Endangered addax antelope born at a zoo

The Brookfield Zoo in Illinois announced the birth of a healthy addax, a species of African antelope considered critically endangered.

The baby was born to first-time mother Ivy, four, and was the fifth calf for father Ishnala, nine.

The Brookfield Zoo was the first zoo in the country to host an addax birth in 1941. The animals were once found across northern Africa, but today only small populations survive in Chad, Mauritania and Niger.

A jump-roping cat!

A 13-year-old Missouri cat named, Kit Kat, showed off his jump-roping skills and broke a Guinness World Record by skipping nine times in one minute.

“By six months, Kit Kat was jumping rope in front of huge crowds at the farm, helping to bust myths that cats can’t be trained,” his owner Trisha Seifried told GWR. Seifried runs an animal talent agency, and Kit Kat’s showbiz resume includes a social media cam­paign for Friskies cat food and an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! “Jumping rope is definitely his most impressive trick, however, because of his age, we do keep his jumping to a minimum. I would say his favourite trick now is high five, he loves high-fiving all his fans at events,” Seifried said.

Man collects 5,548 PEZ dispensers

A PEZ-obsessed New Jersey man’s collection of 5,548 dispensers earned him the Guinness World Record for the largest collection of candy dispensers. Brian Trauman’s PEZ collection began when he found a bag of dispensers from his childhood at his mother’s house in 1999.

“I had a bag of about 100 in my closet at my mum’s place, and my mum decided it was time for her to reclaim that space,” Trauman said. “I had to decide whether to throw them away or keep them. So, I kept them, and decided ‘I’ll just get the rest.’ Little did I know what that would entail!”

Trauman said two of his rarest items are PEZ dispensers bearing the likenesses of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.

Pink Floyd lyrics recreated from brainwaves

In an extraordinary scientific feat, researchers have successfully reconstructed famous Pink Floyd lyrics from brain recordings, marking a historic milestone in brain-machine communication. Led by Dr Robert Knight from the University of California, Berkeley, the study used brainwave data from epilepsy patients listening to Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall, Part 1” to recreate the lyrics, “All in all, it was just a brick in the wall.”

This pioneering effort offers insights into music perception in the brain and holds promise for revolutionising communication for individuals with speech impairments or paralysis. The findings, published in PLOS Biology, hint at a future where brain interfaces could facilitate more natural and expressive communication between humans and machines.

Published in Dawn, Young World, Aug 26th, 2023