A conservation biologist at Australia's University of New South Wales said in July that his team was headed to Botswana to paint eyeballs on cows' rear ends. It's a solution to the problem of farmers who are now forced to kill endangered lions to keep them away from their cows. However, the researchers hypothesize, since lions hunt by stealth and tend to pass up kills if the prey spots them, painting on eyeballs might trick the lions to choose other prey. (For the same reason, woodcutters in India wear masks painted with faces -- backward -- for protection against tigers.) [Sydney Morning Herald, 7-6-2016]

(1) In June, the online mega-website Pornhub announced a program to help blind pornography consumers by adding 50 "described videos" to its catalog, with a narrator doing play-by-play of the setting, the actors, clothing (if any) and the action. Said a Pornhub vice president, "It's our way of giving back." (2) Later in June, another pornography website (with a frisky name -- see bit.ly/29O4G9UURL) inaugurated a plan to donate a penny to women's health or abuse prevention organizations every time a user reached a successful "ending" while viewing its videos (maximum two per person per day). Its first day's haul was $39, or $13 for each of three charities (including the Mariska Hargitay-supported Joyful Heart Foundation). [Huffington Post, 6-15-2016] [Huffington Post, 6-30-2016]

-- A Government Program That Actually Works: A motorist in Regina, Saskatchewan, was issued a $175 traffic ticket on June 8 after he pulled over to ask if he could assist a homeless beggar on the sidewalk. According to the police report cited by CTV News, the "beggar" was actually a cop on stakeout looking for drivers not wearing seat belts (who would thus pay the city $175). Driver Dane Rusk said he had unbuckled his belt to lean over in the seat to give the "beggar" $3 -- and moments later, the cop's partner stopped Rusk (thus earning Regina a total of $178!). [CTV News, 6-10-2016]

-- One of America's major concerns, according to a U.S. congressman, should be the risk that if an apocalyptic event occurs and we are forced to abandon Earth with only a few species to provide for humanity's survival, NASA might unwisely populate the space "ark" with same-sex couples instead of procreative male-female pairs. This warning was conveyed during the U.S. House session on May 26 by Texas Congressman Louie Gohmert (who seemed not to be aware that gay males might contribute sperm to lesbians for species-continuation). [New York Daily News, 5-27-2016]

(1) In May, the Times of India reported the death of a man known only as Urjaram, in Rajasthan, India, when, while hosting a party, he forgot that while he was enjoying himself, he had left his camel in the sun all day (during a historic heat wave) with its legs tied together. When Urjaram finally went outside, the enraged camel "lifted him by the neck," "threw him to the ground" and "chewed on his body," severing his head. (2) The thief who ransacked a community greenhouse in County Durham, England, in July got away, but, according to residents, among his bounty was a bottle of rum that is usually offered only as a constipation remedy, in that it contained a heavy dose of the aggressive laxative "lactulose." Said one resident, "Maybe (the thief has) left a trail" for the police. [The Times of India, 5-23-2016] [The Northern Echo (High Wycombe, England), 7-15-2016]

Many website and app users are suspected of "agreeing" to privacy policies and "terms of service" without comprehending them (or even reading them), though most judges routinely assume the user to have consented to be bound by them. In a controlled-test report released in July, researchers from York University and University of Connecticut found that 74 percent skipped the privacy policy altogether, but, of the "readers," the average time spent was 73 seconds (for wordage that should have taken 30 minutes), and time "reading" terms of service was 51 seconds when it should have taken 16 minutes. (If users had read closely, they might have noticed that they had agreed to share all their personal data with the National Security Agency and that terms of service included giving up their first-born child.) [ArsTechnica.com, 7-12-2016]

Air Force Col. Eugene Caughey is scheduled for court-martial in August in Colorado Springs, Colorado, charged with six counts of adultery (a violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice) -- which he alleges constitutes illegal discrimination because he is heterosexual. That is, only heterosexuals can have the "sexual intercourse" required for adultery since the UCMJ defines the term as between a man and a woman; same-sex pairs cannot have "sexual intercourse." (Even if Caughey prevails on the discrimination issue, he faces other, more serious charges that may bring him life in prison.) [The Gazette (Colorado Springs), 6-29-2016]

