The Precocious Tots of Finland: A University of Kansas professor and two co-authors, in research in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of Finance, found that children age 10 and under substantially outperformed their parents in earnings from stock trading in the few days before and after rumors swirled on possible corporate mergers. A likely explanation, they said, is that the parents or guardians were buying and selling for their children's accounts using illegal insider information that they were cautious about using in their personal accounts, which would more easily arouse suspicion. While the parents' accounts had nice returns, the kids' accounts (including those held by the very recently born) were almost 50 percent more profitable. (The study, reported by NPR in April, covered 15 years of trades in Finland, chosen because that country collects age data that the U.S. and other countries do not.) [NPR, 4-9-2013]

-- Delicate Marketing Required: (1) A fluoride-free chocolate toothpaste "proven" to strengthen teeth and regenerate enamel is now on sale in limited markets in the U.S. Theodent (active ingredient: "rennou") is also available in mint flavor, said its New Orleans-based inventor, Dr. Tetsuo Nakamoto. (2) One of the 12 Canadian foods chosen to accompany the country's International Space Station astronaut in December is the limited-issue dry cereal especially noted for its fiber, organic buckwheat and various nontraditional ingredients. "Holy Crap" cereal is available throughout Canada and in 19 other countries. [WBRZ-TV (Baton Rouge, La.), 2-19-2013] [Newswire Canada, 12-14-2012]

-- "Even to Icelanders accustomed to harsh weather and isolation," reported The New York Times in March, the city of Grimsstadir "is a particularly desolate spot." Nonetheless, Chinese billionaire land developer Huang Nubo has announced he intends to build a luxury hotel and golf course in the area for his countrymen seeking "clean air and solitude." Since snowfalls often run from September until May, locals are skeptical of Huang's motives, but he continues to press for a long-term lease covering about 100 square miles for a project estimated to eventually cost about $100 million. [New York Times, 3-22-2013]

-- Since gastrointestinal noroviruses are so infectious and can be fatal in countries with marginal hygiene, scientists at the U.K. government's Health and Safety Lab in Derbyshire needed to study the "reach and dispersion" of human "vomitus," especially its aerosolizing. Working with nauseous patients would be impractical, and thus, researcher Catherine Makison created "Vomiting Larry," a puke-hurling robot with a range of almost 10 feet. (According to a University of Cambridge researcher, one can be infected by fewer than 20 norovirus particles, each droplet of puke can contain 2 million particles, and the virus remains active on hard surfaces for 12 hours.) [Reuters via The Register (London), 1-3-2013]

-- Research published in February by Britain's Royal Society science association found that male guppies in mating mode prefer to congregate with plainer, less colorful males, probably for an obvious reason: to look better by comparison. Said Italian researcher Clelia Gasparini, "You want to impress (a female potential mate)." Would you "look more attractive in comparison with (the dowdy, awkward comic star) Mr. Bean or George Clooney?" [Associated Press via Yahoo News, 2-13-2013]

-- Hottentot golden moles reside underground, which is not so oppressive because they're blind and navigate by smell and touch. Nonetheless, some scientists spend years studying them, and in a recent issue of Mammalian Biology, South African researchers disclosed that females choose mates largely by penis size. While some human females also favor this particular "pre-copulatory mechanism," the scientists hypothesized that the moles' reliance on touch leaves them with no alternative. [BBC News, 2-20-2013]

-- Premium Health Care for Lovable Animals: While some Americans cannot get medically necessary health care, a few lucky animals every year receive exactly what they need from wildlife conservation centers. Most recently, in March, a sandhill crane received deluxe surgery by a facility in Abbotsford, British Columbia, after having his leg shattered on a golf course. Doctors tried several surgeries, then amputated the leg, and have fitted the crane with a prosthesis that allows balance-preserving mobility. (In February, Suma Aqualife Park near Kobe, Japan, fitted a 190-pound loggerhead turtle with rubber fins kept in place by a vest -- to replace fins damaged in what doctors guessed was a shark attack.) [Canadian Broadcasting Corp. News, 3-24-2013] [National Geographic, 2-20-2013]

-- The Dark Side: Even though human hearts open warmly to helpless animals, kindness is not universal. As Clemson University animal conservation student Nathan Weaver found with a quick experiment late last year, some drivers will deliberately swerve into a turtle trying to cross a busy road -- seven drivers, he found, in the space of one hour (though most drivers easily avoided the realistic rubber model). (In the 1979 movie "The Great Santini," an overbearing fighter-pilot-husband who squishes turtles while driving late at night tells his wife, "It's my only sport when I'm traveling, my only hobby.") [Associated Press via Yahoo News, 12-27-2012]

