A poutine dish breaks the world record

A trio of cheesemakers teamed up in Quebec to make a world record-breaking poutine (a dish with French fries, cheese and gravy) that weighed nearly 6,700 pounds.

The cheesemakers, Fromage Warwick, Fromagerie Victoria and Fromagerie du Presbytere, combined fries, gravy and cheese curds in Warwick to create a total 6,688 pounds of poutine.

Sebastien Lemay, the co-owner of Fromage Warwick, said it took about 26 to 28 hours to prepare all of the cheese curds for the poutine, while the fries were cooked up just prior to the event with the use of 40 deep-frying machines.

The previous poutine world record was 4,409 pounds, cooked up in Trois-Rivieres in 2015.

Zombie or unusual snail?

Recently, a strange video of a ‘zombie snail’ has gone viral on social media leaving many people freaked out. The clip shows a snail flashing green and orange after its body was hijacked by a parasite.

According to the researchers, succinea (amber snails) often become host to the parasitic flatworm, known as leucochloridium. Interestingly, the infected snails than behave differently and are able to move three times faster than their usual speed.

The snail also flashed different colours to imitate caterpillars to birds that then eat the snail. The bird’s intestinal tract provides a space to the flat worm to reproduce and enter another host, thus the process starts all over again.

Unbelievably, most snails survive the fateful event as they have the regenerating capabilities.

‘Funky’ prototype Nike shoes sold for $50,000

A California man got $50,000 for his “funky, old shoes” that happened to be a pair of extremely rare prototype Nike running shoes from 1972.

Dave Russell of Sacramento said the shoes, now known as the Nike Waffle Racing Moon Shoes, were given to him at age 25 when he participated in the 1972 Olympic trials in Eugene, Ore.

Only 12 of the prototype shoes designed by Nike co-founder Bill Bowerman were ever made, and 10 were given to athletes trying out for the Olympic team.

“They were very unorthodox shoes. They were very exotic because the sole was

completely different. It was made on a waffle iron. It was glued to the bottom of the shoe. The shoe was completely handmade,” Russell disclosed.

Massive barrel jellyfish caught on camera

BBC Earth host Lizzie Daly and underwater photographer Dan Abbott released several videos of exciting encounters with marine animals off the English coast on their campaign to raise ocean awareness and funds for the UK’s Marine Conservation Society.

The pair swam alongside various marine animals and on the final day of the tour, they stumbled upon a massive barrel jellyfish off the coast of Falmouth, Cornwall. The sighting of the mesmerising animal was a fitting way to end Daly’s “Wild Ocean Week”.

Abbott, who captured a photo of the jellyfish swimming alongside Daly, estimates the animal was “about a metre and a half long, and probably half a metre in width.”

Barrel jellyfish are not a rare phenomenon in the waters around the UK. However, they are not the world’s largest jellyfish. That honour belongs to the lion’s mane jellyfish, which can attain a bell diameter of over two metres, or almost seven feet.

Published in Dawn, Young World, August 24th, 2019