Odd News Roundup: Bees in the Netherlands trained to detect COVID-19 infections; Ordering takeout? Try a live concert at home and more

Following is a summary of current odd news briefs.

Bees in the Netherlands trained to detect COVID-19 infections

Dutch researchers have trained bees, which have an unusually keen sense of smell, to identify samples infected with COVID-19, a finding they said could cut waiting times for test results to just seconds. To train the bees, scientists in the bio-veterinary research laboratory at Wageningen University gave them sugary water as a reward after showing them samples infected with COVID-19. They would get no reward after being shown a non-infected sample.

Fresh pizza vending machine prompts curiosity and horror in Rome

Raffaele Esposito, the 19th century Neapolitan credited with inventing Italy's most famous type of pizza, may be turning in his grave: Rome has a new vending machine which slides out freshly cooked pizzas in just three minutes. Buyers using the flaming red "Mr. Go Pizza" machine can choose from four different kinds of pizzas costing from 4.50 to 6 euros ($5.2-7.2). The machine kneads and tops the dough and customers can watch the pizza cook behind a small glass window.

Ordering takeout? Try a live concert at home

Live concerts are on the menu for home delivery, as musicians and audiences seek to satisfy their appetite for human interaction. As the sun set in Piedmont, California, about 20 masked revelers gathered on the back porch of a home. Lit up by a few stage lights, a nearby fire and hanging garden bulbs, singer-songwriter Steve Poltz strolled in, guitar in hand, happy to be performing live again.

French stunt school's 'badass' women snapped up by film industry

Valeriane Michelini trained as a dancer before opting to tap into the growing demand for stuntwomen and a career of jumping out of helicopters, leaping from buildings and brawling.

Michelini is one of a growing number of women passing through the Campus Univers Cascade (CUC), which bills itself as the world's biggest stunt school, and looking to break into European cinema and Hollywood as a stunt double.

Kings of Lagos: children learn chess to seek escape from Nigeria's slums

A dozen children crowd around plastic tables in the Majidun neighbourhood of Lagos. Intently focused on plastic mats printed with chess boards, the children thoughtfully move pieces on the board as supervisors observe their moves. The waterside shanty town is just across the lagoon from the mansions and towering office blocks of Nigeria's commercial capital. They hope the cunning and strategy they learn on the chess board will help them make the leap out of their homes in the slum.

(With inputs from agencies.)