Meet the Italian man who is world’s best ‘cow-milker’
London: An Italian man has recently been named the “world’s best cow-milker,” after he won the world cow-milking championship in northern Italy, it has been reported. According to La Repubblica, Gianmario Ghirardi won the title after milking 8.7 litres of milk from his cow in two minutes, the Local reported. The milker from Malonno fended off thousands of rivals to win the championship in Lenna, close to the Swiss border. In collecting his trophy the 30-year-old credited the victory to Mirka, the winning cow he has owned for seven years. Ghirardi beat off competition from local Nicolo Quarteroni, who came in second place with 8.05 litres. Both smashed the Guinness World Record held by German Gunther Wahl, who milked 2 litres from a cow in 2008. The record was then beaten in 2012 by Maurizio Paschetta, from Cuneo in northern Italy, who refused to compete in this year’s event. (ANI)
Bride gets married over airwaves due to traffic jam in China
Beijing: A Zhejiang-based bride, who got stuck in heavy traffic due to the National Day holiday in China, had to get married over the airwaves. Bride Yan Mengxia, who set off at 1 pm on Oct 1 on a 300-kilometer journey to Yongkang for her evening ceremony, was still stuck in the jam at 4 pm, China Daily reported. The anxious fiance, who kept calling the hotline of FM93 Traffic Radio for updates on road conditions, learnt that his bride had no chance to arrive on time, and so the radio station conducted the ceremony over the airwaves. (ANI)
Meet the homeowner who wants to trade his house for Phone 6
Melbourne: A Detroit homeowner wants to trade his house, which he is trying to sell for a long time, for an iPhone 6. Larry Else, the real estate broker representing the Detroit homeowner, said that his client is overseas and he told him that he would be willing to trade the property for an iPhone 6, News.com.au reported. Else added that the home “needs major renovations” and that the homeowner, who would also consider a 32 gigabyte iPad or would likely be happy to sell for 3,000 dollars, was a victim himself. The broker informed that his client lives in Austria and bought the house in 2010 for 41,000 dollars, likely believing it to be a smart investment as a rental property, but the house was probably never in as good a shape as the owner was led to believe. Else, who doesn’t expect to get any commission on the property, further said that he’s fielded three offers, one for an iPhone 5, one for 700 dollars and one for 850 dollars. (ANI)
Meet the chef who dismembered, cooked girlfriend in apartment
Melbourne: A chef was reportedly found cooking parts of his girlfriend’s dismembered body recently at his Teneriffe apartment. Marcus Peter Volke cut his own throat while fleeing police, who had been called to his high-end apartment building to investigate a decaying smell, News.com.au reported. Officers discovered a body part, believed to belong to his Indonesian girlfriend, in a pot on the stove as well as other parts of her mutilated body in the ground-floor apartment. Dorothy Volke, his mother, said that when she spoke to her son recently, he seemed happy and fine. Police told her that they still had to formally identify the body with dental records and an autopsy, she further added. Volke fled from his apartment on foot but his body was later found in a nearby street with a fatal self-inflicted throat wound. (ANI)
Have you sent your name to Mars?
New York: Would you like to imprint your name on the surface of the Red Planet? NASA is giving you a chance to send your name to Mars via its Orion spacecraft, scheduled for a test flight Dec 4.
Nearly 95,000 people have already submitted their names. To sign up, visit NASA’s website on Orion’s Mars visit, fill out some basic information and submit. The site will then generate a digital “boarding pass”.
You will get the message: “Success! Your name will fly on Orion’s flight test”. All the collected names will be included on a microchip. The deadline for sending your name aboard the Orion test flight is Oct 31.
“NASA is pushing the boundaries of exploration and working hard to send people to Mars in the future. Flying these names will enable people to be part of our journey in the future,” Mark Geyer, Orion Programme manager, was quoted as saying in a CNET report. The first Orion test trip is set for a 4.5 hour mission in orbit around Earth. It will then take a flying leap back through the atmosphere and land in the Pacific Ocean. (IANS)
Outrage in Oz after Australian couple abandons twin surrogate baby boy in India
Wellington: An Australian couple who abandoned a healthy twin baby born to them via surrogacy in India are facing outrage in their native land over their action.
According to Stuff.co.nz, despite Australian consular officials pleading with the couple not to leave without the child, the parents left the baby as they wanted to take only one of the children. The Australian High Commission reportedly delayed giving the parents a visa in an attempt to convince them to accept the second child.
Chief Justice Diana Bryant said that the couple already had one sex and they didn”t want the other child.
It is reported that the couple was granted visas following pressure by a senior political figure.
Chief Justice Bryant said that there was definitely some pressure placed to expedite the process to ensure the couple could return to Australia. (ANI)
World’s oldest rock art discovered in Indonesia
Sydney:Australian scientists have found what could be the world’s oldest figurative art in a cave in Indonesia, a report released on Thursday said. The team’s discovery of cave art on the island of Sulawesi, estimated to be about 40,000 years old, challenges the idea that the oldest artwork had originated in Spain and France, Xinhua reported. An Australian geochemist from Griffith University said he was stunned when he tested the samples from the cave and realised how old the art was. The team’s study dates the earliest image, a hand stencil, to be at least 39,900 years old, 900 years prior to the world’s oldest known cave painting, a red disc in Spain. The series of Indonesian images discovered also includes pig-like animals painted more than 35,400 years ago, possibly older than the earliest known figurative rock art in western Europe – a painted rhinoceros in France, estimated to be between 35,300 and 38,800 years old. The report said the sheer volume of ancient cave art in Europe had pointed to the theory that the human capacity for abstract thinking originated there, but the new discovery makes the case that this development was occurring in Asia at the same time. (IANS)
Barack Obama`s brother-in-law joins ESPN as color commentator
Washington: Barack Obama’s brother-in-law Craig Robinson has joined ESPN as a color commentator for this season’s college basketball coverage. According to the network’s announcement, Robinson, a native of Chicago married with four children and is the oldest brother of US First Lady Michelle Obama, and Stan Heath, the former head coach at the University of Arkansas and the University of South Florida, are added to its commentator ranks. The pair of former coaches will debut during ESPN’s mid-November season-opening Hoops Tip-Off Marathon and Robinson’s first game will be next month. (ANI)