was fired up for 10 seconds on a static rig
and it is hoped it could lead to more sustainable rocket proppelent as dung is readily available and methane is more environmentally-friendly than conventional rocket
fuel; among other things it produces less soot and fewer greenhouse gases. ● NASA has successfully streamed am ultra-high definition 15-second video of a ginger cat
(called Taters) from a spacecraft 19 million miles away back to Earth using a laser. The transmission speed was faster than most broadband internet connections... ●
NASA has conceded that the Osiris-Rex capsule might have brought back a smaller sample of asteroid Bennu than previously thought, although some of the sample is still stuck
in the capsule under a covering they have not been able to open. ● Scientists at the Lawrence Livermpore National Laboratory in California have developed software
to model how the energy from a nuclear explosion would spread through a potentially-Earth-threatening asteroid, and alter its course. The new model uses data about
asteroid composition provided by recent NASA missions such as last year's Dart. While the chances of such an asteroid are rare (Hollywood movies notwithstanding), the use
of a nuclear device still remains the most-likely means to deflect it away from Earth. ● The planned site for the SaxaVord Spaceport on Unst in the Shetland Islands
has been approved by the Civil Aviation Authority. It will be the first spaceport in Scotland and the first in Western Europe with the capability to perform vertical
launches into orbit. The first sub-orbital flight could be as soon as next year with orbital launches from 2025. ● NASA has released footage of the strongest solar
flare emitted since September 2017. The flare caused radio disruption on Earth, including for aircraft pilots, across a two-hour window on Thursday last week.
- Gene scientists have used DNA from a man buried 2,000 years ago at Oxford Cluny near Cambridge during the Roman occupation of Britain to discover that he was a
Sarmatian, from near the easternmost edge of the Roman empire in what is now southern Russia. A team from Durham University then examined chemical traces in his teeth to
find that he had eaten millets and sorghum grains, plentiful in the Sarmatian lands until the age of six, after which he ate increasingly more wheat, grown in western
Europe, suggesting that he had been brought across the empire as a child, rather than born to Sarmatian parents living within it. ● New York's Metropolitan Museum
is to return 16 pieces of ancient art to Thailand and Cambodia after determining that they had been illegally looted. The artworks had been acquired from British art
dealer Douglas Latchford, who was charged with operating a "vast antiquities trafficking network" across southeast Asia, in 2019. ● New warnings have
been issued about the wreck of the SS Richard Montgomery, which sank in the River Thames in 1944 carrying 1,400 tonnes of explosives. Since then her three masts
sticking out of the water have shown where she it, but it has long been feared that if they collapse from corrosion by the water, they could trigger an explosion which
would be strong enough to send a tsunami up the river to London. New analysis has shown the masts to be more corroded than previously thought, hastening plans to remove
them. ● A black, ballerina-length velvet dress worn by Diana, Princess of Wales, has set a new world record for the most expensive dress worn by the late princess,
going for $1,148,080 (£904,262) at Julien's Auctions in Hollywood, California. It had been estimated at $100,000 (£78,776).
- A 31-year-old Texas man apparently hit a pedestrian hard enough with his car for the man to be thrown over the bonnet into the passenger seat, then drove for 40 miles
(64km), seemingly without noticing his passenger, before passing out in a restaurant car park. Police called to reports of a man slumped over the wheel discovered "a
human body with no signs of life in the passenger seat". The driver was arrested for intoxication manslaughter. ● Three armed and masked men who held up a
cheque-cashing business in Colorado went to make their getaway only to find that someone had stolen their car. They were quickly arrested while trying to flee on foot.
A police spokesman later said that it is possible they had earlier stolen the car themselves... ● Two men have been charged for illegally shooting more than 3,600
birds including golden and bald eagles, which are protected, in the Flathead Indian Reservation in Montana and selling their parts on the black market over the course of a
years-long "killing spree". ● A judge has issued a warning about litigants using artificial intelligence (AI) systems to buttress their cases after a woman
who lost an appeal against an HMRC tax demand over the sale of her house referenced nine prior cases in her arguments, none of which were genuine. As the judge commented,
the American spelling in the cases - supposedly from British courts - strongly suggested they were created by an AI such as ChatGPT.
- Satellite data has suggested that the A23a iceberg, which calved from Antarctica in 1986 but only recently broke free from the sea floor where it had been caught,
has an average thickness of 920' (280m). With a measured size of 1,500 square miles (3,900km2) its mass will be almost a trillion tonnes. ● Chinese
electric car maker Nio has demonstrated a next-generation battery that can power a car for more than 620 miles (1,000km) on a single charge. ● Dutch housing
corporation Lieven de Key is planning to trial heating 1,600 houses using warmth harvested from the sewer network. ● The British HotSat-1 satellite, designed
to map heat loss from buildings, has failed in orbit six months after it was launched. A replacement will be launched in 2025. ● A large landslide at the side of
Lake Garda in Italy has been caught on camera. The rocks created waves in the water and briefly disrupted traffic near Tremosine, but nobody was injured. ● More
than 100 elephants have been found dead in Zimbabwe's Hwange National Park, believed to have been the victims of drought caused by the combination of climate change and
the El Niño event in the Pacific which affects global weather patterns.
