Asian elephant speaks Korean

An Asian elephant named Koshik can imitate human speech, saying words in Korean that can be understood by speakers of the language, researchers from the University Of Vienna say.

It's unclear why Koshik started mimicking human speech, but cognitive biologists Angela Stoeger and Tecumseh Fitch suggest in research published in the journal Current Biology that it might be related to his experiences as a juvenile.

Koshik was the only elephant living at the Everland Zoo in South Korea for about five years in his youth, with only people for company during an important phase for bonding and development.

"We suggest that Koshik started to adapt his vocalisations to his human companions to strengthen his social affiliation with them, something that is also seen in other vocal-learning species and in very special cases, even across species," said Stoeger.

There have been reports of elephants imitating the sound of truck engines, and a male elephant living in a zoo in Kazakhstan has been reported to say words in Russian and Kazakh, but that case was never investigated by scientists.

Koshik made headlines a few years ago by attracting tourists with his unusual ability, but the researchers have now run tests where they asked native Korean speakers to write down what they heard when listening to recordings of the elephant.

They found that by sticking his trunk in his mouth to help form the sounds, he has a vocabulary of the five Korean words for 'hello', 'sit down', 'no', 'lie down' and 'good'.

Unfortunately, there's no evidence that Koshik understands the meaning of the words he is using. So we guess he won't be snacking at a Korean restaurant any time soon.

Wednesday, November 14, 2012 | 1 comments | Read More

How to make McDonald's Big Mac at home

If you still think the recipe for McDonald's Big Mac is a secret, think again.
A video posted last month on McDonald's Canadian YouTube channel shows executive chef Dan Coudreaut dishing out the ingredients for the fast food giant's iconic burger.
So what else do you need to make one (besides the two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions - all on a sesame seed bun)?

Click the video player to watch.



Here's the list of ingredients for the sauce:
- Mayo
- Sweet pickle relish
- Yellow mustard
- White wine vinegar
- Garlic powder
- Onion powder
- Paprika

Wednesday, July 11, 2012 | 0 comments | Read More

Luxury retailers eye more airports as terminal shopping booms

Who would have thought that rich jet-setters are doing their shopping at airports.

But according to Reuters, sales at airports and other travel venues are increasing faster than those at regular stores for many chains.
Swedish data firm Generation Research found that the worldwide, duty-free and travel sales of perfumes, cosmetics and luxury goods leaped 28.3 percent between 2008 and 2011. These sales are expected to increase 25 percent to $44.5 billion by 2014, based on the firm’s projection for 2012.
This is prompting some brands to take their businesses to more terminals large and small.  

Tiffany & Co. is scheduled to open a second store in Singapore's Changi Airport this year along with a store in the new Berlin Brandenburg Airport next year. Swiss luxury watchmaker Hublot, which is part of LVMH, is reported to be eyeing Frankfurt's airport.

Estée Lauder Cos Inc, where travel retail sales growth has outpaced its overall growth, is planning to expand to domestic airports in smaller cities in China and Brazil. The company, whose brands include M.A.C and Coach, already has nearly 1,000 airport stores.

"The Chinese love buying when they travel-- it's a culture," said Hublot chairman Jean-Claude Biver.

Monday, July 09, 2012 | 3 comments | Read More

The Fantastic Voyager

Voyager One left earth in 1977 on a five-year trip to Jupiter. 11 billion miles later, it is set to become the first man-made object to leave our solar system. Jonathan Brown tells its remarkable story

It is a journey that will never end and it began on August 20 1977, at the Kennedy Space Centre in Cape Canaveral, Florida when a Titan-Centaur rocket blasted into a clear blue sky.

Back then the excited scientists had what now seem like relatively limited hopes for the payload spiralling above them in a plume of white smoke.

Voyager One, which was launched two weeks after its sister probe Voyager Two, was meant to exploit a rare geometric arrangement of the outer planets occurring just once every 175 years.

This unusual alignment meant that a space ship could "swing by" Jupiter and Saturn with the help of gravity. It would give Nasa scientists and those at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory near Los Angeles, or so it was hoped, the first ever close up view of our "neighbourhood" – Saturn's rings and the larger moons of the two planets.

