“This is the Ugandan aircraft that Africa hopes will thrust it right into the space race. Constructed amidst the rubble of his mother’s backyard, ambitious Chris NSamba believes the African Skyhawk will lead to his continent launching its first astronaut into orbit. The African Space Research Programme founder has been helped by 600 volunteers in partially achieving the first stage of his dream – the creation of the plane that will penetrate the edge of space by flying at 80,000ft. And once the African Skyhawk has had a successful test flight sometime next year, the 28-year-old plans to turn his hand to building the continent’s first space shuttle. He firmly believes it will launch in the next ‘four to six years’. But given the condition of his project at the moment, he might be advised to buy a gigantic rubber band to help it on its way.” w/ photos

“She admits she has a fear of germs. But for her new art installation, Miru Kim has decided to live with pigs for 104 hours, non-stop. The former medical student is staying in a pen at the front of one of the galleries at Art Basel Miami 2011, and visitors can watch her, naked, through the window. She will eat and sleep alongside the animals for the next four days. And getting down in the dirt wasn’t easy for the 30-year-old, who suffered badly with obsessive-compulsive disorder as a child. ‘It’s a very concentrated industrial environment, so the level of smell is toxic,’ she told the Huffington Post. ‘I get into a mental zone when I am doing a shoot. After I’m done, however, if I can’t get the smell off my feet, it’s very disturbing.” w/ photos

“A 2,625ft-long drug-smuggling tunnel discovered running under the Mexican border has been described by police as the ‘most sophisticated ever’. The tunnel scheme, which links warehouses in San Diego and Tijuana, even has a hydraulic lift to take people and contraband underground. It is the latest in a spate of secret passages found smuggling drugs from Mexico into the U.S. ‘It is clearly the most sophisticated tunnel we have ever found,’ said Lauren Mack, a spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in San Diego. Mexican soldiers found the entrance on the south side of the border at a Tijuana warehouse, near the airport, after the U.S. opening was discovered.” w/ photos

“A nature-lover has revealed how he spent two days tracking down a giant insect on a remote New Zealand island – and got it to eat a carrot out of his hand. Mark Moffett’s find is the world’s biggest insect in terms of weight, which at 2.5 ounces is heavier than a sparrow and three times that of a mouse. The 53-year-old former park ranger discovered the giant weta up a tree and his real life Bug’s Bunny has now been declared the largest ever found. He came across the cricket-like creature, which has a wing span of seven inches, after two days of searching on a tiny island. The creepy crawly is only found on Little Barrier Island, in New Zealand, although there are 70 other types of smaller weta found throughout the country.” w/ photos

“A father-of-one has shown off his unusual new thumb after he lost his original in a carpentry accident. James Byrne, 29, had his big toe grafted on to his hand after he severed his left thumb while sawing through a piece of wood last December. Surgeons had first tried to sew his original thumb back on but the blood would not start flowing again despite months of treatment, including using leeches. That’s when the surgeons made their unusual suggestion of using his dominant toe. They said losing a toe would only affect his balance in the short term – therefore outweighing the loss to his foot. His consultant Umraz Khan at Frenchay Hospital in Bristol carried out the operation in September. Now, two months after the operation, the paver from Bristol has a working ‘thumb’ – which he has nicknamed ‘Toby.” w/ photos + videos

“Freeride skiers carve their way down a steep slope of crushed rocks, in the western Austrian village of Haiming, about 28 miles west of Innsbruck… I don’t think of myself as someone who is scared of heights, but these pictures definitely make my feet tingle with the thought of skiing down a steep slope full of rocks!” w/ photos

“If you fancied buying a gold-plated throne that’s fit for a king’s derriere, you would have to be pretty flush to afford it. At $173,883, it might be money down the pan but at least you would be the owner of a unique luxury loo. It was unveiled at the 11th World Toilet Summit and Expo which, believe it or not, looks at ways of improving the planet’s lavatories and sanitation.” w/ photos + video

“In most Western countries, children and their parents would have surely shouted ‘violation of human rights’ if forced to attend classes outside, but at one Chinese learning institution this is seen as an effective way to thwart cheating attempts. Apparently, teachers at the Sihuang Middle School, in Wuhan, had become so desperate to effectively crack down on organized cheating rings, they finally decided the best thing to do was to have students take tests on the school’s playground, [several feet] apart from their colleagues, and under the vigilant eye of supervisors.” w/ photos

“Some believe they became disoriented and beached themselves, while others claim they were moved by a landslide and became trapped in a lagoon. But scientists remain baffled as to how exactly scores of whales ended up in a desert more than half a mile from the sea. The skeletons of 75 whales, believed to be more than two millions years old, were unearthed next to one another, just yards apart, in one of the world’s best-preserved graveyards of prehistoric whales. Chilean scientists and researchers from the Smithsonian Institution are studying how the whales, many of them the size of buses, were found in exactly the same corner of the Atacama Desert in Chile. The bones were unearthed near Caldera in June 2010 during a highway-widening project. So far, the fossils have been found in a roadside strip the length of two football fields.” w/ photos

“Teenager Carl Griffiths may have the biggest feet in Britain, but he’s taking it in his stride. The 19-year-old, who stands at 6ft 8in, has feet that are a staggering 14.5in long – or a size 21. The UK average men’s shoe size is a nine. Unsurprisingly, he regularly has to put up with people accidentally standing on them and struggles to find shoes that fit so has to order them from overseas.” w/ photos + video