-- Update: News of the Weird reported in 2007 and 2014 that, despite the abundant desert, Middle East developers were buying plenty of beach sand from around the world (because the massive concrete construction in Dubai and Saudi Arabia, among other places, requires coarser sand than the desert grains tempered for centuries by sun and wind). The need has now grown such that London's The Independent reported in June that black market gangs, some violent, are stealing beach sand -- and that two dozen entire islands in Indonesia have virtually disappeared since 2005 because of sand-mining. [The Independent, 6-23-2016]

-- Farmers high in Nepal's Himalayas are heavily dependent on harvesting a fungus which, when consumed by humans, supposedly produces effects similar to Viagra's -- but the region's rising temperatures and diminished rainfall (thought to result from global climate change) threaten the output, according to a June New York Times dispatch. Wealthy Chinese men in Hong Kong and Shanghai may pay the equivalent of $50,000 a pound for the "caterpillar fungus," and about a million Nepalese are involved in the industry, producing about 135 tons a year. (The fungus is from the head of ghost moth larvae living in soil at altitudes of more than 10,000 feet.) [New York Times, 6-27-2016]

Joshua Long, 26, was arrested in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, in June for possession of a suspected-stolen human brain (which he allegedly kept in a shopping bag under the porch at his aunt's trailer home). Police believe that the brain had been a medical teaching aid, but that Long was lacing his marijuana with the brain's embalming fluid. (Long and a former resident of the trailer home called the brain "Freddy.") [PennLive.com (Mechanicsburg, Pa.), 7-15-2016]

(1) Large-schnozzed people from all over Europe squared off in June for the World Nose Championship in Langenbruck, Germany (held every five years since 1961). After judges applied precision calipers (adding length plus width), Hans Roest was declared the winner. (Also reported: Contestants believe snuff tobacco and beer to be size-enhancing substances.) (2) An unnamed man, 55, and woman, 40, were arrested near Joplin, Missouri, in July, after being spotted riding a stolen lawn mower at 8:45 a.m. -- naked. They told police that someone had stolen their clothes while they were skinny-dipping and that the mower was their best option to make it home. [The Local (Berlin), 6-20-2016] [Joplin Globe, 7-14-2016]

A centuries-old practice of China's upper class continues today, reported Slate.com in August (2012), except with a bit more circumspection. Rich or powerful people convicted of crimes can still hire replacements to serve their sentences -- but because of ubiquitous Internet videos, only if the replacements facially resemble them. Since the convict winds up paying something for his crime (though a relatively small price), Slate called the practice (known as "ding zui") sort of a "cap-and-trade" policy for crime. [Slate.com, 8-2-2012]

A 28-year-old woman, unnamed in news reports, veered off the road and into a house in the Florida panhandle town of Mary Esther on July 7. She apparently was free of drug or alcohol influence, but readily explained to police that she must have gone through a stop sign and left the road when she closed her eyes to pray as she drove. (The house was damaged, but no one was injured.) [Daily News of Northwest Florida, 7-11-2016]

-- The Transportation Security Administration announced in May that it had collected $765,000 in loose change left behind in airport scanner trays during 2015 -- an average "haul" for the agency of $2,100 a day (numbers assuming, of course, that TSA personnel turn in all of the money they find). Los Angeles and Miami airports contributed $106,000 of the total. [WTOP Radio (Washington, D.C.), 5-17-2016]

-- Take Your Word for It: Scientists at the University of Cambridge, writing in May in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, claimed to have figured out how to construct a "motor" a "million times" smaller than an ant. (It apparently involves lasers, gold particles and "van der Waals forces," and the object is to bind the gold particles and then cause them to automatically "snap" apart with, according to author Jeremy Baumberg, "10 to a hundred times more force per unit than any known other machine.") [Washington Post, 5-3-2016]

-- CEO Michael Pearson told a Senate committee in April that he "regret(s)" the business model he instituted in 2015 for Valeant Pharmaceuticals -- the one that, for example, allowed a drug (Cuprimine) that treats liver failure and formerly cost a typical user out-of-pocket about $3 a pill (120 per month, $366) to, overnight, cost the user $15 a pill. (The insurance company's and Medicare's cost went overnight from about $5,000 per 100 tablets to $26,000.) (A Deutsche Bank analysis of the industry tallied Valeant's all-drug average price spike at more than five times the average of any competitor's.) Pearson told the senators he had no idea that such a pricing strategy would turn out to be so controversial. [New York Times, 4-28-2016, 10-4-2015]

