World briefs

An American in Costa Rica was caught smuggling nearly 0.4 kilogrammes of cocaine in his stomach after he went into convulsions on a plane bound for Miami, police said over the weekend. The 22-year-old man had swallowed dozens of capsules stuffed with the drug before boarding a plane in the Costa Rican capital, San José.

Police said he started to vomit and convulse before the plane took off and was rushed to a hospital where he is still recovering. "They had to open him up to remove the capsules," said a police spokesman.

The man, identified only by his last name, Keller, was the second American arrested this month at the airport for smuggling cocaine in his stomach.

The Central American country works with US authorities to try to stop drug shipments reaching the US from producer countries in South America.

Mastodon skeleton in garage sale

California resident Nancy Fiddler has put for sale on eBay a mastodon skeleton that takes up most of her garage. The minimum bid - $115,000. Her family's relationship with the Ice Age relative of the elephant has run its course.

Ms Fiddler said they need the money an online auction could bring, and her son would prefer to build hot rod cars in the space the creature now occupies.

The Fiddlers also would like to use their sauna, which in the last four years has served as an additional repository for the huge plastic casts containing the animal's bones.

"We needed a safe, dry place," Ms Fiddler said, explaining why they chose to sacrifice the sauna. "The mastodon takes precedence."

Alligators move lungs

Alligators can stealthily maneouvre through the water leaving nary a ripple, despite having neither fins nor flippers like other adept swimmers. Instead, they use special muscles to shift the position of their lungs, US researchers said. They said American alligators use their diaphragm, pelvic, abdominal and rib muscles to change their centre of buoyancy, forcing the lungs towards the tail when they dive, towards the head when they surface, and sideways to roll.

"What this does is it gives the animal a way to change trajectory," said T.J. Uriona, a doctoral student at the University of Utah, whose study appears in the Journal of Experimental Biology.

Dr Uriona and colleagues think this adept manipulation of special muscles to control buoyancy may be important to other aquatic animals, including African clawed frogs, some salamanders, turtles and manatees.

Romanovs bless Medvedev

The self-declared heir to Russia's imperial throne has congratulated Dmitry Medvedev on his election win and urged the future Kremlin leader to fulfil Russia's destiny as a great world power.

Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna, the leading claimant to the Russian imperial throne, sent a congratulatory telegram to Mr Medvedev, Alexander Zakatov, head of the chancellery of Russia's self-styled Imperial House, said.

Mr Medvedev, a 42-year-old former lawyer, is set to become the youngest Russian leader since the last Tsar, Nicholas II, whom he says he admires. He will be officially sworn in, in May, though he has already moved to the Kremlin. The Romanov dynasty ruled Russia for 300 years before Nicholas II abdicated in 1917, setting Russia on course for the Bolshevik Revolution, civil war and 70 years of Communist rule.

Prison tunnel found

Police in Chile, a country known more for mining than for prison breaks, have discovered an elaborate tunnel with built-in ventilation and noise barriers near a penitentiary in the Santiago area.

The 85-metre-long tunnel resembled an underground mine structure, built with cement and wooden beams and boasting electrical power and carts for hauling away dirt and rock.

Police said the wives of two inmates at the Colina II prison had hired four miners to build the escape tunnel, which led from a nearby house towards the facility and was only 30 metres shy of an interior prison yard.

"If the tunnel had reached its destination, as many as 200 people could have escaped," Felipe Harboe, the Interior Ministry's No. 2 official, told reporters. Police heard about the tunnel while monitoring prisoners' telephone conversations as part of an investigation into drug trafficking.

Berlusconi sparks controversy

Italian conservative leader Silvio Berlusconi was in hot water over the weekend after telling a student she should marry a millionaire to solve her financial woes.

"The best thing would be for you to find a millionaire," the self-made media tycoon cum politician told 24-year-old Perla Pavoncello on a television programme. "As a father, my advice to you is to find someone like a son of Berlusconi who has no problems (with money)," he said, adding: "With a smile like yours you can do it."

The comment came a month before snap general elections which Mr Berlusconi, who has been Prime Minister twice before, is tipped to win.

Mr Berlusconi's new centre-left rival, Walter Veltroni, said the remarks showed that Italy's third richest man was "poles apart from this worried young woman who is seeking answers from politicians in the name of millions of young Italians."