From mutant bedbugs stalking the Earth to Taylor Swift's new-found love of the gridiron fumble...

Your weekly roundup of offbeat stories from around the world.

 Exam flunker wins Nobel 
The winner of this year's Nobel's Chemistry Prize has a confession to make.

Moungi Bawendi flunked his first chemistry exam -- royally.

The MIT professor co-won the prize for developing "quantum dots" -- you know, those nanoparticles powering the next generation of screens and helping to show up tumours within the body.

But the 62-year-old Franco-Tunisian didn't just fail his first chemistry exam at Harvard, he screwed it up so badly he said it nearly "destroyed" him.

"I looked at the first question and I couldn't figure it out. I couldn't figure out the second" either, he told AFP.

"And I thought, 'Oh my God, what am I doing here?'"

He got an F (20 out of 100), "the lowest grade in my class by far," he added.

But "I figured out how to study," and the rest is history. "Persevere," he urged, don't let failure get you down.

US Chemist Moungi Bawendi appears on a screen during the announcement of the winners of the 2023 Nobel Prize in chemistry at Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm on October 4, 2023. - French-born Moungi Bawendi, Louis E. Brus of the United States and Russian-born Alexei Ekimov won the Nobel Chemistry Prize for research in semiconductor nanocrystals known as quantum dots. (Photo by Jonathan NACKSTRAND / AFP)

 Don't let the bedbugs bite 
The planet is sweating through the hottest year in history, the war in Ukraine gets bloodier by the day and scientists say a new "supercontinent" could one day wipe out humans entirely. But what's got the world really worried this week are mutant French bedbugs.

The panic started in Paris with reports of infested trains and cinemas. But now it has gone planetary, with fashionistas fearful they could have brought the bloodsuckers to the four corners of the Earth in their baggage after returning home from Paris Fashion Week.

The hysteria has spread across the Channel to Britain with talk of a bedbug "invasion" coming as interior minister Suella Braverman warned of a "hurricane" of migrants.

With the itch of anxiety even making it to India, President Emmanuel Macron ordered an emergency meeting of ministers with France's reputation at stake as it prepares to host the Olympics on the back of the Rugby World Club.

But despite the fevered talk of skin-crawling encounters and viral videos of bites, officials told AFP that checks on French trains and the Paris metro have yet to turn up a single bedbug...

Swift's locker room guy 
A phalanx of new fans who wouldn't know a wide receiver from a satellite dish are filling American Football stadiums.

The "Swifties" -- as pop superstar Taylor Swift's followers are called -- have been packing the bleachers in the hope of catching sight of their idol because of her rumoured romance with Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce.

Television cameras have been turning to the stands so often to catch Swift supposedly cheering on her man that the NFL have been accused of "overdoing it" by Kelce himself.

"I think it's fun when they show who-all is at the game," Kelce said.

"But at the same time..." it was a bit too much, the footballer said, "Especially in my situation."

Even so, there is no arguing with the figures, with ratings going through the roof. Data firm Nielsen said there has been a 53 percent surge in teenage girls watching NFL games.

Going for gold 
It's not the winning but the taking part. All the same, winning at the Asian Games comes with some great fringe benefits for amateur athletes.

Several countries are offering bonuses for bringing home medals, with India doling out $36,000 for a gold, 15 times the average annual salary. Some even will get a government job thrown in.

Wrestler Vinesh Phogat was made a senior railway official after her gold in Jakarta in 2018.

Singapore gives gold medal winners $146,000, although that is barely enough to buy a small flat in the wealthy city-state.

Indonesia will actually build you a house for getting any sort of medal -- as long as you provide the land.