For her Advanced Placement World History class at Magnolia (Texas) West High School in December, Reagan Hardin constructed an elaborate diorama of a Middle Ages farm -- which her dog ate on the night ... more
People advertising for love interests via online dating sites have apparently become picky about how they describe their sexuality. To the usuals (male, female, gay, heterosexual) have been added rece... more
Like many in society's subgroups, people who work in "death" industries or professions in the U.K. may believe it difficult to reach "like-minded" suitors. Hence, Carla Valentine established Dead Meet... more
Indonesia's holy "Sex Mountain" on the island of Java is still performing its incomprehensible function of making Muslims feel prosperous and optimistic if they have intercourse with strangers, as rep... more
November is tax-publicizing season in Finland, where, starkly unlike America, the government releases all individuals' tax records to help build public support for the country's vast welfare state. Th... more
In October, another premier world sports event reached its climax, with one team left standing, rewarded for months of grueling practices, to the cheers of adoring, frenzied fans. The "world series" o... more
Amanda Collins, 28, took "beauty pageant mom" to the next level (down) earlier this year when she entered her daughter Luna in Britain's UK Princess and Prince International -- based entirely on Luna'... more
Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks publisher of state secrets who remains holed up in the embassy of Ecuador in London, has signed on with an Icelandic licensing agent to sell Assange-branded high-end clot... more
The Osiligi Maasai Warrior choir, from Kenya, in ornate, mystifying native costumes and uncalled-for headdresses, happened to be touring the U.K. this fall, coinciding with the recent Paris Fashion We... more
"Selfie fever" has begun to sully the sacred Islamic pilgrimages to Mecca, according to scholars who complained to Arab News in September. What for centuries has been a hallowed journey intended to re... more
Police in Japan's Kyoto Prefecture raided a shoe manufacturer in July and commandeered a list of about 1,500 purchasers of the company's signature "tosatsu shoes" -- shoes with built-in cameras. Inves... more
The job of determining stress levels in whales is itself apparently stressful. The most reliable information about tension lies in hormones most accurately measured by researchers' boarding a boat, si... more
Dutch inventors Bart Jansen and Arjen Beltman struck again recently when Pepeijn Bruins, 13, called on them to help him grieve over his pet rat, Ratjetoe, who had to be put down because of cancer. Hav... more
The WE cable network disclosed in August that it had ordered a nine-episode adaptation of a British series, "Sex Box," in which a couple enters a large opaque chamber on stage and has intercourse. The... more
Nicholas Felton's latest annual recap of his personal communications data is now available, for just $30. Key findings, graphically presented, of Nicholas' busy 2013 (according to a report by FiveThir... more
(1) German Rolf Buchholz, who owns the Guinness Book world record for most body piercings (453), said he was upset to be denied entrance into United Arab Emirates in August to fulfill a performance of... more
As summed up by a Vox.com writer: "The absurdity runs deep." America uses American military equipment to bomb American military equipment that ISIS captured (from inept Iraqi soldiers, inept in part s... more
(1) Up-and-coming Sicilian mobster Domenico Palazzotto, 28, was outed in August by Italy's L'Espresso magazine as the owner of an ineffectively pseudonymous Facebook page showing off his muscled, bare... more
(1) The May 28 US Airways flight from Los Angeles to Philadelphia had to be diverted to Kansas City after a passenger's service dog did what dogs do, in the aisle, twice (an hour apart). One passenger... more
Jeff Mizanskey, 61, is a poster child for one well- known criticism of mandatory-minimum sentencing laws -- that nonviolent marijuana users (and small-time sellers) may wind up doing decades of hard t... more
Facial recognition software, increasingly important to global anti-terrorism operations, is being brought to ... cats. Taiwanese developer Mu-Chi Sung announced in July plans for marketing the softwar... more
The leader of the devout Sunni jihadist group Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, making a rare, solemn appearance in July, wore a flashy silver wristwatch that various video analysts described as ei... more
Enric Girona recently donated his prototype pet commode to the town of El Vendrell, Spain, hoping to spark worldwide interest. Conscientious owners would train their dogs on the station -- a hole in t... more
Prominent theoretical chemist David Glowacki was ejected from a classical music concert at England's Bristol Old Vic in June for disrupting a performance of Handel's "Messiah" by attempting to crowd-s... more
California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo has a huge, 350-student "viticulture and enology" program, preparing its majors for an industry critical to the state's economy (and with a v... more
Scott Fistler, twice a loser for electoral office in Phoenix, Arizona, as a Republican, decided in November 2013 that his luck might improve as a Democrat with a name change, and legally became "Cesar... more
Marking Japan's latest unfathomable social trend, two paperback photo books -- both consisting only of portraits of the rear ends of hamsters -- have experienced surprising and still-growing printing ... more
Thirty thousand spiders, led by members of the British Tarantula Society, gathered in Coventry on May 18 for the annual BTS exhibition, with a Socotra Island blue baboon spider taking Best in Show for... more
Vanellope, Rydder, Jceion and Burklee head the latest annual list of the most common baby names on the Social Security Administration register of first-time-appearing names. There were 63 Vanellopes (... more