WEIRD WORLD

IN THE DARK: A giant £7 million machine buried in a disused gold mine has failed in its mission to detect dark matter, the mysterious hidden material that accounts for more than fourfifths of the mass of the universe. The Large Underground Xenon (Lux) experiment operated beneath a mile of rock in the Black Hills of Dakota, US. Placed within a tank filled with 72,000 gallons of high-purity water, it was designed to spot tiny flashes of light emitted as dark matter particles collided with atoms of xenon. But results from the detector’s final 20-month run, which ended in May, revealed no sign of the elusive particles.

LADYBIRD LUCRE: The tongue-in-cheek Ladybird Books For Grown-Ups series has sold a milestone two million copies in under 12 months. Authors Jason Hazeley and Joel Morris join the elite ranks of authors such as Dan Brown and EL James in reaching the landmark sales figures in such a short period of time. On release in October 2015, the current set of 10 titles – including spoofs on mindfulness, hipsters and the mid-life crisis – dominated The Sunday Times bestseller charts for 37 consecutive weeks.

BUTTER ME UP, SCOTTY: A sculptor is set to boldly go where no sculptor has gone before - by creating a Star Trek exhibit made from butter. As part of the Iowa State Fair in August, each year Sarah Pratt creates a cow from butter which is displayed alongside a second sculpture, and previously she has created Elvis Presley, a Harley-Davidson motorcycle and Neil Armstrong’s walk on the moon. This year she plans to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the original Star Trek television show by depicting Captain Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Uhura on the bridge of starship USS Enterprise.