Beijing Genomics Institute scientists are closing in on a technology to allow parents to choose, from several embryos, the one most likely to yield the smartest offspring. London's Daily Mail (in January, referencing recent work in Wired, The Wall Street Journal and The New Yorker) explained that BGI will have identified high-potential mathematics genes (by mapping the cells of geniuses) so that researchers can search for those among a couple's array of embryos. (Most embryos will yield gene arrays resembling their parents', but one embryo is likely "better" -- and maybe much better.) One Chinese researcher acknowledged the "controversial" nature of the work, "especially in the West," but added, "That's not the case in China." The parental price tag on finding the smartest kid? Expensive, said a supporter, but less than upgrading an average kid via Harvard, or even a private prep school. [Daily Mail, 1-14-2014] [Wired, 7-16-2013]

-- "This (was) my life," said musician Boujemaa Razgui in December, referring to the 13 handmade flutes that he played professionally, "and now they're gone." Arriving in New York City from Madrid with the 13 woodwinds in his checked luggage, he was shocked to discover that U.S. Customs had destroyed them without notice because "wood" is a restricted "agricultural" import. (Unsophisticated agents had apparently regarded them as mere bamboo.) Razgui plays all over the world including, since 2002, with the Boston Camerata ensemble staged by the city's Museum of Fine Arts. [Boston Globe, 1-1-2014]

-- A Georgia Regents University's dental school official acknowledged in December that the school would likely continue to conduct research on the mouths of stray dogs solely to test a coating that might inhibit infections in humans' dental implants. The work is controversial because the only way to study the installed implants is to remove them, after euthanizing the dogs. (Also, the research is sponsored by commercial dental-implant companies for a market dominated by elective cosmetic patients.) (However, a GRU professor noted that implants are also functional, as they inhibit infections that might reach the heart's lining and other locations.) [Augusta Chronicle, 12-21-2013]

-- Saved by the Blimps: Americans who have grown accustomed to hearing that the U.S. is militarily without peer might have been shocked to learn in January (as CBS News reported from a Pentagon interview) that America has "practically zero capability" either to detect enemy cruise missiles fired at Washington, D.C., from offshore, or even worse, to "defend against (them)." The Pentagon's interim makeshift solution to protect the U.S. capital, said an official, is to launch two blimps, soon, to float two miles up over a base in Maryland to try to spot any such missiles. [CBS News, 1-23-2014]

-- In February, a California Highway Patrol officer handcuffed and threatened to arrest a firefighter performing an emergency roadside rescue along Interstate 805 in Chula Vista, Calif., because the rescuer would not move his truck from the fast lane, where it was "impeding" traffic. Firefighters are required to block lanes during rescues, specifically to "impede" traffic for their own protection and that of victims nearby. CHP and the Chula Vista firefighters later jointly called the incident a "miscommunication." [San Diego Union-Tribune, 2-5-2014]

-- Oregon inmate Sirgiorgio Clardy, 26, filed a handwritten $100 million lawsuit in January against Nike for inadequately marketing its Air Jordans. Clardy, a convicted pimp, had received an "enhanced" penalty for using a "dangerous weapon" to maim the face of a john, i.e., he had stomped and kicked a man after accusing him of skipping out on a payment, and the "dangerous weapon" was apparently his shoe. Clardy said Nike bears at least some responsibility for his incarceration because it failed to label the shoe a "dangerous weapon." [The Oregonian, 1-10-2014]

-- Ed Forchion sits in a jail in Burlington County, N.J. (where he will reside for a few more months), serving a term for possession of marijuana. However, for 10 days each month until his release, the same judge who sentenced him has promised to allow him to go smoke medical marijuana in California to relieve pain from his bone cancer. (Forchion was convicted of possession before New Jersey legalized medical marijuana.) (Update: Four days after a Trentonian columnist's story about "Weedman" Forchion, and the subsequent Internet frenzy it wrought, Forchion's judge commuted the final 130 days of his sentence and freed him.) [The Trentonian, 1-26-2014, 1-30-2014]

-- In a December letter to the University of Minnesota president, a coalition of black student organizations demanded an end to racial profiling, especially in light of recent campus crime incidents. "(C)ampus safety should be of the (university's) utmost importance," they acknowledged, but among the organizations' complaints was that when "be on the lookout" alerts were issued (usually based on victims' descriptions of their attackers), innocent black students feel "discomforting," "negative psychological effects" -- because the alerts so often describe black attackers. [WCCO-TV (Minneapolis), 1-29-2014]

