Retirees Marli and Paulo Ciquinel of Meleiro in southern Brazil discovered a fetishist's dream in the vegetable garden behind their home: a 17 1/2-pound potato that has grown into the shape of a huge human foot (with six toes). The "toes" descend in size, much as human toes do, and the largest has roots that look like hair. The "foot" portion of the tuber reaches up almost to knee-height. Marli told the Mirror, "We have never seen anything like it." Paulo said he was "a little bit scared when we harvested that potato." The couple don't plan to eat it. [Mirror, 8/9/2018]

Irony

Tania Singer, 48, a renowned neuroscientist who is one of the world's top researchers on human empathy, has been accused by co-workers of being ... a bully. "Whenever anyone had a meeting with her, there was at least an even chance they would come out in tears," one colleague told Science magazine. Others said the daily working environment included threats and emotional abuse, The Washington Post reported on Aug. 12. For her part, Singer denied the most serious charges and said, "(T)he workload and pressure increasing led to stress and strain that in turn sometimes caused inadequate communication with my staff in problem situations." The Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig, Germany, where Singer has her lab, granted Singer a sabbatical in 2017 and said in a statement that when she returns, "it is envisioned that Prof. Singer will head, at her own request, a considerably smaller working group for social neuroscience." [The Washington Post, 8/12/2018]

Bold

In Columbus, Ohio, workers repairing a street on Aug. 8 hit an unmarked water main, causing homes along the road to lose water. One man couldn't be deterred from finishing his shower, though: WCMH TV reported that after screaming from his porch, "I was in the f------- shower!" the unidentified resident finished his morning toilette on the street, in the geyser from the pipe. Facebook user Cody Vickers took a picture of two astonished crewmembers as Mr. Clean rinsed off nearby. [WCMH TV, 8/8/2018]

Solving the Wrong Problem?

In Paris, the designer of a recently installed "urinoir," a sidewalk urinal, on the Ile Saint-Louis, says the new device offers "an eco solution to public peeing." But Reuters reports that nearby residents and business owners are unhappy about the urinals, saying they are "immodest and ugly" and will "incite exhibitionism." The "Uritrottoir," a mashup of the French words for urinal and sidewalk, looks much like a plastic trash receptacle, and local mayor Ariel Weil says they're necessary: "If we don't do anything, then men are just going to pee in the streets." [Reuters, 8/13/2018]

Oops!

Colorado Mesa University in Grand Junction, Colorado, is footing the bill for a possible $46,000 reprint job after a recent graduate found a typo on his diploma. Alec Williams, former editor of the school's newspaper, was examining his sheepskin when he found a line reading "Coard of Trustees," instead of "Board of Trustees" under one of the signatures. "There was this moment of laughing at it ... and the more I thought about it, the more frustrated I got, because I'm sitting on $30,000 worth of debt and they can't take the time to use spellcheck," he said. CMU President Tim Foster told The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel that the school will send out corrected diplomas to 2018 grads -- but the typo goes back to 2012 diplomas. Those graduates can request a new diploma if they want to. "This mistake is all ours," he said. [The Daily Sentinel, 8/9/2018]

Step Aside, Cat Ladies

Agents of Columbus (Ohio) Humane executed a warrant on a home in the Clintonville neighborhood on Aug. 14 in response to complaints about birds inhabiting the home. Columbus Humane CEO Rachel Finney told The Columbus Dispatch that concerns about the birds' well-being were warranted: Officials found more than 600 birds inside, including macaws, African gray parrots, Amazon parrots and other species. "It's pretty overwhelming to step into the house," Finney said. Removal took all day, and Columbus Humane was undertaking the task of examining each bird from beak to tail. Finney said the agency would decide which birds might be adoptable after assessments are complete. As for the owner, she said, "We're confident we'll have charges; it's just a matter of which charges and how many." [Columbus Dispatch, 8/14/2018]

Ewwww!

