wdef writes "From the Wall Street Journal: 'Chariot, a 1,500-pound, single-humped camel with spittle hanging from his lips and pompoms in his tail, just won the first-ever beauty contest at Turkey's annual camel fighting competition. According to the pageant's four stony-faced judges, Chariot had better muscle tone, prettier adornments and a more elegant tail wag as he strutted along a catwalk of rugs to the sound of Turkish pipes and drums last weekend. Plus, they said, he had exceptionally good teeth.'"

iadude writes "Gena, a 14-year-old crocodile at an aquarium in the eastern city of Dnipropetrovsk, has been refusing food and acting listless after eating a cell phone dropped by a woman as she tried to photograph him. From the article: 'Aquarium workers initially didn't believe Rimma Golovko, a new mother in her 20s, when she complained that the crocodile had swallowed her phone. "But then the phone started ringing and the sound was coming from inside our Gena's stomach and we understood she wasn't lying," said Alexandra, an employee who declined to give her last name as she wasn't authorized to speak publicly.'" Things just got twice as dangerous for Captain Hook.

dbune writes "Young people who argue with their parents over wearing the same pair of smelly jeans can now cite the work of a 20-year old University of Alberta student who wore the same jeans for 15 months straight. From the article: 'Josh Le wore the same pair of jeans to break in the raw denim, so it would wrap the contours of his body, leaving distinct wear lines. He had his textile professor test the jeans for bacteria before washing them for the first time. The results showed high counts of five different kinds of bacteria, but nothing in the range of being considered a health hazard."

cylonlover writes "At this week's SHOT Show in Las Vegas, TASER introduced its TASER Wildlife Electronic Control Device (ECD) that has been developed as an alternative tool for less effective methods of animal control used by wildlife professionals like chemical or acoustic repellents. The wildlife specific model is a three-shot, semi-automatic that can deliver a pulse from up to 35 feet (10.6 m) away and is designed for use on large animals like bears and elk."

Damien1972 writes "Its taste has been described between a delicious custard and old gym socks, but the durian fruit is considered a delicacy in much of Southeast Asia. Still, even durian lovers may be uncomfortable with the idea of eating the fruit after it has been consumed and expelled by a wild Asian elephant. But according to the New Straits Times, wealthy businessmen are willing to pay over $300 for a sample of elephant-ingested durian, which they believe acts as an aphrodisiac."

If you've always wanted to try to eat a lion, but were afraid of being eaten first, a Tucson restaurant has just the thing for you. Boca Tacos y Tequila is now offering customers lion tacos. From the article: "Boca Tacos y Tequila has already drawn the ire of animal rights activists on its Facebook page for the announcement. But owner Bryan Mazon says that curious customers are already making reservations to try the new delicacy, to be offered on 'exotic tacos night' - every Wednesday starting from February 16."

13-year-old Walter Acre was encircled by wolves while walking home from school, but luckily for him he had some Megadeth on his phone. From the article: "Just as they seemed set to attack, the petrified youngster pulled out his phone and cranked out a song by Megadeth. Walter had previously been told not to run away from wolves but to face them and attempt to scare them away. And sure enough, the tactic worked as the sound of heavy metal music sent the animals scattering in confusion."

Researchers from Rice University have found a type of amoeba that practices a sort of "primitive farming behavior." When their bacteria food become scarce, the Dictyostelium discoideum will group together and form a "fruiting body" that will disperse bacteria spores to a new area. From the article: "The behavior falls short of the kind of 'farming' that more advanced animals do; ants, for example, nurture a single fungus species that no longer exists in the wild. But the idea that an amoeba that spends much of its life as a single-celled organism could hold short of consuming a food supply before decamping is an astonishing one. More than just a snack for the journey of dispersal, the idea is that the bacteria that travel with the spores can 'seed' a new bacterial colony, and thus a food source in case the new locale should be lacking in bacteria." It's good to know that even a single celled creature is not immune to the pull of Farmville.

A group of teenage thieves didn't get the buzz they were looking for after mistaking the cremated remains of a man and two dogs for cocaine. According to a sheriff's report: "The ashes that were taken from the house had been taken because the suspects mistook it for either cocaine or heroin. During the conversation, it was learned that the suspects had snorted the ashes believing they were snorting cocaine." After realizing that they had cremation congestion instead of a free high, the burglars threw the remains in a lake. Police divers are trying to recover the ashes.

