Wired.com's most recent "Absurd Creature" feature shows a toad devouring a larva of a much-smaller beetle, but the "absurdity" is that the larva is in charge and that the toad will soon be beetle food. The larva's Darwinian advantage is that, inside the toad, it bites the hapless "predator" with its hooked jaws and then secretes enzymes to begin decomposing the toad's tissue (making it edible) -- and provoking it to vomit the still-alive larva. [Wired.com, 1-29-2016]

An 80-year-old man and a 37-year-old woman were ticketed in separate incidents in Canada the week of Jan. 18 when police spotted them driving cars completely caked in snow except for a small portion of the windshield. The man, from Brussels, Ontario, was driving a car resembling a "pile of snow on the road." The Halifax, Nova Scotia, woman's car was, a police statement said, "a snowbank with four wheels." [Globe and Mail, 1-21-2016] [Associated Press via WMUR-TV (Manchester, N.H.), 1-21-2016]

Fed up with the "pretense" of the art world, performer (and radio personality) Lisa Levy of Brooklyn, New York, sat on a toilet, naked and motionless, at the Christopher Stout Gallery in January to protest artists' "BS" by presenting herself in the "humblest" way she could imagine. Visitors were invited to sit on a facing toilet (clothed or not) and interact with her in any way except for touching. Levy told the Bushwick Daily website that too much "ego," "like a drug," "distorts your reality." [Bushwick Daily, 1-20-2016]

-- In January, the U.S. Department of Justice's inspector general recommended closing down a program of the department's Drug Enforcement Administration that paid employees of other federal agencies (Amtrak and the beloved Transportation Security Administration) for tips on suspicious passengers. (The program apparently ignored that federal employees have such a duty even without a bounty.) DEA was apparently interested in passengers traveling with large amounts of cash -- which DEA could potentially seize if it suspected the money came from illegal activity (and also, of course, then keep the money under federal forfeiture law). According to the inspector general, the tipping TSA agent was to be rewarded with a cut of any forfeited money. [USA Today, 1-7-2016]

-- Chiropractor William DeAngelo of Stratford, Connecticut, was charged with assault in January after an employee complained that she was ordered to lie down on a table and let DeAngelo apply electrical shocks to her back -- as punishment for being the office gossiper, spreading rumors about colleagues. DeAngelo said he was reacting to complaints from patients and staff, but seemed to suggest in a statement to police that he was only "re-educating" the woman on how to use the electrical stimulator in the office's practice (though she felt the need to report to a hospital afterward). [Connecticut Post, 1-29-2016]

Britain's North Yorkshire Police successfully applied to a judge in January for a "sexual risk order" against a man whose name was not disclosed publicly and whose alleged behavior was not revealed. Whoever he is and whatever he did, he is forbidden to enter into any sexual situation with anyone without providing at least 24 hours' notice to the police -- nor is he allowed to look at or possess any sexually oriented materials. According to the York Press, the order is temporary until May 19, at which time the magistrates may extend it. [York Press, 1-21-2016]

-- Christopher Lemek Jr. was arrested in Palmer, Massachusetts, in January and charged in a New Year's Eve hit-and-run accident that took a pedestrian's life. Lemek emerged as a suspect a few days after the collision when police, visiting his home, noticed freshly disturbed earth in his backyard. Eventually Lemek confessed to literally burying the evidence -- using a construction vehicle to crush his truck and an excavator to dig up his backyard and drop the truck into it. [The Republican (Springfield), 1-8-2016]

-- No Need for a Pre-Nup: The 20-year New York marriage of Gabriel Villa, now 90, and Cristina Carta Villa, now 59, apparently had its happy moments, but as Cristina found out when things went bad recently, Gabriel had attempted to protect himself shortly after the wedding -- by obtaining a Dominican Republic divorce and keeping it secret. Cristina found out only when she realized in a property accounting that her name was not on the deed to their Manhattan apartment. (She is challenging that divorce as improper even under Dominican law.) [New York Post, 1-24-2016]

Several Connecticut state troopers involved in a DUI checkpoint in September were apparently caught on video deliberating whether to make up charges against a (perhaps obnoxious) checkpoint monitor. Veteran protester Michael Picard, 27, posted the videos on his YouTube page in January, showing troopers (illegally) confiscating Picard's camera and suggesting among themselves various charges they could write up (at least some not warranted by evidence) to, as one trooper was heard imploring, "cover our asses." (The troopers returned the camera after deliberating, but seemed unaware that it had been running during the entire incident.) State police internal affairs officers are investigating. [Hartford Courant, 1-26-2016]

