The U.S. government succeeded in ridding Alaska’s Rat Island of rats but may have poisoned forty-one bald eagles in the process. As Iraqi marshlands dried out, poisonous snakes were heading for the cities. House cats, which may have been domesticated in part because they are adorable, are originally from the Middle East. Biologists at Ludwig Maximilians University were surprised to discover that male seed shrimp have been creating sperm lengthier than their own bodies for at least 100 million years. “We would expect the development of these strange things,” said the team leader, “to stop at a certain point.” Panasonic engineers released a soft, fleshlike remote control that pulsates and becomes rigid when switched on. Italian urologists increased the size and improved the function of test subjects’ penises with a device called the Andropenis. Researchers identified the toxic herb that caused ancient Sardinians to die with sardonic grins. A small meteorite injured an adolescent German. Life could persist on Earth for a billion years longer than previously expected.
One in six Americans admits to having peed the pool. A Georgia Tech engineer created software that endows unmanned aerial drones with a sense of guilt. Scolded dogs look guiltier if they are actually innocent. Most people, were they to need a transplant, would not want to receive the heart of a murderer. A Spanish design student created a speech-recognition pillow into which the restive confide their worries, which are then printed out in the morning. In the Indian city of Thiruvananthapuram, a man discovered a color-changing frog, which some then venerated with prayers. “It is a bit unusual,” said zoologist Oommen V. Oommen. “I will collect it for study.” A vixen living on the Rhineland estate of Count Rudolf von Kesselstatt was found to have stolen more than one hundred shoes. A man in Munich beat another man with a swan, and in Dorset, England, three young men stomped a fawn to death. The Vatican said that fewer people were confessing their sins. A blue whale was heard singing near New York City.
The passages above are from the “Findings” section of the August 2009 issue of Harper’s and was written by Rafil Kroll-Zaidi. The pictures are from here and here and here and there.
