Drought drains South Carolina lake

A decaying highway, plunged deep underwater after Lake Hartwell was dammed in the 1950s, sits exposed once again across what remains of the bay outside Big Water Marina.

It's a depressing reminder of the toll from a stubborn Southern drought that only recently began to abate with replenishing rains this fall. Much of the region has recovered, but a ring stretching from northeast Georgia to the western Carolinas remains stuck in "extreme" drought.

And Hartwell, a massive 56,000-acre lake straddling Georgia-South Carolina state line, is near the epicenter. Even after a spate of recent downpours, its water line is nearly 18 feet below normal levels.

"We never thought we'd see it. We never thought the lake would go this far down," said Jane Davis, who built the marina from the ground up with her husband. "Everyone needs water, but Hartwell has finally given more water than it can take."

Forecasters say there's no telling when the drought will end.

"When you start looking at an area like that that's been under duress so long, even one or two rain events aren't going to completely wipe away the long-term problems," said Brian Fuchs, a climatologist with the National Drought Mitigation Center...

--Deseret News

Australians See Smiley Face in Night Sky

Australians are getting a big hello from the heavens as Venus, Jupiter and a waxing crescent moon combine to create a celestial smiley face.

The best time to see the friendly phenomenon is about 20 to 30 minutes after sunset, report the News Corporation's Australian newspapers.

Local astronomers said that Venus and Jupiter had appeared side by side in the evening sky over the past week or so, but Monday night would be the best night to see the "face" appear.

Viewers in Western Australia have the best view, with the moon appearing closer to the "eyes" formed by the planets.

While the planets and moon appear to be close together, in reality they're not. The moon is 250,000 miles away, while Venus is 93 million miles away and Jupiter 540 million miles away...

--Fox News

Rare, Prehistoric-Age Reptile Found in N.Z.

A rare reptile with lineage dating back to the dinosaur age has been found nesting on the New Zealand mainland for the first time in about 200 years, officials said Friday.

Four leathery, white eggs from an indigenous tuatara were found by staff at the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary in the capital, Wellington, during routine maintenance work Friday, conservation manager Rouen Epson said.

"The nest was uncovered by accident and is the first concrete proof we have that our tuatara are breeding," Epson said. "It suggests that there may be other nests in the sanctuary we don't know of."

Tuatara, dragon-like reptiles that grow to up to 32 inches, are the last descendants of a species that walked the earth with the dinosaurs 225 million years ago, zoologists say...

--Discovery Channel

Cheetah gets loose on Delta flight

A Delta baggage worker got a bit of a fright when she opened a jetliner's cargo door and found a cheetah running loose amid the luggage.

Delta spokeswoman Betsy Talton said Friday that two cheetahs were being flown in the cargo area of a passenger flight from Portland, Ore., to Atlanta a day earlier when one escaped from its cage.

Talton said the airline summoned help from an Atlanta zoo. Experts rushed to a closed airport hangar and tranquilized both animals and took them back to the zoo...

--MSNBC

As economy melts away, so does N.Y. sculpture

The economy is melting — literally.

Two artists on Wednesday installed a 1,500-pound ice sculpture that spelled the word "Economy" in Manhattan's financial district.

The "Main Street Meltdown" was to remain in Foley Square until it melted — about 24 hours. By Wednesday evening, the E and the C had already thawed and vanished.

The backdrop to the sculpture — the wide stairs and row of pillars fronting the state Supreme Court building — is instantly recognizable to millions of viewers of TV's "Law & Order."

"To see the word 'economy' melting down is representational of an extreme time," artists Nora Ligorano and Marshall Reese said on their website...

--USA Today

Voter registration materials mailed to dead Illinois goldfish

The only "agent of change" Princess ever supported was the person who freshened the water in her fishbowl.

So election officials in Chicago's northern suburbs want to know why voter registration material was sent to the dead goldfish.

"I am just stunned at the level of people compromising the integrity of the voting process," said Lake County Clerk Willard Helander, a Republican, who said she has spotted problems with nearly 1,000 voter registrations this year.

