A wrecked ship is threatening to cause an environmental disaster on an island which is home to endangered penguins.
The vessel has grounded on Nightingale Island, part of the Tristan da Cunha UK overseas territory in the South Atlantic, causing an oil slick around the island which is home to nearly half the world’s population of northern rockhopper penguins.
Some 1,500 tonnes of heavy crude oil from the MS Olivia is leaking into the sea, surrounding Nightingale Island and extending into a slick eight miles offshore, Hundreds of endangered penguins have already been seen coming ashore covered in oil.
The shipwreck could also lead to any rats onboard colonising the island and posing a huge risk to the native seabird populations – whose chicks and eggs could be eaten by the invasive rodents. (PA)
Face transplant
A building worker badly disfigured in an accident has received the United States’ first full face transplant.
More than 30 doctors, nurses and other staff at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital performed the 15-hour operation last week on 25-year-old Dallas Wiens.
Mr Wiens, of Fort Worth, Texas, was left blind and without lips, a nose or eyebrows after an electrical accident in November 2008. Doctors transplanted an entire new face, including a nose, lips, skin and muscles and nerves that animate the skin and give sensation. However, expensive drugs will be needed permanently to prevent rejection of his new face.
The world’s first full face transplant was performed by doctors in Spain last March. (AP)
Cow simulator
British trainee vets are learning about the inner workings of cattle using a plastic cow simulator.
Students at the University of Bristol’s School of Veterinary Sciences are using two Breed’n Betsy “training aids”, which are made from latex covering a metal frame and simulate the back end of a cow.
They are used to teach undergraduates about the reproductive system while lessening the time spent subjecting real animals to an examination.
The simulators are designed so that if a student uses a poor technique, they will be unable to perform the desired procedure. The models also come with water-filled tubes that warm them to the same internal temperature as a real cow to simulate the real experience for students. (PA)
No yolk
China is hoping one of its oldest customs will go global – with the mass market of eggs boiled in the urine of young boys.
In Dongyang, Zhejiang province, local chefs are staying positive in their hope this local dish, which has been considered a delicacy for the past several thousand years, will catch on worldwide.
According to Lu Ming, one of the chefs responsible for this dish, the eggs, in addition to being a ‘tasty’ treat, possess certain curative powers. (PA)
600-metre sausage
Italy has snatched from Romania the record for the production of the world’s longest sausage when a team of pork butchers crafted a delicacy more than half a kilometre long. Ansa news agency said Alberto Della Pelle from Penne, a small town in central Italy, helped by nine colleagues, created a sausage 597.8-metres long in the main street. The previous Romanian record-holder was only 392 metres in length.
The monster sausage will be sliced to fill 6,000 sandwiches which will be sold to raise funds for the charity Caritas. (AFP)
‘Cool’ roads
The village folk of Tanzania’s Zanzibar archipelago have hit the road; sleeping on tarmac at night to cool off from the chocking tropical heat in their poorly ventilated houses. And the open-sky experience is completed with a TV set place at the roadside for added comfort.
“It is dangerous to sleep on roads, but we believe the drivers are sympathetic and drive carefully not to knock us,” said Mohamed Omar of Uzini village. (PA)