It turns out the key to a male crocodile's heart is a sonic boom. Crocodiles at an Israeli farm have begun making mating calls in response to sonic booms created by air force planes breaking the sound barrier. From the article: "The males have already begun their mating calls, described by the newspaper as 'the sound a vehicle breaking,' normally reserved for the crocodiles' spring mating season, Israeli newspaper Maariv reported. David Golan of the Hamat Gadar crocodile farm in the Golan Heights, believes the reptiles were responding to the sonic booms, wrongly believing they were the calls of rival males encroaching on their territory

Tasha26 writes "The HR of Swiss bank UBS AG came up with an innovative 43-page document (French) to establish fashion 'dos' and 'don'ts' in their retail branches. Among the rules are such things as: 'neither sex should allow their underwear to appear,' perhaps Dilbert was a bit ahead of them on that. The document also mentions smells and 'avoid garlic and onion-based dishes.'"

reidhellyer writes "From California Litigation Attorney Blog: 'While many victims of the so-called "Nigerian e-mail scam" would be too embarrassed to trumpet that fact, others end up infamous for their victimhood like the appellant in a published opinion of the California Court of Appeal in Riverside. In March 2009, Charles Peters received an email from someone purporting to be a citizen of Malaysia. The e-mail informed Peters that certain third parties in the United States and Canada owed the Malaysian money, but that “they can not transfer the funds to any bank account outside America continent due to their new company policy [sic].” He asked Peters to “assist me in receiving the funds and forward to me.” He offered to pay Peters 12 percent of the money. Peters agreed after apparently negotiating an increase of his fee to 15 percent.'"

An anonymous reader writes "Washington Post reporter Marc Fisher discovered his house had been burgled; money, a winter coat, an iPod and his son's laptop were stolen. Imagine his surprise when Facebook friends of his 15-year-old son reported that a photo of the apparent thief, wearing Fisher's coat and holding a wad of notes, had been uploaded to his son's Facebook account. How addicted do you have to be to a social network to post a status update and upload your photo *while* you're burgling someone's house?"

Unaware that the National Tractor Pull Association exists and that the Waffle House already has a Facebook page, Rob Clayton has founded the American Redneck Society. “I really felt that American Rednecks are an under-served, but large population that could benefit from a formal membership organization structure,” says Clayton. The $20 membership fee gets you retail discounts across the country, and part of the fee goes toward an educational fund for “rural youth.”

No longer will nerds have to fumble with bra clasps thanks to the work of Laetitia Schlumberger. The French designer has come up with a line magnetic lingerie. From the article: "The underwear, about to go on sale at high-end department store Selfridges, features tiny invisible magnets instead of fastenings to overcome the problem of tricky bra hooks. The bra comes with a matching pair of 'clip-on, clip-off' panties, which have magnetic side strips."

JThaddeus writes "The Associated Press reports that 'After nine months of tests, researchers in France have identified the head of France's King Henry IV.' Henry was assassinated in 1610, and his head has been missing. His body was dug up and decapitated during the French Revolution. Researchers found features similar to those in royal portraits, and radiocarbon dating confirms that the head dates to the 17th Century. Interestingly, 'Perfumers on the team used their professionally trained noses to identify specific embalming substances in the mouth used to hide nasty odors.' The results have been published an online medical journal."

A survey of American voters by World Public Opinion shows that Fox News viewers are significantly more misinformed than consumers of news from other sources. One of the most interesting questions was about President Obama's birthplace. 63 percent of Fox viewers believe Obama was not born in the US (or that it is unclear). In 2003 a similar study about the Iraq war showed that Fox viewers were once again less knowledgeable on the subject than average. Let the flame war begin!

The candy company that makes Hot Tamales promised its sales team a trip to Hawaii if it met its annual goals, and a trip to the tundra if it failed. The team didn't meet the goal so the company sent them to Fargo. From the article: "Outside, the temperature was 7 degrees. The ground had 2 feet of snow. Not exactly Hawaii: Honolulu was sunny, and a comfortable 82 degrees. 'Fargo is not what you would think is one of the greatest locales in the United States and technically we didn't make our year,' said Dave Bayha, a Just Born manager. 'It was somewhat of a punishment.'" Well, that don't sound like too good a deal for them, then.

itwbennett writes "Who loves robots? You may love them more or less after seeing what 2010 gave us, robot-wise. It's not the rise of the machines yet, but that teddy bear creeped us out."

