Welcome to our roundup of 10 offbeat stories you probably skipped over in the past few days. From space‑age soil to a meteorite doorstop, we’ve gathered the quirkiest headlines that deserve a second look.
10 How To Buy Martian Dirt
If you’ve ever dreamed of getting your hands on a kilogram of genuine‑looking Martian regolith, the University of Central Florida (UCF) now offers a commercial simulant for roughly $20 per kilogram, not counting shipping.
The UCF research team has devised a repeatable recipe that mimics the composition of Mars‑type soil, a crucial resource for labs experimenting with growing crops under extraterrestrial conditions. Their formula can be tweaked to replicate the material found on a range of bodies, from moons to asteroids, provided the proper ingredient list is followed.
The methodology was detailed in a paper for the journal Icarus, meaning hobbyists could theoretically brew their own Martian dust at home – though the university’s version is likely more faithful. The investigators already have 30 orders pending, one of which is for half a tonne destined for the Kennedy Space Center.
9 Evaluating The Maya
Using lidar (light detection and ranging) to peer through the dense Guatemalan jungle, a Tulane University team charted thousands of previously hidden Mayan constructions, unveiling a network of cities far larger than scholars once imagined. Their findings, now published in Science, dramatically reshape our picture of the ancient civilization.
The survey uncovered 61,480 distinct structures across 2,100 square kilometres (810 mi²) of terrain. Within that expanse, 362 km² (140 mi²) consists of terraces and engineered agricultural land, 952 km² (367 mi²) is farmland, and 106 km² (41 mi²) comprises causeways linking urban hubs and defensive works.
Formerly, the consensus held that northern Guatemalan Maya were organized into modest, loosely linked city‑states. The new data suggests a sprawling, densely populated region that may have supported between seven and eleven million inhabitants during the Late Classic Period (AD 650‑800).
8 The FBI Agent And The House Of Doom
An FBI officer suffered a gunshot wound after a booby‑trapped wheelchair detonated on a rural Oregon residence.
On September 7, officers arrived at the home of 66‑year‑old Gregory Rodvelt in Williams, Oregon, after a real‑estate lawyer requested assistance with the forced sale of the property. Rodvelt had rigged an assortment of traps before vacating, leading to the agent’s injury.
Court documents liken the scene to a sequence from Raiders of the Lost Ark, noting a circular hot‑tub turned on its side that would roll over anyone tripping a wire, as well as spike strips and the lethal wheelchair. The makeshift device combined a shotgun shell with a fishing line, and an X‑ray revealed a pellet lodged in the agent’s leg.
Although Rodvelt had been incarcerated in Arizona since April 2017, he was temporarily released in August to arrange the forfeiture of his home, during which he installed the traps.
7 A Drink With A Hefty Price Tag
A single bottle of Macallan whisky shattered records by fetching £848,000 at auction, becoming the world’s most expensive dram.
The bottle belonged to the Macallan Valerio Adami 1926 release, a hyper‑rare batch of which only twelve bottles were ever produced. The auction took place at Bonhams in Edinburgh, and the buyer’s identity remains undisclosed.
Distilled in 1926 and left to mature for six decades before bottling, the whisky received custom artwork from pop‑culture icons Valerio Adami and Peter Blake, each designing six of the twelve labels.
The prior record for most costly whisky was also set earlier this year at a Bonhams sale in Hong Kong for another Macallan Valerio Adami 1926. It is unclear how many of the original twelve bottles still exist; one is known to have been opened, while another was reportedly destroyed in a Japanese earthquake.
6 Math Mystery Starts Spirited Squabble
In the past fortnight, the mathematics community has been abuzz with talk that one of its most stubborn puzzles may finally have a solution. Sir Michael Atiyah, a Fields Medalist and Abel Prize laureate, announced he believes he has cracked the Riemann Hypothesis.
First posed by Bernhard Riemann in 1859, the hypothesis asserts that all non‑trivial zeros of the Riemann zeta function within the critical strip lie precisely on the critical line. In lay terms, this conjecture governs the distribution of prime numbers.