Dr. Jay Curt Stager and his colleagues, researchers at Paul Smith's College, have released results from a study showing that Walden Pond, made famous by naturalist Henry David Thoreau in the mid-1800s, is an ecological disaster, thanks to human urine. The pond was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1962, and the site in Concord, Massachusetts, draws hordes of tourists each year. But NBC News reports that swimmers urinating in the water for generations is the most likely cause of high levels of nitrogen and phosphorus in the pond that cause algae to spread and block the sun's rays, devastating the fish population. The study authors suggest building a swimming pool nearby to take pressure off the pond. Here's an idea: More restrooms? [NBC News, 4/6/2018]

Obsession

Chen San-yuan, 69, of New Taipei City, Taiwan, has taken his gaming obsession to another level. "Uncle Pokemon," as the Feng Shui master is known around town, has mounted 11 smartphones on the handlebars of his bicycle so that he can better play Pokemon Go. United Press International reported that Chen sometimes stays out until 4 a.m. playing the virtual game. His habit costs him $1,300 per month, but he's not daunted: He hopes to expand his phone lineup to 15. [UPI, 8/9/2018]

Animal Antics

-- German police took a baby squirrel into custody on Aug. 9 following an incident in which it chased a grown man down the street. The Guardian reported that an unnamed man summoned Karlsruhe police when he could not shake the tiny squirrel. But when officers arrived, the squirrel suddenly lay down and went to sleep. Officers felt sorry for the exhausted little rodent, who apparently had been separated from its mom and was looking for a replacement in the terrified man. Police named their new mascot Karl-Friedrich, then took him to an animal rescue center, where he was doing very well. (UPDATE: Workers at the rescue center later determined the squirrel was a girl and renamed her Pippilotta. They expect to return her to the wild in September.) [The Guardian, 8/10/2018]

-- At the Puy de Fou historical theme park in Vendee, France, cleaning up litter is always a problem. But less so now that six "particularly intelligent" crows are being trained to pick up litter, according to Sky News. Nicolas de Villiers, president of the park, said that each time a crow drops a cigarette butt or piece of trash into a bin, it will be rewarded with a small nugget of food. The birds were set to begin their duties on Aug. 17. [Sky News, 8/11/2018]

Extreme Measures

Your city may not have the dubious pleasure of pay-per-minute electric scooters yet, but in some places, the handy people transports have overstayed their welcome. The Los Angeles Times reported on Aug. 10 that angry residents are throwing Bird scooters off balconies, heaving them into the ocean, stuffing them in trashcans and setting them afire. Robert Johnson Bey, a Venice Beach maintenance worker, said: "Sunday, I was finding kickstands everywhere. Looked like they were snapped off." What's worse, the perpetrators are documenting their destruction on social media; Instagram has a Bird Graveyard account devoted to chronicles of scooter desecration. Culver City resident Hassan Galedary, 32, has a visceral reaction to the scooters: "I hate Birds more than anyone," he said. "They suck. People who ride them suck." However, he has stopped defacing them: "I can't put bad energy into the world. I don't even kick them over anymore." [LA Times, 8/10/2018]

Armed thieves in New Delhi, India, left a craftsman deep in debt after they made off with 500 pounds of wigs and raw hair worth more than $20,000 on July 27, according to the Associated Press. "People think wigs are cheap, but they cost a fortune to make," wig-maker Jahangir Hussain said. In fact, he had borrowed more than $17,000 to buy hair last month from South Indian wholesalers. India exports wigs and hair extensions to the tune of $300 million a year; much of the raw materials are collected at Hindu temples where people shave their heads as a religious sacrifice, a practice called tonsuring. [Associated Press, 8/2/2018]

The (Im)perfect Seatmate

Chicago cellist Jingjing Hu, a student at the DePaul University School of Music, found herself being escorted off an American Airlines flight on Aug. 2 after trying to return to Chicago from Miami with her instrument. Hu paid in advance for an extra seat for her cello, worth almost $30,000 and housed in a hard case, and had no trouble on her flight from Chicago to Miami, where she participated in a music festival. But on her return trip, after boarding the Boeing 737 and settling herself and her cello into their seats, a flight attendant approached her and told her she would have to leave the plane because the aircraft was too small for her instrument. Hu was booked on a flight the next day on a 767. American blamed the incident on a "miscommunication," according to WBBM TV, but Hu's husband, Jay Tang, said, "I don't think we did anything wrong here, and I think the way they handled it was humiliating." [WBBM TV, 8/4/2018]