An anonymous reader writes "Here's an example of fine Qwest workmanship. In our business park, they just installed a DSL connection for our neighbors, for which we share an exterior utility space. They left: a DSL modem stuffed in a cardboard box, wrapped in a Wal-Mart bag, sitting outside in what will be below-zero (F) temps, on top of a bank of ten natural gas meters in some of the driest air of the year. They also left it plugged into an exposed exterior power outlet above a snowbank, with network cables running around the building, through snowbanks, coupled and protected by zip-lock baggies, and into our neighbors office. Not to mention the hack-job of patching the phone cable directly into the demarcation box. And if you're wondering — I was told upon calling them that this is not their problem, and I need to contact my primary phone service provider."

Stoobalou writes "Playboy boss Hugh Hefner has confirmed that — despite Steve Jobs' protestations that Apple is pure and Android is for porn — an app for browsing uncensored back issues of Playboy is to launch later this year on the iPad. The news, which is likely to generate significantly more buzz for Apple's popular tablet as a publishing device than Rupert Murdoch's delayed digital newspaper The Daily, comes courtesy of Hefner's Twitter stream, in which he proclaimed: 'Big news! Playboy — both old & new — will be available on [the] iPad beginning in March.'"

According to Wang Han-chin his neighbors have made his life unbearable by teaching their mynah bird to curse at him. Wang claims that whenever he leaves his house the bird calls out, "Clueless big-mouthed idiot!" From the article: "He pressed charges, but the neighbours denied instructing the bird to curse and prosecutors decided to drop the charges due to insufficient evidence linking the bird to his injuries, it added."

As if the flood waters weren't bad enough for the people of Queensland, it now appears that there are sharks swimming in the streets. Two bull sharks were spotted swimming past a McDonald’s in the city of Goodna, Butcher Steve Bateman saw another making its way past his shop on Williams street. Ipswich councillor for the Goodna region Paul Tully said: "It would have swam several kilometres in from the river, across Evan Marginson Park and the motorway. It’s definitely a first for Goodna, to have a shark in the main street."

theodp writes "Combine smartphone auto correction and fat-fingered virtual keyboard typing, writes Rob Walker, and the results can be hilarious and even shocking. The website Damn You, Autocorrect collects the awesomely embarrassing text messages that you never meant to send. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to masturbate some chicken for bisexuals night!"

The Guardian newspaper's Bad Science columnist Dr. Ben Goldacre does a stand-up routine about medicine, the placebo effect, and the mysteries of the human body at Nerdstock. From a scientific standpoint, I can't accurately say how funny it is because I was told it was great before I saw it.

New research suggests that the clear screens and easily read fonts of e-readers makes your brain "lazy." According to Neuroscience blogger Jonah Lehrer, using electronic books like the Kindle and Sony Reader makes you less likely to remember what you have read because the devices are so easy on the eyes. From the article: "Rather than making things clearer, e-readers and computers prevent us from absorbing information because their crisp screens and fonts tell our subconscious that the words they convey are not important, it is claimed. In contrast, handwriting and fonts that are more challenging to read signal to the brain that the content of the message is important and worth remembering, experts say."

Usually a boss won't care if his employee takes a company vehicle to run a few errands, but when that vehicle is a helicopter it's a different story. 32-year-old Dave Dennison is accused of taking a police helicopter to drop off a fishing net to a friend last fall. Tampa officials have suspended him for five days without pay following an internal affairs investigation. I wonder if Dave was at least smart enough to fill the tank when he was done?

An anonymous reader writes "The Red Cross apparently takes the sanctity of its 'red cross' symbol quite seriously. The UK branch of the Red Cross has threatened a patomime theatrical production of Robin Hood because one of the actresses, playing a nurse, has an outfit that includes the standard red cross. The Red Cross told the producers of the play that using such a costume, no matter how accurate, is a violation of the Geneva Conventions."

You might want to wear gloves the next time you use an ATM according to a new study. Swabs of public banking machines found bacteria levels at least equal to those found in public restrooms. From the article: "'We were surprised by our results because the ATM machines were shown to be heavily contaminated with bacteria; to the same level as nearby public lavatories,' Richard Hastings, a microbiologist for BioCote, which sponsored the study, told the Telegraph newspaper. 'In addition, the bacteria we detected on ATMs were similar to those from the toilet, which are well-known as causes of common human illnesses.'"

Stoobalou writes "WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been accused of 'treason' by a Florida man seeking damages for distress caused by the site's revelations about the US government. From the article: 'David Pitchford, a Florida trailer park resident, names Assange and WikiLeaks as defendants in a personal injury suit filed with the Florida Southern District Court in Miami. In the complaint filed on 6th January, Pitchford alleges that Assange's negligence has caused "hypertension," "depression" and "living in fear of being stricken by another heart attack and/or stroke" as a result of living "in fear of being on the brink of another nuclear [sic] WAR."' Just for good measure, it also alleges that Assange and WikiLeaks are guilty of 'terorism [sic], espionage and treason.'"