Strange stories from around the world, some of which might be true...
- In 1782 the bald eagle first appeared on the Great Seal of the United States and has been used ever since as an emblem, but it has never been officially recognised
until now, with Joe Biden signing into law on Christmas Eve a bill passed by Congress designating the iconic bird of prey as America's national bird. ● Just before
Christmas a team of mountain rescuers successfully recovered a cockapoo dog that had become stuck on a ledge above a beck in Cumbria. ● A tabby cat called Rhubarb was
reunited with her owner just before Christmas 16 months after disappearing. She had become a regular visitor to a college in Skelmersdale, 18 miles (29km) away, and a
lecturer, concerned about her health over the winter had taken her to a vet, with a view to possibly adopting her himself, where they discovered that she was already chipped.
● A Virginia family had a shock after a Barred Owl flew down their chimney and took up residence atop their Christmas tree. An animal control expert managed to safely
net and release the owl. ● Researchers analysing the voice boxes, or larynxes, of three whales, a humpback, a minke and a sei, that had washed up dead on beaches, have
discovered how they 'sing'. The whales' larynx is made of long cylinders connected in a U-shape which press against a cushion of fat. Air passing through the tubes causes
the cushion to vibrate at low frequencies, creating the song. Because whales can recycle air through their larynxes they can sing for long periods without choking or
exhaling. As part of their study the scientists also created 3D models of the larynxes and found that their natural frequency ranges clash with the sounds of ships'
propellers, making it harder for them to communicate. ● Scientists studying southern right whales have found that they are capable of living for over a century, with
an average lifespan of 73.4 years but around 10% living past 131.8 years. ● Scientists in Russia have revealed the well-preserved 50,000-year-old body of a baby
mammoth discovered in thawing permafrost in the Yakutia region of Siberia last year. ● Over a thousand small snails have been released on the remote Atlantic island of
Deserte Grande, near Madeira. Two species of snail on the island were thought to be extinct after their habitats had been destroyed by rats, mice and goats introduced by
humans until conservationists discovered small populations surviving on rocky cliffs and brought enough specimens back to zoos in the UK and France for successful breeding
programmes to be undertaken. Before being released the snails were marked with ultraviolet ink to enable future monitoring expeditions to differentiate between them and
natively bred snails or their offspring.
- Since the early 20th Century astronomers have invoked a theoretical "dark energy" to help explain the expansion of the universe. There has never
been any direct evidence for the existence of dark energy. Now a team at the University of Canterbury have reported that they have found that the universe is not expanding
smoothly in all directions as previously thought, but in 'clumps'. If they are right there will be no need to resort to the hypothetical dark energy, which might well not
exist after all. ● On Christmas Eve NASA's Parker Solar Probe passed within just 3.8m miles (6.1m km) of the Sun, surviving temperatures up to 890oC
(1,800oF). The probe, which NASA astronomers hope will reveal secrets of the Sun's atmosphere, including why its corona is so much hotter than its surface, is
protected by 4.5" (11.5cm) of carbon-composite shielding, but its main defence is its speed - travelling at up to 430,000 mph (692,000 km/h) it spends as little time close
to the Sun as possible.
- Archaeologists in Kent have revealed an exceptionally well-preserved 6th-Century sword discovered in a medieval cemetary near Canterbury. The sword has a
decorated silver-and-gilt hilt and a blade into which a runic script was carved. The pommel has a ring attached, suggesting an oath of loyalty to a king or high-ranking
official, and even some of the beaver fur-lined leather and wood scabbard has survived. ● Archaeologists using special dredges have recovered hundreds of Stone Age
artefacts from the Dogger Bank under the North Sea. Now underwater the bank used to be populated land connecting Britain and continental Europe, dubbed Doggerland.
It became submerged between 7,500 and 10,000 years ago. ● A Grade II listed building in Prescot, Merseyside, that was originally converted from two C19th
townhouses into a cinema in 1912, and was then used as a music hall, a variety theatre and a church meeting hall before being closed in 1957 to become a carpet and
furniture warehouse is to be restored and reopened to the public after being bought by the local council in 2021. ● A study published in Archaeology
International is suggesting that Stonehenge might have been built to unify the people of ancient Britain, as its stones come from all over, distinguishing it from other
stone circles. While some rocks are known to come from from nearby Wiltshire the bluestones are Welsh and last year it was discovered that the altar stone was Scottish.
● Analysis of a 12,000-year-old wolf's leg bone discovered in Alaska has shown that it had a far heavier fish diet than expected, suggesting that it might have been
fed by humans, as an early example of the beginning of the domestication of wild dogs.
