Little Peter

A leading condom manufacturer in Switzerland has created extra-small condoms for boys as young as 12 years old, the U.K.’s Daily Telegraph reported.

The condom, called the Hotshot, was produced after family planning groups and the Swiss AIDS Federation campaigned to have the condoms made following several studies that showed adolescent boys were not using proper protection when engaging in intercourse.

"The result that shocked us concerned young boys who display apparently risky behavior,” Nancy Bodmer, who headed the research, told the newspaper. “They have more of a tendency not to protect themselves. They do not have a very developed sexual knowledge. They do not understand the consequences of what they are doing and leave the young girls to take care of the consequences.”

Bodmer said the results of the study suggest that early prevention makes sense.

A spokeswoman for the company, Lamprecht AG, said the United Kingdom would be a “top priority” if they expanded abroad, especially since the U.K. has one of the highest rates of teen pregnancy in Europe.

A standard condom has a diameter of 2 inches; the Hotshot's is 1.7 inches.

McWeight Loss

Meals approved by Weight Watchers are going on sale at McDonald's in New Zealand, the companies said Wednesday, in a deal trumpeted as an enjoyable way to lose weight but that nutritionists criticize as a marketing ploy that doesn't promote healthy eating.

As part of the deal — which the company says is the first of its kind in the world — McDonald's will use the Weight Watchers logo on its menu boards and Weight Watchers will promote McDonald's to dieters.

Several items on the fast food giant's menu — the Filet-O-Fish, Chicken McNuggets and Sweet Chilli Seared Chicken Wrap — have been approved for the Weight Watchers program. Each meal is worth 6.5 points on the program, which assigns points to food items and allows dieters to consume 18 to 40 points each day to achieve their goal weight.

Chris Stirk, Weight Watchers director of business in Australia and New Zealand, said the partnership between the two companies reflects "part of our philosophy that you can enjoy life ... while still achieving your weight loss goals."

But nutritionists and obesity experts said the menu items are merely a marketing ploy to lure customers into the restaurant. "It's all about sales really," Australian Obesity Policy Coalition senior adviser Jane Martin said.

"It implies this food is healthy ... when often it is high in fat and salt. Chicken McNuggets are Chicken McNuggets whether its got Weight Watchers on it or not," she told The Associated Press.

Mark Hawthorne, chief executive officer of McDonald's New Zealand, said the country was the only one to have a McDonald's that offered Weight Watchers meals. McDonald's New Zealand has "no knowledge of any plans to roll this out in other countries," spokeswoman Kylie Taylor said.

Air Control

An air traffic controller at New York's Kennedy Airport is in hot water after he allowed his young son to radio instructions to several pilots.

The Federal Aviation Administration said it has placed the controller and a supervisor on administrative leave as it investigates. FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt called the episode a "lapse in judgment."

The agency says it has also suspended all unofficial visits to FAA air traffic facilities while it reviews its policies.

The few quick exchanges between the elementary-school-aged child and jets waiting to take off from JFK became public after they were recorded and posted on the Internet. On the recordings, the child appears to be repeating simple instructions given by his father.

One conversation between the tower at JFK Airport in New York and a pilot goes as follows:

JFK TOWER: Jet Blue 171 contact departure.

PILOT: Over to departure jet blue 171, awesome job.

The child appears to be supervised, with a controller explaining the reason for the young voice to the pilot.

JFK TOWER: That's what you get guys when the kids are out of school. (laugh)

The airport is the sixth busiest in the country with thousands of planes taking off and landing every day.

The control tower is a highly secure area and the FAA says only licensed controllers are supposed to communicate with planes.

The union that represents air traffic controllers said: "We do not condone this type of behavior in any way, and it is not indicative of the highest professional standards that controllers set for themselves and exceed each and every day in the advancement of aviation safety."

Bon Voyage

Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger, who was hailed a hero after piloting the US Airways flight that landed on the Hudson River in January of last year, is retiring.

Have a nice flight...

The Walking Dead

A woman was killed while walking to work Wednesday after she was struck in the head by a flying piece of steel in a freak lawnmowing accident in north Queensland, Australia.

The 42-year-old was walking along a path in Townsville, just after 8 a.m. local time when she was hit by the piece of pipe, the Townsville Bulletin reported.

It is thought that a slasher, a tool used to clear bushes and grassland, being towed by a small tractor ran over the pipe, which had been hidden in long grass.

The tractor was mowing a vacant block next to a Liquor Land bottle store and was believed to be operated by a private contractor.

An ambulance was called at 8:12 a.m. but the woman died instantly.

Truly Amazing

Cheery O's

A campaign to name the number 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 "hella" is gaining support on an online petition, it emerged Tuesday.

More than 20,000 users of Facebook, including scientists and students, signed the petition calling for "hella" to be officially recognized by the International System of Units (SI).

Founder of the campaign Austin Sendek, a physics student at the University of California, said recent breakthroughs in science meant SI needed to go further with its classification of long numbers.

"As you know, the largest number with a designated SI prefix is 10^24, which carries the name 'yotta-,'" Sendek wrote. "However, in our world of increasing physical awareness and experimental precision, this number is no longer a satisfactory 'upper bound' in scientific nomenclature."

Sendek and his petition signatories believe naming numbers in the 10^27 category is of "critical importance for scientists in all fields." He said these numbers are vital to representing "the wattage of the sun, distances between galaxies, or the number of atoms in a large sample."

For example, the energy released by the sun would be better described as 0.3 hellawatts according to Sendek, rather than 300 yottawatts. Sendek proposed the prefix hella as a tribute to Northern California, which is home to several notable scientific institutions.

"However, science isn't all that sets Northern California apart from the rest of the world," Sendek wrote. "The area is also notorious for the creation and widespread usage of the English slang 'hella,' which typically means 'very,' or can refer to a large quantity (e.g. 'there are hella stars out tonight')."

Official SI prefixes:

10 = deca
100 = hecto
1,000 = kilo
1,000,000 = mega
1,000,000,000 = giga
1,000,000,000,000 = tera
1,000,000,000,000,000 = peta
1,000,000,000,000,000,000 = exa
1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 = zetta
1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 = yotta
1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 = unnamed

Still Reeling...

A Tribute....

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...to the man...

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...the myth...

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...the legend...

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...the Boner.

(R.I.P. - Andrew Koenig)

Camera Phone - Shown!

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I Made The Pens!

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Cat's In The Cradle...