Beth Nudelman, who owned the fish, said Princess may have landed on a mailing list because the family once filled in the pet's name when they got a second phone line for a computer.

"There was no fraud involved," said Nudelman, a Democrat who supports Barack Obama. "This person is a dead fish"...

--USA Today

Angry about economy? Smash some plates and move on

All over sunny San Diego, tough economic times have forced people to cut back on their $4 lattes and sushi dinners.

But one new business is booming -- and ka-booming -- precisely because of frustration from the worst financial crisis to hit the United States in decades.

Welcome to Sarah's Smash Shack, where pent-up patrons can relieve stress by hurling dinnerware and bric-a-brac against a wall, as hard as they can, day and night, seven days a week.

San Diego entrepreneur Sarah Lavely charges her clients $10 and up to pulverize plates and glasses during 15-minute intervals. Music blares, clients dress in protective gear and a neon sign urges them to "Break More Stuff"...

--Reuters

Officials: Burglar wakes men with spice rub, sausage whack

Authorities say they've arrested a man who broke into the home of two California farmworkers, stole money, rubbed one with spices and whacked the other with a sausage before fleeing.

Fresno County sheriff's Lt. Ian Burrimond says 22-year-old Antonio Vasquez was found hiding in a field wearing only a T-shirt, boxers and socks after the Saturday morning attack.

He says deputies arrested Vasquez after finding a wallet containing his ID in the ransacked house.

The farmworkers told deputies the suspect woke them Saturday morning by rubbing spices on one of them and smacking the other with an 8-inch sausage...

--CNN

Oddball museums around the world

If "Night at the Museum" had been set somewhere other than New York’s Museum of Natural History, it would be a very different movie. This 2006 blockbuster starring Ben Stiller made hundreds of millions of dollars and, reportedly, boosted museum attendance. But it could have been a much stranger beast. Instead of Teddy Roosevelt and Pocahantas, one night in Philadelphia’s Mutter Museum could've led to a romance between Siamese twin skeletons and the corpse of an obese woman whose fat has turned to soap. At the Venthaven ventriloquist museum, the big laughs could've given way to the scariest "Twilight Zone" episode ever.

World-class museums aside, a lot of people find second-rank museums lacking. At best, they're hermetically sealed repositories of dusty culture; at worst, they're tourist traps teeming with children on field trips. Sometimes, you gotta take a walk on the weirder side.

Doug Kirby, publisher of the book series and Web site Roadside America, has catalogued bizarre museums and other attractions best avoided by elementary school field trips. By heading off the beaten path, he says, “you’ll see amazing things—but just duck your head and make sure your tetanus shot is up-to-date”...

--MSNBC

Teenager finds bat asleep in bra

A teenager who thought movement in her underwear was caused by her vibrating mobile phone found a bat curled up asleep in her bra.

Abbie Hawkins, 19, of Norwich, had been wearing the bra for five hours when she plucked up the courage to investigate.

When she did, she found a baby bat in padding in her 34FF bra. The hotel receptionist said she was shocked but felt bad for removing the "cuddly" bat. "It looked cosy and comfortable and I was sorry for disturbing it," she said.

She was sitting at her desk at work when she decided to investigate the strange movements in her underwear...

--BBC News

Body's Own 'Cannabis' Is Good For The Skin, Scientists Find

Scientists from Hungary, Germany and the U.K. have discovered that our own body not only makes chemical compounds similar to the active ingredient in marijuana (THC), but these play an important part in maintaining healthy skin.

This finding on "endocannabinoids" just published online in, and scheduled for the October 2008 print issue of, The FASEB Journal could lead to new drugs that treat skin conditions ranging from acne to dry skin, and even skin-related tumors.

"Our preclinical data encourage one to explore whether endocannabinoid system-acting agents can be exploited in the management of common skin disorders," said Tamás Biró, MD, PhD, a senior scientist involved in the research. "It is also suggested that these agents can be efficiently applied locally to the skin in the form of a cream."

Biró and colleagues came to this conclusion by treating cell cultures from human sebaceous glands (the glands that make the oil on our skin) with various concentrations of endocannabinoids (substances produced by the body that are similar to the active ingredient in marijuana)...

