Air time
A WHITE stork has delivered a big surprise 鈥� and it wasn鈥檛 a baby. Instead it brought conservationists a hefty phone bill. Radio Poland reports that the EcoLogic Group tagged a stork with a GPS tracker in the town of Siedlce. This allowed the charity to follow the bird鈥檚 6000-kilometre trip to the Blue Nile valley in Sudan before the tracker went missing.
The group says that somebody in Sudan discovered the tracker, removed the SIM card and inserted it into a phone. This mystery person then racked up 20 hours鈥� worth of calls, landing the charity with a bill of more than 10,000 zloty (拢2000).
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Blues bird
PLOVER, you should鈥檝e moved over. More feathers were flying in Ottawa, Canada, after a small bird set up residence where the main stage of a music festival was to be.
Bluesfest, which attracts about 300,000 punters annually to see acts such as Beck, Jethro Tull and Foo Fighters, was due to begin on 5 July, but construction of the main stage had to be put on hold when a protected killdeer was found nesting at the site.
鈥淎llan Reese discovers quantum physics manifesting at the macro level with a new listing from Springer books: Lars H枚rmander鈥檚 Unpublished Manuscripts鈥�
After some deliberation, Environment and Climate Change Canada decided the show must go on, and issued a permit to move the bird and its nest to a suitable habitat nearby.
Cash converters
RATS have been blamed for destroying banknotes worth 1.2 million rupees (拢13,000) inside an ATM in Tinsukia, India, after technicians discovered a mass of 500 and 2000 rupee notes had been chewed into pieces.
Police have ruled out any criminal mischief among bank staff, though Feedback recalls that in 2016, the Indian government invalidated all 500 and 1000 rupee banknotes overnight. Law-abiding citizens could exchange their notes for new ones, but those unable to explain why they had suitcases of cash could not. Perhaps the cash-shredding rats constitute phase 2 of this process?
Plastic terror
THE war on plastic continues to win support across the globe, with news that the Somali militant group al-Shabaab is the latest organisation to ban single-use plastic. An announcement on the group鈥檚 radio station said discarded plastic bags 鈥減ose a serious threat to the well-being of humans and animals alike鈥�.
鈥淥ther East African governments have banned plastic bags and this ban is al-Shabaab鈥檚 attempt to show their people that they too can implement laws and govern like any legitimate ruler,鈥� counterterrorism expert Raffaello Pantucci told HuffPost. 鈥淚t鈥檚 quite ironic though that the same group has been involved in the banned ivory trade to fund its terror activities across the Horn of Africa.鈥�
Pet pundits
THE final of football鈥檚 World Cup is imminent, which spells the career high for the latest menagerie of 鈥減sychic鈥� animals plying their trade as enigmatic tipsters.
At the St Petersburg Hermitage Museum, a white cat named Achilles is a rising star, overcoming his natural feline indecision to pick between bowls of food marked with flags.
And at the time of writing, Corbie the tortoise is putting most of his shots on target, predicting the winner in nine of 13 games.
None has yet to beat the record set by psychic cephalopod Paul the Octopus, who correctly predicted the outcome of all matches involving Germany at the 2010 World Cup. Yet few are doing as badly as his kindred spirit, Rabio. The giant Pacific octopus, caught off Japan, correctly predicted the national team鈥檚 results against Colombia, Poland and Senegal. But this wasn鈥檛 enough to save him from being turned into sashimi. Who could have seen that coming?
Can鈥檛 stand it
and shoulders above their colleagues 鈥� except during meetings, it seems. Sitting for long periods can be bad for your health, and researchers at King鈥檚 College London and Brunel University London wanted to understand how to keep the UK鈥檚 workforce on their feet.
They asked 25 workers to stand during three meetings, but the feedback was not positive. Participants said they felt socially awkward, disconcerted or plain stupid for standing while everyone else was seated, and it felt unprofessional during sensitive meetings.
There was one benefit for all concerned: those standing were more motivated to end the meeting as soon as possible. Probably so they could get back to their seats.
Fish in a barrel
IN KENTUCKY, hundreds of fish drowned in drink after a warehouse collapse at the Barton 1792 Distillery poured alcohol into a nearby river.
The seven-storey barrel-ageing warehouse fell apart, sending some 9000 barrels of bourbon and brandy crashing to the ground. Whiskey galore then flowed into Withrow Creek, killing a large number of fish.
A hastily constructed dam caught about 6000 gallons of mixed drinks in a holding pond. It鈥檚 not yet clear what will be done with this oversized cocktail. Maybe the locals would be willing to help get rid of it?
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