Strange stories from around the world, some of which might be true...
- The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds is blaming rogue gamekeepers for the deaths of most of 1,300 protected birds of prey killed over the last 15 years, to
protect stocks of pheasants, grouse and partridges on shooting estates. The British Association for Shooting and Conservation denies the allegation. ● New research
by Saho Takagi at Abazu University in Japan suggests that cats learn to recognise words associated with images faster than human babies. ● The giant salmon carp,
or "ghost fish" had been considered extinct in the Mekong River with the last cofirmed sighting in 2005, but new research by scientists in Cambodia who worked with
local fishing communities has discovered that three specimens were caught in the Mekong and a tributary between 2020 and 2023. ● A dairy cow at Calcourt Farms in
Wernllwyd, Wales, has given birth to four calves at odds said to be one in 700,000. Matthew Hicks, fertility manager at the farm, told reporters that they had known the cow
was carrying twins but "when it all happened I was wondering what was actually going on. [..] I'd been at the pub and it is quite common for me to come home seeing
double, but on that evening I definitely hadn't drunk enough." The cow and all four calves are doing well. ● Efforts to protect and increase the population of
red-cockaded woodpeckers in southeastern U.S. states have been so successful that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has downlisted them from endangered to threatened. In
the 1970s there were as few as 1,470 groups of nests, but today there are almost 8,000. ● A report released at the U.N. COP 16 biodiversity summit in Colombia has
warned that more than a third of tree species are facing extinction in the wild, more than the sum of all threatened birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians. ● An oak
tree thought to be at least 400 years old has been named the U.K. Tree of the Year. The Skipinnish oak is on Achnacarry Estate in Lochaber, part of the Scottish Highlands.
- Data from NASA's Mars Insight Lander, which landed on the red planet in 2018, has revealed the presence of a reservoir of water deep underground. The lander carried a
seismometer which recorded more than 1,319 tremors until its scientific mission ended almost two years ago and scientists analysing the speed of the seismic waves have been
able to identify the material they were most likely to be passing through, a technique already established on Earth to look for oil and gas fields. The bad news for would-be
colonisers is that the reservoir is 6-12 miles (10-20km) underground. ● NASA's Perseverence rover which has been scraping away at rocks on Mars to analyse them has
uncovered several green-coloured patches. Similar spots on Earth are often caused by microbes, but the ones on Mars are more likely chemical in origin, possibly from an
interaction between sulphur and iron.
- Archaeologists have found the underwater remains of a 2,000-year-old temple off the coast near Naples, Italy. It is thought to have been built by the Nabataeans, the
nomadic people who also constructed Petra, in Jordan. At the time the ancient city of Puteoli was a major trading hub and the temple indicates that as well as trading with
the Roman Empire the Nabataeans were integrated into the city's society. ● A second unexploded World War II bomb has been found on North Atlantic Avenue in Bootle, Merseyside,
following last week's discovery and controlled detonation. ● A newly-discovered waltz is thought to have been composed by Frederic Chopin almost 200 years ago. The
manuscript discovered in the Morgan Library and Museum in New York City is not signed, but the bass clef is drawn in a distinctive style used by Chopin and Robinson McClellan,
an expert in the composer's work, has said that he is "about 98% sure" that it is by Chopin. ● Luke Auld-Thomas, a PhD student at Tulane University
in the U.S., was using archaeological techniques to analyse laser surveys of the Mexican jungle made by an environmental monitoring group when he realised he was looking at
a huge undiscovered Mayan city hidden under the canopy of trees. Subsequent Lidar surveys have revealed pyramids, causeways, amphitheatres, sports fields and other structures
covering an area the size of Edinburgh in Scotland. The city, dubbed Valeriana after a nearby lagoon, would have had 30-50,000 inhabitants before its decline some time after
850 CE. ● Archaeologists in eastern Uzbekistan have discovered the remains of two medieval cities along the route of the Silk Road trading route. ● A recording
console used by the Beatles at Abbey Road Studios is due to be auctioned. The console was donated to a school after the studios upgraded their equipment, was later thrown
out when it proved too complicated for the teaching staff, and discovered in a skip by a musician who consulted Malcolm Jackson and his son Hamish, whose company specialises
in selling studio equipment. They verified its provenance and recruited a team to restore the console, one of just 17 TG12345 models made by EMI. ● An appeal has been
launched to trace the relatives of Petty Officer Douglas David Smith, a 21-year-old sailor who died when the Grumman Hellcat he was flying - training to fly carrier-based
aircraft in anticipation of being sent to the Pacific to assist the American fight against the Japanese - crashed on Sawel in the Sperrin moutains of Northern
Ireland on 6th August 1945. The wreckage of the aircraft was recently discovered. Ironically Smith died on the day the U.S. dropped a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima,
beginning the end of the war in the Pacific.
