It's a simple recipe, said A-List New York City chef Daniel Angerer: a cheese derived from the breast milk of his wife, who is nursing the couple's 3-month-old daughter. As a chef, he said, "you look out for something new and what you can do with it," and what Angerer could do is make about two quarts of "flavor(ful)" cheese out of two gallons of mother's milk. "(T)astes just like really sweet cow's milk." He posted the recipe, "My Spouse's Mommy Milk Cheese," on his blog and invited readers' participation: "Our baby has plenty (of) back-up mother's milk in the freezer, so whoever wants to try it is welcome to try it as long as supply lasts (please consider cheese aging time)."

-- Florida's Agriculture Department, acting on a tip, confiscated Giant African Snails believed to have been smuggled into the country by Charles Stewart of Hialeah, Fla., for use in the religion Ifa Orisha, which encourages followers to drink the snails' mucus for its supposed healing powers. Actually, said the department (joined in the investigation by two federal agencies), bacteria in the mucus causes frequent violent vomiting, among other symptoms. At press time, Stewart had not been charged with a crime.

-- A growing drug problem facing Shanghai, China, is stepped-up use of methamphetamine, cocaine and other drugs at all-night parties, but not the "rave" parties favored by young fast-lane types in the U.S. These Shanghai druggies, according to a February dispatch in London's Guardian, are often middle-aged and retired people, who use the drugs to give them strength for all-night games of Mah Jongg played at out-of-the-way parlors around the city.

-- Modernization Kept at Bay: (1) Despite Fiji's strides into the 21st century, the island nation's court system remains relatively primitive, according to a January report from Agence France-Presse. Transcriptions of court proceedings are still made by ordinary reporters, writing out the dialogue by hand and thus calling on judges, lawyers and witnesses to periodically slow down or repeat themselves when they speak. (2) Papua New Guinea retains many of its historical tribal conflicts, and one flared up in January, according to a dispatch by an Australian Broadcasting Corp. reporter. Two people were killed in skirmishes that were provoked in a quite contemporary way -- when a member of one tribe sent a member of another a pornographic text message.

-- Japan's Mantokuji temple in Gumma province was historically the place where women went to cleanse themselves in divorce, aided by the temple's iconic toilets, into which the bad spirits from the failed liaisons could be shed and flushed forever. The toilets have been modernized, according to a February Reuters dispatch, and today the temple is used by the faithful to rid themselves of all types of problems. (The upgrades also permitted a solution to a longstanding annoyance at the temple, of visitors mistaking the iconic toilets for regular commodes.)

-- American Taliban: (1) Michael Colquitt, 32, got a judicial order of protection in January against his father, Baptist preacher Joe Colquitt, in Alcoa, Tenn. According to Michael, Pastor Joe had threatened him at gunpoint about his poor church-attendance record. (2) Kevin Johnson, 59, was arrested in Madison, Wis., in February and charged with using a stun gun repeatedly on a local dance instructor, whom Johnson believed was a "sinner" (also a "fornicator" and a "peeking Tom") who "defiles married women" by teaching them dances involving bodies touching.

-- Jeff and Marci Beagley were sentenced to 16 months in prison in March after a jury in Oregon City, Ore., found them guilty of criminally negligent homicide in the death of their teenage son, whose congenital urinary tract blockage was treated only with oils and prayer prescribed by the Beagleys' Followers of Christ Church. Doctors said the boy could have been saved with medical treatment right up until the day he died. (The Beagleys' infant granddaughter died in 2008 under similar circumstances, but no criminal conviction resulted.)

-- A 7-year-old girl died in February in Oroville, Calif., and her 11- year-old sister was hospitalized needing critical care, after being "lovingly" beaten by their adoptive parents, Kevin and Elizabeth Schatz, who are followers of religion-based corporal punishment. The Schatzes, as recommended by a fundamentalist Web site, had whipped the girls with quarter-inch-wide plumbers' rubber tubing, to supposedly make the children "happier" and "more obedient to God." Criminal charges against the couple were pending at press time.

