Did beards evolve to help men absorb punches?
And other stories from the stranger side of life

Beards evolved to help men safely absorb blows to the head, according to a new study. Researchers say their tests discovered that beards acted as shock absorbers that dispersed the energy from a punch enough to prevent the jaw from fracturing. “We found that fully furred samples were capable of absorbing more energy than plucked and sheared samples,” say biologists Ethan Beseris, Steven Naleway and David Carrier.
Bed gets impaled on house in Leeds
A woman says she thought she was hallucinating when she saw that a bed was impaled on the side of her home in Leeds. Emily Beattie, 25, was putting the bins out when she spotted a bed attached to the side of home. “I thought what the hell is going on here,” she said. “It’s just such a bizarre thing to happen I can’t explain it,” she said.
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Jet tries to fly to closed airport
A Eurowings flight had to turn around mid-journey as the airport it was flying to wasn’t open. The flight had set off from Dusseldorf in Germany to the Sardinian airport of Olbia, but just 90 minutes before landing, the pilot was informed that the airport was closed due to coronavirus restrictions. The disruption wasn’t enormous – there were only two passengers on board.
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