-- Officials at the Emu Plains Correctional Center near Sydney, Australia, announced in January that they had pre-empted a planned escape by two female inmates, ages 32 and 21, after finding a 60-foot length of tied-together sheets in a cell. Nonetheless, the officials said they were puzzled, in that Emu Plains is a one-story facility, enclosed, wrote the Daily Telegraph, by a "not particularly high" fence. [Daily Telegraph (Sydney), 1-3-2014]

Recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings have made clear that only in the case of murder can a juvenile be given a life sentence "without possibility of parole" (and never a death sentence). Under-18s, the court said, must get a "meaningful opportunity" to mature and redeem themselves behind bars. The U.S. Constitution aside, apparently some Florida judges disagree and have subsequently sentenced juveniles to 50 years or longer for non-murders, in some cases assuring that the release date will be beyond the inmate's natural life expectancy. In one case found by a Barry University law school program, a juvenile convicted of gun robbery and rape had his earlier life-without-parole sentence "reduced" to consecutive sentences totaling 170 years. Critics said the Supreme Court should recognize that some juveniles are already "thoroughly incorrigible." [New York Times, 1-19-2014]

Christopher Pagano, 41, was finally arrested in January as police identified him as the man who had apparently been roaming the Mayfair neighborhood of Philadelphia for several weeks exposing his genitals while lovingly fondling a hunk of Swiss cheese ("cheese-accessorized" genitals, wrote a Philadelphia Daily News reporter). The case was broken when a 2012 victim recalled a "Swiss cheese pervert" in the Philadelphia area and searched for him on the Internet, locating a man who rhapsodized as much about cheese as about having sex. "I started to compare girls to cheese due to their milky (complexions)," the man (Pagano) wrote. "(G)irls are soft, smooth-feeling, and tend to like dairy products more." [Philly.com, 1-20-2014; Philadelphia Daily News, 1-31- 2014]

Perps Who Need to Be in a Different Line of Work: "Victim" Joseph Torrez, 27, was at home in Las Cruces, N.M., on New Year's Day with his fiancee and young son when four men barged in (after threatening Torrez on the telephone with "I'm big Eastside," "I'll kill you and your family," "I will go to your house"). Torrez is a mixed-martial arts fighter, and by the time it was over, he and his family were safe, but one home invader was dead, another was in the hospital, and the other two (including the telephoner) under arrest. [Las Cruces Sun-News, 1-6-2014]

(1) Ryan Bensen, 40, and Erica Manley, 37, were arrested in Seaside, Ore., in January, shortly after they expressed their gratitude to a waitress at the Twisted Fish by leaving, as a tip, a plastic bag of methamphetamine. (Police said Manley had still more in her purse when they searched her.) (2) A week apart in January, Pope Francis' pair of "peace doves" released in Vatican City were almost immediately attacked by a seagull and a crow, and a 31-year-old nun in Rieti, Italy, "unaware" that she was pregnant, gave birth to a boy whom she named "Francis." No details were released. [The Oregonian, 1-8-2014] [BBC News, 1-26-2014] [BBC News, 1-17-2014]

Thanks This Week to David Wasley, Gerald Davidson, Mel Birge, James Mohr, Perry Levin, Tim Kirby, and Pete Randall, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.

The semi-obscure Florida Statute 790.15 took center stage in January following a Miami Herald report of a resident of the town of Big Pine Key who routinely target-shoots his handgun in his yard, with impunity, to the consternation of neighbors. The statute permits open firing on private property (except shooting over a public right of way or an occupied dwelling), and several cities have tried, unsuccessfully, to restrict that right, citing "public safety" in residential neighborhoods. (A 2011 lobbying campaign by the National Rifle Association, and a state supreme court decision, nixed any change in the law.) "Negligent" shooting is illegal, but only a misdemeanor. Thus, even skillful shooting next door to a day care center or in a small yard that abuts a high-trafficked pedestrian street is likely perfectly legal. One Florida legislator who was originally from Alaska noted that even in Anchorage people cannot fire at will in their yards. [Miami Herald, 1-26-2014]

-- South Korea is a well-known hub for cosmetic beautification surgery, with a higher rate per capita than the U.S., but the procedures can be expensive, inspiring many young women recently to resort to do-it-yourself procedures for their professional and romantic upgrades. A December Global Post dispatch noted that some might try to force their eyes to stay open without blinking (using a novel $20 pair of glasses for hours on end) as a substitute for costly "double-eyelid" surgery. Also in use: a $6 jaw-squeezing roller device for the face to push the jaw line into a fashionable "oval" form. One teen told the reporter she applies an imaginative contraption to her face for hours a day to pressure her nose into more of a point, which is considered a desirable Western look. [Global Post (Boston) via Denver Post, 12-19-2013]

