Bizarre News

[ThunderTitan]

Then why don't you marry it?!

Giant truffle sets record price

One of the biggest truffles found in decades has fetched $330,000 (£165,000) at an auction held simultaneously in Macau, London and Florence.

A Macau casino owner, Stanley Ho, made the record-breaking bid for the white truffle, which weighed 1.5kg (3.3lb).

Luciano Savini and his son found the highly-prized fungus after it was dug up by his truffle dog near Pisa, northern Italy, last week.

He said he was overwhelmed by the high price paid for his discovery.

He said: "I thought we were going to beat the record, but not to really get to this amount.

"The biggest truffle of the century and the most expensive truffle of the century. There are no more words to say - it is all very beautiful."

Mr Ho outbid British artist Damien Hirst and Sheikh Mansour Bin Zayed of Abu Dhabi to the prize, according to the South China Morning Post.

All proceeds from the auction were donated to charities.

[asandir]

I don't believe in polygamy

German woman gives birth to first child at 64

A German woman aged 64 has given birth to a healthy baby girl, a national record and her first child after years of unfruitful attempts and false pregnancies, a report says.

"Mother and child are doing well," Dr Elias Karam at the Aschaffenburg clinic in southern Bavaria said, quoted by the website of Der Spiegel weekly.

The baby was born on Thursday by caesarian section and weighed two kilograms, the report said.

While the woman became the oldest German to given birth, it was far from a world record.

At the end of 2006, a Spanish woman of 67 gave birth to twins, pipping the record made the year before by another twin-bearer, this time a 66-year-old Romanian.

The German birth came thanks to the donation of ovules by a 25-year-old donor but used the sperm of her husband, who is also aged 64, Spiegel Online reports.

The ovule operation happened abroad because it is banned in Germany, the report said.

"This woman came to me because she needed my help. As a doctor, I gave it without question," Dr Karam said.

[Pol]

She takes her time, that's for sure.

But wait, soon girls will be having kids in theirs late early hundred or so, trendy, trendy.

[asandir]

maybe not that late, but who knows?

Alleged Mafia boss arrested while watching Mafia TV show

Italian police burst into the room of a suspected Mafia mobster in Sicily and arrested him as he watched a television show about the arrest of a Mafia boss, investigators said.

Police said Michele Catalano was watching the concluding chapter of the TV mini-series The Boss of Bosses, recounting the arrest in 1993 of real-life Cosa Nostra leader Salvatore "Toto" Riina, when he was detained.

Catalano, 48, is suspected of being a senior commander serving under the latest "boss of bosses" Salvatore Lo Piccolo, who was arrested this month after nearly 25 years on the run.

Catalano faces charges of drug trafficking and extortion.

Lo Piccolo had taken over the reins of the Sicilian crime syndicate from Riina's successor Bernardo Provenzano, who was arrested last year after 40 years on the run.

Police say the arrests have seriously weakened the Mafia.

[Pol]

maybe not that late, but who knows?

Alleged Mafia boss arrested while watching Mafia TV show

Ah, so now will be Gonzalo in charge.
(Varied are ways of mafia.. - ps did you know that mafia is a czech word? It was something like "movement resistance", of course, italians have theirs own ways of adaptation such regular terms.)

[asandir]

like thug?

[Pol]

What like thug? It was national movement resistance... it consisted from revivers, politics in underground.. and such. It's however just one of possible explanation. The second one means that it could be derivated from maffia;malfusso - like living in poverty; unbeliever or thug.

It may be bit of everything but it's too hard to estimate what was first.
(Although here is one pretty straightway logical way.)

[Elvin]

Mummified Dinosaur found

Ok not the kind of Egyptian pharaoh mummy type The dinosaur body has been fossilized into stone. Unlike the collections of bones found in museums, this hadrosaur came complete with skin, ligaments, tendons and possibly some internal organs, according to researchers.