Private Parts: (1) A middle-aged woman reported to a firehouse in Padua, Italy, in January to ask for help opening a lock for which she had misplaced the key. It turned out that the lock was to the iron chastity belt she was wearing -- of her own free will, she said (because she had recently begun a romantic relationship that she wanted not to become too quickly sexual). (2) Firefighers in Osnabruck, Germany, told Berlin's The Local that in two separate incidents in December, men had come to their stations asking for help removing iron rings they had placed on their penises to help retain erections. (The Local, as a public service, quoted a prominent European sexual-aid manufacturer's recommendation to instead use silicone rings, which usually do not require professional removal.) [Daily Telegraph (London), 1-17-2016] [The Local (Berlin), 12-8-2015]

Few matters in life are weirder than the Scottish love of haggis (sheep's liver, heart, tongue and fat, blended with oats and seasonings, boiled inside a sheep's stomach to achieve its enticing gray color!), and in January, in honor of the Scottish poet-icon Robert Burns, prominent Peruvian chef Mitsuharu Tsumura joined Scotland's Paul Wedgwood to create haggis from, instead of sheep, guinea pig. Wedgwood said he was "proud" to raise haggis "to new gastronomic levels." [Daily Telegraph (London), 1-21-2016]

(1) Briton Jacqueline Patrick, 55, was sentenced to 15 years in prison in December for the 2013 murder of her husband, accomplished by spiking his wine with anti-freeze. To cover her crime, she handed over a note the husband had supposedly written, requesting that if tragedy struck him, he wished not to be resuscitated, preferring to die with "dignerty" (sic). Suspicious, police asked Patrick to spell "dignity," which, of course, came out "dignerty." (2) Kristina Green, 19, and Gary Withers, 38, both already on probation, were arrested in Encinitas, California, in December after an Amazon.com driver reported them following his delivery truck and scooping up packages as soon as he dropped them off. Inside the pair's car, officers found numerous parcels and mail addressed to others plus a "To Do" list that read, "steal mail and shoplift." [Reuters, 11-23-2015] [San Diego Union- Tribune, 12-15-2015]

In October (2011), the super-enthusiastic winners of a Kingston, Ontario, radio station contest claimed their prize: the chance to don gloves and dig for free Buffalo Bills' football tickets (value $320), buried in buffalo manure in a wading pool. The show's host, Sarah Crosbie, reported the digging live (but, overcome by the smell, vomited on the air). More curious was a runner-up contestant, who continued to muck around for the second prize even though it was only tickets to a local zoo. [Yahoo Canada Sports, 10-21-2011]

Even though concealed-carry gun permit-holders in Texas can now "open carry," pistol-packing women concerned with fashion are not limited to traditional firearms in ordinary cowboy holsters. An online company, The Well Armed Woman, offers such carry options as stylish leggings, lace waistbands and an array of underarm and bra holsters (even an in-cup model, the "Marilyn") in leopard-print and pastel colors. However, a woman's body shape and size may be more important shopping considerations, according to the company's founder. "A 32A bust could not conceal a Glock 19 very well -- nor would a 42DD-or-larger (front) allow for effective cross-draw carry." [Star-Telegram (Fort Worth), 12-22-2016] [NPR, 1-28-2016]

In January, Robert Battle took the oath of office for his second term as a city councilman in East Chicago, Indiana -- administered at the county lockup, where he is being held without bail, charged with a cold-blooded murder during a drug deal. The crime made news in October (i.e., before election day), yet Battle still won his race. According to law, he cannot be forced out of office unless he is convicted or admits the crimes, and he had the right to vote for himself in the election (except that he failed to request an absentee ballot). [Chicago Tribune, 1-25-2016]

(1) The Albany, New York, company Vireo Health told reporters it would soon offer the world's first certified Kosher marijuana, announcing that the Orthodox Union of New York had authenticated it as having met Jewish dietary laws (e.g., grown with insect-free plants). (Other Kosher-validating officials complained that the approval should apply only to marijuana that is eaten, not smoked.) (2) Two habit-wearing nuns were scheduled to ask the Merced (California) City Council in January to decline its prerogative under state law to ban dispensing or cultivating medical marijuana. The nuns' order makes and sells salves and tonics for pain management, using a strain of cannabis containing only a trace of psychoactive material. [Haaretz (Tel Aviv), 1-7-2016] [San Francisco Chronicle, 1-4-2016]

