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Reader's Digest - September 2010

2010-09-06T10:17:00.000-07:00

English | PDF | 185 Pages | 52.37 MB

Top 10 Photos of the Week

2010-09-06T10:11:00.000-07:00

Once again, the cleaning crew has their work cut out for them

As soon as air bags were required, cars became much safer to drive
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In the world of rhinos, its as close as it comes to a hug
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So the next step will be out of the frying pan, and into the fire. Wait, what?
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Romance is never romance unless it is frightening
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No seriously, I’m a princess

Never let fashion go to your head. It may not be containable
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I’d walk a mile for a camel laugh
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Something new – Polka Surfing. Still a ways off from becoming an Olympic sport
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Some hunters get no respect. None!
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Beware of pilots that have to stop and ask directions
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A great news hound has a nose for the news
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Meet Granny Smith
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Revealing the other side of cats
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To the outside world, he walked on water. To his wife, he skated on thin ice
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Altogether now, 1..2..3.. awwwwww!

Zimbabwe, a country with high inflation and extra wide calculators
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We’ve all heard the expression “no man is an island,” but this guy is pretty close
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Ooohhh, and even her long dress wasn’t enough to cover it up.
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When it starts raining lightening, you know you’ve done something wrong
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“You say that again and I’m going to clock you one”
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I’m not sure, but I found it in your underwear drawer
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A man’s home is his castle, even in Siberia
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Top 10 Photos of the Week

2010-07-26T07:00:00.000-07:00

That skanky-smelling dog next door was going down

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When he called for a limo, he was expecting something a tad bigger
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“Tell me to take the road less-traveled on more time
and I’ll shove my stinky well-traveled sock in your mouth”
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Drink Russ Vodka, small rodents love it…. well, at least until they die
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Rule of Thumb: Never pet stray dogs while water-skiing
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Hover Bear would strike fear into the hearts of fish everywhere as his hulking shadow loomed overhead

Finally, all her years driving a school bus were about to pay off
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Just another day at the office
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Desperate times require desperate measures
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The bird choir loved to sing, but it wasn’t exactly what you’d call harmony
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Driver’s Ed departments around the country are moving towards “easy roll” vehicles
with airbags on the outside of the cars
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Savoring the moment
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Hold still! I’m going to eat you!
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Introducing the latest in a long line of new do-it-yourself hybrid vehicle
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Some stunts require a lot of help
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Life was short, but they were determined to make the most of it
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New slang term – girls practicing for polio
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What a time to have a flat tire!
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Hmmm, is this like the toy inside a cereal box?
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Laser Knuckles – A sure fired way to deal with office politics
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Now go sit in the corner. Sit! Sit damnit, I said sit!
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The Great Loophole
The building code specifically stated that it didn’t apply to tree-houses
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Smartphones Could Become the Next Weapon on the Battlefield

2010-07-22T06:03:00.000-07:00

U.S. Army soldiers with the 1-320 Field Artillery Regiment, 101st Airborne Division.

Smartphones could become the next weapon in the United States’ battlefield arsenal, as defense companies seek to cash in on the rapidly growing use of sophisticated mobile applications.

Raytheon, which makes the Patriot missile defense system, is developing software which could enable a soldier to find enemies in his or her surrounding terrain using a mobile phone running Google’s Android operating system.

The software could potentially be powerful enough to pick up aerial images from an unmanned aircraft or satellite and then focus in on details such as license plates on cars or a person’s facial features.

“We’re trying to take advantage of smartphone technology to tailor for what soldiers may need in the field,” Mark Bigham, vice president for defense and civil mission solutions at Raytheon, told Reuters.

So far Raytheon have added their software to handsets made by Motorola and HTC Corp. Google has been instrumental in helping the company access and understand its Android platform, which is in aggressive competition with Apple’s iOS platform for the iPhone.

“Google has helped us push the limits of the phone,” Bigham said, adding that the U.S. internet giant would stand to financially benefit once the Raytheon Android Tactical System (RATS) is rolled out to the defense market.

The U.S. Army is a potential customer for the software and some members of U.S. Special Forces teams have tested the product and advised Raytheon, Bigham said, adding that the Indian military was also a possible huge market for Raytheon.

Each handset, which has a color touchscreen, would cost about $500, in line with prices for unlocked consumer smartphones, but Raytheon would be responsible for providing the encryption software and communications system necessary for the application to work in remote areas where signals do not exist.

“What you have to do is provide your own communications networks … communication coverage is absolutely an issue but there are very cost effective solutions that you can use which give you a pretty big foot print,” Bigham said.

The software would also allow soldiers to interact as ‘buddies’ and enable them to track each others’ movements on the battlefield, as well as help them identify potential enemies in a way similar to social networking sites such as Facebook.

If the phones do take off, then potentially thousands of handsets could be in circulation on the battlefield, and the risk that they would get into the wrong hands would be high.

But Bigham said identity recognition software would be installed on the phones, allowing only select users to unlock them. GPS would also allow forces to track the phone.

Reader's Digest - August 2010

2010-07-21T08:21:00.000-07:00

Reader's Digest - August 2010

English | 176 pages | PDF | 44.50 Mb

Reader's Digest - family magazine covering health, politics, sports, education, humor & more.