But Voyager's journey did not stop there. It was a time of renewed interest in space travel – certainly in the public's mind – with cinema audiences queuing up for a glimpse of the newly released Star Wars.

Yet even the most optimistic of the Nasa engineers who had salvaged the Voyager project out of the budget-cut remnants of the Planetary Grand Tour programme of the 1960s, could have envisaged that the science they were conducting might echo the fantasies of George Lucas's cinematic fiction.

Today, after nearly 35 years in perpetual motion, armed with a computer boasting just a fraction of the processing power of the average smart phone, Voyager One is poised to open up a new frontier in man's exploration of space.

The 775kg probe is still sending back data despite the ravages of its fantastic voyage. Now it is on the brink of interstellar space.

Hurtling at more than 10 miles per second it is currently immersed in the foamy walls of the heliosopheric bubble – an area where charged particles blown off the Sun come up against the stellar winds blowing through the remainder of the galaxy.

In other words it has reached the edge of our solar system and is set to penetrate into a new and unvisited area of the cosmos previously only observable through powerful telescopes.

Dr Edward Stone of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena is now in his late 70s but retains a central role in the Voyager project for which he was the original chief scientist. "When the Voyagers launched in 1977, the space age was all of 20 years old," he explained recently. "Many of us on the team dreamed of reaching interstellar space, but we had no way of knowing how long a journey it would be – or if these two vehicles that we invested so much time and energy in would operate long enough to reach it," he added.

Nasa originally created two vehicles believing one was likely to perish. It also estimated they might work for five years. A veteran of 14 Nasa missions, Dr Stone's enthusiasm remains undimmed. "The laws of physics say that someday Voyager will become the first human-made object to enter interstellar space, but we still do not know exactly when that will be," he adds.

"The latest data indicates we are clearly in a new region where things are changing more quickly. It is very exciting. We are approaching the solar system's frontier."

Voyager One completed its key landmarks more than three decades ago. Despite being launched later, it was on a faster, shorter trajectory than its sister probe. It reached Jupiter on 5 March 1979 and Saturn on 12 November 1980. The twin probes gave the world its first close up view of Saturn's rings revealing not just a few, as seen from earth, but many thousands.

It also brought an initial glimpse of the planet's mysterious satellite Titan and while Voyager One headed off in the direction of interstellar space, Voyager Two was directed towards Uranus and then blue Neptune where it captured the first and only photographs of our distant neighbours.

In 1990 the probe's ability to charge the human imagination through powerful imagery was again demonstrated. Legendary cosmologist Dr Carl Sagan, who had been present at the launch of 23 years previously, and had pressed Nasa to create what has now become one of the most famous pictures ever taken.

On Valentine's Day the cameras on Voyager One were pointed back towards the sun creating the family portrait of our solar system. Earth appeared as a small "pale blue dot" taking up just a single pixel. Dr Sagan later said: "That's home. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot."

But perhaps Dr Sagan's other most famous contribution to the $865million (£551m) mission was the inclusion of the Golden Phonograph Record. This extraordinary time capsule was meant to show alien life forms, should they ever come across it, a little of what our planet and human civilisation is all about. The gold-plated copper disc should remain playable for a billion years – 5,000 times longer than modern humans have existed. It includes recordings of the wind, whale noises and greetings in 55 languages.

There is also message from then US President Jimmy Carter. While some have criticised the inclusion of a pulsar map giving Earth's position, which, it has been suggested might lead hostile life forms to seek and destroy us, others have compared the disc's inclusion to Iron Age scratchings – primitive but revealing of a lost civilisation.

And what of the future? Voyager's plutonium power sources will last until 2025, perhaps less, when we will lose touch with this increasingly distant outpost of human endeavour. In the meantime it will continue to feed back data – information which now takes nearly 17 hours to reach Earth.

But the story does not stop there. As it breaks through the heliosphere and into interstellar space, it will speed up from its current velocity relative to the sun of up to 40,000mph to about 500,000mph. Yet even at that rate it will not encounter another star for 40,000 years when it will pass within 1.7 light years of red dwarf star Ross 248.

And because distances in space are so immense the chances of it colliding with a piece of matter are virtually zero. Which means it will never stop travelling. Ever.

