VIENNA FUNERAL
SERVICE LOSES CORPSE
Christoph Waltz famously said that the Viennese
spend their entire life preparing for their demise.
While this may be true, getting lost after death is
certainly not something they plan for. Last month, a
casket slid out of. One of the Vienna Funeral
Service’s transporters and fell onto the road. A faulty
lock was to blame for this blunder. The coffin was
completely destroyed, the body, however, remained
unharmed. The driver immediately moved the body
to a paramedical casket and covered the shattered
casket. The accident happened on Rosenhügel-
strasse, on the way to the mortuary in Liesing. The
Vienna Funeral Service has expressed their regret
and declared they will inform any family members.
Thirty thousand transports are carried out by the
Vienna Funeral Service annually, but this is the first
time an incident like this has occurred.CARINTHIAN GOAT HAS THE
LONGEST HORN SPREAD IN
THE WORLD
His name is Rasputin and his service to the motherland is sizeable
indeed: With a horn spread of 135.2 cm (60.3 inches),
the largest in the world, the Valais Blackneck goat proudly
represents Austria in the Guinness World Records 2017.
The record-breaking goat is named after Grigori Rasputin,
the mystical advisor to Russia’s Czar Nicholas II, famed for his
piercing stare and distinctive long black beard. Rasputin lives in
Stockenboi, Carinthia. According to his owner, Rasputin
“is a very nice goat, he never hurt anybody, he’s very careful.”WEIRD NEWS
PHOTOS: FROM TOP TO BOTTOM, LEFT TO RIGHT: GUINESS WORLDRECORDS; SHUTTERSTOCK; ILLUSTRATIONS: KARIN DREHER, KARIN-GRAFIKDESIGN.COM.
Truth is stranger than fiction, aside from politics and business,
what has Vienna and the rest of the world been up to?AN AMAZING
SPREADDROPPING DEAD
BRAIN DRAIN
COUNTING
SHEEP
A NEW ONLINE TV CHANNEL
HELPS YOU DOZE OFF GENTLY
Do you like falling asleep on the couch while watching TV
but dread missing something? Time to try Napflix! The new
online TV channel, founded by the Spaniards Víctor de Tena
and Francesc Bonet, wants to take the “siesta to the next
level” by streaming the world’s most boring videos for free.
Features like a timer and a siesta mode let you enjoy a
peaceful slumber at any time of the day. Napflix offers
classics like the sound of rain, an electric fan and a burning
fireplace, but you can also choose more eccentric fare like a
recorded game of Tetris, a Japanese tea ceremony or
Matthew McConaughey watching the rain. Of course, you can
also simply resort to counting sheep – there’s a one-hour
HD clip of a pastoral idyll in Cornwall. napflix.tvBRAIN WAVES STREAMED
ON THE INTERNET
For the first time, researchers have managed to connect the
human brain to the internet in real time. All that was needed
was a device to connect a user and a small, low cost computer
(Raspberry Pi), which livestreamed the data to an open
website for everyone to see. The brain was thus basically
transformed into a node in the Internet of Things (IoT),
proving that brain waves can be streamed online. Behind
“Brainternet” is biomedical engineer Adam Pantanowitz, who
made this major breakthrough in neuroscience with his team
at Wits University in Johannesburg, South Africa. This is just
the first step toward transmitting information in both
directions, which is expected in the future.