That said no DNA so there won't be a Jurassic Park anytime soon

[Pol]

Yes, here was lot of frogs like that. Frogs are loving when they can jump into the stone.

(Directly.)

Here are possibly untold rumours in frog's underground, about the life chance for "Big Jump."

[Omega_Destroyer]

That said no DNA so there won't be a Jurassic Park anytime soon

That's good. I'm convinced either cloned dinosaurs or robots will be the end of us.

[ThunderTitan]

Don't worry, cloned dinos will all have arthritis...

[asandir]

Lottery fever hits Germany over record jackpot

Millions of people are crowding into German shops to fill out lottery forms in hopes of winning Wednesday's record 43 million euro ($72.5 million) jackpot.

Lottery officials said thousands of foreigners from neighbouring countries France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Poland, Austria and Switzerland were also streaming across the border to buy tickets.

The previous record was 37.7 million euros, won in 2006.

About 15 million people filled out 25 million tickets for the last draw on Saturday, when the jackpot was up to 38 million euros.

No one won, raising the total to 43 million for Wednesday. The lottery expects to sell another 100 million worth of tickets for Wednesday's draw. There have been 12 drawings without a winner since the end of October.

In the face of a sharp rise in demand for tickets, the lottery has set up a special courier service to deliver tickets to the 24,500 shops and kiosks.

[ThunderTitan]

How is that un any way bizzare or even interesting?

[asandir]

because I said so

is this better?

Turkish thief 'sets example' with sorry letter

A Turkish thief has sent a letter of repentance to police for four car robberies 15 years ago, enclosing money to repay for stolen cassette players.

The thief, who remained anonymous, sent the letter to the security department in Kirikkale, central Turkey.

Local police chief Salim Akca has told Anatolia news agency the thief also enclosed 400 euros ($680).

He says the thief detailed the four robberies committed in 1992, instructed police to give 100 euros each to the car owners and asked for their forgiveness.

"I hope this incident will be an example for all criminals," he said.

The police traced three of the owners and gave them the money.

They failed to track down the fourth person and donated the money to poor children.

[ThunderTitan]

that will do grasshopper, that will do...

[asandir]

thank the lord for that, I crave your approval

Prisoner smuggles woman into jail in plastic bag: reports

A Moroccan jailed for terrorism offences smuggled a woman into his prison cell in a large plastic bag and spent six hours with her there before being caught, media reports said.

The prisoner is serving time in a Casablanca jail for belonging to the radical Islamist movement Salafia Jihadia and engaging in "terrorist activities," newspapers said.

The young woman came to see the prisoner and he smuggled her from the visiting room into his cell in a bag that he persuaded guards contained clothes, according to Assabah newspaper.

The Al Ittihad Al Ichtiraki paper said the woman spent six hours there before the pair were caught, adding that the prisoner was subsequently transferred to another jail in Casablanca.

An official from the Ain Borja prison confirmed "the discovery by guards of a woman inside the prison" but said the media reports contained "inaccuracies". He told AFP in particular that she was only in the prisoner's cell for an hour.

An inquiry has been launched into how the incident, thought to be the first of its kind, could occur.

[winterfate]

Woah!!

Six hours is a long time...

[asandir]

Kangaroo farts could fight global warming: scientists

Australian scientists are trying to give kangaroo-style stomachs to cattle and sheep in a bid to cut the emission of greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.

Thanks to special bacteria in their stomachs, kangaroos' flatulence contains no methane and scientists want to transfer that bacteria to cattle and sheep who emit large quantities of the harmful gas.

While the usual image of greenhouse gas pollution is a billowing smokestack pushing out carbon dioxide, livestock passing wind contribute a surprisingly high percentage of total emissions in some countries.

Queensland Government senior research scientist Athol Klieve says 14 per cent of emissions from all sources in Australia are from enteric methane from cattle and sheep.

"If you look at another country such as New Zealand, which has got a much higher agricultural base, they're actually up around 50 per cent," he said.

