Monday 9/14/09

Human Interest News — Posted on September 14, 2009

Escaping the net
Despite newspapers struggling to make money across the United States, a group of Amish newspapermen have discovered the secret to a profitable paper: a clientele that shuns the internet. The newspaper is called The Budget, and though it’s distributed to Amish communities nationally, it’s published from the bustling Amish community in Sugarcreek, Ohio. In 2006, editors at The Budget proposed moving much of the newspaper’s content to the internet. But streams of angry letters from internet-shunning Amish threatening a boycott have all but killed that idea. That may give The Budget, with its 20,000 subscribers at $42 apiece, a rock solid future. After all, if the internet is killing newspapers, wouldn’t you want to print the paper whose audience shuns technology?

Message carriers
It may sound fishy to Western ears, but tattooed fish are reportedly a hot seller in the southwest China city of Chengdu. The AFP news service reports that pet shops in Chengdu use lasers to tattoo “fortune fish” with patterns and characters that many Chinese consider lucky. The price for a set of four fish emblazoned with the characters for “Good Fortune,” “Luck,” “Long Life,” and “Happiness”? About $18.

Lady killers
The gardeners might be happy about what it means for the aphids. But lots of Britons will be bugged by the invasion of tens of millions of ladybugs-the strongest showing for the predatory beetle since 1976. Experts say the invasion can be traced to an unusually warm spring and early summer that gave rise to a huge population of aphids, the ladybug’s favorite meal. From there, it was only a matter of time before England’s ladybug population swelled. How bad is it? One report from Chard, Somerset, claimed that an estimated 10 million red-and-black-spotted bugs infested a local farm, covering its entire 20 acres.

A leg up
The Daily Mail called it “one giant step for jumbo.” And even though the step for Motola wasn’t big, it marked a huge leap forward in helping animals with leg injuries. In 1999, Motola the Asian elephant lost most of her front left leg in a landmine explosion near the Thailand-Burma border while working at a logging camp. Over the past decade, her caretakers worked to fit Motola with a prosthesis-a device that was finally attached to Motola on Aug. 17. To fit the prosthetic leg, caretakers had to knock out the 48-year-old elephant; it took enough anesthetic to knock out about 70 humans.