-- Neck and Back Support: The Japanese branch of the intimate apparel maker Genie is currently advertising, in Japanese and English, a handy guide for bras that emphasizes the hardship women bear by having to lug around breasts of certain sizes in ill-fitting garments. The Genie chart reveals weight in ounces of typical A-cup chests (11.5 ounces) through F-cup (41.7 ounces, or 2.6 pounds). To assist any innumerate Japanese shoppers, the chart also shows practical comparisons, such as A-cup pairs weighing as much as "two chipmunks," C-cups as "one newborn polar bear cub," and F-cups as "one 3-month-old Persian kitten." [Genie's press release via RocketNews24.com, 7-6-2016]

-- The Passing Parade: (1) Mark Herron, 49, of Sunderland, England, was arrested again in May -- his 448th arrest on alcohol-related charges. The year started "well" for Herron, with only 14 collars through March, and he cleaned up briefly before a "family bereavement" sent him spiraling downward again. His current lawyer admitted that his client has been in court more often than he himself has. (2) Austrian Hans Heiland vowed in June to assist a needy family in Oberholz by donating to a charity fundraiser sponsored by the local fire department. He has been collecting bottle tops through the years and figures he could sell his "treasure" now, as scrap metal, to help the family. He has at least 10,000, no, make that 10 million caps, weighing "several tons." [Sunderland Echo, 5-30-2016] [The Local (Vienna), 6-10-2016]

-- Wait, How Many Fell for This? In May, the federal government finally shut down a long-running international scam that had sold psychic assurances (prosperity! winning lottery numbers!) to more than a million Americans. In personalized form letters, two French psychics had guaranteed success and riches to clients if they would only buy their $50 books (and massive upselling usually followed). The Justice Department estimated that during the spree, the sellers earned upward of $180 million on at least 56 million pieces of postal mail. [Reuters, 5-9-2016]

-- In a June verdict still reverberating through the telemarketing industry, a jury in Utah found that three companies run by Forrest Baker III had illegally made 99 million phone calls to consumers on the Do Not Call Registry and an additional 18 million calls telling people they were merely doing surveys when the purpose was hawking their family-friendly movies. Both charges are violations of the Federal Trade Commission's Telemarketing Sales Rule. Although the total fine and damages have not been decided, the law provides that the most serious offenders could be assessed $16,000 per phone call (for a maximum of almost $1.9 trillion). [FTC press release, 6-2-2016] [NetworkWorld.com, 6-2-2016]

-- A recent study by a Harvard University data scientist estimated that the government of China funds the creation of at least 488 million bogus social-media posts a year. The report refers to a rumored government-sponsored arrangement that pays people the equivalent of 8 U.S. cents per post of "news" for the purpose of distracting social-media users and channeling them to subjects preferred by the government (such as successes of the Communist Party). [CNN Money, 5-20-2016]

-- The family of a Virginia Tech student missing since 1998 was notified in March that the man's remains and ID had been found in a wooded ravine 700 feet below the New River Gorge bridge near Beckley, West Virginia -- in an area the man's vehicle tracker had long identified for potential searching. A West Virginia State Police sergeant told reporters that in the years since the student disappeared, the remains of 48 other bodies had been found underneath the bridge. [Roanoke Times, 3-11-2016]

-- Recurring Themes: (1) Fernando Estrella, 41, was arrested in Franklin County, Vermont, in March and charged with making the foolish error of running a stop sign while carrying a heroin haul. Estrella was rectally packing three condoms stuffed with enough heroin, said police, to fill 1,428 street-retail-size baggies. (2) Esteysi Sanchez Izazaga, 29, was arrested for DUI, hit-and-run and vehicular manslaughter in Oceanside, California, in June after driving three-fourths of a mile (3,960 feet) with a pedestrian's corpse firmly lodged in her windshield after she struck the man. (The drive ended up at her home, where her horrified husband noticed the body and called police.) [Fox News, 3-30-2016] [KGTV (San Diego), 6-28-2016]

