Robotic models of living organisms are useful to scientists, who can study the effects of stimuli without risk to actual people. Northwestern University researchers announced in March that its laboratory model of the "female reproductive system" has reached a milestone: its first menstrual period. The "ovary," using mouse tissue, had produced hormones that stimulated the system (uterus, cervix, vagina, fallopian tubes, liver) for 28 days, reaching the predictable result. Chief researcher Teresa Woodruff said she imagines eventually growing a model from tissue provided by the patient undergoing treatment. [New York Times, 4-4-2017]

-- Chutzpah! Henry Wachtel, 24, continues in legal limbo after being found "not criminally responsible" for the death of his mother in 2014, despite having beaten her in the head and elsewhere up to 100 times -- because he was having an epileptic seizure at that moment and has no memory of the attack. A judge must still decide the terms of Wachtel's psychiatric hospitalization, but Wachtel's mind is clear enough now that, in March, he demanded, as sole heir, payoff on his mother's life insurance policy (which, under New York law, is still technically feasible). [New York Post, 3-30-2017]

-- Epic Smugglers: In February, federal customs agents seized 22 pounds of illegal animal meat (in a wide array) at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. Among the tasty items were raw chicken, pig and cow meat, brains, hearts, heads, tongues and feet -- in addition to (wrote a reporter) "other body parts" (if there even are any other edible parts). In a typical day nationwide, U.S. Customs and Border Protection seizes about 4,600 smuggled plant or animal products. [WFAA-TV, 2-10-2017]

-- Over the years, News of the Weird has covered the long-standing campaign by animal-rights activists to bestow "human" rights upon animals (begun, of course, with intelligent orangutans and gorillas). In March, the New Zealand parliament gave human rights to a river -- the Whanganui, long revered by the country's indigenous Maori. (One Maori and one civil servant were appointed as the river's representatives.) Within a week, activists in India, scouring court rulings, found two of that country's waterways deserved similar status -- the Ganges and Yamuna rivers, which were then so designated by judges in Uttarakhand state. (The Ganges' "rights" seem hollow since an estimated one billion gallons of waste still enters it every day despite its being a holy bathing spot for Hindus.) [Washington Post, 3-21-2017]

-- Yet another intimate accessory with weak security drew attention when hackers broke down a $249 Svakom Siime Eye personal vibrator in April, revealing a lazily created default password ("88888888") and Wi-Fi network name ("Siime Eye"). Since the Eye's camera and internet access facilitate livestream video of a user's most personal body parts, anyone within Wi-Fi range can break in (and be entertained) by just driving around a city looking for the Siime Eye network. [Vice.com, 4-3-2017]

-- Ewwww! Luu Cong Huyen, 58, in Yen Giao, Vietnam, is the most recent to attract reporters' attention with disturbingly long fingernails. A March OddityCentral.com report, with cringe-inducing photos, failed to disclose their precise length, but Huyen said he has not clipped them since a 2013 report on VietnamNet revealed that each measured up to 19.7 inches. Huyen explained (inadequately) that his nail obsession started merely as a hobby and that he is not yet over it. (The Guinness Book record is not exactly within fingertip reach: 73.5 inches per nail, by Shridhar Chillal of India.) [Oddity Central, 3-23-2017; VietnamNet (Ho Chi Minh City), 5-11-2013; LiveScience, 10-1-2015]

-- And a Partridge in a Pear Tree: In February, a pet welfare organization complained of a raid on a home near Lockhart, Texas, that housed more than 400 animals (and, of course, reeked "overpowering(ly)" of urine). The inventory: 86 snakes, 56 guinea pigs, 28 dogs, 26 rabbits, 15 goats, 9 doves, 8 skinks, 7 pigs, 6 pigeons, 4 gerbils, 3 bearded dragons, 2 ducks and 1 tarantula -- plus about 150 rats and mice (to feed the menagerie) and 20 other animals whose numbers did not fit the above lyric pattern. [San Antonio Express-News, 2-22-2017]

For more than a decade, an "editor" has been roaming the streets at night in Bristol, England, "correcting" violations of standard grammar, lately being described as "The Apostrophiser" since much of his work involves adjusting (or often obliterating) that punctuation mark. On April 3, the BBC at last portrayed the vigilante in action, in a "ride-along" documentary that featured him using the special marking and climbing tools that facilitate his work. His first mission, in 2003, involved a government sign "Monday's to Friday's" ("ridiculous," he said), and he recalled an even more cloying store sign -- "Amys Nail's" -- as "so loud and in your face.") [The Guardian, 4-3-2017]

