The Vegetable Orchestra has been playing with its food for 10 years, delighting audiences from Belfast to Hong Kong with its self-made cucumberphones, celery bongos, pepper trumpets and leek violins.
Drawing inspiration from electronic music artistes such as Germany's Kraftwerk or John Cage, the dozen musicians from Vienna carve and chop their own instruments to create a truly organic sound.
"The concept might make people smile, but our group is unique because of its range and seriousness," said Tamara Wilhelm, one of its members.
With around 200 performances under its belt, the one-of-a-kind orchestra just celebrated its 10th anniversary with a concert at Vienna's prestigious RadioKulturhaus before embarking on a tour of France and Germany.
Prisoners order restaurant food
Egyptian prisoners are set to be allowed to order meals from any restaurant they choose after a trial run during the holy Muslim month of Ramadan was deemed a success, a senior security official said yesterday. The state-run Al Ahram newspaper reported that prison authorities have been placing orders with restaurants and then handing them to prisoners about to break their fast.
Muslims fast from dawn to dusk in Ramadan, which started this year on September 1. The security official said the permission to order food would continue beyond Ramadan. He said the prisoners were paying for the food. Asked about the favourite meals prisoners have ordered, he said they included meat Kebab and pizza.
It is not uncommon for prisoners in Egypt to receive meals from their visiting families. Egyptian human rights activists say conditions inside jails in the most populous Arab country are bad, with unclean cells and low-quality food.
Human rights groups also say torture is systematic inside Egyptian jails and police stations.
13-million-digit prime number
Mathematicians at UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles) have discovered a 13-million-digit prime number, a long-sought milestone that makes them eligible for a $100,000 prize.
The group found the 46th known Mersenne prime last month on a network of 75 computers running Windows XP. The number was verified by a different computer system running a different algorithm.
"We're delighted," said UCLA's Edson Smith, the leader of the effort. "Now we're looking for the next one, despite the odds."
It's the eighth Mersenne prime discovered at UCLA.
Primes are numbers like three, seven and 11 that are divisible by only two whole positive numbers: Themselves and one.
Venezuela honours Colombian guerilla
A Venezuelan community group has dedicated a public square in Caracas to the ex-leader of Colombia's largest guerilla movement over the weekend, in a move that has upset the Colombian government.
Colombia has accused Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez of backing the Farc guerillas, helping spark a diplomatic fight earlier this year that briefly interrupted trade relations vital to both countries. Mr Chavez denies Colombia's charges but he has pressed the US and the EU to stop labelling the Farc a terrorist group.
A bust of former Farc leader Manuel Marulanda, who died of a heart attack in March, has been put on display in a small plaza in the Venezuelan capital.
Mr Marulanda, who was nicknamed Sureshot, is seen by some Latin American leftists as a hero for his decades of guerilla warfare but he is widely reviled in Colombia's population for his involvement in drug trafficking, kidnapping and extortion.
Beauty pageant ban renewed
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen has renewed his ban on beauty pageants in the Southeast Asian country, calling a previous beauty contest "bad luck".
"Don't spend (money) on a Miss Beauty contest. Don't hold it," Mr Hun told officials during the first meeting of his government's new Cabinet.
He said the Miss Cambodia pageant in 1993 was "bad luck", pointing to the fact the capital's historic Tonle Bassac theatre burned down the year after it hosted the contest.
The premier cancelled plans for a Miss Cambodia pageant in 2006, calling it a waste of funds that were better spent on farming. There has not been a Miss Cambodia contest since the 1990s.
He also said he would not allow such a contest until poverty in Cambodia was reduced by more than half.