A man has been jailed for brandishing a replica of a sword from the Nintendo game The Legend of Zelda on the streets of a Warwickshire market town, which he said was a “fidget toy” to keep his hands busy.

Anthony Bray, 48, of Nuneaton, was sentenced to four months in prison after being found in possession of a bladed article in public.

The article in question was a replica of the “master sword” from The Legend of Zelda series which had a total blade length of 6in, Warwickshire police said.

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Sgt Spellman, of the patrol investigations unit, said: “We take a zero tolerance [approach] to bladed articles in public, and Bray has fallen afoul of this.

“It is possible to find fidget toys that aren’t six-inch blades. It is possible not to walk down the street holding them out in front of you. With a bit more self-awareness, Bray could have avoided contact with us completely.”

Police are investigating after the suspected theft of a mythical sword that was embedded in a cliff in the hill-top village of Rocamadour, south-central France.

Durandal was the famed sword of Roland, the protagonist of La Chanson de Roland, an epic poem and the oldest surviving major work of French literature.

The sword was embedded in a cliff face in Rocamadour (Lot) until it went missing on Saturday, June 22.

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However, the sword, a popular sight among visitors to the Unesco World Heritage town, was the “umpteenth copy” of the original, Father Florent Millet, rector of the sanctuary of Rocamadour, told ActuLot, confirming there was no historical value to the replica.

It takes a scientific mind to see the grunting hulk of a hippopotamus and wonder whether, given sufficient motivation, such an improbable beast might ever become airborne.

And so to researchers at the Royal Veterinary College in North Mymms, Hertfordshire, whose painstaking examination of footage of the creatures revealed that when the hefty herbivores reach top speed they do indeed take off.

Video showed hippos got all four feet off the ground at once up to 15% of the time when thundering along at full pelt, often to chase off hippo rivals.

The finding plugs a gap in scientific knowledge and places hippos somewhere between elephants and rhinos in terms of the athletic prowess displayed by some of the heaviest land animals when they need to get a move on.

“I’ve struggled to get any work done on hippos before because they’re so hard to access,” said John Hutchinson, a professor of evolutionary biomechanics who led the research. “They’re incredibly dangerous, they tend to be most active at night, and they spend a lot of their time in the water.”

After finding no satisfying answer to the question in the scientific literature, Hutchinson dispatched a student, Emily Pringle, to Flamingo Land resort in North Yorkshire, where resident hippos have room to run. She videoed the animals as they moved between their stable and watering hole and brought back the footage for analysis.

The researchers went through it, and more gathered from YouTube, frame by frame to see whether hippos ever managed to get all four feet off the ground at once. Writing in PeerJ, they conclude that, unlike other large mammals, hippos typically stick to a trotting movement whatever speed they are moving at, but can become airborne in a rush.

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And yet, further research beckons. Word has reached Hutchinson that pygmy hippos, a different species to the animals he studied, can gallop. It raises the question of whether baby hippos can do the same, suggesting a return trip to Flamingo Land may be in order.

A woman with diabetes who died after stopping her insulin while taking part in a four-day slapping therapy workshop regarded the person who ran the retreat as a “messenger sent by God”, a jury has heard.

Danielle Carr-Gomm, 71, wrote glowing testimonials about Hongchi Xiao saying she believed he was starting a revolution in healthcare, Winchester crown court was told.

Xiao allegedly congratulated Carr-Gomm when she announced she had stopped taking insulin at the start of the four-day workshop, attended by “keen disciples” of his methods, at Cleeve House, a country manor in Wiltshire.

When Carr-Gomm fell seriously ill because she had not taken her insulin, Xiao allegedly told other participants that she was experiencing the “darkness before dawn breaks” and did not call for medical help.

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She was one of 30 people who attended the workshop in October 2016 run by “Master Xiao”, a champion of paida lajin therapy, in which patients are slapped or slap themselves repeatedly.

Atkinson said Carr-Gomm previously attended a workshop of Xiao’s in Bulgaria and, though she became unwell there, left testimonials on his website in which she said he was “definitely” a “messenger sent by God” and that he was “starting a revolution … to put the power back in the hands of the people to cure themselves and to change the whole system of healthcare”. She added: “I admire you and thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

The jury heard that participants in the workshop fasted and drank only Chinese tea. At classes, Xiao allegedly slapped them using his hand and a paddle.

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The court has heard that Xiao was convicted of manslaughter in Australia after a six-year-old boy with diabetes stopped taking insulin allegedly under his instruction and died about 17 months before Carr-Gomm’s death. He is said to have told participants in Australia there was “no pain, no gain”.

Authorities in Eau Claire responded to what they called, “The most Wisconsin complaint ever,” around 9:46 p.m. on Monday.