In December, in St. Tammany Parish, La., and in February, near Miami Township, Ohio, men driving young female family members around decided it would be cool to feign crimes as they drove. Tim Williams, 45, was arrested in Louisiana after the sight of his duct-taped 12-year-old daughter provoked at least three motorists to call 911. The Ohio man, detained by police after several 911 calls, admitted that he had thought it would be "funny" if his granddaughter held a BB gun to his head as he drove around Dayton Mall.

(1) Toni Tramel, 31, angry at being jailed in Owensboro, Ky., for public intoxication in March, had "assaulting a police officer" added to the charges when, changing into a jail uniform, she allegedly pointed her lactating breast at a female officer and squirted her in the face. (2) Deanne Elsholz, 44, was charged with domestic battery in Wesley Chapel, Fla., in February after hitting her husband, David, in the face with a glass. David, intoxicated, had enraged Deanne by apparently completely missing the toilet bowl as he stood to urinate. (Deanne then angrily charged after him but lost her footing on the slippery floor.)

When the FBI finally concluded that the late-2001 anthrax scare was the work of government scientist Bruce Ivins (who committed suicide in 2008), the bureau released its investigative files, revealing personal activities that (according to Ivins' own description) "a middle-age man should not do." For example, Ivins admitted to being a cross-dresser, and agents discovered pornographic fetish magazines on "blindfolding or bondage" themes and "15 pairs of stained women's panties." Ivins also admitted a decades-long obsession with the sorority Kappa Kappa Gamma and told agents how he broke into two chapters' houses to steal books on KKG "rituals."

In 2005, News of the Weird reported the bustling sales for artist Erin Crowe's series of oil paintings of Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, who was then riding high, with Greenspan-worshipping money managers quickly buying up her inventory for thousands of dollars each. A Wall Street Journal reporter tracked down Crowe and some of her customers in February 2010 and found, obviously, subdued demand (with some customers having hidden or discarded their Greenspans). Crowe said that one of her Greenspan customers had recently asked her to paint a Ben Bernanke for him, but for about half the fee that he had earlier paid for a Greenspan.

In January 1996, The Wall Street Journal reported on a growing fetish surrounding the act of smoking. Examples: (1) An erotic smoking video from an Oklahoma City firm, CoherentLight: "The scene opens with a young blonde (Paula), dressed in a shimmering strapless gown and a veiled black hat, lighting her cigarette from a nearby candle," the Journal wrote. "She takes numerous long drags." (2) A smokers' newsletter, with film reviews: Of the above video, it wrote, "(Paula) is a fabulous smoker." Another review, of the Hollywood movie "Mad Love": "Drew Barrymore smokes throughout; there are many deep inhales, although the exhales aren't great."

War Is Hell: The day before British army chef Liam Francis, 26, arrived at his forward operating base in Afghanistan, the Taliban shot down the helicopter ferrying in food rations, and Francis realized he had to make do with supplies on hand. In his pantry were only seasonings, plus hundreds of tins of Spam. For six weeks, until resupply, Francis prepared "sweet and sour Spam," "Spam fritters," "Spam carbonara," "Spam stroganoff" and "stir-fried Spam." He told the Daily Telegraph that he was proud of his work but admitted that "morale improved" when fresh food arrived.

(1) In November, Jim Bartek, 49, of Maple Heights, Ohio, announced he was ending his streak of 524 consecutive days in which he listened to the album "Nostradamus" by the heavy-metal group Judas Priest. (2) In February, Hilary Taylor, 63, of Great Yarmouth, England, revealed that she had been bequeathed her uncle Ken Strickland's collection of 3,000 watering cans. Strickland, who also kept meticulous records of the holdings, died in January.

-- Details about Britain's biggest marijuana-importing operation emerged in March following the conviction of its three managers in Southwark Crown Court. The enterprise earned the equivalent of as much as $300 million at such a rapid clip that the partners apparently were unable to use much of it, despite buying real estate, jewelry and expensive cars. An inspector said Scotland Yard found "moldy" cash "rotting away," hidden under floorboards. "(I)t was no good to anybody."

