Strange stories from around the world, some of which might be true...
- Keepers at Birdland in Bourton-on-the-Wold are celebrating the successful hatching of a southern cassowary chick, the first born in the UK since 2021, after more than
25 years of trying to breed the large flightless birds at the bird park. Cassowaries, native to New Guinea and northern Australia, are considered one of the most dangerous
birds in the world thanks to their size, speed, power and 4"- (10cm)-long claws. ● A bowhead whale tagged off the coast of Alaska by researchers was found to have
an arrowhead lodged in its neck. The scientists managed to extract the arrowhead and discovered that it was from a 19th-Century bomb lance harpoon, manufactured
in around 1880. The lance will have exploded on impact to drive the head in but it had not penetrated the blubber, although it might have irritated the whale over the last
100+ years. ● The first full survey of the puffin population on the Farne Islands since 2019 has found that they have increased in number by 15% over the last five
years despite fears that bird flu might have harmed them. There are around 50,000 breeding pairs on the National Trust site. ● CT scans of well-preserved fossils of
pterosaurs, the giant flying dinosaurs, has identified a new species and, thanks to their 3D structure being preserved, shown that some flew by soaring, like vultures, while
others would have kept flapping their wings.
- NASA is testing an 860 sq ft (80m2) solar sail in orbit. While such sails, which propel spacecraft using the force from particles of solar radiation, have
been used before by Japan's JAXA for a flyby of Venus in 2010, the current test is less about the sails than their support booms, which are made of a carbon fibre-reinforced
polymer, and the deployment system. ● Airbus is testing two space rovers that could eventually be the basis for ones landed on Mars by the European Space Agency. The two, a four-wheeled
robot called Codi and a six-wheeler called Charlie are trundling around a quarry in Bedfordshire. ● Data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Hubble Space
Telescope have been used to identify the closest pair of supermassive black holes identified to date. The two are only 300 light years apart, sitting at the center of a
pair of colliding galaxies 800 million light years from Earth. ● An asteroid estimated to be 3.2' (1m) across lit up the skies over the Philippines last week as it
burned up in the atmosphere. While similar-sized asteroids enter the atmosphere and burn up roughly every fortnight this was only the ninth to have been identified before
entering the atmosphere.
- A man who took an old chocolate bar to the BBC's Antiques Roadshow was stunned at its valuation. The bar was made to commemorate the coronation of King Edward
VII and Queen Alexandra on June 26th, 1902. The coronation was postponed until August when the King developed appendicitis, after many commemorative dated items had already been
mass produced. According to expert Lisa Lloyd the wrapper by itself would be worth about £20 ($26) but because the foil and 122-year-old chocolate were also
intact the bar could fetch over £1,000 ($1,300). ● Archaeologists excavating the site of planned homes in Gerstetten, 40 miles (63km) east of Stuttgart, Germany,
have found the elaborate 1,700-year-old grave of a barbarian, on the frontier of the Roman Empire. It is thought that he belonged to the Alemanni Germanic tribes. ●
Three sisters who inherited an American dime (10c; 0.7p) coin kept in a bank vault for more than 40 years have discovered that it is almost unique and very valuable. The
coin, struck by the U.S. Mint in San Francisco in 1975 is missing the mintmark (an 'S'). There is only one other such coin known to exist; it sold at auction in 2019
for $456,000 (£349,000). ● A hoard of 27 Roman silver dinarrii coins dating from between 94BCE and 74BCE has been found on the Italian island of Pantelleria. The
coins were discovered by chance during restoration work on an historical acropolis. A dig at the site in 2010 had unearthed over 100 such coins. Together, the finds suggest
that the island was a trading hub in the Mediterranean. ● A previously unseen video of the aftermath of the assassination of President Kennedy is to be sold at
auction. Dale Carpenter had hoped to film the president before he entered Dealey Plaza but missed him so moved to another location, but by the time he started filming
Kennedy had been shot, and the footage shows his limmousine speeding towards the hospital with Secret Service agent Clint Hill clinging onto it and holding First Lady
Jacqueline Kennedy in her seat. ● One of only a few coins thought to have been minted in Carlisle, Cumbria, while Scotland ruled parts of Northern England between
1136 and 1141 is to be auctioned. The coin, which does not bear a monarch's face, is estimated to sell for between £15,000 ($19,600) and £20,000 ($26,000).
- North Carolina musician Michael Smith has been charged with three counts of wire fraud, fraud conspiracy and money laundering after allegedly using up to 10,000 bot
accounts to stream music tracks he had created using an artificial intelligence (AI) system billions of times, amassing more than $10m (£7.7m) in royalties from
streaming services. Prosecutors, who were assisted by the FBI, told reporters that Mr Smith was finally going to "face the music"... ● Earlier this year
freedom of information requests to museums and galleries across England revealed the variety of items that had gone missing (or just been mislaid) from their collections,
including a Saddam Hussein calendar, several false moustaches, the negative of a picture of the 1947 wedding of then-Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip, a shadow puppet,
a mousetrap, underpants, a cannonball, a fossil jaw fragment, model steam engines and a 19th-Century cannon...