Sunday, July 08, 2012 | 0 comments | Read More

Ducks replace paddy-field pesticides

Japanese farmers rediscover ancient rice-growing technique that boosts production without the need for chemicals

A farmer sprays pesticide over rice paddy at a farm in Chiba Prefecture, Japan. 

On his six-hectare farm in the village of Keisen, on Japan's Kyushu island, Takao Furuno, 61, grows rice and wheat without chemicals.

He rediscovered an ancient rice-growing practice involving the use of ducks. Dozens of these birds, raised on the farm, patrol the paddy fields. They feed on insects and weeds, without touching the plants. Their wading oxygenates the water and stirs up the soil. Their droppings are a natural fertiliser.

Furuno has cut production costs and boosted output by about a third compared with his neighbours, who use chemical fertilisers. He sells the ducks too.

Some 10,000 Japanese farmers have purchased The Power of Duck [sic], the book he published in 2000. In 2011 the technique was successfully tried out in Camargue, southern France.

The trend in rice cultivation in Japan, which provides a livelihood for 1.4 million families, is, however, towards larger farms and more intensive production.

Thursday, January 26, 2012 | 0 comments | Read More

Internet dating at 40 and a baby at 43

Cathy Comerford was single and staring down the barrel of 40. So she decided to take a strategic - and pragmatic - approach to internet dating. And it paid off

Internet dater Cathy Comerford and her husband and son.

As this century dawned and half the world was waking up to the first day of the Noughties, I was walking down the Strand ending my seven year relationship. I was 35 and it felt like hell. Most of my friends and all of my siblings had children. I came from a family of six and in my twenties had never questioned that I would be a mother. But in fact I did not have that compelling need, as some women do, to have a baby. As my best childbearing years were already behind me, I accepted that I had probably missed that boat.

At first I quite liked being single again anyway. I liked running on the Common in the early mornings before work. I liked having the papers to myself on a Sunday. And I quite liked the open book my life had become. I went on some great holidays learning to sail with a crew of French and Irishmen off the coast of Cork; doing Tai Chi with a bunch of girls on a Greek Island and learning Thai massage from someone of dubious gender on a beach in Koh Phangan.

But going to parties alone, spending Christmas Day literally alone in my flat, twice, and worst of all, going to bed alone at night were not easy.

Over the next five years in between singles holidays and solitary Christmases I went from one cliche - the Office Christmas Party Romance With The Boss which lasted a year - to another, a three year dalliance with a man so afraid of commitment he would not buy cinema tickets in case he turned out not to like the film.

As I approached 40 instead of feeling panicked I began to feel a new confidence. No, I was not quite ready for spinsterhood yet. I clearly had a dodgy relationship radar, so maybe I needed to look in a different way. Perhaps technology could help. I knew the prejudices about online dating: it was all married men looking for an extra-marital fling, no one looked like their picture and everyone lied about their age. But I had a friend, who had met his partner on line. He was genuine, he was kind, he was solvent, he was even handsome. My logic said that if he was out there, there might be more like him. I just had to look.

Over the next year I went on dates with about 10 different men, most of them one-offs. None, contrary to the myth, were married. They varied between chronic shyness and laughable arrogance. One walked off leaving me at a restaurant table because I would not drink. One sent me a nasty email after I abandoned the date because he was running so late.

Only two fell into the category of 'A Bit Scary' – the first telling me how he nursed his mother to her death as we walked along a very dark street and the second who was furious that my long hair had been cut into a bob since my profile photo had been taken. He accused me of being two different people.

There was one Possible - a media lawyer, who was funny and clever. We went on a few dates, which I really enjoyed, but it became clear that he was still recovering from a very painful divorce.

Then there was Porsche Man, who I only spoke to on the phone. On his profile he sounded OK and his picture looked nice, but as we tried to arrange a time to meet up, he mentioned, at least twice, that he owned a Porsche and seemed upset that I was not more impressed. It became clear that he was about to tell me I should count myself lucky, before I made my excuses…

However, that same November evening I received a call from another man whose profile I had picked out one night as I sat in bed with tonsillitis, feeling feverish, seriously unattractive and impatient. I could not be bothered chatting by email and simply sent my phone number saying, "If you are interested, call me."

By then I had learned what to look for when checking a prospect's profile – not the photo. It tells you very little. I had also changed mine from one where I thought I looked my best - makeup, earrings and a black cocktail dress - to one taken by my cousin, in which I looked relaxed, friendly: my approachable self.

