Chatter: Deadly drones strike Pakistan

Need to know:
At least eight people are reported killed in a suspected US drone strike in Pakistan.

The attack targeted insurgents in North Waziristan, local officials said. Two missiles were fired, hitting a house and damaging a nearby mosque.

It's the second drone strike in the area in 24 hours, despite Pakistan's demands for them to stop immediately. 

Want to know:
As Egyptians begin a second day of voting in their first free presidential election, it remains anyone's guess who will be the country's next head of state. And that's a good thing.

It's a far cry from the days when Hosni Mubarak would win re-election each time in a landslide. High turnout has been reported in cities and villages across the country, as voters line up to choose between multiple candidates for the first time in their lives.

The chances are they'll be voting again next month, if the election goes, as it's expected to, to a run-off. GlobalPost makes some early predictions about what we can expect from a truly momentous ballot.

Dull but important:
Is Germany trying to save the euro because it feels guilty about the Holocaust?

That's the premise laid out by German former central banker Thilo Sarrazin, in his subtly-titled new book, 'Europe Doesn't Need the Euro.' You may recognize him from works such as 'Germany Abolishes Itself,' the book that led to Sarrazin's resignation from the Bundesbank for its argument that Turkish and Arab immigrants were lowering the country's average intelligence.

Yet while his invocation of the Holocaust has been dismissed by commentators as ravings at best and extreme cynicism at worst, the worry among Germany's political elite is that the populist euroskeptism in this new book could chime with those Germans who are resentful of both the euro and the bailouts.

Just because:
Fans of freaky creatures, you'll enjoy this list of the top ten newly-discovered species.

Compiled by an international committee of scientists, the list aims to highlight Earth's biodiversity while pointing to the dangers that threaten it.

"Each species provides a unique chapter in the history of life and unless we discover them now, we stand to lose an enormous amount of irreplaceable evidence about our own origins and relatives," said one professor of life sciences.

The list includes a monkey from Myanmar that sneezes when it rains, an orchid that only blooms at night, and a fungus that's named after SpongeBob SquarePants.

Strange but true:
Here's one to make you choke on your cornflakes: British stuntman Gary Connery has set a new world record by skydiving 2,400 feet – without a parachute. The former soldier broke his fall with a "runway" constructed of 18,000 cardboard boxes.

"It was so comfortable, so soft," he told reporters, adding that he plans to start preparing for a new challenge as soon as the celebrations are over.

You say "challenge," Gary, we say "crazy and basically pointless stunt." Let's call the whole thing off, but not before we've gotten our kicks vicariously with this video of the plunge.