- Police in Seal Beach, California, have released in-car footage of two people, suspected of shoplifting over $1,700 (£1,355) worth of goods from two stores,
talking in the back of the police car, apparently surprised that theft is a felony... ● When Sonoma County, California, police pulled over a car for having a failed
headlight one of them recognised it from a previous theft case. There was almost $3,000 (£2,400) worth of alcohol and beauty products in the car. The female
passenger gave them a name, which turned out to be fake, and claimed to be 12 years old, but they matched her to a 29-year-old woman wanted in connection with a prior
offence and arrested her. Corenesha Brooks now faces four felony charges of organised retail theft - and impersonating a child. ● On Christmas Eve Florida police
put out an appeal for information on a man riding a motorcycle at up to 120 mph (193 km/h) in Beverly Hills, near Tampa. He was dressed as Father Christmas... ●
Vanessa Guerra, 30, from Mankato, Minnesota, was arrested for auto theft after a Ford Freestar vehicle was stolen and resold for parts. She was identified by workers at the
breakers' yard which bought the car and police confirmed it was her because they found her diary, in which she had written "Totally stole a car today! Something I never
thought of doing. F**ing superfreaking out about it." ● Before Christmas two masked people stole a parcel from a doorstep in Gloucester Township, New Jersey. It
contained four drinking glasses and baby items, with a total value of around $74 (£59). A few days after the homeowner posted the doorbell camera footage of the theft
online, one of the thieves was filmed returning to the scene to complain on camera about the video having been posted, and returned one of the glasses, now broken...
- British train operator Northern has installed collection bins for used chewing gum at 13 stations across Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Cumbria. The bins were
provided by Gumdrop Ltd, which has developed a way of recycling old chewing gum into products such as stationary or plastics - including the collection bins. ●
A new ferry, the MV Glen Sannox, commissioned by the Scottish Caledonia MacBrayne company to serve on its route between the Scottish mainland and the island of
Arran was hailed as being "green", but has been found to emit around 50% more equivalent tonnes of CO2 than the 31-year-old diesel ship it is to
replace, partly because it is significantly larger but also because it uses liquified natural gas (LNG) to power its engines. As one expert commented, if the carbon cost
of importing the LNG from Qatar is taken into consideration it would be more environmentally friendly to run the ship on diesel...
IN BRIEF: Jeran Campanella, a prominent flat-Earth theorist who decided to go to Antarctica to prove that the Antarctic was just an ice wall where the Sun rises
and sets every day has had to concede on his YouTube channel that he was wrong, and the Sun does not, in fact, rise there during the southern hemisphere's summer. ●
After the death of President Jimmy Carter [obituaries, below], messages of condolence flooded in, including one from Texas Governor Gregg Abbott, reading that "Cecelia
and I send our prayers and deepest condolences to First Lady Rosalyn Carter and the entire Carter family." Rosalyn Carter died in 2023. It took Abbott two hours to
issue a corrected statement. Meanwhile President Biden has ordered a period of mourning, meaning that Donald Trump will be sworn in as 45th President with flags
flying at half-mast... ● The Faroe Islands, a self-governing part of Denmark halfway between Iceland and Scotland, have released images of the first - and so far only -
underwater traffic roundabout. The islands are connected by 17 undersea road tunnels with more than 6,000 vehicles using the tunnel connecting the two largest islands every
day. ● The Oxford English Dictionary has chosen "brain rot" as its word of the year for 2024. Although it dates back to Wordsworth in 1800, and Coleridge,
who linked it to "habitual novel reading", today it is more commonly considered a symptom of social media. ● For the last 27 years Lego pieces have been
washing ashore on beaches in southwest England, Wales, Ireland, the Channel Islands and, in some cases, the Netherlands and Norway, after a shipping container containing
them was swept off a cargo ship 20 miles (32 km) off Land's End, Cornwall. The Lego Lost at Sea project is tracking their recovery against the official inventory of the
cargo. Last year saw an uptick in the number of yellow spear guns and, intriguingly, the first Lego sharks to be found; there were 22,200 dark grey sharks and 29,600 light
grey sharks in the container, but they were heavy enough to sink, so their recovery is rare. ● Robert Hudson, 76, has retired from his job as a Royal Mail postman in
London after 60 years. He began as a telegram message boy in Whitechapel, in 1964 at the age of 16. ● Easter this year falls on April 20th but some shops -
notably the Morrisons supermarket chain, but also some branches of Tesco, B&M, Sainsbury's and Co-op - began selling Easter eggs on Boxing Day... ● Two men from
Portland, Oregon, have been found dead in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest after their families reported them missing on Christmas Day. A statement from the Skamania
County Sheriff's Office said that "Both deaths appear to be due to exposure, based on weather conditions and ill-preparedness." They had been searching for
Sasquatch, otherwise known as Bigfoot, the legendary cryptid.
Little Jennifer had been to visit a Christmas Fayre with her friends Little Mary, Little Simon and his parents. She walked into the lounge with a puzzled look on her
face. "Mummy", she said, "when we were at the fayre Little Simon made a joke about kicking a snowman in the snowballs and neither me or Little Mary got it.
Why was it funny?"
Her mother looked at her, drew on her years of experience as a parent, smiled and said "Ask your father when he gets home, Little Jennifer..."
^ ...end of line