His profile said he liked films. I love films and we had both listed On Golden Pond as one of our favourites. He was an engineer – a scientist to my arts background. I was attracted to someone who could actually do stuff. He was a Kiwi but had lived in London for over 20 years. I had worked with loads of New Zealanders and loved their reluctance to take anyone or anything very seriously. We both liked sailing and walking. He described himself through his friends' eyes - a humility I warmed to straight away. His photo showed a kind, strong face and loads of hair. He was divorced with two children in their late teens, who lived with their mother. The clarity and tact with which he covered this on his profile said a lot about him. I was not put off by his having been married before. It meant he was able to commit, and must have some idea about relationships with women. He was 12 years my senior but so was my father to my mother.

It wasn't all plain sailing. My first impression when I walked up to shake his hand on that bright November day, was that he had only one eye and had doctored his profile photo to disguise it. As we stood discussing where to have coffee I wondered if I could love a one-eyed man. It was not until we were sitting down having lunch that I realised he had been squinting into the low winter sun.

Oh did I say lunch? Yes. My strict rule on coffee-only for first dates was brushed aside in favour of a 'nice little Thai place', just around the corner. But I let it go. At the end of the afternoon I offered him a lift to the station, breaking my second rule of dating.

I wouldn't say it was love at first sight, but something was definitely different. On our third date we agreed to take down our profiles from the website.

We bumped around for a bit through all the usual stuff of any new relationship. He had not chatted anyone up for a long time and it showed. I had not trusted anyone for a long time, and it showed. One of our first dates was a Christmas riverboat party thrown by the company where he worked. I dressed up – long velvet gown, new hair-do. When he arrived to pick me up I commented on how nice he looked. The compliment was not returned and I was furious (I have since coached him in how and when to compliment).

But when trouble struck we just could not be apart, no matter how annoying the other one could be. By February we were properly going out. On Valentine's Day we ran off to Brighton and stayed at The Grand - a tradition we continue to this day.

The moment came when I knew he was The One after a row in which I had panicked and called it all off. As I put the phone down, I thought about how happy he had made me. I simply could not countenance my life without him. I had never felt that way about anybody. I slept on it to see if it felt any different the next day. It didn't. After two days I called him back and told him that I loved him. I just had not known it.

We were about five months into the relationship when one afternoon, over a chat in a tea shop, our worlds changed for ever. The dating site had asked whether you wanted children. We had both ticked 'no', he because he already had two, me because I was over 40 and was being realistic.

"You know, I would like a baby with you," he said, just like that, as I poured the tea.

By the time the scones turned up we were engaged. Well not officially. I made him propose properly much later, with a ring, on bended knee, on top of a mountain, with snow and everything. But really there was no going back from that moment. I realised, right then, that I would like a baby with him too.

We got married that summer and our son was born two years later, healthy and bright. Both conception and birth were achieved without the aid of modern medicine, though I was in hospital for the latter. I was 43.

by -  Cathy Comerford

Wednesday, January 25, 2012 | 0 comments | Read More

Dungeness's strange beauty under threat from shingle plan

One of Europe's most beautiful seascapes is in danger of being destroyed by a botched attempt to shore up its beach defences, say local residents

The view from the windows of Ken and June Thomas's black-tarred cottage is extraordinary. The largest expanse of shingle beach in Europe is dotted with rare plants and desert flowers. Birds screech as they flock beneath the vast sky.

Ken Thomas's fishing boats are pulled high above the tide mark as giant tankers pass by in deep channels scored close to the shore and anglers huddle along the water's edge, their tents hidden in the ridges of shingle. Strain to the right and you can see a lighthouse, built with a unique pigmented, spiralled concrete. Beyond is the weathered shack where Marconi sent the first radio messages across the Channel, and along to the left is Derek Jarman's celebrated Prospect Cottage, with its driftwood garden and John Donne's poetry carved in wood on its wall. At the tip of the promontory is the Dungeness nuclear power station.

It is no ordinary backyard.

This week residents of the 99 Dungeness houses – many of them built on top of Victorian railway carriages dragged on to the shingle a century ago – will attend a public meeting with Kent county council and EDF, the company operating the Dungeness B plant, to discuss a controversial planning application that would see this landscape change dramatically.

