A German architect has filed an application for a new type of cement made of dog poo. Friedrich Lentze, 57, from Berlin, applied for a patent for his odourless heating and building material
made from the dog poo cleaned from the streets of the German capital every day. Dung has for centuries been used as building material and he had combined it with modern materials to come up with a new type of insulating cement — via Warren Ellis
Authorities in Queensland, Australia are investigating a Brisbane pathology lab employee who allegedly stole bits of brains from corpses. Apparently, the hormones found in the pituitary glands that he reportedly nicked can be injected into race horses as a stimulant — via Boingboing
Black magic may have driven a Cambodian couple, Chheng Chhorn, 46, and Srun Yoeung, 37, to attack their 12-year-old child before dawn on Thursday while she was still asleep, biting off her thumb nails and a small part of her nose to drink her blood, said Keo Norea Phy, a police official in Kampong Cham province where the incident occurred — via Warren Ellis
The retarded monkey boy has claimed he was told by god to invade Iraq and attack Osama bin Laden’s stronghold of Afghanistan as part of a divine mission to bring peace to the Middle East, security for Israel, and a state for the Palestinians. The President made the assertion during his first meeting with Palestinian leaders in June 2003, according to a BBC series which will be broadcast this month
A village council in eastern India has fined two brothers for keeping a pet ghost. Iswar and Haripada Murmu, of Akshaypur in West Bengal, were accused of owning a ghost after one of their wives died. An exorcist summoned by villagers claimed the brothers’ pet ghost was responsible for a recent outbreak of disease in the locality
. Village elders said they were bringing evil to the village and fined them the equivalent of £360 — via Warren Ellis
The Ig Nobel awards for 2005 were presented at Harvard University
Leon Holliman Jr of Jacksonville, Florida was reported missing from the River Region Human Services facility last month. On Sunday, he was found in North Carolina dressed like a doctor and driving a stolen ambulance with a dead deer in the back. The police had to shoot out the ambulance’s tyres to catch him. He’s now undergoing psychiatric evaluation — via BoingBoing
Armed dolphins, trained by the US military to shoot terrorists and pinpoint spies underwater, may be missing in the Gulf of Mexico. Experts who have studied the US navy’s cetacean training exercises claim the 36 mammals could be carrying toxic dart
guns. Divers and surfers risk attack, they claim, from a species considered to be among the planet‚Äôs smartest. The US navy admits it has been training dolphins for military purposes, but has refused to confirm that any are missing. Dolphins have been trained in attack-and-kill missions since the Cold War. The US Atlantic bottlenose dolphins have apparently been taught to shoot terrorists attacking military vessels. Their coastal compound was breached during the storm, sweeping them out to sea — via Warren Ellis
A 60m long pink toy rabbit lies on the side of the 1,500m high Colletto Fava mountain in northern Italy’s Piedmont region. Viennese art group Gelatin designed the giant soft toy and say it was knitted by dozens of grannies out of pink wool
. The bunny is not just for walking around, the artists are expecting hikers to climb its 20 foot sides and relax on its belly. The giant rabbit is expected to remain on the mountain side until 2025 — via lucie
A malfunctioning light bulb in a school gym, at the Baker Elementary School in Columbia, exposed more than 100 people to short-wave radiation for an hour, sending 18 to the hospital with severe sunburns and swollen eyes. Dr Michael Richardson, an emergency room doctor from the Maury Regional Hospital, said the symptoms, similar to overexposure from a tanning bed, were produced by a radiation leak from a halide bulb. The bulbs, commonly used in gyms, are designed with a special membrane that blocks the UV rays, but occasionally the membranes break — via Warren Ellis
A Chinese cosmetics company is using skin harvested from the corpses of executed convicts to develop beauty products for sale in Europe. Agents for the firm have told would-be customers it is developing collagen for lip and wrinkle treatments from skin taken from prisoners after they have been shot. The agents say some of the company’s products have been exported to the UK, and that the use of skin from condemned convicts is traditional
and nothing to make such a big fuss about
— via BoingBoing
Ghosts may be headed to court in Orlando to help settle a very human fight. The owners of Amura Japanese Restaurant say they don’t want to move into a renovated building at Church Street Station because it’s haunted, according to a lawsuit filed by the building’s landlord — via Neil Gaiman
The Ministry of Reshelving is a collaborative political prank / game in which participants move copies of books, such as George Orwell’s 1984, to non-fiction sections, such as US History or True Crime — via BoingBoing
The tibetan sky burial involves the body being fed to vultures. Once the spirit leaves the body there is no longer any need for the body. The body (wrapped in white cloth) is placed on a platform of stones (in a fenced off area designated as a burial site). It is then unwrapped and sliced up with huge cleavers by a butcher (the Tomden), to expose flesh and bone. The butchers are often monks who specialise in the task of butchery. The butchers work methodically and professionally. Vultures are attracted by juniper smoke and the exposed flesh and begin to eat the body. The Tomden then returns to the body cutting off arms and legs and feeding it to the vultures.
The Tomden may work with other Tomden and throw pieces of flesh to the vultures. He also smashes and pulverises bones (with rock or sledgehammer), including the skull, feeding the brain (after it has been mixed with flour) and marrow to the crows and other birds, until nothing is left. The Tomden may also create skull bowls or thigh bone trumpets from the remains.
Eventually, nothing is left of the body. This act of giving one’s body is the last generous act of the deceased to living beings — via Paul Mellen
Ruben Latang Jr, one of the suspects in the grisly murder of a villager in Glan, Sarangani whose flesh was eaten and his blood drank by a cannibal gang, has been taken into custody. The cannibal gang has sown terror in the far-flung villages at the borders of Glan, Sarangani and Jose Abad Santos in Davao del Sur — via Warren Ellis
Wang Ying, 73, has been practicing Kung Fu, especially the study of Qi, since he was just eight-years-old. But his studies took a new direction after a 5cm long tumour grew on his forehead. Doctors told him they could not operate on the tumour because of its location. So Wang has incorporated it into his Qi routine, using his horn to lift bricks — via Warren Ellis
16-year-old Peter Ash, of Lawford, Somerset, attached a generator to his hamster’s exercise wheel and connected it to his phone charger. He came up with the idea after his sister Sarah complained that Elvis was keeping her awake at night by playing for hours on his exercise wheel.
I thought the wheel could be made to do something useful so I connected a system of gears and a turbine,
he said.
Every two minutes Elvis spends on his wheel gives me about thirty minutes talk time on my phone
— via boingboing
Professional loony fundie, Pat Robertson, called for the murder of the President of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez. In an apology he repeated the call for murder. Welcome to the voice of Christian extremism
A vendor in a Stormtrooper suit (with a plastic laser gun) at a Star Wars convention in Janesville, Wisconsin, was surrounded by police after someone called the police and said that there was an armed robber
in fancy white armour at the local Ramada — via BoingBoing
The owner of a CCTV surveillance shop which was robbed by a hooded thief has said the incident was the biggest boost to business imaginable
. The suspect was caught stealing a £700 laptop on eight separate cameras at CCTV Surveillance Solutions — via Feòrag
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