Interesting & funny news from around the world, Интересные и забавные новости со всего мира

AUSTIN, Texas — Central Market on Wednesday kicked off its month-long 30th anniversary celebrations by setting a Guinness World Record for the largest charcuterie board in the world to be created and consumed.

The festivities were held at Central Market North Lamar in Austin — the first location, which opened in 1994.

The colossal 12-foot by 24-foot board was made up of 1,000 pounds — half a ton — of meats, cheeses, fruits, nuts and more.

Employees were tasked with filling the board with 540 pounds of cured meats (applewood-smoked ham, schiacciata piccante and salami), 240 pounds of cheeses (manchego and brie) and 130 pounds of fruits like Castelvetrano olives and 90 pounds of fig spread and berry compote.

Guests were invited to help themselves to the record-breaking spread while enjoying drinks and live music on the patio.

The philanthropic grocery chain, a division of H-E-B, also presented a $30,000 check to the St. David’s Foundation before toasting to 30 years.

Wednesday night’s celebration is just the start of festivities Central Market is putting together through Sept. 24 at its various locations.

The 34th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony, a tongue-in-cheek celebration of unusual scientific achievements, was held Thursday at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The ceremony — inspired by, not not affiliated with, the Nobel Prizes — was held in-person after being held virtually for the past three years. Ten prizes were awarded at the ceremony, which was also livestreamed on YouTube.

This year's Peace Prize was posthumously awarded to B.F. Skinner for his 1960 research into whether live pigeons could be housed inside missiles to guide their flight paths.

The Botany Prize went to Jacob White and Felipe Yamashita "for finding evidence that some real plants imitate the shapes of neighboring artificial plastic plants."

The Anatomy Prize went to a team of scientists from France and Chile "for studying whether the hair on the heads of most people in the northern hemisphere swirls in the same direction (clockwise or counter-clockwise?) as hair on the heads of most people in the southern hemisphere."

This year's Medicine Prize went to Lieven A. Schenk, Tahmine Fadai, and Christian Büchel, "for demonstrating that fake medicine that causes painful side-effects can be more effective than fake medicine that does not cause painful side-effects."

The Ig Nobel Physics Prize was presented to James C. Liao for his research into the swimming abilities of a deceased trout.

The Physiology Prize was presented to a team of U.S. and Japanese researchers "for discovering that many mammals are capable of breathing through their anus."

The Probability Prize went to University of Amsterdam researcher František Bartoš and his team for studying the results of 350,757 coin flips and determining coins are slightly more likely to land on the same side they started from.

The Chemistry Prize went to Tess Heeremans, Antoine Deblais, Daniel Bonn and Sander Woutersen, "for using chromatography to separate drunk and sober worms."

Saul Justin Newman was awarded the Demography Prize for his research finding that "many of the people famous for having the longest lives lived in places that had lousy birth-and-death record-keeping."

The final award, the Biology Prize, was given to Fordyce Ely and William E. Petersen for their 1941 research that involved "exploding a paper bag next to a cat that's standing on the back of a cow, to explore how and when cows spew their milk."

New set of endangered cotton-top tamarin triplets born at Disney World

The second set of critically endangered cotton-top tamarin triplets to be born this year at Walt Disney World have arrived, park officials announced Saturday.

The three tiny primates were born at Animal Kingdom's Discovery Island on Saturday and are bonding with their parents and siblings, a Disney World spokesperson told UPI.

A earlier batch of the small-but-powerful monkeys were born there in January.

Weighing only 1 pound in adulthood, the cotton-top tamarin is only found in the rain forests northwestern Colombia. They are known for their sophisticated social behaviors and have even shown evidence of simple grammatical capabilities.

Despite their small stature, their athletic capabilities are impressive — they can leap 15 feet from a stationary branch — while their appearance is highlighted by a wild mane of bright-white hair atop their heads.

The male and female parents of newborn tamarins share infant care equally, carrying their young on their backs until approximately 14 weeks of age.

It is estimated there are only 6,000 remaining cotton-top tamarins remaining in the wild, making them one of the rarest primates in the world. Disney World says it is working with organizations such as Proyecto Titi in Colombia to help protect the species through its Disney Conservation Fund.

