Buzz
Once again, it's time to revisit some of the most unusual and distinctive stories that have made their way through the news in the past few days. Click here to check out the offbeat stories from last week.
This week's list is a little wild, featuring tales involving beer, meth, and psychoactive substances. We've also got some strange crimes, such as a man attempting to deport his wife and a woman caught trespassing in search of 'Agent Penis.'
10. Will Japan Run Out of Beer?
Japan is set to host the Rugby World Cup for the first time ever. However, local businesses have just discovered a potential issue: Rugby fans tend to drink a lot of beer.
The organizing committee for the 2019 Rugby World Cup held a meeting with Japanese business owners to address concerns about the country's ability to meet the enormous beer demand from roughly 400,000 international visitors expected between September and November. The committee fears this could lead to negative publicity, disappointed fans, and significant financial loss for local venues.
The committee shared that during the previous World Cup in England, beer consumption at the games was six times higher than at football matches held in the same venues.
One Japanese prefecture has already responded by asking breweries to ramp up their production and requesting local bars to extend their hours. However, officials still warn that, based on the rugby committee’s briefing, a beer shortage is a 'realistic problem.'
9. G.I. Joe vs. The Volcano
Last Wednesday, a man survived a 21-meter (70 ft) fall into the most dangerous volcano in the United States.
The 32-year-old soldier was stationed on a training mission on Hawaii’s Big Island. During his free time, he chose to explore Kilauea in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. He was with a group that stopped at the Steaming Bluff overlook, where he decided to get a closer view of Halema’uma’u Crater.
There was a safety railing in place, but the tourist made the risky choice to climb over it. The ground gave way beneath him, causing him to fall down a 90-meter (300 ft) cliff toward what seemed like inevitable death. Yet, it appears Madame Pele, the Hawaiian goddess of fire residing in the crater, was feeling merciful. Instead of falling to the bottom, he miraculously landed on a ledge.
The man was rescued a few hours later. He suffered severe injuries and was airlifted to a medical center. Since then, his condition has improved from critical to stable.
8. Take My Wife, Please
A man from Portland, Oregon, was sentenced to four months in federal prison for attempting to bribe an immigration agent to have his wife deported.
In May, 48-year-old Antonio Burgos met with an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer in a parking lot in Vancouver, Washington. He offered the agent $3,000 to deport his wife, whom he was divorcing, back to El Salvador, where they first met.
The officer reported the incident and arranged a sting operation. Two phone calls were recorded where Burgos reiterated his offer. During an in-person meeting, Burgos increased his offer to $4,000 if the agent would also deport his stepdaughter.
Burgos was arrested and pleaded guilty to bribing a public official in November. He was sentenced this Monday.
7. How To Party Shaman-Style
A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences examined a 1,000-year-old pouch that is believed to have belonged to a shaman. Not surprisingly, the analysis revealed that people from that era had a strong affinity for getting thoroughly intoxicated.
Anthropologists discovered the pouch in 2009 within a rock shelter called Cueva de Chileno, located in Bolivia’s Lipez Highlands. The pouch, crafted from three fox snouts stitched together, contained traces of various psychoactive substances. Scholars suggest that this may represent the earliest known evidence of ayahuasca, a hallucinogenic brew used by shamans during spiritual rituals.
A chemical analysis detected the presence of dimethyltryptamine (DMT), benzoylecgonine (BZE), bufotenin, cocaine, and possibly psilocin. Other items found at the site included a headband, a snuffing tube, two snuffing tablets, two bone spatulas, and a figurine resembling a human. Researchers believe these artifacts were part of a burial ceremony, as Cueva de Chileno was once used as a burial site.
6. Agent Penis Reporting For Duty
A woman was arrested for trespassing at the CIA headquarters in Virginia and insisting on speaking with “Agent Penis.”
On May 3, Jennifer Hernandez approached a security officer at the CIA’s visitor center with two requests: to retrieve her North Carolina ID card and to speak with Agent Penis.
A quick review of their records revealed that Hernandez had visited multiple times in recent weeks. Each visit, she claimed she was there to meet with her CIA recruiter, but this was not true. She was instructed to leave for trespassing. During her last visit, security had accidentally kept her ID after citing her.
Hernandez got her ID back, but Agent Penis was unavailable. Security officers then escorted her to the bus stop to ensure she left the premises. When the bus arrived, she refused to board, despite being warned of an arrest. Ultimately, she was charged with remaining on an Agency installation after being ordered to leave.
5. Across The Atlantic In A Barrel
The residents of the small Dutch island of St. Eustatius were in for a surprise when an oil tanker arrived carrying an unusual load: a massive orange barrel containing a 72-year-old former French paratrooper.
