By CARL ZIMMER

NY Times — LITCHFIELD, Conn. — “This guy’s the champion,” said Patricia Brennan, a behavioral ecologist, leaning over the nether regions of a duck — a Meller’s duck from Madagascar, to be specific — and carefully coaxing out his phallus.

The duck was quietly resting upside-down against the stomach of Ian Gereg, an aviculturist here at the Livingston Ripley Waterfowl Sanctuary. Dr. Brennan, a post-doctoral researcher at Yale University and the University of Sheffield, visits the sanctuary every two weeks to measure the phalluses of six species of ducks.

When she first visited in January, the phalluses were the size of rice grains. Now many of them are growing rapidly. The champion phallus from this Meller’s duck is a long, spiraling tentacle. Some ducks grow phalluses as long as their entire body. In the fall, the genitalia will disappear, only to reappear next spring.

The anatomy of ducks is especially bizarre considering that 97 percent of all bird species have no phallus at all. Most male birds just deliver their sperm through an opening. Dr. Brennan is investigating how this sexual wonder of the world came to be.

…

Dr. Brennan was oblivious to bird phalluses until 1999. While working in a Costa Rican forest, she observed a pair of birds called tinamous mating. “They became unattached, and I saw this huge thing hanging off of him,” she said. “I could not believe it. It became one of those questions I wrote down: why do these males have this huge phallus?”

A bird phallus is similar — but not identical — to a mammalian penis. Most of the time it remains invisible, curled up inside a bird’s body. During mating, however, it fills with lymphatic fluid and expands into a long, corkscrew shape. The bird’s sperm travels on the outside of the phallus, along a spiral-shaped groove, into the female bird.

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jay: CORKSCREW! i kind of wish i was pre-1999 dr brennan or pre-april 30th 2007 jay patrikios, which is to say that i wish i was still oblivious to bird phalluses. because now that i know about duck cockscrew, i will never be the same again.

AP - SEATTLE - There were a few surprises for the University of Washington’s Class of 1957 when they opened a time capsule sealed 50 years ago.

Among audiotapes and copies of the yearbook and school newspaper were 1980s-era porn, a condom and some dirty underwear.

Alumni opened the capsule earlier this week in preparation for a public unveiling Saturday during a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the university’s communications program. The capsule had been placed in an interior wall of the then-new Communications Building in 1957.

There aren’t any suspects in the case. But it was located outside the offices of The Daily — the campus newspaper — and it’s assumed someone from the paper was responsible for the revisionism, said communication alumni and development manager Victoria Sprang.

jay: um, not to kick a person when they’re down but aren’t time capsules supposed to be sealed, in like, concrete and not kept open like an after-hours video return? what’s that? you figured it would be easier to open this way? of course. you were a very thoughtful year, 1957. as a representative of 2007, i want to send you our sincerest thanks.

dan: jay, does anyone own futureporn.org?

AP - WELLINGTON, New Zealand - A grandmother was alarmed to find a condom in a happy meal gift pack bought for her 7-year-old granddaughter at a McDonald’s restaurant in New Zealand, local media reported Thursday.

She [grandma hutch] was aghast when she found the green condom and its packet inside the bag, he [grandpa hutch] said.

“I was pretty horrified really. The fact my granddaughter was going to look in the bag and find this thing. It would be difficult to explain, she’s only seven,” said [grandpa] Hutch.

The outlet quickly swapped the happy meal for a hamburger and pencil case. McDonald’s is investigating the find.

Spokeswoman Joanna Redfern-Hardisty said because of its popularity, the previous happy meal gift had sold out at the outlet and prepackaged sports bags were substituted as children’s gifts.

One was left unsealed for display purposes and “somehow” had ended up with the customer, she said, without explaining why the condom was present.

jay: this is why i practice mcdonald’s abstinence. it’s really the only way to be 100% sure.

rob: awesome explanation, redfern-hardisty. hey, did you notice, by the way that it says she found “the green condom and its packet inside the bag”? yikes.

jay: they anticipated that we would all have exactly one question on our minds. they anticipated correctly. nicely played, associated press.

By TAMAR LEWIN, NY Times
Published: April 26, 2007

Marilee Jones, the dean of admissions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, became famous for urging stressed-out students competing for elite colleges to calm down and stop trying to be perfect. But today she admitted that she had fabricated her own academic educational credentials, and resigned after nearly three decades at the university.

Ms. Jones on various occasions had represented herself as having degrees from Albany Medical College, Union College and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, but she had no degrees from any of those places, said Phillip L. Clay, the chancellor of M.I.T.

Ms. Jones had recently been promoting a book, “Less Stress, More Success: A New Approach to Guiding Your Teen Through College Admissions and Beyond,” co-written with Dr. Kenneth R. Ginsburg. It had made her the guru of the movement to tame the college-admissions frenzy.

jay: delicious too-obvious irony, how i do love you so. you are the icing on the cupcake that is my thrice daily read through the news.

rob: i find her actions wholly consistent with her words, actually. everybody calm down and stop trying to be perfect, she says. just pretend you have the goods, and people are generally way too lazy to check. presto!

jay: you’re right. she is consistent, at least in terms of the book. i stand corrected. question: good for book sales? bad for book sales?

