Odd News

A fisherman swam 12 hours to reach the shore while another survived 30 hours at sea until a helicopter spotted him on Thursday after their trawler sank off the Australian coast, rescuers said.

Tiny twitches of their whiskers allow rats to "see" in the dark, helping them to find their way home or back to a particularly savory garbage pile.

Vikings were much snappier dressers than thought, according to new evidence unearthed by a Swedish researcher.

"Bad Luck," "Free Like the Wind," and "Waltz of the Prisoner" were top crowd pleasers as convicts faced off at a prison in Lima to sing in the Peruvian underworld's version of the popular TV show "American Idol."

Lithuania's main airline is to change the code number under which its shares are listed to get rid of sixes at the end -- giving way to a Christian tradition identifying the number 666 as a cipher for the Antichrist.

Kyrgyz rights activists will offer a prize of up to $1,000 in a contest for the 'best song' to protest against the presence of U.S. troops in the Central Asian republic, the event's organiser said.

An 18th-century Japanese ivory toggle which had been stolen from a museum in Birmingham has been returned after an art expert spotted it in an auction catalogue in Germany.

Michael Jackson's famed Neverland Valley Ranch in California will be foreclosed and sold on March 19 unless the pop star pays a balance of nearly $25 million, property records showed on Tuesday.

Mexico City, whose 20 million people produce enough sewage to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool every minute, is fixing up its aging drainage system to avoid a pipe fracture that could flood entire neighborhoods, the subway and the airport with human waste.

North Korea invited guitar legend Eric Clapton to play in its capital, the communist country's embassy in London said on Tuesday as the New York Philharmonic gave a historic performance in the hermit state.

Jerome White Jr moves like a U.S. rap star and sings like a Japanese crooner.
The 26-year-old from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, has stormed the charts here with his soulful version of a traditional folk song -- sung in perfect Japanese, which White, known as "Jero", learned from his Japanese grandmother.

China has made clear that a pilot programme teaching traditional Peking Opera in schools would not be compulsory after it drew criticism from Internet users who said forced instruction would turn students off.

A ceremonial plaza built 5,500 years ago has been discovered in Peru, and archeologists involved in the dig said on Monday carbon dating shows it is one of the oldest structures ever found in the Americas.

About 30,000 species of creatures and plants have been listed in a draft "Encyclopedia of Life" that may aid understanding of issues from human ageing to disease, scientists said on Monday.

Scientists can now tell where in the United States a person may have been by analysing a single strand of hair, offering a new tool for crime investigators trying to identify a body or track criminals.

A British man celebrated his 60th birthday in unexpected style at the weekend when a 50 pence ($1) bet on the horses turned him into an instant millionaire.

A Buddhist monk from Japan was killed after slipping and falling under the blades of his runaway tractor lawnmower, an inquest into his death has found.

Ireland's rich musical tradition has acquired an unlikely ambassador for the 2008 Eurovision song contest: glove puppet Dustin the Turkey, renowned for his burps and thick Dublin accent.

Beijing has moved to crack down on drivers who park their cars illegally on a major highway to take snaps from a pedestrian bridge with good views of the major Olympic stadiums, local media reported on Sunday.

A Singaporean professor who nicked bras and panties has pleaded guilty to stealing women's underwear from a university dormitory, a local newspaper reported on Saturday.