Newton’s apple tree joins space corps >>

Isaac Newton said he stumbled upon his revolutionary theory of gravity by pondering if the Earth’s gravitation pull on a falling apple extended as far away as the moon. So perhaps it was written in the stars that one day a piece of Newton’s apple tree would make it into space. A piece of Newton’s tree is being taken to the heavens by... Read more

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Science strangelets: Fruit flies, electronic noses and meth-addled sheep >>

eNose knows, y’know Researchers have developed an “electronic nose” that can tell the difference between pleasant and foul odours. Smelling devices have long been used to “sniff out” diseases and health conditions like cancer and asthma, and work by analysing particulate matter in air or on a subject’s breath. Dogs... Read more

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Craigslist: Good Samaritans who got more than they bargained for, and crazy classifieds >>

For this week’s rundown – a couple of good Samaritan incidents that prove the theory that a good deed never goes unpunished. “Good Samaritan risks life for beer” reads one headline. “Good Samaritan carjacked” reads another. The first involves the crazy tale of Erick Borgman, who was at the counter of his local corner... Read more

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Kosher haggis burgers as Gorbals cuisine hits Los Angeles >>

I’m sitting in the Gorbals eating a scotch egg on an uncommonly hot spring day. It’s nearly 100 degrees outside in the baking heat. Sound familiar? Thought not. That’s because I’m in a new restaurant in downtown Los Angeles that combines traditional Scots fare with a twist that befits owner Illan Hall’s half-Scottish,... Read more

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Scottish strange news round-up: Tomb gloom, dotty ditties and a Borders massacre >>

Grave doubts about reusing burial sites Council chiefs are plotting to reuse grave sites to ease a shortage of burial grounds in South Ayrshire. The plan to exhume bodies and reuse burial sites every 75 years is backed by the Scottish government, the Ayrshire Post reports. In some cases, the paper says, headstones could be reused and the names of the... Read more

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CraigsEasterlist: Disappearing rabbits, Hefner’s bunny sale and motorists on the hop >>

Rabbits on the run There’s mystery over what happened to all the rabbits in New York’s famous Central Park. Once commonplace, now New Yorkers are blaming everything from raptors to coyotes to homeless people for the bunnies’ demise. The last wild rabbit was seen in the park four years ago, and their absence has park-goers pining for... Read more

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Scottish strange news roundup: Distracted driver, plucky chicken and some heavyweight thieving >>

Confusion overtakes motorist A motorist drove away from Airdrie Sheriff Court immediately after being disqualified from driving, the Airdrie and Coatbridge Examiner reports. Richard McComb, who was banned for three years following a conviction for a traffic offence, told officers who stopped him less than a mile from the courthouse: “I’m not clued... Read more

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Marijuana legalisation gets closer as students roll up to Cannabis College >>

By Craig Howie in Sunset Beach Studying the papers and course materials in the lecture room of a small beach house in Southern California, I guessed this was not a class that students would likely skip to go somewhere and smoke a little marijuana to escape the rigours of a heavy academic workload. That was, after all, the point at Cannabis State College. Cannabis... Read more

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Craigslist: Bras, pants – and a Pulitzer for the National Enquirer? >>

Former US presidential candidate John Edwards’ affair with his campaign videographer Rielle Hunter landed on front pages again this week with Hunter’s interview and photo spread in GQ. But the cautionary campaign tale – and its sex tape and subsequently denied love child – that’s now national news was once only pursued... Read more

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Craigslist: Olympic cash-in, cheap champagne and secondhand stripper outfits >>

The Winter Olympics are over, so why are we visiting Vancouver, Canada, for this week’s Craigslist rundown? Answer: To see how the local populace is cashing in on the Olympics now the world’s focus is turning to London for 2012. Here are some gold-medal winning classified adverts from Vancouver’s Craigslist. Olympic Coca-Cola (Coke)... Read more

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The other unfortunate Queen Mary of Scotland >>

Surrounded by the biggest port complex in the western world, the once-magnificent RMS Queen Mary looks a shadow of her wartime self, when the “Grey Ghost” ferried Allied troops across the Atlantic and where Winston Churchill, perhaps its most famous passenger, made many of the decisions that eventually won the Second World War. The Queen... Read more

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Scottish strange news roundup: St Jacko, Fife piranha, self-break-in >>

