The city beaches in Fort Lauderdale, Florida will soon be equipped with high-tech automated toilets that welcome its users with a polite greeting and also soothe them with light music during the process. The computerized toilets are expected to cost between $250,000 and $350,000 for a single-toilet restroom. The city commissioners voted Tuesday in favor of paying $25,259 to an engineering firm to design the site.

Officials from Miami Beach, Florida are exploring ways to outsource new sand from foreign beaches after the usual methods of replenishing the beaches has dried up. New beaches from where sand could be exported include the shores of Dominican Republic, the Turks and Caicos Islands and Mexico, the Christian Science Monitor reported Wednesday.

f you are ever planning on taking a swim in the popular Indian coastal resort state of Goa, be sure to pack a lifejacket. In fact, only 1 candidate out of 129 participants actually passed the lifeguard swimming test, which included swimming 400 meters (1,320 feet) in nine minutes. Nearly half couldn't swim that length at all.

At least 10 stingray bodies have been found on two Australian beaches since "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin was fatally injured by one of the fish, and conservationists are worried people are killing them to avenge his death. Michael Hornby, the executive director of Irwin's Wildlife Warriors conservation group told the AP, "It may be some sort of retribution, or it may be fear from certain individuals, or it just may be yet another callous act toward wildlife," adding the killing stingrays was "not what Steve was about. "

Penguins stranded on the beaches of Rio de Janeiro are getting help from Brazil's air force and navy. The flightless birds will hop a ride on a plane carrying equipment from an Antarctic naval base to the south of Brazil. They will then go on board a naval ship that will release them into the ocean, near their Antarctic home.