Problem-Solver

The list of offenses was long when Franklyn Williams, 32, appeared in Cuyahoga County (Ohio) Common Pleas Court on July 31 to be sentenced for aggravated robbery, kidnapping, theft, misuse of credit cards and more -- including cutting off his ankle bracelet late last year and fleeing to Nebraska, where he claimed he was hit over the head and lost his memory. But it was his courtroom behavior that spurred Judge John Russo to call for an extreme measure: During the hearing, Williams would not stop talking, even interrupting his own lawyers repeatedly over about 30 minutes. Finally, Russo ordered deputies to tape the defendant's mouth shut, reported FOX 8 in Cleveland. Williams continued to talk until deputies applied more tape, and finally Russo sentenced him to 24 years in prison. [FOX 8, 7/31/2018]

So Many Questions

When an employee of Sarabeth's restaurant in New York City opened the walk-in freezer door on Aug. 5, a man jumped out, yelling, "Away from me, Satan!" and grabbed a knife from the kitchen, which he used to threaten restaurant staff. Carlton Henderson, 54, of Cave Creek, Arizona, struggled with workers but eventually fell unconscious and was transported to Mount Sinai St. Luke's Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, the New York Post reported. Authorities don't know (1) why and how he entered the freezer and (2) why he died, but they did determine he was charged last year with two 1988 cold-case murders in Boston. He had been released on bail the week before the freezer incident and was scheduled to appear in court on Aug. 14. [New York Post, 8/6/2018]

Ripe

West Valley City, Utah, has a malodorous mystery on its hands. The community stinks, and for the past year, officials have been fielding complaints about the smell, which city communications director Sam Johnson described as "a musty sewer smell ... that you can smell in certain parts of the city stronger," according to FOX 13. The city has now launched a campaign recruiting residents to help pinpoint the source of the odor: "If you smell something, say something." They're hoping more complaints will spur Salt Lake County and Utah's Department of Environmental Quality to investigate and take action. [FOX 13, 8/1/2018]

Bright Idea!

Zemarcuis Devon Scott, 18, of Texarkana, Arkansas, REALLY wanted to attend a rap concert in another state, so on July 4 he executed his plan to get there: Scott was seen by Texarkana Regional Airport security officers around 2:30 a.m. jumping a fence and trying to get into an American Eagle twin-engine jet parked there. When police arrived, Scott was inside the cockpit, sitting in the pilot's seat, the Texarkana Gazette reported. Scott, not a licensed pilot, told officers he thought there wasn't much more to flying a plane than pushing buttons and pulling levers. On July 31, he was charged with commercial burglary and attempted theft; he's been grounded at the Miller County jail. [Texarkana Gazette, 8/1/2018]

Nerd Alert

Who knew? Apparently the unofficial "uniform" for Bay Area techies and venture capital investors is a vest, so the Japanese company Uniqlo is cashing in with a vest vending machine at the San Francisco International Airport. The airport's public information officer, Doug Yakel, says the machine is no joke; it earns $10,000 a month on average. Do the math: At $49.90 apiece, the company is selling about 200 of its ultra-light down vests each month. "This is the first time we've had clothing available for sale from a vending machine, which we thought was very unique," Yakel told Business Insider. [Business Insider, 7/30/2018]

Least Competent Criminal

The Baltimore Sun reported that a driver's license examiner in Glen Burnie, Maryland, got a whiff of something illegal on Aug. 6 when she approached a car about to be used in a driving test. She called Maryland State Police, who found Reginald D. Wooding Jr., 22, of Baltimore waiting in his mother's car to take his test. But he never got the chance: Wooding was in possession of marijuana, a scale, more than $15,000 in suspected drug-related money and a 9mm Glock handgun with a loaded 30-round magazine. [Baltimore Sun, 8/7/2018]

Compelling Explanation

-- In Bluffton, South Carolina, 32-year-old Lauren Elizabeth Cutshaw informed police officers she was a former cheerleader, sorority girl, good student and National Honor Society member after they pulled her over at 1:45 a.m. on Aug. 4 for running a stop sign at 30 mph over the speed limit. According to The Island Packet, she also told officers she shouldn't be arrested because she's a "very clean, thoroughbred, white girl." She said she'd had only two glasses of wine, but then allowed, "I mean, I was celebrating my birthday." Police arrested her anyway and booked her into the Beaufort County Detention Center. [The Island Packet, 8/6/2018]