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Black Couple Give Birth To White Blue-Eyed Blonde Baby Girl

2010-07-21T08:00:00.000-07:00

The baby is as white as they come!

The stunned black dad of a newborn, white, baby girl declared yesterday — “I’m sure she’s my kid … I just don’t know why she’s blonde.” British Nmachi Ihegboro has amazed genetics experts who say the little girl is not an albino. Dad Ben, 44, a customer services adviser, admitted: “We both just sat there after the birth staring at her.” Mum Angela, 35, of Woolwich, South London, beamed as she said: “She’s beautiful – a miracle baby.” Ben told yesterday how he was so shocked when Nmachi was born, he even joked: “Is she mine?”e added: “Actually, the first thing I did was look at her and say, ‘What the flip?’” But as the baby’s older brother and sister – both black – crowded round the “little miracle” at their home in South London, Ben declared: “Of course she’s mine.” Blue-eyed blonde Nmachi, whose name means “Beauty of God” in the Nigerian couple’s homeland, has baffled genetics experts because neither Ben nor wife Angela have any mixed-race family history. Pale genes skipping generations before cropping up again could have explained the baby’s appearance. Ben also stressed: “My wife is true to me. Even if she hadn’t been, the baby still wouldn’t look like that.”

Doctors at Queen Mary’s Hospital in Sidcup – where Angela, from nearby Woolwich, gave birth – have told the parents Nmachi is definitely no albino. Ben, who came to Britain with his wife five years ago and works for South Eastern Trains, said: “She doesn’t look like an albino child anyway – not like the ones I’ve seen back in Nigeria or in books. She just looks like a healthy white baby.” He went on: “My mum is a black Nigerian although she has a bit fairer skin than mine. “But we don’t know of any white ancestry. We wondered if it was a genetic twist. But even then, what is with the long curly blonde hair?”

Professor Bryan Sykes, head of Human Genetics at Oxford University and Britain’s leading expert, yesterday called the birth “extraordinary”. He said: “In mixed race humans, the lighter variant of skin tone may come out in a child – and this can sometimes be startlingly different to the skin of the parents. This might be the case where there is a lot of genetic mixing, as in Afro-Caribbean populations. But in Nigeria there is little mixing.” Prof Sykes said both parents would have needed “some form of white ancestry” for a pale version of their genes to be passed on. But he added: “The hair is extremely unusual. Even many blonde children don’t have blonde hair like this at birth.” The expert said some unknown mutation was the most likely explanation.

The Secret to Running and Swimming Faster – The Position of Your Belly Button

2010-07-15T11:15:00.000-07:00

Usain Bolt wins the men’s 100m final at the Beijing Olympic Games – his speed could be down to the position of his belly button according to a new study.

Sports commentators have long avoided trying to explain why blacks dominate on the running track and whites often finish first in the swimming pool. But scientists in America claim they have come up with a very simple explanation to defy the guardians of political correctness.

They say it’s all down to belly-buttons.

A study suggesting that navel gazing may not be such a waste of time after all, top US university professors claim it’s not important whether an athlete has an ‘innie’ or an ‘outie’ but where his or her navel is in relation to the rest of the body.

They say the belly-button determines the centre of gravity.

According to the report published yesterday in the International Journal of Design and Nature and Ecodynamics, black people’s navels are higher than whites.

That gives them a speed advantage on the track, said the study, but holds them back in the pool.

Given two runners or swimmers of the same height, one black and one white, ‘what matters is not total height but the position of the belly- button, or centre of gravity,’ claims Duke University professor Andre Bejan, the lead author of the study.

‘It so happens that in the architecture of the human body of West African-origin runners, the centre of gravity is significantly higher than in runners of European origin,’ which puts them at an advantage in sprints on the track, he added.

Blacks generally have longer legs than white athletes, which means their belly-buttons are three centimeters higher than whites’, said Professor Bejan.

That means the black athletes have a ‘hidden height’ that is 3 per cent greater than whites’, which gives them a significant running speed advantage.

‘Locomotion is essentially a continual process of falling forward, and mass that falls from a higher altitude, falls faster, the professor explained.

In the pool, meanwhile, whites have the advantage because they have longer torsos, making their belly-buttons lower in the general scheme of body architecture.

‘Swimming is the art of surfing the wave created by the swimmer,’ said Professor Bejan.

‘The swimmer who makes the bigger wave is the faster swimmer, and a longer torso makes a bigger wave.

‘Europeans have a 3 per cent longer torso than West Africans, which gives them a 1.5 per cent speed advantage in the pool,’ he added.

Asians have the same long torsos as Europeans, giving them the same potential to be record-breakers in the pool.

But they often lose out to whites because whites are taller, he explained.

Many scientists have avoided studying why blacks make better sprinters and whites better swimmers because of what the study calls the ‘obvious’ race angle.

But Professor Bejan said the study he conducted with Edward Jones, a professor at Howard University in Washington, and Duke graduate Jordan Charles, focused on the athletes’ geographic origins and biology, not race, which the authors of the study call a ‘social construct.’