According to a Facebook post by the Eau Claire Police Department, officers were sent to check on a report from a driver that somebody was chasing them down and throwing cheese at their car.

“Not gouda,” the post said. “It’s un-brie-lievable that someone would do that.” The viral post on Facebook has over 200 comments filled with cheese puns and more than 1,000 shares.

Not the first cheese attack to grace this community: 'Irate male' assaulted Newfoundland officers with block of cheese, police say

A dog born with six legs and dumped in a car park has finally found her forever home.

Ariel made headlines around the world when, aged 11 weeks, she was discovered outside a Pembrokeshire supermarket last October.

About £15,000 was then raised by well-wishers for a life-changing operation to remove her extra back limbs, which partially fused together to resemble a mermaid's tail.

Now the spaniel - named after Disney's The Little Mermaid - has finally been adopted, aptly starting a new life by the sea with a couple who teach people with disabilities how to surf.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/23992689

Archive/mirror: https://archive.ph/zoBGi

Police in Japan have sent papers to prosecutors concerning a woman under suspicion of violating the Road Traffic Act for allegedly riding an "electric suitcase" on a sidewalk without a license.

The police say this is the first time someone has been identified for an alleged traffic offense involving such ridable luggage in Japan.

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Electric suitcases can move at a maximum of 13 kilometers per hour, and are legally in the same category as small motorcycles.

But they are not allowed on public roads in Japan as they do not meet standards for brakes and blinkers set by the Road Transport Vehicle Act.

The woman is reportedly denying the charges saying during voluntary questioning that she was not aware that the suitcase is a vehicle that requires a driver's license.

Wanting to talk to women, a man hatched a plan to soil their clothes with a mixture of his urine and flour so that he could have an opportunity to break the ice between them and him.

On June 20, Tan Jun Hao, a 31-year-old Malaysian, was fined $1,200 after he pleaded guilty to using criminal force on one of the women.

He followed a 26-year-old woman as she was going up an escalator from Nicoll Highway MRT station at around 8.30pm on April 9.

He then squirted the mixture, which he had earlier mixed in a small plastic bottle, on her dress as she was walking along a nearby overhead bridge.

Instead of stopping to talk to the woman after that, he walked past her.

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Deputy Public Prosecutor Yap Jia Jun said: "The accused intended to squirt the mixture on the clothes of ladies, especially young ladies wearing dark-coloured bottoms, and then alert them that their clothes had been dirtied.

"He wanted to create opportunities for him to talk to these ladies."

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/23926129

A Japanese man borrowed some of the luck of the Irish and broke a Guinness World Record by growing a 63-leaf clover.

Yoshiharu Watanabe, 45, started cross-pollinating clovers at his Nasushiobara home in 2012 with an aim toward breaking the world record.

"Since the number of leaves has increased year by year, I have been aiming for the Guinness World Records title ever since," he told Guinness World Records.

Watanabe said he used a combination of letting his clover patches pollinate naturally and hand-pollinating those with the most leaves. He said his methods weren't always successful.

"Sometimes the number of leaves can go down, or sometimes you end up with the normal three-leaf clover," he said. "We know that genetics are involved in a higher number of leaves, yet we don't exactly know how it works."

Watanabe's prize clover has 63 leaves, beating the previous record of 56 leaves, set by fellow Japan resident Shigeo Obara in 2009.

Archive/mirror: https://archive.ph/78AIL

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/16991987

An online shop has started selling women's worn knickers, dirty socks and used tampons, netting sellers healthy additional incomes.

The website is called Sububis, which means underwear in Latin, and its founder, a 32-year-old woman who wishes to remain anonymous, set the business up to sell lingerie and underwear worn by various men and women in October 2021.

She also reportedly sells used bras, socks and shoes. A pair of worn female underwear goes for about $120, while a pair of dirty socks goes for about $44.

"I kept hearing from acquaintances who receive enquiries on social media as to whether they want to sell their underwear."

This gave her the idea to offer these items online so that the sellers and buyers can remain anonymous and never have to meet.

"Anonymity was not guaranteed during the payment process and that put many people off, although they are not fundamentally averse to the business," she said.

A friend of the woman reportedly told her that she was stalked by a buyer on Instagram after selling a similar item. The experience reportedly scared her so much that she stopped selling these items online.

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But the founder said that she does not want to sell her own items on the platform, saying it would be "too intimate for me".

"I want to make a clear distinction. If I knew who was getting my clothes, I would feel like I was giving too much away," she said.

Instead, a total of seven women and men are selling their worn underwear on the platform, which has been operating since October 2021.

"It is going very well. We have several orders a day, I'm already recruiting new 'subabes'," she said.

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Underwear and socks reportedly sell the best. The shop reportedly only has male buyers at the moment. There is reportedly a growing demand for tampons and worn period pads as well.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/13907451

Glastonbury, the massive UK festival held nearly every year since 1970, will provide gallons of urine to a start-up that has found an interesting use for it.