Wealthy Russians have recently found a way around the country's horrid traffic jams: fake ambulances, outfitted with plush interiors for relaxation while specially trained drivers use unauthorized lights and sirens to maneuver through cluttered streets. London's Daily Telegraph reported in March that "ambulance" companies charge the equivalent of about $200 an hour for these taxis. [Daily Telegraph via National Post (Toronto), 3-22-2013]

While Americans Just Sigh: After a trial on fraud charges, the Iranian judiciary sentenced four bankers and their collaborators to death in February and several others to public floggings for obtaining loans by forgery in order to purchase government properties. The total amount involved reportedly was the equivalent of about $2.6 billion -- tiny compared to losses suffered since 2008 by investors and customers of large American banks' illegality, money-laundering and corner-cutting, for which no one has yet been jailed even for a single day. [PressTV.ir (Tehran), 2-18-2013]

So Far, So Good ... Oops!: (1) Husband Jared Rick and wife Ashley walked out of the Wal-Mart in Salem, Ill., in February with about $2,400 in shoplifted merchandise, apparently home free, but in the parking lot got into a loud domestic argument that drew the attention of security officers, who saw the merchandise and matched the Ricks with surveillance video. (2) Corey Moore, a Washington, D.C., "street legend," according to The Washington Post, for beating one arrest after another on murder and firearms charges, was finally convicted in February and faced at least 15 years in prison. The case was broken by a foot policeman in the suburb of Takoma Park, Md., who saw Moore toss an open bottle of beer into some shrubbery. After a sidewalk chase, a search yielded cocaine, which enabled a search of Moore's apartment that supplied crucial evidence the police had been lacking for years. [WJBD Radio (Salem), 2-27-2013] [Washington Post, 2-11-2013]

Romanian lawyer Madalin Ciculescu, 34, said in April that the next stop for his lawsuit is the European Court of Human Rights after two Romanian courts turned down his claims against Orthodox bishops who failed to exorcize the demons that were causing his flatulence. He sued the archdiocese because at least two exorcisms (one in his office, one at home) proved useless, thus harming his business as well as rendering his home life unpleasant. An archdiocese spokesman said the exorcisms were done properly, by the book. [Daily Mail (London), 4-6-2013]

Took It Too Far: (1) The school board in Windham, Mass., voted in March to ban popular, ubiquitous dodgeball from the district's curriculum because the game treats players as "human targets." Dodgeball (even though played these days with a foam ball) also suffers from "eliminating" players as the game progresses, which an education professional warned renders them less active than the good players. (2) The Castle View School in Britain's Essex County issued a specific ban in March against serving popular "triangle-shaped" pancakes after one was thrown at a pupil. (Not affected, reported London's The Independent, were "rectangle-shaped" pancakes, even though those, of course, have four firm corners instead of three.) [Eagle Tribune (North Andover, Mass.), 3-27-2013] [The Independent, 3-25-2013]

Thanks This Week to Peter Smagorinsky, Perry Levin, Roy Henock, Jim Peterson, and Pete Randall, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.

To counter the now-well-publicized culture of rape in India, three engineers in Chennai said in March that they are about to send to the market women's anti-rape lingerie, which will provide both a stun-gun-sized blast of electricity against an aggressor and a messaging system sending GPS location to family members and the police about an attack in progress. After the wearer engages a switch, anyone touching the fitted garment will, said one developer, get "the shock of his life" (even though the garment's skin side would be insulated). The only marketing holdup, according to a March report in The Indian Express, is finding a washable fabric. [The Indian Express (New Delhi), 3-31-2013; Daily Beast, 4-10-2013]

In March, Washington state Rep. Ed Orcutt, apparently upset that bicyclists use the state's roads without paying the state gasoline tax for highway maintenance, proposed a 5 percent tax on bicycles that cost more than $500, pointing out that bicyclists impose environmental costs as well. Since carbon dioxide is a major greenhouse gas, he wrote one constituent (and reported in the Huffington Post in March), bike riders' "increased heart rate and respiration" over car drivers creates additional pollution. (Days later, he apologized for the suggestion that bicyclists actually were worse for the environment than cars.) [Huffington Post, 3-4-2013]