New Zealand names bird of year after contest with bird costumes, craft beer

A golden-eyed, endangered penguin has once again been named New Zealand's Bird of the Year after a competition involving bird costumes, craft beer and Dr. Jane Goodall.

The hoiho or "noise shouter" won the title for the second time Monday, after previously securing the top spot in 2019.

"In a competition that was any bird's to win, they showed up with the goods to capture hearts and minds across Aotearoa," said Nicola Toki, who is the chief executive of Forest & Bird.

Toki is referring to the group that championed hoiho. That effort included a museum, a rugby team and a brewery that celebrated the "people's penguin" with a special drink.

The runner-up was the karure, which was represented by a university student organization, and was promoted with bird costumes and memes.

The hoiho, which has seen its population dip nearly 80% within a 15-year period, was honored at the perfect time, according to Toki.

"Hoiho are being hammered from all angles," he said. "They suffer from horrible diseases like diphtheria and get attacked by dogs. Tiny, vulnerable chicks are threatened by introduced predators like cats, stoats and ferrets that can wipe out an entire breeding site in a single season."

Goodall also offered her support for the hoiho's win.

Last year, John Oliver backed the Puteketeke as "bird of the century" with an elaborate campaign of his own.

Ancient relative of 'living fossil' fish reveals that geological activity supercharges evolution

Primeval fish that were thought to be "living fossils," largely unchanged since the time of the dinosaurs, are actually evolving dramatically — and they evolved faster when Earth's continents moved faster, fossils of a newly identified coelacanth species have revealed.

The findings suggest that the large-scale movement of continents may spur the evolution of life, the researchers reported Thursday (Sept. 12) in the journal Nature Communications.

Coelacanths are large fish that evolved 410 million years ago. Once known only from fossils, they were thought to be extinct until a fisher in South Africa hauled one up in 1938. Biologists dubbed the modern coelacanth a "living fossil" and believed it had not evolved much over millions of years.

The two coelacanth species alive today, Latimeria chalumnae and Latimeria menadoensis, are more closely related to other early fish, such as lungfish, than they are to today's modern ray-finned fish.

But now, new "bridge" fossils reveal that coelacanths never stopped changing. The fossils, beautifully preserved in three dimensions, are one of the best anatomical looks yet at coelacanth history. Combined with other coelacanth fossils, the discovery reveals that the more geologically active the environment was, the more evolutionary change the fish underwent.

"Somewhat surprisingly, plate tectonic activity had a strong influence on rates of evolution of coelacanths throughout their 400 million-year history," said study first author Alice Clement, an evolutionary biologist at Flinders University in Australia.

Baby pygmy hippo Moo Deng is a TikTok star, but her keepers are worried

Her toothless chewing is already an internet hit, and now, Moo Deng, the pygmy hippopotamus, is starring in cosmetic ads and quickly becoming a brand ambassador for Thailand.

But the 2-month-old's meteoric rise to online stardom has also prompted caretakers to urge visitors to show restraint and to limit her visit hours at Khao Kheow Open Zoo.

Moo Deng, also known as the “bouncing pig,” was named after a vote from more than 20,000 children and tourists on the Facebook page of the zoo in Chonburi, a city in eastern Thailand, where she was born in July.

The hippo has become an internet sensation since her caretakers began uploading videos of her going about her day, which mostly includes napping, walking around her enclosure and chewing her caretakers' knees while being hosed down for a shower.

And just like any human celebrity, Moo Deng has dozens of fan pages on social media with pictures and videos capturing her every moment in public.

Zoo pauses search for 'extremely comfortable' escaped capybara

A British zoo announced it has temporarily halted the search for its escaped capybara to avoid stressing out the animal, who was said to be "extremely comfortable and happy" on the loose.

The Hoo Zoo and Dinosaur World in Telford, which earlier revealed a capybara named Cinnamon escaped from the facility during the weekend, said a thermal drone located the animal in a wooded area about 650 feet away from the zoo on Tuesday.

The zoo said Cinnamon was spotted again Wednesday in the same area.

"Unfortunately this area is extremely dense with almost impenetrable undergrowth that Cinnamon can easily move under but we cannot," the zoo said on social media.

