Don’t believe collie dogs when they say sheep are stupid. They aren’t, I learn from this absurd compilation spawned by the BBC TV show, Quite Interesting. Clever sheep beat cattle grids by taking a run-up, then rolling into a ball to cross them, sort of special forces-style.

Careful with bears (and not just teddies in Sudan). Play dead if you meet a brown one; but not with a carrion-loving black bear, ’cos it’ll eat you.

This little book leaves us with the comforting thought that animals know much that we don’t, and worry about absolutely nothing at all. Way to be!

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The safe sex advert for Doc Morris Pharmacies, which also depicts Adolf Hitler and Osama Bin Laden, has received complains from China's official media and outspoken bloggers. The People's Daily devoted a page to the story and quoted internet commentaries which called upon the makers of the advert to apologise to China.

One newspaper, the Global Times, said that the advertising agency behind the advert, Grey Worldwide, sent a letter of apology to the Chinese consulate in Frankfurt.

However, some Chinese people do not agree with the official line of anger. One comment from the sina.com website read: "I am a former worker who is now 70. I have thought about it a lot and I still cannot understand why these people defend Mao so strongly."

In similar complaint, Peugeot Citroen apologised for using an advert in Spain which depicted Chairman Mao as a cross-eyed old man.

Story from The Times of India

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A group of planners voted unanimously in favour of the plan, which will be built in the centre of Middlesbrough and contain 30 observation cars.

It is hoped to get the wheel, dubbed the "Boro Eye", will be running as soon as possible for a six month period. It is to run by the commercial organisation World Tourist Attractions.

Story from the BBC

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Broughton residents have been suffering from a string of burglaries and feared that burglars could use the images taken by Google to continue their crimes. As a result, the locals formed a human chain to stop the car that was taking the images. Police were on their way as the drivers of the car relented.

Local man Paul Jacobs was the first to make the stand-off. He said: "I was upstairs when I spotted the camera car driving down the lane. My immediate reaction was anger; how dare anyone take a photograph of my home without my consent? I ran outside to flag the car down and told the driver he was not only invading our privacy but also facilitating crime."

Jacobs then ran around the village knocking on doors and asking the fellow villages to help him. They eventually blocked the road and prevented the car to pass. Jacobs went onto say: "This is an affluent area. We've already had three burglaries locally in the past six weeks. If our houses are plastered all over Google it's an invitation for more criminals to strike. I was determined to make a stand, so I called the police."

Google claim that it was not breaking the law. A spokesman said: "We provide an easy way to request removal of imagery. Most requests are processed within hours." Amongst the images removed include a man leaving a sex shop.

Google Street View is one of the search engine's latest features, which allows users to see 360-degree views of cities. This has been viewed by many as an invasion of privacy, with pressure group Privacy International taking legal action against Google in a hope of shutting it down.

Story from The Times

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According to the research, children with Asperger's Syndrome, which is a form of autism, do not experience a normal morning "surge" in cortisol, a type of stress hormone. It is claimed that this may explain why people with the condition need routine and avoid change.

Mark Brosnan, psychologist at Bath University, said: "Cortisol is one of a family of stress hormones that acts like a 'red alert' that is triggered by stressful situations allowing a person to react quickly to changes around them. In most people, there is a two-fold increase in levels of this hormone within 30 minutes of waking up, with levels gradually declining during the day as part of the internal body clock. Our study found that the children with AS [Asperger's Syndrome] didn't have this peak, although levels of the hormone still decreased during the day as normal. Although these are early days, we think this difference in stress hormone levels could be really significant in explaining why children with AS are less able to react and cope with unexpected change."

It is hoped that this research will help people understand the symptoms better, so that people will realise that child sufferers are in a stressful situation and are not suffering from behavioural problems.