Professor Bejan is white, originally from Romania, and Professor Jones is black, from South Carolina.

They charted and analysed nearly 100 years of records in men’s and women’s sprinting and 100-meters freestyle swimming for the study.

Amazing Video of the Sun Melting Steel

2010-07-15T11:13:00.000-07:00

Melting steel in a solar oven

Melting steel in a solar oven (aka solar concentrator) isn’t new or unique, but it’s always cool to see and a good reminder of just how much energy is hitting the sunny side of the planet at any moment. The video below shows a short exerpt of James May’s “ Big Ideas” series (James is better known for the Top Gear show), and they start by cooking, er, burning a sausage, and then they melt a steel plate. Impressive to see how quickly it turns to a liquid.

Steel’s Melting Point is Approx. 1,370 °C (2,500 °F)

On average, there’s about 1.366 kilowatts per square meter (kW/m²) of solar radiation hitting the surface of the Earth at any moment (on the day side, obviously).

Artist Creates Portrait From 200,000 Dead Ants

2010-07-15T11:11:00.001-07:00

Mr Trueman’s artwork made from ants.

Chris Trueman bought the tiny creatures alive in batches of 40,000 for £330 each for his bizarre masterpiece. The 32-year-old then had to kill them before painstakingly rearranging them into a picture using tweezers. The final piece, which measures 48 inches by 42 inches, was priced at a staggering $35,000 dollars, around £23,000.

And it was eventually sold to American franchise Ripley’s Believe It or Not, which owns a collection of museums displaying things ‘odd and amazing’, for an undisclosed price.

Mr Trueman, from Claremont, California, admitted that putting the piece together had been a challenge.

He even stopped half way through the process because he had an attack of conscience after killing the ants.

He said: “It took several years, not because of the actual labour, but because at one point I started to feel bad about killing all of the ants and I stopped the project for over a year.

“Then I decided that the first ants would have died in vain if I didn’t finish the work so I decided to continue.

“It was also quite an expensive work to produce each shipment of ants would cost $500.”

According to Mr Trueman, inspiration for the picture partly sprung from an experience he had as a young boy.

He explained: “I was revisiting an experience from my childhood, when I was 5 years old. It was the first time that I intentionally tried to harm intelligent life.

“My younger brother and I attacked an ant hill and were bitten by red ants. I decided to return to that early childhood experience.

“Ants ride the line of what we consider intelligent life, if we see them in the kitchen, many of us think little of killing them all.

“If we take the time to look at them they are remarkable creatures.”

Mr Trueman admitted that he had initially tried to catch each ant by hand but soon realised it would take him years to collect enough.

But, after looking online, he found that he could buy the insects in bulk.

He said: “The ants are actually being farmed and sold to people who have exotic reptiles as pets. These are feeder ants for horned lizards.

“I was able to order quantities of 40,000 at a time and they would come alive in large plastic jars.”

The insects were killed using cotton balls soaked in nail polish remover – a process Mr Trueman said he had learned from the boy scouts.

He then had to use tweezers to position each ant onto a sheet of Plexiglas, which was smeared in a layer of Galkyd resin.

Mr Trueman said first responses to the piece ranged from ‘gross’ and ‘creepy’ to ‘cool’.

He said: “The reactions have been very interesting.

“The first response for most people is that it is gross, creepy or some think that it’s cool that it is even possible to make something like that.

“Then as people start to think about the work it gets very complex and raises a lot of questions like is it ok to kill anything for art, what is the value of an ant’s life?”

Scientists Prove Which Came First — The Chicken or the Egg

2010-07-15T10:05:00.000-07:00

Which came first – the chicken or the egg?

One of the most puzzling and famous life questions has stumped people for generations. It’s the question of which came first: the chicken or the egg? In order for there to be an egg, a chicken would have had to lay it. In order for there to be a chicken, it would have had to hatch from an egg. It seems as though either answer could be the correct answer; until now

Dr. Colin Freeman from Sheffield University along with colleagues from Warwick University have figured it all out. Their research project originally aimed to figure out how animals make eggshells because it’s an extraordinarily strong yet lightweight material that no human has been able to replicate, and the researchers hoped to learn how to develop a manmade equivalent by learning about the way animals make eggshells.

Chickens were chosen as their test subjects simply because the protein was easy to study. The study began when Freeman and his colleagues used the UK Science Research Council’s super-computer called HECToR (High End Computing Terascale Resource), which is based in Edinburgh. The “ingredients” used to make eggshells were programmed into HECToR, and that was it. The computer was left to produce results on its own, and it took weeks for HECToR to figure out how chickens make eggshells.

When HECToR finally arrived at a conclusion, the researchers were stunned when they realized that they had solved the age old question. After years and years of debate, it was finally determined that the chicken came before the egg.

“It had long been suspected that the egg came first, but now we have the scientific proof that shows that in fact the chicken came first,” said Freeman.

What they found was a protein, called ovocledidin-17 (OC-17), that exists only in a chicken’s ovaries and is vital to eggshell formation in chickens. The protein acts as an ongoing builder that pieces microscopic parts of the shell together by converting calcium carbonate into calcite crystals. The shell would not exist without this protein, which only exists in chickens, so the end result is that the chicken came first.