-- New York City health officials have convinced most ultra-Orthodox Jewish "mohels" to perform their ritual circumcisions with sterile tools and gauze, but still, according to a March New York Post report, a few holdouts insist on the old-fashioned way of removing the blood from an incision -- by sucking it up with their mouths (and thus potentially passing along herpes). Some local temples are so protective of their customs that they refuse to name the "offending" mohels (who are not licensed medical professionals), thus limiting parents' ability to choose safe practitioners. [New York Post, 3-31-2017]

-- A "locked" cellphone (tied to a particular carrier), though a nuisance to purchasers, is only a several-hundred-dollar nuisance. A more serious crisis arises, as News of the Weird noted in 2015, when farmers buy $500,000 combines that they believe they "own," but then find that the John Deere company has "locked" the machines' sophisticated software, preventing even small repairs or upgrades until a Deere service rep shows up to enter the secret password (and, of course, leaves a bill!). Deere's business model has driven some farmers recently to a black market of fearless Ukrainian hackers (some of the same risky dark-net outlaws believed to pose online dangers), who help put the farmers back on track. Eight state legislatures are presently considering overriding Deere's contract to create a "right to repair." [NPR via High Plains Public Radio, 4-20-2017]

-- Paul Cobb (also known as Craig Cobb) continues to look for a tiny North Dakota town in which he (and, potentially, fellow white supremacists) can buy enough land to establish a Caucasian enclave. News of the Weird first noticed his work in 2013 when he was eyeing (unsuccessfully, it turned out) Leith (pop. 16) and Antler (pop. 28), but recently he purchased an old church in bustling Nome (pop. 61), likely renewing his quest. (His Leith plans ended badly after locals convinced him to prove his whiteness with a DNA test, which revealed him to be 14 percent "sub-Saharan African.") [WDAY-TV (Fargo), 3-21-2017]

-- No Longer Weird? For the 31st consecutive Easter in the Philippines, Ruben Enaje, 57, was among the throngs of devout Christians who slashed their own torsos bloody, then flogged themselves repeatedly as they marched through the streets to demonstrate homage to God, and dozens of men in San Pedro Cutud, Santa Lucia and other villages replicated the crucifixion of Jesus by having sterilized 4-inch nails driven into their own arms and legs. When News of the Weird first encountered the Philippine phenomenon in 1989, the crucifixions had built a 40-year history and still listed, as an official sponsor, the Philippines Department of Tourism (but no longer). (The Catholic Church, as usual, "banned" the extreme acts, to little effect.) [Manila Bulletin, 4-13-2017]

A June 2016 police raid on David Jessen's Fresno County (California) farmhouse caused a $150,000 mess when sheriff's deputies and Clovis Police Department officers "rescued" it from a trespassing homeless man -- with the massive destruction leading to Jessen's lawsuit announced in March. The misdemeanant helped himself to an ice cream bar, some milk and half a tomato, but was otherwise "unarmed"; however, by the time the police standoff ended, the "crime scene" included more than 50 cop cars, a SWAT team (and backups), two helicopters, standby ambulances, a police robot, and a crisis negotiation team. Windows, walls and wrought-iron doors were destroyed; tear gas and a "flash bomb" were employed. (Jessen suspects that the farmhouse's isolation enticed police to decide that it presented an excellent training opportunity.) [TechDirt, 3-13-2017]

-- "Pro-choice" activist Jessica Farrar, a Texas state legislator, introduced a bill in March to create consistency between the state's rigorous regulation of women's reproductive functions and those of men (regulation which, by the way, in either case she calls "invasive" and "unnecessary"). Because Texas's anti-abortion laws highlight "procreation" as a crucial government interest, she believes male use of erectile-dysfunction drugs should be regulated as abortion is. Under her bill, individual use of Viagra or similar drugs must be preceded by "counseling" similar to that required by abortion laws, and since male masturbation involves the "wasting" of precious sperm cells, it, too, would require "beforehand" counseling. [Texas Tribune, 3-12-2017]

