CRAZY STUFF

This week’s photos have all of the essential ingredients needed to thoroughly insult your intelligence. Not only will it be insulted, but spat upon, frowned at, demagnetized, and living with some crazy relatives in Norway.

The World’s First-Ever Cycle?

Academic Xu Quan Long has taken his bizarre contraption to the streets of Beijing to show people his discovery – which has raised more than a few eyebrows with other road users.

10 Facts You May Not Know About April Fools’ Day

We’re just a few days from April 1, a notorious time for hoaxes. We could have waited, but we figured you might not trust these 10 facts if they were printed on April Fools’ Day. All indeed are true. Really. No kidding. We promise.

Stunning Photos of Sleeping Insects Covered in Dew

Glistening in the early morning, these insects look like creatures from another planet as dew gathers on their sleeping bodies. Captured in extreme close-up, one moth appears to be totally encrusted in diamonds as it rests on a twig.

Top 10 Photos of the Week

If the fabric of time was rewoven by the weavers of fate, then the outcome of the setup would be inversely proportional to the predestination of the fatalist’s loom. If, however, the work was being done on a Wednesday, then all bets are off.

Chinese Doctors Remove Boy’s Extra Fingers and Toes...

Six-year-old boy told he will be able to hold chopsticks in a few months  Shenyang, Liaoning – Li Jinpeng, a 6-year-old boy born with 15 fingers and 16 toes, is happy he will soon be able to wear a normal pair of shoes.

Doctors at the Shengjing Hospital of China Medical University in Shenyang, Liaoning province, successfully removed Li’s additional fingers and toes in a surgical operation that lasted more than five hours on Tuesday.

Before the surgery, Li, the son of migrant workers from Heilongjiang province, was believed to be the world record holder for having the maximum number of fingers and toes. 

New Human Species Discovered

An international team of researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig has sequenced ancient mitochondrial DNA from a finger bone of a female found in southern Siberia. She comes from a previously unknown human species, which lived about 48,000 to 30,000 years ago in the Altai Mountains in Central Asia.

Amazing Animal Photography – The Art of the Animal

Animals bring a rare form of beauty to the world around us. Their lives exist like ours, with seemingly endless tedium followed by brief moments of something spectacular. The following are a series of photos that do a terrific job of capturing the spectacular moments. Some are downright breathtaking.

Pulling Power Points the Way to World’s Strongest Insect — A Dung Beetle

Following months of gruelling tests and trials, scientists now reveal the World’s strongest insect to be a species of dung beetle called Onthophagus taurus.

31 Fingers and Toes

An unidentified 6-year-old boy in Shenyang, China has a world record 31 digits: 15 fingers and 16 toes! He isn’t able to use all the fingers, as three are fused together in the middle of each hand. He will soon undergo surgery to reduce the number of extra digits to a more reasonable, functional amount…

World’s Hottest Chili Will Be Used By India’s Military To Make Weapons

The world’s hottest chili – the thumb-sized bhut jolokia, or ghost chili – will be used by the Indian military to make hand grenades to immobilise terrorist suspects, defence officials said on Tuesday.

Scientists Try to Unravel the Secrets Behind Nightmares

Losing a loved one, being chased by a monster or running hopelessly late for a vital appointment – it’s all the stuff of nightmares.  And for some of us, it’s a show of horrors that unfolds most times we go to sleep.  Others claim never to be troubled by dreams of any sort.

Scientists Discover Gene Linked to Lung Cancer in Non-Smokers

Scientists have discovered what they claim is a common gene that raises the risk of developing lung cancer in non-smokers, a breakthrough which may pave the way for new targeted therapies for patients.

‘Door to Hell’ Accidentally Opened by Geologists

In the darkness of night, flames dance and lick the air, casting an ominous glow that can be seen from miles around in the desert of Turkmenistan. The source of all this light and heat is a massive crater, in which blazes an unceasing inferno, dubbed by locals the “Door to Hell.” For decades, the fires within the pit have been burning without end, fed by a seemingly unlimited pocket of natural gas. The “Door to Hell” might easily be placed among the world’s most incredible natural wonder–that is, if it wasn’t man-made. So, what manner of mortal man cast open this gaping chasm and set alight its endless fire, seeming so much like an apocalyptical vision? Well, they were geologists, actually.