The protein was discovered before this research project, but HECToR made it easier for the researchers to observe the process “in microscopic detail,” thus understand the proteins significance in the eggshell-making procedure.

So what does this mean for those who always thought the egg came first? Freeman and his colleagues referred to some theories that suggest that chickens’ “ancestors evolved to create hard eggs around the time of the dinosaurs.”

In addition to answering the question that has burdened the human race for ages, the results of this study could be advantageous in the medical field since human bones and teeth are made in a similar way as eggshells. This could lead to a better understanding of how to rebuild human bones. Also, the study could help figure out how crystal structures can be made and destroyed (since the eggshells are made up of microscopic crystals). Learning how this can be done could lead to the elimination of limescale crystals on pipes and kettles.

Woman Jailed for Sending Threatening Text Messages to Herself

2010-07-13T08:06:00.001-07:00

Woman sends threatening text messages to herself.

Everyone has days when they really don’t like themselves very much. However, if they feel a need to write these feelings down it is usually in a hidden place on your computer or in your diary where no one else will see them.

It seems, though, that Jeanne Mundango Manunga, a 25-year-old woman from Santa Ana, Calif., took a slightly different philosophical approach.

According to the Orange County Register, Manunga wanted to make people believe that it was others who disliked her. That, indeed someone was out to get her. Actually two someones– her ex-boyfriend and his sister-in-law.

She informed her local police department–actually, three of her local police departments–that she was receiving nasty, nasty texts from these two people.

It seems she paid various police departments at least 19 visits. This somehow persuaded the police to finally issue arrest warrants for the alleged miscreants. In fact, the sister-in-law was arrested three times and spent some time locked up while she tried to raise bail.

The ex-boyfriend and his sister-in-law were quite convinced that something was afoot. So, they went along to a cell phone store, where they happily learned that Manunga had bought a pre-paid cell phone under her sister-in-law’s name.

Once the police had worked out that most of the calls had been made from places that seemed remarkably adjacent to Manunga’s home or place of employment, their suspicions were deeply aroused.

This all led to a jury of her peers deciding that Manunga was guilty of three felony counts of false imprisonment by fraud or deceit and two misdemeanor counts of making a false police report. For she had, indeed, sent the threatening text messages from the pre-paid phone to her own original cell phone. Perhaps she had an unlimited texting plan.

This had been an act of some commitment. There had been hundreds of threatening text messages that must have taken some time to compose. So one can only imagine what might have motivated Manunga to embark on such a treacherous path to ignominy.

Like many who purchase pre-paid cell phones for nefarious purposes, she thought she could get away with it. Instead she will have to now spend a year in jail and quite some time, one fears, talking to herself.

Little 6-Year-Old Boy With No Legs And One Arm Is Star Of Swimming Team

2010-07-13T08:00:00.001-07:00

Gabe Marsh may be missing limbs, but he is still a great swimmer!

When the Marshes adopted another child, Ed told his wife, Ann, “Well, there’s one you’ll never have swim.”

His pessimism was understandable. Gabe, the seventh of their 10 adopted children, was born with no legs and one arm.

Share Even Ann believed her string of teaching children to swim had ended. By then, her streak had exceeded 60. However it was not to end there …

She and Ed had two biological children, six other adopted children and more than 50 foster children. But Gabe?

For Full Story Click here...

Gabe Marsh, a 6-year-old with no legs and one arm, is 'the greatest accomplishment' on the Guntersville swim team

2010-07-13T08:00:00.000-07:00

GUNTERSVILLE, Al. - When the Marshes adopted another child, Ed told his wife, Ann, "Well, there's one you'll never have swim.''

His pessimism was understandable. Gabe, the seventh of their 10 adopted children, was born with no legs and one arm.

Even Ann believed her string of teaching children to swim had ended. By then, her streak had exceeded 60.

She and Ed had two biological children, six other adopted children and more than 50 foster children.

But Gabe?

Gabe, who'd had "more hair than he had body,'' as Ann put it when she saw him for the first time at Huntsville Hospital, just days after his birth.

Gabe, who was four pounds, two ounces when the Marshes took him home on April 6, 2004, a then-four-day-old whose future appeared little more than being "an invalid,'' in Ed's words.

Swimming, in their view, was for children with two arms and two legs.

"He was the only child we'd taken that I had doubts about,'' says Ed, 61, the retired manager of a poultry plant. "You figure, 'What can he do?' You figure (he's an) invalid. But he's a long way from invalid, as you can see.''

Look at him. He's 6 years old, about to enter the first grade at Guntersville Elementary, a devotee of cars and macaroni and cheese.

He's wearing his black-and-red swim suit and dangling his goggles near his bicep, all that remains of his right arm.

Late on the afternoon of July 6, he's preparing to swim three events for the Guntersville swim team against Decatur in the final meet of the regular season.

"They just announced the relay,'' Ed says to Ann and Gabe.

Ed picks up Gabe and carries him toward the pool.

Spectators sitting in lounge chairs line the Guntersville pool. Some of them watch Ed and Gabe head toward Lane 2 and whisper.

