strange stuff

From strange crimes to strange celebrity deaths, read all of the latest weird and strange stuff news stories on Newser.com

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Best Defense Against Asteroids? Try Paintballs
 Best Defense Against 
 Asteroids? Try Paintballs 
in case you missed it
Nov 3, 2012 12:33 PM CDT

Best Defense Against Asteroids? Try Paintballs

MIT grad student wins award with novel idea

(Newser) - If an asteroid were speeding toward a calamitous collision with Earth, we might be able to knock it off track by ... painting it white. The PopSci blog picks up on the novel idea by MIT grad student Sung Wook Paek: Let's say scientists determined that an asteroid were going...

Grandma Claims Lotto Just in Time

$23M ticket sat in her car for months

(Newser) - For more than five months—while Julie Cervera struggled to pay a $600 electrical bill, feed her family and keep the cable company from shutting off her service because she couldn't pay—she was a millionaire without knowing it. Meanwhile, her $23 million lottery ticket languished forgotten in the...

Reporter Sues Over 'Mock Kidnapping' at Gunpoint

She allegedly stripped, uttered 'last words'

(Newser) - Some practical joke: A pair of reporters kidnapped a prominent Kyrgyzstan journalist and put a gun to her head before revealing it was all just for laughs, the BBC reports. Now Nazira Aytbekova is filing charges against the reporters, saying they held her at gunpoint and made her strip to...

30 Cadets Injured in All-Out 'Brawl'

Sergeant-tossing ritual leaves 6 hospitalized

(Newser) - An Air Force ritual devolved into an all-out melee last week that left 30 cadets injured and six hospitalized—with concussions, cuts, and an arm bite, NBC News reports. It was all part of the unauthorized "First Shirt/First Snow" ritual, in which cadets toss a sergeant into a snow...

NY Art Museum to Open Exhibit of ... Smells

Chandler Burr explains the world of 'olfactory art'

(Newser) - You won't be able to go and see the special exhibit the New York Museum of Art and Design is opening on November 13—but you will be able to go and smell it. The show, The Art of Scent: 1889-2012 is a first-of-its-kind exhibition of what Chandler Burr...

Elephant Can 'Speak' Korean

Koshik apparently learned to make human sounds to bond with zookeepers

(Newser) - Who needs Doctor Doolittle when animals are learning to speak human languages? First a Beluga whale learns how to say "out" to a diver, and now an elephant in a South Korean zoo has learned to say five words, reports the BBC . Koshik, a male Asian elephant, can "...

For Sale: Naming Rights to Broke Japan City

It's called Izumisano, for now

(Newser) - It's come to this in Izumisano, Japan: The city is so broke it hopes to sell its naming rights to the highest bidder, reports AFP . Izumisano owes more than $1 billion to creditors, mainly because it sank so much money into "building roads and other infrastructure" to its...

Sweden's Jobs Plan: Pay Youth to Go to Norway

Town offers travel, accommodation in Oslo

(Newser) - Sweden has a new strategy to shrink widespread youth unemployment: Send the kids to Norway. The Swedish government is working with the small town of Soderhamn to fund journeys to Oslo for people between the ages of 18 and 28, the Telegraph reports. "We had an unemployment rate of...

Bank President Greets Robber —With Colt .380

Peoples Bank in Missouri supports concealed gun rights

(Newser) - A bank robber in a Chucky mask got more than he bargained for when he stole $4,779 from the family-owned Peoples Bank & Trust in Missouri this week—the business end of a Colt .380 handgun. The robbery was witnessed by bank president David W. Thompson, who followed the...

Guy Breaks Into House, Builds Fire, Eats Chinese

Police still searching for suspect

(Newser) - Eating Chinese takeout in front of a glowing fireplace is a pleasant enough way to spend an evening. But state police in northwestern Pennsylvania say there was just one problem with those plans: The person or persons who made the fire and ate the food didn't live there. Troopers...