-- Recession's Over: Among the items on display in February at the Verona Luxury Fair in Verona, Italy: a hand-crafted billiards table covered in gold sheets; an armchair topped with the skin of 20 crocodiles; a 24-carat gold racing bike; a boat with a Ferrari engine; a golden coffin (with cell phone); and a diamond-studded wedding gown in pink chinchilla fur.

-- Pigs Livin' Large: (1) Among the items that celebrity farmer Cathy Gieseker bought with proceeds from the $12 million Ponzi scheme she, in February, was sentenced for perpetrating (prosecutors called her the "Midwest Madoff") was a $900 tanning bed for her "show" pigs. (2) Farmer Chang Chung-tou, of Yunlin County, Taiwan, drew praise from environmentalists in December for having "toilet"-trained almost all of his 20,000 pigs to use his 600 specially rigged plots that collect and separate urine and feces. Chang's farm conserves water and facilitates recycling.

-- Animals With Issues: (1) Ashley Saks' 2-year-old basset hound Roxy was resting comfortably in Jacksonville, Fla., in November following a vet's removal, one by one, of the 130 nails she had compulsively swallowed. (2) The polar bear Aisaqvaq produced two cubs in December at Quebec's Zoo Sauvage de Saint-Felicien. Aisaqvaq had given birth to another the previous December, but had eaten it. (3) In November, maritime rescuers were called to ocean waters off the coast of Darwin, Australia, to rescue an adult cow that was dog-paddling around and, according to a seaman, "not in a good mood."

-- Natural Selection: (1) Female cane toads are choosy at mating, according to a recent article in Biology Letters. A desirable male is permitted to hop onto the female's back and start the process, but the female is also able to inflate sacs in her body to bloat herself so large that males slide off before completing insemination. (Also, to test the strength of the male's grip, the researchers encouraged necrophilia: The scientists doused dead female toads with pheromones to measure males' horniness.) (2) Female short-nosed fruit bats in China's Guangdong Province show their preference for certain males by fellating them, according to an October journal article. Researchers observed that licked males were able to copulate longer, thus improving the likelihood of insemination. (The scientists also confirmed that bats mate while upside down.)

Later this year, manufacturer Organovo, of San Diego, will begin shipping its $200,000 ink-jet-type printers that create living organs for patients needing transplants. The 3-D "bioprinter" works by spraying extracted microscopic cells on top of each other, in pass after pass. On the bioprinter's equivalent of a sheet of paper, and under laboratory conditions, the cells fuse together and grow for weeks until an organ substantial enough for research use is created (and ultimately, substantial enough for human transplants). The bioprinter is faster than growing such organs from scratch, which scientists at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine have been doing for several years.

If you're wearing a ski mask and carrying a gun and walk into a store to rob it, but there are no employees there to rob, and you abort, is that an "attempted robbery"? Sanjuan Reyes, 22, and two teenagers were arrested in Joliet, Ill., in January and charged with attempting to rob the Supermercado Viva Mexico. Two acted as lookouts while the youngest, wearing a ski mask and wielding an air pistol, entered the store. Apparently, the only employees on duty were in the back room. The boy waited for a minute or so, then bailed out, and the three fled empty-handed. Joliet's deputy police chief said a crime was committed.

In March, sheriff's deputies in Kissimmee, Fla., detained a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent who was working undercover but who had aroused suspicions of residents of a neighborhood. After investigating, the deputies discovered that in order to guard his identity as an ICE agent, the man was posing as an FBI agent. [Orlando Sentinel, 3-4-10]

(1) Jonathon Smith, 27, was arrested in March in Fairbanks, Alaska, shortly after his release on bail on charges that he tried to buy three trucks from local dealers using forged checks. His latest arrest came at Seekins Ford, where, according to police, he was trying to buy yet another pickup truck with a forged check. (2) Falmouth, Mass., police hired John Yarrington as a confidential informant on Feb. 16, setting him up with $100 in marked bills to make a cocaine buy from dealer Cory Noonan, which Yarrington completed. He left the scene, but less than 10 minutes later, before Noonan could be arrested, Yarrington returned and, according to police, attempted to buy more cocaine on his own.

