Smoking fish in prison

It is well-known that the cigarette pack has been the standard currency for inmates in U.S. Federal prisons. But in 2004, when legislation prohibited smoking in prison, another currency soon took its place - the "mack" - that is a can of mackerel.

"It's the coin of the realm," says Mark Bailey, who was serving a two-year tax-fraud sentence in connection with a chain of strip clubs he owned. His 'in-house' lawyer, Mr. Levine, who was serving a nine-year term for drug dealing, says he used his macks to get his beard trimmed, his clothes pressed and his shoes shined by other prisoners. "A haircut is two macks," he says, as an expected tip for inmates who work in the prison barber shop.

Prisoners need a proxy for the dollar because they're not allowed to possess cash. Money they get from prison jobs (which pay a maximum of 40 cents an hour, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons) or family members goes into commissary accounts that let them buy things such as food and toiletries. After the smokes disappeared, inmates turned to other items on the commissary menu to use as currency.

I'd recognize that ASS anywhere

Chimpanzees may not forget a familiar face — or a behind, a new study says.

In a recent experiment, captive primates were able to identify photos of their acquaintances' rears and match them with the right faces.

The ability suggests that the animals possess mental "whole body" representations of other chimps they know.

Each participating chimp was flashed a picture of another's bum, with visible genitals, then shown the face of the derriere's owner and another face of the same gender.

Both males and females were successful in this anatomical match game, pairing faces and posteriors with much greater frequency than chance alone—but only if the photos showed chimps they already knew.

Cosmic Beauty

Pictured above is a spectacular single-exposure image of our Milky Way Galaxy, taken with a long duration exposure. The planet Jupiter is visible as the bright point just to band's left. Under that are picturesque buttes and mesas of the Canyonlands National Park in Utah, USA, lit by a crescent moon. In the foreground is a cave housing a stone circle of unknown origin named False Kiva.