NPK Recovery is implementing its tech to recycle festivalgoer pee into environmentally friendly fertilizer. This is being done by partnering with Glastonbury’s female toilet provider, Peequal. After everything is collected post-festival, NPK’s labs will receive it for processing.

This isn’t the first time urine has been used in such a way at the festival. With so many people, in 2019, they were able to power the screens on the Pyramid Stage with a special urinal. We also previously reported on NASA recycling astronaut pee for drinking water.

Coming up on the 54 year anniversary.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/16938759

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/16933715

A Florida man eating in a diner with his wife recently sneezed so forcefully it caused parts of his intestines to exit his body through a surgical wound, according to researchers.

The case, published in a May 2024 edition of the American Journal of Medical Case Reports, describes the unnamed man as a 63-year-old with a history of prostate cancer.

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The morning of the sneeze, the man’s doctors reported that he was healing well and could remove staples binding the wound together.

He and his wife went out to breakfast at the diner to celebrate.

"During breakfast, the man sneezed forcefully, followed by coughing. He immediately noticed a ‘wet’ sensation and pain in his lower abdomen. Looking down, he observed several loops of pink bowel protruding from his recent surgical site," the researchers write.

Stunned, the man covered the protuberance with his shirt and considered driving himself to a hospital, but feared changing positions would make the wound worse and called an ambulance instead.

Residents in a town in Cornwall have received a letter from Royal Mail apologising for late mail - explaining that its delivery workers were being hampered by dive-bombing seagulls.

Royal Mail said those living in the affected zone in Liskeard could choose to wait until the birds were not aggressively protecting their young, or nominate a new address.

One Liskeard resident described it as "deadly" to go outside when the birds were nesting.

The United States Food and Drug Administration has issued a warning letter to a company that appears to sell products containing human fecal matter without approval from the agency.

In March, the FDA wrote to Human Microbes, a company advertising itself as "the world's largest, highest quality stool donor bank" for fecal microbiota therapy transplants, after reviewing its website a month prior.

This type of therapy should only be used in the context of an authorized clinical trial, or to treat patients with recurrent Clostridium difficile, also known as C. difficile, a bacteria that causes diarrhea and intestinal conditions, like colon inflammation, the agency said.

Per Human Microbes' website, the therapy yields "promising results in clinical trials" to treat other conditions, such as irritable bowel syndrome, Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis and mental health disorders like depression and anxiety, among others.

A smiling face made from living human skin could one day be attached to a humanoid robot, allowing machines to emote and communicate in a more life-like way, say researchers. Its wrinkles could also prove useful for the cosmetics industry.

Edit to say: There's a video in the link 🌝

Wealthy philanthropists with ties to Wall Street and Silicon Valley are unbowed by a botched climate experiment to limit the amount of sunlight hitting the earth, vowing to continue bankrolling future solar geoengineering tests as temperatures catapult upward.

POLITICO contacted a dozen people or groups who funded a controversial program by the University of Washington to reflect sun rays by altering clouds. Those who responded indicated that it's worth pushing through the public skepticism surrounding efforts to determine how to best deploy the last-ditch global warming fix — if at all.

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The funders' comments came after two high-profile experiments were shutdown following public backlash, pointing to the challenges of conducting controversial research that could result in weather disruptions or other unintended consequences. The latest experiment was derailed earlier this month when local officials in Alameda, California, rejected a request by Washington researchers to restart a test to brighten clouds from the deck of a decommissioned aircraft carrier in San Francisco Bay.

Furious Frenchmen are threatening to turn the Seine into a sewer this Sunday in a bizarre protest against the eye-watering costs of Olympic preparations.

The movement, cheekily dubbed #JeChieDansLaSeineLe23Juin (I'll poo in the Seine on June 23), has gained traction after Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo boasted she'd take a dip to prove the river's cleanliness.

Hidalgo, however, has now back-pedalled on her pledge, conveniently citing the hastily-called French elections as reason to postpone her plunge.

A staggering £1.2 billion has been poured into purifying the Seine for Olympic swimmers and triathletes, as the river prepares to host key events during the Games.

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With just five weeks until the Games, recent tests revealed alarming levels of two types of faecal bacteria, including E.coli, falling short of Olympic standards.

A dog in the US has been crowned the ugliest in the world.

The eight-year-old Pekingese called Wild Thang won the 2024 World's Ugliest Dog contest in California on Friday.

The animal has competed in the contest five times, coming second three times before finally taking the top prize this year.

Wild Thang contracted the viral disease canine distemper as a puppy, according to his biography.

"He survived, but not without permanent damage," it says.

"His teeth did not grow in, causing his tongue to stay out and his right front leg paddles 24/7."

