You Again?
Rescues are not uncommon on Mount Fuji, but one climber may have used up all the good will of the Shizuoka prefectural police, who were called to save the man near the mountain’s peak twice in a span of four days. The imprudent adventurer, a 27-year-old Chinese student living in Japan, began suffering from altitude sickness and was airlifted to safety after calling authorities on April 22; the Associated Press reported that he returned to the mountain on April 26 “to look for his cellphone and other belongings left behind,” according to police. When another climber found him suffering altitude sickness and unable to move, authorities were called in to rescue him once again. There is no penalty for climbing Mount Fuji during the offseason, and no charge associated with being rescued — even twice in the same week. [The Associated Press, 4/28/2025]
Lay Off Me, I’m Starving
Anyone familiar with A.A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh stories knows bears love honey and will go to great lengths for the sweet stuff. So it’s not exactly surprising that Jeff Bonner of Bazetta, Ohio, recently caught a bear on the motion-activated cameras he had set up to protect his apiary. What was surprising, Bonner told WFMJ-TV, was what little remained in the aftermath of the bear’s late-night snack attack. “He ate the frame, the wax that was there, and the bees,” Bonner said. “He literally ate a whole hive of bees.” Bonner estimated the hive had held some 10,000-50,000 bees. He expects the bear to return to the newly found food source, and the Ohio Department of Natural Resources recommended that he increase the apiary’s security with more cameras and an electric fence. [WFMJ-TV, 5/8/2025]
That’s a First
Team members at New Zealand’s department of conservation recently bore witness for the first time ever to the egg-laying process of Powelliphanta augusta, a large, carnivorous, hermaphrodite snail that mates and lays eggs through a hole in its neck. Ingrid Gruner, the department’s regional biodiversity liaison, told The Guardian that the team had “struck lucky” when video taken during a routine weight check of one of the snails captured the moment the small white egg emerged. “In all the years we’ve been doing that [work], we’ve never encountered it,” Gruner said. The snails are a threatened species, and the department has been caring for several thousand snails and eggs since 2006, when Solid Energy coal mining began an operation in the snails’ sole habitat. [The Guardian, 5/7/2025]
She Has the High Ground
A judge in London, England, recently awarded Lorna Rooke, former training and practice supervisor for the National Health Service’s Blood and Transplant division, a whopping $38,729 for being compared to Darth Vader, The Guardian reported on May 7. In 2021, Rooke and her co-workers were asked to participate in a team-building exercise featuring a Star Wars-themed questionnaire that would reveal which character from the sci-fi fantasy franchise their personality most resembled. Rooke didn’t participate but found out later that co-workers had filled it out for her, and the result came up Sith Lord. Though the quiz described Vader as a “very focused individual,” Rooke called the comparison “highly unflattering” and said it made her “super unpopular” around the office, leading her to resign a month later. [The Guardian, 5/7/2025]
Taking It For the Team
In an effort to build up an immunity to the venom of lethal snakes, herpetologist Tim Friede, 57, of Wisconsin allowed himself to be bitten over 200 times and self-administered more than 650 venom injections over 18 years while steadfastly documenting the effects, The New York Times reported on May 2. Now, as described in a study published in the journal Cell last week, scientists have used the unique antibodies in Friede’s blood to create a drug that fully protected mice from the venom of 13 deadly snake species. Researchers hope Friede’s work (and blood) will lead to the creation of a universal anti-venom. “I’m really proud that I can do something in life for humanity,” Friede told the Times. [New York Times, 4/25/2025]
NEWS OF THE WEIRD
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