Weird News of the World Thread - Part 2

[redmarvel]

Secretly Built Toronto Tunnel

In a wooded area close to York University and near a Tennis Court that will be used for the Pan Am games someone went to a lot of trouble to secretly build a tunnel.

6 feet high (2 meters), 33 ft long (11 meters), 2' 10" wide (2/3rds of a meter), built by hand it included a generator for electricity, lights and re-inforced walls.

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2015/02/24/york-u-tunnel-yields-eerie-clues.html

Discovered on February 14th, it is still unknown who built it or why.

 

[Apollo]

The most dangerous sword on Earth?

Kalaripayattu is considered to be the oldest fighting system, and the urumi — a flexible whip-like sword — is its most difficult weapon to master. An urumi wielder requires great agility and knowledge of the weapon simply to avoid self-injury.

http://digg.com/video/the-most-dangerous-sword-on-earth

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

British Man Who Tried to Bang Mailbox Found Dead

Paul Bennett, the British man convicted of indecent exposure last month after rubbing his genitals on a mailbox and shouting "wow," was found dead this week, the New York Daily News reports. He was 45.

According to the Daily Mail, Bennett's body was discovered early Sunday morning behind the Shanghai Palace in his hometown of Wigan. Authorities do not suspect foul play, a police spokesperson saying, "His death is non-suspicious so the coroner is now dealing with it."

In January, Bennett was sentenced to 12 months of supervision with alcohol treatment and to register as a sex offender after dropping his pants in a shopping center and making "sexual advances toward" a postbox. From the Manchester Evening News:

He then rubbed himself against the postbox while holding his hands in the air and shouting "wow".

After completing the act he pulled his trousers up and started swinging on a lamppost.

An alarmed eye-witness called police, who found him exposing himself again when they arrived.

An acquaintance spoke well of Bennett, telling Wigan Today, "He had his troubles but he wasn't a bad lad."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...g-sex-postbox-dead-weeks-appearing-court.html

Maybe not being able to be with the mailboxes he loved was too much for him

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Rob Ford Invites You to Own a Piece of Crack-Smoking History

As far as basehead mayor memorabilia goes, the tie Rob Ford wore when he admitted to smoking crack cocaine is hardly a museum piece. It is, however, something you can actually buy and own, one of several personal items Ford put on eBay Wednesday night.

Under the less-than-inspired handle "torontorobford," the former mayor also put some moose print jammie pants, a size 4XL football jersey and a poster that looks like it came from Spencer's Gifts up for auction.

Each item, it seems, has a special connection to the Ford administration. The listing for the pants, for instance, boasts, "These are the print patterned pants that Councillor Rob Ford was seen wearing on a shopping trip to Wal-Mart."

But caveat emptor, eager Rob Ford collectors: torontorobford currently has a feedback score of 0.

http://www.ebay.ca/usr/torontorobfo...ue&clk_rvr_id=787465133873&afsrc=1&rmvSB=true

I know KevanG is going to be all over this stuff

 

[squeekness]

I was just going to ask, "who would pay for this crap?"

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

KevanG once told me that Rob was his personal Canadian hero

 

[KevanG]

I dunno about that. Admittedly getting away with telling people you smoked crack while in a very high profile and high paying job in one of the biggest cities in the country is pretty good.

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Kev you would look so dashing in that tie

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Doctors Find Bullet in Head of Florida Teen Complaining of Headache

When 19-year-old Juanye Jones visited a Daytona Beach hospital Wednesday night, his chief concern was his nagging headache. Doctors ended up finding something a bit more serious, however: a fragmented bullet lodged in his head.

Jones was apparently one of three bystanders hit during a shooting at Bethune-Cookman University Monday night. Reportedly thinking he had just been grazed in the shooting, the teen didn't seek treatment until days later.

"I thought he was in there for something minor and then the police showed up," a witness at the hospital told The Palm Beach Post, "I hear he has a bullet in his head. He had a headache and now he has a bullet in his head."