-- Since the (naturally insulated) uterus can be a lonely space, Institut Marques of Barcelona, Spain, recently demonstrated a tampon-like "speaker" to carry soothing, specially selected, 54-decibel ("hushed tone") rhythms that supposedly improve fetal growth. In the Babypod's first "concert," the singer Soraya performs Christmas carols. (However, documented evidence for such a device was limited to success of in-vitro fertilization when music was wafted through during the first 48 hours of sperm-egg union.) [New York Times Live, 1-1-2016]

-- The Job of the Researcher: Taiwanese scientists recently announced the availability of their Infant Cries Translator (iPhone and Android app), which they say can, with 77 percent accuracy (92 percent for those under 2 weeks old), tell what a baby wants by its screeches and wailings. The National Taiwan University Hospital Yunlin doctors first had to create a database of 200,000 crying sounds. [Reuters, 12-30-2016]

The Latest in Corruption News: (1) Italy's highest court freed a man in January because the bribe he offered a cop to avoid a DUI ticket was "too small" to be serious -- 100 euros (about $108). (2) Lawyers for John Bills (former Chicago city commissioner on trial for taking bribes on a traffic-camera contract) said Bills was obviously innocent because everyone knows that, in Chicago, only bribing the mayor (or at least an alderman) will get anything done. (3) A security guard in Nairobi, Kenya, despairingly told a New York Times reporter in November (detailing corruption so rampant that, for example, ballpoint pens were being sold to the government for $85 each) that "If (people)'re going to steal, please, just steal a little." [The Local (Rome), 1-21-2016] [Chicago Sun-Times, 1-13-2016] [New York Times, 11-5-2016]

-- A former lecturer for Spanish classes at the liberal arts Amherst College near Northampton, Massachusetts, sued the school in December after it failed to renew her contract -- leading the lecturer to charge that the Spanish department had tried to solicit student course enrollment by prostitution. Lecturer Dimaris Barrios-Beltran accused her supervisor, Victoria Maillo, of hiring only attractive "teaching assistants" and encouraging them to "date" Amherst students with the ulterior motive of signing them up for Spanish classes -- to boost the department's profile. (College officials said they could not corroborate the accusation, but a lawyer for Barrios-Beltran said Maillo is no longer employed at Amherst.) [Washington Post, 12-29-2016]

-- William Bendorf, 38, filed a lawsuit in December against the Funny Bone comedy club in Omaha, Nebraska, and comedian-hypnotist Doug Thompson after plunging off the stage and breaking his leg following Thompson's having hypnotized him during his act. Thompson claimed that he had "snapped" Bendorf out of the trance, but the lawsuit claims that Bendorf, instead of exiting via the stairs as Thompson instructed, wandered directly toward his stage-side table because he was still "under" Thompson's spell. [Omaha World-Herald, 12-28-2016]

-- A patient who had been blind for a decade (a condition thought to have been brought on by brain damage from an auto accident) suddenly "regained" her sight, according to a research report in the latest PsyCh Journal -- but only in one of the 10 identities (a teenage boy) populating her dissociative identity disorder. Doctors have since ruled out organic damage and (through EEG testing) "malingering" and are now coaxing her eyesight back by treating the disorder. [Washington Post, 11-24-2015]

Chutzpah! (1) Michael Leonard, 53, was charged in December with stealing a package that moments earlier had been dropped off by a courier. The delivery was to a Prince George's County, Maryland, police station, and Leonard, hanging around in the station (to register as a sex offender), walked out with the package when no one was looking. (However, a station surveillance camera caught his face.) (2) Sean Lyons, 23, wanted on an Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, arrest warrant since October as a drug dealer, was arrested in January -- at the police station, where officers recognized him when he came to give information as a victim of an unrelated hit-and-run accident. [Capital Gazette (Annapolis), 12-23-2015] [Philly.com, 1-21-2016]

(1) David Newman, a prominent emergency room doctor at New York City's Mount Sinai Hospital, was recently charged with two counts of sexual abuse, one involving drugging, groping and masturbating onto the unconscious body of a female patient. (2) Well-known restaurateur Dan Hoyt, 53, was arrested in January and charged with exposing (and "pleasuring") himself to two women, repeatedly, at a New York City subway station -- and to one he had blatantly asked, "Can I masturbate to you?" Hoyt is the owner-chef at Quintessence in the East Village and gained notoriety in 2005 when a subway passenger photographed him "in action" during a previous weak moment. [New York Times, 1-20-2016] [New York Post, 1-13-2016]