Apart from the physical issues, he is "a healthy, happy Glugly (glamorous/ugly) guy".

He and his owner Ann Lewis took home a cheque for $5,000 (£4,000).

A pet donkey that escaped his owners five years ago in California has been found "living his best life" with a herd of wild elk.

Terrie and Dave Drewry, of Auburn, are convinced the animal, filmed by a hiker earlier in June, is their pet "Diesel".

The couple say they are relieved the animal is safe - and have decided to let him wander free with a new family as a "wild burro" .

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/13644221

A man standing for election against Jacob Rees-Mogg in a mask covered in beans and eggs wants to introduce a “statutory brunch hour.”

Phin “Barmy Brunch” Adams is the Official Monster Raving Loony Party candidate for North East Somerset and Hanham. He told the Local Democracy Reporting Service that at the time he decided to become a parliamentary candidate, the constituency had looked more like a safe seat.

He said: “I wanted to run against someone who looked to be safe in their seat to create a Portillo moment if possible or at the very least — let’s be realistic here — provide a none of the above alternative for those voters who are either disaffected by politics or whatever.”

He added: “If people don’t ordinarily vote, then vote extraordinary.”

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If elected as Barmy Brunch, he wants all workplaces to have to stop and serve brunch between 11am and midday. He said he wants to “MAKE BRUNCH GREAT AGAIN” — but that there is a serious point behind it too.

He said: “Yes, it's ambitious, it's bold, it's an hour long. If we can just pause and just breathe, its one of the things that I think is key to upholding the good mental health that we all really desire.”

He warned that the mental health system was “underfunded” and “broken.” He said: “However the policy manifesto is read, it can be taken as a joke, that’s fine if it brings a smile to someone’s face that’s fine — but equally, if someone comes and accuses me of not taking politics seriously, I am incredibly serious about positive mental health.”

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Barmy Brunch said he had looked at Ed Davey and considered the Liberal Democrats, but was worried by the party going against its 2010 manifesto policy of voting against tuition fee rises, which happened when he was a student. He said: “At the very least, the Monster Raving Loony Party has never broken a promise. That’s because they’ve never been elected.

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He added that some friends had told him his Barmy Bruch mask looked “scary” or criminal. But he said: “I would like to see a criminal get involved in any criminal activity wearing a face mask that has beans and egg and has holes cut out for the eyes. I think it's more in the realm of Mr Blobby than one of the drug lords in Colombia.”

cross-posted from: https://zerobytes.monster/post/1532884

A 20-year-old man woke up in a hospital in Muzaffarnagar district of Uttar Pradesh to find out that his genitals had been removed and his sex change operation done. His life turned upside down, he started crying when his “friend” told him that he was now a woman and they both will have to get married.

The victim, a resident of Sanjak village, was allegedly tricked into a hospital visit by his friend who allegedly colluded with doctors of the Begrajpur Medical College to carry out the sex reassignment surgery. The friend later threatened the victim that he will now have to live with him as no one from his family or community will accept him, or he would shoot his father and seize his share of the family land.

The Satanic Temple is once again announcing plans for the Sooner State after a bill was sent to the governor’s desk which could allow students to receive class credits for religious and moral instruction off school campuses.

House Bill 1425 would force school districts to adopt a policy which allows students to go off-campus to attend a religious or moral instruction course taught by an independent entity. The student would be allowed to miss up to three class periods per week to attend such a course.

Instructors of these courses would not need to be licensed or certified teachers.

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In response to the bill being one step away from becoming the state’s newest law, The Satanic Temple is highlighting their own learning academy that Oklahoma students could use to possibly earn school credit.

In a post on social media, the religious group stated their Hellion Academy of Independent Learning (HAIL) could soon be available for Oklahoma students.

“The Satanic Temple believes that public schools should be free from religious influence,” the post said. “We are, however, prepared to ensure our members’ children receive the same opportunities as those participating in other religion’s programs. By not vetoing HB 1425, Governor Stitt will allow the state to grant elective credit for religious and morality classes taught by The Satanic Temple, making it possible for parents to invite TST’s HAIL program to their local public schools as soon as this fall.”

Farmer James Steele, 95, lost the treasured timepiece in the early 1970s when the strap broke while he tended his cattle.

It is thought one of his animals must have swallowed the watch, which ended up in a cowpat in the field.

He searched the field at his dairy farm in Morda, near Oswestry, but there was no sign of the watch.

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Incredibly, half a century later, he has now been reunited with the timepiece after metal detectorist Liam King found it buried in the mud.

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"I was really pleased because I never thought I would see the watch again. I only have half the bracelet because the other half must have disintegrated.

"Unfortunately it is not going. The face has gone a greenish colour but it has not rusted up. It shows how well-made it was, to survive 50 years under a field.