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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Student: Prof Taught Wrong Course All Semester

Lauren Firmin says her grades suffered due to teacher's mistake

(Newser) - A college professor was apparently teaching above her students' pay grade, and one former straight-A student is more than a little upset about it, KHOU reports. Lauren Firmin claims she struggled all semester in her introductory chemistry class at Texas' Lone Star College at University Park, and was left with...

NASA diapers forced men to make big revelation
NASA Diapers Forced Men
to Make Big Revelation
in case you missed it
Mar 29, 2014 12:56 PM CDT

NASA Diapers Forced Men to Make Big Revelation

Or, ahem, small

(Newser) - It was a mission-critical element: the size of NASA astronauts' manhood. Seriously. The Houston Chronicle resurrects the fascinating historical tidbit by way of the Science Channel's Moon Machines documentary series, in which engineer Donald Rethke explained the very precise nature of early space diapers. The Maximum Absorbency Garment system...

Guy Replaces Food With Beer for Lent

Canadian Chris Schryer is surviving on a special brew

(Newser) - It's 40 days and 40 nights of ... beer? A Canadian man is giving it a shot for Lent, reports the National Post . Chris Schryer, 33, has sworn off solid food in favor of a calorie-laden brew called dopplebock. Time notes that he is supplementing a bit with water, juice,...

'Do It for Denmark' Campaign Aims to Boost Birth Rate

Travel company offers incentives for companies to take a romantic trip

(Newser) - A travel company in Denmark seems to have struck PR gold with a campaign to jump-start the nation's falling birth rate. Spies Travel is generating lots of headlines for its " Do It for Denmark!" promotion, in which it laments that so few babies are being born in...

Man Delivers Dead Porcupine's Baby—by Chance

It surprised him, too

(Newser) - This is one of the strangest animal rescue stories in a while. A motorist in Maine inadvertently delivered a baby porcupine by what amounted to emergency C-section after its mother was killed by car, reports TheDodo . The original story comes from WMTW , which reports that Jared Buzzell saw the mama...

Talk of Sweden: Rat So Giant It Terrified Cat

Rodent was 16 inches long, weighed two pounds

(Newser) - Scientists' prediction that giant rats could someday rule Earth hits a lot closer to home when you have a 16-inch-long rodent running around in your kitchen—and that's not including the tail. Sweden is abuzz over a mega-sized rat dubbed "Ratzilla" (unappetizing photos here ), which was discovered...

Rich Guy Forgets His $108K Boat in Harbor—for 2 Years

Police remind him with Facebook, media campaign

(Newser) - Don't you hate it when you dock your six-figure boat in a harbor and then forget all about it for two years? This somehow happened to a well-to-do Norwegian man who moored his $108,000 boat in a Swedish harbor, reports the BBC . Two years later, a Facebook and...

400-Pound Cop Stalked Boys as Teen Girl Online

He persuaded boys to send him sexual images

(Newser) - Teenage boys beware: That girl you're chatting to on Facebook could be a man—it could even be a 400-pound, 6-foot-3 police Florida officer like Sgt. Michael Stavris. Authorities say the officer posed as a teenage girl online, promising teen boys oral sex in return for pictures of their...

Police Find Mom Hiding in Bedroom at Teen Party

This after Carolyn Weinand told them she was out of town, unaware of bash

(Newser) - Not that unusual: Cops show up to bust a teen party involving booze, and find someone hiding in a bedroom. Unusual: That person is the home's 56-year-old owner, and mother to the 18-year-old who threw the bash. Police say they arrived at the home in Naples, Fla., just after...

Flamingo Massacre Mystifies Zoo
 Flamingo Massacre 
 Mystery Solved 
UPDATED
Mar 25, 2014 8:42 AM CDT

Flamingo Massacre Mystery Solved

Not raccoons or Satanists but foxes to blame

(Newser) - Something or somebody has got it in for the rapidly dwindling flamingo population at the Frankfurt Zoo, and after foxes, raccoons, and Satanists were floated as potential culprits, the killer has been identified. The zoo director today said that tests show the villain was a fox, reports the AP . Some...

