Woman makes horrifying typo in WhatsApp group

And other stories from the stranger side of life

A phone screen with WhatsApp

A woman has accidentally told co-workers she “shat herself” in a WhatsApp conversation. Haematologist Eileen Merriman made the fundamental error as she was trying to send a message to a group chat telling her colleagues that she had “shut herself” in their office while socially distancing because she had flu symptoms.

5,000 planets confirmed

Astronomers have confirmed the existence of more than 5,000 planets, bringing closer the prospect of discovering life beyond Earth, said The Times. The Nasa Exoplanet Archive has admitted a new batch of 65 planets this week with hundreds of billions more thought to exist in the Milky Way and beyond. William Borucki, an astronomer who served as principal investigator for the mission, said: “I get a real feeling of satisfaction, and really of awe at what’s out there.”

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Singer hospitalised by fart shame

A Brazilian singer was hospitalised with trapped gas because she was too embarrassed to fart in front of her partner. Viviane de Queiroz Pereira explained on Instagram that she “woke up at 5.30am with severe stomach pains” due to “an accumulation of trapped farts”. She told her female followers to not be “ashamed to fart in front of your guy” because it was more embarrassing to “go to hospital with your guy and the diagnosis being ‘trapped farts’.”

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Chas Newkey-Burden has been part of The Week Digital team for more than a decade and a journalist for 25 years, starting out on the irreverent football weekly 90 Minutes, before moving to lifestyle magazines Loaded and Attitude. He was a columnist for The Big Issue and landed a world exclusive with David Beckham that became the weekly magazine’s bestselling issue. He now writes regularly for The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent, Metro, FourFourTwo and the i new site. He is also the author of a number of non-fiction books.