-- Jason Sexton told KFSM-TV in Fort Smith, Arkansas, in April that he alone had been digging the massive hole neighbors noticed, now 34 feet deep and with separate tunnels extending off of the main hole. Police had come to check it out, since it was on another person's private property (and not the city's, which Sexton had assumed). He said he had been digging off and on for three years to get an answer to whether "the Spanish" had been in Fort Smith centuries ago, mining iron, and, if so, the site should therefore be a lucrative tourist destination. Sexton said he felt he had to give his explanation: "Nobody in their right mind," he said, "would dig a hole (this big) for no reason." [KFSM-TV, 4-13-2017]

-- At a time of growing awareness that some people seem almost addicted to their cellphones and instant 24/7 communication, police in Brookfield, Wisconsin, released surveillance photos of a woman in the act of robbing banks on March 25 and 27 -- while standing at teller counters and talking on the phone during the entire episodes. Acting on a tip from the photos, police arrested Sarah Kraus, 33, on March 28. [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 3-29-2017]

-- College activist Pablo Gomez Jr., 22, was arrested in Berkeley, California, in March and charged with the brutal stabbing death of an elementary school teacher. Gomez, a senior at University of California, Berkeley, is well-known on campus for insisting on a gender identity for which (as an example) the pronoun "he" is an inappropriate reference. (Hence, "they" was charged with what is so far the only homicide in Berkeley this year.) [San Jose Mercury News, 3-27-2017]

-- Paul Perry Jr., 39, sound asleep behind the wheel of his car, with motor running, at 6 a.m. on April 2, was in no position to talk his way out of a DUI ticket, but did offer a gentle challenge to the Youngstown, Ohio, police officer. Several times, according to the police report, Perry offered to "thumb wrestle" the officer to get out of the ticket. From the report: "Perry was advised officers would not thumb-wrestle him." [Youngstown Vindicator, 4-4-2017]

-- Wait, What? A father, 43, and his son, 22, argued on April 9 about who would walk the dog at their home on Chicago's South Side. They apparently thought to settle the issue with a gunfight, and police, who recovered the two weapons, said both men received multiple wounds. The son was killed, and the father was in critical condition. [WLS-TV (Chicago), 4-10-2017]

The eight elite Ivy League universities are better thought of as "hedge fund(s) with classes," according to a March report by the activist Open The Books, and thus there is little reason for taxpayers to have given them the more than $41 billion in grants and entitlements they received over a recent six-year period. The schools are already legendary for their $119 billion "endowments" (based on donations from alumni and aggressive investment). Those endowments are enough, according to Open The Books, that (assuming donations continue to arrive at the same pace) schools could provide free tuition to every student in the eight schools -- in perpetuity. (Even if no new donations are made, the eight schools could provide such free tuition for 51 years.) [Fox News, 3-29-2017]

Federico Musto was suspected recently by Wired.com of audaciously inventing academic credentials to help land his job as CEO of the company Arduino (a circuit-board manufacturer popular in the computer industry among coders creating, among other things, robots and motion detectors). Arduino's work is "open source" -- creating hardware that others, by design, can exploit and modify for their own loftier projects. It might thus be said that Musto's claimed academic "accomplishments" (his so-called MBA from New York University and claimed Ph.D from MIT) are themselves the product of his having "open-sourced" his own, previously modest curriculum vitae. [Wired.com, 4-16-2017]

In January, local government and sexual-assault critics unveiled a consciousness-raising exhibit on Mexico City's trains: a plastic seat onto which is subtly molded contours of a male body, except with genitals sharply exposed. (Men supposedly have been spotted absentmindedly lowering themselves onto the seat only to leap up in shock.) A note on the floor by the body read (in Spanish): "It's uncomfortable to sit here, but that's nothing compared to the sexual violence suffered by women on their commute." [New York Times, 3-31-2017]

(1) Village police in Bangladesh arrested Yasin Byapari, 45, in January on the complaint of his wife -- after she had learned that she was not, as he had told her, his second spouse, but rather the 25th of his 28. (Police found him at the home of No. 27.) The accuser said she had, through sleuthing, tracked down 17 of her "competitors." (2) A male schoolteacher reported in February that he had been kidnapped by four women near Lupane, Zimbabwe, drugged with a beverage and sexually assaulted, in what appears to be a return of the "sperm bandits" said to operate in the area; previously, police set up roadblocks and arrested three women with 31 condoms full of semen. [BDNews24 (Dhaka), 1-24-2017] [Daily Mail (London) via MyNewsGH (Ghana), 3-1-2017]

