Wasted Daily News

The skeleton of a 15,000-year-old Siberian mammoth was snapped up at auction in Paris on Monday for over one-and-a-half times the estimated price.

Dubbed “The President”, the 3.8-metre-high tusked mammoth was sold for 260,000 euros (177,000 pounds) to an unknown bidder by Christie’s in Paris, compared to a 150,000-180,000 euros guide price.

The skeleton of a woolly rhinoceros dating back some 10,000 years also beat its estimated price to sell for 100,000 euros, while rare bird and fish fossils went under the hammer along with a meteorite. Read the rest of this entry →

Mexico is unlikely to allow U.S. artist Spencer Tunick stage a nude photo shoot at its famous Teotihuacan pyramids, citing possible damage to the ancient site.

Tunick has asked Mexican archaeological authorities for permission to photograph masses of naked people at Teotihuacan, Mexico’s oldest major ruins, on May 6.

“The application has been filed and the National Anthropology and History Institute is evaluating it, but it looks like they won’t let him. It’s not the last word but they have told me it will be rejected,” Alejandro Sarabia, who runs the Teotihuacan site, told Reuters on Monday.

Tunick has caused controversy by staging nude photo shoots in cities from Dusseldorf to Caracas. Organizers say the Mexico City event might top his record of 7,000 naked people photographed in Barcelona in 2003.

Teotihuacan, which housed some 200,000 inhabitants at the height of its power around 500 AD, is a series of pyramids and buildings set around a central boulevard and would provide Tunick one of his most monumental backgrounds. Read the rest of this entry →

It seems Felix Dzerzhinsky, legendary founder of the ruthless secret police network that became the Soviet KGB, had a soft side.

The FSB, Russia’s latter-day spy service, plans to publish Dzerzhinsky’s letters to the love of his life, Margarita Nikolayeva, in a book called “I Love You”.

“He is an interesting and complex person and, with the help of the archived material, readers will be able to understand more about him,” Alexander Plekhanov, of the FSB’s academy, was quoted as saying on Tuesday by Interfax news agency. Read the rest of this entry →

Mobile service providers in Pakistan have been inundated by calls from subscribers worried by a prank message that they could die of a deadly virus being transmitted via their phones.

The rumor was so effective that some mosques in the country’s biggest city, Karachi, made announcements that people were being killed by a mobile virus and they should be aware of God’s wrath.

In a prank reminiscent of the plot in the hit Hollywood movie “The Ring” in which people die within a week after watching a video, the prankster warned users that a deadly virus transmitted through phones had killed 20 people. Read the rest of this entry →

Hungary’s busiest highway, connecting Budapest with the Austrian capital Vienna, was closed early on Monday after a truck carrying rabbits crashed, letting 5,000 of the animals loose on the road, police said.

The M1 motorway was closed around 40 km (25 miles) west of Budapest and could remain closed for hours while police try to capture the escaped animals, highway police spokeswoman Viktoria Galik said. Read the rest of this entry →

Richard Gere’s repeated kisses on the cheeks of Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty in an event to promote AIDS awareness sparked protests in India on Monday with demonstrators burning effigies of the actors.

Footage of the Hollywood star sweeping Shetty backwards in a dramatic embrace at the Sunday night event in New Delhi was repeatedly aired on news channels on Monday.

Many saw the act as an outrage against Shetty’s modesty and Indian culture, though Shetty herself angrily dismissed the protests as an “over-reaction” that made India look silly. Read the rest of this entry →

Twenty-six smoking toilets, and three more on fire, put a Japanese toilet maker in the hot seat on Monday.

Toto Ltd., known for its high-tech toilets with bidets that have blow-drying, air purification and seat-warming functions, apologized to consumers and offered free checks and repairs after some of its toilets with bidets and heated seats sent up smoke and three caught fire. Read the rest of this entry →