St Michael plaque’s a little off the wall A plaque that features a restored carving of St Michael has some Dumfries residents asking if the artist confused the town’s patron saint with the King of Pop. A makeover of the 300-year-old structure at the southern end of Midsteeple has resulted in a technicolour image of St Michael striking a... Read more

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Driver thumbs nose at sneezing ticket >>

Many drivers freely toot their horns, but it emerged today that an Ayrshire man won’t be charged for blowing his nose behind the wheel. Michael Mancini was pulled over and given a £30 fixed-penalty ticket on Ayr High Street after it was alleged he was not in control of his vehicle while he cleared his sinuses, reports the Ayrshire Post. Mancini... Read more

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Weird science: Quake days, manure tea, hermaphrodite frogs, a hellish number >>

The recent Chilean earthquake shortened days across the Earth, NASA scientists say. The seventh strongest earthquake in recorded history, which registered 8.8 on the Richter scale, sliced 1.26 milliseconds off the day’s length as a result of its impact on the Earth’s axis, officials at JPL laboratory in Southern California announced today. Days... Read more

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Curling sweeps across America >>

Please take part in our online focus group Though Vancouver’s Winter Olympics have ended, the sport invented in Scotland has emerged as a smash hit in the US, where its popularity has reached heights previously reserved for baseball and basketball. The New York Times has reported on the sport’s surging popularity on Wall Street while the... Read more

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Strange Scottish news roundup: Ardrishaig’s goat a problem >>

Ornery Ardrishaig residents say they’re powerless to stop a rampaging herd of billy goats eating their gardens. As no-one has claimed ownership of the runaway cloven herd, the council can’t round up it up, and residents can’t act for the same reason, reports the Argyllshire Advertiser. The devil, as ever, is in those pesky council... Read more

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Talking to the ‘God is Hate’ church >>

Holding protest banners and singing hymns, the small group demonstrating outside a US military base looked like any other that has protested American involvement in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But a closer look at their banners revealed that this is not a typical group of peace protesters: “God Hates Fags” read one hand-made sign. “God... Read more

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Craigslist roundup: Mitt Romney, gypsies, road to nowhere, bumfight haiku >>

This week we’re scanning Craigslist classifieds from Massachusetts, in honour of Mitt Romney after the perennial presidential campaigner’s bizarre and rather unseemly airline altercation with a rapper who composed the theme tune to senseless US reality show “Jersey Shore.” Many papers reported that Romney was “physically... Read more

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Pizza lifer and cheesy pants, frozen snakes, holy smoke and Rod Stewart >>

It doesn’t seem 15 years ago that a California court made headlines around the world by sentencing a man to 25 years to life in prison for stealing a slice of pizza under the state’s newly-enacted “three-strikes-and-you’re-out” policy. In the end, Jerry DeWayne Williams served just five years for his crime and was interviewed... Read more

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Fighting the force in Forres and other odd news >>

“Darth Vader” may have met his match on Forres High Street. Following our report last week that a giant Star Wars-esque bus timetable machine christened “Darth Vader” has been installed near St Leonards church, a Forres resident has emerged as Princess Leia to Moray Council’s dark transport empire. Henrietta Grant-Peterkin... Read more

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Craigslist from Nashville: moonshine and pizza >>

America’s Tea Party – which I’m guessing will feature more than once in these pages – and Sarah Palin (ditto) are currently joining forces at a national conference in Nashville, Tennessee, so this week we’re back scouring Craigslist ads from another southern state. The Tea Party has become a potent force in American... Read more

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Beware: devil sheep, spiderman and psychomusical >>

Attack adverts are comonplace in American politics, and can tend toward the outlandish. But devil sheep? Take a look at this advert put together by a political action committee for Carly Fiorina, who leapt from being top bod at PC maker Hewlett Packard into a career in California politics, where she is now challenging for a seat in the US Senate. This... Read more

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E coli-powered cars, tweeting dogs and the great underwear rip-off >>

A food-borne bacteria that lurks in greasy-spoon cafeterias has been engineered to produce an oil slick of its own, a development that could revolutionise the car industry. Scientists have modified E coli bacteria, a common source of food poisoning, to allow them to convert basic materials into pure biodiesel, the journal Nature reports. Using base... Read more

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In the backwoods with the ‘new’ Ku Klux Klan >>

The Ku Klux Klan claims to have renounced violence and distanced itself from neo-Nazi groups. The Caledonian Mercury tracked them down to find out what’s going on. “Here’s where we blindfold you,” the Grand Dragon of the Georgia Knights of the Ku Klux Klan told me as I rode in the back seat of a rusted pickup truck through the... Read more

