Virtual reality: A Pakistani company, The Resource Group, seeking more call-center work from U.S. firms, set up an office this year in Washington, D.C., a block from the White House, and installed a receptionist, live from Karachi, via a flat- screen TV on the office wall. According to a May Washington Post report, Saadia Musa cheerily greets visitors, answers and routes phone calls to the Washington office, lets in deliverymen and orders sandwiches from down the street.

Drawn to the flames: Apparently, forest fires make the jewel beetle (also known as the black fire beetle) frisky, according to Helmut Schmitz and colleagues at the University of Bonn in Germany, for males and females will fly toward one in a mating frenzy after detecting even the faraway flickering of flames and crackling of burning wood. Schmitz, and predecessor William George Evans, hypothesized that the fire eliminates the beetle's predators and prevents tree secretion from trapping the beetle larvae, according to a March report by BBC News.

- Compiled

by Chuck Shepherd