Watercooler Stories

'Spaceship Earth' sculpture crashes

KENNESAW, Ga., Jan. 5 (UPI) -- "Spaceship Earth," a sculpture honoring environmentalist David Brower on the campus of a Georgia public college, has fallen over and fragmented.

"Kind of ironic," Mary-Elizabeth Watson, a Kennesaw State University employee, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "I had no idea it was made up of so many pieces."

The work by the Finnish sculptor who uses only the name Eino was a blue globe with a statue of Brower on top. Brower, who died in 2000, was the Sierra Club's first executive director and a founder of Earth Island Institute.

The work was originally planned for San Francisco, which then turned it down. The University of California at Berkeley also rejected it, and Kennesaw made a home for it after a university official met Eino and became interested in his work.

Investigators are looking into the possibility of vandalism, although university officials say water leaks or weak glue could be to blame.

Eino plans to rebuild the sculpture "stronger than ever."

Unusual rock may be a meteorite

FREEHOLD, N.J., Jan. 5 (UPI) -- Astronomers say a mysterious rock that crashed into a Freehold, N.J., home may be a meteorite.

The object, which experts say does not have the appearance of a typical space rock, measures 3 1/2 inches long and 2 inches wide but is oddly heavy for its size -- weighing in at 13 ounces, the Newark (N.J.) Star-Ledger reported.

Kevin Conod, staff astronomer at the Newark Museum, said after viewing video footage of the object that it may be a meteorite.

"Based on what I saw, it looks like they've got a meteorite on their hands, which is pretty exciting," Conod told the newspaper.

Arlene Murray, spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration, said investigators have determined that the object is not infamous "blue ice" discharged from airliner toilets, nor is it a part fallen off of an airplane, the Star-Ledger reported.

Professors accused of fast test taking

CARBONDALE, Ill., Jan. 5 (UPI) -- Sixty-five instructors at Southern Illinois University are being accused of spending too little time on a state-mandated ethics examination.

The exam, administered annually by the state of Illinois, is a 10-question, multiple-choice test given online to all state college professors in Illinois. More than 250 employees at Southern Illinois University recently received a letter from the state informing them that they were "non-compliant" during the quiz, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.

The problem is not the scores the participants received but the time they took to complete the test. State officials contend that because many of the participants took too short a time to complete the quiz, they did not take the material seriously enough, the Sun-Times reported.

Many university employees are outraged at the idea that their academic habits are being called into question.

"If I failed a student because he was too quickly doing an exam, I would probably be fired," Southern Illinois University Professor Walter Wallis told the newspaper.

Many of the professors must retake the test.

Manatee rescued off Texas coast

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas, Jan. 5 (UPI) -- An endangered manatee was rescued in Corpus Christi Bay, Texas, where they are rarely spotted.

Local environmental agents, including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, rescued the animal and brought it to the Texas State Aquarium's Sea Lab, the Corpus Christi Caller-Times reported.

Manatees need warm water and access to fresh water, something that may have provoked the animal to take refuge in the bay near a Citgo dock. The oil company provided the crane and the net for the rescue, the Caller-Times reported.

The manatee, about 6 feet long and weighing 600 to 800 pounds, is believed to be a juvenile in poor health, a veterinarian from the Texas State Aquarium said.

After the animal's rehabilitation is complete, it will be transferred to Florida, where manatees are typically found. It will be the lab's first rehabilitation of a manatee, the Caller-Times reported.