-- Acquired Tastes: (1) In December, thieves in Wicklow, Ireland, raided a convent's field at the Dominican Farm and Ecology Center, stripping it of its entire crop of Brussels sprouts. A nun at the farm said the sisters were devastated to miss out on the lucrative market for high-end Christmas dinners. (2) In January, Wal-Mart in China recalled its "Five Spice" donkey meat sold in some locations because the popular snack was found to be tainted -- with fox meat. [Irish Independent, 12-5-2013] [Reuters, 1-2-2014]

-- Labor's Influence in France: The French social security agency URSSAF initiated an enforcement action in December against the Mamm-Kounifl music bar in the town of Locmiquelic for underpaying employee contributions -- in that the tavern encourages customers to bus their own tables and thus reduces its need to hire more servers. The owner denied he was trying to save money. "It's (just) our trademark. We want the customer to feel comfortable, a bit like he's at home." [The Local (Paris), 12-18-2013]

-- Interesting Life Ahead: From the birth register of Elkhart (Ind.) General Hospital, reported by The Elkhart Truth, Jan. 19, 2014: "Tamekia Burks, Elkhart, daughter (named La'Soulja Major La'Pimp Burks, 6 lbs., 8 oz.), 3:20 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2014." [Elkhart Truth, 1-19-2014]

-- The makers of a product called Poo-Pourri garnered a "coveted" advertising award from USA Today in December as one of the five worst ads of the year. Toilet users concerned about smell are encouraged to spray Poo-Pourri on the commode, pre-use, and in the television ad, a British-accented female sits on the throne, extolling the product. Opening line: "You would not believe the mother lode I just dropped." (Nonetheless, USA Today still found two other ads that upset its editors more.) [USA Today, 12-24-2013]

-- The Power of Prayer: Nelson Thabo Modupe threatened a lawsuit in January against South Africa's Eskom electric utility unless the company paid him the equivalent of about $22.3 million for "saving" the firm that amount during the weeks of the 2010 Soccer World Cup. Modupe reasoned that he had joined the Zion Christian Church just before the event and had prayed ("successfully") to God to spare the utility from blackouts and power reductions during that period (which would have cost Eskom millions more). Modupe, open to negotiation, said he would accept a partnership in the company as a compromise. [Independent Online (Cape Town), 1-24-2014]

-- World's Laziest Dog Sitter: Tyler Smith, 23, was charged in December with violating the city animal care ordinance in Greenville, S.C., after a photograph was posted on Facebook of his father's dog being lowered by rope from the second-story balcony of an apartment. According to the posting, it was time for the dog to make a call of nature, but it was raining, and Smith preferred not to go downstairs with him. [Associated Press via Post and Courier (Charleston, S.C.), 12-17-2013]

Three million Americans are infected with hepatitis C (as are millions more overseas), but a very recent drug, Sovaldi, completely cures it with 84 daily doses. However, its manufacturer, Gilead Sciences, has somehow determined that a fair U.S. price for the drug should be $1,000 per pill ($84,000 for the total treatment). Shouldn't Gilead reduce the price once it has recouped its expensive investment, asked an NPR reporter in December? "That's very unlikely we would do that," said Gilead's Gregg Alton, but "I appreciate the thought." (According to NPR, Gilead "developed" Sovaldi merely by buying Sovaldi's actual developer for $11 billion. At $84,000 per patient, Gilead would "recoup" that investment from the first 150,000 customers, leaving 2.85 million more U.S. patients to pay $84,000 each, for an income of $239 billion.) [NPR, 12-30-2013]

Trevor Robinson, 67, of Skellingthorpe, England, was re-arrested in November for violating a previous Anti-Social Behavior Order by pushing a doll-carrying baby carriage in public. (He was also reportedly performing a sex act on himself.) The 2009 ASBO barred him from possessing dolls, baby carriages and "any other" means in which toys might be transported. Robinson has admitted a having a problem with dolls -- due, he said, to his inability to father children himself. [Lincolnshire Echo, 1-24-2014]

It Pays to Know Your Rap Sheet: Jerry Pancoast, 42, was arrested on at least four charges after a high-speed chase through Iowa's Polk and Jasper counties in January following an alleged shoplifting of tweezers and an eyebrow pencil -- not even taken by Pancoast but by his companion. Pancoast drove at 100 mph, even on deflated tires and three rims that eventually caused his truck to catch on fire. The episode started as "a simple theft case," said the arresting officer, until Pancoast abruptly took off. He later explained that he panicked because he knew there were already arrest warrants against him -- but a subsequent search turned up none. [Des Moines Register, 1-24-2014]

