xxxNews Of The Weirdxxx
Bizarre but true stories about real people collected by syndicated columnist Chuck Shepherd.
A team of researchers that included Ben Wilson of the University of British Columbia (Vancouver) reported in November that herring communicate with each other via a high-pitched, “raspberry”-like sound emitted from their anuses. (Since the sounds were frequent, whether the herring had eaten or not, the researchers concluded that the noise was not produced by digestive gases.)
Among recent U.S. patents (according to a January story in the East Bay Express, Emeryville, Calif.):
(1) a penile prosthesis with a magnet, from Deborah Knoll-Ewers, Hercules, Calif. (to overcome erectile dysfunction with new-age magnet therapy);
(2) a plastic liner for men to use beneath their underwear, from Wesley Johnson, Burbank, Calif. (to keep the clothing clean while engaged in fully dressed sex, such as lap dances);
(3) an electrically safe device that attaches to the tongue, to make it vibrate, from Eric A. Klein, Mountain View, Calif. (to enhance a partner’s sexual pleasure).
A 16-year-old boy was arrested in January in Dania Beach, Fla., after a 7-Eleven clerk subdued him mid-robbery. The boy had pointed a .22-caliber rifle at the clerk but then suddenly remembered that he hadn’t loaded it. He had shells in his pocket, but they were .40-caliber, too large for the rifle (but that didn’t stop the boy from trying to cram them in). The clerk took advantage of the boy’s confusion and disarmed him.
Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa, Fla. 33679 or [email protected]
Copyright © 2001 by Chuck Shepherd
NEWS OF THE WEIRD