Don't Panic! Lighten Up!S


Wine

Wisconsin festival sells deep-fried testicles

Around here, it may be tough to pass up anything deep-fried.

Wisconsinites have deep-fried cheese curds, candy bars and Twinkies. They now have deep-fried livestock testicles, too.

Wine

15 ways to tell there won't be a second date

Sometimes we consult our circle of friends to see if the weird stuff that's happening to us on our dates is also happening to them. (We can't decide if it's sad or comforting to find out things are weird everywhere.)

One common experience is getting stuck in a date we know is going to be a beating. We agreed that sometimes you just know. It might be something he says when he picks you up, or something she does when you meet her at the restaurant. Whatever it is, it turns us off right away.

Question

Woman with no sign of pregnancy gives birth to a baby boy

Baffling her husband and others, Sriyani (32), a woman without the normal signs and characteristics of pregnancy, has given birth to a baby in the bathroom of her house near here.

Question

Cat survives 35 days in crate

A cat trapped in a cargo crate without food or water has survived a 35-day sea voyage from China to the US.

The owner of a North Carolina shop was amazed to find the animal, weak but still alive, when he took delivery of a consignment of motorcycle helmets, reports the BBC.

It is thought the cat, now named China, chewed its way into a cardboard box which was then loaded into a crate on a ship that left Shanghai on April 3.

A local vet suggested cats coped well with shortages of food and water.

"Usually we say that animals can only survive a few weeks without food and only a few days without water," said Michelle Misavage.

Bizarro Earth

Woman had bullet in head for 64 years

A Chinese grandmother who went to hospital with a headache was found to have had a bullet in her head for 64 years.

Jin Guangying, 77, of Shuyang town, Jiangsu province, went to to Shuyang Leniency Hospital for an x-ray.

"We were surprised to learn there was a bullet inside her head," her son, Wang Zhengbang, told the Yangtse Evening Post.

Jin remembers that she was shot in 1943 during the Second World War by the invading Japanese army when she was taking supplies to her guerrilla father.

"I was 13, living along the railways in Xuzhou city. One afternoon in September, my mother asked me to take a meal to my father and his colleagues who were fighting the Japanese," she said.

Bizarro Earth

President conducts his own exit to 'Stars and Stripes'

JoAnn Falletta was doing what a conductor should - concentrating on the orchestra in front of her. No wonder it took her a few seconds on Sunday to realize someone behind her was motioning for a try.

President Bush.


"Smiling at me kind of devilishly,"
Falletta said.

She gave him her baton and stepped aside.

Gesturing exuberantly, the president led the orchestra during part of its performance of "Stars and Stripes Forever."

"We didn't expect him to know the score so well," Falletta said afterward. "He was not shy about conducting at all. He conducted with a great deal of panache."

That was the music played for Bush's exit after his speech at a ceremony commemorating the founding 400 years ago of Jamestown, America's first permanent English settlement.

Comment: Shocking is an understatement.


Bizarro Earth

Sea Lion Joins Walk-A-Thon in Calif.

CORTE MADERA, Calif. - He has flippers instead of feet _ and certainly no sneakers or hiking boots. But that didn't stop a sea lion from joining schoolchildren on a walk-a-thon.

Wine

Mixing work with pleasure: Beer helps scientists find landmines

Biotechnologists have genetically engineered brewer's yeast to glow green in response to an ingredient found in landmines, a new study shows.

The study, published today online in the journal Nature Chemical Biology, shows the yeast can detect, or smell, airborne particles from explosives.

The scientists engineered the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae to sense molecules of the chemical DNT, or dinitrotoluene.

DNT is left over after making the explosive TNT, or trinitroluene. And dogs trained to sniff for explosives are believed in fact to be trained to detect DNT.

Take 2

Serbia's "Prayer" wins Eurovision Song Contest

HELSINKI - Serbia's Marija Serifovic won the Eurovision Song Contest on Saturday, beating competitors from 23 other countries in a three-hour televised mishmash of power ballads, ethnic rhythms, and bubble-gum pop.

Bizarro Earth

German court denies bald men state-funded wigs

Bald men in Germany have no right to state-funded wigs, according to a new court ruling.

A court in the south-western state of Rhineland-Palatinate rejected an appeal by a man to have the costs of his hairpiece paid for by a statutory health insurer, saying the problem was not unusual enough among men to justify his claim.

The man had based his appeal on the grounds he had been bald since childhood, but the insurer told him it only provided "long-term hair replacement support" for women and minors.