Strange stories from around the world, some of which might be true...
- Firefighters in Minnesota, called to reports of a deer stuck on a frozen lake, crawled over the ice on all fours to rescue it, avoiding cracking the frozen surface
under them. ● Firefighters in Smolensk, Russia, who found an injured owl being attacked by crows outside their station took it in, kept it warm and fed it before
taking it to a vet. Once recovered the owl will be taken to a specialist rehabilitation and reintroduction centre before being released back into the wild. ● The
US biotechnology and genetic engineering company Colossal Biosciences has announced plans to reintroduce dodos, extinct since 1681, to Mauritius. The full genome of the
dodo has been sequenced, as has that of the Nicobar pigeon, its closest living relative. Scientists have modified primordial germ cells (PCGs), which act as precursors to
sperm and eggs, to create a chicken fathered by a duck and hope to modify the PCGs of a Nicobar, embedding the cells into the embryos of a chicken and a rooster, which,
if they breed successfully once mature, will hopefully produce a chick similar to a dodo. ● New Jersey police have released bodycam footage of a deer that got into
an elementary school building through an open window over the Thanksgiving holiday. Once it was aware of the officers the deer ran down a hallway into a classroom where
it scattered items before eventually being lured out. It then made its way back to the window and escaped back into the wild. ● Two reindeer which jumped over a
fence at a Christmas grotto event on the Elvenden [sic.] Estate in Suffolk were reported on the A11 road, which police had to close off for a few hours. The deer
were safely recaptured the next day.
- In a move thought to be a test for a future mission to return samples to Earth the propulsion module that took India's Chandrayaan lander to the Moon has been
moved back into Earth orbit. ● Researchers at the University of Chicago have identified a "perfect solar system", 100 light years away, that has six
planets which formed without the violent collisions that created our Solar System, and which has hardly changed since it formed, possibly up to 12 billion years ago.
- A couple in Milford Haven who had kept what they thought was a "dummy bomb" in their garden as an ornament for more than 10 years were stunned when a police
officer knocked on their door to tell them he had caught sight of it and notified the Ministry of Defence. The next day a bomb disposal team arrived and identified it as a
64lb (29kg) "naval projectile", probably dating to the the late 19th Century when a previous owner of the house had found it and put it in the garden.
Furthermore it was live, although only it had a small quantity of charge. It was detonated under five tonnes of sand at a disused quarry. More shocking for the owners was
that they used to bang trowels on it to remove earth after gardening... ● A fisherman off Denmark found something unexpected in their net recently - a 287lb (130kg)
World War II bomb. Danish Navy sappers attached a 22lb (10kg) explosive charge to it and lowered it 50' (15m) below the surface of the water before withdrawing and
detonating it.
- A Florida woman, wanted in three counties for parole violation, who had evaded capture for a month was finally found by deputies searching her home. She was hiding
inside a couch. ● Los Angeles police chasing a stolen truck thought they had it cornered in a dead end alley but the driver reversed past them and continued driving,
in reverse, at over 30mph (48km/h) before abandoning the truck and fleeing on foot. He eventually gave himself up. ● A TikTokker who attempted to go viral with
clips of how to dodge train fares, including by hiding in toilets and only buying single-stop tickets, to travel across the Midlands, has been fined £800 ($1000)
and given a criminal record after a joint investigation by British Transport Police and East Midlands Railway. ● YouTuber Trevor Jacob, 30, who filed a crash report
for his aeroplane after bailing out of it with a parachute in 2021 has been jailed for six months after posting a video of the incident online, titled "I Crashed
My Airplane", which made it clear that the crash was deliberate and he leapt from the plane holding a selfie stick to record himself and the crashing plane. He
admitted as part of a plea deal that the stunt was part of a product sponsorship deal and that he had retrieved the wreckage (including onboard cameras) from the crash
site and destroyed it, contrary to the National Transportation Safety Board's instructions. The plane had crashed into the Los Padres National Forest in California.
● A gang of would-be carjackers who attacked a man as he got out of his Porsche SUV in Bethesda, Maryland, demanding his car keys, found that they could not steal
the car and had to flee in another vehicle. It was not some hi-tech security device that thwarted them; it was the gear stick. The car had a manual transmission and they
could not cope with the stick shift... Apparantly just 18% of Americans can drive stick shift cars.
- New research suggests that the computing power behind every transaction of the virtual currency Bitcoin requires the equivalent of a swimming pool of water to cool the
millions of computers around the world which process the currency. A standard credit card transaction takes one six-millionth as much, according to Alex de Vries of the
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. ● The COP28 climate conference in Dubai has shaped up as the most controversial yet, not because of the subject, but the organisers.
