Kitchen goes nuclear

Richard Handl, 31, was arrested in southern Sweden in July after a raid on his home. He had been trying for months to set up a nuclear reactor in his kitchen, but became alarmed when a brew of americium, tritium and beryllium created a nuclear meltdown on his stove. Only then, he said, did it occur to him to ask the country's Radiation Authority if what he was doing was legal, and the subsequent police raid answered that question. No dangerous radiation level was detected, but Handl still faces fines and a maximum two-year prison sentence for unauthorized possession of nuclear materials.

The Entrepreneurial Society

For the Self-Indulgent: (1) The fashion designer Chandrashekar Chawan recently created gold-plated, diamond-studded contact lenses that make eyes "sparkle" (not always a good thing, admitted Chawan, citing reviews calling the look "cringeworthy" and "demonic"). According to an MSNBC report, the "bling" part never actually touches the cornea. (2) Among the trendiest avant-garde beauty treatments are facial applications made from snail mucus, according to a July report by London's Daily Mail. South Korean glamour consultants were the first to use mollusk extract's generous moisturizing properties, though a dermatologist warned (on NBC's "Today" show) that no "controlled" studies have yet demonstrated snail-goo superiority.

Leading Economic Indicators

- Augustin James Evangelista is only 4 years old, but he nevertheless has certain financial needs - which amount to about $46,000 a month, according to the child-support request filed by his mother, "supermodel" Linda Evangelista. A Wall Street Journal reporter concluded that the figure is about right for rich kids in New York City, what with needing a driver, designer clothes, around-the-clock nannies and various personalized lessons. And soon, according to a consultant-to-the-rich interviewed in August by the Journal, Augustin James will become even more expensive, as he graduates from his exclusive preschool and enters his exclusive kindergarten.

- The highest-paid state government employee in budget-strapped California in 2010 was among the least productive workers in the system, according to a Los Angeles Times investigation reported in July. Jeffrey Rohlfing is on the payroll as a surgeon in the state prison system (base pay: $235,740), but he has been barred from treating inmates for the last six years because supervisors believe him to be incompetent. Last year, Dr. Rohlfing earned an additional $541,000 in back pay after he successfully appealed his firing to the state's apparently easily persuaded Personnel Board. Currently, Dr. Rohlfing is assigned records-keeping duties.

No, Thanks!

- (1) Colorado inmate Daniel Self filed a federal lawsuit in July against the Sterling Correctional Facility because prison personnel saved his life. They revived him after he had stopped breathing from an attack of sleep apnea, but he contends he had previously demanded to officials that he never be resuscitated, preferring to die rather serve out his life sentence. (2) Terry Barth complained to hospital officials that he was "kidnapped" by paramedics and thus cannot be liable for the $40,000 he has been billed by Enloe Medical Center in Chico, Calif., where he was brought by ambulance following a motorcycle crash in August 2010. Barth said he had insisted at the scene that paramedics not take him to a hospital because he had no medical insurance. (Paramedics are legally required to take anyone with a serious head injury.)

Medical Marvels

- The first published instance of a woman's nipple appearing on the sole of her foot was noted in a 2006 report in the journal Dermatology and reprised in a series of U.S. and British press reports in July 2011.

The reporting physicians, led by Dr. Delio Marques Conde, acknowledged that out-of-place breast tissue, while extremely rare, has shown up before on the back, shoulder, face and thigh. The foot nipple was "well-formed," with areola and sebaceous glands.

- British college student Rhiannon Brooksbank-Jones, 19, recently had her tongue surgically lengthened just so she could better pronounce the Korean letter "L." London's Daily Mail reported in August that the student had become fascinated with Korean culture and intends to live and work in South Korea eventually - and would need to speak like a native to succeed. She is now satisfied that she does.

Our Animal Sidekicks

- Ruth Adams called on Northampton College in central England to measure the purring sound of her gray-and-white tabby cat, Smokey, aiming for a Guinness World Record. The result, she told The Associated Press in March, was 73 decibels, many multiples louder than the average cat's purr and about as noisy, according to the AP, as "busy traffic, a hair dryer or a vacuum cleaner.