The wackiest headlines from the week as they would appear in a Classifieds section.

Careers

AGING STAR ISO WORK: The Edinburgh Zoo announced the birth of a new baby pygmy hippo named Haggis who will someday beat Moo Deng for a Golden Globe or a Victoria’s Secret ad.

SALMON SLEUTH: In 2013, Washington state passed a law attempting to expose fraudulent labeling of salmon and seafood products. Still, a study that looked at 52 sushi restaurants in Seattle found that one-third of salmon samples were actually farmed fish instead of wild salmon, as the labeling promised.

PAGING TED SHACKLEFORD: Residents of a South Carolina town were told to lock their doors and windows after 43 rhesus monkeys escaped from a research lab this week. Authorities believe the monkeys’ first order of business will be to secure seats for the Wicked premiere.

Personal

SIGNATURE MATCH: Ballot counters in Nevada struggled to verify some young voters’ ballots because their electronic signatures from driver’s license applications didn’t look like the signatures on their mail-in ballots. Officials said that Gen Z doesn’t have as much practice signing stuff like checks or deals with the devil.

GUILT-FREE GAMES: Striking NYT Tech Guild workers designed five games to play so you don’t have to cross the digital picket line to get your Wordle fix. There’s a Frogger knockoff that will remind you how bad you’ve always been at Frogger.

WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE OTTERS: A new National Geographic documentary tells the story of a man who became friends with a starving otter pup named Molly. After the death of his parents, Billy helped nurse Molly back to health and learned a lot about love, nature, and we are already crying just talking about it.

For sale

NEW TREASURE: Sometimes the most powerful way to honor a famed explorer who survived an Antarctic nightmare is through 3,011 tiny bricks. Lego is releasing The Endurance set, a model commemorating Ernest Shackleton’s harrowing 1914 expedition. If you buy it on Black Friday, they will throw in his lifeboat.

CARVES: They have run out of ideas in fashion and are just combining outerwear now. The “scoat,” or coat with the scarf attached to it, is all the rage, according to the Wall Street Journal. Call us when they quit messing around and finally sew in the pants. —MM

Photo of the week

No, this is not marketing for a Mel Brooks movie—these are real cans filled with air from Italy’s Lake Como that can be purchased for $11 each by tourists who are bored by snow globes. Lake Como Air isn’t available online. They are only being sold locally because, as the company asking you to buy canned air says without irony, “Memories are not bought but lived.”

Several companies, including Vitality, Clean & Green, and Leo De Watts, have been packing and selling air for years. Vitality is currently sold out of its two-pack of Banff Air for $47. If that price knocked the wind out of you, just crack open a can of air and you’ll be good.—DL

Dept. of Progress

Here are some illuminating scientific discoveries from the week to help you live better and maybe even multiply your dog.

World’s first wooden satellite is in space. The latest extraterrestrial innovation is a four-inch magnolia box. The LignoSat, Japan’s new wooden satellite prototype, docked at the International Space Station on Nov. 5 as part of a six-month orbital test that could ultimately lead to less space junk. The researchers want space tech with less metal and more wood because it burns up on reentry, potentially minimizing the amount of junk floating around our planet. LignoSat is made with honoki, a Japanese magnolia tree whose wood is also used to carve samurai sword sheaths. Its outer shell was constructed by engineers skilled in sashimono, a traditional method that skips nails and screws for precision wood joining.

Cloned ferret births babies in US milestone. Mazel tov to Antonia the black-footed ferret: She’s the first US clone of an endangered species to successfully produce offspring—a boy and a girl, who are developing well, according to wildlife officials. Antonia is a clone of a ferret named Willa, whose DNA was collected in 1988. This particular mammal is one of the most endangered in North America, with a current population of ~370. Researchers are hopeful that this birthing breakthrough could help the black-footed ferret bounce back and aid in conservation efforts for other endangered species

We were wrong about Pompeii victims’ connections. Despite the stories we concocted based on their immortalized final moments, some of the people who died when Mount Vesuvius erupted in the year 79 were not related like researchers assumed they were, according to new DNA testing. In an infamous scene long believed to show a nuclear family, the figure thought to be the mother embracing one of her children (because the adult wore a bracelet) is actually an unrelated man. In another cast, at least one of two intertwined victims believed to be a mother–daughter or sister–sister pair is male, and they’re not related on their moms’ sides, suggesting they could’ve been lovers. The discoveries challenge what archaeologists thought they could interpret about gender and familial ties from jewelry and physical closeness.—ML

Are flouride’s days numbered?

Now that Donald Trump has won the presidential election, he could start a campaign to make America’s tap water fluoride-free again.

Federal health officials have been recommending fluoridating water since 1950, as there’s copious evidence that moderate fluoride exposure reduces tooth decay. But Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—who is a member of the president-elect’s transition team and is expected to take on a health role in his administration—has said that the next Trump administration will urge localities to consider removing the mineral from their water supply.

RFK Jr. claims the substance is “an industrial waste associated with arthritis, bone fractures, bone cancer, IQ loss, neurodevelopmental disorders, and thyroid disease.” While the former environmental lawyer has promoted fringe health claims rejected by the medical community, many experts share his concern about some of the potential risks of fluoride.