The proposal, from EDF and the Environment Agency, is to have between 50 and 100 quarry lorries a day, each weighing 30 tonnes and three metres wide, coming along the 3.1-metre wide unmade road for five days a week, trundling right past their front doors. Diggers will be out too, along a 300-metre stretch of seafront, pulling out up to 30,000 tonnes of shingle a year to dump it back into the sea a few miles away down the coast.

The idea is to "recycle" the shingle by piling it on to the eroding coastline on the Kent-East Sussex border and prop up the beach in front of the power station. Anglers who come to Dungeness from miles around for its cod and bass fishing have already been getting up petitions over the quarry works fencing, which would cut off access to some of the best fishing spots.

Now residents have started a campaign against the plans. They say it is a waste of time and money, because not all the shingle is washed back to its original location. Residents also fear that the huge dumper trucks will destroy the fragile ecosystem and turn away the growing numbers of tourists who have been starting to visit their stretch of the Romney marshes. Dungeness is also of international importance, designated as a national nature reserve, a special protection area, a special area of conservation and a site of special scientific interest.

A similar scheme of quarrying the eastern side ended in 2007 over concerns for the environment, and since then the Environment Agency, responsible for England's coastline defences, had been buying in shingle from inland quarries. But that costs three times as much as digging out the beach – or "borrow pit", as the area to be excavated is known.

In a statement, the Environment Agency said: "Recycling shingle has an effect on the Dungeness special area of conservation, and in 2007 we stopped using the borrow pit and started to explore how we might minimise this effect while still maintaining the defences. Recycling shingle from the borrow pit provides the best value for money for the taxpayer and means that we can stretch public funds further to reduce the risk of flooding to more homes and businesses."

It would seem to go against the Department for Energy and Climate Change which, in a recent report on sites for a new nuclear facility, rejected Dungeness, stating: "If shingle had to be sourced from Dungeness for sea defence purposes, then this could impact this nationally and internationally important conservation site".

For local people it could also radically set back the area's growing popularity as a tourist destination. "Since they stopped quarrying here in 2007 the tourists have been coming. We get coachloads of schoolchildren, students on photography courses, bird watchers, photographers, the anglers of course. With the power station going out of commission we need the tourism for the local economy," said June Thomas. "You can't expect anyone to come here when there are giant lorries constantly going up and down. It's not safe." She can see the "borrow pit" from her windows.

"I dread it. As they load the lorries the sound will be awful, a mass of shingle being dropped from a height into a metal container, all day, every day, awful."

Her husband Ken, 60, is from a family who have fished here for generations. For him the plan itself doesn't make sense. "They will just change the profile of the beach and the channels, but do nothing to stop coastal erosion. None of them has any idea of how shingle moves. They had no idea how the shingle would shift when they built the power station and they wouldn't listen to the fishermen who told them this would happen, that they were building it in the wrong place.

'Now they're not listening again. They haven't done basic research to see what works and what doesn't by way of coastal defences. They stopped it once, when the conservationists stepped in and said that method can't be done. Now they want to save money and they've come back to it. They think Dungeness is a dump, a wasteland. Well, they're out of date, it's recognised now for what it is, somewhere special."

Paul Schwartfeger's house is built around a Victorian railway carriage, complete with parquet floor. He has been busy making up "No to Quarrying" posters that almost all the homes have in their windows. He says the EDF and Environment Agency proposals are short-sighted and won't provide any long-term defence against the longshore drift that affects the stretch of coast from Kent into East Sussex. "The quarrying at Dungeness is a cheap way of trying to tackle a major problem but all the expertise points to it not working. The Environment Agency says itself that flood defence strategies we need to be working with are those which manage risk – protecting and restoring and copying the natural regulating function of rivers, floodplains and coasts."

Mudflats and salt marshes provide a natural "sponge" for rising sea levels rather than hard barriers like shingle, while lifting the shingle also allows more water into the land – raising the water table and, in effect, raising the flood risk. "What makes me feel really angry is the hoops we have to jump through, and rightly so, about planning and the environment. We can't touch the land in our garden or put up a fence. It's a privilege to live here, but then the council can come along and decide quite arbitrarily to dig it all up. It's extraordinary," says Schwartfeger.

