Archives

The head of the Perse School in Cambridge, England, recently instituted a "10-Second Rule" for minor disciplinary infractions: Students could avoid punishment if they quickly produced a clever explana... more

Plastic surgeons in Turkey and France told CNN in November that mustache implants have suddenly surged in popularity as Middle Eastern men use their increased lip bushiness to convey power and prestig... more

Yes, This Is Really How They Do It: The Wolong Panda Training Base in Sichuan, China, released a series of photos to China Daily in October to mark the graduation from captivity, and into the wild, of... more

If an asteroid is ever on a collision course with Earth, it is feasible that the planet could be saved by firing paintballs at it, according to an MIT graduate student whose detailed plan won this yea... more

No Do-Overs: By 2009, James Washington believed he had gotten away with a 1995 murder, but then he had a heart attack, and on his deathbed, in a fit of remorse, he confessed to a confidant. ("I have t... more

In October, state alcohol agents, assisted by local police in full riot gear, pointing their weapons, raided a bar in Largo, Fla., to shut down the latest gathering of the venerable Nutz Poker League,... more

Chutzpah! The former police chief of Bell, Calif., Randy Adams, had resigned in disgrace after prosecutors charged eight other city officials with looting the municipal budget. Adams had been recruite... more

"Coming Up Next! The Resurrection! Live!": "If the Messiah descends from the Mount of Olives as foretold in the Bible," wrote the Los Angeles Times in an October dispatch from Jerusalem, the two large... more

Horse show jumping is a longtime Olympics sport, but for the last 10 years, equestrians have been performing in "horseless" show jumping, in which horse courses are run by "riders" on foot (who, by th... more

For September's Digital Design Weekend at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, artists Michiko Nitta and Michael Burton commissioned soprano Louise Ashcroft to sing, altering pitch and volume whi... more

Modern Warfare: China, Japan and Taiwan each claim ownership of the uninhabited South China Sea islands of Senkaku or Diaoyu, and the controversy heightened in September when Japan announced that it h... more

For some reason, South Korea (with about one-sixth the men that America has) is the world's largest consumer of male cosmetics, with its leading company approaching $1 billion a year in sales. Accordi... more

At a conference in August, researchers from North Carolina State University demonstrated their latest technological advance in aiding "first responders" to peacetime and wartime disasters: cockroaches... more

And What Were Y-o-u Doing at Age 14? Among the students featured in Popular Science's September list of young inventors was Fabian Fernandez-Han, 14, of Conroe, Texas, who invented a bicycle that, whe... more

Researchers Having Fun: Scientists from the Primate Research Institute at Japan's Kyoto University reported in an August journal article that they had given helium gas to apes (gibbons), which, predic... more

Are We Safe? In August, Daniel Castillo'a Jet Ski broke down in New York City's Jamaica Bay, forcing him to swim to the nearest shore -- at JFK International Airport. As Castillo roamed the grounds, h... more

In August, the federal Drug Enforcement Administration dropped all charges against a doctor who has been at the center of a prescription-drug fraud case because, said prosecutors, they have too much e... more

Unclear on the Concept (and the Image): The Associated Press, reporting in August from Jerusalem, noted that the ultra-Orthodox community's "modesty patrols" were selling eyeglasses with "special blur... more

First Amendment Blues: (1) A bar in Horry County, S.C., named the Suck Bang Blow filed a lawsuit in May challenging the county's new ordinance prohibiting motorcyclists' "burnouts" (engine-revving wit... more

Fern Cooper, 65, and 13 other cataract-surgery patients arrived at Ontario's Oakville Trafalgar Hospital on June 25 to learn that they would not receive the usual anesthesia because the hospital had d... more

New York City's tap water is already widely regarded as world-class, in safety and taste (and subjected to a half-million tests a year by the city's Department of Environmental Protection). However, t... more

Urinal Technology: (1) Two Brazilian firms collaborated recently to test a whimsical device that could perhaps lessen splashing on men's room floors: a urinal containing a fretboard that makes musical... more

Perspective: Of the world's 7 billion people, an estimated 2.6 billion do not have toilet access, and every day a reported 4,000 children die from sanitation-related illnesses. However, in May, in Por... more

Japanese Scientists, Overperforming: (1) Researchers at the University of Tokyo's Graduate School of Information Science and Technology have developed goggles that can enlarge the image of a bite of f... more

Slaved Over a Hot Stove: Delivering gourmet meals to customers' doors is a fast-growing business model, with chefs in nearly every large modern city trying to cash in. So far, perhaps only London's br... more

Update: Last week's News of the Weird gave serial impregnator Desmond Hatchett, of Knoxville, Tenn., too much credit. It is true that he has fathered at least 24 kids by at least 11 different women (a... more

Chinese media reported that on May 4th, at the Xiaogan Middle School in Hubei province, high school students studying for the all-important national college entrance exam worked through the evening wh... more

Norway is home to perhaps the most inmate-friendly prison in the world (as mentioned previously in "News of the Weird"), but the correctional system has an imminent crisis, as Anders Behring Breivik (... more