Officials at a middle school in Georgia were searching a girl's purse after being tipped off she was carrying a knife, but they didn't find a weapon. They found something just as bad, ibuprofen. Not the usual 200mg pills, but the big 800mg variety. An investigation revealed that the girl had received the pills from her mother, who got the medication from Martin Army Community Hospital. Police then charged the mother with distributing a dangerous drug, while her daughter was only charged with possession. There's no telling what deviant acts a 12-year-old might commit under the influence of four Advil.

It appears the mustelids have joined the war on Christmas. A skunk has ruined $16k worth of toys collected by the city of Purcell, Oklahoma. The toys were part of the town's "Operation Christmas" program, which collects gifts for children from poor families. Somehow an angry skunk got into the shed where the toys were kept and ruined most of them with its spray.

Ponca City writes "The Telegraph reports that an online dating profile created by Julian Assange in 2006 has been unearthed from OKCupid disclosing that the WikiLeaks editor sought 'spirited, erotic' women 'from countries that have sustained political turmoil.' Writing under the pseudonym of British science fiction author Harry Harrison, Assange described himself as a 'passionate, and often pig headed activist intellectual.' Assange said he was seeking a 'siren for [a] love affair, children and occasional criminal conspiracy' adding that he was 'directing a consuming, dangerous human rights project which is, as you might expect, male dominated' and added enigmatically: 'I am DANGER, ACHTUNG.' Among Assange's listed interests were the 'structure of reality' and 'chopping up human brains' – although he added the caveat '(neuroscience background)' lest the latter put off potential admirers. 'I like women from countries that have sustained political turmoil,' Assange wrote. 'Western culture seems to forge women that are valueless and inane. OK. Not only women!'"

Convicted drug dealer Malcolm Alarmo King cited his belief in Festivus to get out of eating the usual meals served at the Orange County, Calif. jail. Instead of salami, King was served kosher meals even though keeping kosher is not one of the tenets of Festivus. From the article: "Sheriff's spokesman Ryan Burris says King got salami-free meals for two months before the county got the order thrown out in court."

Chinese archaeologists have discovered a sealed bronze pot containing what they believe is a batch of 2,400-year-old bone soup. The pot was dug up near the ancient capital of Xian. Liu Daiyun of the Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archeology says, "It's the first discovery of bone soup in Chinese archaeological history. The discovery will play an important role in studying the eating habits and culture of the Warring States Period (475-221BC)." No word on if the archaeologists also found the accompanying ancient crackers.

With all the recent hacktivism in the news, Anonymous has decided to take on a new and powerful enemy: snow. On Sunday the group announced that it will "do everything in its power to shut snow down by attacking the Weather Channel and North Face websites, boycotting outerwear, and voting for the sun as Time’s 2010 Person Of The Year." I'm sure there are a lot of people in Minneapolis right now that would wish them luck.

snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Paul Venezia serves up six real-world tales of IT stunts and solutions that required a touch of inspired insanity to pull off, proving once again that knowing when to throw out the manual and do something borderline irresponsible is essential to day-to-day IT work. 'It could be server on the brink of shutting down all operations, a hard drive that won't power up vital data, or a disgruntled ex-employee who's hidden vital system passwords on the network. Just when all seems lost, it's time to get creative and don your IT daredevil cap, then fire up the oven, shove the end of a pencil into the motherboard, or route the whole city network through your laptop to get the job done,' Venezia writes."

Giuseppe Di Maria, an An Italian hospital director, is in a bit of hot water over a memo he sent suggesting that doctors and nurses should not snort cocaine while on duty. From the article: "Social services chiefs have opened an internal inquiry into the affair and also referred it to the local prosecutor's office. Director of social affairs Guido Scoditti said he had no choice but to pass the matter on to the authorities. 'The director of the hospital has certainly made an error, he should not have sent this memo, he should have informed me directly. The alleged consumption of cocaine in a hospital environment should certainly not be dealt with in this way,' he said."

Falling icicles have killed five and injured 150 people in St. Petersburg alone this winter. Governor Valentina Matviyenko has fired 11 officials over the record number of accidents and has offered some rather hi-tech solutions to the problem. She says, "Icicles should be removed with lasers or steam. If St. Petersburg experts throw up their hands and say that icicles should be removed using crowbars, then we will use crowbars."

In an attempt to deal with the massive amount of people leaving the city, and meet the budget, Detroit Mayor Dave Bing has proposed cutting off all but seven neighborhoods from city services. People not in the select seven face living without garbage pickup, police patrols, road repair and street lights. From the article: "Karla Henderson, a city planning official leading the mayor's campaign, said in an interview Thursday that her staff had deemed just seven to nine sections of Detroit worthy of receiving the city's full resources. She declined to identify the areas, but said the final plan could include a greater number." Looks like RoboCop Detroit is getting closer to reality.