LONDON, United Kingdom (AP) — Hugh Grant has been arrested for allegedly throwing a container of baked beans at a photographer, London police said.

The Metropolitan Police don’t identify suspects who haven’t been charged, but said a 46-year-old man was arrested Wednesday night on suspicion of assault and released on bail. No charges have been filed, police said.

Photographer Ian Whittaker told the Daily Star tabloid that Grant had kicked him and shouted abuse before hurling the beans at him Tuesday morning.

jay: are they sure he wasn’t just sharing the beans with a member of the less fortunate? i, for one, am not sure.

rob: this generosity theory is bolstered by the fact that he was earlier seen throwing the crusts of his cucumber sandwiches at the grubby-faced urchins following his carriage.

Alexei Barrionuevo for the NYTimes

BELTSVILLE, Md., April 23 — What is happening to the bees?

More than a quarter of the country’s 2.4 million bee colonies have been lost — tens of billions of bees, according to an estimate from the Apiary Inspectors of America, a national group that tracks beekeeping. So far, no one can say what is causing the bees to become disoriented and fail to return to their hives.

As with any great mystery, a number of theories have been posed, and many seem to researchers to be more science fiction than science. People have blamed genetically modified crops, cellular phone towers and high-voltage transmission lines for the disappearances. Or was it a secret plot by Russia or Osama bin Laden to bring down American agriculture? Or, as some blogs have asserted, the rapture of the bees, in which God recalled them to heaven? Researchers have heard it all.

The volume of theories “is totally mind-boggling,” said Diana Cox-Foster, an entomologist at Pennsylvania State University. With Jeffrey S. Pettis, an entomologist from the United States Department of Agriculture, Dr. Cox-Foster is leading a team of researchers who are trying to find answers to explain “colony collapse disorder,” the name given for the disappearing bee syndrome.

rob: for the entire 1970’s they tell us that the “killer bees” are coming, and show us maps with dark, creeping masses of swarms coming up from mexico to do us in. “the inevitable advance,” scientists called it. so what does this decline in bee colonies mean? it means it’s time to unfurl the “mission accomplished” banner again.

jay: sweet! i’ll get the aircraft carrier. u-s-a! u-s-a!

dan: spot-on, rob. eat THAT, honey-smugglers!

AP - KANSAS CITY, Mo. - A man fleeing security drowned early Saturday after he leaped over a railing into a moat surrounding a casino, authorities said.

Police said the man, identified as Anthony D. Swopes, 21, of Kansas City, fled while being questioned about his identification at the Isle of Capri casino. A check of the card revealed an outstanding bench warrant.

Authorities were called around 12:30 a.m., and firefighters recovered Swopes about 45 minutes later. He was pronounced dead at a hospital.

It was the second death of its kind at the casino in recent years. In July 2005, police said, a woman apparently jumped into the Isle of Capri moat and later died.

Moats are common fixtures at Missouri casinos. Casino gambling in the state initially was restricted to floating riverboats, but the state’s constitution was amended to allow riverboat casinos to float within manmade moats.

jay: you know what, anthony d. swoopes? way to stick it to the man. there’s no way they’re getting you to appear before a judge on some bullshit charge, is there? right on.

CHURCH HILL, Tenn. - The mother of a kindergartner was charged with assault Thursday and banned from school after officials said she walked into the child’s classroom, pointed a toy cap gun at students and pulled the trigger several times.

It happened Tuesday, a day after the deadly shootings at Virginia Tech, and scared teachers and students, the school principal said.

Church Hill police and Hawkins County school officials met with Heather Nicole Berg, 26, before charging her with misdemeanor assault, police said. She had already been banned from Church Hill Elementary School for a year.

Police declined to say why Berg had the cap gun with her but called her actions “a monumental lapse in judgment.”

jay: why’d she bring a cap gun to a kindergarten class the day after the virginia tech shootings? my theory: she’s a comedy genius. and the small-minded fools in tiny town, usa just can’t take a joke.

dan: that’s gold, jerry. gold! these people have no respect for prop comedy.

AP - TAMPA, Fla. - A first-grader searching his jacket pocket for money found a bag of crack cocaine worth $8,900, authorities said Wednesday.

The 7-year-old boy found the bag Tuesday at Forest Hills Elementary School. It contained 89 grams [3.1oz] of crack, said Tampa police spokeswoman Lisa Parashis.

The boy had been reaching in his jacket when he felt the bag, “got scared and told his teacher,” Parashis said.

Authorities were interviewing the boy and his relatives.

jay: it’s pretty cool that he brought enough to share. 3.1oz may seem like a lot of crack, but if you’ve ever seen seven-year-olds on a binge, you’ll know that he probably brought just enough. nice estimating, timmy.

dan: want to know what’s funny? this one time i put on an old pair of jeans and i found twenty bucks in the fifth pocket. and what did i do with it? i bought twenty dollars worth of crack cocaine!

Mineola, N.Y. (AP) — Talk about your wrong number. An effort to provide constituents with a hotline number that helps track the location of sexual predators backfired for a group of Long Island politicians when they mistakenly listed a telephone number that connects callers to a sex chat line.