The protesters also make the point that EDF and the Environment Agency could dredge shingle offshore for a similar cost but without the noise and disruption. That's not something the owner of the fishing tackle shop in the nearby village of Greatstone is keen on. Tony Hills is chairman of Dungeness Angling Association and a Shepway district councillor. He believes the government's rejection of Dungeness as a nuclear site could still be overturned and is in favour of a quarry to provide the necessary shingle. "We need jobs desperately. Economic advantage shouldn't be put off by environmental needs. If we don't get sea defences, we don't get a power station, and vice versa."

He adds: "What's going to happen if we don't do this? For starters, you're leaving the 30,000 people living in the marsh area to drown."

by - Tracy Mcveigh

Monday, January 16, 2012 | 0 comments | Read More

Facebook helps find matching organ donors

Facebook is now one of the allies in finding matching organ donors all over the world. The most popular social network played a crucial role in the lives of the Browns, a family looking for a kidney donor for dad Damon Brown. And according to United Network for Organ Sharing reps, it was not the only case, the Associated Press reports.
Lately, Facebook has become a reliable source of matching organ donors. April Paschke, a spokeswoman for the United Network for Organ Sharing says that there are “more and more people matched up by social media”.

The latest organ donation request was made in late 2011, by a man named Damon Brown, living in Seattle. The 38-year-old husband and father created a Facebook page where he shared his story. Only a few weeks later, a woman that he knew, but wasn’t actually friends with, was found compatible with Damon and agreed to give him the kidney he so much needs. The surgery will take place on January 3.

Brown admits that at first it was a little embarrassing for him to present his problem to such a numerous public and ask for help. But facing a somber perspective of waiting for years until a donor is found, he saw the Facebook opportunity as the best he could ever get. He also noticed that people cared about him and his condition, as his page managed to gather 1,400 friends who shared his story around. After finding the donor, Damon posted the good news on Facebook and got no less than 300 messages of congrats.
In 2011, the social networks helped several people finding matching donors. Among them ,there was a woman from Michigan who managed to find a kidney donor on Facebook and a woman in Florida, with the same problem, who found a donor using Craiglist.

Thursday, January 05, 2012 | 0 comments | Read More

Ice hotel opens in Romania

Reuters reports that a new Ice Hotel opened at Balea Lac in Romania. The rooms are affordable and the location offers not only the chance of a unique experience, but also an opportunity of playing a series of winter sports with your friends.

We all have that feeling of “now there’s nothing more to do” after the New Year’s party. The holidays are over, at least until St. Valentine’s Day and for a month and a half, all that awaits us is cold, work and boredom. Here’s an idea – try an odd and funny destination for a short trip. A night at the Hotel of Ice in Romania could be a unique experience. For only 45 dollars a night per person, you will sleep in a room with all the furniture made of ice. The temperature in the rooms is from -2 to 2 degrees Celsius.

Located 184 miles away from the Romanian capital of Bucharest, the Hotel of Ice is built in the heart of the Fagaras Mountains. Entirely made of ice, the hotel offers accommodation in three igloos and ten double rooms. The rooms have been given names of music genres – the jazz room, the rock room, the disco room – according to the ice decorations and the overall design. Each room has two or more sleeping bags and additional blankets to keep you warm overnight.
Don’t think you’ll have the time to get bored. Bring your ice skates or your ski costume for a complete winter adventure. You can also visit the Ice Church, which welcomes any kind of visitors, no matter the religion, and assist to traditional religious services, held like in any other church.

And let’s not forget about the food. Treat yourself with some of the most delightful traditional dishes, all served on ice tables, with ice chairs and ice plates. Bon appetite!

Monday, January 02, 2012 | 1 comments | Read More

Zuckerberg vacations in country where Facebook is banned

Mark Zuckerberg is taking a vacation to a country where Facebook is banned: Vietnam. Even though speculations were that he was actually planning on setting up a business meeting there in order to make Facebook legal in Vientam, too, a rep told the Wall Street Journal that his trip was “strictly personal”.

So what did Mark do in Vietnam? The Facebook founder headed to the exotic destination with his girlfriend, Priscilla Chan and some friends. They took a plane to Hanoi three days before Christmas. Then, they took a chartered helicopter. After that they went on a junk cruise and finally they went kayaking to their final destination. Yes, still on Planet Earth.

