Sideswipe: Working advert

Are the owners in on it?

Navels win the race
Scientists have found the reason why some athletes dominate on the running track and others in the swimming pool: It's in their belly buttons. According to a new study what's important is not whether an athlete has an innie or an outie but where his or her navel is in relation to the rest of the body. The navel is the centre of gravity of the body, and given two runners or swimmers of the same height, one black and one white, "what matters is not total height but the position of the belly button, or centre of gravity," Duke University professor Andre Bejan, the lead author of the study, said. "It so happens that in the architecture of the human body of West African-origin runners, the centre of gravity is significantly higher than in runners of European origin," which puts them at an advantage in sprints on the track.

No stopping vuvuzelas
Fried chicken hawker KFC in the US promises to send a voucher for a free Doublicious burger (valued at $7) to anyone who mails in a vuvuzela to KFC headquarters. Surely packing and posting the oblong honker would cost more than the freebie, but that fact, sadly, is unlikely to stop people doing it.

Netherlands win online
CBS News has accidentally published an article online claiming Holland won the World Cup final against Spain. The article entitled"The Netherlands Win World Cup" looks like it was written in advance of the big game - where Spain won by one goal after extra time. It started off by saying: "The Netherlands wins first World Cup and ends 22-year streak without a title of any kind." Spaces had been left in the copy to enter correct details, such as where it said "The Netherlands defeated Spain by a score of SCORE to SCORE to win its first World Cup title."

Going off half cocked
JaDaimon Cole says he and his girlfriend were terrified when Dallas police ordered them out of their car at gunpoint. Sergeant Warren Mitchell described the stop as "an honest mistake". He says an officer typed in an "N" instead of an "M" into a computer terminal when checking the licence plate and the computer alerted them the car had been stolen. Cole was driving a 2005 Chrysler and the stolen car was a 1995 Chevrolet. (Source: Reason.com)