Reader's Digest - April 2010

  

Naked Man In Taxi-Lifting Adventure

It all began when the nude man stopped the taxi by running out into the street in front of traffic.
As the perplexed driver got out of the car to see what was going on, the naked man grabbed the vehicle’s bumper and tried – without much success – to lift it off the ground. As a crowd of puzzled onlookers gathered to watch the spectacle, the man continued in his efforts to lift the car. Eyewitnesses reported that he would sometimes shout ‘please give me strength!’ as he struggled with the taxi…

Solar City Tower – Giant Energy Generating Waterfall for the 2016 Rio Olympics

This renewable energy generating tower located on the coast of Rio is one of the first buildings we’ve seen designed for the 2016 Rio Olympics, and boy, is it crazy! (In case you didn’t notice, it’s also a waterfall.) The Solar City Tower is designed by Zurich-based RAFAA Architecture & Design, and features a large solar system to generate power during the day and a pumped water storage system to generate power at night. RAFAA’s goal is that a symbolic tower such as this can serve as a starting point for a global green movement and help make the 2016 Olympic Games more sustainable.

Students Set Record by Riding World’s Longest Bicycle

Engineers are good at building stuff alright, but have you imagined them riding a bike to make it to the record books? Well, I’ll admit, I haven’t.

Top 10 Photos of the Week

Virtually everything in life is an illusion, especially the things we think we see but really don’t. The things we actually see are only there as long as we are looking at them, and then they secretly go away. Try turning around really, really, really fast and watch how pixelated everything is until the full image appears. This is most noticeable when drinking tequila.  I think I’ve made my point.

CRAZY STUFF

We live in an odd world. In fact, it has become so odd that we have dramatically raised the bar on “oddness”. Too often now, the regular strange can not be easily separated from radical strange. And there are many new tick marks appearing on the strangeness scale, even as we speak. It’s almost as if they have a new tick mark reserved for everyone on the planet.

World’s Largest Blossoming Plant

A wistaria vine in Sierra Madre, California has been named as the World’s Largest Flowering Plant by the Guinness Book of World Records. This vine is so big it has its own festival! William and Alice Brugman planted it in 1894 to celebrate the purchase of their new home. The wistaria eventually destroyed the house! 116 years later, it is healthy and sprouts about a million and half blooms every year.

First Temperate Exoplanet — Size of Jupiter — Discovered

An international team of scientists, including several who are affiliated with UC Santa Barbara, has discovered a new planet the size of Jupiter. The finding is published in the March 18 issue of the journal Nature.

The planet, called CoRoT-9b, was discovered by using the CoRoT space telescope satellite, operated by the French space agency, The Centre National d’Études Spatiales, or CNES. The newly discovered planet orbits a star similar to our sun and is located in the constellation Serpens Cauda, at a distance of 1500 light-years from Earth.

Facebook Edges Past Google to Become No. 1

Facebook replaced Google as the most visited Web site in the U.S. for a full week  for the first time.  Facebook was the most-visited Web site in the country for the week ending March 13, said Hitwise, an online traffic monitor, in a report today. While Google has returned to the top spot, Matt Tatham, a Hitwise spokesman, said grabbing that position for a whole week was a major milestone for Facebook.

A Photographic Memory in a Pill

Imagine if you could look at something once and remember it forever. You would never have to ask for directions again. Now a group of scientists has isolated a protein that mega-boosts your ability to remember what you see.

CRAZY STUFF

Not everything in life is as it seems. In fact, perception is nine-tenths of our own reality. These photos are intended to show us not only how badly we suck at separating reality from the surreal, but also how surreal reality is, so help me cow.

Woman’s Quest To Be Fattest In The World

Donna Simpson already weighs 43st, but she is determined to nearly double her size to become the world's fattest woman.