After discovering the fragments via X-ray, doctors advised Jones to seek further treatment, but according to the Orlando Sentinel, "it's not clear if he ever did."

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/news/police-man-went-hospital-headache-had-bullet-lodge/nkJ6t/

Well damn, hope the kid gets that taken care of

 

[CaptainWagner]

You know, you'd think there would be a few signs that you didn't just get "grazed"...

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

All These Gifts Were Given To An 8-Year-Old Girl By Crows

Since the age of four, Gabi Mann of Seattle has forged a relationship with the neighborhood crows by offering them food. Then suddenly something unexpected happened — the crows, in an apparent act of reciprocation, started to present various trinkets to Gabi in return.

As BBC's Katy Sewall reports, it all started quite innocently when, as a four-year-old, Gabi would drop food to the ground and the crows would scramble to gobble it up. Years later, she would offer them scraps of her packed lunch on the way to school. By 2013, Gabi and her mom Lisa were offering food to the crows on a daily basis.

And that's when the gifts starting appearing. As Sewall writes:

The crows would clear the feeder of peanuts, and leave shiny trinkets on the empty tray; an earring, a hinge, a polished rock. There wasn't a pattern. Gifts showed up sporadically - anything shiny and small enough to fit in a crow's mouth.

One time it was a tiny piece of metal with the word "best" printed on it. "I don't know if they still have the part that says 'friend'," Gabi laughs, amused by the thought of a crow wearing a matching necklace.

When you see Gabi's collection, it's hard not to wish for gift-giving crows of your own.

No doubt, Gabi's collection is quite impressive. She considers them her treasures, and she meticulously stores, labels, and categorizes each object in a bead storage container. One bag contains a broken light bulb with the caption, "Black table by feeder. 2:30 p.m. 09 Nov 2014." Other objects include paperclips, buttons, earrings, and worn glass. One trinket, a screw, is marked as "third favorite," because as Gabi puts it, "You don't see a crow carrying around a screw that much. Unless it's trying to build its house."

As for her very favorite, that's a pearl colored heart, which shows her "how much they love me."

So why are the crows exhibiting this remarkable behavior? Sewall quotes John Marzluff, a professor of wildlife science at the University of Washington who says, "If you want to form a bond with a crow, be consistent in rewarding them." He and his colleagues have shown that crows and people can form personal relationships and that they're capable of understanding each other's signals.

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-31604026

I think this is the plucky origin story of Crow Girl! t:

 

[Teelie]

One day she will command an army of crows.

 

[DarkSentinel]

And the world will bow to the Caw.

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

UPDATE: Canada's Mystery Tunnel Built by Two Men for "Personal Reasons" (Sex?)

Earlier this month, Canadian police discovered a secret tunnel near one of Toronto's sports arenas. Panic quickly ensued—was it built by terrorists looking to disrupt this summer's Pan American Games? As it turns out, no. The tunnel was actually built by two dudes who told police they used it for "personal reasons."

"Our concern was whether there was any criminal intent or threat to the people or the city. There was not. The investigation is concluded," Toronto police spokesman Mark Pugash told the BBC.

Good. Great. Everyone in Canada is safe. But what were these "personal reasons" that necessitated the building of an entire underground chamber? Toronto police couldn't or wouldn't say, but we have our guesses. (Sex).

The tunnel, CNN reports, is 33-feet long, six-feet high, and located 10 feet below ground, accessible only via a dirt-concealed lid that leads to a ladder. A Remembrance Day poppy and a rosary were found pinned to one of the walls; a gas can, a wheelbarrow, food and drink containers, gloves, and light bulbs were also discovered in the passage, which was equipped with electricity.

"This was built with a considerable amount of sophistication," Deputy Chief Mark Saunders Saunders said at a press conference last week. "The individuals responsible for building it clearly had some expertise in structural integrity."

