Welsh flower power

BBC

Trials are being carried out in mid Wales to see whether daffodils could be farmed there to produce a compound used to fight Alzheimers disease.

The compound called galantamine has previously been collected from plants in the wild and has been found to slow down the progress of the disease.

A six month trial on seven sites in the Black Mountains is currently under way.

…………

Why Wales? Daffodils there appear to have a particularly high level of galantamine.

Pink flamingo endangered? The end of an era.

MSNBC.com
…the original version of the plastic flamingo may be singing its swan song after inspiring countless pranks — and being alternately celebrated as a tribute to one of nature’s most graceful creatures and derided as the epitome of American pop culture kitsch.

Union Products Inc. stopped producing flamingos and other lawn ornaments at its Leominster factory in June, and is going out of business Nov. 1 — a victim of rising expenses for plastic resin and electricity, as well financing problems.

$100 jalopy is world’s fastest car

Ananova
A Wolverhampton man has spent 25 years and £100,000 [about $180,000] on turning a £60 [$100 jalopy] into the world’s fastest car. Andy Frost has turned his 1972 K-reg Vauxhall Victor into a supercar capable of 0-60 in just one second.

The car is fitted with a modified 9.3-litre Chervrolet engine and takes just 7.8 seconds to hit 183mph, reports The Sun. Andy said: “We could’ve had a bigger house. But we have a unique car faster than any other on the road.”

Wife Debbie said: “The car’s become like one of the family.”

Third class, I assume. First class is too expensive.

Ananova
A prisoner wrapped himself in a large parcel and posted himself to freedom from a jail in Austria. Bosnian Muradif Hasanbegovic, 36, was serving a seven-year sentence for robbery in the Karlau prison, near Graz.

He escaped from the workshop where he helped package and post parts for lampposts. The man packed himself up in a parcel, and other convicts loaded him onto a lorry. Once clear of the prison he broke out of the parcel, jumped off the back of the lorry and fled.

The lorry driver told police: “I noticed the tarpaulin had a hole in it just as the prison called me and asked Have you noticed anything funny? We are kind of missing a prisoner.”

Prison warden Franz Hochstrasser said: “This sort of thing was not supposed to happen. Guards need to count prisoners at the end of working hours. We are investigating the case.”

Hasanbegovic is still on the run.