Questionable Judgment

Farah Hashi, 25, of Newport, Wales, is "mad about cars," so while he was visiting friends in Dubai, they arranged for him to drive a $350,000 Lamborghini Huracan. Hashi, who has one leg shorter than the other and typically drives a custom Vauxhall Corsa mobility car, took full advantage: He was caught on roadside cameras 33 times in less than four hours on Aug. 7 as he reached a top speed of 150 mph and racked up more than $47,000 in speeding fines. Farah's brother, Adnan Hashi, said the rental company went to Hashi's hotel room and seized his passport after the fines were issued, so Hashi is stuck in Dubai until the mess can be sorted out. "There is no way he has that money," Adnan told the BBC. "He is out of work at the minute and went to Dubai to visit friends." [BBC, 8/8/2018]

Suspicions Confirmed

Airport security at Berlin's Schonefeld Airport evacuated a terminal on Aug. 7 after spotting "suspicious content in a luggage piece" during a routine X-ray, according to CNN. The bag's unnamed owner was summoned, but he was reluctant to identify the mysterious items, calling them just "technical stuff." After an hourlong investigation involving the bomb squad, the 31-year-old traveler admitted to federal police that the items were sex toys, including a vibrator, he had brought along for his girlfriend. He was allowed to proceed with his trip, and the terminal reopened shortly afterward. [CNN, 8/7/2018]

Among the gazillion other products and services available from Amazon is the behemoth's facial recognition software, Rekognition, marketed as providing extremely accurate facial analysis. But when the American Civil Liberties Union gave it a go, the results were startling. Using Rekognition, the ACLU scanned photos of every current member of the U.S. House and Senate and came up with 28 matches to a mug shot database of people who had been arrested for crimes. The ACLU announced its findings July 26 and admitted it used Amazon's default settings, to which Amazon responded, "While 80 percent confidence is an acceptable threshold for photos of hot dogs, chairs, animals or other social media use cases," Amazon would advise customers to set the threshold at 95 percent or higher for law enforcement. The ACLU told NPR that the legislators who were falsely matched were men, women, Republicans and Democrats of all ages. However, the software did misidentify people of color at a higher rate. [NPR, 7/26/2018]

Weird Science

You thought you were old? You're just a twinkle in a nematode's eye. Russian scientists have revived two ancient, frozen roundworms, or nematodes, from samples collected in Siberian permafrost, The Siberian Times reported on July 26. The worms, which were found in cores taken from 30 meters and 3.5 meters deep, are believed to be female and 41,700 and 32,000 years old, respectively. After collecting the samples, scientists slowly thawed out the worms, which eventually started eating and moving. Scientists from the Institute of Physico-Chemical and Biological Problems of Soil Science in Moscow believe the nematodes have some adaptive mechanisms that may be of scientific importance. [The Siberian Times, 7/26/2018]

Florida. Need We Say More?

During a July 23 debate among mayoral candidates in Key West, Florida, Sloan Bashinsky, a perennial contender, took a minute to answer a call from God. "Hello? What? God?" Bashinsky said, speaking into his cellphone. According to FLKeys News, it wasn't the first time he's heard from a higher power: "I have said every time I ran, I ran because God told me to run," Bashinsky explained. "I think anyone who wants this job is insane." Bashinsky has a law degree from Vanderbilt University and was once among the island's homeless. He joins six other candidates on the ticket. [FLKeys News, 7/24/2018]

Sign of the Times

Just after midnight on July 22, a couple in Palo Alto, California, were awakened in their bedroom by a 17-year-old burglar with a garment obscuring his face. Instead of demanding money or jewelry, though, the intruder asked for their Wi-Fi password. According to the Sacramento Bee, the homeowner forced the teen out of the home and called police, who tracked him down a block away and arrested him for felony residential burglary. Police later determined it wasn't the teen's first attempt at connectivity. Less than an hour earlier that night, a prowler had summoned a woman from her home to ask for access to her Wi-Fi network also. She told him to go away, and he rode off on a bicycle -- which she realized the next day he had stolen from her backyard. She called police, who recovered the bike near where they had arrested the teen. [The Sacramento Bee, 7/25/2018]