A lot of work for what's probably just a weird underground sex chamber, if you ask me, but to each their own.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-31698766

Weirdos

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

American Arrested for Smuggling After Her Mom Mailed an Adderall Refill

According to reports, an Oregon woman was arrested on smuggling charges in Japan last week after her mother mailed her a three-month refill of her Adderall prescription.

Carrie Russell, a 26-year-old English teacher, was arrested on Feb. 20 while eating dinner with friends at a Nagoya restaurant. Authorities say they discovered the pills—which are illegal in Japan—hidden inside an old Tylenol bottle.

Russell, who was reportedly diagnosed with attention deficit disorder at age 7, was living in South Korea when her mom mailed the prescription refill. But authorities say she broke the law when she accepted a new job and shipped the unmarked pill bottle in her belongings to Japan, where the stimulants have been outlawed since the 1950s.

Russell's mother—a doctor who did not prescribe the medication—tells Oregon Live she believes Japanese authorities are misinterpreting her daughter's actions:

First, as a physician who often prescribes Adderall, she routinely advises patients to consider keeping pills in unmarked containers because prescription bottles attract burglars, due to the substance's high street value. She advises against carrying the medication in a car or purse, and to consider keeping it in a locked safe.

Second, knowing of the stigma in Japan concerning mental disorders, she didn't want Carrie Russell's reputation to suffer in case someone opening her household shipments noticed the medication.

"My repackaging [in the Tylenol container] was not an attempt to break or circumvent the law," Jill Russell wrote in a sworn affidavit sent Feb. 25 to Japanese police. "It was intended to preserve Carrie's privacy and dignity around a sensitive issue regarding medication to treat a disorder which falls under the area of mental health."

Russell is reportedly facing several years in prison over the medication. Oregon Live reports U.S. diplomats had a hard time locating her because Japanese authorities neglected to notify the American embassy of her arrest.

Despite multiple efforts, American envoys have so far been unable to secure her release from the detention center

http://www.oregonlive.com/education/index.ssf/2015/03/a_bottle_of_prescribed_adderal.html

Well that sucks, why does Japan always have to be so damn weird?

 

[Monsieur Xavier]

I can't enter the State with a Camembert or any food at all, you can buy "medicine/drugs" stuff in the US that are illegal in France.
Japan has law too.

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Thief Steals 400 Bottles of Nail Polish, Likely For Best Sleepover Ever

A theft was reported in the Williamsburg area of Brooklyn at the end of February that sounds not so much nefarious, as rife with potential for fun!!! From the nail salon Spa 4U, a thief miraculously jacked over 400 bottles of nail polish after breaking into the store overnight.

Maybe the unidentified thief was just going to throw a big sleepover party for all of his or her friends! DNAinfo reports that the thief also made it out with a laundry bag (for modified pillow fights?), a Sony DVD player (screening of Mean Girls) and a security chip from the store's security camera (other fun stuff, tbd). Spa 4U was not able to operate the next day because of the dearth in their polish supply, DNAinfo reports.

The nail polish thief is still on the loose but perhaps cops should follow the trail of nicely painted nails and giggly gals.

http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/201...ail-polish-from-williamsburg-salon-police-say

People will steal the weirdest things to sell for drug money

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Your Penis Is Fine

Since the only thing that men ever think about is how big their ***** are, we finally have some good news for you, men. Finally!! A new comprehensive study among 15,000 men discovered that the average length of an erect penis was a mostly meager 5.16 inches.

When the average peeter is flaccid, its length is typically 3.63 inches long and 3.66 inches around. The study, performed by British researchers and published in BJU International, collated data from over 20 studies where men had their penises measured, using information from 15,000 men out of the United States, Europe, Asia, and Africa. Researchers concluded from the data that roughly 2.28% of the male population has an abnormally small penis, so you're probably doing all right in the scheme of things.

Luckily, if you find that your dingdong is on the smaller side of the spectrum, researchers in the study compiled dick sizes into a chart that can be used to console men with small penises or body dysmorphia. Researchers said they did not find a necessary correlation between race and size, nor a man's foot and penis size, so at least within the confines of this study, all bets are off.

