The New York Post spotted several Manhattan businesses that tried to appeal to nudists this summer with special events. Among the most challenging were John Ordover’s monthly dinners at selected restaurants (such as the Mercantile Grill), where about 50 diners eat and drink naked (served by the restaurant’s regular, clothed staff), and the Naked Comedy Showcase at People’s Improv Theater in the Chelsea district, where once a month, naked comedians perform (and a section in the audience is reserved for naked patrons).
 
Weird Science
    In July, microbiologists writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reported that the Malaysian pen-tailed tree shrew subsists on a diet of fermented palm nectar that is roughly the equivalent of 100 percent beer. “They seem to have developed some type of mechanism to deal with that high level of alcohol and not get drunk,” according to one researcher, who hoped further study could help with human cases of alcohol poisoning (and other rare instances in which people ingest alcohol for purposes other than getting drunk.) 

Intelligent Design
    Among the photo exhibits at New York City’s Museum of Sex in July was the display of the genitalia of the spotted hyena, which was described by Bloomberg News: “(B)oth the male and female have penises. The female, it turns out, has a scrotal sack, too. For reproductive purposes, the male transfers his sperm through the female’s penis, which doubles as her clitoris.” Other exhibits included “Gay Dolphin Blow-Hole Sex” and a “Deer Threesome,” featuring a “Bambi” with two stags. Said the museum’s curator, the exhibit simply compensates for museums’ traditional animal exhibits in which depictions of genitalia are suppressed. 

It’s Good to be a British Prisoner
    Ian Brady, now age 70 and perhaps the most famous British murderer of the 20th century, complained recently that the psychiatric inmates housed with him in Ashworth Hospital still qualify for government allowances up to the equivalent of about $200 per week whereas prison transfers like him receive “only” one-fourth that amount.