-- As typical of many pervert suspects in News of the Weird, Roger Marsh, 65, of Cowling, England, was a prodigious collector/hoarder of his indecent images. He was caught with a camera attached to his shoe following skirted women around an Ikea store, and in May was ordered to jail for 18 months by Leeds Crown Court, covering six offenses. However, police had also discovered a trove of 709,376 images and videos at his home, and preliminary perusal of the collection showed 1,600 live files of voyeurism and about 9,000 indecent images of children. [Keighley News, 5-25-2016]

New Mexico is an "open carry" state, with otherwise-law-abiding adults authorized to display loaded handguns in public. However, in the town of Vaughn (pop. 500, about 90 miles east of Albuquerque), perhaps the only people not legally able to carry are the town's two police officers. A June (2012) KOB-TV report revealed that Chief Ernest Armijo had been convicted in 2011 of criminal non-support of a wife and two sons, and was barred from possessing a gun. Deputy Brian Bernal has his own domestic issue: a conviction for family violence that bans him, under federal law, from carrying. (A month after the News of the Weird story, both men resigned, leaving the town's police dog the only active "officer.") [KOB-TV (Albuquerque), 6-28-2012]

LEAD STORY -- Fashion Challenges

Beautician Sarah Bryan, 28, of Wakefield, England, who garnered worldwide notoriety last year when she introduced a wearable dress made of 3,000 Skittles, returned this summer with a wearable skirt and bra made of donated human hair (a substantial amount, she said, pubic hair). She admits having had to work in an eye mask, breathing mask and thick gloves, out of fear of donors' hygiene habits. (More conventionally, designer Van Tran of Brooklyn, New York, won the 12th annual (wearable) Toilet Paper Wedding Dress design contest in New York City in June, with a $10,000 prize from sponsors Charmin and Ripley's Believe It or Not.) [Metro News (London), 7-5-2016] [Washington Post, 6-20-2016]

World's Greatest Lawyers

-- Attorney Chris Dyer convinced a jury in La Crosse, Wisconsin, in June that there was "reasonable doubt" about what his client was doing in a family's basement when he was discovered, pants down, perched ("doggy style") over the family's golden retriever, Cooper. Client Daniel Reinsvold (a stranger in the house) told the jury that he has an "intestinal disorder" that makes him subject to "emergencies." What Reinsvold was doing was apparently perfectly clear to the resident's 17-year-old daughter, who discovered the scene and reported Reinsvold "screwing Cooper" (and a vet said later that Cooper showed signs of trauma). Nonetheless, Reinsvold was convicted only of trespass and disorderly conduct. [La Crosse Tribune, 6-16- 2016]

-- Attorney Lee Pearlman finally earned an acquittal in June (after two hung-jury trials) for his client Danielle Goeller -- one of a seemingly increasing number of drivers who hit pedestrians but claim they were unaware of anybody being hit. Goeller, 28, a trauma-room nurse with no intoxicants in her system, had struck a 60-year-old man on a busy, heavily lighted Tampa street at 11:45 p.m., cracking her windshield -- but drove on without stopping. "What does she think she hit?" asked the prosecutor. "A deer? A bear?" Responded Pearlman, "She's a scared girl in the middle of the night who doesn't have the life experience other people do." [Tampa Bay Times, 7-1-2016]

Bright Ideas

-- Picturesque Torrelodones, Spain (pop. 22,000), has 6,000 pet dogs and apparently few conscientious dog owners, which town leaders say accounts for the nearly half-ton of "litter" that accumulates daily. The town's latest bright idea: installing a 7-foot-high, 10-by-10-foot brown, inflated plastic "swirly" in the center of town as a reminder to residents to pick up after their dogs. (Spain's The Local reported in June that other towns have begun to tackle the problem as well, such as with DNA testing of dogs and street-scrubbing punishment for guilty owners.) [The Local (Barcelona), 6-3-2016]

-- British student Joshua Browder, 19, created an easy-to-use computer app to help drivers fight parking tickets they believe unjust -- and now reports that users have won 160,000 cases (out of 250,000), all in London and New York City, by following his question-and-answer "chat" interface at DoNotPay.co.uk. Browder said he was motivated to develop the app (which, as of now, is still free of charge) after himself getting about 30 tickets he says he did not deserve. [Metro News (London), 6-28-2016]

The Passing Parade

(1) A bicycle thief was stopped on June 10 when the bike's owner and several other people chased him from the Wal-Mart parking lot in Eagle Point, Oregon, drawing the attention of a passing rider on horseback (Robert Borba), who joined the chase and moments later (according to a report in Portland's The Oregonian) lassoed the man and restrained him until police arrived. (2) A kite surfer on a Sussex beach south of London got into trouble on June 26 and was unable to float back to land -- until he was rescued by two Good Samaritans in kayaks. The saviors happened to be dressed as Batman and Robin for participating in the Shoreham Beach Superhero Paddle. [The Oregonian, 6-10-2016] [Bognor Regis Observer, 6-27-2016]

Wait, What?

