strange stuff

From strange crimes to strange celebrity deaths, read all of the latest weird and strange stuff news stories on Newser.com

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Worker: My Playgirl Spread Cost Me My Job

But company denies he was forced out after posing nude

(Newser) - A company that helps businesses handle personnel issues denies it forced one if its employees out of his job after it was discovered he had posed nude in Playgirl magazine. Daniel Sawka filed a federal civil rights lawsuit in May 2013 against ADP Inc. alleging sexual harassment. The company responded...

Seizure Surgery Removes Man's Arachnophobia

Operation has a quite unintended consequence

(Newser) - A man's surgery for seizures had an unexpected result: When he woke up, he was no longer scared of spiders. The 44-year-old used to kill spiders with hair spray and a vacuum; now, he's fine with letting them crawl all over him, Medical Daily reports. The reasons aren'...

Guy Parks Plane Outside Pub, Goes in for a Beer

Thirsty Aussie drives wingless plane through town

(Newser) - Buying a plane must be thirsty work: Police in Newman, Western Australia, say a man who had just purchased a two-seater Beechcraft decided to drive it home and stop for a beer at a pub on the main street on the way. A resident says he was astounded to see...

Scientists Spot Elusive Fanged Deer

Kashmir musk deer identified in Afghanistan for first time since 1948

(Newser) - A deer with fangs: It sounds made-up, and scientists hadn't seen one in Afghanistan since 1948. But researchers have found that the musk deer still exists in the country's Nuristan Province. In fact, they've spotted the creatures five times: a male three times, a female and a...

Flying Cash Shuts Down Maryland Interstate

Armored car's door burst open, and drivers behind it got what they could

(Newser) - Drivers scrambled to grab money flying around a Maryland highway this morning after an armored truck's door burst open. Maryland State Police say a lock on the truck seems to have malfunctioned, causing the door to open. A bag of cash fell onto Interstate 270 near Urbana, and the...

Worker Suspended for Using Robot Voice on Phone

But he says he was just trying to get rid of his Brooklyn accent

(Newser) - It may sound pretty funny to answer customer-service calls at an IT help desk in a robot voice ... but Ronald Dillon didn't stop when his boss told him to, and now he's been suspended from his job at New York City's Health Department, without pay, for 20...

Paraglider Charged With Harassing Owl

Former TV pitchman in Utah allegedly kicked one

(Newser) - A paraglider accused of chasing and kicking a barn owl is looking at possible jail time and six-figure fines as a result, reports the Salt Lake Tribune . The accused, Dell Schanze, was allegedly featured in a since-deleted YouTube video showing off his owl-harassing ways. Federal wildlife officials weren't amused,...

Why Is Tortoise Sick? It Ate a Turtle Pendant

Vet gets a surprise with X-ray

(Newser) - What are the odds? The source of a sick tortoise's discomfort became clear after a south Florida veterinarian took an X-ray: The animal had swallowed a turtle pendant. Dr. Don Harris said the 15-pound male African spurred tortoise named Lola hadn't pooped for a month and began acting...

Suspect in Chinese-Food Theft: Yellow Teletubby

Guy in Laa-Laa costume broke into friend's house: police

(Newser) - When a Teletubby gets hungry, there's no telling what it will do. In this case, Laa-Laa—the yellow one—allegedly broke into a friend's house at 2am Sunday and stole leftover Chinese food. The man dressed as the character had apparently been at a Halloween party, the Smoking...

700-Year-Old Viruses Found —in Frozen Caribou Poop

It seems the ice is remarkably good at preserving unsavory things

(Newser) - If trekking into the wilds of northern Canada, drilling samples out of the ice core, and analyzing caribou poop to find a pair of really old viruses sounds like your idea of a hot Friday night, well, we present you Eric Delwart. As NPR reports, the viral researcher did just...

Norway's New Viewing Sensation: Rocks

But it's more exciting than the knitting show, because these rocks might fall

(Newser) - State broadcaster NRK in Norway has made a name for itself in the genre of "slow TV," with hugely successful broadcasts of knitting , a fire burning itself out, and a long, long ferry ride . Now: rocks. But as the AP explains, these rocks might involve some excitement, eventually,...

Female Ferns Can Turn Their Neighbors Male

Plants communicate via pheromone

(Newser) - If you're a Japanese climbing fern, your sex may be up to those living around you. That's thanks to communication between the plants involving a pheromone called gibberellin, Vox reports. Early-maturing plants, which tend to become female, start developing the pheromone, but they don't finish. Instead, these...

City's Pest Control Chief One-Upped by Cockroach

Chicago official 'mortified' as one appears during his budget testimony

(Newser) - A big cockroach embarrassed a Chicago official in charge of pest control when it took a stroll near him in full view of some aldermen, and its stunt just might have cost it and its buddies their lives. After Thursday's hearing in the City Council chambers, Fleet and Facilities...

500-Pound Suspect Can't Fit Inside Police Car

Florida cops say he sat down to resist arrest

(Newser) - Today's this-must-be-Florida entry from the crime blotter comes from the city of Deltona, where police say a 500-pound man resisted arrest simply by sitting down and challenging deputies to move him, reports WKMG . They did manage to get 45-year-old Howard Hendrix out of the house, but then ran into...

Aussie on Dream Trip Finds She's 38 Weeks Pregnant

She had been 'jumping off cliffs, drinking, eating anything' in jaunt through Europe

(Newser) - Kate Hudson, 22, had been traveling through Europe for a while, so it didn't seem strange that she'd gained a little weight. "Any belly I had I thought was just a food baby from all the eating I’d done in Europe over two months," the...

Woman's Entire Cabin Gets Stolen

She was building it in the Yukon

(Newser) - It's not too often that your house isn't where you left it. But that was the case for Josie-Anne Pilotte, who spent three weeks building a cabin in the Yukon. Earlier this month, Pilotte headed to the building site to transfer the 200-square-foot cabin to her friends' property,...

Deadly Spider Found in Family's Bananas

World's most dangerous arachnid gnawed its own leg off in escape attempt

(Newser) - The last thing you'd expect to find lurking in your bananas is a creature whose Greek scientific name means "murderess." But that's exactly what one London family found after a grocery delivery from the Waitrose supermarket chain, the Daily Mail reports. The family patriarch (known only...

Teacher's Disciplinary Tool: 'Wheel of Misfortune'

Punishments included 'Koosh ball firing squad'

(Newser) - A Washington high school chemistry teacher had an unconventional means of doling out discipline in her classroom: Kem Patteson used a "wheel of misfortune" to determine what punishment a student would face, and one of those punishments involved being pelted with rubber Koosh balls by other students. Students say...

Scientist Stumbles Upon Spider as Big as a Puppy

Goliath birdeater has 2-inch fangs

(Newser) - Strolling through a Guyana rainforest one night, a scientist heard some rustling and thought he'd encountered a furry mammal. Well, he was right about the furry part. The creature was actually a Goliath birdeater spider, LiveScience reports—the world's biggest type of spider, according to the Guinness Book ...

Man Escapes Alimony After Wife Admits She's a Genie

So rules a court in United Arab Emirates

(Newser) - This story about a divorce in the United Arab Emirates begins in not-so-unusual fashion: A wife refuses to sleep with her husband, and he is not pleased. Then it gets weird: She tells him to talk to her parents, who explain that their daughter can't have sex with him...

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