"You going to go off the blocks or the wall, son?'' Ed asks just before Gabe swims the final leg of the 8-and-under medley relay.

Typical Gabe. He'll go off the blocks, just like the other kids.

"OK, Gabe, get ready, son,'' Ed says.

In a swimming suit that's too long for him, Gabe balances himself on the blocks and strains for a better view of the swimmer who's about to finish the third leg.

Ed, Ann and others who have followed Gabe's progress are expecting big things. In the previous meet, Gabe compiled his best time of the season - 1:082 in the 25-yard short freestyle.

In Guntersville's previous eight meets, Gabe has improved his time in each meet.

"We have kids who can win state (championships),'' says Mary Shea Gaston, one of the Guntersville parent volunteers. "But he's our greatest accomplishment.''

Says Gaston's 12-year-old daughter, Virginia: "At first, I was worried he'd drown. When he actually swam, he swam better than other people.''

He's the fourth and final swimmer in Event 11, the 8-and-under medley relay. He leans over the block, sees the swimmer of the third leg touch the wall.

"GET OUT OF HERE," Ed yells.

Gabe bobs and twists, turning his head in and out the water, managing to avoid the ropes on each side of Lane 2.

But almost immediately, Ed senses something amiss.

"He jumped too deep," he says.

'You beat him'

Gabe was born on April 2, 2004, at Marshall Medical Center South in Boaz. Soon after his birth, he was transferred to Huntsville Hospital, where he was placed in the Neonatal Unit as a precaution.

When he was two days old, Holly Rogers, a social worker at the Department of Human Resources in Guntersville, called Ann.

"Would you take him?'' she recalls Rogers asking her.

The Marshes usually accepted "special needs and medically fragile children,'' as Ann puts it.

Gabe qualified on both accounts. At birth, he was 8 inches long, no more than 9, by Ann's estimate.

"What's wrong with him?'' Ann asked Rogers.

Even now, the Marshes are unsure of why Gabe was born with no legs and one arm. Ann's only explanation is that Gabe's birth mother perhaps took some medication for morning sickness, now outlawed, that's known for causing birth defects.

Gabe's birth mother had come to Marshall County from Mexico about two weeks before delivery. Ann wonders if Gabe's mother had taken the medication in Mexico.

Almost immediately, Ann knew she would take Gabe. But first, she wanted to talk to her husband.

When she told him about Gabe, she made sure to leave out the part about him having one arm and no legs. She wanted Gabe's birth defects to have no effect on his decision.

"He'd take every one they called about,'' Ann says. "He thinks every one needs a home.''

There was never much doubt, really. Both Ann and Ed wanted Gabe.

With Gabe's acceptance, more than 60 adopted or foster children had been through their home. Many of them, including six of the Marshes' adopted children, have been members of the Guntersville swim team.

"From the time we get 'em,'' Ed says, "she sticks 'em in the pool.''

Ann wants her children to swim so they won't drown if they fall into a pool - her biggest fear, she says.

But she didn't think Gabe would swim, either.

"I thought you had to have two legs and arms to swim,'' she says.

Last summer, Gabe began to show an interest in swimming. Ann was in the pool at the Marshes' home on Wyeth Mountain, occupied with the other children, when Gabe swam to her.

She was unaware that he'd even been in the water until she saw him swimming underwater.

"I guess he sees the rest of the kids doing it, and he wants to do it, too,'' she says. "I guess that's why he swims.''

With one hand and no legs, Gabe, all 27 inches of him, is also capable of driving a child's battered-powered four-wheeler.

"He'll guide the four-wheeler with his left hand and he'll push the (power) button with his nub,'' Ed says.

One day, Ed found Gabe in the loft of the Marshes' barn. Like each of the family's nine adopted children at home, Gabe had managed to climb the 13 steps to the loft.

"He just doesn't realize he can't do like the rest of the kids,'' Ed says. "He doesn't realize he's handicapped.''

Before the swim meet began last Tuesday, Gabe played Spiderman games on his Gameboy DS, using his nub and his left hand, his good hand, to maneuver the controls.

When it's his turn to swim, he swims slower than usual. In the medley relay, his time is hurt by a slow start.

In the 25-yard short freestyle, he finishes with a time of 1:17.72. A lifeguard lifts Gabe out of the pool after his second race, and Gabe appears disappointed.

He thinks he has finished last, but Ann has some news after she grabs him from the lifeguard.

"Look, Gabe,'' she says. "You beat him. He's still swimming."

Gabe sees the opposing swimmer still finishing the race and laughs.

"You've swam better than that,'' Ann tells him as he licks his goggles.

"Mom," Gabe replies, "can I have an Icee?"

Top 10 Photos of the Week

2010-07-12T09:07:00.000-07:00

It’s no secret, old women are scary-ass drivers

We can evade reality, but we cannot evade the consequences of evading reality.

Sorry, but I was just really, really, really thisty

I know police are there for my protection, but these cops scare the hell out of me

For women, its less about function and more about style.
But when the function has to do with style, then its all about that too

Ooohhh that I could be blessed with this sort of a handicap

We need to stop having MC Escher design our tennis courts

When the world is melting around you, Perrier will make it melt even faster

What a great place to start a new country! It’s good to be King!

