Having a smashing good time!

The economy may be in trouble, but one business in San Diego, California, is continuing to grow steadily. Customers wanting to vent their frustrations, about anything, are flocking to Sarah's Smash Shack - where for a modest fee, you can smash a pile of crockery to smithereens. US$45 will buy you a pile of 15 plates to destroy, but if you prefer, you can smash glasses, jugs or even a glass photo frame - especially satisfying if it has a picture of your nemesis within.

The Smash Shack, the brainchild of Sarah Lavely, was born during an emotional nadir in her life. Reeling from a painful divorce, the former vet was wishing that there was somewhere she could go to indulge in a lifelong habit of smashing things to relieve tension, when she suddenly realised that there was a gap in the market.

One year later, after a lot of research - to choose safety equipment, items to smash etc - Laverly and her partner signed a lease, soundproofed the 'smash rooms', covered the walls with stainless steel, and opened the Smash Shack.

Since then, customers from as far as LA have been visiting the Smash Shack to don the safety equipment, put on loud music, scrawl their frustrations on a pile of plates and hurl them at a wall.

All the broken crockery and glassware is donated to art schools in the area.

China in PR blooper

There were some red faces at Xinhua, the Chinese news agency, yesterday. Hours before China's eagerly anticipated 3rd manned space mission had left Earth, Xinhua had published on its website an account of the blast off. The agency also quoted a 'conversation' between crew members, reported to have taken place during the spacewalk - which is not expected to take place until Saturday or Sunday.

The web report was taken down after a number of hours. Xinhua has said that the posting had been the result of a 'technical error'.

In the event, the Shenzhou VII rocket carrying 3 astronauts (known as taikonauts) did achieve a successful take off, and will now spend 3 or 4 days orbiting Earth.

The space walk which will be performed by one taikonaut, wearing a space suit made in China, will probably be the most challenging part of the mission.

The launch was much celebrated in China - and crowds even gathered in Hong Kong to watch the launch 'live' on screen at the Space Museum.

Snoozing pilots back in 'driver's seat'

Having served out suspensions of 60 and 45 days respectively, a captain and co-pilot working for Go! airlines have reported back to work.

The pair earned their suspensions when they "unintentionally fell asleep" during a 45 minute flight from Oahu Island to Hawaii Island. Air traffic controllers monitoring the flight became concerned when the pair failed to respond to repeated calls for a period of 17 minutes.

Due to their snooze, the flight overshot its landing point and had to turn back, but eventually landed with all 40 passengers safe and sound.

Subsequently, the captain was diagnosed as suffering from severe obstructive sleep apnea, which can result in restless nights and sleep deprivation.

Why the co-pilot also fell asleep at the wheel, is not known.

The ten to (the power of) a hundred project

Google are on the lookout for ideas that will change the world. The internet giant has pledged to spend US$10 million on developing 5 ideas which will benefit mankind. The ideas, which will initially be narrowed down from a longlist of 100 by online voters, need not be hi-tech - the only requirement is that it has the potential to help a large number of people (such as some of the inventions at: http://other90.cooperhewitt.org/).

Anyone can submit an entry online - the deadline is 20th October 2008.

Watch out CSI here come the poop patrol

A city in Israel, which has been plagued with poopy pavements has started trialling a programme to build a doggy DNA database.

Under the scheme, owners will be encouraged to take their pets to the vet, to get their dog DNA profiled. Owners who regularly use the designated bins to dispose of their dog's droppings will be rewarded with coupons for dog food and toys.

In addition, the poop patrol will take samples of the droppings left on the street. The DNA of the samples will be analysed, and if they are found to match a dog in the database, the owner will be tracked down and fined.

Memo for thieves - don't sign your own name

A man from Iowa, USA accused of stealing a credit card, led police officers straight to his door when he signed his real name on the credit card slips.

Whilst on a shopping expedition - during which he bought coffee, cigarettes and groceries at three different shops - he even as far as to present his own ID, when the card was declined.

The man claims that he found the card in his apartment after a party.

Counting elephants

A researcher in Japan has discovered that elephants can count. Naoko Irie, who is working on her PhD thesis, worked with elephants in Japanese zoos to test their mathematical ability.

Irie dropped a differing number of apples into two buckets, placed side by side, then allowed the watching elephant to choose which bucket it wanted. Although it was not allowed to look into the bucket itself, or feel inside with its trunk, an elephant in Tokyo's Ueno Zoo correctly picked the bucket containing the largest number of apples, 87% of the time. Another elephant in the south of the country scored 68% - still an impressive 18% more than it could have achieved by chance alone.

The elephants also demonstrated that they could keep tally of the number of apples dropped in each bucket, even if they were not all put in at once, and could even differentiate when the difference was as small as one apple.

cows as compasses

Next time you're lost, and clouds are obscuring the position of the sun, perhaps you should look a little closer to ground to work out which way to go.

Scientists studying high resolution images on Google Earth of cattle and deer grazing believe that they have spotted an interesting phenomenon. It appears that a large number of grazing animals naturally align themselves, so that they are standing in a North-South direction. The scientists say that they have ruled out Sun position and wind direction as affecting factors.

It has long been thought that many migratory animals such as birds and fish use the Earth's magnetic field to navigate, however, 'magnetic sense' has never previously been studied in cattle.

Not everyone was impressed by the research results - a Scottist farmer interviewed by the BBC scoffed at the idea. "I've never noticed that my cows all face the same way," he said.

A beauty content - for nuns!

"You really think all nuns are old, stunted and sad?" and, "Being ugly is not a requirement for becoming a nun," said the Rev. Antonio Rungi in recent interviews with the BBC and CNN.

Rungi was speaking about an internet beauty contest - 'Miss Sister 2008' - for nuns, which he hopes to run in September. He draws the line at naughty bikinis, but the contestants will be able to choose whether to send photos of themselves with their head modestly covered, or not.

Internet users will then be able to vote, and choose the eventual winners. The contest has drawn criticism from Catholic organisations, which say that it belittles the role of nuns, but Rungi has defended his idea, saying that the original idea came from the nuns he works with.

UPDATE: Rungi cancelled his beauty contest on the 26th Aug, after incurring the displeasure of church elders.

The tortoise and the dog - an unusual race?

Recently, a skateboarding dog in Guangzhou, China, became famous when a photograph of him taking a spin on his wheels hit the news.
His owner told reporters that the dog become hooked on the sport whilst watching his son (the owner's son!) skateboarding with his friends.

Now another animal on wheels has made the headlines. This time, it's a tortoise in a zoo in Jerusalem, Israel. The African Spurred Tortoise had become paralysed in her hind legs. After trying in vain to diagnose the cause of her paralysis, zookeepers came up with an innovative idea to keep her active.

They designed a platform with wheels, which they strap her on, for a few hours a day. The tortoise is able to drag herself around on the contraption using her forelegs.