Stories That Never Get Old: (1) Following the early-January winter storm in East Kingston, N.H., emergency crews came to the aid of a 12-year-old girl who had a "what would happen" moment and tried to lick a metal flagpole in her front yard. (2) Police in the Los Angeles suburb of Harbor City were searching in February for the man suspected of stealing surveillance cameras from a home, but not before he apparently failed to distinguish between the camera (which he took with him) and the recording unit (which remained in the home and captured his face clearly as he removed the camera). [WMUR-TV (Manchester), 1-4-2014] [KNBC-TV, 1-24-2014]

Can't Possibly Be True: Kyle Johnson shattered his skull so badly in a high-speed longboard accident in June (2010) that ordinary "decompressive craniectomy" (temporarily removing half of the skull to relieve pressure) would have been inadequate. Instead, doctors at McKay-Dee Hospital in Ogden, Utah, removed both halves, leaving only a thin strip of bone (after placing Johnson in a drug-induced coma) and kept the skull frozen to prevent brittleness. After the swelling subsided, they reattached both halves of the skull to his head and woke him up gradually over a week's time. Johnson admits some memory problems and cognitive dysfunction, most notably his inability to focus on more than one concept at a time -- even when they are part of the same scene, such as two crayons on a table. Johnson said he probably won't go back to the longboard (but would try snowmobiling). [Fox News, 8-17-2010]

Thanks This Week to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.

The International New York Times edition published in Kuala Lumpur on Jan. 22 carried a page-one story noting increased worldwide demand by meat processors for pigs raised in the fresh air rather than enclosed in pens -- illustrated by a photograph of a cluster of pigs feeding in an outdoor stall. However, the Malaysian printer (who had downloaded the digital pages and set them to paper) had added black boxes to cover just the faces of each pig in the photo. "If there is picture of nudes or (the) like, this we will cover (up)," a publisher's spokesman told the Malay Mail. "This is a Muslim country." (The story, headline and photo were otherwise identical to the versions that appeared elsewhere in New York Times editions.) [Malay Mail (Kuala Lumpur, 1-22-2014]

-- The convenience beverage market got jumbled recently when, first, Oregon-based Union Wine Co. announced in November that it would soon sell its Underwood pinot gris and pinot noir in 12-ounce cans and, second, the London department store Selfridges unveiled a champagne vending machine for New Year's celebrations. (The French bottler Moet & Chandon offered bottles of bubbly behind glass doors for the equivalent of $29.) [The Oregonian, 11-25-2013] [Daily Telegraph, 11-15-2013]

-- Marketing Challenges: (1) "Does Germany really need a gourmet restaurant for dogs?" asked Berlin's Bild newspaper. Regardless, the Pets Deli in the Grunewald neighborhood of Berlin offers servings for the equivalent of about $4 to $6, either take-out or arranged in metal bowls on Pets Deli's floor. Said owner David Spanier, lauding his upscale, healthful treats, "Junk food is bad for animals." (2) Around Tokyo, "idle boredom is an impossible option," wrote Vice.com in December, as a reporter described a resort just out of town where one could swim in a pool of green tea, coffee, sake or (the most popular treat) wine. "A giant bottle of merlot" spilled into a pond the size of a minivan, he wrote (while braving the Yunessun resort's warnings not to drink from the pool). Though both-sex nudity is tolerated in Japan's hot springs spas, Yunessun discourages it. [Agence France-Presse via Yahoo News, 1-3-2014] [Vice.com, 12-10-2013]

-- The Joy of Researching: A team of Czech Republic researchers led by Vlastimil Hart, writing in Frontiers in Zoology in December, reported that dogs (among a few mammals), dealing with a nature's call, spontaneously align their body axis with the Earth's magnetic field. To reach that conclusion, the researchers said they observed 70 dogs of 37 breeds during defecation (1,893 observations) and urination (5,582) over a two-year period. [Frontiers in Zoology, 12-27-2013]

-- If We Can Do It, We Should Do It: (1) ThinkGeek.com has introduced the Tactical Laser-Guided Pizza Cutter, at a suggested $29.95, for helping to achieve straight-line precision in those difficult four-cut (eight-slice) pizza formulations. (2) From the Japanese lingerie manufacturer Ravijour comes a bra whose front clasp can be locked unless its built-in heart-rate monitor signifies that the heartbeat is characteristic of "true love." (Ravijour said it is still testing the bra.) [Huffington Post, 12-3-2013]