- Police in London are searching for a man who posed as a wholesale distributor for a French retailer to steal almost 1,000 wheels of cheese, weighing 48,488lbs (22 metric
tons). The cheeses were Hafod Welsh organic cheddar, Westcombe cheddar and Pitchfork cheddar, and worth £300,000 ($390,000). Neal's Yard Dairy, from where they
were taken, has warned international cheesemongers to be on the alert for them and has paid all three suppliers in full, in keeping - it says - with its ethos of supporting
small independent businesses in the sector. ● German police have arrested the owner of a pizza restaurant after discovering the secret of its popular "Number
40" pizza - a bag of cocaine underneath the food. ● A convicted murderer at the North Sea Camp open prison near Boston, England, escaped after stuffing a boiler
suit with clothes and putting it in his bed with a pumpkin for a head to make it look like he was sleeping. He was arrested after two days on the run.
- The summit of Japan's iconic Mount Fuji is still snowless, the latest in the year since records began in 1894. Last year the first snow fell on it in early October.
Japan has just had its joint hottest summer on record. ● More than a year's worth of rain has fallen on parts of south-eastern Spain in just eight hours, with at least
52 people killed in flash floods. ● The United Nations has warned that even if countries deliver on climate plans up to 2030 global warming will increase by 2.6-2.8oC,
above the 1.5oC thrsehold to prevent the worst impacts of climate change, but it is more likely that average temperatures will rise by a catastrophic 3.1oC
or more.
IN BRIEF: Amateur mathematician Luke Durant has discovered the largest prime number yet known, 2136,279,841-1, a number with over 41 million digits,
16 million digits longer than the previous largest-known prime. A prime number is one wholly divisible only by itself and 1, such as 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13 ... ●
Artist Nathan Wyburn has recreated Andy Warhol's painting of Marilyn Monroe on an array of 120 Pop Tarts stuck to a canvas for a pop-up exhibition in Bethnal Green, London,
to celebrate the snack's heritage. Pop Tarts were named as a play on "pop art", a style exemplified by Warhol. ● A newly-built ferry, built in Finland for
use in Tasmania, is to be laid up at the Port of Leith in Scotland because it is too big for its planned berth, with work to enlarge the dock not due to be completed until
October 2026 at the earliest due to various delays. ● Shortly after the northern lights lit up the night skies over much of Britain Dee Harrison, from Ipswich, posted
three pictures to social media of a beautiful bright red glow across the otherwise dark sky over Bramford. The pictures were called impressive by many, but then someone
pointed out that they were not the aurora but the result of bright LED lights used to encourage the growth of tomatoes at a factory... ● A court is Russia has ruled
that Alphabet, the parent company of Google, owes the country's media stations about $20 decillion ($20,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000; £15 decillion)
with daily mounting costs for blocking their content from YouTube. The fine is several times the amount of money estimated to exist in the world, according to the World Bank.
Google has not been active in Russia since 2022, following the special military operationinvasion of Ukraine, and is essentially bankrupt in the country as
the state has already seized its local bank accounts. Russia is not expected to have much success seizing overseas assets to pay even a fraction of the fine. ● San
Francisco is to invest $212m (£163) to update its Muni Metro light rail network's Automatic Train Control System, including removing its dependence on 5¼" floppy
disks which it has needed since 1988. The disks are needed to load DOS software that controls the system's central servers. The upgrade will also replace aging cables which
are described as having "less bandwidth than an old AOL dialup modem". The new system, built by Hitachi and similar to that used to control the bullet trains in
Japan, should be in place by the end of 2028. ● A New York City event for fans who look like Wonka and Dune actor Timothée Chalamet had an
unexpected guest after a visitor wearing a facemask and baseball cap revealed himself to be Chalamet himself, who happily posed for pictures with his assembled
doppelgängers.
UPDATES: The 1975 proof dime coin minted in San Francisco but without its 'S' mint mark, one of only two known to exist, has sold at auction for $506,250
(£390,000). ● Australian police have recovered around 40,000 of the 63,000 limited edition Bluey collectable coins stolen from a warehouse in July.
Little Jennifer and her mother were queueing at the checkout of the supermarket, and behind them was a woman who was just buying a broom and a
bucket and was making no secret of her displeasure at the speed of the queue. As the cashier called a supervisor to void a mistake the woman sighed loudly, "Oh come on,
I have to be home in twenty minutes."
Little Jennifer looked at the broom, looked out of the window, looked at the woman and smiled as only she could. "Don't worry," she said,
"it's still windy out there so with a new broom you'll be home in no time!"
