Skin ring comes with hefty price tag

Great Art!

- Not Expected to Fly Off the Shelf: Iceland's menswear designer Sruli Recht's autumn/winter 2013 collection, debuting in Paris in January, included a ring made from a four-inch slice of his own skin (removed during recent abdomen surgery, then salted and tanned to give it sturdiness). The ring (called "Forget Me Knot") carries a price tag of $500,000 - considering that the rest of the ring is 24k gold.

- In Russia's coldest region (the Siberian republic of Yakutia), artist Mikhail Bopposov created a massive, nearly 900-pound cobra statue (honoring the Chinese Year of the Snake) - made entirely of cow dung. Though at this time of the year the sculpture freezes, Bopposov plans to sell it when it melts, since fertilizer is a valuable commodity during the region's short summers. (Actually, this is Bopposov's second foray into dung art, after last year's winged serpent he created for the Chinese Year of the Dragon.)

Least Competent Criminals

A massive, fraudulent test-taking scheme spanning three Southern states came to a halt in 2009 after going undetected for 15 years. In February 2012, Clarence Mumford Sr., 59, pleaded guilty as the mastermind of the syndicate that charged schoolteachers thousands of dollars to have proxy test-takers sit for them in mandatory qualifications exams. The 2009 incident that brought the scheme to light was when one hired proxy (Memphis, Tenn., science teacher Shantell Shaw) decided to take both a morning test for one teacher and an afternoon test for another teacher, at the same location, while wearing the same pink baseball cap.

Readers' Choice

Overachievers: (1) Cheyenne Labrum, 39, was arrested in Provo, Utah, in December, and charged with robbing a man in a motel room of $14 cash and a 12-pack of beer. Police records show it as the 66th time Labrum has been booked into the local jail. (2) Scott Morris, 40, was arrested for speeding and suspicion of DUI in Boulder, Colo., in November. It was only the 44th time Morris had been traffic-stopped - although Morris might be held to a different standard, in that he is a Boulder police detective.