-- So, For a While There, It Actually Worked: The maker of the "all-natural herbal extract" Super Power (which promises "powerful erections") issued a voluntary recall in January after "independent" lab tests revealed that the supplement mistakenly contained a small amount of sildenafil, the active ingredient in Viagra. Such unregulated dietary supplements cannot legally contain drugs without Food and Drug Administration approval. (Also, in March, the Federal Trade Commission ordered three retailers, including Neiman Marcus, to re-label some fake-fur garments because they, mistakenly or intentionally, contained real fur.) [DailyFinance.com, 1-29-2013] [CNN, 3-20-2013]

-- A Boston Herald reporter said in March that he had been kicked out of a State Ethics Commission training session (which might not be unreasonable, as the meeting was for Massachusetts House members only). However, at least two people in attendance refused to give their real names to the reporter as they left. Rep. Tim Toomey insisted he was not a member (though he is) but was "just passing through," and Commission chairman Charles Swartwood III (a former federal judge magistrate) refused to give his name at all, telling the reporter, "I'm not saying because that's a private matter." [Boston Herald, 3-21-2103]

Aspiring rap music bigshot Bernard Bey, 32, filed a $200,000 lawsuit in February in New York City against his parents, alleging that they owe him because they have been unloving and "indifferent" to his homelessness and refuse even to take him back in to get a shower. Bey, who raps as "Brooklyn Streets," said everything would be forgiven if they would just buy him two Domino's Pizza franchises so that he could eventually earn enough to become "a force to be reckoned with in the hip-hop industry." (His mother's solution, as told to a New York Daily News reporter: "[G]o get a job. He's never had job a day in his life.") [New York Daily News, 2-21-2013]

-- Police in Knoxville, Tenn., confiscated five venomous snakes during a February traffic stop, and Pastor Jamie Coots of the Full Gospel Tabernacle in Jesus Name (of Middlesboro, Ky.) is demanding them back. Coots said he possesses them openly during his services in Kentucky, but Knoxville police said they are illegal to own in Tennessee. Said Coots, "If I don't have them, then I'm not obeying the word of God." [WKYT-TV (Lexington, Ky.), 2-12-2013]

-- In Bristol, England, Anthony Gerrard, 59, had been arrested for possessing child pornography, but after an inventory, police found only 11 images of his massive 890GB porn stash were of children (which Gerrard said he unknowingly downloaded in his quest for legal, adult pornography), and he went to court in January to demand his collection back (minus the child porn). So far, police have said that it is "impractical" to cull the child porn images. [Bristol Post, 1-29-2013]

U.S. companies large and small legally deduct the expenses of doing business from their gross profits before paying income tax, but purveyors of marijuana (in states where possession is legal and where prescription marijuana is dispensed) cannot deduct those expenses and thus wind up paying a much higher federal income tax than other businesses. As NPR reported in April, "Section 280E" of the tax code (enacted in 1982 to trap illegal drug traffickers into tax violations) has not been changed to reflect state legalizations. The effect, experts told NPR, is that legal dispensaries in essence wind up paying tax on their gross receipts while all other legal businesses are taxed only on their net receipts. (The federal government, of course, continues to regard marijuana as illegal.) [NPR, 4-2-2013]

Ferris Bueller caused lots of mischief on his cinematic "Day Off" in the 1986 movie starring Matthew Broderick, but he never mooned a wedding party from an adjacent hotel window by pressing his nude buttocks, and then his genitals, against the glass in full view of astonished guests. In March, though, a young Matthew Broderick-lookalike (http://huff.to/14XQEJ6), Samuel Dengel, 20, was arrested in Charleston, S.C., and charged with the crime. (Another Bueller-like touch was Dengel's tattoo reading, in Latin, "By the Power of Truth, I, while living, have Conquered the Universe.") [Philadelphia Daily News, 3-14-2013; Huffington Post, 3-19-2013]

Transportation Security Administration rules protect passengers against previously employed terrorist strategies, such as shoe bombs, but as Congressional testimony has noted over the past several years, the perimeter security at airports is shockingly weak.

"For all the money and attention that in-airport screening gets," wrote Slate.com in February, "the back doors to airports are, comparatively, wide open -- and people go through them all the time." Perimeter breaches in recent years astonished officials at major airports in Charlotte, N.C.; Philadelphia; Atlanta; and New York City (mentioned in News of the Weird last year, recounting how a dripping-wet jetskiier who broke down next to JFK airport climbed the perimeter fence and made his way past its brand-new "detection" system, and was inside the Delta terminal before he was finally noticed). [Slate.com, 2-20-2013]