Woman Faked Quintuplet Pregnancy for Months

Canadian experienced a 'phantom' pregnancy, doctors say

(Newser) - A Canadian woman who looked very pregnant and said she was carrying quintuplets wasn't pregnant at all—and her boyfriend is devastated. Only when Barbara Bienvenue, 37, showed up to deliver her babies at a Quebec hospital last week did a nurse inform the man that there was no...

Cops: Guy Burned Down House to Impress Woman

And they only found out about it due to ... stolen batteries

(Newser) - Well, this is one way to try and score a date: Police say a North Dakota man burned down a farmhouse ... to impress a lady. It was a very strange chain of events that ultimately led to this discovery, which got Fredrick Bohjanen Jr. charged with arson and other felonies...

Fugitive's Home for 18 Years: Key West Houseboat

Michelle Singleton was living as Catherine Harris

(Newser) - Michelle Singleton had a seemingly enviable life in Key West, Florida—that is, until police knocked on the door of her houseboat on Friday and took her into custody, 18 years after she was convicted of payroll check fraud. Singleton had skipped town in 1996, leaving Kansas City, Mo., before...

Germany Busts Cocaine-Stuffed Condoms Headed for the Vatican

German Customs made kind of an eyebrow-raising discovery

(Newser) - Let the party-at-the-Vatican jokes begin: German Customs authorities have intercepted a package of 14 condoms filled with cocaine and headed for the Vatican, reports RTE via Bild. The condoms contained about 12 ounces of the drug, worth an estimated $55,000. As the AP reports, the package was mailed from...

Academic Journal's Sole Focus: Bruce Springsteen

Yes, this is a thing that actually exists

(Newser) - There's already a Bruce Springsteen college course , so really, this was inevitable: There now exists an academic journal devoted solely to the study of the Boss. It is named, appropriately, BOSS: The Biannual Online-Journal of Springsteen Studies . The Daily Dot notes that the editorial advisory board is "well-credentialed,...

World's Priciest Dog Sells for $2M

Property developer in China buys Tibetan mastiff

(Newser) - AFP thinks this is the highest price ever paid for a dog, and no wonder: A property developer in China shelled out $2 million for a Tibetan mastiff puppy. A second puppy of the same breed went for about $1 million. The sale came at a "luxury pet"...

Guy's Gun Tattoo Draws SWAT Team

Tree workers in Maine thought it was real, called the cops

(Newser) - He'd worked the night shift and was trying to get some sleep. So when a bunch of tree-service workers woke Michael Smith of Maine yesterday morning, he went outside shirtless and hollered at them to get off his property, recounts the Morning Sentinel . Now would be the time to...

Cops: Lazy Mailman Trashed 1K Letters, Packages

Patrick Paskett charged with mail destruction

(Newser) - If you never got grandma's Christmas card and happen to live on Long Island, this might explain things: A mail carrier threw more than a thousand pieces of mail into garbage bins along his Massapequa and Seaford route ... simply because he was too lazy to deliver them, police say,...

Guy's Revenge: Texting Complete Works of Shakespeare

Alleged fraudster will receive more than 29K texts

(Newser) - A man paid $133 for a PlayStation 3 on UK classifieds site Gumtree, but never received it—so he decided to get revenge on the fraudulent seller by texting him the complete works of Shakespeare. Edd Joseph, 24, discovered that it's easy for him to simply copy the text...

Amish Buggy Sought in Hit-and-Run

It hit a Honda, twice

(Newser) - "Hope they at least got the license plate" doesn't really apply here. State police are searching for an unlikely suspect in a western Pennsylvania hit-and-run accident—the driver of an Amish buggy. Troopers from the Mercer barracks say the buggy hit a Honda CRV at a crossroads on...

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