The world is despite its shortcomings a wondrous place and humans are by far the most interesting species on its surface. Every week we’ll sneak a peek into current events that made the weird side of the newspapers.
This week we’ll learn what not to do when drinking and driving, the dangers of making bets, how many of us would screw a robot, that things can go seriously wrong in hospitals, and that Japan wants to resume lethal whale hunting.
WEEKLY REVIEW
Robot sex
More than 2,000 students at the Middlesex University took part in a poll where one of the defining questions was whether or not the respondent would have sex with a robot. According to results, one in five wouldn’t mind a bit of robot love.
“It seems to have got to the stage where people would rather have sex with something that knows exactly what it’s doing, where we know exactly how it will react, and how long it will take, and how good it will be,” said one of the participants.
Not only did plenty of people say they would go nuts and bolts on a bot, 46 percent of those surveyed said they wouldn’t judge those who want to.
Drunk driving
Drinking and driving is not only a crime in most countries, it’s also heavily frowned upon. Still, if you’re going to get caught you may want to sober up in a hurry so you don’t make some cardinal mistakes.
Damon Tobias Exum, 37, succeeded in crashing straight into a cop car in Dunwoody, Georgia, after a wild night out. When he was asked for his license and registration he handed the officer his beer and asked him to hold it while looking for said documents.
Exum was arrested on eight misdemeanour charges, including DUI (driving under influence) and reckless driving. This was his third DUI arrest and he’s currently being held at the DeKalb County jail on a $3,270 bond.
Whaling
Despite a ban on whale hunting in Antarctica by the International Court of Justice, Japan plans to send four ships armed with biopsy guns instead of harpoons. Three of the vessels will do the killing while the fourth will provide security.
The ships will be confined to sightings, surveys and biopsy sampling in 2014-15 ahead of the Japanese government’s plan to resume lethal hunts the following summer as it tries to revive legal commercial whaling.
Australian politicians are accusing Japan of trying to circumvent the international court’s ruling by saying they will only collect samples: “The same boats that slaughtered hundreds of whales over previous years will be collecting data to sneak around the International Court of Justice ruling,” said Senator Peter Whish-Wilson.
Pregnancy pact
Meanwhile, in Malta, four 15-year-old school girls from the same class made a bet that they could all get pregnant by the same man. The story was confirmed by a local hospital who received one after another of the eager-to-become-mum quartet.
Monsignor Anton Gouder told a Maltese church radio station that he got involved with the case in the early days of 2014 and that this is the first time he’s ever come across a situation as extraordinary as this one.
Gouder also said he has noticed a surge in teen pregnancy as girls as young as 16 and 17 already make plans to have a baby at that age.
Nuts!
A man in England was scheduled for a minor operation at the Royal Liverpool Hospital, but the surgeon made a slight blunder and performed a vasectomy. Doctors have tried to reverse the mistake, but the victim faces an anxious wait to see if he will be able to have children.
The hospital has “apologised unreservedly” to the patient and the surgeon who performed the snip has been suspended pending an internal investigation. Apart from the patient being a man, nothing else has been revealed about him because of patient confidentiality.
This is the second “never event” – a medical mistake that should never happen – since 2011 at the hospital. In the first incident a patient had the wrong teeth removed.