(1) In same-day competition in March, perennial Guinness Book records jockeys Zoe L'Amore and Ashrita Furman squared off over the record for stopping blades on an electric table fan the most times in one minute using only their tongues. On Italian TV, L'Amore stopped blades 32 times, but Furman, at a different venue, later stopped 35. (2) Norway unseated Denmark as the world's "happiest" country, according to the UN's Sustainable Development Solutions Network. (There was no word on whether Denmark was unhappy about losing the top spot.) [UPI News, 3-31-2017] [Reuters, 3-20-2017]

The upscale restaurant at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art announced in August (2013) that it would soon add a 20-item selection of waters from around the world, priced from $8 to $16 a bottle (and a $12 "tasting menu"). The restaurant's manager, Martin Riese, who is a renowned water gourmet, will sell his own California-made 9OH2O (from "limited editions of 10,000 individually numbered glass bottles" at $14 each). Riese has been certified as a "Water Sommelier" by the German Mineral Water Association. [Ray's and Stark restaurant press release via Eater.com, 8-6-2013]

Samuel West announced in April that his Museum of Failure will open in Helsingborg, Sweden, in June, to commemorate innovation missteps that might serve as inspiration for future successes. Among the initial exhibits: coffee-infused Coca-Cola; the Bic "For Her" pen (because women's handwriting needs are surely unique); the Twitter Peek (a 2009 device that does nothing except send and receive tweets -- and with a screen only 25 characters wide); and Harley-Davidson's 1990s line of colognes (in retrospect as appealing, said West, as "oil and gas fumes"). (West's is only the latest attempt to immortalize failure with a "museum." Previous attempts, such as those in 2007 and 2014, apparently failed.) [CBC Radio, 4-6-2017]

-- Toronto, Ontario, Superior Court Justice Alex Pazaratz finally ridded his docket of the maddening, freeloading couple that had quibbled incessantly about each other's "harassments." Neither Noora Abdulaali, 32, nor her now-ex-husband, Kadhim Salih, 43, had worked a day in the five years since they immigrated from Iraq, having almost immediately gone on disability benefits and begun exploiting Legal Aid Toronto in their many attempts to one-up each other with restraining orders. Approving the couple's settlement in March, Judge Pazaratz added, "The next time anyone at Legal Aid Ontario tells you they're short of money, don't believe it. ... Not if they're funding cases like this." [Toronto Sun, 3-17-2017]

-- In May, a new restaurant-disclosure regulation mandated by the Affordable Care Act is scheduled to kick in, requiring eateries (except small chains and independents) to post calorie counts for all menu items including "variations" -- which a Domino's Pizza executive said meant, for his company, "34 million" calorie listings. The executive called the regulation, for the pizza industry, "a 20th-century approach to a 21st-century question," since for many establishments, orders increasingly arrive online or by phone. [Washington Post, 4-7-2017]

(1) Dennis Smith, 65, was arrested in Senoia, Georgia, and charged with stealing dirt from the elderly widow of the man Smith said had given him permission to take it. Smith, a "dirt broker," had taken more than 180 dump-truck loads. (2) New for Valentine's Day from the SayItWithBeef.com company: a bouquet of beef jerky slices, formed to resemble a dozen full-petaled roses ($59). Also available: daisies. Chief selling point: Flowers die quickly, but jerky is forever. [WAGA-TV (Atlanta), 3-30-2017] [Mother Nature News, 2-1-2017]

In March, Harvard Medical School technicians announced a smartphone app to give fertility-conscious men an accurate semen analysis, including sperm concentration, motility and total count -- costing probably less than $10. Included is a magnification attachment and a "microfluidic" chip. The insertable app magnifies and photographs the "loaded" chip, instantly reporting the results. (To answer the most frequent question: No, semen never touches your phone. The device still needs Food and Drug Administration approval.) [NPR, 3-22-2017]

-- Hipsters on the Rise: (1) The Columbia Room bar in Washington, D.C., recently introduced the "In Search of Time Past" cocktail -- splashed with a tincture of old, musty books. Management vacuum-sealed pages with grapeseed oil, then "fat-washed" them with a "neutral high-proof" spirit, and added a vintage sherry, mushroom cordial and eucalyptus. (2) The California reggae rock band Slightly Stoopid recently produced a vinyl record that was "smokable," according to Billboard magazine -- using a "super resinous variety of hashish" mastered at the Los Angeles studio Capsule Labs. The first two versions' sound quality disappointed and were apparently quickly smoked, but a third is in production. [Washingtonian, 11-30-2016] [Billboard, 1-19-2017]

