The Odd Truth, April 1, 2005

The Odd Truth is a collection of strange but factual news stories from around the world compiled by CBSNews.com's Joey Arak.

Yacht Crew's Quick Thinking

WELLINGTON, New Zealand - Talk about being creative in a pinch.

Six men aboard a Russian yacht used a cabin door to help steer the crippled vessel. It sailed -- limped, really -- into New Zealand's Wellington Harbor on Friday after a month at sea with the makeshift rudder.

The crew of the Apostol Andrey was relieved to make land after battling high seas in the storm-tossed Southern Ocean on the disabled 50-foot yacht, skipper Nikolay Litau said.

Owned by a Moscow adventure club, the boat was going around Antarctica when it lost its rudder about 1,306 miles south of New Zealand on March 3, he said.

The crew decided to replace it with the cabin door and try to make their way toward New Zealand, the nearest land.

The crew alerted Moscow's maritime rescue coordination center and it contacted New Zealand's Rescue Coordination Center, sparking several weeks of close communication between the boat, its owners, the rescue center and the Russian Embassy in New Zealand's capital, Wellington.

"Forty days at sea was a little difficult," Litau said.

Rescue center officer Mike Roberts described the crew's journey to New Zealand as a "fine piece of seamanship."

Software Company Invents Talking

OSLO, Norway - Norway's Opera Software ASA couldn't resist the temptation of an April Fool's joke heralding a breakthrough in peer-to-peer communications.

The company said it has developed "a platform-independent speech solution for short- and medium-range interpersonal communication."

In plain language: human speech.

Opera said in an April Fool's release that the so-called breakthrough, "Opera SoundWave," has a range of 100 feet and could be easily tested without special equipment, simply by asking someone near you a question, such as "Is today April Fool's Day?"

If readers didn't get the joke by then, the statement went on to say that "Opera's patent-pending P2P speech technology uses analogue signals carried through open air, enabling users to communicate in real-time without the use of computers or mobile phones."

And for anyone with lingering doubts, it went on to say SoundWave was discovered accidentally when an Opera technician said something and realized his colleague understood.

"Like most people, I have used e-mail as my primary means of communication for many years and accepted that it is not always 100 percent effective," said Trond Werner Hansen, of Opera, in the joke statement. "SoundWave has opened up a whole new world for me, enabling me to get things done faster and more efficiently than before — and it is remarkably easy to use."

Ms. Wheelchair Walks

Ms. Wheelchair Wisconsin has been stripped of her title because pageant officials say she can stand — and point to a newspaper picture as proof.

Janeal Lee, who has muscular dystrophy and uses a scooter, was snapped by The Post-Crescent newspaper standing among her high school math students.

"I've been made to feel as if I can't represent the disabled citizens of Wisconsin because I'm not disabled enough," Lee said Thursday.

Lee, 30, had planned to go to the national pageant with her younger sister, who also has muscular dystrophy and won the competition in Minnesota.

Students at Kaukauna High School, where Lee teaches, raised $1,000 for her trip to the national pageant.

Turf War Over Turf

NORTHPORT, Ala. - Tacky turf, or a green dream? Hal Burleson's yard is getting mixed reviews from the neighbors.

Burleson convinced his wife, Margaret, that it would be a good idea to rip out the grass and replace it with artificial turf, the stuff found on football fields. He was tired of all the yard work and allergy flareups.

"At first, there were a lot of comments about it. Different people thought it was just crazy," Margaret Burleson said. "Some even went to City Hall to try to do something about it.

"But, after it was done, people would compliment it and tell us that it made sense."

The couple got the idea during visits to Las Vegas and Laughlin, Nev., where they saw plenty of homes with fake lawns.

Don Wheat has been laying rugs for 31 years, but this was his first order for truly outdoor carpet.

"I was definitely surprised they wanted to cover the whole yard -- it's real unusual," Wheat said.

Dandruff Pollution?

WASHINGTON - If you have nasty dandruff, you could be an air polluter.

New research out of Germany says tiny particles in the air -- known as aerosols -- may play a bigger role in world climate than thought.

Besides dandruff and other flaking skin, aerosols include cellular material such as fur and pollen.

The German research found biological materials can make up as much as 25 percent of aerosols in some areas and as much as 40 percent in others.

Aerosols have been widely studied because of their ability to both warm the air and help cool it. The source of many of them has been unexplained.

Not all scientists are convinced by the research, saying more study is needed.

The findings are in the latest issue of the journal Science.

Maris Back In Record Books?

BISMARCK, N.D. - A North Dakota senator says, in his state, when they think something is wrong, they try to make it right.

With that in mind, the North Dakota Senate has unanimously approved a resolution asking baseball commissioner Bud Selig to reinstate Roger Maris' 61 home runs in 1961 as the major-league record.

Maris' mark has been surpassed six times since 1998, but baseball's steroids scandal has called the recent records into question.

Maris grew up in Fargo.

Maybe They Use Dial-Up

WASHINGTON - It looks like one part of the U.S. government can't keep up with the fast pace of the Internet.

The National Research Council has just finished a report on Internet traffic: a report it was supposed to finish in 1998.

Congress commissioned the report to look at the growth of the Web. Seven years later, the report's conclusion is hardly groundbreaking. The Internet is booming, from 2.2 million Web addresses in 1998 to 65 million now.

Researchers insist the report is still relevant in some ways.

Why did it take so long to produce? One official says simply, "time got extended."