The 42-year-old from New Jersey, U.S, is set on reaching the 1,000lb mark (71st) in just two years. Remarkably she insists she is healthy, despite now needing a mobility scooter when she goes shopping.

Psychopaths’ Brains Wired to Seek Rewards, No Matter the Consequences

The brains of psychopaths appear to be wired to keep seeking a reward at any cost, new research from Vanderbilt University finds. The research uncovers the role of the brain’s reward system in psychopathy and opens a new area of study for understanding what drives these individuals.

Invisible ‘Death Star’

In what sounds like a chilling script of a Hollywood science fiction, scientists have claimed that an invisible star, five times the size of Jupiter, might be lurking near our solar system, occasionally kicking deadly comets towards the Earth.
According to scientists, the brown dwarf star is up to five times the size of Jupiter and could be responsible for mass extinctions that occur on Earth every 26 million years.

Top 10 Photos of the Week

When does goofiness become too goofy, or madness become too mad? At what point do we put limits on outrageousness, or borders around silliness? The rules for the exception are always the exception to the rule. Why does this have to be so difficult?

World’s Most Dangerous Roads

Most drivers encounter unsafe driving conditions at one time or another.  Hazards appear in many forms, for instance, bad weather, drunk drivers or human error can complicate an otherwise uneventful trip.  On the other hand, sometimes the condition of the road can put your life in jeopardy.  Here is a list dedicated to all the white-knuckled drivers who have to brave the dangerous roads and to all of the crazy people who navigate them for fun.

CRAZY STUFF

We have no idea why some of these photos exist. We don’t even know the story behind them or the date and time they were taken. But we do know that these are some of the craziest stuff we’ve run into all week.

Stunning Photos of the Sun’s Corona During a Solar Eclipse

Shooting a million miles or more out into the hard, cold vacuum of space, this fiery halo is one of the wonders of the universe.  Whipped into gigantic swirls by the Sun’s ferocious magnetic fields, the shell of super-hot gas is as beautiful as it is dangerous.


It’s called a corona and can’t normally be seen because of the brightness of the Sun, a broiling sea of hydrogen gas at 10,000c. But during a solar eclipse, the Moon blocks out the Sun and the corona is spectacularly revealed.

CRAZY STUFF...

When is comes to classic photos, this week’s selections include some of the latest additions the the classics. Naturally when I say classic, I’m referrring to something so off the wall and whacked-up-the-side-of-the-head-crazy-funny that it is destined to become one of the new classics.

Four In Five Think Internet Is ‘A Fundamental Right’

Four in five adults believe access to the Internet is a fundamental right, and half believe it should never be regulated, according to a global survey, a worldwide survey for the BBC has revealed.
The poll of 27,000 adults in 26 countries for the BBC World Service showed that 78 percent of Internet users believed the Web gave them greater freedom, while nine in 10 said it was a good place to learn.

Nokia Patents Cell Phone that Recharges Itself by Harvesting Energy from Motion

Nokia is not adverse to dreaming up futuristic concepts (such as the Morph, pictured above, though the Morph used solar power), but this Piezoelectric Kinetic Energy Harvester sounds like it’ll either do what the company says it will, or bring about the grim future world envisioned in The Matrix where we’re all suddenly batteries. Batteries!

Chile Earthquake Moves Concepcion More Than 10 Feet to the West

According to a recent study done by Chilean and American researchers at the Ohio State University, the magnitude-8.8 earthquake that rocked the west coast of Chile on February 27th was strong enough to move the city of Concepcion at least 10 feet/3.04m to the west and the capital, Santiago, about 11 inches/28cm to the west-southwest. The quake also shifted other parts of South America, as far apart as the Falkland Islands and Fortaleza, Brazil.

Top 20 Mistakes in Technology

We often get asked to encapsulate our experience into a top 10 list for CTOs and CEOs. As is the case in golf, in technology it is as much about ensuring that your bad hits (aka blunders, mistakes, and failures) are recoverable as it is ensuring that you nail your great hits or successes. We are all going to have failures in our careers but avoiding the really big pitfalls will help ensure that we keep our companies and our products on the right growth path.

