Arctic terns can fly more than 80,000 kilometres a year, beating past estimates of the seabirds' record migrations and equivalent to three round trips to the Moon over a lifetime, a study showed yesterday.

Tiny tracking devices attached to 11 of the small white birds breeding in Greenland or Iceland showed they flew a far more meandering route than expected on their annual trips to the Antarctic and back, an international team of scientists said.

Already widely reckoned to have the longest migration of any creature, the birds flew an average of 70,900 kilometres in a year, with one clocking up 81,600 kilometres. That was double the 40,000 kilometres often estimated in the past.

And over a tern's lifetime of up to 34 years, the migrations add up to about 2.4 million kilometres - equivalent to three return trips to the Moon or a dizzying 60 times around the Earth. (Reuters)

Prostitute fined $820,000

Poland's tax office has levied a fine of 2.3 million zlotys (€563,500) on an unemployed woman for failing to pay tax on income worth at least 13.7 million zlotys she said she had earned as a prostitute.

The woman told the tax office in the southern city of Katowice that she had very "generous" customers, the website gazeta.pl, which is linked to leading Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza, reported yesterday.

One of her clients paid the woman five million zlotys during the 1997-2002 period, she was quoted as saying.

The website gave no further details. (Reuters)

Wedding at supermarket

If supermarkets be the food of love, then Fina Nikolos and Jack Frankel have Whole Foods Market in Coral Springs, Florida to thank; that's where they met on a rainy day in May, and that's where they married on Monday.

Nikolos, 67, and Frankel, 75, were wedded in the supermarket's cafeteria before friends and family and a bemused group of employees and customers, the Sun-Sentinel reported.

The elderly couple decided to tie the knot in the same place where they first set eye on each other, when Nikolos offered Frankel a lift in her car as he was waiting, bag in hand, for the rain to stop at the supermarket entrance. Ever grateful, Frankel invited Nikolos to dinner, and the rest is history. (AFP)

Women gives birth to sextuplets

A 30-year-old Italian woman has given birth to four baby girls and two boys, the largest multiple birth in Italy since 2003.

The mother and babies all are in good health following the caesarean birth in the southern city of Benevento, near Naples, on Sunday, Italian news agencies reported.

However, the children were born after just 29 weeks of pregnancy and weigh between 610 and 800 grams. All are on assisted breathing apparatus.

Doctors said the multiple birth probably was due to fertility treatment taken by the woman, and not due to in vitro fertilisation.

Italian law prohibits more than three embryos to be transferred into the womb. (Reuters)

Helicopters used to rescue skiers

Bavarian police deployed helicopters, ropes and ladders yesterday to rescue 43 skiers trapped in gondolas that dangled up to 70 metres for more than three hours in a southern German Alpine resort.

A Bavarian police spokesman said there were no injuries and the operation to rescue the passengers from the lift system that broke down was completed faster than expected. About 100 rescue workers helped trapped skiers out of 30 gondola cabins.

The Brauneck ski resort is about 60 kilometres south of Munich. The lift, built in 1957, is 2.5 kilometres long and rises 800 metres to an altitude of 1,520 metres in 12 minutes.

Human "drum" brings beatboxing to Beijing

China's ancient art of voice mimicry has gotten with the times, largely thanks to a young artist who has brought the rarely heard sounds of beatboxing to the clubbing masses.

Beatboxing involves using the lips and voice to imitate drum beats and musical sounds, and China has its own tradition of this type of performance known as "kouji".

But Liang Bo, who performs under the stage name Bozi, learned the art via a very modern medium - the internet - perfecting this technique over five years and earning a loyal following.

He learned how to beatbox by painstakingly imitating foreign beatboxers on video sharing sites, and now performs at clubs around Beijing. He's also performed on several television shows. (Reuters)