1,269 cherry tomatoes harvested from a single stem

A British man broke the 10-year-old record of 488 tomatoes when he harvested 839 from a single stem, but he broke the same record a second time just a few weeks later with 1,269 tomatoes.

Douglas Smith of Hertfordshire, England, studied various scientific papers on tomato growing and took soil samples for laboratory analysis, before planting his tomatoes so he would have the best possible chance of breaking the Guinness record for most tomatoes from a single stem/truss.

The avid gardener said he is also in the process of attempting to grow the world’s heaviest potato and heaviest eggplant/aubergine.

Swarms of bugs crawl across the Outback

A wild video from near Quilpie, Australia, a town about 600 miles west of Brisbane, caught thousands of slater bugs moving across red dirt in the middle of the Australian Outback. The sheer number of the creepy crawlies made it look like the surface of the Earth itself was moving.

Slater bugs — also known as roly-polyies, woodlice or pill bugs — are multi-legged, land-living crustaceans found in moist areas across much of the world.

A recent rainfall might be the reason that the seemingly endless stream of bugs decided to scamper across rural Australia.

A Doha hospital only for falcons

In the emirate of Qatar, the desert birds are among the nation’s most pampered residents. Long revered across the Arabian Peninsula for their ferocity and hunting prowess, falcons today serve as sheikhly status symbols. The art of falconry is still passed down from one generation to the next in the Gulf states.

The birds are kept for competing in races and beauty contests. The finest falcons fetch at least a few thousand dollars and Qataris spare no expense to maintain their good health.

Thus the Souq Waqif hospital was established to support the hobby and heritage of raising falcons. It offers bird check-ups, medical tests, feather and beak replacements, orthopaedic surgeries — and even something akin to mani-pedis. It sees at least150 falcons a day — a sign that the echoes of Qatar’s ancient past are not lost.

Centuries old cannonball found on Florida beach

Acannonball, found by a treasure hunter, buried on a Florida beach could date as far back as the 1700s. Craig O’Neal, of Ponte Vedra Beach, found it under about four feet of sand while he was using his metal detector.

Fearing the 20-pound cannonball might still contain unexploded powder, O’Neal contacted the police, who disposed of the device.

Chuck Meide, an archaeologist in St Augustine, reviewed photos of the mortar shell and said it was most likely from the 1800s, but might date back to the 1700s.

“It could have been something fired from the Castillo. There were times when St Augustine was under siege in the 1700s or might also have come from a shipwreck,” Meide said.

Published in Dawn, Young World, April 9th, 2022