“It almost sounds like a bad joke: Did you hear the one about the weightless weightlifter? But for the crew on Nasa’s final mission on its Discovery spaceship, it was just another day at the office for Shuttle commander Steve Lindsey. In these latest pictures taken from the International Space Station, he gets in his daily workout where he might be claiming he can lift much more than he could on earth. His crew may also want to improve their personal bests, but looks can be deceiving and the squat machine Lindsey is using is actually a specially made piece of gym kit, designed only to work in zero gravity. He wants to keep in shape after months of preparations, involving an intense exercise programme with daily workouts. All astronauts must go through the hardcore workouts, so they are in top physical condition for the demanding missions. Elsewhere on the spacecraft, crew can catch up on their favourite websites and speak to loved ones on a laptop – solidly attached to the walls to prevent it floating away.” w/ photos

“He doesn’t look half bad for a 5,300-year-old. Since his discovery in 1991, Oetzi the iceman’s true identity has been shrouded in myth and mystery. Just a faceless corpse that has embodied a bygone era of humankind. But experts have finally worked out what the world’s most famous natural mummy actually looked like. Using 3D images of the corpse and forensic technology, two Dutch artists – Alfons and Adrie Kennis – painstakingly created a new Oetzi model. But the one thing they couldn’t determine was his natural eye colour. So they went with brown. The model is on show at the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Bolzano, Italy, alongside his mummified remains. He was unearthed in September 1991 in the Eastern Alps near the Austro-Italian border by a couple of German tourists trekking through the Oetz Valley, after which he was named. He was about 46 years old when he met his violent death.” w/ photos

“You probably wouldn’t pick a 140lbs rottweiler to nursemaid orphaned bunnies and birds. But even kittens are in no danger from Dave the Dog. All he wants to do is look after them. Owner Amanda Collins discovered her six-year-old pet’s maternal nature when she brought home an unwanted French giant rabbit. ‘Dave just walked over to him and started licking him to clean him,’ said the 25-year-old, who runs a pet shop in Blackpool. ‘They bonded straight away. Now they sleep together, and I’ve even seen them sharing each other’s food.’ Miss Collins, who has looked after a menagerie of abandoned animals, soon found this wasn’t a one-off. ‘When I brought home the ducklings, I thought he might not be the same as with the rabbits, but he just went over to them and licked them on the head,’ she said. ‘I filled a paddling pool with water so they could learn to swim in it, and Dave went and laid down in the water so they could clamber over him. He even lifted them out if they got into trouble.” w/ photos

“He is the real-life wizard headmaster giving Harry Potter’s Dumbledore a run for his money. Oberon Zell-Ravenheart, 68, has dedicated his life to studying the Dark Arts – even doing the shopping in his wizard costume and wand. Now the magic master has opened the world’s only registered wizard academy, the Grey School of Wizardry, as he prepares to make Hogwarts and the world of Harry Potter a reality. ‘If you’ve ever read Harry Potter and wondered if wizards really do walk among us, perhaps behind a secret train platform, or in secret communities, I can tell you that we are absolutely real,’ says Oberon, from Catoti, California. Today, Oberon Zell-Ravenheart’s Grey School of Wizardry is the first wizard school to be officially recognized as an academic establishment. Like Hogwarts, the Grey School teaches 16 departments, including Alchemy, Beastmastery, Horse-whispering, wand-making and spell casting. Pupils who attend s unique ‘conclave’ magic schools are split into four ancient houses – Winds, Undines, Gnomes and Salamanders, and like Potter, students study a defence against the deadly Dark Arts.” w/ photos

“A house tour is the highlight of a visit with a proud homeowner, but when one drops in to see Derek Diedricksen, who makes playful micro-shelters out of junk, it is less so. Possibly because the temperature up here on a cold winter day is less so, possibly because his square footage is less so. At about 24 square feet, the Gypsy Junker, made primarily out of shipping pallets, castoff storm windows and a neighbor’s discarded kitchen cabinets, is the largest of Mr. Diedricksen’s backyard structures. The Hickshaw, a sleeper built on a rolling cedar lounge chair (or as Mr. Diedricksen calls it, “a rickshaw for hicks”), is considerably smaller, at 2 1/2 feet wide by 6 1/2 feet deep. The Boxy Lady, two cubes on a long pallet, is the smallest: 4 feet tall at its highest point. For ingenuity, thrift and charm, Mr. Diedricksen’s tiny structures are hard to beat. Made of scavenged materials, they cost on average less than $200 to build. They often have transparent roofing, which allows a fine view of the treetops, particularly in the smallest ones, where the most comfortable position is supine.” w/ photos