-- Not only are almost all federal employees above average, they are nearly all superior workers, according to a June Government Accountability Office review of agencies' personnel-rating results. (Yes, the review included the departments of Veterans Affairs and Homeland Security.) Most agencies use a 1 ("unacceptable") through 5 ("outstanding") rating system, and GAO found that 99 percent were rated either 5 or 4 ("exceeds 'fully acceptable'"). [Washington Post, 6-13-2016]

-- Not many DUI stops result in attempts to locate the suspect's chastity belt key, but the May 14 sobriety checkpoint stop of Curtis Eidam, 35, in Clinton, Tennessee, did. Eidam was outfitted in "red mesh see-through hose," according to the police report, with a ribbon tied in his goatee, and also a "little skirt" (perhaps a tutu), when he told officers he needed his key, which happened to be on a necklace worn by his passenger (a "highly intoxicated" 44-year-old woman). Thus, Eidam was able to unlock and remove the chastity belt, which had been "attached to his penis." (There was also a handgun -- illegal in Tennessee for an intoxicated person to carry.) [Knoxville News Sentinel, 6-7-2016]

Cognitive Failure

In a May journal article, biologists from the University of Florida and Oklahoma State University found that more than 80 percent of survey respondents want package labels on all foods that have "DNA" content (even though, yes, all meat and vegetables have DNA). The Oklahoma researcher found earlier that about the same number want such labels to be "mandatory." (Law professor Ilya Somin suggests playfully raising the fright level of those respondents by adding this "alarm" to the label they demand: "Warning: Pregnant women are at very high risk of passing on DNA to their children.") [Reason.com, 5-24-2016] [Washington Post, 5-27-2016] [Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, 5-18-2016]

Weird Japan

Client Partners is only one of several Japanese agencies that supply rental "friends" to the lonely, for hours or days of companionship tailored to the needs of the socially challenged client (with two rules, however: "no romance," "no lending money"). A writer for AFAR travel magazine interviewed several "friends" in June, one of whom explained: "Japan is all about face. We don't know how to talk from the gut. We can't ask for help." Said the female "friend" (who offered a good-bye handshake to the interviewer): "There are many people who haven't been touched for years ... who start to cry when we shake hands with them." [AFAR.com via The Week, 6-26-2016]

But It's Our "Policy"!

Good Samaritan Derrick Deanda is facing a $143 bill from paramedics in Elk Grove, California, after he, passing a car crash, jumped out to pull out a man and his three children (including a 2-year-old), who were trapped in the wreckage. A short time later the paramedics arrived and, noticing that Deanda had a cut on his arm (from breaking the car's window to free the family), bandaged him. Elk Grove has a policy charging "all patients" at a first-responder site $143 for the "rescue," and Deanda received his bill in June. [KOVR-TV (Sacramento), 6-20-2016]

Least Competent Criminals

Not Ready for Prime Time: In May, a 16-year-old boy in Lakewood, Washington, not only used Facebook to set up a marijuana-dealer robbery (one of many people, lately, to incriminate themselves on social media), but during the robbery itself accidentally shot himself in the groin and femoral artery, requiring life-saving seven-hour surgery. [News Tribune (Tacoma), 5-2-2016]

A News of the Weird Classic (July 2012)

Slaved Over a Hot Stove: Delivering gourmet meals to customers' doors is a fast-growing business model, but so far, only London's brand-new (as of 2012) Housebites goes the extra step. According to its press release, cited by Huffington Post, Housebites not only home-delivers "restaurant quality" cuisine (at the equivalent of about $20 per entree), but offers an optional dirty-pans service (about $8 extra), lending out the containers in which the food was prepared -- thus allowing clients to trick their dinner guests into believing the client actually prepared the meal. [Huffington Post, 6-14-2012]