Strange stories from around the world, some of which might be true...
- A 66-year-old woman out for a walk beside the Danube river near Kirchroth, Lower Bavaria, was somewhat surprised to see a snake basking in the sun. Not because it was a
snake, they have them in Bavaria, but this one was more than 6' (2m) in length. It was an anaconda, a species that can grow up to 29' (9m) long and is native to South
America. They can be kept as pets in Bavaria, under strict conditions, and it is thought that this one had escaped. A reptile specialist captured it without difficulty. ●
Three rock hyraxes have been born at Chester Zoo. Resembling squat meerkats rock hyraxes also live in family groups and sentries watch out for predators while the group is
feeding, but unlike meerkats, and much to the surprise of anyone who sees them, they belong to the same evolutionary group as elephants and manatees. ● A wild marmot, or groundhog,
discovered in San Francisco, hundreds of miles from its usual habitat in the Sierra Nevada mountains is thought to have crawled into the undercarriage of a car or truck, drank
radiator fluid and passed out, only to awake in the city. A spokesperson for Yggdrasil Urban Wildlife Rescue, which took custody of the marmot to return it to the mountains,
told reporters that they had seen marmots exhibiting the behaviour before. ● Sarah Schroeder, a doctoral entomology student at the University of California Riverside has
named a newly discovered genus of Australian plant-feeding insects Swiftiephylus, and the four species within Swiftiephylus taylorae, Swiftiephylus
intrepidus, Swiftiephylus amator and Swiftiephylus poetorum because their colouring reminded her of singer Taylor Swift's blonde hair and red lips. The
insects are not the first creatures to be named after Swift. In 2022 a brown and orange millipede discovered in Tennessee was named Nannaria swiftae. ● Voting for
Alaska's annual Fat Bear Week opens on Tuesday, with worldwide viewers of the Katmai National Park and Preserve's webcams voting for which of the park's bears they think has
fattened up the most in preparation for hibernation. You can join in the fun via explore.org. The contenders will
be announced this Friday. ● Three African wild dog brothers fitting with GPS collars have been tracked making a 2,485-mile (4,000km) trek across Zambia, the furthest
recorded distance for an African land mammal. ● Brigid Lynch, a geomorphologist studying a wooded creek in the Santa Cruz mountains south of San Francisco for a habitat
restoration project saw something that looked out of place in the middle of the creek. It was a fossilised mastodon tooth, about 9" (23cm) long. The tooth, from the extinct
elephantlike animal, was complete with the crown, root and part of the root canal visible. Mastodons lived in what is now North America for a few million years, becoming extinct
10,000-12,000 years ago.
- NASA has warned that the Apophis asteroid will pass closer to Earth than some geosynchrous-orbit satellites on Friday 13th April 2029. It will be the closest
passage of any comparable known asteroid in recorded history, about 20,000 miles (32,000km) away. While technically described as "potentially hazardous" it is not expected
to impact the planet. ● The James Webb Space telescope has - again - discovered the earliest-known galaxy, MoM-z14, which existed 280 million years after the Big Bang,
20 million years earlier than the previous record holder, JADES-GS-z14-0. ● The planet Mercury is just 3,023 miles (4,865km) across, smaller than Titan, a moon of Saturn,
and Ganymede, one of Jupiter's moons. Mercury is also shrinking, something astronomers have known for some time, but data from the MESSENGER probe, which has photographed
Mercury's surface in detail and used a laser-altimeter to map it, has suggested that the contraction is more than previously thought, up to 14.5 miles (23km) since it formed
4.5 billion years ago. ● A new theory posits that in the early millennia of the Solar System the young Sun 'swallowed' a super-Earth, a rocky planet several times the
size of Earth, and traces of the lost planet can explain features of the Sun's structure, including the depth of the convection zone and the structure beneath it, as well as the
lack of lithium on the star's surface.