Researchers say the bacteria also makes the digestive process much more efficient and could potentially save millions of dollars in feed costs for farmers.

"Not only would they not produce the methane, they would actually get something like 10 to 15 per cent more energy out of the feed they are eating," Dr Klieve said.


Farming view

Even farmers who laugh at the idea of environmentally friendly kangaroo farts say that it is nothing to joke about, particularly given the devastating drought Australia is suffering.

"In a tight year like a drought situation, 15 per cent [more energy] would be a considerable sum," said farmer Michael Mitton.

But it will take researchers at least three years to isolate the bacteria before they can even start to develop a way of transferring it to cattle and sheep.

Another group of scientists has suggested Australians farm fewer cattle and sheep and just eat more kangaroos.

The idea is controversial but about 20 per cent of health-conscious Australians are believed to eat the national symbol already.

Peter Ampt, from the University of New South Wales's Institute of Environmental Studies, says the meat has health benefits.

"It's low in fat. It's got high protein levels. It's very clean," he said.

"It doesn't get drenched. It doesn't get vaccinated. It utilises food right across the landscape. It moves around to where the food is good. It's a good food."

[winterfate]

COOL!!!

That's why I'm studying Microbiology!

Bacteria FTW!

[asandir]

no mystery as far as I'm concerned

Mystery deepens as back-from-the-dead Briton arrested

A British man has been arrested on suspicion of fraud after he walked into a police station five years after disappearing, claiming he had lost his memory.

In another twist to the story grabbing headlines around the world, a newspaper published a photograph allegedly showing the man, John Darwin, smiling together with his wife last year in Panama - where she recently moved after selling up in Britain.

"Following a request from Cleveland police late last night, John Darwin was arrested on suspicion of fraud.... He was held in custody overnight," said Detective Superintendent Tony Hutchinson.

Darwin, 57, who was believed drowned after going canoeing in the North Sea off north-east England in 2002, walked into a central London police station on Saturday and said he was a missing person.

He told police he could remember nothing of the last five years, and after what was described as an emotional reunion with his children was said to have no memory of anything since June 2000, two years before he went missing.

Supt Hutchinson, issuing an appeal for information on Darwin's whereabouts over the last half decade, confirmed that he was "tanned, well-nourished and apparently in good health" when he arrived at the police station.

"John Darwin very well might have been suffering amnesia for five-and-a-half years," he said, but at the other end of the scale he alleged that "there has been some criminal offences committed".

He confirmed that police began investigating the Darwin case about three months ago after receiving "information to suggest that there was something suspicious with regard to his disappearance," of a "financial" nature.


Panama sighting

Suspicion over the case was fuelled when the Daily Mirror printed a front-page photograph of what it said was Darwin with his wife Anne in Panama City in July last year.

The picture appears on the website of a Panamanian property company that helps expatriates settle in the country, under the names John and Anne.

The firm's boss told the newspaper they had not used the surname "Darwin" and he could not confirm whether they were British.

Anne Darwin, 55, who gave up her husband for dead after his canoe washed up on the shore at Seaton Carew, in north-east England, moved permanently to central America six weeks ago.

She told the Daily Mirror and Daily Mail newspapers that she had received life insurance payments in her husband's name in "good faith" during his disappearance but accepted the money may now have to be repaid.

"If that happens, of course it won't be easy, but I'll deal with it. It is not the money I ever wanted - it was having my husband back," she said.

Superintendent Hutchinson said the investigation was at an early stage, but acknowledged that if necessary he will seek Anne Darwin's extradition.

"It is something that we will look at over the coming days, over the coming weeks," he said.

The British Government signed an extradition treaty with Panama in 1907, but the Home Office said it has no records of anyone being extradited from the Central American country under the agreement.

Anne Darwin said she was told of his reappearance Saturday night.

"This is the moment I've always prayed for," she said.

"I didn't know what to say, there were so many emotions running through my head.... Then he put me on to John. 'I can't believe I'm speaking to you,' I said. And he said pretty much the same."