Crazy World: Girl takes grenade to school

AUSTRALIA: In a weird development, a school in Australia had to be evacuated after an 11-year-old student took a hand grenade to a show-and-tell.

While the police removed the dangerous device from the school premises, the girl who caused the uproar was exptremely upset over the schedule disruption.

When questioned about the device, the girl's family reportedly told the authorities that since the grenade did not even have a pin, they thought it was a dummy, according to the Daily Telegraph.

About 450 students and 60 teachers had to be quickly evacuated when the class teacher took the device to the principal and they figured out that it was not a dummy.

The principal told the daily that the girl would not be punished. He was quoted as saying: "She's bewildered, embarrassed - I tried to make her aware she's not in trouble.

"She's a sweet young lady from a lovely family. She understood it to be a dummy hand grenade that had been deactivated, there was no firing pin, just the body of the grenade."

The device is believed to be from First World War.

Fearless kids catch creepy spiders to eat

CAMBODIA: It is nothing out of ordinary for children in Cambodia to catch tarantulas and have them as a delicacy.

The way they catch the spiders is interesting. The children first tickle the web to make the spider come out in the open. The moment the spider is visible, kids use their shovels to destroy the web and dig their victim out. They hold the spider by its back so their victim can't bite them with its poisonous fangs.

Once the spider is caught, it is then drownedin a water bottle, cleaned and cooked in yummy hot butter or oil, reports Asia One.

The kids consider the fried dish to be one of their favourite fast foods as it takes only about 10 minutes to catch, clean and fry them and then they are ready to be eaten.

The kids told the website that the taste of fried spiders is 'unusual'.

Burger so hot, diners must be above 18 to eat

UK: Before you start salivating over this burger, made with the world's two kinds of hottest chillies, you need to sign a disclaimer confirming that you are adult enough to take the heat - i.e. you are above 18 years of age.

The Atomic Fallout burger is made of 'deep-fried double cheese, tomato pizza buns, three minced beef patties, cheese and the tongue-numbing ingredient: Fallout Ghost chilli hot sauce made with Ghost Chilli and Scotch Bonnet, two of the world's hottest chillies', reports Soshiok.com. On the side is a triple portion of chilli fries.

The food is so hot and spicy that those devouring it have to wear gloves while doing so, says the website.

For those who are curious to know where exactly this atomic burger is served, you can taste it at Atomic Burger in Bristol, UK. And those diners who are able to finish the meal under an hour even get to enter the restaurant's 'Hall of Flame' and are awarded an exclusive T-shirt for their gastronomic bravery.

The restaurant has also started serving Atomic Pizza with triple chilli, triple cheese, triple chilli fries and XXX Godzilla Sauce!

Judge orders father-of-nine to stop breeding

US: A judge in the US has asked a man with nine children to stop having more kids till he can afford to feed them.

The 44-year old man from Wisconsin was told that it would be a condition of probation as he cannot financially support his nine children from six different women, The Smoking Gun reported.

The man has been given out a three-year probation for not paying $50,000 in child support, plus another $40,000 in interest in the last 11 years.

The man told CBS 58 that he would comply with the judge's condition.

Now, dogs take driving lessons

WELLINGTON - Rather than chasing cars, dogs in New Zealand are being taught to drive them - steering, pedals and all - in a heartwarming project aimed at increasing pet adoptions from animal shelters.

Animal trainer Mark Vette has spent two months training three cross-breed rescue dogs from the Auckland SPCA to drive a modified Mini as a way of proving that even unwanted canines can be taught to perform complex tasks.

The motorised mutts - Porter, Monty and Ginny - sit in the driver's seat, belted in with a safety harness, using their paws to operate specially designed dashboard-height pedals for the accelerator and brakes at Vette's command.

The car's steering wheel has been fitted with handles, allowing the dogs to turn it, while the "starter key" is a dashboard-mounted button that the dogs press to get the motor running.

"There's about 10 different behaviours involved, so we had to break them down into each behaviour - using the accelerator, feet on the wheel, turn the key on, feet on the brake, the gear(stick) and so on," Vette said.

"So every time you get a new element you've got to train them for it and then link it all together, what we call chaining, then getting in the car and doing it."

The dogs began their driving lessons on a mock-up rig, learning basic commands through clicker training, before graduating to the Mini.

So far, their experience in the modified car has been limited but they will undergo a "doggie driving test" live on New Zealand television on Monday.

Footage of the old dogs being taught new tricks has attracted more than 300,000 views on YouTube and also proved a trending hit on Twitter.

Vette said training a dog to drive a car on its own initially seemed unbelievable but his canine charges had risen to the challenge.

"(They've) taken to training really well, it really does prove that intelligent creatures adapt to the situation they're in," he said. "It's really remarkable."

The dogs all had difficult backgrounds - Ginny was neglected, Monty dumped at the shelter because he was "a handful" and Porter a nervous stray, according to the Auckland Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

"Animals this smart deserve a home," its chief executive Christine Kalin said.

"The dogs have achieved amazing things in eight short weeks of training, which really shows with the right environment just how much potential all dogs from the SPCA have as family pets," she said.

The idea was the brainchild of Auckland-based advertising agency DraftFCB, which was commissioned by Mini, which has worked with the SPCA previously, to come up with a campaign that would challenge preconceptions about shelter dogs.

"It's just taken off, the interest has been enormous," DraftFCB spokeswoman Eloise Hay said. "The good thing is, it really seems to be getting the message across too." (AFP)

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