(1) A 36-year-old man drowned in Denville, N.J., in January during a friendly swimming competition with a pal, as they raced underneath a 30-yard long ice patch on partially frozen Indian Lake. (2) New York City police believe that drug-gang hit man Hector Quinones, 44, shot three men to death in a high-rise apartment in December, but allowed a woman in the apartment to escape when he tripped on his own baggy pants while chasing her. As police arrived, Quinones climbed out onto the fire escape but accidentally fell off and broke his neck.

Two-time convicted bank robber Mark Turner filed a lawsuit against Canada's National Parole Board in 2001 because the board had released him early from prison in 1987 from a previous sentence. The board should have kept him inside until that sentence ran out in 1994, he said, and it was thus the board's fault that while on parole, Turner had robbed another bank and had again been locked up. By 1994, he said, he would have been more mature and would not have re-offended, and for the parole board's error, it should pay him the U.S. equivalent of almost $1 million.

Anthropomorphizing Little Muffy: (1) A February St. Petersburg Times report found several local people who regularly cook gourmet meals for their dogs and who revealed their dogs' (or maybe just "their") favorite recipes. "Veggie Cookies for Dogs," for example, requires whole-wheat flour, dried basil, dried cilantro, dried oregano, chopped carrot, green beans, tomato paste, canola oil and garlic. Asked one chef: Why feed "man's best friend" what you wouldn't eat yourself? (2) A day spa for dogs ("Wag Style") in Tokyo offers sessions in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber, supposedly easing doggy arthritis, healing wounds and halting aging. (Some racehorse owners are certain that the chambers help with equine muscle and joint problems, but an academic researcher told a BoingBoing.net writer that evidence of benefit is "anecdotal.")

-- At first, Rev. Fred Armfield's arrest for patronizing a prostitute in Greenwood, S.C., in January looked uncontroversial, with Armfield allegedly confessing that he had bargained Melinda "Truck Stop" Robinson down from $10 to $5 for oral sex. Several days later, however, Armfield formally disputed the arrest, calling himself a "descendant of the original Moro-Pithecus Disoch, Kenyapithecus and Afro Pithecus," a "living flesh and blood being with sovereign status," and someone who, based on his character and community standing, should not be prosecuted. Also, he claimed that any payment to "Truck Stop" with Federal Reserve Notes did not legally constitute a purchase since such notes are not lawful money.

-- Lame: (1) Glenn Armstrong, 47, had a defense ready when police accused him of taking restroom photographs of boys in Brisbane, Australia, in January. He said he was having an ongoing debate with his wife and was gathering proof that most boys are not circumcised. (2) Sheriff's deputies in Austin, Texas, arrested Anthony Gigliotti, 17, after complaints that the teen was annoying women by following them around in public and snapping photographs of their clothed body parts. Gigliotti told one deputy that he needed the photos because the sex education at his Lake Travis High School was inadequate.

-- Fredrick Federley, a member of the Swedish Parliament, said he has always campaigned as someone who does not take gifts from those he is responsible for regulating, but he was called out by the newspaper Aftonbladet in February for having accepted a free travel holiday from an airline. Federley denied that "he" accepted the trip. He reminded reporters that he is a notorious, flamboyant cross-dresser, and thus that it was his alter-ego "Ursula" who received the free holiday.

In February, the trade group Mortgage Bankers Association announced the sale of its Washington, D.C., headquarters for $41 million. The association had purchased the building in 2007, at the peak of the real estate bubble, for $79 million.

-- Craig Show, 49, filed a lawsuit in January against the Idaho State Police and the Bonner County Sheriff's Office, demanding compensation following his DUI arrest in August. Show said the cops had seized a "medicine bag" on his motorcycle and, in opening it for inspection, permitted the "mystical powers" inside to escape. The bag was blessed by a "medicine woman" in 1995 and, Show said, had been unopened since then.

