“We just looked at each other and said, ‘Hey, we’re actually observing again!’”

Peter Backus, manager of observing programmes at the alien hunting SETI Institute, comments on the first results from the Allen Telescope Array (MSNBC).

“There was significant risk that operators and even members of the public could have been harmed if there had not been fortunate and appropriate intervention of a contractor who just happened to be in the right plant area when things went wrong.”

The UK’s Nuclear Installation Inspectorate admits that a nuclear accident was on the cards at the Sizewell A power station in 2007 until a contractor decided to wash some clothes at a launderette serendipitously near a leak (Daily Mail).

“The funny thing is that it is the second smallest known mushroom in this genus and it grows sideways, almost limp.”

Bob Drewes, curator of herpetology at the California Academy of Sciences, is remarkably sanguine about a new species of mushroom being named after his [censored] (SiliconValley.com).