The research director of Research Autism, Richard Mills, said: "We have long known that anxiety is one of the key problems, and people use various coping strategies including cognitive therapy and small doses of anti-anxiety medicine. We welcome these conclusions because anything that furthers our understanding of the nature of this anxiety is very helpful indeed. We would now like to see similar work in adults."

Story from the BBC

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According to a message posted on the Encarta website, the sites will be discontinued on 31st October, although the Japanese version will run till the end of December. Software programmes Microsoft Student and Encarta Premium will stop production by June. Those with premium services as of 30th April will receive a refund for services paid beyond that date and will have access to premium services until October.

The posting reads: "Encarta has been a popular product around the world for many years. However, the category of traditional encyclopedia and reference material has changed. People today seek and consume information in considerably different ways than in years past."

It appears that the free online encyclopaedia has forced Encarta and just about every other online encyclopaedia off the market. According to Hitwise, an internet tracker website, Wikipedia accounts for 97% of all online encyclopaedia visits in the United States. Encarta is second, but only forms 1.27% of the market. Third is Encyclopedia.com, with 0.76%.

Although the services will be stopped, the company believe that the assets gained from Encarta may be used in developing "future technology solutions."

Other Microsoft software being stopped include OneCare, a consumer antivirus product; Equipt, a subscription security software package; and its Flight Simulator software.

Story from The Register

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Mr Allingham, who is one of just two of the country's surviving World War I veterans, the oldest Royal Navy veteran, the last founder member of the RAF and the sole survivor of the Battle of Jutland, today beat the previous record held by Welshman John Evans, who died in 1990.

Mr Allingham spent a day near Brighton, at St Dunstan's care home for blind ex-service personnel. Tomorrow, Mr Allingham will be made an honorary member of the Royal Naval Association at a low-key presentation at St Dunstan's.

His close friend and founder of the First World War Veterans' Association, Dennis Goodwin, said: "He has achieved another milestone in his long life and is raising the bar of longevity. To be honest the last two years have been littered with milestones but this one is nice for him. The next one will come when he becomes a 'teenager' again when he reaches 113 in June [6th]."

Earlier in the month, French ambassador Maurice Gourdault-Montagne promoted Allingham's current Legion d'Honneur, from the rank of chevalier (knight) to officer.

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The annual award presented by "The Bookseller" magazine went to the book written by Professor Philip M. Parker and published by Icon Group International after an internet poll of six books. The winner received 32% of the vote.

Philip Stone, charts editor for "The Bookseller", said that the book "is a fitting champion given that today's public are more aware of green issues than ever. It highlights an area that, perhaps, we are all guilty of ignoring as we push our trolleys down supermarket aisles".

The custodian of the prize and diarist for "The Bookseller", Horace Bent, said: "Given that three times in the 21st century the public have crowned somewhat vulgar titles the winner ("High Performance Stiffened Structures", "Living with Crazy Buttocks" and, most recently, "If You Want Closure in Your Relationship, Start with Your Legs"), I assumed either "Strip and Knit with Style" or "Curbside Consultation of the Colon" would pick up the 2008 award. But I'm thrilled the public steered clear of smut and bestowed the 'odd title' prize on Professor Parker's worthy winner".

Although "The 2009-2014 World Outlook for 60-milligram Containers of Fromage Frais" was a clear winner, the book is a controversial choice, as Professor Parker did not write the book, but instead used an automated authoring invention, which produces titles on the basis of internet and database searches.

Below are a full list of winners over previous years.

* 1978 - "Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Nude Mice" by various authors.

* 1979 - "The Madam as Entrepreneur: Career Management in House Prostitution" by Barbara Sherman Heyl.

* 1980 - "The Joy of Chickens" by Dennis Nolan.

* 1981 - "Last Chance at Love - Terminal Romances" by various authors.

* 1982 - "Population and Other Problems: Family Planning, Housing 1,000 million, Labour Employment" by various authors.

* 1983 - "The Theory of Lengthwise Rolling" by A. I. Tselikov, G. S. Nikitin and S. E. Rokotyan.

