The bongs of Big Ben have become “temperamental” and can be out by up to six seconds, clocksmiths have admitted.
The famous hour markers have been fast for the past fortnight, interrupting BBC Radio 4 broadcasts that use the sound live.
The Houses of Parliament’s three dedicated clocksmiths have tried to deal with the problem by removing weights from the pendulum.
Female fish are faster than males
Female fish have become better swimmers in order to escape male sexual harassment, new research claims.
The female guppy has learnt to shake off the unwanted male attention by changing their physiology to swim faster and more efficiently.
The scientists behind the research likened it to athletes who train to become better at their sports.
Near misses on run across US
An endurance runner has had near misses from hunters, an attempted hit-and-run, deadly rattlesnakes and heat exhaustion in an epic test run across America.
Richard Donovan began his pacey journey through 12 US states on San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge on May 19, and with about 500 miles to go he is due to finish in New York on September 5.
Despite running up to 47 miles a day, the trip was not designed to set a new continental record but to train the former economist for an unprecedented run across Antarctica in the coming months.
Boy stumbles, wrecks masterpiece
A 12-year-old boy has accidentally punched a hole through a 350-year-old painting in Taiwan.
Footage released by the organisers of Taipei’s The Face of Leonardo: Images of a Genius exhibition shows the boy, who is holding a drink, trip and catch his balance by pushing against a 17th-century oil on canvas reported to be by the Italian master Paolo Porpora.
Sun Chi-hsuan, the head of the exhibition’s co-organiser the TST Art of Discovery Co, said: “The boy’s hand made contact with the artwork and left a hole the size of fist.” Sun claims that the damaged painting is Propora’s Flowers and is worth more than one million US dollars.
Whiskey boldly goes into orbit
Spirits have arrived at the International Space Station. Not the ghostly ones, but the kind you drink.
A Japanese company known for its whiskey and other alcoholic drinks included five types of distilled spirits in a space station cargo ship. The supply ship contains nearly 10,000 pounds of cargo, including six liquor samples. Suntory Global Innovation Centre in Tokyo wants to see if alcoholic beverages mellow the same in space as they do on Earth.
The samples will be used for experiments and will spend at least a year in orbit before being returned to Earth. An identical set of samples will be stored on the ground in Japan.
Intruder found doing his laundry
Pennsylvania State Police say a woman found an intruder taking a shower and doing his laundry at her home when she woke up.
The resident summoned police to her home in Greene Township, near Erie, on Saturday morning.
Twenty-four-year-old Erie resident Casey James Shaffer was arrested on charges of criminal trespass, disorderly conduct, public intoxication and loitering and prowling at night.