-- Sabrina Medina filed a lawsuit against the Hyatt Regency Waikiki Resort in Hawaii in January, claiming that an employee had caused her husband's death. The late Humberto Murillo had swiped two 12-packs of beer from a store at the resort, but the manager pursued and confronted him. Murillo started punching, and bystanders came to the manager's aid, restrained Murillo and held him down. Murillo, who was bipolar and had marijuana in his system, passed out and asphyxiated.

-- Clumsy: (1) Teacher Karen Hollander filed a lawsuit in November against the New York City Department of Education after taking a fall on "slippery foreign substances," including condoms, on the floor at the High School of Art & Design. Since schools distribute condoms on campus, she said, the department is responsible when students open them and discard them during the lunch period, littering the floor. (2) Anthony Avery, 72, a retired insurance underwriter, filed a lawsuit in December against the exclusive Rye Golf Club in East Sussex County, England, for lingering injuries caused when he slipped on the wet floor of the club's shower room. The floor, he said, was "too" slippery.

-- Human Rights Law: Iraqi immigrant Laith Alani murdered two doctors in a British hospital in 1990 and has been confined to mental facilities ever since, taking clozapine to control his schizophrenia. Since Alani is not a citizen, the government has sought deportation, but in January the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal ruled that that would violate Alani's "human rights." Only the British hospitals, reasoned the judges, can guarantee that Alani will receive uninterrupted clozapine, without which he would become dangerous to himself and to others (that is, fellow Iraqis, after repatriation).

-- Orthodox Jewish Law: Israel Elias and his then-wife Susan Zirkin were divorced under British law in 1962, but Zirkin has been unable to remarry since then because Orthodox Jewish law does not recognize divorce unless the husband grants the wife a "get," and Elias has refused. Within the Orthodox community, Zirkin would have been shunned had she remarried, as would any children she had. A few rabbis try to work around the system, but their attempts are not widely accepted. Zirkin, now 73, was believed to be the world's longest-standing "chained" wife, but in February, after 37 years, she became a free woman. Elias passed away, and the "get" is no longer necessary.

(1) Myesha Williams, 20, and a friend walked in to the police station in DeLand, Fla., in January and demanded to know why their photos appeared in local crime news on TV. Following questioning, police decided Williams was the woman on their surveillance video robbing a beauty shop and arrested her (but since Williams' friend had left before the actual robbery, she was not charged). (2) The burglar who stole already-filled prescription orders from the West Main Pharmacy in Medford, Ore., in January puzzlingly limited his take to the pickup-ready packages filed under "O." Police guessed that the burglar must have been after the commonly stolen "oxycodone" and was unaware that outgoing prescriptions are filed by customers' last names, not their medications.

(1) Last May, a 13-year-old boy in Galt, Calif., became the most recent inadvertent beneficiary of foolish behavior. Acting on a dare, the boy had chugged eight shots of tequila and lost consciousness. A routine CT scan at the hospital exposed an until-then-unrevealed brain tumor, and the boy is slowly recovering from his arduous but lifesaving surgery. (2) In January, James Shimsky, 50, became the most recent priest in the Catholic Diocese of Scranton, Pa., to be arrested for wayward behavior (with several recent instances reported in a January edition of News of the Weird). Shimsky was arrested on a Philadelphia street for allegedly buying cocaine.

As many as 10 percent of Japanese youths may be living in "epic sulks" as hermits ("hikikomori"), according to a March 2005 Taipei Times dispatch from Tokyo, thus representing no improvement in the already alarming problem that was described in a News of the Weird report in 2000, which estimated that 1 million young professionals were then afflicted. Many of the hikikomori still live in their parents' homes and simply never leave their bedrooms except briefly to gather food. Among the speculation as to cause: school bullying, academic pressure, poor social skills, excessive video-gaming, inaccessible father figures, and an education system that suppresses youths' sense of adventure.