A 61-year-old Texas man admitted to a hospital appeared to be falling-down-drunk even though he denied having had a single drink. He was found to be manufacturing beer in his stomach. With \u201cauto-brewery syndrome,\u201d stomach-based yeast automatically ferments all starches passing through, converting them into ethanol. As a rule, natural stomach bacteria control the yeast. But if, for example, antibiotics inadvertently eliminated the bacteria, the yeast would ferment. The case was reported in a recent International Journal of Clinical Medicine.<\/p>\n
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People Different From Us<\/strong><\/p>\n \u2014 Deborah Cipriani, 55, of North Ridgefield, Ohio, runs America\u2019s only rescue center for skunks. She told London\u2019s Daily Mail some of her companions like to sleep with her in bed (which is reportedly fine with partner Kevin).<\/p>\n \u2014 In Layton, Utah, Diane Westcott and her husband have four cats and a dog. Since 2003, they have had a goose who sleeps with them. Gladys the goose wears diapers because, as Diane explained, it\u2019s \u201cnot possible\u201d to potty train a goose.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Great Art<\/strong><\/p>\n \u2014 Writer John Bohannon and the American Assoc. for the Advancement of Science has established an annual \u201cDance Your Ph.D\u201d video competition. Entrant Sarah Wilk used glowing green balls and a flaming Hula-Hoop to help illustrate her \u201cOdd-Z Transactinide Compound Nucleus Reactions Including Discovery of 260-Bh.\u201d Peter Liddicoat used a juggler, a ballerina and others for \u201cEvolution of Nanostructural Architecture in 7000 Series Aluminum Alloys During Strengthening by Age-Hardening and Severe Plastic Deformation.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2014 Eager to make a point that his country of residence, France, is more oppressive to artists than his native South Africa, Steven Cohen staged a one-man demonstration at the Eiffel Tower in September. He wore a bird outfit, tights and a garter. Cohen was arrested. His lawyer complained that her client had been kept in custody too long for such a minor charge. \u201cFrance,\u201d she exclaimed, \u201cis throwing artists in prison.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Police\u00a0Report<\/strong><\/p>\n \u2014 Abbott Griffin, 57, was arrested in Toledo, Ohio, in August and charged with robbing a Circle K convenience store. He allegedly grabbed the clerk and bashed him repeatedly with a Bible.<\/p>\n \u2014 One resident of a shelter in Seattle was charged with assaulting another with a tub of butter-substitute.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Government In Action<\/strong><\/p>\n \u2014 As several states debate permitting marijuana use with a doctor\u2019s prescription, Irvin Rosenfeld presented his experience to a packed house at Kentucky\u2019s state capitol. Rosenfeld suffers from painful bone tumors. He began smoking dope in the federal government\u2019s Compassionate Investigational Drug program in 1982. Since then, he has consumed 130,000 government-supplied joints (12 a day, carefully measured). He says they absolutely have prolonged his life. \u201cI didn\u2019t ask for my bone disease,\u201d he said. \u201cAll I asked for is the best medicine possible.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2014 While Congress struggled to pass a budget or an increase to the national debt limit, one program made it through easily according to a September New York Times report: farm subsidies for inactive \u201cfarmers.\u201d The subsidies were renewed, based on a 2008 law. That virtually assured that more than 18,000 in-name-only farmers (who received $24 million last year) would not be cut off. Included, according to a 2012 Government Accountability Office report, were recipients at 2,300 farms that hadn\u2019t grown a single crop in five years.<\/p>\n \u2014 The security contractor USIS, which does $2.45 billion worth of background checks for the National Security Agency, gets paid only for completed files. However, full background checks often require months of work. At some point, reported The New York Times in September, when USIS needed cash, it \u201cflushed\u201d still-open files, treating them as if they were completed, and submit them for payment. Subsequent, crucial information has sometimes failed to make it into the flushed files.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n More Police Reports<\/strong><\/p>\n \u2014 Deaaron Hearn, 22, was arrested in Iowa City, Iowa, after a traffic officer told him to summon a friend to drive his car home. Hearn responded by reaching into his pocket, placing a $20 bill to his ear and attempting a make a phone call.<\/p>\n \u2014 In October, Brenda Diaz, 26, allegedly attacked a Shell station\u2019s Slushie machine in the nude while her two children were waiting in the car in Holyoke, Mass. Police tasered, pepper-sprayed and arrested her.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Undignified Deaths<\/strong><\/p>\n \u2014A 68-year-old hiker with a broken ankle was killed in Mansfield, Australia, after he was lifted from the bush by an Ambulance Victoria helicopter. Moments after he was airborne, he fell to his death.<\/p>\n \u2014 A 52-year-old man was killed in an explosion in Rowan County, Ky., in July when he lit a cigarette while he was hooked up to an oxygen supply. The man had already survived three explosions under the same circumstances.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n A News of the Weird\u00a0Classic (June 2008) \u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Bird droppings are collected on 20 islands off the coast of Peru, where 12-inch-thick seabird guano coats the land. In the 19th century, China fought with Peru on the high seas for the right to mine the guano, which, at that time, was 150 feet high in places. Said an official of the Peruvian company that controls guano production, \u201cBefore there was oil, there was guano, so of course we fought wars over it.\u201d The exceptionally dry climate means that 15,000 tons of guano are available yearly.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Open Sores Bandit<\/strong><\/p>\n Honesty Keener, 37, was convicted in Gloucester County, N.J., in August of a 2011 break-in during which she demanded money from the female resident. She threated to rub her open sores over the resident\u2019s skin.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A 61-year-old Texas man admitted to a hospital appeared to be falling-down-drunk even though he denied having had a single drink. He was found to be manufacturing beer in his stomach. With \u201cauto-brewery syndrome,\u201d stomach-based yeast automatically ferments all starches passing through, converting them into ethanol. As a rule, natural stomach bacteria control the yeast. [&hellip<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":303,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[65,40],"yoast_head":"\n