Wild Boar Goes on Rampage in Berlin

Attacks, injures 4 people

(Newser) - Berlin authorities say they shot and killed a 265-pound wild boar after it attacked and injured four people including a police officer in a residential neighborhood. The boar bit a 74-year-old man on the back and leg, and knocked a 74-year-old woman to the ground and injured her hip yesterday...

'Odd' Views Persist on Obama's Religion: Poll

'Makes it difficult to trust the results': blogger

(Newser) - The AP released a shocking poll this week showing that racism is up across America and could cost Obama 5 points—but that poll also contains some weird numbers, blogs mollie at Patheos . First, the less weird: Only 10% think he's Muslim—down from 17% in 2010—while about...

Pub Owner Hides Body to Keep Police Away

Jason Chidgey couldn't afford to lose weekend business, court hears

(Newser) - What if you're a pub owner who finds a dead body in the men's bathroom on a Friday? In South Wales, Jason Chidgey's answer was to allegedly hide the body in the upstairs bedroom until Tuesday—so police wouldn't shut him down for the weekend and...

Auction Sells Brazilian&#39;s Virginity for ... $780K
Auction Sells Brazilian's Virginity for ... $780K
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Oct 28, 2012 7:00 PM CDT

Auction Sells Brazilian's Virginity for ... $780K

Male virgin fetches only $3K in same event

(Newser) - An Australian filmmaker's stunt to make a documentary about virginity—and the losing of it—seems to have worked in a big way: An anonymous Japanese man won an online auction with a bid of $780,000 to be 20-year-old Brazilian Catarina Migliorini's first lover, reports the Huffington...

Visit the Island Where People 'Forget to Die'

Health tips from the fabled Greek isle of Ikaria

(Newser) - Stricken by cancer and given six months to live, a Greek man living in America moved back to his native island of Ikaria—where the cancer mysteriously disappeared. The tale became folklore on Ikaria, where stories of good health date back 25 centuries. Now a study has confirmed what the...

&#39;Dead Man&#39; Shows Up at His Own Wake
'Dead Man'
Shows Up
at His
Own Wake
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Oct 28, 2012 12:06 PM CDT

'Dead Man' Shows Up at His Own Wake

His family is happily surprised

(Newser) - A car-wash attendant named Gilberto Araujo had to show up at his own wake to prove to everyone he wasn't dead. ABC News and the Guardian have the strange tale from Brazil: It started when another car-washer who kind of looked like Araujo was murdered, and both police and...

Cops Bust Guy With 640 Pot Lollipops

Alexander Zito had just a few drugs at Buffalo party

(Newser) - Ah, Halloween, that special time of the year when you get an excuse to throw a party ... and in the case of one Alexander Zito, that's a party with chocolate with pot, hard candy with pot, 640 "Jolly Lolly" pot lollipops, and five pounds of plain old Mary...

Florida&#39;s &#39;Mystery Monkey&#39; Finally Caught
 Florida's 
 'Mystery 
 Monkey' 
 Finally Caught 
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Oct 28, 2012 7:47 AM CDT

Florida's 'Mystery Monkey' Finally Caught

Newly named 'Cornelius' is probably headed to a sanctuary

(Newser) - A monkey who eluded Florida wildlife officials for nearly four years and became a sort-of unofficial neighborhood pet is on the lam no more. The Tampa Bay Times reports that animal-control officers finally caught the "mystery monkey" Wednesday with the help of a tranquilizer gun. Assuming the newly named...

Man Molested Subway Rider as She Slept: Cops

She reported the attack after seeing it on YouTube

(Newser) - A young woman who was allegedly molested while sleeping on a New York subway later reported the attack—after seeing it posted on YouTube, the Daily News reports. In the video, the 21-year-old is asleep in her seat while a man gropes her for several seconds between her legs. Jasheem...

Want to Lose Wrinkles? Try Thai Face-Slapping

Couple offers face-slapping therapy in Calif.

(Newser) - A slap from a beautiful woman usually means "how dare you"—except at a Thai face-slapping parlor in San Francisco, where it costs $350, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports. The therapist, Bangkok-born Tata, says it removes wrinkles and firms up skin without the cost of surgery or a single...

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