Bright Ideas

-- Jeffrey Jacobs, 37, thought he had a great thing going. Last year, when a tree fell on his White Plains, New York, home, he told the owner of a tree service (and big hockey fan) that he was the owner of the NHL's Boston Bruins, reported The Hour. Impressed, the tree service owner sent a crew in the midst of a storm, then billed the actual club owner, 78-year-old Jeremy Jacobs, $5,100 for the service. Police in nearby Wilton, Connecticut, heard about the deception when they received a call in May from security officials at a company chaired by the Bruins' owner. The story sounded familiar: In November, Jacobs had been pulled over in Wilton, and he told officers he owned the Bruins in an effort to get out of the ticket. On July 20, Jacobs was pulled over for using his phone while driving in Poughkeepsie, New York, sent back to Wilton and charged with criminal impersonation. [The Hour, 7/24/2018]

-- Diamonds are SO 20th century. In Japan, Warp Space is offering newlyweds the chance to make their union universal with wedding plaques launched into space. According to United Press International, the startup company, founded by faculty members from the University of Tsukuba, will print a titanium plate with the names of the betrothed and put it, along with a few hundred other plaques, in one of a series of small cubes to be released into space from the International Space Station. Astronauts will memorialize the launching by taking photographs, which will then be sent to the newlyweds. The service costs $270. [UPI, 7/26/2018]

Awesome!

Painesville (Ohio) Municipal Court Judge Michael Cicconetti has a reputation for serving up unusual sentences, and he delivered again on July 24 when 18-year-old Bayley Toth appeared in his courtroom. Toth was convicted of two misdemeanor criminal mischief charges for toppling a portable toilet at Painesville Township Park in June, among other things. Cicconetti sentenced him to 120 days in jail, but suspended it in lieu of Toth shoveling ... manure at the Lake County Fair. "You act like an animal, you're going to take care of animals," Cicconetti told Toth. The News-Herald reported Toth will also have to perform 40 hours of community service and pay restitution for damage to the park. [The News-Herald, 7/30/2018]

Just Say No

Brody Tyler Young, 25, was arrested in a Nashville, Tennessee, McDonald's on July 23 after spending "all day" locked in the women's restroom, dancing naked, doing jumping jacks and hitting the wall. According to WFFA TV, when officers managed to enter the restroom, they found Young locked in a stall, smelling of "chemical fumes, as if he had been huffing." Young was taken into custody and charged with public intoxication and public indecency. [WFFA, 7/24/2018]

Ewwwww!

A weird in-air experience for passengers traveling from the Canary Islands in Spain to the Netherlands on May 29 ended tragically. The Transavia flight was forced to land in Faro, Portugal, after passengers began fainting and vomiting in reaction to the overpowering smell of another passenger, 58-year-old Russian rocker Andrey Suchilin. "It was like he hadn't washed himself for several weeks," Belgian passenger Piet van Haut said. CBS News reported that Suchilin had sought medical attention in Spain and was given antibiotics for an "ordinary beach infection." Taken to a hospital in Portugal, his condition deteriorated, and he was diagnosed with tissue necrosis. Doctors induced a coma and performed several surgeries, but his wife reported on his Facebook page that he died on June 25. The airline assured fellow passengers that "there has been no risk of infection." [CBS News, 6/28/2018]

Lucky!

Kyle McAleer, 20, a Chicago Cubs fan from Iowa, adopted a goofy "rally cap" idea from former Cubs player Starlin Castro a few years ago -- a plastic bucket. But no one's laughing now: As McAleer and his family watched a game from seats under Wrigley Field's manual scoreboard on July 24, a 6- to 8-inch metal pin fell out of the board and onto McAleer's head, where he had only moments earlier secured the bucket. Although he suffered a cut requiring five staples, McAleer is crediting the bucket for saving his life: "It might have fractured my skull. It definitely could have been fatal. I am extremely lucky," he told the Associated Press. Cubs spokesman Julian Green said the incident has been ruled an accident, not a structural issue, and the team has sent McAleer some swag, including a jersey. [Associated Press, 7/31/2018]