Most Gullible Pervert

In March, Stephen Thresh, 47, voluntarily handed in his computer at a police station and confessed to possessing hundreds of (illegal) images of women having sex with animals, including a snake, a tiger and an elephant. Thresh said he had earlier downloaded a message of unknown origin notifying him that "law enforcement authorities have been informed," and he thought they would go easier on him if he turned himself in. (Police denied knowledge of the message.) Thresh insisted that possessing such images was not a problem that needed addressing. [Daily Mirror (London), 3-11-2013]

Update

The Associated Press reported in March that a Philippines man was crucified for the 27th time during the annual Good Friday festivities in San Pedro Cutud. Sign painter Ruben Enaje, 52, once again endured several minutes pierced by the sterilized, 6-inch nails driven into his palms and feet to atone for yet another year's passing in which he had so seriously sinned. Enaje was joined by several other sufferers (as News of the Weird mentioned, by as many as 16 one year and, in 2005, by wayward police officers from a local force who used the crucifixion as proof that they could be safely reinstated). The country's Catholic Bishops Conference, of course, said the crucifixions are "not the desire of Jesus Christ." [Associated Press via Las Vegas Sun, 3-29-2013]

Readers' Choice

In March, the makers of Lululemon black Luon yoga pants issued a recall, expressing concern that they had been made with an unacceptable level of sheerness. However, a company official initially told customers that "the only way you can actually test" for the too-sheer pants would be for a customer to bend over before a store associate. (The company changed the policy a few days later, and the product manager resigned.) [Reuters via Chicago Tribune, 4-4-2013]

Thanks This Week to Laura Billington, Steven Bird, John McGaw and Sandy Pearlman, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.

Undocumented immigrant Jose Munoz, 25, believed himself an ideal candidate for President Obama's 2012 safe-harbor initiative for illegal-entry children, in that he had been brought to the U.S. by his undocumented parents before age 16, had no criminal record and had graduated from high school (with honors, even). Since then, however, he had remained at home in Sheboygan, Wis., assisting his family, doing odd jobs and, admittedly, just playing video games and "vegging." Living "in the shadows," he found it almost impossible to prove the final legal criterion: that he had lived continuously in the U.S. since graduation (using government records, payroll sheets, utility bills, etc.). After initial failures to convince immigration officials, reported the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in March, Munoz's lawyer succeeded -- by submitting Munoz's Xbox Live records, documenting that his computer's Wisconsin location had been accessing video games, day after day, for years. [Journal Sentinel, 3-24-2013]

-- Among the lingering costs of U.S. wars are disability payments and compensation to veterans' families, which can continue decades after hostilities end. An Associated Press analysis of federal payment records, released in March, even found two current recipients of Civil War benefits. Vietnam war payments are still about $22 billion a year, World War II, $5 billion, World War I, $20 million, and the 1898 Spanish-American war, about $1,700. [Associated Press via MassLive.com, 3-19-2013]

-- Each year, Oklahoma is among the states to receive $150,000 federal grants to operate small, isolated airfields (for Oklahoma, one in the southern part of the state is so seldom used that it is primarily a restroom stop for passing pilots). The payments are from a 13-year- old congressional fund for about 80 similar airfields (no traffic, no planes kept on site), described by a February Washington Post investigation as "ATM(s) shaped like (airports)." Congress no longer even requires that the annual grants be spent on the actual airports drawing the grants. [Washington Post, 2-25-2013]

-- During the massive February Southern California manhunt for former Los Angeles cop Christopher Dorner, nervous-triggered LAPD officers riddled an SUV with bullets after mistakenly believing Dorner was inside. Instead there were two women, on their early-morning job as newspaper carriers, and LAPD Chief Charlie Beck famously promised them a new truck and arranged with a local dealership for a 2013 Ford F-150 ($32,560). However, the deal fell through in March when the women discovered that Beck's "free" truck was hardly free. Rather, it would be taxable as a "donation," reported on IRS Form 1099, perhaps costing them thousands of dollars. [KNBC-TV (Los Angeles), 3-13-2013]

-- Sculptor Richard Jackson introduced "Bad Dog" as part of his "Ain't Painting a Pain" installation at California's Orange County Museum in February. Outside, to coax visitors in, Jackson's "Bad Dog's" hind leg was cocked, with gallons of yellow paint being pumped onto the building. "We'll see how long it lasts," he told the Los Angeles Times, "but you never know how people will react." "Sometimes, people feel they should protect their children from such things, then the kids go home and watch 'South Park.'" [Los Angeles Times, 2-15-2013]