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Scottish weird news roundup: a capybara, a grenade and a murder >>

World’s biggest rodent Boris busted for warming his bum A giant rodent the size of a sheep has been recaptured after months on the lam following his daring escape from Heads of Ayr Farm Park. Boris the errant capybara was apprehended after spending several months traversing the river byways around Doonfoot, reports the Ayrshire Post, in a commendably... Read more

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LA Gang Tours: Personal viewpoints from the gritty streets of Los Angeles >>

“Nobody move and nobody gets hurt. Slide all your money to the front of the bus.” Ex-gang member Alfred Lomas almost imperceptibly turns his closely-shaven head to fix a street-hardened stare on 50 or so passengers nervously waiting to depart from a scuzzy Los Angeles car park, revealing the gang insignias that scrawl up his neck and bare... Read more

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More Craigslist: Fiends, lost friends and a newborn photographer >>

This week I’m physically in Douglas, south Georgia, on family business. Douglas is roughly as far in the sticks as it’s possible to be in the continental US, New Jersey excepted. Many of the nearby counties are “dry,” which can lead to difficulties when ordering lager in restaurants, I have discovered. Here in the Deep South,... Read more

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Exposure thwarts flasher >>

A Perthshire flasher apparently had the bright idea of asking two startled young photography students to take a picture of him with his trousers round his ankles, before realising that this would leave plenty of evidence of his criminal behaviour. The flasher – a “mole catcher” by trade, according to court transcripts – asked... Read more

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Feel the power of the dark side of the Forres >>

A hulking androidal brute of a machine has been spotted lurking around Forres High Street, monitoring citizens’ movements. So much so, residents have started talking about “Darth Vader” on the High Street, adding that “overkill” is the only thing on the minds of malevolent “monstrosities” that have invaded... Read more

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Something’s afoot in the Kilmory woods >>

Intrepid explorer Richard Dewar of Lochgilphead was deep in Scotland’s darkly-wooded nether regions over the Christmas period when he stumbled across a mysterious five-clawed footprint in the snow. That’s right. Just one five-clawed footprint about the size of a child’s shoe. Then, mysteriously, the snowy Kilmory Woodlands trail went... Read more

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Iguanas are falling from the sky >>

Inexplicably continuing the iguana theme, news from Florida that the scaly blighters are dropping from the skies like fish and frogs and, less commonly, cats and dogs. But the apocalypse is not at hand: A significant drop in temperatures across America this week means that iguanas, cold-blooded reptiles which typically nest in trees in tropical or sub-tropical... Read more

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Oddities culled from Craigslist >>

Occasionally, I’ll take a trawl through the internet classified site Craigslist – you know, the one that’s brought the newspaper industry to its knees -and peruse some of the good/wares/services  offered up for sale by traders/hawkers/lunatics. This week we’re in my hometown of Los Angeles, but every week I’ll visit a... Read more

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Dying to live >>

South Korean businesses are experimenting with teaching their employees how to live life to the full with simulated death exercises. For the equivalent of £16, hapless punters are nailed into a coffin and left alone in the darkness to ponder their lives while friends, family and colleagues grieve at the “funeral,” the Los Angeles Times... Read more

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Russians warned not to get steamin’ >>

Russian authorities warned their famously bevvy-inclined citizenry not to drink in saunas over the New Year period. The Russian Interfax news agency quoted a government minister warning such actions could prove fatal. No word as to why drinking in a sauna could prove fatal, but we’re wondering if the Scottish Health Secretary, Nicola Sturgeon,... Read more

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Hogmanay hold-up to avoid the family >>

An Italian man opted to steal from his local cornershop and end up in jail rather than spend New Year with his in-laws, Reuters reports.  Unsuccessful in a previous attempt to get Sicilian authorities to send him to jail – his polite request to be arrested was turned down – the 35-year-old walked to the tobacco shop next door, stole some... Read more

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Exploding manure, lost iguanas, dead rocker’s DNA: another decade looms in LA >>

Shudder. It’s a new year. Scotch that: It’s a new decade. Gulp. Will the 2010s be any more out-there than a decade christened “the Noughties”? I’ve covered America’s west coast news and entertainment beat since emigrating from a Scottish newsroom to Southern California more than five years ago. In that time I’ve been... Read more

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