Odd stories from around the world
Bangkok: The mood was sombre yesterday at Bangkok's Safari World as wildlife officials rang the final bell for the park's kick-boxing orang-utans, reports Andrew Drummond.
After a 20 year run, all animals have been banned from a popular show featuring the orang-utans taking part in bouts of kick-boxing to the musical theme of the Rocky movies. As a result, some 100 of the primates have been placed under what amounts to house arrest.
At the gate of the animals' enclosure yesterday, a lone and bemused orang-utan stared quizzically at reporters and then closed the door, declining to comment.
The Thai Forestry police, in charge of wildlife in Thailand, banned the shows, not so much because of an outcry from animal rights activists over the alleged cruelty, but because they are naturally suspicious as to how such a large number of the protected apes could be imported to Thailand.
Safari World owner Pin Kewkacha denied smuggling the animals from their natural habitats in Borneo, Sabah, and Indonesia claiming that he had implemented a successful breeding programme. "I don't have anything to do with smuggling. I have nothing to confess," he said.
But forestry officials say the numbers, the ratio of mothers to children, just does not add up.
Animal rights groups said the apes were being exploited for easy profits and they were destined for a short and miserable existence after their days in the ring were over.
"It's outrageous. There's no question of it being justifiable in any sort of way," said Cyril Rosen, a board member of the International Primate Protection League.
"If we were doing a cruel show we do not have to let anyone tell us. We would cancel it ourselves," Mr Kewkacha said. "This show has been there for 20 years without anyone complaining about it because it is merely an action show."
Ashgabat: In Turkmenistan, knowing the highway code is no longer enough to get a driving licence. The country's autocratic President Saparmurat Niyazov has told future drivers to cram his own "sacred" writings in order to qualify.
"A 16-hour course of the sacred Rukhnama is one of the most important innovations in the (driving learning) programme ... to ensure future drivers are educated in the spirit of high moral values of Turkmenistan's society," the state news agency quoted a Niyazov decree as saying. Niyazov, Turkmenistan's "president for life" and focus of a flourishing personality cult, wrote the Rukhnama (Spiritual World) as a moral guide to his desert nation of 6 million. The book is already a core part of the school and university curriculum.
London: Number-crunchers have worked out the mathematical formula behind the perfect horror film. Their complex equation has identified why thrillers like Psycho and The Blair Witch Project make such great spine-chillers.
The mathematical model, which looks like this, (es+u+cs+t) squared +s+ (tl+f)/2 + (a+dr+fs)/n + sin x - 1, shows what elements of suspense, realism and gore combine to make a blood-curdling scary movie.
Based on their formula, researchers found that The Shining, the 1980 Jack Nicholson film based on the Stephen King book, made the perfect horror film. They discovered that suspense comprised four essential categories: escalating music (es) the unknown (u), chase scenes (cs) and the sense of being trapped (t). Because suspense is one of the most important qualities in a frightening flick, the equation is (es+u+cs+t) squared before shock (s) is added to the formula.
The experts say that for a movie to be truly terrifying it must be realistic. That's why the next part of the equation sees true life (tl) and fantasy (f) added together and divided by two (tl+f)/2 to find a medium between a plot which is too unrealistic and too close to life.
The smaller the number of characters in a horror movie, the more the audience can empathise with them. And the darker the scene, the more frightening the characters' isolation can become.
So the formula looks at whether the characters are alone (a), in a dark environment (dr) and the film setting (fs) and divides it by the number of people (n) in the film (a+dr+fs)/n.