A biscuit factory worker lost 18 stone after being warned that his blood pressure was so high he should be dead.

Gary Marsden, 47, was so spooked that he shed nearly half his body weight following a routine medical at work three years ago.

The father of one, from Batley in West Yorkshire, had been overweight for 20 years after piling on the pounds when he settled down with wife Pamela. He has dropped from 37 stone to 18 stone after changing his diet and taking karate lessons.

Virtual pets as man’s best friend?

Robot dogs are likely to be replacing man’s best friend in homes around the world in as little as a decade, an expert has claimed.

Animal welfare researcher Jean-Loup Rault believes “real” pets will soon become a luxury in an overpopulated world. And he expects people to form genuine emotional attachments to their virtual and mechanical animal companions.

“It might sound surreal for us to have robotic or virtual pets, but it could be totally normal for the next generation,” said Rault, from the University of Melbourne in Australia.

‘Bear claw’ used for the first time

A pioneering “bear claw” device has been used for the first time in the UK to remove pre-cancerous bowel tumours without the need for invasive surgery.

The procedure, performed by Philip Boger, a consultant in gastroenterology and advanced endoscopy at Southampton General Hospital, involves placing a cap over a flexible thin tube – colonoscope – and attaching a novel clip to the tip.

It is then passed into the bowel to the site of the growth where it is slowly pulled into the cap before the clip is released to seal the surrounding area. The diseased tissue is then promptly removed using a wire lasso.

Special delivery for postal staff

Austrian postmen and women have recently begun carrying a second bag – and it is not because of mail overload.

Aggressive dogs have been making their mark on mail deliverers – 47 were bitten last year – so the post office is sending each delivery worker out with a bag of doggie treats.

Two weeks into the trial, spokesman Michael Homola said it was too early to say whether the strategy was working, but state broadcaster ORF quoted grateful postwoman Maria Stocker as saying the treats are making a difference: “The dogs are now nice.”

Dope discovery on traffic island

It was hardly the world’s best-hidden marijuana plantation - Berlin police said they were called to a subway station by a street cleaner who reported finding “numerous small plants that seemed suspicious to him”.

Officers found 700 small cannabis plants growing among weeds on a traffic island outside the Kottbusser Tor station in the capital’s Kreuzberg district.

They pulled up the plants. It was not immediately clear who planted the cannabis but police are investigating.

Sailor gets seal of approval

A sailor who was woken by snoring found a baby sea lion asleep on a bunk in his boat.

Michael Duffy was on his 12.5-metre Kettenburg boat Elixir at San Diego Yacht Club when he awoke. Hearing snoring and sneezing, he thought it might be a friend crashing after a night out, but could not find anyone.

Once it got light, he heard it again, and that is when he found a 16-kilogram sea lion pup on another bunk, curled up like a dog on top of his board shorts.

“It was a tiny little guy, and I was kind of shocked, but he was basically asleep,” Duffy said. “Then he heard me coming, so he kind of looked up a little bit like when a dog is sleeping and you want to wake it up and it doesn’t want to wake up.”