WEIRD, WEIRD

Pregnant politician rides bicycle to hospital to give birth

A politician in New Zealand cycled to hospital when she was in labour.

Julie Anne Genter, who serves as a member of parliament in the country, got on her bike in the early hours of Sunday to travel to the hospital in the capital city Wellington.

Genter was already in labour when she set off and ended up giving birth at 3 a.m.

The politician shared the happy, if slightly strange, news on her Facebook page.

She said: "Big news!

"At 3.04 a.m. this morning we welcomed the newest member of our family.

"I genuinely wasn't planning to cycle in labour, but it did end up happening.

"My contractions weren't that bad when we left at 2 a.m. to go to the hospital, though they were 2-3 min apart and picking up in intensity by the time we arrived 10 minutes later.

"Amazingly now we have a healthy, happy little one sleeping, as is her dad."

----

AI will find aliens before humans - Scientist

The head of artificial intelligence at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Dr Steve Chien, believes that machinery is more likely to discover alien life than people as the technology has become integral to missions carried out by the space agency - although he did stress the importance of the work completed by the human race.

Chien told the Daily Star newspaper: "Would it go to [AI] before humans? I would say almost certainly yes, but I would consider it a joint discovery.

"The pre-screening happens with artificial intelligence. If we're getting 500,000 images down per night, there's no way humans could look at all of it. But the machine learning [AI] narrows it down to 50 per night. Then the humans can look at those 50.

"So if we see that signature and it turns out that we can eventually determine that it is an extraterrestrial life signature, is it the machine learning that did the discovery or is it the humans? I would consider it a team discovery."

------------

World's most venomous spider found in supermarket

A supermarket customer made a horrifying discovery when he spotted "the world's most venomous spider" inside a bunch of bananas.

Adam Shepherd was browsing in a Tesco store in Eastbourne when he picked up the fruit and noticed the creature's leg "coming out" of it.

It is thought that the insect trapped inside one of the bananas was the deadly Brazilian Wandering Spider, which are known to bite people more than any other spiders.

Those who are bitten by the creatures must seek emergency treatment immediately as their venom can be deadly, although Shepherd was relaxed about his discovery.

He told The Argus newspaper: "I wasn't really that shocked as I used to work in produce for Tesco and I've seen it quite a few times.

"No idea what kind it was but it was definitely a brown colour. You can just about see its leg coming out."

---------

Man makes monument of love for wife

An Indian businessman has built a scaled-down replica of the Taj Mahal as a home for his wife.

Anand Prakash Chouksey constructed his "monument of love" in the state of Madhya Pradesh and the house cost around 20 million rupees (PS199,000) to build.

He told the BBC: "It was a gift for my wife but also for the town and its people."

Chouksey's replica of the famous Indian landmark is nestled deep inside his 50-acre property and has been attracting a number of visitors.

He said: "A lot of people have also started to do their pre-wedding shoots here.

"I don't stop them because in our town, we are a close-knit community where everyone knows everyone. So, my house is open for all."

Chouksey added that not all visitors are allowed in the property because "after all, it is our home and we live there".

The replica took three years to build and required a number of visits to the real Taj Mahal so Chouksey and his partner could study all aspects of the monument.