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There is a Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and it can legally carry out weddings

The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster has been given approval for carrying out wedding ceremonies in New Zealand. Members of said church refer to themselves fittingly as Pastafarians, and maintain that the world was created by a flying spaghetti and meatballs-like entity. The head of the church is called the Top Ramen. She told Stuff.co.nz, “We are a bona fide church, and our people do like to get married, some of them several times. We can wear the pirate gear, we can wear the pasta gear, we’re quite flexible.” The New Zealand government’s decision was based entirely on whether the applying organization upholds religious beliefs or humanitarian convictions. [Source: BBC]

Illness profiteer Martin Shkreli has been arrested on fraud charges

Martin Shkreli, the 32-year-old illness profiteer who found fame by making life-saving drugs formidably expensive, has been arrested by the FBI on securities fraud charges. The world rejoices for this, apparently. According to Bloomberg Business, Shkreli made “secret payoffs and set up sham consulting arrangements” while he was a hedge fund manager for MSMB Capital Management and CEO of biotech firm Retrophin, a company he stands accused of illegally purchasing stocks from to pay off debts. In September of this year, Shkreli was slaughtered by social media for hiking the popular drug Daraprim – used by those suffering from HIV – from USD$13.50 to USD$750.00. [Source: Death and Taxes]

Weather reporter slips at least 40 Star Wars puns into 40-second TV broadcast

Science world ecstatic over possible discovery of new particle

Physicians across the globe are grinning and on edge after the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the largest particle accelerator on earth, produced what may be a brand new particle not included in the Standard Model. This find manifested itself as a slight wiggle on a graph of data collected during the LHC’s run from April to November of this year, a stint in which the machine was calibrated to collide protons at nearly twice the energy of its earlier runs. Though the findings remain inconclusive, the hint of discovery has already yielded 11 academic papers. “This is something that we’ve been waiting for a long time,” Adam Falkowski, a physicist at the Institute of Theoretical Physics in Warsaw and a member of the CERN Theory Group, told Scientific America. “Of course we are aware this could be nothing. But for my generation, this is the first time there is a very large, quite reliable signal of physics beyond the Standard Model, so it’s definitely very exciting.” The science community does not yet know the implications of this discovery. “There’s a long list of possible things it could be beyond what we already know the universe contains,” said Princeton physicist Jim Olsen. [Source: Scientific American]

Syrian refugee rock band Khebez Dawle arrived on dinghy, touring Europe

Syrian rock band Khebez Dawle sold their instruments in 2013 and paid a smuggler to transport them across the Mediterranean in a dinghy. “We were told we’re lucky enough to get this dinghy with just 16 guys. It was fun though – complicated fun,” Musician Anas Maghrebi told the Guardian, adding that once they arrived in Lesbos, the band handed out copies of their album to tourists. “Usually they see dinghies with hysterical looks, sad faces. Instead they saw happy faces, laughing, guys speaking English. We introduced ourselves as a band. Everybody was just shocked.” Since then, and with borrowed instruments, the refugee rock band Khebez Dawle has been playing all over Europe with a message of hope, protest, and unity. “With the band we have a responsibility to speak, to tell Europeans about the other Syrians who are not heard,” said Maghrebi.“For me it’s much more important than just playing music in clubs and dancing – all these cliches – it’s much more than that. It’s about being responsible for spreading the word. We got to play music in front of different cultures, different nationalities and we made sure that the language barrier is not a barrier anymore.” See video of the band below [Source: Guardian]