QUIRKY WORLD ... Our daily look at some of the world’s stranger stories
Zookeepers at Twycross Zoo had to coax the chimps out of a secure service area by offering them sweet treats — and ice cream for breakfast left them “a little excited”.
The zoo was closed for less than two hours due to “safety procedures”, but “no people or chimps were harmed during the incident”.
A southern Illinois businessman has paid off part of a court-ordered legal settlement with nearly four tonnes of quarters packed into dozens of bags.
Roger Herrin, of Harrisburg, was ordered by an appellate court to repay $500,000 in insurance money related to a 2001 car accident in which his teenage son died.
The reimbursement followed years of legal disputes about how the insurance money was apportioned to the crash victims. So in protest, Herrin repaid nearly a third of the money — $150,000 — with 50lb bags of quarters he had trucked in by the Federal Reserve bank in St Louis. The coins were delivered to a Marion law firm.
Afraid there may be peanuts or other allergens hiding in that biscuit? Thanks to a cradle and app that turn your smartphone into a handheld biosensor, you may soon be able to run on-the-spot tests for food safety, environmental toxins, medical diagnostics and more.
The handheld biosensor was developed by researchers at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. A series of lenses and filters in the cradle mirror those found in larger, more expensive laboratory devices. Together, the cradle and app transform a smartphone into a tool that can detect toxins and bacteria, spot water contamination and identify allergens in food.
Grandad to run length of Britain
A grandfather famous for doing charity runs with a fridge strapped to his back has decided to bow out by running the length of Great Britain.
Tony “the fridge” Phoenix-Morrison, from Hebburn, Tyne and Wear, will take on one final gruelling test by running from John O’Groats to Land’s End while carrying his 42kg (93lb) Smeg fridge.
The 1,053-mile challenge, starting tomorrow, will see Mr Phoenix-Morrison run 40 marathons in 40 consecutive days as he aims to raise money for the Bobby Robson Foundation.
Heartbroken lovers are brutal after a break-up with more than 90% erasing all photographs of their exes from their mobile phones, new research shows.
The need to “achieve closure” was cited as the reason why Britons delete their digital albums following the end of a relationship.
Almost seven million people in Britain have admitted to taking an intimate picture of themselves and storing it on their phone, leaving themselves vulnerable to social media mishaps, researchers said. And almost five million are worried that these embarrassing pictures could inadvertently end up on Facebook.
The corpse flower has come alive! The huge, rare and famously putrid Indonesian flower is blooming for one day, spreading its stench across the University of California, Santa Barbara.
The university said the flower “smells like a cross between rotting flesh and Limburger cheese” and the greenhouse where it is unfurling its blossom is open to members of the public who want to take a whiff. The flower uses flies instead of bees to spread its sticky pollen. It produces two sulphurous chemicals within its leaves that the flies find attractive. The plant at UCSB is 4ft and growing fast.
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