A medal awarded to a British soldier who lost both arms during the Battle of Waterloo has been discovered nearly 200 years later.
Inniskilling Regiment Private Peter McMullen, from Co Down, Northern Ireland, was saved because his heavily pregnant wife Elizabeth dragged him from danger.
The badge of honour will be returned to the Inniskillings Museum in Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh, in a special ceremony on May 30.
New home for abandoned dog
A young dog whose previous owner abandoned him in a skip just two days before Christmas has found a new home.
Beaux, who was very thin and nervous of everything around him, was taken into Wood Green, The Animals Charity, in north London on December 23 after a member of the public chanced upon him moving around in a skip in Cambridge.
Dog rehomer Kirsty Phillips said: “When he came in to us Beaux was so nervous, he would hide in the back of his kennel, and was obviously under-nourished. But he’s a fantastic, friendly boy and he’s just come on in leaps and bounds.”
Am I going down? There’s an app...
A new app for people who are nervous about flying will help calm their nerves – by giving them statistics on how unlikely it is theiraircraft will crash.
Fear of flying is very common – in the UK it is thought as many as one in five people experiences anxiety about flying at some time.
Developer Nic Johns said: “The inspiration for ‘Am I going down?’ came from my co-founder and wife, Julie, who for many years has suffered from a fear of flying. I wanted to present the fact that the vast majority of flights are incredibly low risk and our app is meant as a tool to help reassure fearful flyers.”
Dancing genitals on Swedish TV
In socially liberal Sweden, an educational animated video for children featuring dancing genitals has become an online hit and even drawn criticism for not being progressive enough.
The one-minute video by public broadcaster SVT, promoting a TV series about the human body, has been seen by more than four million YouTube viewers. Producers say many parents found it a great way to explain about private parts to children, though some called it inappropriate for a programme aimed at three- to six-year-olds.
Programming director Peter Bargee said the clip also drew “unexpected” criticism from some Swedes, who said portraying the penis with a moustache and the vagina with long eyelashes reinforced gender stereotypes. Bargee said the video was meant to be fun and not a “statement on gender politics”.
Lucky lunchtime lotto choice
A US man who bought a pair of lottery tickets at a grocery shop to break a 100-dollar bill for lunch has ended up winning $10 million (€8.6 million).
Lottery officials said Richard Noll and his wife claimed the prize at lottery headquarters in Braintree, Massachusetts, this week. He chose a one-time payment of $6.5 million (€5 million) after taxes.
Mr Noll said he needed to break a 100-dollar bill to get lunch at a sandwich shop, so he bought two 20-dollar Platinum Millions instant tickets at Lanzilli Groceria in East Boston.
Toxic glow on Hong Kong sea
Eerie fluorescent blue patches of water glimmering off Hong Kong’s seashore are magnificent, disturbing and potentially toxic, marine biologists have said.
The glow is an indicator of a harmful algal bloom created by something called Noctiluca scintillans, nicknamed Sea Sparkle. It looks like algae and can act like algae but is a single-celled organism which technically can function as both animal and plant.
These type of blooms are triggered by farm pollution that can be devastating to marine life and local fisheries, according to University of Georgia oceanographer Samantha Joye. It is part of a problem that is growing worldwide, said Joye and other scientists.