Hot seat is a gamble for the gonads

PARIS (AFP) - Men who enjoy warming their bottom on a heated car seat should beware, for they may also be frying their chances of fatherhood, New Scientist reports in its latest issue.

Sperm production is best when the temperature of the scrotum is one or two degrees Celsius (1.8-3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) below the core body temperature of 37 C (99 F).

Testicle-testing German researchers fitted sensors to the scrotums of 30 healthy men who then sat on a heated car seat for 90 minutes.

British councils allowed to adopt red phone boxes

LONDON (AFP) - British towns and villages that want to keep the country’s famous red phone boxes will be able to do so, even if the phones are removed because they are no longer used enough, BT announced Wednesday.

Telecoms operator British Telecom (BT) said it had reviewed an earlier decision to remove the public pay phones — known the world over as icons of Britain — because increased use of mobile phones had made them increasingly obsolete.

Local councils that want to maintain the phone boxes, with or without a working telephone, “for aesthetic or heritage reasons will be able to do so,” the company said.

Several ‘Obamas’ to vie in Brazil local elections: report

RIO DE JANEIRO (AFP) - At least five “Barack Obamas” are vying to stand in October local elections in Brazil, the newspaper O Globo reported, as Brazilian candidates seek to ride on the popularity of the US presidential contender.

The politicians hoping to win municipal councillor positions have asked electoral authorities to register them on ballots with variations of Obama’s name.

One, Natalino Braz, wants to be known simply as “Obama” to voters in her small community near Rio de Janeiro, while Epaminondas Bernardes do Nascimento, competing for a seat in country town inside Sao Paulo state, lodged a request to become “Brazilian Epaminondas Obama,” the daily wrote Tuesday.

Shanghai police to shame jaywalkers on TV

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Shanghai police will post photos and videos of jaywalkers in newspapers and on TV in a bid to shame them out of breaking traffic rules, local media reported on Thursday.

Offending pedestrians, moped riders and cyclists would be snapped at selected intersections and their images put in regular columns and on special television programmers set up by police, the Shanghai Daily said.

The scheme had come under fire from lawyers who said public humiliation was too steep a punishment for jaywalking and warned of defamation lawsuits against police.

Ga. town’s scarecrows h(a)unting for world record

HOSCHTON, Ga. - This small northeastern Georgia town’s population boom is frightening. In a bid to break a world record for scarecrows and scare up some fun for the fall season, thousands of straw-stuffed newcomers are creeping across town.

There’s a scuba diver, the Georgia Bulldogs football team and — of course — the cast of the Wizard of Oz. Even likenesses of Jesus and Elvis popped up.

The 1,700 real residents of Hoschton hope to nearly triple their population with 4,000 scarecrows and break the Guinness World Record for “Most Scarecrows in One Location.”

Scotland declares war on urban seagulls

EDINBURGH (Reuters) - The Scottish government has declared war on increasingly aggressive urban seagulls.

The initial battle will be joined in the southwestern town of Dumfries during next spring’s breeding season when a special anti-gull “task force” will seek to destroy nests and drive out the birds.

Country ordered to pay damages for sailor’s suicide

TOKYO (Reuters) - The Japanese government will have to pay damages to the parents of a sailor who hanged himself after being repeatedly insulted by his superior, in the first such court ruling involving a civil servant, media said.

The Fukuoka High Court in southern Japan ordered 3.5 million yen ($32,000) be paid to the parents of the petty officer third class, a court spokesman said, declining to give further details.

Wag a tail-dogs get their own beach

NICOSIA (Reuters) - Cyprus’s popular holiday resort of Ayia Napa has introduced the island’s first legal beach exclusively for animals after complaints it was becoming a dog’s life for man’s best friend.

Better known for all-night partying by Western tourists, the southeastern resort is now catering for dogs amid growing discontent that pooches had no place to cool off from the sweltering summer heat.

Tunnels show Hitler’s megalomaniac vision

BERLIN (Reuters) - Three vast tunnels were opened under central Berlin this month, giving a glimpse of Adolf Hitler’s megalomaniac vision of a new architectural centre for the capital of Nazi Germany.

The 16-metre (50-foot) deep tunnels were constructed in 1938 as part of an underground transport network beneath a series of bombastic buildings designed by Nazi architect Albert Speer, including the biggest domed hall the world had ever seen.

The overground plans, never completed because of World War Two, included boulevards, squares and huge buildings, such as an arch dwarfing the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, and the 290-metre high Great Hall, with room for 180,000 people.

Holy cow! Cattle possess magnetic compass: study

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Wondering which way is north? You might want to look at grazing cows. European scientists who studied satellite images of cows and deer around the world have discovered that these animals tend to align themselves with Earth’s north-south magnetic fields while they graze or rest.

While birds, turtles and salmon are known to use magnetic guidance to migrate, cattle were not previously known to possess an inner compass.