• A federal judge recently ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to strengthen regulation of fluoride levels after a National Institutes of Health (NIH) literature review revealed that exposure to high doses of fluoride is associated with lower IQs among children.
• The NIH’s conclusion was based on fluoride levels that are double the recommended limit of 0.7 milligrams per liter.

The NIH said that more research is needed to determine the effects on adults and whether the recommended levels can also harm children. In the meantime, health advocates, scientists, dentists, and conspiracy theorists continue to debate the impact of fluoride in our water.

Fluoride fears

Almost two-thirds of Americans have the candy-counteracting elixir running in their tap. The dental health gains from the low-cost intervention—with one study showing it shaves off $6.8 billion from US dental expenses annually—led the CDC to list the fluoridation of water among the Top 10 major public health wins of the 20th century.

But almost 2 million Americans receive water with at least double the recommended level of fluoride, since it can form in groundwater naturally. That could be a cause for concern:

• Overdoing it on fluoride can lead to tooth damage. One-fourth of the US population age six to 49 show signs of fluoride-related affliction, according to the CDC.
• Some studies also show that children with higher levels of exposure are more likely to develop bone issues, though there is no conclusive evidence linking it to bone cancer.
• A study by USC researchers concluded that increased intake of fluoride by pregnant mothers is associated with a rise in behavioral issues among their children.

Fluoride fight

Anti-fluoride sentiment goes back to the 1950s when some people erroneously believed that fluoridated water was a communist conspiracy.

Many data-informed arguments for fluoride removal cite a lack of research on its risks and the difficulty of dosing intake when it’s in the drinking water. They also point to the fact that most toothpaste contains the substance, so anyone who remembers to brush their teeth with an American Dental Association-endorsed product gets exposed to it anyway. Indeed, a recent study showed that the dental benefit of fluoridated water has declined modestly after it became a fixture of commercial tooth care products in the 1970s (though the authors of the study caution against interpreting it as an anti-fluoride argument, as removing fluoride also has its pitfalls).

Meanwhile, the American Dental Association has been among the loudest defenders of fluoridation, arguing that it benefits people who might not be able to brush twice a day with recommended products. A recent study showed that dental decay rates in baby teeth increased after fluoride was nixed from the taps in Calgary, Alberta, in 2011.

Several US municipalities, like Abilene, TX, and Somers, NY, have stopped fluoridating their water, and some states are trying to drop laws mandating the practice, leaving the decision up to cities and towns. This puts them in line with much of Western Europe, where only Ireland, Spain, and the United Kingdom have communities with fluoridated taps.

Looking ahead…the Trump administration might struggle to get municipalities to remove fluoride from the tap, since water decisions are made on a local and state level. But it may try to mandate a nationwide removal via the Environmental Protection Agency, a policy that would likely face court challenges and fierce opposition from advocates, according to Politico.—SK

Place to be: The resort with the giant rooster

It’s a big world out there. In this section, we’ll teleport you to an interesting location—and hopefully give you travel ideas in the process.

We got a new world’s largest chicken-shaped building before Grand Theft Auto 6.

The biggest—we’re going to resist the temptation to be juvenile and call it a rooster—is located in Negros Occidental, Philippines, atop the Campuestohan Highland Resort. Standing 114 feet and seven inches tall, this week it was named “the largest building in the shape of a chicken” by Guinness World Records, a prestigious institution that probably thought it was a prank when someone said they had the world’s largest (rooster).

The poultry-inspired design is the brainchild of Ricardo Tan, the owner of the resort. So, what made him rock out with his imagination?

• He said he wanted to pay tribute to the country’s flourishing gamefowl industry and its history of cockfighting, which is legal there.
• According to the man who built a metaphor for male insecurity, “When the sugar industry slumped and threatened our livelihood, it was the fighting cock industry that rose above the challenge.”

It’s more than just for show. The structure has 15 air-conditioned hotel rooms to go along with the resort’s wave pool, three swimming pools, and a restaurant. The chicken was built in 456 days and is designed to withstand the heavy storms common in the region.

There’s nothing all that comparable in the US, but the beach town of Margate, NJ, has had a six-story elephant dubbed Lucy since 1881. It was built to help sell real estate and almost certainly had nothing to do with the fighting elephant industry rising above a challenge.—DL

Crowd work

Last week we asked you to pitch us the drink of the winter. Here are our favorite responses:

• “Hot Gatorade from powder brewed extra strength. Nothing beats it after cold-weather outdoor exercise.”—Liam from Pittsburgh, PA
• “Boilo. It’s a traditional Yuletide drink in the coal region of eastern Pennsylvania made with honey, citrus, spices, and the cheapest whiskey you can find!”—Greg from Pottsville, PA
• “I moved to Europe three years ago...the only acceptable answer is gluhwein.”—Shaughn from Switzerland
• “A new take on an old fashioned: bourbon and banana liqueur, brown sugar simple syrup, dash of chocolate/black walnut bitters, and topped with a banana chip and chocolate shavings. Winter in a glass.”—Chris from Lancaster, PA
• “A can of Diet Coke from the snowdrift outside your patio door. If it has little ice crystals inside, you know you’ve done it right.”—Ashley from Iowa

This week’s question

If you could design a theme park around any concept, what would it be?

Matty’s response to get the juices flowing: “SuperPARKet. It’s a theme park that is based on a supermarket but you can climb on the shelves and ride the conveyor belts. There are cart races and a shoplifting simulator.”

Share your response here.