-- Australian dilettante David Walsh's 2-year-old Museum of Old and New Art in Hobart is acquiring a reputation for irreverence. Among the exhibits is Greg Taylor's "My Beautiful Chair," which invites a visitor to lie next to a lethal injection chair and experience a countdown, mimicking the time it takes for execution drugs to kill (and then flashing "You Are Dead"). Also, at 2 p.m. each day, a "fresh fecal masterpiece" is created by artist Wim Delvoye, in which a meal from the museum's restaurant is placed into a transparent grinder that creates slush, turns it brown, and adds an overpowering defecation-like smell. The resulting "masterpiece" is channeled into (also transparent) vats. [Agence France-Presse via France24.com (Paris), 2-14-2013]

-- Career-Ending Jobs for Runway Models: British "design engineer" Jess Eaton introduced her second "high-fashion" collection in December at London's White Gallery, this time consisting of supposedly elegant bridal wear made in part with roadkill, cat and alpaca fur, seagull wings and human bones. [Daily Mail (London), 3-8-2013]

U.S. political consultants may recommend to their candidates gestures such as wearing an American flag lapel pin. In India, the advice includes creating the proper suggestive name for the candidate on the official ballot. Hence, among those running for office this year (according to a February Hindustan Times report): Frankenstein Momin, Hamletson Dohling, Boldness Nongum and Bombersing Hynniewta, and several Sangmas (related or not): Billykid Sangma, Mafiara Sangma, Rightious Sangma and Winnerson Sangma. More confusing were Hilarius Dkhar and Hilarius Pohchen and especially Adolf Lu Hitler Marak. [Hindustan Times, 2-19-2013]

Some Third-Worlders eat dirt because they are mentally ill or have no meaningful food. However, diners at Tokyo's upscale Ne Quittez Pas eat it because it is a trendy dish prepared by prominent chef Toshio Tanabe. Among his courses are soil soup served with a flake of dirty truffle, soil sorbet and the "soil surprise" (a dirt-covered potato ball). (Spoiler alert: It has a truffle center.) Tanabe lightly precooks his dirt and runs it through a sieve to eliminate the crunchiness. [Village Voice, 2-4-2013]

-- In some jurisdictions, a driver can be presumed impaired with a blood alcohol reading as low as .07 (and suggestively impaired at a reading below that), but according to a WMAQ-TV investigation in February, some suburban Chicago police forces allow officers to work with their own personal readings as high as .05. (While officers may be barred from driving at that level, they may not, by police union contract, face any discipline if they show up for work with a reading that high.) [WMAQ-TV, 2-15-2013]

-- From the Blotter: (1) Arlington County, Va., police reported in February that a resident of Carlin Springs Road told officers that someone entered her home and stole chicken from her simmering crock pot -- but only the chicken, leaving the vegetables as they were. The report noted that they had no suspects. (2) Prison guard Alfredo Malespini III, 31, faces several charges in Bradford, Pa., resulting from a marital dispute in March, when, presumably to make a point, he tried to remove his wedding ring by shooting it off. (The ring remained in place; his finger was mangled.) [ArlNow.com, 2-22-2013] [Associated Press via WCAU-TV (Philadelphia, 3-15-2013]

Serving Pediphiles: In March, a 19-year-old New York University student described to the New York Post her one-night experience last year as a foot-fetish prostitute at a spa in which men paid a $100 entrance fee plus $20 for each 10 minutes of fondling and kissing young women's feet. She said the men wore business suits, which they kept on the whole time, and that the dressed-up women had to first pass a strict foot examination by the "pimp," seeking candidates with the desired "high arches and small feet." She guessed that more than two dozen men patronized the spa during her shift and that she earned $200, including tips. [New York Post, 3-10-2013]

(1) In March, Jose Martinez pocketed an $8,000 settlement with California's Disneyland after he was stranded on a broken It's a Small World ride for a half-hour in 2009. Because Martinez is disabled, he could not easily be rescued and was forced, he said, to listen to the "It's a Small World" song on an endless loop until help arrived. (2) A woman and her son doing yard work at their home in Texarkana, Texas, in March "cleverly" dealt with a menacing snake by dousing it with gasoline and setting it afire, but of course it slithered away -- under brush next to their house. Moments later, according to an Associated Press dispatch, the home caught fire and burned down, and their neighbor's house was heavily damaged. [Daily Mail (London), 3-26-2013] [Associated Press via Athens (Ga.) Banner-Herald, 3-22-2013]

Thanks This Week to Peter Wardley, Sharon Teris-Whitney, Bruce Strickland, Russell Bell, Bruce Leiserowitz, and Peter Smagorinsky, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.