Friday Snippets and Soundbites

Ready for this week’s dose of weird news? Yep, so are we. And you can get even more on page 38 of this month’s issue of ec!

To the moon!
This week, the Dutch national museum (better known as the Rijksmuseum) announced that one of its prized possessions, a moon rock, actually isn’t from the moon. Instead, it’s simply a piece of petrified wood. Former Dutch Prime Minister Willem Drees gave the rock to the museum in 1988. He had received it as a gift from then-U.S. ambassador J. William Middendorf in 1969. While the U.S. gave many rocks to foreign countries following the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969, most weren’t from that initial mission. A space expert saw the stone on display (which isn’t generally the case) in 2006 and informed the museum that it probably wasn’t a moon rock. Tests showed it to be a piece of petrified wood that’s worth no more than $70. It’s unclear why Drees was given the stone (he’d been out of office for 11 years in 1969) or why he thought it to be a moon rock. To read all about the fake moon rock, go here.

Miracles really do happen.
A Phoenix woman was recently surprised when the cab driver who had been driving her back and forth to dialysis appointments offered to donate his kidney to her. Rita Van Loenen had been diagnosed with kidney disease last year and was facing kidney failure when none of her friends or family proved to be a match. A cousin had previously donated a kidney to her, but that transplant had failed. Loenen told her taxi driver, Thomas Chappell, that her son was getting tested, too. That’s when Chappell decided to get tested, too. Their blood types matched. Chappell told Loenen that they’d have to be siblings to be any closer of a match. Chappell describes himself as a man of faith and that he felt God’s leading to give Loenen a kidney. To read all about the story and how God worked through circumstances to bring these two together, go here.


We’ve heard of glass-bottomed boats . . .
But not glass-bottomed elevators. Sure, we’ve all ridden in glass elevators, but there are some elevators that are taking it to another level—you know, as they take you to another level. For example, the glass-floored elevators in the CN Tower in Toronto, Canada, and the Sky Tower in Aukland, New Zealand. Only a portion of the elevators’ floors are glass, but it’s enough to give guests quite a view of where they’ve come from—and how very far away it is. Learn more about both elevators here. Be sure to watch the videos!

Happy weekend, readers!