Zoo officials said they are pausing recapture efforts until Friday night to avoid causing stress to the capybara and potentially causing her to flee further from the zoo.


"During our searches we found plenty of fresh tracks and capybara poo and it looks like Cinnamon is extremely comfortable and happy in that area," the zoo said.

The post said Cinnamon is not in any danger from predators in the area and has ample access to food sources.

"We have placed multiple live traps in that area and will be checking these multiple times a day but won't be conducting any further mass searches until Friday night," officials wrote.

SUV spotted parked atop dumpster in Florida

The mystery of an SUV seen perched on top of a Florida dumpster was revealed to have involved a poorly-timed parking job, a construction site and a forklift.

Scott Greenberg said he was on his way to the store when he spotted the vehicle parked on top of a dumpster off East Point Drive in Fort Myers.

"I had to do a double take. I texted my buddy. I'm like, 'Is that fair game? Is that free?' It's in the dumpster," Greenberg told WBBH-TV.

It turned out the SUV had been lifted onto the dumpster by a forklift operated by a construction worker helping to build a new apartment complex.

Workers said the vehicle had been left parked in a work area.

"Sometimes when you park where you're not supposed to, this is what happens," a construction worker said.

The vehicle was later removed from the dumpster and relocated to a parking space away from the work area.

Construction workers said they learned the SUV belongs to a contractor who loans it out to out-of-town workers in need of transportation.

Some lizards 'scuba dive' by using air bubbles to breathe underwater

The research was led by Lindsey Swierk, an assistant research professor of biological sciences at Binghamton University.

Swierk’s work is centered on the study of water anoles, semi-aquatic lizards native to the tropical rainforests of southern Costa Rica. Her research has unveiled remarkable feats about these fascinating creatures.

Scuba diving isn’t just for adventure seekers anymore. Even the world’s smallest – and apparently the scrappiest – members of the animal kingdom are doing it. A particular type of semi-aquatic lizard has something truly unique to show us about the art of survival with air bubbles in the underwater world.
Mysteries of underwater lizard breathing

The research was led by Lindsey Swierk, an assistant research professor of biological sciences at Binghamton University.

Swierk’s work is centered on the study of water anoles, semi-aquatic lizards native to the tropical rainforests of southern Costa Rica. Her research has unveiled remarkable feats about these fascinating creatures.

“We know that they can stay underwater for a really long time. We also know that they’re pulling oxygen from this bubble of air. We didn’t know whether there was actually any functional role for this bubble in respiration,” Swierk noted.

“Is it something that lizards do that is just a side effect of their skin’s properties or a respiratory reflex, or is this bubble actually allowing them to stay underwater longer than they would, say, without a bubble?”
Lizards dive underwater to survive

What our research team was eager to find out, said Swierk, was the actual role this bubble played in the lizard’s underwater survival.

She questioned – is this bubble a byproduct of the lizard’s skin properties and respiratory reflex, or is it an ingenious tool allowing these creatures to outlast their time underwater?

To disentangle the mystery, Swierk conducted an experiment that involved applying a substance to the lizards’ skin that would prevent bubble formation.

The logic? “Lizard skin is hydrophobic. Typically, that allows air to stick very tightly to the skin and permits this bubble to form. But when you cover the skin with an emollient, air no longer sticks to the skin surface, so the bubbles can’t form,” explained Swierk.

Michigan library closed when bugs crawl out of returned DVD case

A suburban Detroit library was closed Monday morning after a DVD case in a return bin was found to be filled with stowaway bugs.

The Royal Oak Public Library said on social media that the library was closed Saturday, Sunday and Monday morning after multiple insects were found inside a DVD case dropped into a book return bin.

"The DVD was returned sometime after we closed on Friday and before we opened on Saturday, so nothing prior to that would have been affected," the post said. "The book drops were immediately locked and all items that were in those book drops were bagged up and isolated in our garage."

People are asked to keep their library items at home or return them to another library in The Library Network, which is a network of libraries in Michigan.

A follow-up post Monday said the facility had been given the all-clear by a pest control company and would reopen at 1 p.m.

"We receive monthly pest inspections of the building, so you should not have any worries about coming to the library," the post said.