Love letter: A group of Croatians was cleaning up a beach in their local area. Among all the junk they found was a bottle, which one group member almost threw away with the rest of the garbage. It’s lucky he took second look, for inside the bottle was a love letter written by a Canadian from the coastal province of Nova Scotia. The letter was written in 1985 and that bottle traveled a long way over a period of many years. It crossed the Atlantic Ocean, then floated through the Mediterranean and Adriatic Seas before reaching Croatia. The letter was from someone named Jonathan who had written to a girl named Mary.

Braying donkey: There is a donkey in Brussels, Belgium named Lola that became famous for more than one reason. Lola was part of the cast of a play called “The Palestinian” which was being staged at a local cultural center and the audience loved her. However, during the play, Lola lived in an unconventional place for a donkey, the first floor balcony of an apartment building. Unfortunately, the neighbors did not applaud her constant braying. Her keeper and the cultural center’s director were not happy about the complaints, but had to find a new temporary home for the animal actress until the play ended its run.

Right or left? Researchers at the University of Adelaide in South Australia have found evidence that left-pawed dogs may be more aggressive than right-pawed dogs. Just like left- and right-handedness in humans, some dogs show a preference for using one paw over the other when doing a tricky task. In the study, 75 dogs of different breeds were observed attempting to get food out of a cylindrical toy. The researchers identified which paw each dog favored. Owners of the left-pawed canines were more likely to report that their dogs were aggressive, especially when approached by strangers.

Mars mission: There is a trip of a lifetime being planned for a few lucky people, but there is a catch; none of the travelers will ever come home again. Actually, it’s not really a trip, it’s a mission. The destination is Mars and the estimated time of departure is unknown, but possibly within the next 10 to 25 years. Dubbed “Mars Project One,” this space mission is being planned by Dutch entrepreneur Bas Landorp. When he asked for volunteers, 80,000 people from 120 countries expressed interest. For the project, modules would be set up on Mars with robots, then carefully selected voyagers would be sent every four years to build a settlement on the planet. Time will tell if this $6 billion dream comes true!