Maybe it’s the summer time, but weird beach stories are just dominating the news lately. Yesterday we had a couple of Russian jackasses strapping a mule to a parachute for publicity and today we get news that 500 penguins washed ashore in Brazil, dead as Dillinger.

About 500 of the black-and-white birds have been found just in the last 10 days on Peruibe, Praia Grande and Itanhaem beaches in Sao Paulo state, said Thiago do Nascimento, a biologist at the Peruibe Aquarium.

Most were Magellan penguins migrating north from Argentina, Chile and the Falkland Islands in search of food in warmer waters.

Many are not finding it: Autopsies done on several birds revealed their stomachs were entirely empty — indicating they likely starved to death, Nascimento said.

Don’t you hate it when you leave the house to get something to eat and nothing you like is open? Thanks to Mike Beam for sending this in.

[MSNBC]

Real picture. Thanks to Weird Things reader Mike Beam.

[Telegraph]

Holy moly. A Russian parasailing outfit wants to advertise their services in a grassroots manner that will naturally generate word of mouth buzz. They attach a donkey to a parachute and let him fly around a beach for 30 minutes. The haunting screams from the animal reportedly caused children on the shore to being crying.

Take THAT Old Spice guy!

[AFP]

Military had a laser. It tried to shoot down a moving drone. It worked. Lasers are awesome.

What else is awesome? This quote:

Mike Booen of Raytheon gave USA Today the money quote for the day: “The targets came in over the ocean, and it was a good day for lasers, bad day for drones.”

You hear that drones? Eat it!

As is pointed out by our esteemed publisher, the next Chinese UFO that shuts down an airport better watch its six.

[CBS]

It’s way smarter than me, but a pack of MIT numberheads got together and figured out how to utilize quantum mechanics to circumvent the dreaded “grandfather paradox” of time travel a.k.a. the travel doing something stupid that causes him to never exist. Huey Lewis is down wid it.

[arxiv via Technology Review]

Awkward.

MEXICO CITY — A man with a mysterious bulge under his T-shirt was stopped, searched and detained at Mexico City’s international airport after authorities found 18 tiny endangered monkeys in a girdle he was wearing.

The Public Safety Department said in a statement Monday that 38-year-old Roberto Cabrera arrived on a commercial flight Friday from Lima, Peru, when authorities noticed the bulge and conducted a body search.

The department says Cabrera was carrying the 6-inch titi monkeys in pouches attached to the girdle.

I was going to say this could make a delightful children’s song, then the article goes on to say two of the poor little creatures had died along the way. Which now makes it a mediocre Tim Burton movie.

[LA Times]

Enzo Vincenzi had a poor financial outlook and worse stomach problems. He contacted a Santeria spiritual advisor to help him get his life back on track by cleansing himself of demonic spirits.

That didn’t happen.

Eventually Pacheco took Vincenzi to a lawyer, where he signed away his motel to her. Vincenzi did this in order to save himself from demonic spirits and attempts on his life, according the The Naples Daily News.

Pacheco then evicted Vincenzi.

He lost his Jaguar, pickup truck, motorboat and possessions after the eviction — but Pacheco and Torres deny taking his vehicles, according to court docments.

Now Vincenzi is suing Pacheco to get back his motel.

Don’t feel bad Enzo, we’ve all fell for the the ol’ Santeria Switcheroo at some point.

[Sun-Sentinel]

Boom. How’s that for a Monday morning? That thing looks like the Yeti of cats.

As described by Gadopoder:

These little (big) guys are the oldest living relative of modern day cats. The Pallas’s Cat is the oldest living species of a clade of felids that includes the modern genus Felis. This feline, along with the extinct Martelli’s Cat, was probably one of the first two modern cats to evolve from Pseudaelurus approximately 12 million years ago.

Hit up their site for more pics.

[Gadopoder]

We reported this when it first happened, but this footage is pretty clear proof that someone weird was going on in the sky over the Xiaoshan Airport earlier this month.

Thanks to Weird Things reader Glenn for sending this in.

Save the Lars Homestead! Head here for more information.

Awesome.

VIENNA (AFP) – Two young ring-tailed lemurs which had escaped from Salzburg zoo five days ago have been recaptured by their keepers in a hotel bar in a nearby village, according to local media reports Friday.

The two-year-old males had escaped from Salzburg’s Hellbrunn zoo on Sunday afternoon, journeying around 25 kilometres (15 miles) over the next four days.

On Thursday morning, they crept through the open window of a hotel in the village of Wals, where staff lured them into the bar with fruits before calling the zoo to collect them.

Disney has already purchased the rights to the story. The big lemur will be voiced by Brad Garret and Bow Wow will play his travel companion. Sam Elliot is already locked as a gruff yet wise gopher.

[AFP]

The official Weird Things review of Inception? See it. Now. Stop reading.

You back? How awesome was that movie? I know! Remember that part when (REDACTED FOR SPOILERS)? So awesome. Anyhow, here is where science is in terms of making all that a reality. Or rather, a dream. The dream you might share as a reality. Or something.

[Live Science]

Ohmygod! Complete underwater volcano! All the way! It’s so intense! What does it mean? (begins crying)

[Nat Geo]

A Polish plant biologist is suggesting that plants are capable of thought.

Plants “remember” information about light, and a certain type of cell transmits that information, much like nerves do in animals.

In the study, which has not yet been published, the researchers found that light shone on one leaf of an Arabidopsis thaliana plant caused the whole plant to respond. The response lasted even after the light source was taken away, suggesting the plant remembered the light input.

Different wavelengths of light produce a different response, suggesting the plants use the information to generate protective chemical reactions — like pathogen defense or food production.

Rick Moranis is terrified.

[Pop Sci]

Not only will Austrian stuntman Felix Baumgartner attempt to redefine the official limitations of which height a human can fall from without dying immediately he also hopes to break the sound barrier on the way down.

Starting in the stratosphere at 120,000 feet above the ground, Baumgartner will leap from a capsule suspended by a helium balloon near the boundary of space.

Sponsored by the energy drink company Red Bull, Baumgartner’s mission — called Red Bull Stratos — seeks to extend the “safety zone” of human atmospheric bailout last set in 1960 by diver Joe Kittinger. This limit defines the uppermost altitude a human being can safely jump from.

Awesome. Also, he’s already leapt off the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro. Double complete rainbow.

[Space]