funny pictures and bizarre news

High-flying men are not as attractive to women looking for love as those with an average job, scientists say. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the University of Central Lancashire research found the 186 female students asked preferred good-looking men.

But within that group, those without top careers were deemed the most suitable, the Personal and Individual Differences journal reported.

The team said women seemed to feel high-flyers would not be good fathers.

We suggest that females see physically attractive, high status males as being more likely to pursue a mating strategy rather than a parenting strategy Simon Chu, lead researcher

Lead researcher Simon Chu said the high-earning career men were deemed to be “too good to be true”.

“Under particular circumstances, high socio-economic status in males can be subtly counter-productive in terms of attractiveness as a long-term partner.

“We suggest that females see physically attractive, high status males as being more likely to pursue a mating strategy rather than a parenting strategy.”

Using photographs of 60 men in their 20s, researchers asked students to rate them on a physical attractiveness scale.

Six from the good looking group, six considered average and six judged unattractive were then selected.

Profession

Alongside each photograph they added information on the man’s age, what he was looking for in a partner and their profession.

The professions included high-status jobs such as architects and company directors, medium-status positions such as teachers or travel agents and so-called lower-status roles such as gardeners and postmen.

The researchers found that purely on looks, the best-looking men were assessed as the best partners.

But within this group, when professions were taken into account, those good-looking men with medium status jobs came out top.

The Italian government has approved a bill to grant legal rights to unmarried couples, including same-sex partners. The highly controversial move came after months of heated debate in the broad, ruling coalition and fierce opposition from the Vatican.

If parliament passes the package, unmarried couples will get greater health and social welfare benefits.

But partners will enjoy inheritance rights only if they have been living together for at least nine years.

The bill, approved on Thursday evening, does not go as far as the civil unions now protected by law in some other European countries.

But Franco Grillini, a Democrats of the Left parliamentarian, said “it still contains important elements, beginning with the recognition of rights for same-sex couples”. He is honorary president of Italy’s main gay rights association, Arcigay.

Equal Opportunities Minister Barbara Pollastrini, a co-author of the bill, said: “This draft law, which is a mark of respect and coherence, recognises rights but also duties.”

The legislation - promised in the centre-left manifesto of Prime Minister Romano Prodi last year - divided the government, which includes centrist Christian Democrats and Communists.

The cabinet vote was boycotted by Justice Minister Clemente Mastella, a devout Catholic.

He said he opposed the bill because “it seeks solutions and guarantees which imitate marriage”.

Pope Benedict XVI has campaigned against legal recognition of unmarried couples, saying the traditional Christian marriage of man and woman must not be undermined.

Same-sex civil unions already exist in France, Spain and Britain.

After nearly two years, a cryptic treasure hunt played out between the real and virtual worlds has been won. Andy Darley from the UK was one of 50,000 players who took part in the alternate reality game, Perplex City.

Gamers from 92 countries have solved clues on the web and around the world in a quest for the Receda Cube, an “artefact” buried in a hidden location.

Mr Darley eventually tracked the object to a wood in Northamptonshire. Finding it nets him £100,000 ($200,000).

“I was playing for the puzzles and the stories, but it was only a few days ago that I thought I was in with a chance,” said Mr Darley.

“As I pulled the Cube from the sticky, wet clay, and even afterwards as I was waiting to return the Cube, all I could think about was how bizarre the whole thing really was.”

Elaborate clues

Perplex city is one of a number of alternate reality games (ARGs) that blur the boundaries between the real and virtual worlds. The first recognised one was The Beast, developed as part of a marketing campaign for the film AI.

They use real world events and clues planted on the internet, television and newspapers to guide players on a real-life treasure hunt.

Perplex City also used puzzle cards, bought in shops and on the internet, that contained optical illusions, cryptography, and riddles. The rarest cards have traded hands for more than £200 on online auction sites.

Music with clues in the melodies and real life parties, often with elaborate scenarios, also led gamers towards the final goal.

Perplex City has been running since April 2005 but speculation about the location of the hidden object has escalated in recent weeks.

Following a recent live event, Mr Darley tracked the cube down to Wakerly Great Wood, Northamptonshire at 0400 GMT on 02 February. To claim his prize and end the game he returned the cube to the Perplex City headquarters in London.

A new Perplex City game will start later this year.

Think you deserve a throne? A U.S. plumbing firm has created a luxury toilet equipped with laptop computer and flat-screen TV which it plans to give away in an online sweepstake.

Ohio-based Roto-Rooter says its “Pimped Out John” is designed to “fulfill all your wildest bathroom dreams.” Special features include an iPod music player and speakers, an Xbox video game console, a refrigerator filled with drinks and snacks and a cycling exercise machine.

“The bathroom is the perfect place for your very own throne. It shouldn’t always be regarded as the room of last resort,” said Steven Pollyea, Roto-Rooter vice president of marketing, in a press release emailed to Reuters.