While most mathematicians accept the hypothesis as true, proving it hinges on deriving an explicit formula for the “prime‑pi” function, which counts the number of primes below a given integer. Atiyah’s approach was outlined in a lecture in Germany on September 25, but formal verification of his proof could take months or even years.
If his work holds up, Atiyah could earn $1 million from the Clay Mathematics Institute, which rewards solutions to its famed “Millennium Prize Problems.” Skepticism remains high among his peers.
5 Gender Reveal Party Gone Wrong
On April 23, 2017, Tucson‑based border patrol agent Dennis Dickey attempted a gender‑reveal celebration that unintentionally ignited a massive wildfire.
Using Tannerite explosive targets—commercial products designed to burst in a cloud of pink or blue powder—Dickey’s shot triggered a blaze that eventually scorched roughly 47,000 acres, causing millions of dollars in damage.
Although he promptly alerted authorities and confessed, firefighters required about a week to bring the inferno under control. In court, Dickey pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor, receiving a five‑year probation term and an $8 million restitution order.
4 Embezzle From The Rich And Give To The Poor
In Italy, a banker dubbed the “Robin Hood” of his town was sentenced to two years after siphoning roughly €1 million from affluent clients and funneling it to impoverished borrowers.
The saga began in 2009 when Gilberto Baschiera, manager of a local bank in Forni di Sopra, discovered that many desperate applicants could not secure loans. To help them, he quietly transferred modest sums from wealthy accounts into the poor clients’ ledgers, boosting their creditworthiness.
Clients initially expressed gratitude and promised swift repayment, but several never returned the money. After seven years, auditors uncovered the discrepancies, and Baschiera was handed over to authorities. By then, about €1 million remained unaccounted for.
The court’s lenient plea bargain spared him prison time, but he lost his job, his home, and the trust of his community. He now admits the price of his altruism was too steep.
3 The Penniless Billionaire Ice Cream Vendor
Pakistani street‑vendor Muhammad Abdul Qadir, who earns a modest 500 rupees daily selling ice cream, found himself at the centre of a baffling financial mystery when investigators discovered a dormant account holding 2.3 billion rupees (about $18.6 million).
The account, opened with the State Bank of Pakistan in 2014 and closed in 2015, was later emptied, withdrawing the entire sum. Qadir claims he never signed any paperwork because he cannot write, and he showed officials a modest slum‑level home to prove his lack of wealth.
Authorities suspect Qadir was an unwitting pawn in a massive money‑laundering operation possibly linked to former President Asif Ali Zardari. The Federal Investigation Agency is probing at least 77 similar accounts used to funnel hundreds of millions of dollars.
2 The World’s Most Expensive Doorstop
A Michigan farmer recently learned that a seemingly ordinary stone he’d used for decades as a doorstop was, in fact, a meteorite valued at roughly $100,000.
The rock entered the farmer’s possession in 1988 when he purchased a farm in Edmore. The previous owner, unaware of its extraterrestrial origin, had employed the meteorite to prop open a door and passed it on during the sale.
Unlike his predecessor, the new owner retained the rock after moving away, using it as a functional doorstop for about thirty years and occasionally sharing it with his children for school show‑and‑tell sessions.
When a geologist from Central Michigan University examined the specimen, she confirmed it weighed ten kilograms (22 lb) and comprised 88.5 % iron and 11.5 % nickel, making it the sixth‑largest meteorite ever recorded in Michigan. The rock is now being courted by both the Smithsonian and a mineral museum in Maine.
1 The Death Comet Returns
Asteroid 2015 TB145, nicknamed the “Death Comet” because its surface eerily resembles a skull, is slated for another close approach to Earth.
First spotted in 2015 by Puerto Rico’s Arecibo Observatory, the rock was discovered on October 30—just in time for Halloween. This year’s pass, however, occurs on November 11, bringing the object to within 40 million kilometres (25 million mi) of our planet, considerably farther than the 482,000‑kilometre (300,000‑mi) encounter three years prior.
Scientists classify the body as a dead comet, meaning repeated solar passages have stripped away its volatile materials. While still deemed “potentially hazardous” due to its size—over 600 metres (2,000 ft) in diameter—it poses no collision threat and will not be visible to the naked eye. Its next flyby won’t happen until 2088.