Together, they played their own version of the Amazing Race. “The pals, divided into teams, partook in traditional Tet holiday fun like "blindfolded goat-catching," "pole-climbing," and other feats of dominance” said Gizmodo's Sam Biddle, adding “now, close your eyes and imagine Mark Zuckerberg trying to catch a Vietnamese goat while blindfolded”.

The gang could not go to Vietnam and miss the traditional delicacies. Mark and his friends tried out fried Channa Maculata Fish and cucumber salad for lunch, Sapa trout carpaccio with shallot and lemon oil, Grilled Fillet With Coconut and Barbecue Sauce and Grilled pork and apple skewers with Sapa honey for dinner.  The dessert list included gingerbread pudding and baked pear and cinnamon crumble.

Friday, December 30, 2011 | 2 comments | Read More

Stunt Man Li Xin Balances On His Head…On A Spike!

Many of us think that our job is a big headache, But it’s not for the stuntman Li Xin. 47 year old Li Xin from China spends his whole day practicing to balance his head on a spike and he has been doing this from last 20 years.

His weight is 66kg and he manages to balance the total body up side down on his skull. Li Xin can do this stunt for up to 10 seconds, as we all know many people can manage to balance upside down but on headstand not on spike.

Due to this stunt he is left with a small indentation on his skull.

These photos were taken at an event where Li Xin was showing his unique skill in Nanning, China.

Thursday, December 29, 2011 | 0 comments | Read More

A baby weighing less than 2 iPhones

14-week-old Melinda Star Guido lies in an incubator at the Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center in Los Angeles, Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2011. At birth, Melinda Star Guido tipped the scales at only 9 1/2 ounces, a tad less than the weight of two iPhone 4S. Most babies her size don't survive, but doctors are preparing to send her home as soon as the end of the month. Melinda is believed to be the second smallest baby to survive in the United States and the third smallest in the world.

Sunday, December 25, 2011 | 0 comments | Read More

A Lucky Dog

Kai, a two-year-old Shiba Inu, was born lucky. The story about this dog's adventures is right after the jump. This dog had a miraculous escape after leaping off a roof and falling 50 feet on to a ledge at an apartment block on the Upper West Side of New York. The animal bounded over the side of the roof garden after its owner Tracy Aron, a Broadway theater producer, took him up for his morning exercise.

The protective fencing that usually surrounds the edge of the building had been removed due to renovation work. The pup had been jumping over the connected rooftops when it took a wrong turn and fell four floors on to a ledge below at the townhouse.

Kai survived this accident. The dog miraculously did not break any bones.

Sunday, December 25, 2011 | 0 comments | Read More

Philippine seeks longest line of coins world record

Philippine civic groups and charities lined up almost 73 kilometres (45 miles) of coins on Wednesday in a bid to set a new Guinness World Record and build schools for the poor.

Volunteers lay down sets of 25-centavo coins in an attempt to break the Guinness World Record on the longest line of coins, now held by the United States at 64.8 km (39 miles), at the Quirino Grandstand in Manila November 30, 2011. Some 3.5 million pieces of 25-centavo coins were collected to complete a record breaking 70km (43 miles).

Sunday, December 25, 2011 | 0 comments | Read More

Line Management Lesson

 A man is getting into the shower just as his wife is finishing up her shower, when the doorbell rings.

The wife quickly wraps herself in a towel and runs downstairs.

When she opens the door, there stands Bob, the next-door neighbour.

Before she says a word, Bob says, ‘I’ll give you $800 to drop that towel.

After thinking that she has a chance earning $800 within a minute, the woman drops her towel and stands naked in front of Bob, aftera few seconds, Bob hands her $800 and leaves.

The woman wraps back up in the towel and goes back upstairs.

When she gets to the bathroom, her husband asks, ‘Who was that?’

‘It was Bob the next door neighbour,’ she replies.

‘Great,’ the husband says, ‘Did he say anything about the $800 he owes me?’

Moral of the story:
Do not share any critical information unless you understand the need of opposite person. It may or may not help him but surely won’t help you.