Presiding over the talks is Sultan Al Jaber, CEO of Adnoc, the United Arab Emirates' (UAE) state oil company, who stated ahead of the conference that there is "no
science" to support the phasing out of fossil fuel use to limit global warming (although he later claimed his comment had been taken out of context). The UAE has
announced plans to increase oil production, at least in the short term. It is not just Al Jaber's presence though, more than 2,400 attendees have direct links to fossil
fuel industries, more than the total number of people attending who are from the ten most vulnerable countries. For comparison, COP26 in Glasgow two years ago had just
500 people from fossil fuel industries attending, and around 600 were at COP27 in Egypt last year. John Kerry, the US special presidential envoy, was speaking as part of
a panel when it appears he made his own contribution to warming gas emissions. Just as he said "There shouldn't be any more coal-fired power plants permitted anywhere
in the world. I find myself getting more and more militant because I do not understand how adults who are in a position of responsibility can be avoiding responsibility
for taking away those things that are killing people on a daily basis" he apparently farted rather loudly...
IN BRIEF: Danish police are advising people not to use toasters to warm up electric vehicle batteries after a man in Stenlille placed a toaster under his car
for that purpose. The resulting fire destroyed the car and damaged a nearby house. ● The Leaning Tower of Pisa may be more famous but Italy's other leaning tower,
the 12th Century Garisenda Tower, some 154' (47m) tall, standing in the centre of Bologna, which tilts at an angle of 4o, is in serious danger of
collapse after sensors detected that it was shifting. A 16' (5m) high barrier has been erected around it to hopefully contain most of the debris, should it fail. ●
The driver of one of two diggers being used to replace groynes at Bournemouth beach is being praised after his colleague's digger became stuck in the sand, trapped by
rising waters. The man used his digger's bucket to rescue the other driver. ● Online user-written encyclopaedia Wikipaedia has released its list of the most
searched-for subjects this years. The list is topped by ChatGPT, the virtual chatbot, followed by Deaths in 2023, the 2023 Cricket World Cup, the Indian Premier League
and the film Oppenheimer (Barbie, released at the same time, ranked seven places lower). ● Scientists have developed a way to make laser beams up to
nine times more powerful without losing any of their integrity. ● The Oxford University Dictionary has revealed its word of the year - 'rizz', a slang term used
mostly online by Gen Z'ers, defined as style, charm or attractiveness, and the ability to attract a romantic or sexual partner. ● An Australian schoolgirl is being
praised after her school bus's handbrake failed while the driver and a teacher were standing nearby and the bus started rolling towards a petrol station. Fourteen-year-old
Isabelle Miller grabbed the wheel and steered the bus - carrying around 20 students - to safety. ● British Army doctor Alastair Bush has won the award of best
international mullet at the World Mullet Championships in Australia. He started growing his hair into a mullet during lockdown. ● Mariah Carey's "All I Want
for Christmas Is You" has been knocked off the top of the Billboard 100 by a song released 65 years ago. Brenda Lee's "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree"
has become the oldest song to ever top the chart (taking the title from Carey's song, released 25 years before it first topped the chart in 2019), and Lee, now 78, has
become the oldest person to top the chart. ● Santa Claus is facing eviction, not from the North Pole but from Santa's Grotto in Frome, Somerset, which marked its
sixth year of operation by moving to a new purpose-built site comprising two wooden buildings in Critchell Manor Estate. Planning permission was rejected by the county
council for sustainability reasons because visitors would need private cars as there is no public transport near the site, but the local parish council backed it,
so building went ahead anyway and a new application has been made.
UPDATES: Ufologist Jaime Maussan, who presented the Peruvian congress with the fossilised bodies of what he claimed were small three-toed aliens discovered in an
algae mine, is now claiming that they have been genetically tested and 30% of their DNA is not from any known species. True to form though, he had not actually presented
any documented evidence to back up the claim.
The class were having a spelling quiz. "Alright, children," the teacher said, "who can spell 'mousetrap'?"
Little Mary raised her hand. "M-o-u-s-t-..."
"No, sorry, Little Mary. Little Edward?"
"M-o-w-..."
"No, sorry, Little Edward. Anyone else?"
Little Jennifer put her hand up. "OK, Little Jennifer?"
Little Jennifer smiled as only she could. "C-a-t, Miss!"
