Posts filed under 'Weird News'
The newspaper boy unlocked a side door and saw the couple about two feet inside, 84-year-old Blanche Roberts helpless looking right back at Pitts. Her right leg was pinned beneath the body of her 77-year-old husband Fred, who apparently had died last Wednesday evening of a heart attack after mowing the lawn.
Her only request was for water. She knew her name and her relatives, but described her husband as “sleeping,” said Pitts, who delivers the Southern Illinoisan, published in nearby Carbondale, Illinois. The coronoer said Fred Roberts likely died of a heart attack, based on accounts from the Roberts’ visitors that day.
Blanche Roberts was taken to a hospital in nearby Herrin. The hospital on Tuesday wouldn’t confirm whether she still was being treated there; Pitts said the couple’s relatives told his wife Monday that she was doing fine.
Pitts has delivered on that route for three years but said he never met the Robertses before Sunday. But he thinks fondly of Blanche Roberts, who often tipped him in letters. Lucky for the curious newspaper delivery boy, eh?
May 1st, 2008
Marine biologists studying wild octopuses have found a kinky and violent society of jealous murders, gender subtrefuge and once-in-a-lifetime sex. The new study by researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, who journeyed off the coast of Indonesia found that wild octopuses are far from the shy, unromantic loners their captive brethren appear to be.
The scientists watched the Abdopus aculeatus octopus, which are the size of an orange, for several weeks and published their findings recently in the journal Marine Biology. They witnessed picky, macho males carefully select a mate, then guard their newly domesticated digs so jealously that they would occasionally use their 20-to-25-centimetre tentacles to strangle a romantic rival to death.
The researchers also observed smaller “sneaker” male octopuses put on feminine airs, such as swimming girlishly near the bottom and keeping their male brown stripes hidden in order to win unsuspecting conquests.
Shortly after the female gives birth, about a month after conception, both the mother and father die, researchers said.
“It’s not the sex that leads to death,” said Christine Huffard, the study’s lead author. “It’s just that octopuses produce offspring once during a very short lifespan of a year.” I guess the conclusion is that underwater sea life is very similar to us.
April 3rd, 2008
A Japanese pin-up model says that her big breasts have not only boosted her career — they also helped her overturn a court verdict. The bikini model, who goes by her professional name Serena Kozakura, was cleared after a court decided she was too well-endowed to squeeze into a room through a hole, as she had been found guilty of earlier.
“I used to hate my body so much,” Kozakura, who has appeared in product commercials on television, told the private Asahi network in an interview aired Tuesday. “But it was my breasts” that won in court, she said.
The case was splashed through the Japanese media on Tuesday, with the Asahi network even inviting her to demonstrate how she could not fit through the opening. Kozakura, 38, was convicted last year of property destruction after a man said she kicked in the wooden door of his room and crawled inside, apparently because he was with another woman.
Kozakura had said the man made the hole himself. In her appeal, the defence counsel held up a plate showing the size of the hole and said that she could not squeeze through with her 110-centimetre (44-inch) bust. “The judges were very good-mannered as they showed no expressions on their faces. I guess they’re well-trained,” Kozakura said. Tokyo High Court presiding judge Kunio Harada agreed and threw out the guilty verdict on Monday, saying there was reasonable doubt over the man’s account. Well that was a nice…story.
March 4th, 2008
The case of a chilli dog on display at a local convenience store prompted an outraged woman to take action. Cindy Gravelle says she took a big gulp when she spotted a miserable looking pooch in the walk-in cooler, pressing its face up against the glass door, during a milk-run to her local 7-Eleven earlier this week.
Gravelle was doubly disturbed the next day to find the same dog, which appears to be an American Eskimo, in the cooler apparently for safekeeping while its owner worked a shift at the store near Centre St. and McKnight Blvd. N.E.
“Eight hours later it was still in the fridge,” the horrified 41-year-old said yesterday.
“What is wrong with these people?”
Gravelle’s dogged pursuit to rectify the situation led Calgary Humane Society officials to contact the store about the strange pet-keeping practice.
7-Eleven spokesman Alyn Edwards said it was “a discretionary decision” based on “unique circumstances” which will not happen again. It appears the dogs owner thought because it was an Eskimo dog it needed to be kept in very cold surroundings.
February 2nd, 2008
A recent report out of Berkely confirms that dinosaurs had high rates of teen pregnancies. Dinosaurs descended from reptiles and evolved into today’s birds, but their growth and sexual maturation were more like that of mammals - complete with teen pregnancy, according to a new study by University of California, Berkeley, scientists.
The conclusion, reported the week of Jan. 14 in the online early edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, comes from an analysis of the only three dinosaur fossils that have been definitively identified as female. Thin slices of these dinosaurs’ fossil bones all show an internal structure similar to tissue found in living female birds - a layer of calcium-rich bone tissue called medullary bone that is deposited in the marrow cavity just before egg-laying as a resource for making eggshells.
Tenontosaurus lived in North America during the Early Cretaceous period, 125 to 105 million years ago, and was an ancestor of the duck-billed dinosaurs. A common plant eater, it is known for its long tail that made the dinosaur up to 27 feet long when walking on four legs. Because fossils of these one- to two-ton beasts are common in Oklahoma, Werning was able to obtain many fossil bone slices from the Oklahoma Museum of Natural History. Both a femur (thigh bone) and a tibia (shin bone) from the same fossilized Tenontosaurus showed medullary bone, while growth rings in its bones indicated the pregnant dinosaur was eight years old. As the father of a pre-teen girl this article caught my eye.
January 15th, 2008
A man in Florida was halfway through an order of steamed clams when he bit down on something hard, it was a rare, iridescent purple pearl. George Brock and his wife, Leslie, had been spent the day at the beach Friday in South Florida and stopped at Dave’s Last Resort & Raw Bar for a bite. Their discovery is thought to be valued at $6,000 US or more. The gems are found most frequently in large New England quahogs, clams known for violet coloring on the inside of their shells. The clams in the $10 plate came from Apalachicola in the Florida Panhandle, said restaurant manager Tom Gerry.
January 1st, 2008
Japan says, “UFOs do exist”, a top Japanese government spokesman said Tuesday. The comment by chief cabinet secretary Nobutaka Machimura drew laughter from reporters at his regular briefing on government policy.
Machimura, asked about the government’s view on UFOs at a regular press conference, told reporters that the government can only offer a simple response. “Personally, I definitely believe they exist,” he said, apparently tongue in cheek.
But the prime minister stuck to the official view. “I have yet to confirm (that UFOs exist),” Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda told reporters later in the day. I guess it is possible but why is there only grainy hard too see photos if they really exist?
December 19th, 2007
Sorta makes me think of Wonder Woman and her magic bracelets but police say a man’s wedding band deflected a bullet and likely saved his life. Police Sgt. Jeffrey Scott says two men walked into Register’s shop at The Antique Market on Saturday and asked to see a coin collection.
When Register retrieved the collection, one of the men pulled a gun and demanded money. A shot was fired as Register threw up his left hand, and his wedding ring deflected the bullet, police said. His wife Darlene Register says the bullet managed to go through two of his fingers without severing the bone.
A part of the bullet broke off and is in his middle finger - the other part is in his neck, lodged in the muscle tissue. She said she gives God all the credit. Police were searching for the robbers, who Scott said “stole a substantial amount of cash.” The whole thing still sounds quite messy.
December 8th, 2007
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