Strange Stuff

An ongoing overhaul of Turkmenistan state TV is apparently so interesting that even members of the animal kingdom want a front-row seat. Unfortunately for the staff of the nightly news, a cockroach recently strolled across the studio table while cameras were rolling, leading the country's president to fire dozens of the show's workers, reports the Guardian. More »

A German man was so sick of his girlfriend's smoking that he turned a fire extinguisher on her, Der Spiegel reports. The 42-year-old gave a few warning shouts before spraying the apartment the two share, and he hadn't stopped yelling by the time police arrived to escort him to the station. More »

Three months after she underwent an intensive, 27-hour hour operation to remove her parasitic twin's four limbs, 2-year-old Indian tot Lakshmi Tatma, is beginning to walk with assistance, reports the Daily Telegraph . "When she was put in the baby walker she started pushing herself backwards with her legs and burst into laughter with a huge grin on her face," said her mom. More »

Bobaraba! It means “big bottom,” and it's a hit song and butt-shaking dance phenom sweeping the Ivory Coast, the BBC reports. In fact, some women in the west African nation are so caught up in bobaraba-mania that a black market of “bottom enhancers” has emerged, targeting those who want more junk in the trunk. More »

Giant bunnies overran the 2008 Berlin Film Festival, reports Der Spiegel —in the form of a 5-minute documentary on the international intrigue that ensued when a German rabbit breeder sent a dozen of his 20-pounders to North Korea to be bred to help alleviate hunger. Instead, they met a tragic end as part of a birthday feast for playboy-dictator Kim Jong Il. More »

Researchers are making progress on something that sounds right out of the pages of Harry Potter —a sort of invisibility cloak for sound. A team of scientists in Spain is trying to turn theory into reality by creating a cloak that causes sound waves to slip around an object, the Daily Telegraph reports. Possible uses: shielding submarines from sonar, improving concert hall acoustics, or simply stopping the racket from noisy neighbors. More »

Police in a San Francisco suburb finally got their man—but only after he made 27,000 prank 911 calls, often treating the operators to grunts and his impressions of bodily noises. John Triplette "completely overwhelmed our system," police tell the San Francisco Chronicle. Why did this criminal mastermind do it? "Because it's free," Triplette told police. More »

What would Jesus use? A line of cosmetics that worked just that angle has been whisked from shelves in Singapore after a Catholic backlash, reports the Independent . The US-made line, called "Lookin’ Good for Jesus," drew criticism over slogans for lotions and bubble bath like “Get Tight With Jesus” and “Guaranteed to help you be worthy and get noticed by the King of Kings.” More »

In preparation for Valentine's Day, Saudi Arabia has temporarily banned all things red. The morality cops are out in force in search of the color of love, reports CNN, with plans to confiscate everything from flowers to stuffed toys. The ban is part of a yearly effort, complete with raids on retailers on the night of Feb. 13, to quell romance's big day. More »

Dozens of chickens making themselves at home in the halls of a Philadelphia high school forced it to close for the day, the Inquirer reports. Staff members arriving for work this morning were greeted by the birds, which apparently were set free last night. "They let them loose and spread chicken feed all over the place to keep them fat and happy, I guess," says a district spokesman. "They've created quite a mess." More »

Two decades of silence from the depths of Loch Ness signal its most famous resident is likely dead, says the man who's searched for Nessie every summer since he says he first saw it in 1972. Ex-physicist, lawyer, and MIT professor Rob Rines, whose underwater photos are considered the best possible evidence for the creature’s existence, is hunting for the beast's skeleton, the Boston Globe reports. More »

If Amy Winehouse wanted peace and quiet after her rehab stint, she may have miscalculated. The troubled diva will move into a guest cottage at the Osbournes' mansion, home to the famously quirky Black Sabbath rocker and his reality-TV-star family, the Daily Mirror reports. Kelly Osbourne is well qualified to help her troubled friend, says a source: "She has been there before with her dad." More »

A would-be bar owner was so angry over being denied a liquor license  that he nearly shot up the Super Bowl, the AP reports. Toting an assault rifle and 200 rounds of ammo, John Havelock got all the way to the the Super Bowl parking lot before he thought better of the blood-soaked “econopolitical confrontation” promised in an 8-page rant sent to local media. More »

After 17 years of getting only minutes of sleep per night, a British man is finally getting some quality sack time. Doctors say it's one of the worst cases of sleep apnea on record, the Guardian reports. The man thought he slept 12 hours a night and couldn't figure out why he was constantly exhausted. Turns out, that 12 hours was closer to 15 minutes. More »

A law firm running ads is often frowned upon by its legal peers, and such advertising is subject to strict standards in many states. But with New York cracking down on TV spots depicting lawyers as giants or offering counsel to aliens, firms are fighting back, the Wall Street Journal reports, asserting the ads are within their free-speech rights. More »

Nevada football player Kevin Hart's proudest moment came last Friday when he stood before his entire school and announced that he had accepted a scholarship to play D-1 ball at Cal. His most crushing came yesterday when he admitted he made the whole story up, reports the Washington Post —after having filed a police report alleging he was duped by a phony recruiter .  More »

A woman driving drunk on a Florida highway had safely buckled up a case of Busch beer for a Super Bowl party—but not the year-old baby riding in the back of her car, according to police. The woman was pulled over after she ran a red light and was seen driving erratically near St. Augustine, reports First Coast News . More »

A British man on trial for the murder of an 18-year-old model admits that he had sex with her corpse but denies killing her. Mark Dixie says he was high and drunk when he found Sally Anne Bowman’s body and took "advantage of the situation," the prosecutor said today at the Old Bailey, adding, “That, astonishingly, is his defense.” More »

Gunther von Hagens—the brains behind the plasticized human corpses featured in the hit Body Worlds exhibits—is now offering preserved corpse slices for sale. A short cross-section across the body costs about $370, but upgrading to a lengthwise slice will run to nearly $18,000. But only a minority of corpses donated to von Hagens will be available, since most donors stipulate a scientific use, reports Der Spiegel . More »

Israel’s top phone company is betting that its most orthodox customers need less temptation in their lives. Bezeq Israel Telecom launched a “kosher” phone service yesterday that will block calls to and from “improper” numbers, such as porn lines. In true kosher fashion, Israel’s top rabbis have approved the restrictions, Reuters reports. More »