Originally Posted by article

Australia - The Australian Police Journal reported that an elderly woman had already used about half of the powder in a custard packet when she discovered an object that appeared to be a large dead cockroach. However, when she brought it to the Health Department, food analysts determined it to be a dried-up human finger. The following investigation revealed that a factory worker had lost two fingers in a machine with rotating blades. One finger had been found. The other had made its way into the custard packet the woman had bought.

Originally Posted by the Buzz

CANBERRA, Australia - An allegedly drunk driver stunned pursuing police in northern Australia by jumping into the back seat with his three passengers, leaving his car to careen out of control on an Outback road, police said Monday.

Police charged the 24-year-old man with resisting arrest and driving under the influence of alcohol after he abandoned the wheel on Saturday, ignoring the police car's siren and signals to pull over, said Sgt. Wayne Jenkinson, a police officer in the Northern Territory town of Katherine.

One of the car's passengers suffered minor injuries when she panicked and jumped from the driverless car while it was still rolling 25 miles per hour, he said.

The runaway car then rapidly lost speed, allowing a policeman to get out of his vehicle, chase it down on foot and bring it to a halt by applying the brake.

The man, who had a blood-alcohol concentration of 0.178 percent — more than three-times the legal limit of 0.05 — was also charged with driving in a dangerous manner, driving while disqualified and driving an unregistered vehicle, Jenkinson said.

Jenkinson said the driver's hazardous maneuver was aimed at avoiding arrest.

"His cunning plan, in his muddled state of mind, was he wouldn't be the driver," Jenkinson said.

He will appear in a Katherine Magistrates Court this week.

Originally Posted by Yahoo News

SYDNEY (Reuters) - An Australian man built up a 40,000-volt charge of static electricity in his clothes as he walked, leaving a trail of scorched carpet and molten plastic and forcing firefighters to evacuate a building.

Frank Clewer, who was wearing a woolen shirt and a synthetic nylon jacket, was oblivious to the growing electrical current that was building up as his clothes rubbed together.

When he walked into a building in the country town of Warrnambool in the southern state of Victoria Thursday, the electrical charge ignited the carpet.

"It sounded almost like a firecracker," Clewer told Australian radio Friday.

"Within about five minutes, the carpet started to erupt."

Employees, unsure of the cause of the mysterious burning smell, telephoned firefighters who evacuated the building.

"There were several scorch marks in the carpet, and we could hear a cracking noise -- a bit like a whip -- both inside and outside the building," said fire official Henry Barton.

Firefighters cut electricity to the building thinking the burns might have been caused by a power surge.

Clewer, who after leaving the building discovered he had scorched a piece of plastic on the floor of his car, returned to seek help from the firefighters.

"We tested his clothes with a static electricity field meter and measured a current of 40,000 volts, which is one step shy of spontaneous combustion, where his clothes would have self-ignited," Barton said.

"I've been firefighting for over 35 years and I've never come across anything like this," he said.

Firefighters took possession of Clewer's jacket and stored it in the courtyard of the fire station, where it continued to give off a strong electrical current.

David Gosden, a senior lecturer in electrical engineering at Sydney University, told Reuters that for a static electricity charge to ignite a carpet, conditions had to be perfect.

"Static electricity is a similar mechanism to lightning, where you have clouds rubbing together and then a spark generated by very dry air above them," said Gosden.

Originally Posted by scotsman.com

A traffic warden slapped a parking ticket on a car - with a dead man slumped at the wheel - outside an Australian shopping mall.

The body of the 71-year-old man, whose identity was not immediately released, was discovered in a car park in Melbourne, The Age newspaper reported.


The man had been reported missing nine days earlier and was known to be seriously ill, the newspaper said.

Nevertheless, a parking officer who inspected the vehicle failed to notice the man inside and issued the parking fine two days before his body was discovered.

Paul Denham, the mayor of Maroondah Council, where the man was found, said the warden was "distressed" to learn that the dead man had been inside the car.

"Our local laws officer checked and wrote out the ticket at the rear of the vehicle and placed the ticket from the passenger side on the windscreen," Denham said.

"The local laws officer did not notice anything unusual regarding the vehicle, and is extremely distressed to have learned of the situation."

Originally Posted by BBC News

A caller to a Sydney radio talk show sparked fears of radioactive contamination in the meat supply.

The New South Wales Food Authority said the glow was caused by the harmless Pseudomonas fluorescens bacteria.

Food authority head George Davey said he understood people would be "shocked" to see their meat glowing in the fridge but said the bacteria were safe.

"It is important to remember that the micro organism responsible for the glow is not known to cause food poisoning," he said.

The bacteria are naturally present in meat and fish but they multiply quickly if food is not stored at the correct temperature.

So the glowing can be a sign that the food is starting to go off and Mr Davey recommends consumers throw any luminous pork chops - or other cuts of meat - straight into the dustbin.

"Remember this simple advice - if it glows, throw it."