-- Man's BFFs: (1) The Battersea Dogs and Cats Home in Fulham, England, admitted in December that a rescued Staffordshire bull terrier, Barney, had a ladies' underwear-eating habit and that potential adopters should keep him away from laundry baskets. (In his first days at Battersea, officials say, he "passed" knickers three times.) (2) The Cairns (Australia) Veterinary Clinic warned in December of several reports of dogs becoming addicted to licking cane toads (which notoriously protect themselves by a venomous secretion that can be hallucinogenic). One vet told Brisbane's Courier-Mail of individual "serial lickers" treated for cane toad poisoning several times a year. [GetWestLondon.co.uk (Uxbridge), 12-19-2013] [Courier-Mail, 12-16-2013]

-- Who Knew That Racoons Were Easily Offended? The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals condemned a Pet Expo in Greenhithe, England, in October after reports emerged that a trainer had showcased "Melanie," a racoon who rides a bicycle-like device, apparently to great acclaim. An RSPCA statement denounced the expo for "degrading" a "wild animal" in such a "demeaning light." [KentOnline (Medway City Estate, England), 10-29-2013]

-- Management Comes to the Terrorism Industry: (1) In November, the Army of Islam (Syrian rebels) announced, via a dazzling, fully functional website, that it had job "vacancies" in the fields of graphic design, photography, printing, journalism, reporting and media promotion and programming. The anti-Assad force already has a Facebook page featuring videos of alleged military victories. (2) Somalia's coastal pirates, having peaked in 2009 in boat captures, may now be laying low only because of the familiar business problem of "inventory management." A November analysis by Quartz (qz.com) showed the pirates with such a surplus of hijacked vessels (still with earnings potential) that they would likely wind those down before taking to the seas again. [BBC News, 11-6-2013] [Quartz, 11-11-2013]

-- Mumbai, India, has its share of Western-style financial advisers using computer programs familiar to Wall Street -- but with the additional layering of "financial astrologers," who forecast successes and failures based on the alignment of the planets, among other indicators. According to a Business Week report in September, the GaneshaSpeaks service (with inspiration by the elephant-headed Lord Ganesha, god of wisdom) claims 1,200 subscribers at the equivalent of about $80 a year. Said one astrologer, "Fund managers used to laugh at me." During crises, he said, "I'm constantly crunching market and planetary data." [Business Week, 10-3-2013]

-- A group of (legal) prostitutes in the Netherlands began a campaign in December to have their occupation officially termed so dangerous and physically challenging that they should be allowed (as soccer players are) to save in tax-free pension funds. They carry out "difficult physical work," their lawyer said, and their careers are likewise short-lived -- much better-suited for the young. Furthermore, he pointed out, prostitutes are not able, post-career, to earn money coaching or by endorsements. [BBC News, 12-17-2013]

-- American health-care reformers routinely decry the inability of consumer-patients to compare prices of services to help drive down the costs. Two doctors, writing for the Journal of the American Medical Association in December, illuminated the problem by surveying 20 hospitals in the Philadelphia area. Nineteen fully disclosed the prices for parking in the hospital garage (and potential discounts were shown), but only three of the 20 would disclose their prices for routine electrocardiograms ($137, $600, $1,200). [JAMAInternalMedicine.com, 12-2-2013]

In ubiquitous public relations announcements around Pittsburgh, the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) proudly points to its 52,000-person workforce delivering high-quality care. However, when the government sought to collect payroll taxes on UPMC, the company claimed it owed nothing because not a single employee actually works for UPMC. All 52,000 are, technically, on the books of UPMC's 40-plus subsidiaries, and a UPMC spokesman told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in October that he not only did not know which subsidiary the UPMC CEO worked for but which one he himself worked for. (He also said he did not know how many of the subsidiaries paid payroll taxes, but a UPMC attorney said its arrangement is "widely practiced throughout the business community"). [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 10-22-2013, 11-11-2013]

Two 16-year-olds tried to pull off a street robbery at a housing complex in the Bernal Heights neighborhood of San Francisco in December, but one was arrested and the other is no longer with us. According to police, the victim cooperated fully with the two, but for some reason, one of the muggers fired his gun anyway. The bullet struck the victim (who was hospitalized, but will survive), ricocheted off his face and hit the shooter's partner, who died at the scene. [SFGate.com, 12-27-2013]

Thanks This Week to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.