Take 2 aspirin, remove the 6-foot bar from your skull ...

And call me in the morning: A 24-year-old construction worker amazingly survived when a 6-foot metal bar fell five floors from above, pierced his skull through the back of his head and exited between his eyes. Doctors successfully removed the bar and report that the man has suffered no lasting damage.

His doctors noted that the metal bar missed vital portions of the man's brain and had entered a "non-eloquent" area reserved for arguing partisan political issues on newspaper online comment forums.

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Chicks and ducks and geese better scurry: Health officials aren't discouraging people from going to the Evergreen State Fair and visiting the sheep, cattle and pigs, but a new strain of swine flu that can be spread from pigs to humans has prompted warnings to wash hands after touching animals.

And should you feel it necessary to put lipstick on a pig, use a good antibiotic brand.

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The reason caves are dark: Amateur cave explorers have discovered a previously unknown family of spiders in the mountains of southern Oregon that entomologists say are so distinct that they have been given their own taxonomic family. The spiders, about the size of a half-dollar and reddish brown, are named Trogloraptor -- or cave robber -- and sport fearsome front claws.

If you're giving us a choice, we'll go to the fair and kiss a pig rather than hang out with the spiders.

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