Though, this little piece of information simply cannot be ignored (via the NY Daily News):

They acknowledged their results may have been somewhat skewed by the possibility that men who volunteer to be examined may be more confident in their penis size than the general population.

Remember, men: dick size may not be everything, but generosity in the bedroom is.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bju.13010/full

Well it's a good thing science cleared that up haha t:

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Students Discover Beloved High School Teacher Hanged in Classroom

On Monday morning, a popular photography teacher at El Dorado High School in Valencia, California was found hanging in her classroom by students, the Orange County Register reports.

According to police, 31-year-old Jillian Rose Jacobson was discovered at 8:40 a.m. after a teacher from an adjacent classroom unlocked the room for arriving students. The teacher then set Jacobson on the floor, where she was later declared dead by emergency personnel.

"The preliminary investigation indicates it was a suicide," a police spokesperson told the L.A. Times.

Former student Leo Amaya says the well-liked teacher "gave no signs of being depressed or sad" making her death especially shocking to the school community.

"She was just really involved in her students' lives," another student told KNBC. "She would ask everybody how their weekend was. If you were down, she would try to help you. She was just a very kind, loving person."

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/dead-652768-classroom-fire.html

Well that is horrible. And if it was a suicide that's a real jerk move to do it where your students will find you

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

These Incredibly Photorealistic CG Images Are Actually Plain Old Photos

Through their Tumblr HyperrealCG, artists David O'Reilly and Kim Laughton have duped a handful of media outlets with an irresistible premise: computer-generated images that are so precise, so finely detailed, that they are totally indistinguishable from works of photography. Because that's exactly what they are.

The relatively unremarkable photos on HyperrealCG become jaw-dropping showcases of CGI virtuosity with the simple addition of bogus captions. In reality, the image above is a promotional photo created by the pen manufacturer Parker; on HyperrealCG, an anonymous artist created it as a "material and shader study" while using the digital imaging program Corona Renderer for the first time. The blog pulls a similar trick with dozens of other photos, from bedding catalog spreads to iconic movie props.

Several sites were taken in, including Huffington Post Tech (" CGI Faces Are Officially As Real As Human Faces"), The Mirror ("You won't believe these pictures are computer generated"), our colleagues at Sploid ("I can't believe these hyper real pictures are completely CG and not real"), and the AsapSCIENCE Facebook page ("None of these photos are real; they are all made completely using CG! ‪#‎mindblown"&#8236. The Mirror has since pulled down its post, and Sploid has issued a retraction.

On Twitter, O'Reilly explains that the project was intended only to parody the computer graphics community, which he believes privileges photorealism at the expense of everything else. The sendup of credulous and overeager tech reporting was evidently just an unexpected bonus.

In any case, he didn't mean to fool anybody, he swears.

http://www.deathandtaxesmag.com/238704/tech-blogs-are-getting-trolled-hard-by-these-fake-cg-photos/

That is an insanely good troll IMO

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Humans Unconsciously Sniff Their Hands After Handshaking

[YT]ODEsfmztMmw[/YT]

Unlike dogs and other animals, humans — for the most part — don't sniff each other. Well, at least that's what we thought. A rather unsettling new study from the Weizmann Institute shows that practically all of us sniff our hands after handshaking — a possible sign of social chemosignaling behavior.

The new study, published in the journal eLife, suggests that humans use handshakes to exchange important chemical information — information that can alter our behavior is subtle ways. The researchers came to this conclusion by covertly filming 271 subjects as they they were being greeted in a structured event, some with a handshake and some without.

From New Scientist:

Before the greeting, both men and women had their hand near their nose 22 per cent of the time, on average. Airflow in the nose more than doubled at the same time, suggesting they were smelling their hands.

After shaking hands with someone of the same sex, on average volunteers sniffed their shaking hand more than twice as much as they did before the handshake. If the person was of the opposite sex, they smelled their non-shaking hand twice as much as before the handshake. This usually happened once the experimenter had left the room.

