The worldwide boom in commodities has come to this: Even guano, the bird dung that was the focus of an imperialist scramble on the high seas in the 19th century, is in strong demand once again. Surging prices for synthetic fertilisers and organic foods are shifting attention to guano, an organic fertiliser once found in abundance on this island and more than 20 others off the coast of Peru, where an exceptionally dry climate preserves the droppings of seabirds like the guanay cormorant and the Peruvian booby
An ancient gold cup mysteriously acquired by a British scrap metal dealer is to be sold at auction with an estimate of nearly $1 million, after languishing for years in a shoe box under its current owner’s bed
olice in the Czech republic are trying to find out who stole a 4 tonne railway bridge from the border town of Cheb. The company which was responsible for looking after the bridge raised the alarm when, ever alert, they noticed that the bridge wasn’t there any more
An open wireless network led to a Danish police investigation of a stolen credit card. The police wanted to confiscate the author’s computer. When the author’s roommate agreed to also let the police look at her first generation iMac, they were frustrated because they thought the iMac was just the screen. They wanted to know where the actual computer was and got rather heated about finding it, according to the author of Rottin’ in Denmark
Telephone companies have cut off FBI wiretaps used to eavesdrop on suspected criminals because of the bureau’s repeated failures to pay phone bills on time. More than half of 990 bills to pay for telecommunication surveillance in five unidentified FBI field offices were not paid on time, the report shows. In one office alone, unpaid costs for wiretaps from one phone company totaled $66,000
Until the early days of the Blair government the RAF’s nuclear bombs were armed by turning a bicycle lock key. There was no other security on the Bomb itself. While American and Russian weapons were protected by tamper-proof combination locks which could only be released if the correct code was transmitted, Britain relied on a simpler technology
Randy Steel is no detective, but he may have solved a peculiar holiday mystery. More than 500 bulbs have gone missing this month from the City Park light display in Twin Falls. Officials say they’re not sure who is taking the lights, or why. Steel says he’s a victim, too. The culprits have struck his house, unscrewing light bulbs and dashing away, sometimes in broad daylight. So far, police have done nothing. But that doesn’t surprise Steel. I know who is taking ’em,
he said. It’s squirrels
A team of clockmakers broke into the Pantheon in Paris in September 2005 and spent a year fixing the historic and neglected clock, which had been abandoned by the authorities. They were prosecuted for breaking in, but have just been cleared of the charges in court. The group, Untergunther
have a catalogue of subterranean lo-jinks to their name
The One Laptop Per Child Project (OLPC) is toying with a novel source of power for its low-cost XO laptops: cows. We plan to drive a dynamo (taken from an old Fiat) through a system of belts and pulleys using cows/cattle,
wrote OLPC’s Arjun Sarwal, in an e-mail dated 21 October and posted to one of the group’s discussion lists. Sarwal and others are now finalising the design of the cow-powered generator
Pioneering research into a gay bomb
that makes enemy troops sexually irresistible
to each other has scooped one of this year’s Ig Nobel Prizes. Other winners included work on treating hamster jetlag with impotency drugs, extracting vanilla from cow dung, and the side-effects of sword swallowing. The awards, founded in 1991, mark achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think
Organisers of a duathlon in Scotland have taken out a one million pound (nearly AU$2.5 million) insurance policy against attack by or sighting of the fabled Loch Ness monster. First Monster Duathlon race director Malcolm Sutherland said they were planning for all eventualities. Transport operator FirstGroup said in a statement its policy with insurers Royal and Sun Alliance would pay out should Nessie
emerge from the murky depths of the vast watercourse and/or attack one of the competitors — via Ben Templesmith
A Japanese biker failed to notice his leg had been severed below the knee when he hit a safety barrier, and rode on for 2km, leaving a friend to pick up the limb. The 54-year-old office worker was out on his motorcycle with a group of friends in the city of Hamamatsu, west of Tokyo, yesterday, when he was unable to negotiate a curve in the road and bumped into the central barrier. He felt excruciating pain, but did not notice that his right leg was missing until he stopped at the next junction
A two-year-old cat has become a telltale sign of death at a Rhode Island nursing home, curling up beside dying patients in their final few hours. Dr David Dosa, a geriatrician at the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Centre in Providence, detailed the phenomenon Thursday in a brief essay titled A Day in the Life of Oscar the Cat
. Since he arrived at the centre two years ago, Oscar has been at the side of 25 patients who have died — via Darren Barefoot
University of Colorado police are investigating a series of threatening messages and documents e-mailed to and slipped under the door of evolutionary biology labs on the Boulder campus. The messages included the name of a religious-themed group and addressed the debate between evolution and creationism. There were no overt threats to anybody specifically by name,
CU Police Commander Brad Wiesley said. It basically said anybody who doesn’t believe in our religious belief is wrong and should be taken care of
Despite goading from her co-hosts on the cable news channel MSNBC, including the former Republican congressman turned rightwing talkshow host Joe Scarborough, newsreader Mika Brzezinski stood her ground and refused to read her segment’s lead news item on Paris Hilton. Clips of her shredding the script were the lead item on the Technorati search, while the blogosphere was alight with praise. I have a new hero, and her name is Mika Brzezinski
, wrote one
Pakistani police say they have arrested nine people for abducting people, drugging them and stealing their kidneys for transplant operations. Selling kidneys from living donors is not illegal in Pakistan, which medical experts say has a reputation as the world’s kidney bazaar. But police say those arrested in the eastern city of Lahore tricked people then drugged them with tranquillisers before removing their kidneys. Hundreds of rich foreigners come to Pakistan every year and buy kidneys from live, impoverished donors, in a business thought to be worth millions of dollars
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has filed a lawsuit against psychic
Uri Geller after Geller filed a DMCA YouTube takedown notice over a video clip that lasted a few seconds. But there’s a second lawsuit afoot. Geller also sued a skeptic over the same video, claiming copyright infringement — via Declan McCullagh
An artist has offered to donate his own head to an Oxford museum — if a collection of shrunken heads has to be returned to South America. Children’s author and artist, Ted Dewan is offering to leave instructions in his will for his head to be shrunk and put on display, if the Oxford museum’s current collection of 10 heads from the Upper Amazon region has to be repatriated
A Darth Vader mask has been tendered as evidence as the Darwin Magistrates Court hears charges against Lord Mayor Peter Adamson. The charges relate to the purchase of a $900 fridge and $1,800-worth of gift vouchers which he bought in June last year, then claimed reimbursement from the mayoral donations fund. The prosecution alleges the vouchers were used to buy a number of items including make-up, clothes and a Darth Vader voice changer
A man cut off his own head with a chainsaw after stabbing his 70-year-old father to death in their apartment in the German city of Cologne. The body of the offender, 24, was found headless when police raced to the apartment after an emergency call, apparently from the dying father, had been broken off in mid-sentence — via Warren Ellis
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