Clearly his Harvard degree in poetry is starting to pay off

The wonderment we seek is often the wonderment that seeks us

Most guys have often wondered where girls come from. Well, duh! The girl factory!

Little Barnie has a very expansionary view of life, he’s never met a nut he couldn’t eat

As a superhero he was very self-absorbed. As a member of society, he was just bat-shiat crazy

Recently the Amish announced their new “wives on wheels” modernization plan

When Sky Mall introduced the new grow-your-own bicycle kit, the silence was deafening

Life is always a challenge with a gravity-free dog

Urgency means different things to different people. And yes, these people are kinda different

Much like socks in a dryer, Smart Cars have a way of getting lost

Some men always seem to find themselves in the dog house ….literally

Stopping to smell the roses ….well sort of

Comfort is momentary. Discomfort is always pending

My grandmother was like this

Glad to see someone is finally taking this seriously

A stamp of dissapproval

Sushi Cat

Mullets and Spikes Banned In Iran

2010-07-06T06:55:00.000-07:00

Ponytails are out but side-partings and Elvis quiffs are in. Not the latest fashion

advice from a celebrity magazine, but a list of acceptable male hairstyles issued by

the Iranian government.

Iran does not want decadent Western hair styles to corrupt their wholesome culture.
In an attempt to rid the country of "decadent Western cuts", Iran's culture ministry has produced a catalogue of haircuts that meet government approval.The list of

banned styles includes ponytails, mullets and elaborate spikes.

However,quiffsappear to be acceptable, as are fashioning one's hair in the style of

Simon Cowell or cultivating a 1980s-style floppy fringe.

Most of the models are clean-shaven although one picture features a man with a

goatee beard, previously frowned upon by Iran's conservative clerics. Using hair

gel is also within the law, albeit in modest quantities.

The "journal of Iranian hairstyles approved by the ministry of [culture and Islamic]

guidance" was previewed at a government-approved hairdressing show in Tehran.

The pictures were reminiscent of those gracing barber shop windows across

Britain.

"The proposed styles are inspired by Iranians' complexion, culture and religion, and

Islamic law,"

said Jaleh Khodayar, who is in charge of a Modesty and Veil Festival later this

month at which the guide will be promoted.

"We are happy that the Islamic republic of Iran's government has backed us in

designing these hairstyles."

Several barber shops have reportedly been shut down and penalised in recent

years for offering Western-style haircuts.
Iranian police carry out regular morality checks, arresting women in short coats and

flimsy headscarves as well as men sporting spiky hair and tight, low-slung jeans.

Ties are also viewed with suspicion as a symbol of Western decadence.
Conservative clerics have called for firmer action against un-Islamic dressers and

criticised President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last month for expressing opposition to

a tough police crackdown on immodest attire.

Earlier this year, an Iranian cleric claimed women who wear revealing clothes

cause natural disasters. Hojjat ol-eslam Kazem Sediqi, a prayer leader in Tehran,

said: "Many women who do not dress modestly lead young men astray and spread

adultery in society, which increases earthquakes."

Top 10 Photos of the Week

2010-07-04T08:25:00.000-07:00

Some artists should not be allowed to own dogs

“A day without sunshine is like, you know, night.”

As the game continued, they finally entered the lightning round

Camels are just a playground waiting to happen

Don’t worry. I’ve got this one!

As a cat, his wages were low and this was as much car as he could afford

Say goodbye to Sheldon. Curiosity is often a very destructive force

After eating a bowl of 4-alarm chili, his hair just exploded

In case you were wondering, yes, business pretty much sucked after this

Its what’s for dinner

Watching too much of the Disney Channel causes a rare condition known as the
“creepy child syndrome”

After considering 3.4 million other places, she decided to jump rope here

Breathe dammit, breathe!

“Yes, I am speaking to you with my real mouth and my real ear. Everything else has been replaced”

Shoe paranoia stems from an unreasonable fear that someone will steal your shoes

It was a rough couple weeks in the retirement home, and even without
a spare pair of Depends, they decided to make a run for it

Little known fact. Fast food can only be grown with fast tractors

Now, which drawer did I put my explosives in?

May nothing ever come between us. Wait… what?

Just hanging around

Finally, a sign I can obey

After 200,000 years of evolution, his diet primarily consists of Dum-Dums and Toosie-Pops

Nothing brings joy to a young child’s heart like a passport from Lichtenstein

Just ignore the guy on the left

If photos had audio, this would be a noisy one.
Clearly the signals he’s sending are different that the signals we’re receiving

6.500 Year Old Baby Goes on Display in World’s Largest Mummy Exhibition

2010-07-03T09:24:00.000-07:00

Peruvian child mummy in a remarkable state of preservation and dated to 4504-4457 BC.

More than 6,500 years ago in Peru, this tiny baby’s brief battle for life finally came to an end. The child, no more than 10 months old, had a serious heart defect and suffered from growth problems. After contracting pneumonia and then suffering circulation failure the sick child died and was wrapped in linen and buried with an amulet hung around its neck.

Now the baby’s mummified corpse, known as the Detmold child, is to go on display in the biggest exhibition of mummies in the world.