“Hey there, sexy guy,” a sultry recorded female voice is heard telling callers to the wrong number. “Welcome to an exciting new way to go live, one on one, with hot horny girls waiting right now to talk to you.”

That’s not what Nassau County Legislator Peter J. Schmitt and seven colleagues intended when they sent out postcards to constituents announcing an initiative with the Long Island-based Parents for Megan’s Law, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the prevention and treatment of sex abuse.

“Apparently there was an error in the phone number,” Ed Ward, a spokesman for the lawmakers acknowledged.

jay: you know what i think, ed? i bet you megan’s-law pranksters did it intentionally. always joking around, trying to make the squares blush. good one.

AP — LINCOLN, Neb. — An angry soccer mom who left her teenage daughter alongside an interstate was ticketed for neglect, Lincoln police said Tuesday. Police spokeswoman Katherine Finnell confirmed this account from police reports:

The 42-year-old Lincoln mom was miffed about her daughter’s poor play on Saturday.

On their drive home the girl flubbed the lines her mom had drilled into her on how to improve her game, so the mother slapped her daughter.

The girl told her mom to pull over. The mom did, near the downtown Lincoln exit off Interstate 80.

The mom yelled at the girl to get out. When she did, her mom drove off.

A teammate’s parent spotted the girl alongside the interstate, stopped to pick her up, then took her to their home and called police.

jay: when is it not just a game? when it’s girls pee-wee soccer. that’s right.

rob: hey, it’s like just “the great santini!” (…though i think he was slightly less of a dick.)

dan: i don’t know. sounds to me like the girl needed a little alone time to work on her lines. you should see what we do to mia when she’s not aggressive enough on the pitch…

AP — WOODMERE, N.Y. — An elderly woman was rescued after being found buried beneath a pile of debris, garbage and animal feces in a home, authorities said. An elderly man was found dead.

Helen Bushwick, 85, was discovered Thursday when volunteer firefighters responded to the two-story house after relatives said they couldn’t reach her. Debris mixed with human and animal waste was piled high in every room, some all the way to the ceiling.

“A six-foot pile of rubbish collapsed on her and trapped her in there,” Erik Kinney, a volunteer firefighter, said of Bushwick.

The man was found Friday when authorities resumed a search. His name was not released.

Bushwick was taken to a hospital where she was admitted with dehydration. Officials weren’t sure how long they had been trapped, but neighbors said they last saw them about a week ago.

There was garbage — “cans, boxes, clothing, papers, whatever you can collect in every room, some spots to the ceiling, some three feet to the ceiling,” Kinney said. “Feces — raccoon, possum and human” were found in buckets and in the trash.

jay: i dunno, sometimes the house just gets away from you. it happens to the best of us. volunteer firefighters = neighbor haters.

dan: rubbish is cool.

AP — CAMDEN, N.J. — Gov. Jon S. Corzine was apparently not wearing his seat belt as required by law when his official SUV crashed into a guard rail, leaving the governor hospitalized in critical condition, a spokesman said Friday.

A state trooper was driving Corzine to a meeting between Don Imus and the Rutgers women’s basketball team Thursday night when another vehicle, swerving to avoid a pickup truck, hit the governor’s SUV and sent it into the guard rail on the Garden State Parkway.

The crash broke the governor’s leg, six ribs, his sternum and a vertebrae. Authorities were searching for the pickup truck driver blamed for causing it.

jay: what’s amazing to me about this story is that IMUS is involved in it. imus is becoming the ‘where’s waldo?’ of news stories. i see him! he’s causing a car accident! and hosting a telethon! and cavorting with robert mugabe with the hopes of improving his image!

BEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese woman survived a plunge from a sixth-floor balcony thanks to a convenient pile of excrement which broke her fall, local media said.

The accident happened when the woman was hanging out laundry on Monday in Nanjing, capital of the eastern province of Jiangsu, the Kuaibao tabloid said on its Web site (www.kuaibao.net).

“Workers happened to be emptying the building’s septic tank, which had not been tended for a long time and had regularly blocked sewage pipes,” the newspaper said.

“She probably stretched out too far and fell … right on to a 20 cm-thick heap of excrement.”

jay: bittersweet, huh? on one hand, you’re not dead. on the other hand, you’re not dead.

dan: she should have known it wasn’t her day. she’s hanging her clothes out to dry six floors above a foot-deep pile of crap?

SAN DIEGO, (AP) — An ice-cream store owner was found dead inside a freezer, authorities said.

Henry Rabinowitz, 60, was the owner of the Gelato Vero Caffe, a popular Italian ice cream shop that he opened in 1984.

Son Aaron Rabinowitz said after he and his father drove to the cafe together Thursday morning, his father walked to the freezer, located half a block from the cafe.

After about half an hour, the younger Rabinowitz went to the freezer and found his father dead on the freezer floor.

The freezer’s emergency door release was working.

Foul play was not suspected.

jay: a nice italian boy named rabinowitz is found dead in a gelato store freezer and no one suspects foul play? you know what, associated press? jay suspects foul play.