--Science Daily

Earth's Cries Recorded in Space

Earth emits an ear-piercing series of chirps and whistles that could be heard by any aliens who might be listening, astronomers have discovered.

The sound is awful, a new recording from space reveals.

Scientists have known about the radiation since the 1970s. It is created high above the planet, where charged particles from the solar wind collide with Earth's magnetic field. It is related to the phenomenon that generates the colorful aurora, or Northern Lights.

The radio waves are blocked by the ionosphere, a charged layer atop our atmosphere, so they do not reach Earth. That's good, because the out-of-this-world radio waves are 10,000 times stronger than even the strongest military signal, the researchers said, and they would overwhelm all radio stations on the planet...

--Yahoo! News

Explorers find 1780 British warship in Lake Ontario

A 22-gun British warship that sank during the American Revolution and has long been regarded as one of the "Holy Grail" shipwrecks in the Great Lakes has been discovered at the bottom of Lake Ontario, astonishingly well-preserved in the cold, deep water, explorers announced Friday.

Shipwreck enthusiasts Jim Kennard and Dan Scoville used side-scanning sonar and an unmanned submersible to locate the HMS Ontario, which was lost with barely a trace and as many as 130 people aboard during a gale in 1780.

The 80-foot sloop of war is the oldest shipwreck and the only fully intact British warship ever found in the Great Lakes, Scoville and Kennard said.

"To have a Revolutionary War vessel that's practically intact is unbelievable. It's an archaeological miracle," said Canadian author Arthur Britton Smith, who chronicled the history of the HMS Ontario in a 1997 book, "The Legend of the Lake"...

Yahoo! News

Girl stung by scorpion in Wal-Mart watermelon

One young shopper at a Wal-Mart in West Virginia had to watch out for more than falling prices.

A 12-year-old girl picking up a seedless watermelon from a bin was stung Sunday by a tan, inch-long scorpion that had apparently stowed away in a shipment from Mexico.

Megan Templeton, of Barboursville, was taken to the hospital as a precaution but later released. Her father, William Templeton, said the pain was a little worse than a bee sting.

He initially didn't believe his daughter when she said she had been stung by a scorpion, but then he saw the critter scurry underneath a box. It was captured by Wal-Mart employees...

--USA Today

Families sue undertakers in body parts scandal

Families who claim the corpses of more than 1,000 relatives were dismembered and sold in an illegal body-parts scandal sued funeral directors and others on Tuesday.

The class action suit represents hundreds of people who claim their relatives' body parts were harvested for medical use without their consent.

It charges seven individuals, and the funeral homes and human tissue services with which they worked, with conspiracy, negligence and the intentional infliction of emotional distress.

The seven were indicted by a grand jury last September and accused of harvesting bones, skin and tendons in unsanitary conditions, and selling them to hospitals with the risk that they could infect patients who received them.

The defendants allegedly made $3.8 million from sale of body parts obtained in Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey between February 2004 and September 2005 in an operation that was "ghoulish, greedy, dangerous and criminal," the grand jury's report said.

In all, the scheme took tissue from 1,007 bodies, including 244 from Philadelphia funeral homes...

--Reuters

Fla. woman finds 8-foot alligator in her kitchen

And some people get jittery about mice in the kitchen.

Authorities say 69-year-old central Florida woman found an 8-foot long alligator prowling in her kitchen late Monday night.

Sandra Frosti says the gator must have pushed through the back porch screen door and then went inside through an open sliding glass door at her home in Oldsmar, just north of Tampa. It then apparently strolled through the living room, down a hall and into the kitchen...

--USA Today

Hedgehog used in non-lethal assault

A New Zealand man has been accused of assault with a prickly weapon -- a hedgehog.

Police allege that William Singalargh, 27, picked up the hedgehog and threw it at a 15-year-old boy in the North Island east coast town of Whakatane on February 9.

"It hit the victim in the leg, causing a large, red welt and several puncture marks," police Senior Sgt. Bruce Jenkins said Monday. The teen did not need medical treatment, he added.

