Around 100 villagers in the Philippines worked together Sunday to bind and retrieve a monstrous 6 meter long crocodile that has been terrorizing the community for months. The crocodile is an endangered species, and will be relocated to an ecotourism park.
The crocodile — weighing 2,370 pounds (1,075 kilograms) and estimated to be at least 50 years old — is the biggest caught alive in the Philippines in recent years. Wildlife officials were trying to confirm whether it was the largest such catch in the world, said Theresa Mundita Lim of the government's Protected Areas and Wildlife Bureau.
It was captured alive after a three-week hunt in Bunawan township in Agusan del Sur province, where villagers have been terrified. A child was killed two years ago in the township by a crocodile that was not caught, and a croc is suspected of killing a fisherman missing since July. Villagers witnessed a crocodile killing a water buffalo last month.
However, Wildlife official Ronnie Sumiller says there still may be an even larger crocodile in the area, based on eyewitness reports. http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jnB_VJ8Pz1FTe_pBAlOHunRS6L9g?docId=ff8bcc646d2945b094bf619a3c97a001 -via The Daily What
It's once again time for our collaboration with the always amusing What Is It? Blog. Can you guess what the pictured item is? Can you make up something interesting?
Place your guess in the comment section below. One guess per comment, please, though you can enter as many guesses as you'd like in separate comments. Post no URLs or weblinks, as doing so will forfeit your entry. Two winners: the first correct guess and the funniest (albeit ultimately wrong) guess will win T-shirt from the NeatoShop.
Update: the object pictured is a cobbler's tool for stretching and holding leather when making a shoe. Quite a few people guessed it was a clamp, but Winslow was the first to mention shoes, so he wins a t-shirt! Amanderpanderer had the funniest answer, amirite? "All ladies know this...it's a speculum. Gynocologists seem to think it works best when it's put in the freezer for a few minutes first." For that, she also wins a t-shirt from the NeatoShop.
What is the lengthiest spoken oath regularly required of witnesses in a formal legal trial? I believe the answer is: 374 words, in the legal courts of Burma (now Myanmar), until at least the middle of the nineteenth century.
That, anyway, is the longest I have found in examining legal documents and historical reports from the nations of the world over the past five hundred years. If anyone knows of, and can document, a longer oath, I would of course be pleased to hear of it.
The Burmese Oath
A English translation of the oath appears in Kenneth R.H. Mackenzie’s 1853 book Burmah and the Burmese, published in London. Mackenzie writes:
Witnesses, both in the civil and criminal causes, are sometimes examined upon oath, though not always. The oath is written in a small book of pa1m-leaves, and is held over the head of the witness. Foreigners, however, take their own oaths.
Mackenzie calls the small book The Book of Imprecations, but says that “the Burmese call it, the Book of the Oath.” It includes some sentiments for any witness who would testify untruthfully:
May all those who, in consequence of bribery from either party, do not speak the truth, incur the eight dangers and the ten punishments. May they be infected with all sorts of diseases.
Moreover, may they be destroyed by elephants, bitten and slain by serpents, killed and devoured by the devils and giants, the tigers, and other ferocious animals of the forest. May whoever asserts a falsehood be swallowed by the earth, may he perish by sudden death, may a thunderbolt from heaven slay him—the thunderbolt which is one of the arms of the Nat Deva.
Savoring the colorful research of an under-publicized researcher compiled by Alice Shirrell Kaswell and Stephen Drew
This issue’s under-publicized scientist is Nicolas Guéguen, who finds significance, or at least fascination, in the goad of small things. He does what might be called voyeuristic microscopy, watching how people react to mundanely noticeable sights and sounds and touching. Many of the experiments involve young female confederates who are shaped or perfumed or who lay a hand upon strangers in particular ways. Generally, the test subjects who respond most vigorously are men.
Based at the University of Bretagne-Sud, France, Professor Guéguen has been pumping out publications since the year 2000. He honors the academic custom of referring to himself, in print, with the royal “we.”
His experiments probe a range of human behavior.
A study called “Women’s Bust Size and Men’s Courtship Solicitation,” 1 describes how Professor Guéguen tested “the effect of a woman’s breast size on approaches made by males. We hypothesized that an increase in breast size would be associated with an increase in approaches by men.” The study ends with an 827-word assertion that “Our hypothesis was confirmed.”
A related experiment produced a study called “Bust Size and Hitchhiking: A Field Study.”2 There Professor Guéguen reports that “1200 male and female French motorists were tested in a hitchhiking situation. A 20-year-old female confederate wore a bra which permitted variation in the size of cup to vary her breast size. She stood by the side of a road frequented by hitchhikers and held out her thumb to catch a ride. Increasing the bra-size of the female hitchhiker was significantly associated with an increase in number of male drivers, but not female drivers, who stopped to offer a ride.”
Ashley Hackshaw (with help from her 4-year-old daughter) used 2,000 buttons to create a portrait of artist Frida Kahlo. Watch the process in this time-lapse video. Link-Thanks, Ashley!
