Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter Subscribe CLAY AIKEN INVITES PEOPLE TO RALEIGH Clay Aiken, who may be the biggest thing to hit North Carolina since Andy Griffith, is issuing personalized invitations for people to visit his hometown. Advertisement The Greater Raleigh Convention and Visitor's Bureau is trying to attract visitors by issuing invitations from the Fox-TV's "American Idol" finalist, reports Raleigh cable news station News 14 Carolina. By visiting Raleigh's visitor's Web site, people can fill in a short form and Aiken will send the invitation to two friends or family members. "We certainly are taking advantage of the fame of Clay Aiken, and the beauty of it is he very much embodies the city life, Carolina style, that we're trying to tout in our various messaging," says Martin Armes, of the GRCVB. In one day, over 750 people had signed up for the invite. DOGGIE DESIGNER WATER The creator of designer doggie water in Australia claims pooches get bored with plain water and therefore deserve something better. "It's like a sports drink for dogs," says creator Andrew Larkey. "Dogs get bored with plain water -- they deserve variety just as much as people." Advertisement Each 1.3 pint bottle, costing under $2, has water flavored by chicken and corn, liver and bacon or beef and each bottle also contains half a dog's recommended daily dose of vitamins B1, B3, B5, B6 and C, Britain's Sky News reports. Apparently, cats also get bored with their water, Larkey is planning a similar line of flavored water for cats. ANTI-SMOKING HASN'T HURT BINGO Anti-smoking laws do not reduce profits from charitable bingo parlors, according to a study by the University of California at San Francisco. Researchers collected information on profits from state-licensed bingo and other charitable gaming from 220 towns and cities in Massachusetts from 1985 to 2001. The researchers say while bingo profits were falling over the entire period studied, this trend was well established before passage of smoke-free laws in the early 1990s. The study, reported in the journal Tobacco Control, says, "The data shows that policy makers can enact smoke-free policies without concern that they will affect charitable gaming." REDROCK MAY HAVE WARMED CLIMATE The Navajo Sandstone -- one of the brightly colored rock formations that comprise southern Utah's famous redrock -- may have changed global climate. Advertisement A study from the University of Utah concludes that bleaching patterns in the Navajo Sandstone suggest the rock formation once may have harbored vast amounts of hydrocarbons, likely natural gas or methane. The study, published in the journal Geology, says the once-buried sandstone, which was exposed and eroding about 6 million years ago, released the methane gas into the atmosphere. Because methane is a "greenhouse gas," the release of large quantities to the atmosphere may have warmed Earth's ancient climate.