New Material Patterned After Spider Hair Refuses to Get Wet ....

 Scientists have created a flat surface patterned after the body hair of spiders that refuses to get wet.
The surface also has the added benefit of being self-cleaning, since water does a pretty good job of picking up and carrying off dirt as it is being repelled.

The Future of Mobile Phone Apps

Mobile apps, currently in their infancy, are already following trends seen in digital music: a few hits, a ton of filler and lots of potential. The current and future states of apps will be the focus of the “App Observations: A Mobile Drilldown” panel at the Billboard Music & Money Symposium in New York on Thursday.

Underwear Made From Bananas Launched In Australia

Australian underwear company AussieBum has been monkeying around and the result is a range of men’s underwear made with bananas. AussieBum’s Lloyd Jones said on Friday that the new eco-friendly banana range of undies incorporated 27 percent banana fibre, 64 percent cotton and nine percent lycra.

Top 10 Photos of the Week

People who are good at one-liners often compete in regional “joke offs” followed by a snake bake with marinated clam cakes, not to be confused with regional jerk-offs who prefer shake-n-bake snakes and underwater clam cakes.

World’s Cheapest Electric Car

India’s Tata Nano EV, world’s cheapest car, transformed into the world’s cheapest electric car, went on display at the Geneva Motor Show.  The Tata Nano EV seats four, has a predicted range of about 80 miles and will go from zero to about 35 miles per hour in a blistering 10 seconds. The car has super-polymer lithium-ion batteries, which Tata says provide superior energy retention.

Future of Fireflies Threatened by Artificial Lighting

For most of human history, when the sun set and night descended it meant that it was time to sleep. But, as our earliest ancestors learned to create fire, they found they could extend their days beyond the confines of daylight–and it was in these flame-lit hours, after the hunts had ended and labor halted, that men and women first began to craft their stories and culture around a fire their evening repose.

CRAZY STUFF

It’s always difficult to tell where reality ends and make believe begins. Especially with the tools we have today for breathing artificial life into artificial photos.  So, if one of the photos below happens to insult your intelligence, ask yourself if the intelligence that was insulted was real intelligence or simplymake believe, artificial intelligence.

Skinput Turns Your Arm Into a Touchscreen Display

Those who find the touchscreens on their ever shrinking gadgets too fiddly to handle, will be glad to hear scientists are developing a new touch surface… your own arm.  Developers at Microsoft Research and Carnegie Mellon University are working together to create an armband that projects an interface directly on to your skin.

Scientists Lobby for a New Word to Describe 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

Scientists are lobbying for a new word to help them describe numbers larger than 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, amid concerns that the current system of units is insufficient.   A campaign for “hella” to join the likes of “kilo”, “mega” and “giga” as an internationally accepted prefix is attracting growing support.

Chilean Quake May Have Shortened Earth Days

The Feb. 27 magnitude 8.8 earthquake in Chile may have shortened the length of each Earth day.

Top 7 Most Hacked Softwares in 2009

What software are tops on a hackers’ hitlist? Applications and software that are most vulnerable and are the potential targets of scammers and hackers to install malicious codes into your PC?
Forbes recently released 2009’s `Most-Hacked Software’ list. The list names the software and applications that were biggest targets of hacker attacks in 2009. The software used most by hackers and other cyber criminals to sneak into your system and cause havoc.
Here’s the 7 Most Hacked Software.

How To Make A USB Mini Fridge

Physics, how we love you. You keep our feet on the ground, ontologically-ambiguous cats locked in boxes and photons in two places at the same time. It also enables the Peltier effect, what’s that we hear you breathlessly ask?

If a current is passed between two different materials a heat differential is created; one side hot the other cold. The principle is used in all sorts of situations including cooling processors and mini-fridges, though apparently they’re not that efficient, just small and light…

Mega-Cities in Earthquake Zones Await Disaster

As Mustafa Erdik, the director of an earthquake engineering institute in Istanbul, surveys the streets of this sprawling mega-city, he says he sometimes feels like a doctor scanning a crowded hospital ward.