- A Finnish metal detectorist who unearthed a hoard of 11th-century coins in the town of Sysmä was shocked when his detector signalled something else nearby -
it was another pile of coins. Altogether the coins, and some jewellery, buried in two birch-bark boxes, weighed 10 pounds (4.5kg) and is Finland's largest coin hoard of the
Viking era. ● Archaeologists excavating a Roman-era cemetary in southern Poland discovered a barrow grave, dating to about 5,000 years ago, which contained a man's
skeleton, two other skulls, beads, a flint knife, a stone axe and a necklace of 42 animal teeth thought to have come from wolves, bears and deer. ● Renovation and
restoration work at Buckingham Palace, London, has uncovered a trove of everyday items thought to have belonged to staff in the middle of the 20th century, under the
floorboards. The items include a pair of hobnail boots an empty Silk Cut cigarette box, a newspaper article about the 1963 Great Train Robbery, betting slips, a bottle of
Schweppes Still Malvern English Spring Water and a typed schedule for a diplomatic reception hosted by Queen Elizabeth II to mark her Silver Jubilee in 1977. ● As part
of commemoratione events to mark the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks a swarm of drones was used in New York City on the night of the 10th to
recreate the outlines of the twin towers of the World Trade Center. ● A video of the 9/11 attack in New York City, from just after American Airlines Flight 11 hit the
North Tower to after United Airlines Flight 175 hit the South Tower in direct sight of the camera, filmed from a boat in the Hudson River, has been widely seen for the
first time after its creator, who uploaded it to YouTube more than twenty years ago, realised that he had accidentally set it to only be visible to a limited audience, and
changed it to public. You can see it here [YouTube, contains swearing, disturbing footage]. ● When
Thomas Jenner-Fust, director of Chorley's Auctioneers, was carrying out a house valuation in the Cotswolds he noticed what the family told him was a reconstituted stone bust
that had been sitting in the garden for more than seventy years, but he realised was something else. The bust was the work of Harriet Goodhue Hosmer, a pioneering feminist and
sculptor in the 19th Century, considered the first professional female sculptor in the US, although she spend much of her time in Rome. It depicts Daphne, the love of
Apollo, and - having been cleaned up - is expected to sell for up to £18,000 ($24,270) at auction. ● Scientists from the Australian Research Centre for Human
Evolution at Brisbane's Griffith University, believe they have found the earliest evidence of humans using psychoactive drugs in a 16,000-25,000-year-old skeleton discovered on
Sulawesi, Indonesia. Its teeth had rounded grooves and traces of arecoline, the psychoactive compound in betel nuts, still chewed today, although in processed form rather than
raw, for their hallucinatory effect. ● Archaeologists at Chan Chan, a pre-Hispanic site in northern Peru, have discovered a tomb containing the remains of 38 people along
with gold and copper objects. ● The original "This is Anfield" sign, hung above the passage to the pitch at Liverpool F.C.'s stadium in 1972, has been sold at
auction for £115,000 ($155,000). Roy Evans, manager of the team between 1994 and 1998 had given the sign to Ronald Wilson, a former member of the Liverpool boys' team, who
hung it at the family hotel in Douglas on the Isle of Man. A duplicate sign still hangs at Anfield, to continue reminding visiting teams that, according to legendary manager Bill
Shankley, they are "going into a cauldron" and are not going to come out with a win...
- Police in Huntsville, Ontario, responding to reports of a crash, arrested a 36-year-old woman and charged her with impaired driving on an e-scooter. She had a blood alcohol
concentration of over 0.8, enough to be potentially fatal. E-scooters are not allowed on public roads in Huntsville. ● After Bernalillo County, New Mexico, cancelled its
contract with the controversial Flock Safety cameras Jevon Martinez, 44, from Rio Rancho, pulled up to the sheriff's office with a pickup full of the cameras, which he had
dismantled. He was charged with interference with communications and larceny over $2,500 (£1,850). He had previously been charged with various felonies after posting videos
online of himself removing at least three Flock cameras, replacing them with "American Civil Peace" stickers, in July. ● Police often record that drivers involved
in crashes were distracted by phones, applying makeup, reading and other activities but a man partially thrown through his car's sunroof then killed as the car rolled in a crash
at 03:30am on I-75 in Detroit, Michigan, was apparently watching pornography on his phone. He was not wearing trousers... Nobody else was injured. ● Last week it was 800
barrels of Guinness, this week thieves have stolen twenty-six pallets, containing thousands of cans of Red Bull energy drink, and "a quantity" of Wrigley's chewing gum,
from a logistics comany at Knowsley Industrial Park on Merseyside.
