A glance at the week that was
Monkey business
The country is used to hearing about loose horses on the roads, or to seeing signs warning of the dangers of prancing deer, but the N11 in Wicklow ground to a halt on Thursday thanks to a new menace: an escaped monkey.
Gina, a capuchin monkey, being minded by a local man, was loose for close to an hour, during which time a three-mile tailback developed - partly due to drivers stopping to take photographs. "She was tired and completely disorientated," said her minder. "Someone had pulled up in a Jeep and given her a banana, so she was eating that." There's always someone around to prove the truth of a cliche.
Off beam
Scotty did not get beamed up this week. The ashes of Star Trek actor James Doohan (left) were on board a private rocket which malfunctioned two minutes into its launch.
So, instead of being jettisoned into orbit with 200 other ash-tronauts, he was scattered somewhere in the Pacific Ocean.
It is the second time Doohan's ashes have crashed to earth. Last year, they were found in the New Mexico desert after a similar rocket malfunction.
We now know
Scientists have located the hottest water ever recorded, 467°C, on a magma flow in the Atlantic. It is so hot, it exists in a state between gas and liquid.
There will be no round-the-world Olympic torch relay in 2012.
Almost half of the world's primate species are in danger of extinction, claims the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
The numbers
103mThe depth of the deepest subterranean cavern in Ireland or UK, found in Pollatoomary, south Mayo, last month.
150,000Number of people expected at Knock shrine for the novena starting on Thursday
11The percentage increase in global mobile phone sales over the last year, although sales in Western Europe are predicted to fall for the first time since 2001.