Police arrested Singalargh shortly after the incident, and charged him with assault with a weapon -- "namely the hedgehog," Jenkins said.

At a hearing in Whakatane District Court on February 14, Singalargh's lawyer said he intended to plead innocent, The Herald on Sunday newspaper reported. The case is due to resume on April 17. If convicted, he faces up to five years in prison, Jenkins said...

--CNN

Postal workers attacked by wild turkeys

While rain and snow may not deter the postal service, wild turkeys are a bird of a different feather.

Mara Wilhite, manager of the Hilldale Station Post Office, said wild turkeys have been pestering postal delivery workers in Parkwood Hills, a neighborhood on Madison 's West Side near Owen Conservation Park and home to a number of the large birds.

Between five and 10 large male turkeys, or toms -- apparently a little giddy with the onset of turkey breeding season -- have been bullying postal workers as they make their rounds, pecking at them and even trying to rough them up with the sharp spurs on their legs. One of the birds launched itself through the open door of a mail truck and scratched the driver.

Eric Lobner, regional wildlife program supervisor for the state Department of Natural Resources, is on the case, investigating the turkey gang...

--Madison.com

Study: Octopuses kinky creatures of sea

Marine biologists studying wild octopuses have found a kinky and violent society of jealous murders, gender subterfuge and once-in-a-lifetime sex.

The new study by researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, who journeyed off the coast of Indonesia found that wild octopuses are far from the shy, unromantic loners their captive brethren appear to be.

The scientists watched the Abdopus aculeatus octopus, which are the size of an orange, for several weeks and published their findings recently in the journal Marine Biology...

--USA Today

Lovesick swan to be reunited with her paddleboat

Petra the swan has a new home and so does her beloved swan-shaped paddleboat.

In 2006, Petra, a black swan, became so attached to the boat — shaped like an outsized white swan — that she refused to leave its side at a lake near a zoo in the German city of Muenster.

Petra and her paddleboat were taken to the zoo.

Zoo officials finally parted bird and boat last week after Petra settled down with a real white swan and the boat was returned to the lake. But the romance was short-lived. The zoo says that, on Saturday, her new beau flew off and sought out the company of other black swans...

--USA Today

Ponytail Helps Save 10-Year-Old Who Fell In Icy Canal

Jazmine Peters, 10, escaped drowning in the historic Portage Canal by the hair on her head.

Cousin Jeff Gjavenis, also 10, grabbed Jazmine's thick ponytail to keep her head above water after she slid off the Ice Age Trail and into the canal Sunday night.

The scene of the incident is well known to the family members. Jazmine's mother, Terri Reilley, grew up with a sister and cousin on the Old Indian Agency House land where her parents have been resident caretakers for decades. The site is where travelers centuries ago portaged canoes between the Wisconsin and Fox rivers and where the canal eventually was built.

Jazmine, Jeff and three other cousins had gone for a walk and went across a bridge to the other side of the canal. That's when Jazmine fell in and her cousins came to the rescue, Jeff holding her head above water with her ponytail and Taylor Weirich pulling her with the strap on her snow pants...

--WISC TV

Giant marine life found in antarctic waters

Scientists who conducted the most comprehensive survey to date of New Zealand's Antarctic waters were surprised by the size of some specimens found, including jellyfish with 12-foot tentacles and 2-foot-wide starfish.

A 2,000-mile journey through the Ross Sea that ended Thursday has also potentially turned up several new species, including as many as eight new mollusks.

It's "exciting when you come across a new species," said Chris Jones, a fisheries scientist at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "All the fish people go nuts about that — but you have to take it with a grain of salt"...

--MSNBC

Circus zebras briefly escape in Md.

Three zebras from Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus briefly escaped from their downtown venue on Thursday but were quickly corralled by their trainer and two handlers.

The zebras — Mali, Giza and Lima — spotted an open door at the 1st Mariner Arena and dashed into traffic on Hopkins Place, but were rounded up half a block away.

Carrie Coleman, a veterinary technician for the circus, told The Baltimore Sun it was a frightening incident because the animals were in traffic lanes before returning to the sidewalk...