* 1984 - "The Book of Marmalade: Its Antecedents, Its History, and Its Role in the World Today" by Anne Wilson.

* 1985 - "Natural Bust Enlargement with Total Power: How to Increase the other 90% of Your Mind to Increase the Size of Your Breasts" by Donald L. Wilson.

* 1986 - "Oral Sadism and the Vegetarian Personality" by Glenn C. Ellenbogen.

* 1987 - No award given.

* 1988 - "Versailles: The View From Sweden" by Elaine Dee and Guy Walton.

* 1989 - "How to Shit in the Woods: An Environmentally Sound Approach to a Lost Art" by Kathleen Meyer.

* 1990 - "Lesbian Sadomasochism Safety Manual" by Pat Califia.

* 1991 - No award given.

* 1992 - "How to Avoid Huge Ships" by John W. Trimmer.

* 1993 - "American Bottom Archaeology" by Charles J. Bareis and James W. Porter.

* 1994 - "Highlights in the History of Concrete" by C. C. Stanley.

* 1995 - "Reusing Old Graves: A Report on Popular British Attitudes" by Douglas Davies and Alastair Shaw.

* 1996 - "Greek Rural Postmen and Their Cancellation Numbers" by Derek Willan.

* 1997 - "The Joy of Sex, the Pocket Edition" by Alex Comfort.

* 1998 - "Developments in Dairy Cow Breeding: New Opportunities to Widen the Use of Straw" by Gareth Williams.

* 1999 - "Weeds in a Changing World: British Crop Protection Council Symposium Proceedings No. 64" by Charles H. Stirton.

* 2000 - "High Performance Stiffened Structures" by IMechE (The Institution of Mechanical Engineers).

* 2001 - "Butterworths Corporate Manslaughter Service" by Gerard Forlin.

* 2002 - "Living with Crazy Buttocks" by Kaz Cooke.

* 2003 - "The Big Book of Lesbian Horse Stories" by Alisa Surkis and Monica Nolan.

* 2004 - "Bombproof Your Horse" by Rick Pelicano and Lauren Tjaden.

* 2005 - "People Who Don't Know They're Dead: How They Attach Themselves to Unsuspecting Bystanders and What to Do About It" by Gary Leon Hill.

* 2006 - "The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America: A Guide to Field Identification" by Julian Montague.

* 2007 - "If You Want Closure in Your Relationship, Start with Your Legs" by Big Boom.

Story from The Bookseller

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500 small, globe-shaped robots produced by Japan's Weather News information company have been produced. The robots are installed in home across the country and gauge the amount of pollen in the air to give suffers warnings, based on a scale from one to five. This information is collected by the company and posted on the internet.

Spokesperson Naoko Tani said: "You cannot really see pollen, but these detectors help you find out the exact pollen levels at a particular location at a particular time."

According to experts, changes in lifestyle and housing environments have caused an increase of hay fever sufferers. Most of pollen in Japan comes from cedar trees, which cover over 10% of the country. Symptoms of hay fever include sneezing, headaches and watery eyes.

Story from New Tang Dynasty Television

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One featuring Cowen holding his underpants hanging in the Hibernian Academy, and another of him sitting on a lavatory in the National Gallery were removed by the police. The painter, who is not known, may face questioning by police.

While the National Gallery admit that the police called in, they were reluctant to comment further on the issue. They did however say that the painting had only been up form more than 20 minutes before it was removed. The gallery said in a statement that: "It was not authorised to be on display and garda are investigating."

The painting at the Hibernian Academy is still on the premises, but is now out of public view, inside an office. One woman who saw the painting was reported as wanting to buy it. They are considering whether to call the police or not to investigate the picture they were given, but a spokeswoman said that they did not want to go into the matter further saying: "We don't want to make more of it than it is."

The Irish police currently have the National Gallery painting and have announced an investigation.

Story from the BBC

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