“This orangutan at Moscow zoo gets to the core of his hunger problem as he chomps down on not one, not two, but seven apples all at once. The content primate was photographed by martial arts teacher, Olga Dmitrieva, 51, on an outing to the zoo. He playfully tossed one of the apples in the air before sitting happily and shoving in as many as he could. Olga said: ‘Sometimes the orangutans use apples like balls. This one crammed his mouth full – he seemed to do it for fun.” w/ photos

“A giant mutant fish is believed to be targeting swimmers in an Indian river after developing a taste for human flesh. The goonch, a huge type of catfish, is believed to have been feeding on corpses thrown into the Great Kali after funeral ceremonies. Locals have believed for years that a mysterious monster lurks in the water, but now they think it has moved on from scavenging to attacking swimmers venturing into the river, along the India-Nepal border. The mysterious creature has been investigated by biologist Jeremy Wade for a TV documentary to be shown on Five. He said: ‘The locals have told me of a theory that this monster has grown extra large on a diet of partially burnt corpses. ‘It has perhaps got this taste for flesh by feasting on the remains of funeral pyres. ‘There will be a few freak individuals that grow bigger than the other ones and if you throw in extra food, they will grow even bigger.’ Mr Wade caught a goonch which topped the scales at 161lb and was nearly 6ft long – a world weight for the species. He said: ‘If that got hold of you, there would be no getting away.” w/ photos

“You’ve all heard the one about a horse walking into a bar. But this really is the case for Basil the stallion who loves nothing more than relaxing with a refreshing pint in his local. The Welsh Cob visits his favored watering hole every Sunday at the Meynell Ingram Arms in Burton, Staffordshire. He enjoys mingling with the locals as he relaxes and with his favorite tipple in the country pub. The pony’s favorite drink is the locally brewed ale Marson’s Pedigree, which is always waiting for him at the bar in his very own glass. Manager Guy Wallis added: said: ‘Basil is one of a kind. He’s been coming in the pub for years. ‘After he’s been for a ride he loves nothing more than to come inside for a quiet pint, with the locals. ‘He’s very cool and this is his ideal place to relax. He’s a hit with the locals and everyone loves having him around. ‘It doesn’t seem strange having him in the pub, because he’s like one of the regulars, he just pokes his head round the door and comes in and has a drink, just like everyone else.’ But the nine-year-old 14.2 hands pony had been trying to get in for years, before the landlord gave in and let Basil drink his favorite brew.” w/ photos

“It’s a gadget that could help make men a bit more understanding at certain times of the month – or at least give them advance warning of a partner’s sudden mood swings. A wristband has been designed to change colour when a woman is suffering from pre-menstrual syndrome. It works by monitoring subtle changes in a woman’s body temperature during her monthly cycle – and has been dubbed ‘Help for Husbands’ by inventor Karl Dorn. The 43-year-old plasterer from from Southend, Essex, has now won a place in the final of a competition run by a local millionaire who is offering more than $100,000 for money-spinning ideas. In fact, the PMS wristband is more an idea than an invention at the moment as there is no working prototype and no patent.” w/ photos

“A hotel housekeeper has won a place in the record books after becoming the fastest person in the world to make a king-sized bed. Putting most people to shame, it took Louise Waller took just 95 seconds to transform the bed from unmade to a professionally smart finish, during a recent event in London. In that time she had to deal with two pillows with pillow cases, a mattress cover, a king size bed sheet, a king size duvet and duvet cover and a bed runner. While 30-year-old Waller is understandably happy about the record, she also realizes it also means she will have a hard time convincing her partner to do it at home.” w/ photos