- The world is already a week past Plastic Overshoot Day, marking when the amount of plastic waste generated in a year surpasses the capacity of waste management systems
to handle it. This year the date was September 5th. An estimate 220 million tonnes of plastic waste will be created this year, with almost 70 million tonnes
ending up polluting the natural world. The date marks the global estimate; individual countries vary. While some developing countries passed their own dates much earlier in
the year the UK is set to reach its date on December 8th. Twelve countries, topped by China, the Russian Federation, India, Brazil and Mexico, are responsible for
60% of the world's mismanaged waste plastic. ● While parts of California are still experiencing wildfires Death Valley National Park has recorded its hottest summer
in history with the June-August average reaching 40.3oC (104.5oF). ● The Coal Authority in Wales is investigating using some of the estimated
0.5 trillion gallons (2 trillion litres) of warm water deep underground in now-closed coal mines for heating homes. Depending on depth the water is between 10oC
(50oF) and 20oC (68oF). The water would be brought to the surface in bore holes to have its heat recovered by heat exchangers before it is
returned underground. A small scale test in Gateshead, northeast England, showed that heat could be provided at 5% below the price of gas heating. ● Authorities in
Japan have begun a pilot operation to extract radioactive debris from the Fukushima nuclear plant using a remotely operated robot, 13 years after an earthquake and
tsunami caused three of the six reactors at the plant to melt down. It is thought that there is about 887 imperial tons (880 tonnes) of highly radioactive debris in total;
the pilot test aims to remove less than 0.1oz (3g). ● This northern meteorological summer, June through August, was the hottest on record, according to the European
Copernicus agency, averaging 16.8oC (62.2oF); higher than the previous record, set in 2023. While much of Europe sweltered under record temperatures
Britain [a country often noted for being at odds with continental Europe... -Ed] had its coolest summer since 2015, averaging 14.37oC (57.87oF).
IN BRIEF: Amateur golfing friends Steve Wilmhurst, 58, and Liam Nairn, 70, have scored back-to-back holes-in-one at Studley Wood Golf Club in Oxfordshire while
playing a round with two other friends. The odds of two players in the same foursome getting holes-in-one at the same hole is 17 million to 1, according to golfing
authorities. The hole was a 167-yard par 3. ● The 155-year-old Campbell's Soup Company, made famous by artist Andy Warhol, has proposed dropping the word 'Soup' from its
name to better reflect the diversity of its products. Investors will vote on the change to just "The Campbell's Company" in November. ● A judge had ruled
that Tyburn Film Productions can take Lunak Heavy Industries (UK) Ltd to a court trial over the use of Peter Cushing's face in the 2016 film Rogue One: A Star Wars
Story. Tyburn claims to have reached an agreement with Cushing before his death that prevented the CGI recreation of his face without its consent, while Lunak, which
produced Rogue One and LucasFilm argue that they did not believe they needed permission under the terms of his contract for the first Star Wars film, A
New Hope [Our view is that the only use of CGI to recreate a dead actor that didn't jar us out of a film was in Ghostbusters: Afterlife -Ed] ● Disney
fans looking for a new house might want to view one in Rhyl, Wales, which is decorated throughout with murals of the company's cartoons, from an Aladdin-themed
living room and a Lion King bedroom to a 'Malificent' rooms lined with murals of Disney villains and - for some reason - designs from the non-Disney Harry
Potter films - and kitchen cabinets bearing the titles of classic Disney songs [Handy if you want a spoonful of sugar... -Ed]. ● Before this week's US presidential
debate British newspaper The Daily Telegraph reported that Kamala Harris "...is prepping for the debate with a stand-in Trump, Lee Strasberg, an acting
teacher who has been wearing a wide-shouldered boxy suit and red tie". Lee Strasberg died in 1982 [But, fair enough, he still probably gave more cogent arguments than
the twice-indicted convicted felon... -Ed]. ● Police in Alto, Wisconsin, used a drone with a thermal imaging camera to find a three-year-old child who had wandered
away from home into a massive cornfield. He was found safe and uninjured half a mile (0.8km) away.
UPDATES: The unmanned Boeing Starliner spacecraft successfully landed at White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico on Saturday night, six hours after undocking from
the International Space Station. ● The archaeologists excavating the site of a field hospital on the Waterloo battlefield have discovered a "gore trench",
filled with human and animal remains separated by a barrier of empty ammunition boxes. It is thought that it was dug to speed the clearance of the hospital after the
battle. ● The mystery of Stonehenge's altar stone continues. Last month it was suggested that it had come from Orkney because of similarities with stone in the
Orcadian Basin, which encompassed Orkney, Shetland and a strip of mainland Scotland's coast, coupled with the known Neolithic culture of building stone rings on Orkney, but
new X-ray analysis has shown differences; its precise origin in the Basin remains a mystery.
Little Jennifer's class were learning about pirates. "Now, children", the teacher said, "many pirates started as sailors but
some were originally farmers, workers and other professions who had fallen on hard times and gone to sea in a desperate search for a better life."
Little Jennifer put her hand up. "I expect some were bad teachers too, Miss!"
The teacher laughed. "Why would you say that, Little Jennifer?"
Little Jennifer put one hand over an eye like an eyepatch. "Because they only had one pupil left, Miss!"
