Kangaroo breaks into home, locks self in bathroom

A startled kangaroo in Melbourne, Australia, jumped through the window of a family home and locked itself in the bathroom.

Mafi Ahokavo and his family were asleep when a loud crash woke them up. Ahokavo soon found out that a kangaroo broke into his house. “I haven’t even seen a kangaroo in my life,” he said.

Ahokavo’s first encounter with a kangaroo was a costly one as the marsupial caused significant damage in the home, damaging items and leaving blood everywhere due to the cut it received from smashing through the window.

Eventually, the kangaroo made its way into the bathroom and somehow locked the door.

Animal rescue Manfred Zabins­kas was called in to handle the situation and found the young, 65-pound kangaroo exhausted, distressed and badly cut. Zabinskas gave the kangaroo a sedative to calm it down and take him out of the house to get medical attention.

Bicycle carving found on temple wall

A carving of a modern bicycle has been found on the wall of an ancient 2,000-year-old temple. The founders of Panchavarnaswamy Temple, which was built during India’s ancient Chola period, may have predicted the arrival of the bike by hundreds of years if these images are correct.

Praveen Mohan, who found the carving and posted about it on his YouTube channel, said: “In a dark corner on one of the walls we can see this amazing carving of a man riding a bicycle. Historians tell us the bicycle was invented in the 1800s, just 200 years ago, but how was this carved in this ancient temple which is about 2,000 years old?”

The world’s first chain-driven bike was developed in around 1885.

Panchavarnaswamy Temple dates back more than 2,000 years — 18 centuries before the invention of the bicycle!

But there is one possible explanation. Ophthalmologist and amateur historian Dr R Kalaikovan also wrote of his bemusement of the sight of the bicycle carving at the temple. Research led the doctor to discover the temple was renovated in the 1920s when bicycles were mass market products.

Dr Kalaikovan said: “Perhaps the sculptor had seen someone on a cycle, was impressed by it and had recorded it forever on stone.”

This seems a plausible explanation but nothing is known for sure how this intriguing and ornate carving came to exist.

World snail racing championship

The race begins with the words, “Ready, steady, slow!” The crowd cheered, but the competitors remained stuck at the start line. Welcome to the world snail racing championship.

More than 150 snails took part in the annual event, held at a summer fete in Norfolk, eastern England, where a silver tankard stuffed with lettuce leaves was the prize.

The snails are placed on a special damp cloth marked with three concentric circles and the creatures race 13 inches (33 cm) to the outer ring.

“We take this seriously,” snail racer John McClean told Reuters.

“We have got training slopes. We look at diet, we are drug compliant as well. It is the whole thing when you look at elite sports.”

The competition has been held since the 1960s, with each race lasting several minutes. Competitors are able to select a snail from the organisers’ stash or bring their own.

Published in Dawn, Young World, August 4th, 2018