‘Mummies of the World’ will display 45 mummies and 95 artifacts from 15 museums in seven countries in a show that opens today at the California Science Centre.

The Detmold Child itself is on loan from the Lippisches Landes museum in Detmold, Germany.

Another set, the Orlovits family, was with a group of mummies found in 1994 in a forgotten church crypt in Vac, Hungary.

And another on display is a 17th-century nobleman, Baron von Holz, who apparently died during the Thirty Years’ War in Sommersdorf, Germany.

The he mummies also include a South American woman with a tattoo on each breast and one on her face, a woman who had tuberculosis, a child who had a heart condition and a youngster with a facial tumor.

The mummies are both natural and intentional and they often come with as many questions as answers, said Heather Gill-Frerking, an anthropologist and forensic archaeologist.

The mummified remains of Johannes Orlovitz, one of the Vac mummies.

A visitor looks at the 18th century Hungarian mummy of Michael Orlovits.

Some curators agreed to contribute to the exhibition so that scientific tests could be conducted on remains, said Diane Perlov, senior vice president for exhibits at the science centre.

One mummy is that of an Egyptian woman, her arms crossed over her chest like royalty and her fists closed. Noninvasive tests revealed that in each clenched fist, she clutched the tiny tooth of a child. It was not immediately known why.

Another mummy, also from Egypt, was found to have a number of teeth stuffed in a head cavity. ‘One theory is that in order to reach the afterlife, you have to be a complete body. These may have been his teeth and they needed to be reacquainted with the body.

Many of the tests – CT scans, X-rays, radio carbon dating, MRI, mass spectrometry, isotope analysis and DNA tests – were conducted as the mummies were being readied for shipment.

The mummy of an Egyptian man dated around 408 B.C.

The exhibit is based on the work of the German Mummy Project, a group of experts from 15 European institutions based at the Reiss-Engelhorn Museums in Mannheim, Germany.

Beside human mummies, there is a mummified bog dog, lizard, fish, rat, hyaena, cat, squirrel, falcon and a howler monkey from Argentina.

Mystery, history and curiosity will lure what Corwin expects will be record-breaking crowds.

People are naturally curious and they often ask questions you don’t anticipate, Gill-Frerking said. ‘Did kids go to school 5,000 years ago? Maybe. Possibly. Probably not in the way we think about it,’ Gill-Frerking said.

A 13th century mummy of an adult female from ancient Peru.

People also have come to expect a lot out of DNA, she said. ‘Ancient DNA questions come up a lot. It works brilliantly on ‘CSI,’ but it doesn’t always work on mummies. First of all, it can be destructive. And it doesn’t always give us answers.’

Because the exhibit is playing to a sophisticated audience, ‘Mummies of the World’ has ramped up its multimedia displays, allowing people to learn what a mummy feels like, view a mummified tooth under a microscope and look at a photo of a 3-D body scan, among other things.

No matter how many tests are invented, there are going to be answers that went to the grave with some mummies – such as the woman tattooed with ovals containing small circles.

‘It’s clearly got some kind of meaning and it had a purpose – I’m willing to bet,’ said Gill-Frerking.

The show will embark on a three-year tour across the U.S.

An adult male mummy from the Pre-Columbian Atacama Desert in present-day Chile.

Photo of the Only Atomic Bomb Ever Detonated in Space

2010-07-03T09:20:00.000-07:00

Exploding nuke in space.

Since we’re coming up on the Fourth of July, and towns everywhere are preparing their better-than-ever fireworks spectaculars, we would like to offer this humbling bit of history. Back in the summer of 1962, the U.S. blew up a hydrogen bomb in outer space, some 250 miles above the Pacific Ocean. It was a weapons test, but one that created a man-made light show that has never been equaled — and hopefully never will.

If you are wondering why anybody would deliberately detonate an H-bomb in space, the answer comes from a conversation we had with science historian James Fleming of Colby College:

“Well, I think a good entry point to the story is May 1, 1958, when James Van Allen, the space scientist, stands in front of the National Academy in Washington, D.C., and announces that they’ve just discovered something new about the planet,” he told us.

Van Allen described how the Earth is surrounded by belts of high-energy particles — mainly protons and electrons — that are held in place by the magnetic fields.

Today these radiation belts are called Van Allen belts. Now comes the surprise: While looking through the Van Allen papers at the University of Iowa to prepare a Van Allen biography, Fleming discovered “that [the] very same day after the press conference, [Van Allen] agreed with the military to get involved with a project to set off atomic bombs in the magnetosphere to see if they could disrupt it.”

Discover It, Then Blow It Up

The plan was to send rockets hundreds of miles up, higher than the Earth’s atmosphere, and then detonate nuclear weapons to see: a) If a bomb’s radiation would make it harder to see what was up there (like incoming Russian missiles!); b) If an explosion would do any damage to objects nearby; c) If the Van Allen belts would move a blast down the bands to an earthly target (Moscow! for example); and — most peculiar — d) if a man-made explosion might “alter” the natural shape of the belts.

