With a frost warning in effect in parts of Canada, an Ottawa area farmer reportedly sent a helicopter to hover over his apple orchard overnight Monday in an unusual effort to save his crop.

Temperatures in the Ottawa region fell to -2 degrees Celsius (28 Fahrenheit) at about 3 a.m. (0700 GMT) early Tuesday morning.

A large rainforest plant known as a corpse flower because of its awful smell has bloomed again at an Ohio State University greenhouse, and there's more excitement because another corpse flower there is expected to open soon, a spokeswoman said.

A 6-foot (1.8-meter) titan arum, nicknamed Woody after former Ohio State football coach Woody Hayes, opened Tuesday to reveal its bold, reddish-purple color and release its rotting-flesh smell a little over two years after it first flowered.

The giant inflatable rubber duck which has attracted tens of thousands of visitors since it sailed into Hong Kong two weeks ago was reduced to a sad deflated disc Wednesday in the city's harbor.

Duck mania has gripped Hong Kong since its arrival, with locals and tourists flocking to catch a glimpse of the 16.5-meter-tall (54-feet) artwork, conceived by Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman.

A wealthy Chinese Maserati owner hired four sledgehammer-wielding men to smash up his $420,000 supercar in protest at poor customer service, reports said Wednesday.

The car owner, identified only by his surname Wang, had the group attack the Maserati Quattroporte at the opening of an auto show in the eastern city of Qingdao, in Shandong province, the Qingdao Morning Post said.

The annual rush to the hills by villagers keen to harvest a rare aphrodisiac fungus dubbed "Himalayan Viagra" has emptied rural schools in Nepal and forced them to shut, a local official said Tuesday.

Parents, students and even teachers have left home in pursuit of "yarchagumba", a high-altitude caterpillar fungus which is eagerly sought for its reputed sexual enhancement.

The latest weapon in the U.N.'s fight against hunger, global warming and pollution might be flying by you right now.

Edible insects are being promoted as a low-fat, high-protein food for people, pets and livestock. According to the U.N., they come with appetizing side benefits: Reducing greenhouse gas emissions and livestock pollution, creating jobs in developing countries and feeding the millions of hungry people in the world.

Authorities say a New York police officer who tried to rescue a cat stuck in a tree got caught himself and needed a little help getting back down to the ground.

The Fire Department of New York says it happened Monday afternoon in the borough of Queens.

With jaws of steel that have earned him the nickname "Coconut Peeler," Andres Gardin, at the tender age of 64, is hell-bent on gnawing his way into the Guinness Book of World Records.

Sure, lots of gents his age might be thinking about retirement or whiling away time at the bar.

With a pumpkin for a drum, carrots for flutes and turnips for trumpets, musicians from Vienna transformed the fresh goods in a Madrid market into honking, whistling instruments on Monday.

Visiting members of the Vienna Vegetable Orchestra marked the centenary of the San Miguel market in the center of the Spanish capital by taking saws and drills to its vegetables, coring and boring holes in them to make wind instruments.

A school pupil was arrested in China for hiring hitmen who killed his father and sister because of the pressure they put on him to study, reports said Monday, highlighting educational stress in the country.

The teenager was detained in the central province of Henan following the death of his father Gao Tianfeng -- a senior court official -- and his 20-year-old sister, the official Xinhua news agency said, citing local police.