--USA Today

Wisconsin plant treats wastewater with sugar, molasses

Ingredients better suited for a cookie recipe are being used to treat Janesville's wastewater.

Workers are dumping sugar and molasses into the wastewater at the treatment plant.

Utilities director Dan Lynch said that the ingredients replace chemicals that aren't as friendly to the environment...

--WISC TV.com

Airport stops women with human remains in suitcase

Two Italian women carrying luggage containing the remains of a man who died in Brazil 11 years ago were stopped by Munich airport police during a stopover on their journey from Sao Paulo to Naples.

"Airport security spotted the skull and bones when the suitcase was put through the x-ray machine," police spokesman Christian Maier said.

One of the women was the dead man's sister and she explained to surprised officials that it had been her brother's wish to be buried in Italy.

After showing his death certificate, the Italians, aged 63 and 62, were allowed on their next flight to Naples...

--Reuters

Rare white killer whale spotted in Alaska

The white killer whale spotted in Alaska's Aleutian Islands sent researchers and the ship's crew scrambling for their cameras.

The nearly mythic creature was real after all.

"I had heard about this whale, but we had never been able to find it," said Holly Fearnbach, a research biologist with the National Marine Mammal Laboratory in Seattle who photographed the rarity. "It was quite neat to find it"...

--MSNBC

Kitten survived in crate from Singapore to Ohio

A scrawny, black and white female kitten has apparently survived a trip across the Pacific Ocean and North America inside a shipping crate.

Cleveland Animal Protective League Executive Director Sharon Harvey says a Cleveland company that received the crate of spooled steel coil Friday found the kitten inside one the spools.

Harvey says the mother cat and other kittens found in the crate were dead. The crate came to Samsel Supply Co. from Singapore. It was sealed Feb. 4 and shipped three days later...

--USA Today

Australia seeking fatter mailmen

ustralia's postal service has increased the maximum weight for mailmen and women by 15 kg (33 pounds) in an attempt to attract more "posties", local media reported on Tuesday.

Australia Post had a weight limit of 90 kgs (198 pounds) for "posties" because its 110cc motorcycles had a safe working limit of 130kg (286 pounds) -- that's 40kg (88 pounds) for letters and up to 90 kgs for mailmen and women fully clothed.

But after talks with motorcycle manufacturer Honda it was agreed the bikes could safely carry a "postie" weighing 105 kgs (231 pounds), said Sydney's the Daily Telegraph newspaper.

But the "posties" will only carry 25 kgs of mail.

The union representing mailmen and women said the 90 kg limit had caused recruitment headaches for Australia Post, but the company denied it had staffing problems...

--Reuters

Bank error in your favor

A New York man who discovered that millions of dollars had mysteriously appeared in his bank account, and withdrew more than $2 million, has been arrested on charges of grand larceny, prosecutors said on Wednesday.

Benjamin Lovell, 48, pleaded innocent on Tuesday to charges that he withdrew money from a Commerce Bank account that had been opened by someone with the same name, prosecutors said.

The account belonged to Woodlawn Trustees Inc, a Delaware property management company, and was listed under the name of its finance director, who is also named Benjamin Lovell, court papers said.

Lovell had just $800 in his own Commerce Bank account when he went to make a deposit, but a teller, mistaking the Woodlawn account for Lovell's personal account, told him that his account contained more than $5 million, prosecutors said...

--Reuters

James Bond-style amphibious car launched

OK, so the Swiss have invented a car that runs on land and underwater. But did they REALLY have to make it a convertible?

The sQuba draws comparisons with James Bond's amphibious Lotus Esprit from "The Spy Who Loved Me".

It's called the "sQuba," and conjures up memories of James Bond's amphibious Lotus Esprit from "The Spy Who Loved Me." That fictional vehicle traveled on land and, when chased by bad guys in a helicopter, plunged into the water and became an airtight submarine -- complete with "torpedoes" and "depth charges."

But "Q" isn't responsible for this one.

The concept car -- which unlike Bond's is not armed -- was developed by Swiss designer Rinspeed Inc. and is set to make a splash at the Geneva Auto Show next month...

--CNN