Back in December, we shared the story of Jean-Jacques Savin's plan to cross the Atlantic Ocean in a barrel. He departed a day after Christmas and reached the Caribbean this week. For the past four and a half months, he lived in a self-built capsule with no engine, relying solely on the ocean's currents to carry him on a 4,715-kilometer (2,930 mi) journey.
Savin’s arrival in the Caribbean was a bit later than expected. He had hoped to arrive by late March, but his provisions were enough to sustain him. He even fished during his journey. Savin also aimed for a French island to simplify paperwork, but he ended up in the Caribbean Netherlands, where a tugboat eventually took him to Martinique.
4. A Typo In Australa
At the end of last year, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) introduced a new A$50 banknote. While it was equipped with cutting-edge anti-counterfeiting technology, the note also contained a typo that went unnoticed for over six months. The RBA now estimates there are approximately 46 million of these misprinted notes currently in circulation.
The typo itself isn't exactly glaring. One side of the note features Edith Cowan, Australia's first female parliamentarian. In the background, there's a building with a lawn. Upon closer inspection, the lawn is composed of tiny rows of words quoting one of Cowan’s speeches. However, the word “responsibility” is missing the final “i.”
This mistake is barely noticeable to the naked eye, which is likely why it took six months for someone to notice. The RBA became aware of the error in December and plans to correct it with the next print run of the note.
3. Satisfaction Not Guaranteed
As it turns out, all those spam emails we've received were misleading. A new study from King’s College London has concluded that penis extensions don’t work. They offer minimal satisfaction, come with significant risks, and are, in most cases, unnecessary.
A team of doctors and researchers, led by urologist Gordon Muir, examined 17 studies that analyzed 21 different penis enlargement procedures performed on nearly 1,200 men. They discovered that the satisfaction rate for patients never exceeded 20 percent. Moreover, these procedures came with the risk of serious complications, such as shortening, penile deformity, and erectile dysfunction.
These procedures were also costly, with prices reaching up to £40,000 ($52,000). Muir criticized many practitioners offering such services as 'charlatans,' accusing them of exploiting vulnerable men by convincing them to undergo unnecessary and risky medical procedures. Researchers believe that many patients are actually of average size but feel inadequate due to psychological conditions like body dysmorphic disorder or penile dysfunction disorder. As such, an ethical medical professional would reject them as candidates after thorough physical and psychological evaluations.
2. A Different Kind of LEGO Brick
People keep mistakenly sending their meth to the wrong address. Just last week, we covered an elderly Australian couple who received 20 kilograms (44 lb) of methamphetamine by mistake. This week, we have a Georgia woman who ordered a LEGO box, only to find it contained $40,000 worth of meth inside.
A woman in South Carolina visited a consignment store and purchased a LEGO toy. When the child she gave it to opened the box, they found 1.3 kilograms (3 lb) of methamphetamine sealed in a vacuum bag.
The woman contacted the sheriff’s office, which referred the case to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). DEA agents suspect that the LEGO box was likely sent by a dealer to a vacant or abandoned address, with the postal worker not leaving the package. It was later auctioned off with unclaimed parcels before making its way to the consignment store. Authorities don’t expect any charges to be filed in this situation.
1. Wasp Logic
A recent study from the University of Michigan, published in the Royal Society Biology Letters, has given wasps high praise for their cognitive abilities. The research suggests that wasps are the first invertebrates to exhibit a form of logical reasoning.
This type of reasoning is known as transitive inference. For example, if we know that A is greater than B, and B is greater than C, we can logically deduce that A is greater than C. This basic form of reasoning is also common in humans. There is still debate about whether other animals employ this reasoning or if they are just well-trained to perform such tasks.
A research team led by Elizabeth Tibbets conducted an experiment using 40 paper wasps. The wasps were placed individually in the center of a rectangular container with the objective of flying to the correct end, as choosing the wrong end would result in an electric shock.
Each end of the container was marked with a different color and labeled with letters from A to E, where the letter that comes later in the alphabet always indicated the incorrect choice. The order was A > B > C > D > E. The wasps were first given pairs to choose from: A/B, B/C, C/D, and D/E. After ten trials, the wasps were asked to choose between B/D and A/E.
Approximately 65 percent of the wasps made the correct choice, a success rate higher than chance. This same test was previously done with honeybees, but they did not seem to use this reasoning process. Tibbets suggests that the wasps' success could be linked to the structured hierarchies in wasp societies, where transitive inference may help establish the rank of each insect.
