Nose
for nonsense?
Nuclear scientist Eric Voice, 73, told England's The Guardian in August that, as far as he knows, inhaling plutonium (as from the effects of a nuclear war) is not dangerous, citing his own successful test 18 months ago in which he sniffed some to try to allay the public's fears. Voice said nothing bad has happened to him so far and that, in fact, plutonium has never harmed anyone, except for those two bombs on Japan.
Seeing a trend
John Glover, 74, explaining why his car was in the middle of Deal Lake (N.J.), June: gas pedal got stuck. Billy W. Parkham, 68, on why his minivan smashed into a dress shop, Seekonk, Mass., August: gas pedal got stuck. Eleanor Soltis, 76, on why her car ran out of control in downtown Chicago, killing three people (and who agreed to pay a $1.5 million settlement in August): gas pedal got stuck. Marie Wyman, 87, on why her Buick crashed through the Lobster Trap & Steakhouse, Winslow, Maine, July: gas pedal got stuck.
Cliches come
to life
In June, Panama City, Fla., elementary school teacher Wanda Nelson was reprimanded for confiscating a National Geographic magazine from a fourth-grade boy because it was "pornography" (i.e., drawings of naked humans in a story on evolution). And two Illinois researchers told a professional convention in May of their findings that telling a lie triggers a release of hormones to the nose, increasing its size.
And in July, the first European Swamp Soccer Championship (with 62 teams competing) was played in Hyrynsalmi, Finland, on a playing field purposely knee-deep in mud.
-- Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa, Fla. 33679, or Weird@compuserve.com.
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