(1) Kopi Luwak (the gourmet coffee beans roasted only after having been flavored by a trip through the digestive tracts of Asian civet cats) has been a staple of weird news stories for a quarter century, but a New York startup (Afineur) will soon bring to market a synthetic process mimicking the flavoring effects of the civets' gut bacteria. (2) From time to time, when people worry excessively about their stations in life, entrepreneurs create "destruction rooms," where, for a fee, customers get some time with a sledgehammer or baseball bat and pound on junked furniture. The most recent, Tantrums LLC, of Houston, opened in January, charging $35 for 10 minutes. [Business Week, 7-21-2016] [KHOU-TV, 7-22-2016]

Toshihiko Mizuno, 55, was arrested in Tokyo in June (2011) after three girls, ages 9 and 10, reported that he had talked them into spitting for him so that he could record it on video, to assist with "research" he was doing on "saliva." Police later discovered 26 videotapes, featuring about 400 young girls spitting. According to local media sources, Mizuno has had the obsession for 17 years, successfully getting at least 500 girls to spit, among the estimated 4,000 he propositioned. [NDTV (New Delhi, India)-Agence France-Presse, 6-14-2011]

In January, the upscale Italian fashion house Dolce & Gabbana introduced stylish hijabs and abayas aimed at Muslim women unafraid to call attention to themselves as they exercise their obliged modesty. D&G's marketing effort even accessorized models' headscarves and cloaks with stilettos and oversized, gaudily framed sunglasses. It was clear from the suggested retail prices that D&G would be pitching the line mainly in the wealthy Persian Gulf countries like United Arab Emirates. [The Atlantic, 1-7-2016]

Awkward Signals in New Jersey: (1) The government watchdog MuckRock requested records on the cause of death of a dolphin in New Jersey's South River last year (to investigate larger dangers to the animal), but in January 2016 the state's Department of Agriculture initially declined to release them -- citing "medical privacy" (usually requested, for autopsies, by "the deceased's family"). (2) At the same time, Maria Vaccarella is facing a $500 fine in Howell, New Jersey, for violating a state law because she illegally rendered "care" to two apparently orphaned baby squirrels when their mother abandoned them. She was due in court as News of the Weird went to press. [MuckRock.com, 1-11-2016] [WPVI-TV (Philadelphia), 1-16-2016]

The director of senior services for Cranston, Rhode Island, resigned in January after a mayor's press-conference went badly. To publicize a snow-removal program that would benefit seniors unable to shovel for themselves, the director (needing a proper example of a beneficiary of the program) instructed a middle-aged male subordinate to (unconvincingly) don a wig and dress and stand beside the mayor during the announcement. [WJAR-TV (Providence), 1-13-2016]

-- Weird Japan, Again: (1) Among the sites Japan has submitted for 2017 United Nations World Heritage status is the island of Okinoshima, home of a sacred shrine with which Shinto gods have been "protecting" fishermen as long ago as the fourth century. (The island is so sacred that females have never been allowed on it -- judged either too delicate to make the trip or menstrually unclean). (2) A current Tokyo craze, reported an Australian Broadcasting correspondent, involves "stressed out" professionals and office workers publicly outfitted in colorful, full-body lycra suits ("zentai") in a rebellion against the nation's stultifying conformity. Said one, "I'm a different person wearing this. I can be friendly to anyone." [Daily Telegraph (London), 1-13-2016] [Australian Broadcasting Corp. News, 1-10-2016]

-- Crescent City, California, drug dealer James Banuelos pleaded guilty in January in exchange for a lighter sentence (three years in prison), thus avoiding for police the airing of an embarrassing hidden-camera video of the raid showing arresting officers stealing the dealer's money and valuables. "Multiple" officers were shown laughing and helping themselves, and a gold chain belonging to Banuelos wound up for sale a few days later on Craigslist. As part of the plea agreement, the prosecutor agreed to give all Banuelos' stuff back to him. [Del Norte Triplicate (Crescent City), 1-11-2016, 1-14-2016]

-- The United Nations announced at year-end that the book most often checked out last year at its in-house Dag Hammarskjold Library in New York was the nearly 500-page "Immunity of Heads of State and State Officials for International Crimes." The list of borrowers was not revealed. (In general, the book concludes, current heads of state have immunity but not past ones.) [Newsweek, 1-7-2016]