IN BRIEF: A four-month-old baby sucked up from a mobile home in Clarkesville, Tennessee, by a tornado was found alive on a fallen tree, with just an injury to
his ear; other family members in the home at the time the tornado hit suffered broken limbs. ● A 54-year-old Japanese man who was trying to kill a cockroach in
his apartment earlier this month sprayed so much insecticide that the resulting explosion sparked by his kotatsu (a heating table), blew out the balcony window. He suffered
minor injuries. The condition of the cockroach was not reported... ● The World Pie Eating championships have taken place at Harry's Bar in Wigan, after a row over
health and safety rules concerning speed eating saw competitors be allowed water during the competition, and almost saw the beef and potato pies replaced with chicken over
concerns about flatulence; a technicality meant that the original pies had to be used after all. Ian Coulton, 48, won, eating the first of two pies in 37.4s and the second
in 44.9s. Five-times winner Martin Appleton-Clare placed second. ● In 2017 11-year-old Alex Batty disappeared along with his mother and grandfather while on holiday
in France. His grandmother, who is his legal guardian, believed they had taken him to live in a spiritual community in Morocco. This week he reappeared near Toulouse,
where a driver found him walking along a remote road late at night, offered him a lift to a police station and allowed him to call his grandmother on their mobile phone.
It is thought that Alex had left his mother after she told him she planned to relocate to Finland, his grandfather having died in the intervening years. Alex, now 17, has
been brought back to his grandmother in Britain and has counsellors assisting his return to British society.
Crimbo Curiosities: In 1920 8-year-old Dorothy Grant was given an artificial Christmas tree, which stood at 31" (79cm) including its base and had just 25
branches. Still in good condition it was recently sold at auction by her daughter (Dorothy having died in 2014 at the age of 101), with an estimated price of £60-£80; ($76-$101); it
sold for £2,600 ($3,300). ● A pantomime in Cheltenham has had to have one of its songs rewritten after complaints that it was offensive to vegans, including
a line that the 'g' in 'vegan' stands for 'gassy' and the 'a' for 'annoying' or 'anaemic'. ● German climate protest group Last Generation, funding by the same body
as Just Stop Oil in the UK, has spray-painted public Christmas trees across the country orange to protest the lack of progress at the COP28 climate talks in Dubai. ●
Gabriel Noronha, who served in the US State Department under the twice-indicted, facing-more-than-90-charges, banned-from-standing-as-potential-Republican-presidential-candidate-in-Colorado
former guy, took to TwitterX last weekend to complain that The Washington Post building's spires were lit in the colour of the Palestinian flag,
and on the night of the Jewish festival of Hanukkah, no less. As many, many people told him, red and green are the traditional Christmas colours and have been used to
illuminate the spires during the festive period for years... ● A family in Lexington, Kentucky, had had their Christmas tree standing in their living room for four
days before a man cleaning their carpet noticed something unusual. There was a baby owl sitting in the tree. He managed to get the owl out and safely released it in their
backyard. ● The Merriam-Webster dictionary has posted on TwitterX some quandries regarding the names of Santa's reindeer. Leaving Rudolph aside, there are Dancer, Dasher and
Prancer, which are fair enough, but Vixen? A "female fox" or "shrewish, ill-tempered woman" or a "sexually attractive woman"? "Ummm,
what's going on here, Santa?" they asked. Comet? Well, it's something that flies, so that's reasonable enough. Cupid? The Roman god of love? "We're drifting
back into 'Vixen-territory'"... As for Donner and Blitzen, based on the Dutch words for 'thunder' and 'lightning', well "we've always thought these two were the
bad boys of the sleigh". ● Speaking of reindeer, scientists at the University of St Andrews in Sotland and Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, have been
investigating why reindeers' eyes change colour depending on the season. It turns out that they have a special form of night vision, detecting ultraviolet light better in
the darker Winter months when their eyes have changed from gold to blue. So that's how they navigate from roof to roof at night... ● Matt Facer, DJ at Northampton
Town soccer club, has apologised for playing Wham's "Last Christmas" during half-time on December 2nd, potentially knocking more than 7,000 people out
of the Whamageddon game, which involves trying to avoid hearing the song (original version only; covers are OK) for as long as possible before Christmas Eve [It is early
evening on December 20th as I write this and I still have not heard it... -Ed]. ● A TikTokker recently posted a photo of a burned Victoria's Secret 'Glow
Waffle' Honey Joggers set her husband had bought her for Christmas, explaining that "when your husband thinks a good hiding place for your Christmas gifts is the oven..."
UPDATES: The volcano on the Reykjanes peninsula in Iceland is finally erupting, although it is not expected to cause disruption to aircraft across Northern
Europe, as the Eyjafjallajökull eruption did in 2010 because it should not produce as much ash, not being covered by an ice cap, although there are warnings
of dangerous air pollution drifting towards Rekjavik.
