An Australian MP has become an online hit after showing the sort of blind loyalty to his Prime Minister in a Sky News interview that could only normally be prompted by a Malcolm Tucker rant.

Bill Shorten was being interviewed about a statement made by PM Julia Gillard about whether the Australian Speaker should return to his role while there was an investigation into allegations of sexual harassment.

But rather than give his opinion he said: "I haven't seen what she's said, but let me say I support what it is that she said."

Bemused interviewer David Speers replied: "Hang on, you haven't seen what she said?" and then it got even more bizarre as Shorten added: "But I support what my prime minister said".

Of all the things we expected to see today, a rubber chicken wearing a knitted NASA suit and floating at the edge of space, wasn't one of them. Luckily High School students in California had other ideas.

Kids from Bishop Union High School used a helium balloon to send the bird, called Camilla (the mascot of the NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory), to an altitude of 120,000ft in her lunchbox spaceship.

As part of their science project they wanted to test the levels of radiation during a proton storm -- a M8-class solar flare early on March 10, 2012. And Camilla, who was just the job.

She was joined on her mission by several insects and sunflower seeds and after rising to the edge of space the balloon which had been carrying her expanded so much it exploded and  came hurtling back to Earth at 500 mph.

Eating competition normally include things like hot dogs or burgers, but a competitive eater in Russia has just won the world's first caviar speed eating contest.

49-year-old Alexander Lavrov munched his way through £3,000 worth of luxury black caviar in just 86 seconds and was the first person to finish their 500 grams of the delicacy.

His prize for munching his way through the expensive fish eggs, 10,000 rubles (£215) -- and even more caviar to take home.

The promotional event was held by a Moscow restaurant called Apartment which is said to have spent two million rubles on the contest.

When an Egyptian man decided he was going to watch his first bit of online porn, he probably thought the worst thing that could happen was for his wife to catch him.

However, what actually happened was that he discovered the movie he was watching stared his wife of 16 years who he had four children.

It's been reported that the man -- known only as Ramadan -- went on to find that his unfaithful wife had appeared in 11 different films.

After being shown the movie, the woman confessed to being the online porn star and told Ramadan she never really loved him, before adding that the man in the films was her pre-marriage boyfriend.

Speaking in Egyptian newspapers Ramadan insisted that this was the first time he had watched online porn… and that he'd gone to an internet cafe to do so. Yuk.

Two ambulance crews and a police car rushed to the scene of a model train accident after reportedly mishearing a 999 call.

It's claimed the 999 teams turned up at Canvey Island, Essex thinking they were attending a military railway not a miniature railway.

Staff at Canvey Railway had called for an ambulance after three passengers fell from the model train and suffered minor injuries.

But the train enthusiasts were shocked when the police and ambulance turned up to deal with the minor situation.

A spokesman for the attraction told the Telegraph: "The emergency crews said they thought they had been called to a military railway, which is why there was such a big response."

A team of engineers at Purdue University have created a machine to accomplish the simple task of popping a ballon... in the most over-engineered way possible.

The machine was an entry in this year’s Rube Goldberg Machine Contest -- where teams compete to design a machine that uses the most complex process to complete a simple task.

While some put a stamp on an envelope, screw in a light bulb or made a cup of coffee in 20 or more steps, this winning beauty takes a convoluted 300 steps to pop a balloon.

It was built by the Purdue Society of Professional Engineers and took 5,000 hours over six months to design and build. They should have got Wallace and Gromit in to help.

A typical Easter Egg hunt sees children running around and finding copious amounts of chocolate, but kids in Somerset found a hand grenade instead.

The event organised by a pre-school group near Holford -- and attended by more than 20 two to five-year-olds -- came to a bizarre end when the explosives were spotted.

One of the children had been seen standing on the device as the eggs were being counted, and organisers moved the kids calmly away from the hand grenade.

Police were called and after an evacuation and closing a road, the grenade was destroyed by bomb disposal teams who later declared the area safe.

It's not thought that they found any more chocolate eggs either.

Doctors in the US has come up with an interesting way to get men to have a vasectomy --  offering a free pizza and telling them they'll be able to watch basketball while recovering.

The Urology Associates of Cape Cod have produces an advert which suggests a vasectomy is a great excuse to sit on the sofa watching sports.

The 30 second advert even suggests that men book themselves in for the 15-minute procedure on a date which means they will get a week's worth of rest by watching the NCAA's college basketball tournament.

There's something reassuring about seeing a boffin wearing a white lab coat isn't there?

Well apparently the feeling is justified, because researcher have discovered wearing a lab coat makes people concentrate on their work and make fewer errors.

The boffins from Northwestern University -- who we assume were wearing their own lab coats -- tested their theory with 58 undergraduates.

The students (half wearing lab coats) were asked to name the colour of a word flashed on a computer screen, while ignoring the word itself.

It was found that those wearing the classic white lab coat made half as many errors.

A woman from Leeds -- who has a medical condition which makes people fall in love with inanimate objects -- says she's got the hots for the Statue of Liberty.

27-year-old Amanda Whittaker says the iconic New York monument is the only 'person' she could truly love.

Speaking to The Sun, Amanda said she first fell for the 151ft statue when a friend sent her a photo online.

Since then she has visited "Libby" four times, where she leans out of the window to kiss its hair and has a 6ft replica at home.

But this isn't the first time Amanda has been in love with an object… she apparently had a passionate love affair with a drum kit while still at school.