If getting accidentally shot in the head with a nail gun ranks among your daytime nightmares, or is at least of those ideas that send shivers up your spine, here’s a reason to take heart: it’s actually quite painless. Or at least so says George Chandler, a Shawnee from Kansas, USA. He and a buddy [...]
This curious creature is not the product of a Photoshopping project–it’s a real live Roe deer with a single horn in the middle of its forehead, just like the legendary unicorn. The deer, aptly named Unicorn, was born in captivity inside a research park in Prato, Italy. The single horn is thought to be due [...]
Four people, ranging in ages from 19 to 25, were arrested in Cleveland for pointing a $500 green laser pointer at two planes and two choppers at the Cleveland Hopkins International Airport. The laser temporarily blinded at least one of the pilots, and created disorienting patterns while bouncing around between the windows and control panels. [...]
Do you like watermelon? Do you really like watermelon? The Japanese, they really like watermelon. Take this 17-pound, black-skinned marvel of watermelon-ness. Last Friday, it fetched a record $6,100 at a market in Hokkaido. That comes out to around $360 a pound. Why spend so much on the so-called “Densuke” watermelon? Because, says a spokesperson [...]
Hundreds of beachgoers at the Isle of Palms in South Carolina, USA got a little more excitement than they probably expected when they were called out of the water because of a six-foot long American crocodile wandering around the beach. The croc was later trapped by wildlife officials. It likely escaped or was released by [...]
Picture this: You really need to go, you’re in a really small room with only one toilet, and it’s broken. And you’re in outer space. This is what’s happening in the International Space Station, whose one and only (Russian-built) zero-gravity urine collection system has been having problems of late. Thankfully the recent Discovery shuttle mission [...]
Personally I think sloths are kinda cool. So I’m glad that new research suggests that they might have gotten a bit of a bad rap as… well… sloths. People used to think that sloths slept for 16 hours a day, but German and US scientists published a study in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters [...]
Owners of talking birds should take note: So this African grey parrot flies out of his cage in Nagareyama, Japan , gets found by the police and ends up spending the night at a vet’s house. After a few days, the bird starts chatting the vet up. Among other bits of polly wisdom, the parrot [...]
What has four legs, is a cross between a frog and a salamander, and lived 290 million years ago? Gerobatrachus hottoni, of course! The amphibious missing link, whose name means “elderly frog”, was first discovered in the ’90s. It’s just taken that long for scientists to confirm its missing link status. Hopefully those caecilian paleontologist [...]
Tickets–check. Food and beer–check. Face paint–check. Tick vaccine–check? With some six million football fans expected to descend upon Switzerland and Austria for this year’s Euro 2008 in June, scientists are sending out an advisory to be careful of ticks. 13,000 people were hospitalized in Eurpoe for tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) last year, up 30% from last [...]