- The European Union's Copernicus climate service has confirmed that August 2026 was the joint-hottest month on record, tying with July 2023. ● Authorities in France
have given permission for champagne with an alcohol content of up to 15%, up from the standard 13% cap, this year, as extreme heat and drought resulted in grapes growing with
exceptionally high sugar levels; sugar is converted into alcohol by yeast during fermentation. ● Scientists have warned that the wildfires across Wales this summer have
damaged not only the visible blackened vegetation but also the top 4" (10cm) of the underlying soil which would normally hold water and nutrients as well as being a carbon
store. The damage to ecosystems could take decades - or in the case of carbon, millennia, to heal. ● Scientists in Canada have confirmed that with the breakup of the
Milne Ice Shelf in 2020 the country's last epishelf lake, a millennia-old freshwater lake atop the ice shelf, and the ecosystem it held, has disappeared. ● The city of
Bristol in southwest England is creating 200 new wetland areas in a bid to combat flooding and climate change. Wetlands are areas of land that are permanently or seasonally
flooded and include bogs, marshes, canals, ponds and lakes, among other things. Bristol's plan includes floating docks in the harbour, covered with plants. Program lead Peter
Lee told reporters that "cities are designed to get rid of water. This project is turning that on its head, trying to create space for water."
IN BRIEF: In 1910 Walter Griffith Owen took out Milton's Paradise Lost and Shakespeare's King Lear from the Llanrwst Reading Room & Library in
Conwy county, Wales, for a week's loan, but did not return them. His grandson, Peter O'Sullivan, recently discovered them hidden behind items on a shelf while going through his
late grandfather's items, and decided to return them to what is now Llanrwst Library. He was rather concerned about any fines - the books contained a note saying that if they
were "required for a second week, application should be made to the caretaker. Fee, one penny per week." After more than 6,000 weeks that would have been a couple of
hundred pounds in old pence, plus interest, but library manager Medi Ashton thanked him and waived the fines. Describing the books as being in "excellent condition",
Ashton hopes that the books, donated to the old library in the 1890s, will be displayed in Llanwrst Library as part of a cultural heritage exhibition. ● Two Indian-born
women who were adopted as babies by different families over 40 years ago and raised near each other in the Netherlands, becoming best friends, lost contact when one moved to
France 15 years ago, both coincidentally took the MyHeritage DNA test and discovered that they are full sisters. They have reunited. ● When the public library in
Middletown Springs, Vermont, moved to a new and larger building down the road there was one problem - how to move its stock of more than 5,000 books and other items. The
community came to the rescue, forming a human chain, dubbed "the Great Book Brigade" by library officials, last Saturday. ● With increasing reports of European
defence forces being scrambled to intercept Russian drones, either accidentally entering European airspace by overshooting Ukraine, or deliberately testing defence forces, it
is quite a relief to report that after a drone was reported approaching Vilnius Airport in Lithuania, an Italian fighter jet, based in nothern Lithuania as part of the NATO
Baltic Air Defence mission, was scrambled, only for the pilot to report that, after sighting the reported drone, it was actually a flock of birds... ● Belfast resident Marie
Macleavey, who used to live in New York City, tends to voice her opinions out loud while watching TV. She also has an 11-year-old African Grey parrot, called Lucky Angel. Lucky
complains out loud when visitors smoke or vape, and has now taken to screeching "W*NKER!" every time Donald Trump appears on the TV... [You and most of the world,
Lucky... -Ed] ● Craig Berg, 70, was hiking on Isle Royale in Lake Superior when he disappeared on September 5th. He was discovered alive, but dehydrated and
injured, a week later, during a coordinated search by backpackers, state police officers and officials. He was taken off the island in a US Coastguard helicopter. ● A
15-year-old boy has been rescued after spending days sitting on an upturned boat in Alaska's Bering Sea after it capsized. His older brother and cousin's bodies were in the
boat. The boy had clear hypothermia when rescued by a fishing boat but was otherwise unhurt.
UPDATES: Forty-nine saplings grown from seeds recovered from the Sycamore Gap tree, illegally felled in 2023 by Daniel Graham and Adam Carruthers, have been given to
projects around the country, to carry what the National Trust call a "message of hope". Each sapling represents one foot (30cm) of the original tree. As well as the
saplings, of which there are a few spares in reserve, the stump of the tree has also sprouted new growth, although it will take over 150 years to grow back to its former height.
