WEIRD STUFF: Man says he is having sex with a painting

Man says he is having sex with a painting

An artist has claimed that he is in a sexual relationship with the Mona Lisa.

Domingo Zapata recently found fame after 26 of his digital re-interpretations of Leonardo da Vinci's iconic portrait were put on display at The Louvre in Paris and claims the secret to his success is down to his sexual bond with the painting.

He told The Sun newspaper: "I have been working with Mona Lisa for 15 years. When I was painting her so much, I would dream and I have a sexual relationship with her.

"You cannot stop where it's taking you. It's about touch, feelings, being naked. As an artist, the relationship with the canvas is intimate."

The Spanish-born artist claims that his relationship with the painting was spotted by others, notably Pablo Picasso's granddaughter.

He recalled: "Diana Picasso, who is an art expert and a good friend of mine, asked me in the studio: 'Are you dreaming about her... are you having sex with her?'

"And I'm like: 'Of course I am having sex with her in my dreams. If I was not having sex with her, I would have quit a long time ago.'"

Brain zaps could benefit smokers

Zapping the brain could help smokers to quit.

A new study shows that targeting areas with non-invasive brain stimulation (NIBS) makes them more active and increases the possibility of smokers ditching the cigarettes for good by 2.39 per cent. The experts analysed studies involving 699 patients zapped with a weak electrical charge and Dr Benjamin Petit, from the University Hospital of Dijon in France, thinks that the results are convincing.

He said: "While our review appears modest, with only seven included studies, a low confidence level and a substantial inter-study variability, the result appear to be robust and we feel confident in suggesting that NIBS is a technique of interest for both short term and sustained smoking cessation."

Non-invasive stimulation has increased in popularity in recent times as a method to help people kick addictions to booze and other drugs.

Scientists create robot rat

Scientists have developed a four-legged robotic rat called SQuRo, which stands for small-sized quadruped robotic rat.

It is able to crouch, stand, walk, crawl and turn just as a real rat does and is even capable of carrying a load equal to 91 per cent of its own weight.

The team from the Beijing Institute of Technology hopes that the rat bot will be useful for squeezing into small gaps during search- and- rescue missions. According to the experts, the rodents have been a key inspiration for many developers when it comes to robotics and the team tried to mimic their ability to fit into tight spaces with the device.

They explained: "Rats that live in caves have attracted a great amount of attention, owing to their unrivalled agility and adaptability. Lots of efforts have been made trying to mimic the morphology or motion characteristics of rats."

Humans could be aliens, scientists theorise

Humans could be aliens after scientists have claimed that life on Earth came from a planet trillions of miles away.

The chemical "building blocks" of human DNA have been detected for the first time in asteroids that hit the planet billions of years ago.

It means that the seeds of life on Earth could have been planted here from somewhere else in the universe and suggests that humans could be thriving on other planets.

Experts analysed three carbon-rich meteorites, called Murchison, Murray and Tagish Lake, using top techniques.

Professor Yasuhiro Oba, from Hokkaido University in Japan, said: "We found a diverse range of organic materials, including nucleobases, our basic building blocks of life.

"These could have been delivered to the Earth on asteroids, meteorites, comets and interplanetary dust particles four billion years ago when our planet was being bombarded by debris from outer space. We believe the influx of these organic played an important role in the evolution of life on Earth. This is a very exciting discovery which expands our understanding of how life started."