World Briefs

A rare Renaissance plate discovered by auctioneers during a regular house valuation has sold for almost £400,000.

The “maiolica” item, by artist Francesco Xanto Avelli, dates from 1537. It was discovered by Lyon & Turnbull during a regular house valuation and was sold for £391,250 at its Edinburgh sale room yesterday.

Xanto Avelli was born in Italy in about 1486. Nothing is known of his origins, education or his early years. It is thought he was working in Urbino from 1522 and archival evidence records him as working there in 1530 which is also the date on his earliest signed piece, a plate commemorating the coming new year.

Maoilica is a type of pottery glazed with bright metallic oxides. During the Renaissance period it was made extensively in Italy.

Hair loss hoax

Italian prosecutors said yesterday they were investigating a popular Swiss hair product, saying there was “no scientific evidence it helps hair grow back.”

The product – known as Cres­cina – is widely advertised and sold in pharmacies and cosmetic stores. One of its ads confusingly features football star Ronaldo, who used to shave his head but has now let his hair grow.

The alleged crime being investigated is commercial fraud as Crescina – the name is a play on the Italian word for “growth” – was being advertised in Italy as having hair-growing properties.

Crescina is produced by the Swiss company Labo Cos-prophar Suisse, which also makes supposedly anti-ageing products.

Dog poop lottery

An innovative scheme to keep the streets of northern Taiwan clean has seen thousands of citizens dutifully collecting bags of dog poop in the hope of winning $2,000 in gold.

More than 4,000 residents of New Taipei City, which surrounds the capital, have signed up for the competition since it was launched in early August, and have so far collected 14,000 bags of the stuff. “The outcome of the campaign beat all our expectations,” Lai Lien-chueh, from the city’s environmental protection bureau, said.

Those taking part in the scheme were given one lottery ticket for each bag of dog waste they collected, with the top prize in the draw including gold ingots worth around Tw$60,000 ($2,000).

Deer-ram love story

Staff at a wildlife park in China have turned to the country’s half a billion web users for advice after a male sheep and a female deer began mating – and soon became inseparable.

A posting on the park’s microblog posed the question: “What do you do when a ram falls in love with a deer?” It asked readers whether they agreed it would be “unethical” to let the unusual pairing continue. The romantic liaison hit headlines this week after a TV station in Yunnan reported that attempts to separate the pair had been unsuccessful.

“The sheep and the deer have been in love with each other since last year,” Li Li, a park keeper, told the China Daily, which said the pair would now be allowed to stay together.