“The average person spends 11,862 hours in the bathroom, which equals one year, four months and five days in a lifetime… a toilet should be the most wonderful location in your home.”

Roto-Rooter spokesman Paul Abrams said the firm spent about $5,000 on parts and components to customize the toilet.

Any resident of the United States could win this “gleaming monument to personal convenience” by entering the sweepstake at www.rotorooter.com before April 2.

You might never want to leave your bathroom again.

A man who gave up a free space ride because he couldn’t afford the taxes on the contest prize may be going to the cosmos after all.

Brian Emmett, a 31-year-old software consultant from the Silicon Valley town of Mountain View, has signed on to become a consultant to a space tourism upstart in exchange for a chance to experience weightlessness some 60 miles above Earth.

Emmett won a space trip as part of a 2005 sweepstakes sponsored by software company Oracle Corp. He forfeited the prize after calculating he would owe $25,000 in taxes for a spaceflight valued at $138,000.

Enter Benson Space Co., a Poway-based company founded by rocket entrepreneur Jim Benson, who is trying to break into the suborbital spaceflight business.

Benson, who dreamed of flying to space as a boy, said he sympathized with Emmett and offered him a consulting position.

“He had a dream, the dream got broken and we fixed it,” Benson said.

As part of the agreement, Benson said, the company would pay Emmett an undisclosed amount to serve as a “test passenger,” allowing him to hitch a free ride into space in late 2008 when the company hopes to send its first paying tourists. Benson said the partnership frees Emmett from any tax responsibility.

In return, Emmett would offer his feedback during the testing phase of the project.

Emmett said he was grateful for the second chance to go into space.

“My original situation hasn’t changed,” he said. “This isn’t something I could do with my own means.”

Several space tourism ventures, including British mogul Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic, are jostling to develop a suborbital vehicle to ferry rich passengers before the end of the decade. Vehicles would need to get approval from the

Federal Aviation Administration before they could fly out of the atmosphere.Benson’s Dream Chaser will be powered by hybrid rocket motors and can hold as many as six people. The company has not yet decided on a launch site.

A ticket will cost $200,000 to $300,000 — the higher prices for those who want to be in the co-pilot seat.

Authorities have seized nearly 5 million pirated discs and arrested 870 people in a two-month anti-piracy operation in about a dozen Asia-Pacific nations.

Operation Trident involved 1,874 raids by national law enforcement agencies, according to the Motion Picture Association, which coordinated the operation in December and January.

The raids targeted pirate production facilities, pirated optical discs from street vendors, retail shops and markets; and the exporters of pirated DVDs and video CDs, the group said.

Illegal copying of music, movie and software is a costly problem in China, Malaysia, Thailand and other Asian countries, where manufacturers and legitimate sellers lose billions of dollars to piracy.

In a statement Wednesday, the MPA said Operation Trident aimed to protect sales of movie theater tickets and home video products “by reducing the availability of pirated optical discs during the important Christmas and New Year holiday season.”

While Malaysia conducted the most raids — 606, with 329 people arrested — it was China where officials seized the most discs: 60 percent of the 4.8 million total.

Operation Trident operations were conducted in Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand.

In 2006, nearly 12,400 raids resulted in the seizure of more than 35 million illegal optical discs, 4,482 optical disc burners and the break up of 50 factory optical disc production lines, the MPA said.

Brazil’s health ministry vowed on Tuesday to proceed with plans to put condom vending machines in schools and sought to defuse criticism with a new study showing that parents in the world’s largest Roman Catholic nation approve of the idea.

The study, conducted by the United Nations body UNESCO, concluded that two-thirds of the parents surveyed like having the government offer teenagers free condoms and sex education.

The findings could come as a surprise to some Brazilian parents. Most of the population of 185 million is Catholic and the church, which remains influential despite losing ground to fast-growing evangelical churches, is opposed to birth control and preaches sexual abstinence until marriage.

“The health ministry is not afraid to debate with anyone,” said Health Minister Agenor Alvares at an event to publicize the new findings.

A representative of Brazil’s Conference of Catholic Bishops was not immediately available for comment.

Brazil’s health ministry has been offering free condoms and sex education for more than a decade in some schools as part of an AIDS-prevention program that has been recognized worldwide for its success in avoiding an epidemic of the sexually transmitted disease.To increase condom distribution, the ministry recently launched a contest for technical schools to design a better condom vending machine and will award $25,000 to the team of students with the best design.

Test machines could go into schools as early as 2008 and the health ministry eventually hopes to put them in bars, clubs and 24-hour gas stations as well.

The UNESCO study was conducted among 135 schools already participating as well as a smaller number of non-participant schools across about half of Brazil’s states.

The study found that 45 percent of students aged 13 to 19 already had an active sex life and that 60 to 70 percent had used condoms to protect against unwanted pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases like AIDS.

About 10 percent said they had sex without using a condom because they could not afford one, while 42 percent said they simply did not have one handy.