-- New Age Medical Care: Surgeons treating 4-month-old Teegan Lexcen (born with only one lung and a critically deformed heart) had given up on her, but doctors at Nicklaus Children's Hospital in Miami jury-rigged a surgical tool that saved the infant's life. In a delicate seven-hour procedure, using an iPhone app and $20 Google Cardboard box virtual-reality viewers, doctors guided themselves through Teegan's chest based on two-dimensional body scans that the app had converted to 3-D. (Old-style 3-D images, they said, were too grainy for precision surgery.) [WFOR-TV (Miami), 12-22-2015]

-- Too Much Information: In January, the British sex toy company Hot Octopuss, trying for a spurt of publicity in New York City, unveiled a reconfigured pay phone booth at 5th Avenue and 28th Street in Manhattan that offered a seat, a laptop, a Wi-Fi connection, and a "privacy curtain" to help people (mostly men, one imagines) relieve stress "on both your mind and body." A company rep claimed that about 100 men "used" the booth its first day, but what the men actually did there is "private." [ArsTechnica.com, 1- 18-2016]

-- Think Your Commute Was Bad? (1) The main road linking the port city of Mombasa, Kenya, to Nairobi and beyond (to landlocked Uganda) was blocked in mid-November by damage from heavy rains, leading to a 30-mile-long stream of stopped vehicles, stranding more than 1,500 trucks. (2) In October at the end of China's traditional, annual week-long getaway, new traffic checkpoints for the notorious G4 Beijing-Hong Kong-Macau Expressway reduced the previous 50 lanes of traffic (yes, that's "fifty") to 20. Videos from a TV network's drone showed a breathtaking traffic jam-cum-parking lot that quickly inspired delight, or compassion, all around the Internet (bit.ly/1je9mG6). [BBC News, 11-19-2015] [CityLab.com, 10-8-2015]

-- Police chiefs of six small Ohio towns recently demanded an investigation of Sandusky County Sheriff Kyle Overmyer after, comparing notes, they learned that Overmyer had approached each one claiming to be helpfully "collecting" for "disposal" their departments' confiscated drugs -- on behalf of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency. (DEA, reportedly, knew nothing of this.) The Ohio attorney general is investigating. [Courthouse News Service, 1-12-2016]

(1) Jason Hayes, 17, was arrested in a Philadelphia suburb in January when he arrived for a scheduled appointment with a robbery victim from the night before. According to police, Hayes had attempted to shake down a woman in her home, but was still dissatisfied with the money she had on hand. Fearful, she agreed to bring more the next day if they met at a local shopping mall, and he agreed (promising to wear the same clothes so she would recognize him). She, of course, called police. (2) Dusty Ingram, 38, being searched by jailhouse guards in Crestview, Florida, in January, said she had prescriptions for everything -- but then said she thought they were in her purse and professed not to know how they got into that plastic bag in her genitals. [Philly.com, 1-21-2016] [Northwest Florida Daily News, 1-19-2016]

(1) In December, a judge in Hamburg, New York, dismissed the DUI charge against a motorist who had registered a 0.33 blood-alcohol reading because her lawyer had convinced the court that she suffered from "gut fermentation syndrome" -- that her digestive system makes so much yeast from ordinary food and beverages that it functions like a "brewery." (2) In January, Donald "Chip" Pugh, 45, wanted by police in Lima, Ohio, and Columbus, Georgia, on several charges, texted Lima cops a photo of himself to use as a mugshot because he was dissatisfied with the one on the department's website. "(T)hat one is terrible," he wrote. (However, it was clear enough for authorities in Escambia County, Florida -- who arrested Pugh a few days later.) [Buffalo News, 12-26-2015] [WJW-TV (Cleveland), 1-12-2016]

The Sept. 11, 2001, attacks led (among many other effects) to massive "homeland security" spending in which Congress was spooked by "what if" scenarios and motivated to disburse budget-busting funding among all 50 states. Among the questionable projects described in an August (2011) Los Angeles Times review were the purchase of an inflatable Zodiac boat with wide-scan sonar -- to be prepared for terrorists eyeing Lake McConaughy in Keith County, Nebraska; cattle nose leads, halters and electric prods (in case of biological attacks on cows in Cherry County, Nebraska); and $557,400 in communications and rescue gear for when North Pole, Alaska (pop. 2,100), gets hit. [Los Angeles Times, 8-28-2011]