Weird News

Curiosity killed the cat house

A house in Rapid City, S.D., was torn down Tuesday after surrounding neighbors filed complaints about the “stench of cats and animal waste.” Authorities say that after neighbors had complained about a foul smell, a search of the home revealed piles of cat waste, as well as dead cats both inside and outside of the home. According to assistant city attorney Kevin Lewis, the city council declared the house a public nuisance and ordered it to be demolished for $10,000, which the owner will be billed.

McDonald’s international kitchen gets creative

McDonald’s is currently in the midst of developing new burgers and sandwiches for their 7,600 restaurants in Asia, the Middle East and Africa. One of their food studios, nicknamed “The Forbidden Kitchen,” is located below a metro station in Hong Kong’s residential North Point district, and is used as a developmental kitchen for their newest ideas. The kitchen, which is where some of McDonald’s international culinary successes were born, including the McCurry Pan for India and the Bulgogi Burger for South Korea, was built in June at a cost of $2 million. The kitchen is now developing a grilled chicken sandwich for Taiwan that is made of dark meat instead of white meat.
Though the kitchen plays a major role in creating new dishes, the food studio originated as a Quality Center for international branches to ensure the hamburgers’ consistency across the company’s 37 markets. This consistency includes details of the precise color of a Big Mac bun to the desired amount of sesame seeds each bun should have to the bun’s desired height.

Snails take over Barbados

In Bridgetown, Barbados, locals are taking drastic measures to protect their crops against a breed of giant, disease-spreading snails. The giant African snails, which are about the size of a human hand, first appeared in Barbados five years ago, destroying crops and causing mass concern. Though their first appearance prompted calls for government attention, according to reports made by a nocturnal “snail hunt” last weekend, the snails have returned in hundreds of thousands across the country’s “agricultural heartland,” the central parish of St. George. Volunteer David Warlond reported seeing “snails riding on each other’s backs,” moving in droves. “You’re just crunching the shells as you’re walking through.” Volunteers sprayed government-supplied pesticides in areas thought to be breeding grounds for the snails and will continue their efforts for the next three weeks. The snails are known to consume “as many as 500 different plans and their mucous can transmit meningitis and other diseases.”

Russian inventor puts life at your fingertips

Though the fear of being buried alive may remain, at least now thanks to a Russian inventor, one can call for help at the press of a button. Vitaly Malyukov, author of an assortment of inventions, as well as an honored inventor of the USSR, recently invented an alarm for those who have been accidentally buried alive. The alarm, which is a circular device that is mounted in the casket is glowing red and allows a person buried alive to quickly and easily notify the office of a cemetery caretaker. Malyukov says that alarm is designed to “show which grave have signs of life,” and he plans to eventually sell it within the Japanese market.