However you feel about internet file sharing, when the music industry took notorious file sharing website The Pirate Bay to court for promoting copyright infringement, it really was a David vs. Goliath battle.

Standing against a consortium of international rights holders including Sony BMG, 20^th Century Fox and Warner Bros (and their team of expensive lawyers) was a group of just four young webmasters from Sweden, who were being sued for $13 million in damages.

Görel Wallis with some of her flowers

To fight their case, The Pirate Bay relied heavily on the testimony of a series of expert witnesses; among those who testified was Roger Wallis, Professor emeritus of Multimedia at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, who told the court there was no relationship between increased internet filesharing and declining album sales.

Upon leaving the stand, the court asked Professor Wallis whether he would like to be reimbursed for his appearance. “You are welcome to send some flowers to my wife,” he responded. Keeping an eye on the trial from around the world, hundreds of supporters of The Pirate Bay decided to act on his suggestion.

Several Stockholm florists had soon taken anonymous orders of flowers for Professor Wallis’ wife, Görel – hundreds of them, and they kept flooding in. (more…)

There’s nothing we like better than discovering remarkable new species of flowers. Whether they are sublimely beautiful or just plain weird, there’s always something intriguing about out-of-the-ordinary blooms.

So, after bringing you a few ‘unusual suspects’ in a recent post we thought it was time to showcase some more bizarre blossoms:

Corpse Lily

Corpse Lily (Rafflesia arnoldii)

The Corpse Lily is known for producing the largest individual flower of any plant in the world, but it is its overpowering stench of rotting flesh that gives the flower its common name.

Found in the rainforests of Borneo and Sumatra, the Corpse Lily is a parasite which survives by attaching itself to the Tetrastigma vine. (more…)