-- The telephone "area" code in the tony English city of Bath (01225) is different than that of adjacent Radstock (01761) and probably better explained by landline telephone infrastructure than a legal boundary. However, a Bath councilwoman said in April that she is dealing with complaints by 10 new residents who paid high-end prices for their homes only to find that they came with the 01761 code. Admitted one Bath resident, "I do consider my phone number to be part of my identity." [SomersetLive, 4-5-2017]

-- Magnificent Evolvers: (1) Human populations in Chile's Atacama desert have apparently developed a tolerance for arsenic 100 times as powerful as the World Health Organization's maximum safe level (according to recent research by University of Chile scientists). (2) While 80 percent of Americans age 45 or older have calcium-cluttered blood veins (atherosclerosis), about 80 percent of Bolivian Tsimane hunter-gatherers in the Amazon have clean veins, according to an April report in The Lancet. (Keys for having "the healthiest hearts in the world": walk a lot and eat monkey, wild pig and piranha.) [New Scientist, 2-22-2017] [NPR, 3-21-2017; The Lancet, 3-17-2017]

-- Awesome: (1) University of Basel biologists writing in the journal Science of Nature in March calculated that the global population of spiders consumes at least 400 million tons of prey yearly -- about as much, by weight, as the total of meat and fish consumed by all humans. (2) University of Utah researchers trained surveillance cameras on dead animals in a local desert to study scavenger behavior and were apparently astonished to witness the disappearances of two bait cows. Over the course of five days, according to the biologists' recent journal article, two different badgers, working around the clock for days, had dug adjacent holes and completely buried the cows (for storage and/or to keep the carcasses from competitors). [BBC News, 3-15-2017] [NPR, 4-4-2017]

-- News You Can Use: A study published in the journal Endocrinology in March suggested that "whole-body" vibration may be just as effective as regular "exercise." (The Fine Print: Vibration was shown only to aid "global bone formation," which is not as useful for some people as "weight loss," which was not studied, and anyway, the study was conducted on mice. Nonetheless, even for a mouse immobile on a vibrating machine, muscles contracted and relaxed multiple times per second. This "Fine Print" will soon be useful when hucksters learn of the study and try to sell gullible humans a "miracle" weight-loss machine.) [Endocrinology, 3-15-2017]

Wild Maryland! (1) Prince George's County police officer James Sims, 30, pleaded guilty to four counts of misdemeanor "visual surveillance with prurient interest" and in February was sentenced to probation (though his termination investigation was still ongoing). His fourth event, said prosecutors, in a Sports Authority store, was taking an upskirt photo of a woman who, as Sims discovered, was also a cop. (2) A Worcester County (Maryland) judge fined Ellis Rollins $1,000 in February and gave him a suspended sentence -- for the June 2016 ostentatious nude dancing and sex with his wife at an Ocean City, Maryland, hotel window in view of other people on holiday. At the time, Rollins was the Cecil County, Maryland, state's attorney, but has since resigned. [Washington Post, 2-14-2017] [WTOP Radio (Washington), 2-17-2017]

A tanker truck overturned on a Los Angeles freeway on April 4, spilling its contents, injuring seven and inconveniencing hundreds (with at least a few surely tearful, since the tanker was hauling milk). And, at a Parks Canada station restroom in Banff, Alberta, on April 1, visitors found, inexplicably, three black bear cubs inside (although they were not reported to have "used" the facilities, it is still safe to assume that bears relieve themselves "in the woods"). [Los Angeles Daily News, 4-4-2017] [Canadian Broadcasting Corp. News, 4-7-2017]

A News of the Weird Classic (July 2013)

Too Much Information: During a June (2013) debate in a House Rules Committee abortion hearing, U.S. Rep. Michael Burgess of Texas, himself an obstetrician/gynecologist, urged an even earlier ban, based on research on fetal pain, which Burgess said is felt at 15 weeks, and not a law's proposed 20 weeks. "Watch a sonogram of a 15-week-old baby," said Burgess, "and they have movements that are purposeful. ... If they're a male baby, they may have their hand between their legs." (Thus, if they feel pleasure, he concluded, they should also feel pain.) [The Atlantic, 6-18-2013]