No, it's not a fox at all, but a maned wolf (Chrysocyon brachyurus), the largest canid in South America. The maned wolf is actually neither a wolf nor a fox, but is a canid with its own genus. With those long legs, this dog can grow to be three feet tall! See more pictures at The Featured Creature. Link -via TYWKIWDBI
This is a really nice performance of the main theme from the video game The Legend of Zelda on a marimba, plus snare drum, cymbals, bells, timpani, and triangle. These guys used no sheet music -it's all played by ear! -via Buzzfeed
This is a real house in Portugal called Casa do Penedo, which means "house of stone." Built in 1974, the current resident had to reinforce the house with security doors and window bars because of the many visitors and occasional vandals. Casa do Penedo is just one of a list of Ten Strange Places Where People Live, some of which may induce vertigo. Link -via J-Walk Blog
It kind of gets you right here to see the manliest men in history putting a pen to paper to express their soft side. We saw that in Teddy Roosevelt's diary entry not long ago. On a happier subject, here's a note that Samuel Clemens (also known as Mark Twain) wrote to his wife Olivia in 1888.
Hartford, Nov. 27/88
Livy Darling, I am grateful — gratefuler than ever before — that you were born, & that your love is mine & our two lives woven & welded together!
SLC.
See the full size version at Letters of Note. Link
You've seen the car stickers that represent a family. Why settle for stick figures when you can use Daleks? Etsy seller SCDJ1125 sells them in three sizes, with an optional dog sticker available. Be sure to check out the "My other car is a TARDIS" sticker, too! Link -via @johncfarrier
The only limit to what a skilled craftster can create with needle felting is the imagination. There are artists who will surprise you with their subjects, like this heart-ripping declaration of love from artist Hine Mizushima. Check out a variety of weird sculptures at Oddee. Link
A dark tale from our "Dustbin of Gruesome History" files.
THE DISCOVERY
One the night of April 28, 1908, Joe Maxson, a hired hand on a farm outside of La Porte, Indiana, awoke in his upstairs bedroom to the smell of smoke. The house was on fire. He called out to the farm's owner, Belle Gunness, and her three children. Getting no answer, he jumped from a second-story window, narrowly escaping the flames, and ran for help. But it was too late; the house was destroyed. A search through the wreckage resulted in a grisly discovery: four dead bodies in the basement. Three were Gunness's children, aged 5, 9, and 11. The fourth was a woman, assumed to be Gunness herself, but identification was difficult- the body's head was missing. An investigation ensued, and Ray Lamphere, a recently fired employee, was arrested for arson and murder. Before Lamphere's trial was over, he would be little more than a sidebar in what is still one of the most horrible crime stories in American history ...and an unsolved mystery.
BACKGROUND
Belle Gunness was born Brynhild Paulsdatter Storseth in Selbu, Norway in 1859. At the age of 22 she emigrated to America and moved in with her older sister in Chicago, where she changed her name to "Belle." In 1884 the 25-year-old married another Norwegian immigrant, Mads Sorenson, and the couple opened a candy shop. A year later the store burned down, the first of what would be several suspicious fires in Belle's life. The couple collected an insurance payout and used the money to buy a house in the Chicago suburbs. Fifteen years later, in 1898, that house burned down, and another insurance payout allowed the couple to buy another house. On July 30, 1900, yet another insurance policy was brought into play, but this time it was life insurance: Mads Sorenson had died. A doctor's autopsy said he was murdered, probably by strychnine poisoning, so an inquest was ordered. The coroner's investigation eventually deemed the death to be "of natural causes," and Belle collected $8,000, becoming, for 1900, a wealthy woman. (The average yearly income in 1900 was less than $500.) She used part of the money to buy a farm in La Porte. But there was a lot more death -and insurance money- to come.
MORE SUSPICIONS
In April 1902, Belle married a local butcher named Peter Gunness and became Belle Gunness. One week later, Peter Gunness's infant daughter died while left alone with Belle... and yet another insurance policy was collected on. Just eight months after that, Peter Gunness was dead: He was found in his shed with his skull crushed. Belle, who was 5'8", weighed well over 200 pounds, and was known to be very strong, told police that a meat grinder had fallen from a high shelf and landed on her husband's head. The coroner said otherwise, ruling the cause of death to be murder. On top of that, a witness claimed to have overheard Belle's 14-year-old daughter, Jennie, saying to a classmate, "My mama killed my papa. She hit him with a meat cleaver and he died."
Belle and Jennie were brought before a coroner's jury and questioned. Jennie denied making the statement; Belle denied killing her husband. The jury found Belle innocent -and she collected another $3,000 in life insurance money. And she was just getting started.
Charlotte Baker had a flat tire and pulled off to the side of the road between Byfield and Boddington in England. While the 28-year-old Baker, who is nine months pregnant, called her boyfriend for help, two men stopped and began to change the tire on her Porsche 911
But to Miss Baker’s disbelief, once he had finished he pushed past her, jumped into the front seat and drove off behind his friend in the white van.
She was left alone and distressed at the side of the road until an elderly man stopped and offered her a lift.
Miss Baker said: “The shock is starting to fade but now I am just reeling. It’s absolutely disgusting, these men have no morals.
This is a Google Doodle tribute to Freddie Mercury (born Farrokh Bulsara) for what would have been his 65th birthday on Monday. If the doodle isn't showing up on the Google search page in your region yet, you can see it here. Clicking on the doodle will bring up this video. -via reddit
