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When Mr Gardner heard about a Darwin woman who made headlines for getting pulled over by police for a breath test wearing little but her undies, the 43-year-old had a big laugh - but wasn't expecting he would be next in line to make the paper for a mishap.

"I hit my ear on the boom of my truck and broke the headset of my phone," Mr Gardner told the Northern Territory News.

"So I got some superglue and glued it back together - and that was ... when my boss rang."

The truck driver said he usually had the phone's headset in his ear most of the day.

"I guess I didn't think much of it when I put it back into my ear to talk to the boss.

"I drove from Casuarina to Rapid Creek when I realised I had done something kinda stupid."

After having the headset in his ear for more than five minutes the adhesive had hardened - and Mr Gardner found himself with a earpiece glued into his ear.

"Usually it's in my ear all day anyway - friends suggested to leave it in there and just plug my ear into the powerpoint at night to charge it. But I did get a little worried and thought 'This is not good, this is really not good at all'."

Mr Gardner told the Northern Territory News it crossed his mind to use his pocket knife to remove the unwanted gear from his ear.

"I realised I didn't want to see myself going to a doctor to put my ear back on after I chopped it off.

"So I used a spoon."

The 43-year-old said he scraped the earpiece out of his ear with a spoon but several pieces of skin were still stuck to the headphones.

"Yes, it did hurt - but I guess I did hurt my pride much more than it did hurt my ear."

US scientist David Dosa was sceptical when first told that Oscar, an aloof cat kept by a nursing home, regularly predicted patients' deaths by snuggling alongside them in their final hours.

But Dr Dosa's doubts eroded after he and his colleagues tallied about 50 correct calls made by Oscar over five years, a process he explains in a book released this week, Making Rounds With Oscar: The Extraordinary Gift of an Ordinary Cat.

The feline's bizarre talent astounds Dr Dosa, but he finds Oscar's real worth in his fierce insistence on being present when others turn away from life's most uncomfortable topic: death.

"People actually were taking great comfort in this idea, that this animal was there and might be there when their loved ones eventually pass," Dr Dosa said. "He was there when they couldn't be."

Dr Dosa, 37, is a geriatrician and professor from Rhode Island who treats patients with severe dementia. It's usually the last stop for people so ill they cannot speak or recognise their spouses, and so spend their days lost in fragments of memory.

He once feared that families would be horrified by the furry grim reaper, especially after he made Oscar famous in a 2007 essay in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Instead, he says many caregivers consider Oscar a comforting presence, and some have praised him in newspaper death notices and eulogies.

"Maybe they're seeing what they want to see," he said, "but what they're seeing is a comfort to them in a real difficult time in their lives."

The nursing home adopted Oscar, a medium-haired cat with a grey and brown back and white belly, in 2005 because its staff think that pets make the Steere House in Providence a home.

They play with visiting children and prove a welcome distraction for patients and doctors alike.

After a year, the staff noticed that Oscar would spend his days pacing from room to room. He sniffed and looked at the patients but rarely spent much time with anyone - except when they had just hours to live.

He's accurate enough that the staff - including Dr Dosa - know it's time to call family members when Oscar stretches beside a patient, who is generally too ill to notice his presence.

If kept outside the room of a dying patient, he'll scratch at doors and walls, trying to get in.

Nurses once placed Oscar in the bed of a patient they thought gravely ill.

Oscar wouldn't stay put, and the staff thought his streak was broken.

It turned out the medical professionals were wrong, and the patient rallied for two more days. But in the final hours, Oscar held his bedside vigil without prompting.

Dr Dosa does not explain Oscar scientifically in his book, although he theorises the cat imitates the nurses who raised him or smells odours given off by dying cells, perhaps like some dogs who scientists say can detect cancer using their sense of scent.

Dr Dosa says several patients in his book are partly fictional, though the names and stories of the caregivers he interviews are real.

Donna Richards told Dr Dosa that she felt guilty for putting her mother in a nursing home. She felt guilty for not visiting enough. When caring for her mother, she felt guilty about missing her teenage son's swimming lessons.

She was at her mother's bedside nonstop when she knew she was nearing her end. But after three days, a nurse persuaded her to go home for a brief rest. Despite her misgivings, Ms Richards agreed. Her mother died a short while later.

But she didn't die alone. Oscar was there.

Only real breasts will do for Captain Jack Sparrow as Pirates of the Caribbean director Rob Marshall bans implants

THE Pirates of the Caribbean films may have wowed audiences with their digital trickery but the makers of the latest installment in the hit series have turned their backs on special effects.

The director of the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean movie has insisted that only actresses with natural curves should apply for roles, in effect banning enhanced breasts from the set, The Sunday Times has reported.

Rob Marshall has asked casting agents to advertise for "beautiful female fit models. Must be 5ft 7in-5ft 8in, size 4 or 6, no bigger or smaller. Age 18-25. Must have a lean dancer body. Must have real breasts. Do not submit if you have implants."

Marshall, who directed Hollywood hottest actresses in the musical Nine last year, has reportedly warned that there will be a "show and tell" test to weed out those who think they can get false breasts onto the set.

The women are needed for scenes that will be shot in Hawaii in June and July.

Sources involved in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides claim that the natural look was brought in because audiences are increasingly able to spot fake breasts.

"In the last movie there were enhanced breasts to give that 18th-century whoreish look," said one.

Johnny Depp is set to return as Captain Jack Sparrow but Keira Knightley is expected to be replaced by busty Penelope Cruz.

Knightley's breasts famously grew several sizes for another Jerry Bruckheimer-produced film.

On posters for King Arthur her "flat chest" was enlarged several sizes and she has said that on the previous Pirates films effects artists used to regularly digitally enhance her cleavage.

Massive sinkhole swallows city building

A giant sinkhole larger than a street intersection has swallowed a three-storey building and a house in Guatemala, as residents reel from a storm that has killed at least 146 people across Central America.

In the north of Guatemala City, the giant sinkhole opened up in the wake of Tropical Storm Agatha, reportedly killing a security guard although local officials have not confirmed the death.

A similar hole opened up nearby last year and residents blamed the sinkhole on a poor sewage drainage system underground.

In towns outside the capital, people caked in dirt searched for their loved ones as the stench of mud and sewage from flooded drains filled the air and emergency workers urged survivors to leave ruined houses and go to shelters.

The first-named storm of the 2010 Pacific hurricane season, Agatha hit Guatemala on Saturday, dumping more than one metre of rain in the mountainous west of the country and in neighbouring El Salvador.

"I've got no one to help me. I watched the water take everything," said Carlota Ramos in the town of Amatitlan near the Guatemalan capital.

Her brick house was almost completely swamped by mud.

As the sun came out, exhausted rescue workers hauled away stones and tree trunks from crushed houses as they fought to reach wounded people and find the dozens still missing.

"We just have shovels and picks. We don't have any machinery to dig," said firefighter Mario Cruz, who had been working almost non-stop since Saturday.

Other rescuers walked for several hours along muddy tracks to reach trapped villagers and pull them out of collapsed homes.

At least 123 people died in Guatemala and 59 others are missing, according to the government.

Helicopters ferried tents and medical supplies to remote towns on Guatemala's Pacific coast and the first foreign aid began to flow in on Monday.

More than 94,000 people have been evacuated as the storm buried homes under mud and swept away a highway bridge near Guatemala City.

Central America is vulnerable to heavy rains due to its mountainous terrain, while poor communications in rural areas complicate rescue efforts.