Australia once had a “Great Emu War”

Shortly after World War I, many ex-soldiers began wheat farming in Western Australia. Emus regularly migrate after their breeding season, and discovered the new wheat farms to be a great habitat for them.

As many as 20,000 Emus migrated to farm areas. They ate and ruined mass quantities of the farmer’s crops. The government eventually stepped in when the population numbers of the Emus soared out of control.

Australia employed soldiers wielding machine guns to eliminate the Emus. Farmers had to ask assistance of the government 3 more times to control the Emus.

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A man suffering from gallstones ran two miles through traffic to get to the starting line of an Olympic race in which he won gold

Kipchoge ‘Kip’ Keino from Kenya was entered in 3 running events for the 1968 Olympics in Mexico.  For the first two events he was feeling sick and in one he even collapsed.  He was urged not to run in the third event but his competitiveness took over.

The day of the race he suited up and boarded the bus to the event. The traffic was bad and he knew he would be late for the race. The then 28 year old jumped off the bus and ran 2 miles straight to the starting line to make it in time for the 1,500 meter race.

He then won Gold and set the then new Olympic record. Directly following the race a doctor took Kip back to Germany to remove his gallstones. (Sources: 1, 2)

Women Eat Less When They're Around Men!

A study shows that what you eat depends on what your sex is and who you're with. When no men are around women tend to eat more than if men were around.  When women are with men they choose food that have low calories as well as in general eat a lot less.

The study also shows that if women are with a large group of women they will eat even more. So, what about men?  The study showed that men ate the same amount of calories and were not affected by the size or gender dynamics of the group.

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The Oldest Living tree in the world has been around since the Ice Age

Researchers discovered this conifer in Sweden in 2004. The lone Norway Spruce is 13 feet tall, but radiocarbon dating shows its tremendous root system has been growing for 9550 years. That makes this tree 4000 years older than the first pyramids.

A spruce’s trunk has the lifespan of about 600 years, but as soon as the stem dies another one emerges from the same root stock. The tree has essentially been cloning itself for thousands of years.

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A Nigerian Scammer was tricked into transcribing an entire Harry Potter Book!

By now everyone on the Internet has received an e-mail from someone claiming to be a deposed Nigerian Prince who needs help getting a fortune out of the country. You'd have to be pretty gullible to fall for it, right? Actually, a lot of people have fallen prey to these scammers. In response, the website 419eater.com was created in order to scam the scammers! They usually get the scammers to do ridiculous things, and this is one of the funniest ones we've seen. 

This particular user convinced the Nigerian "prince" that he needed his handwriting for a research project and got him to transcribe "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" in its entirety! The scammer transcribed AND scanned the entire manuscript, and it's up for all the world to see at the website. Check out a sample image on the right, and you can see all the novel at the link!

(Source)