Seven Days

A glance at the week that was

Shocks light ecotree

An aquarium in Japan is using an electric eel to illuminate its ecofriendly Christmas tree. Whenever the eel moves it charges two panels with enough electricity to light up the two-metre-tall tree in bursts. For the past five years the aquarium in Kamakura, near Tokyo, has used the eel-powered display to promote ecofriendly energy measures. It also features a singing, dancing Santa robot that springs to life whenever visitors stamp on a pad beneath their feet.

Kiwis claim eggy victory

A long-standing dispute between Australia and New Zealand over who invented the pavlova appears to have been settled by the Oxford English Dictionary. The meringue-based dessert was originally named after the Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova, who visited both countries in the 1920s. However, since relaunching online on Tuesday, the OED cites the recipe's first appearance as being in the 1927 New Zealand cookbook Davis Dainty Dishes, whereas its appearance in Australia reportedly came as late as 1935.

We now know

Rowan Somerville has won the Literary Review’s award for bad sex in fiction.

There are three times as many stars as previously calculated, according to a study in the journal Nature.

Deforestation in the Amazon rainforest is at its lowest rate for 22 years, say Brazilian officials.

"What's wrong with him? Is he, you know, some kind of weird simpleton? Is he drunk? By the way, is he gay?"

Johnny Depp says Disney initially didn’t understand or like his interpretation of Capt Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean

Numbers

€4,800: The price a handwritten poem by Seamus Heaney fetched at auction in Dublin

€100,000:The pay cut Irish football manager Giovanni Trapattoni has taken on his alleged €1.8m package

$96,824:The cost for every item in The Twelve Days of Christmas