Thursday, December 22, 2011 | 0 comments | Read More

Salt Hotels in Salar de Uyuni - Bolivia

Salar de Uyuni attracts tourists from around the world. As it is located far from the cities, a number of hotels have been built for accommodation. Due to lack of conventional construction materials, many of them are almost entirely built with salt blocks cut from the Salar - including walls, roof and furniture.

The first such hotel, Hotel de Sal Playa, was erected in 1993-1995 in the middle of the salt flat, and soon became a popular tourist destination. Many more hotels and hostels made out of salt were constructed later. Hotel de Sal Playa was previously covered on Amusing Planet.

Monday, December 19, 2011 | 0 comments | Read More

Private Moon Project

Russian artists Leonid Tishkov and Boris Bendikov created a fantastic world illuminated with the moonlight where they tried to convey relations between the man and the Moon. This is a romantic story about a man who met the Moon and decided to stay with it forever. They named the installation ‘Private Moon’. Check out the photos.

Friday, December 09, 2011 | 4 comments | Read More

5 Most Strangely Colored Beaches

Punalu'u Beach

Punalu'u Beach is the most visited of the few black sand beaches on Hawaii's Big Island and the stunningly black sand is actually volcanic rock, deposited as lava and subsequently cooled when met by the ocean. Apparently to take any of the sand home would result in you being cursed by a volcano goddess by the name of Pele.

Papakolea Beach

One of only 2 green sand beaches in the world, the truly magnificent sight of Papakolea Beach can be experienced by travelling to Hawaii's Ka'u district. Again, the unique colour of its sand can be attributed to volcanic activity - specifically, the green hue belongs to the abundance of olivine crystals which have been produced as a result of a nearby cinder cone erupting and eroding.

Hyams Beach

You may need to wear your shades when visiting Hyams Beach in New South Wales, Australia, but not just due to the sun. It's not surprising after looking at photos but this sublime stretch of beach is home to the whitest isand in the world, an honour awarded by the Guinness Book of Records.

Pfeiffer Beach

The hills surrounding Pfeiffer Beach in Big Sur, California, are rich in Manganese Garnet. A result of this being washed down onto the beach is the colour scheme you can see above - the entire stretch of sand has become a shifting, pink and purple canvas. Although it's probably inedible, I can't help picturing a bowl of Raspberry Ripple ice-cream every time I see it.

Kaihalulu

You won't find many beaches elsewhere in the world with sand as red as this one. Kaihalulu, or Red Sand Beach, is situated on the island of Maui and can thank the neighbouring cindercone hill for its intensely deep red appearance.

Monday, December 05, 2011 | 0 comments | Read More

Friendliest Crocodiles of Paga Ponds Ghana

Forty kilometres (about 25 miles) from Bolgatanga, along the Burkina Faso border, is Paga, home to the sacred crocodile ponds. These are purportedly the friendliest crocodiles in Ghana, and it is said that the souls of the royal family reside in them. The crocodiles roam freely throughout the ponds and it is unthinkable that anyone should harm them.

Wednesday, November 23, 2011 | 0 comments | Read More

Unique Wedding Dress from 250 meters of Hair

Legendary English designer Thelma Madine teamed up with Liverpool hair salon Voodou to create a one-on-a-kind wedding dress entirely out of human hair.

Brides usually opt for shades of white when picking their wedding dress, but this didn’t stop Thelma Madine and Voodou hair stylist, Ryan Edwards from creating a gown only Lady Gaga would wear. In fact, the duo say they would be more than happy if the popular singer would choose to wear it on her next tour. “It’s a unique creation, just like her, and I think it would be a hair match made in heaven!” Madine said. Considering Gaga’s past wardrobe choices, they might get their wish…

The unique hair wedding dress was created from 250 meters of hair extensions, tens of thousands of individual hair wefts and different pieces of hair, 1,500 crystals and 12 underskirts. A team of eight people put in around 300 hours of work, over a period of 12 days, to complete the dress, but all the effort paid off when their creation was finally finished. “This was a chance for us to show our creatively and originality and it’s a fantastic feeling to see the finished product. It’s fair to say we’ll probably not see another dress like it for a very long time,” Ryan Edwards said. The hair wedding dress weighs just over 75 kilograms and is a size six.

Friday, November 18, 2011 | 0 comments | Read More