A village school in Norfolk, East Anglia in eastern England is planning to build a new classroom made entirely from straw bales. The pupils at St. Andrew's school, have designed the environmentally-friendly room in a project on Celtic round houses. The school has 59 students from 2-years-old to 11. The school has been given permission to construct the straw classroom.

A group of scientists from Nanning in the southern Chinese province of Guanxi, are claiming they can predict earthquakes just by observing the behavior of snakes. The earthquake bureau in Nannning says they monitor snakes on a snake farm using 24-hour Internet video links. Scientists working for the bureau say the snakes can sense a quake from 75 miles away, up to five days before it occurs.

With New Year just round the corner, astrologers in South Korea are debating over a strange issue of what day truly marks the start of the zodiacal New Year. According to the Korea Times, the fight is whether the zodiacal New Year starts on Tongji (Dec. 22) or Ipchun, (Feb. 4).

A Japanese man, who was stranded in a remote mountainous area in Western Japan for 24 days, reportedly survived the cold weather and that too without food and water, by switching to "hibernation" mode. Hibernation is a state of inactivity and metabolic depression usually practiced by animals during winter. Mitsutaka Uchikoshi, 35, went missing in late October after he went for a barbecue party with friends.

In a bid to raise their voice for world peace, a California couple has formed The Global Orgasm for Peace organization, which urges everyone in the world to have an orgasm Dec. 22 while focusing on world peace. Conceived by two San Francisco-area peace activists Donna Sheehan, 76, and Paul Reffell, 55, the organization is hoping that annually on the first day of winter, peace-lovers will stay home and make love.