And now for something completely different:

Police forces have stored almost 500 major body parts, including organs, unnecessarily without telling the families of victims, an official investigation has found.

The Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) says the human tissue samples were from murder investigations or cases involving other suspicious deaths that date back as far as the 1960s.

An Acpo audit found that the 492 body parts retained by police forces in England and Wales included brains, hearts and limbs.

“Yes, I’d like an argument please.” “An argument? Wouldn’t you rather a nice kidney?”… [doink]

An annular solar eclipse will be visible May 20 from eastern Asia, the Pacific Ocean, and much of the North American West Coast.

A total solar eclipse occurs when the moon passes between the Earth and the sun, casting a shadow that blocks out the sun’s light. But in an annular eclipse, the moon is too far from the Earth and the sun’s light isn’t completely blocked. Instead, a thin ring of glowing fire will be visible around the black circle that is the moon’s shadow.

Times:

If you are planning to see the skyward event yourself, it will begin shortly after 3 pm PDT over southern China, quickly sweeping across Japan. Just before 5 p.m. PDT the eclipse will reach its point of greatest occultation over the central Pacific. By 6:30 PDT it will be visible from Northern California and Nevada, eventually reaching as far as Texas.

Live video by Ustream

More views to choose from at the link.

A Russian man had to be rescued by emergency workers from a rubbish chute where he had jumped to escape his girlfriend but ended up getting stuck after sliding three floors down, officials said Thursday.

“According to the 31-year-old victim, he jumped into the metal chute on the 8th floor to escape his girlfriend,” the emergency ministry branch in the oil-rich Tyumen region said on its website.

There’s a photo of the poor bugger:

We titter – but hoo lordy, that would be really no fun at all. Glad he’s alright.

LA Times:

Donna Summer died Thursday after a battle with cancer. The 63-year-old Summer was known for her soaring voice and sensual purrs that made her a queen of disco when the genre was in its heyday in the 1970s. And it was a title she held well beyond those years.

From The Guardian, a nice collection of the “Disco Queen’s” hits through the years, including this 17-minute version of the 1975 hit “Love to Love You Baby.”

RIP, Donna Summer.

P.S. The image up top comes from here, with a really nice story about Donna Summer that we’ve understandably told before.

From our very own BRI David. Thanks DH!

Cathy Hutchinson imagined picking up her coffee from the table. She thought about bringing the red bottle toward her lips and taking a drink, without any assistance. Then, for the first time since a stroke left her arms and legs paralyzed 15 years earlier, she did it.

This is a really good video about the technology from Nature. Check it out:

Well…sounds peaceful!

Rep. Joe Pitts (R-Pa.) is seeing his foreign policy credentials come under fire after calling for Middle East peace negotiations between deceased Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who has been in a coma since 2006.

Pitts’s remarks were included in a form letter his office sent to a constituent last month. His office blames a bureaucratic snafu, but Pitts’s Democratic opponent in the November election sees an opening.

We see an opening, too: in a local McDonald’s. (And it’s not for manager…)

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It’s hard to know just how true stories like this are, but there’s no doubt that Lawrence Anthony was a remarkable man, and this would be a fitting tribute:

For 12 hours, two herds of wild South African elephants slowly made their way through the Zululand bush until they reached the house of late author Lawrence Anthony, the conservationist who saved their lives.The formerly violent, rogue elephants, destined to be shot a few years ago as pests, were rescued and rehabilitated by Anthony, who had grown up in the bush and was known as the “Elephant Whisperer.”

For two days the herds loitered at Anthony’s rural compound on the vast Thula Thula game reserve in the South African KwaZulu – to say good-bye to the man they loved. But how did they know he had died?

Goosebumps…

Here’s National Geographic on Anthony:

The world is saying goodbye this month to one of the most fascinating conservationists of this generation. Elephant Whisperer – so-called because of his ability to understand and calm otherwise violent and terrified elephants – Lawrence Anthony passed away from a heart attack on March 2, 2012, during a business trip to Johannesburg, South Africa.

And the New York Tmes. They talk about the work Lawrence did in Baghdad. This is what he arrived to:

He arrived at the zoo while fighting was still going on to find clouds of flies swarming the carcasses of animals. Looters had stolen many others. Of the 650 animals in the zoo before the invasion, just 35 were still alive, mainly large ones like lions, tigers and a brown bear native to Iraq. They were in such sad shape, he said, that he initially wanted to shoot them to end their misery.

Lawrence Anthony books:

The Elephant Whisperer

The Last Rhino

Babylon’s Ark

RIP, Lawrence Anthony.

After 15 hours of fist pumping, James Peterson felt the super glue holding his right hand closed begin to loosen.

That did not stop him from reaching his goal: 16 continuous hours in an effort to place his name in the Guinness World Records.

Fist pumping to the song Call Me Maybe by Carly Rae Jepsen, Peterson stopped just after 3 a.m. Saturday at Manny’s Pub on Brown Street near the University of Akron.

Um, this song?

That’s funny.

Now: Obligatory fist pump photos.

First, the “I bellow like bull when I fist pump!” fist pump:

And who doesn’t love the “I talk to my fist pump when I fist pump” fist pump?

Beat that, Tiger Woods!

That sound you hear is Dan Brown moaning huskily:

ROME (Reuters) – Investigators attempting to resolve one of Italy’s most enduring mysteries on Monday opened the tomb of a mobster in a Rome basilica for clues to the disappearance of a Vatican schoolgirl nearly 30 years ago.

Enrico “Renatino” De Pedis, the feared head of Rome’s Magliana gang which terrorized the capital in the 1980s, has been linked to the disappearance in 1983 of Emanuela Orlandi, the 15-year-old daughter of a Vatican employee.

Forensic officials, lawyers and members of the Orlandi family witnessed the exhumation on Monday.

They have to investigate the crypt more deeply before they’ll say anything, apparently. And, according to the story, “other bones” were found not far from the mobster’s crypt. It’s all quite the mystery. The New York Times:

Some theories have it that Orlandi was kidnapped on the orders of an American archbishop, Paul C. Marcinkus, the former president of the Vatican bank who was linked to a major Italian banking scandal in the 1980s. Others point to an anonymous phone call the Vatican received weeks after Emanuela’s disappearance, demanding the release of Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turkish gunman who shot Pope John II in St. Peter’s Square in 1981, in exchange for her release.

Background on Enrico “Renatino” de Pedis.

The missing schoolgirl, Emanuela Orlandi.

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