The team also carried out the experiment with people wearing sterile gloves. The chemicals the gloves picked up from the experimenter's hand included squalene and hexadecanoic acid, both of which are involved in social signalling among dogs and rats.

"People constantly have a hand at their face, they are sniffing it, and they modify that behaviour after shaking hands. That demonstrates that the handshaking is a chemosignalling behaviour," says [study co-author Noam] Sobel.​

Whoa, that is weird. This study would appear to affirm the notion that social chemosignaling is not limited to opposite sex encounters. What's more, it suggests there may be other examples of chemosignaling that we aren't even aware of.

Thank you, science, for ruining every future handshake I'll have to make.

http://www.newscientist.com/article...f-peoples-scent-on-our-hand.html#.VPYFO7PF8_8

Ya this kind of totally ruins handshakes for me now haha

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Worldwide Octopus Uprising Continues With Aquarium Near-Escape

The beaked and eight-tentacled monsters with which we enjoy a tenuously shared existence on this Earth are no longer content to sit placidly in their tanks and their oceans. Cephalopods the world over are rising up and out of the water, from Australia to the Pacific Northwest, and no land-dweller is safe.

Fed up with a life of bondage and servitude, an octopus at the Seattle Aquarium began scaling the walls of its enclosure on February 26, inch by concave inch. Just days before, an octopine creature on the other side of the planet made a similar leap of faith, springing onto dry land and dragging a crab to its watery death.

That this particular octopus was thwarted on its path to freedom hardly matters. Witness the terror with which the assembled witnesses reacted to its muscular appendages probing the air—feel that very same terror yourself as you sit safely behind a computer screen—and ask yourself: What would have happened if the octopus had gotten get out? What will happen when another sea monster somewhere views this recording and is moved to put down its own suction-cupped foot?

The revolution is on, and there's no stopping it now.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=67b_1425434576

Vid at the link, those little suckers are smart

 

[Duran Man]

Beware the Octopolypse!

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Field Cameras Catch Deer Eating Birds—Wait, Why Do Deer Eat Birds?

Deer aren't the slim, graceful vegans we thought they were. Scientists using field cameras have caught deer preying on nestling song birds. And it's not just deer. Herbivores the world over may be supplementing their diets.

When researchers in North Dakota set up "nest cams" over the nests of song birds, they expected to see a lot of nestlings and eggs get taken by ground squirrels, foxes, and badgers. Squirrels hit thirteen nests, but other meat-eaters made a poor showing. Foxes and weasels only took one nest each. Know what fearsome animal out-did either of those two sleek, resourceful predators?

White-tailed deer.

These supposed herbivores placidly ate living nestlings right out of the nest. And if you're thinking that it must be a mistake, that the deer were chewing their way through some vegetation and happened to get a mouthful of bird, think again. Up in Canada, a group of ornithologists were studying adult birds. In order to examine them closely, the researchers used "mist-nets." These nets, usually draped between trees, are designed to trap birds or bats gently so they could be collected, studied, and released. When a herd of deer came by, they deer walked up to the struggling birds and ate them alive, right out of the nets.

This behavior is not limited to one species or one continent. Last year, a farmer in India made a video of a cow eating a recently-hatched chick. Some scientists speculate that herbivores turn to meat when they're not getting enough nutrients in their diet. It's possible. A biologist in Scotland documented red deer eating seabird chicks, and concluded it was how they got the dietary boost necessary to grow their antlers. The same researcher also documented sheep eating the heads and legs off of seabird chicks. And then there's another cow in India, which reportedly ate fifty chickens. There may be a specific need that drives herbivores to occasionally eat meat. It's also possible, experts say, that eating meat, when it can't run away from them, is just something supposed "herbivores" do, and we're finally getting wise to it.

The famous line from The Simpsons might be accurate - If a cow ever got the chance, he'd eat you and everyone you ever cared about.

http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/news/press/ontape.htm

Well I'll be damned

 

[KevanG]

And another one to use against the vegans! HA!