The scientific basis for these proposals is not clear. Fleming is trying to figure out if Van Allen had any theoretical reason to suppose the military could use the Van Allen belts to attack a hostile nation. He supposes that at the height of the Cold War, the most pressing argument for a military experiment was, “if we don’t do it, the Russians will.” And, indeed, the Russians did test atomic bombs and hydrogen bombs in space.

In any case, says the science history professor, “this is the first occasion I’ve ever discovered where someone discovered something and immediately decided to blow it up.”

Code Name: Starfish Prime

The Americans launched their first atomic nuclear tests above the Earth’s atmosphere in 1958. Atom bombs had little effect on the magnetosphere, but the hydrogen bomb of July 9, 1962, did. Code-named “Starfish Prime” by the military, it literally created an artificial extension of the Van Allen belts that could be seen across the Pacific Ocean, from Hawaii to New Zealand.

In Honolulu, the explosions were front page news. “N-Blast Tonight May Be Dazzling: Good View Likely,” said the Honolulu Advertiser. Hotels held what they called “Rainbow Bomb Parties” on rooftops and verandas. When the bomb burst, people told of blackouts and strange electrical malfunctions, like garage doors opening and closing on their own. But the big show was in the sky.

How Women Are About To Change the World

2010-07-02T05:43:00.000-07:00

Now that women dominate the US workforce, will they become our new robot overlords? Nope. According to current labor statistics, they’ll be the new working class. Here are three ways a female working class could change the world.

Women now dominate the U.S. workforce.

men’s jobs” will become everybody’s jobs
In this month’s Atlantic cover story, Hanna Rosin argues that we’re witnessing “the end of men” – mostly because the recent economic downturn hit men harder than women. To bolster her point, Rosin explains how the working class will soon be ruled by women:
Men dominate just two of the 15 job categories projected to grow the most over the next decade: janitor and computer engineer. Women have everything else-nursing, home health assistance, child care, food preparation. Many of the new jobs, says Heather Boushey of the Center for American Progress, “replace the things that women used to do in the home for free.” None is especially high-paying. But the steady accumulation of these jobs adds up to an economy that, for the working class, has become more amenable to women than to men.
Reading that, you might leap to the conclusion that the economy is growing for women, but shrinking for men. You’d be wrong.

It’s unlikely that the female dominance of the working class will last very long. As Ann Friedman points out, the aspirations of job-seekers will shift with the market. Men who want a respectable working class income can certainly tackle nursing, child care, and food preparation with as much aplomb as women. What we’re likely to see over the next decade is a shift not only in how many women are part of the working class, but what kinds of jobs all working class people do.

Male nannies and nurses, in the minority now, are likely to become more common. The question is really whether female engineers will become more common too – especially since engineering jobs are among the most highly-valued in the market.

What will this mean for the future?
Jobs we think of as “pink collar” are going to become blue collar. Men will be working as nurses and housekeepers. This could be the moment when gender stereotypes really start to break down in the West. We’ve already seen images of professional women enter pop culture (and real life). Now we’re going to see images of men heroically supporting their families by working in child care. Nothing like turning child care into a source of cash to make it honorable and manly.

Perhaps a more interesting question is whether this shift will mean upward mobility for families once classified as “working class” based on their income. In 2005, 77 percent of people in the top quintile of US households had two or more incomes. That means most families in the lower quintiles have only one wage-earner – most likely, a man. With two wage-earners, many working class families will ascend into the middle or upper quintiles.

But what about families that remain in the lower quintiles, with their single income? If women are now over half the workforce, it stands to reason that many working-class families will have stay-at-home dads. Ironically, these men may be doing the very jobs for free that their wives are doing for money – child care, cooking, housekeeping, and elder care.

Childrearing and marriage are no longer connected

Today, more women are primary breadwinners in their families than at any other time in history. Rosin writes, “In 1970, women contributed 2 to 6 percent of the family income. Now the typical working wife brings home 42.2 percent, and four in 10 mothers-many of them single mothers-are the primary breadwinners in their families.”

In the past, most women had no way to survive unless they were supported by a husband or a father. Especially if they wanted to have children, they had to find a man who would not only pay to support them, but their children as well. That meant that women rarely dreamed of having children without marrying a man. This wasn’t just a matter of morality, but plain and simple economics. Now all of that is about to change.

What will this mean for the future?
We are about to witness a revolution similar to what happened in the 1960s with the introduction of the Pill and other readily-available forms of birth control. Once women could have sex without fear of pregnancy, norms around sex shifted. Most young people began to have sex before marriage, and today it is common for people to have many sexual partners throughout their lives, most of whom they will never marry.

Today the revolution has to do with child rearing. Now that women can have children without needing a man to support them, it is going to become more common for women to have children outside marriage. But this doesn’t mean you’re necessarily going to see a rise in single motherhood. Women will be free to experiment with many different kinds of parenting arrangements, from raising children alone or with a female partner, to raising them in an extended family.

More reproductive freedom does not mean women will want to lead non-traditional lives or abandon their families. In twenty years, a woman might decide she wants children, but instead of getting married she wants to live with her parents and grandparents. Because she has the income to pay for her child’s needs, and to contribute to the family home, she now has the freedom to choose this option.

Women will be in direct class conflicts with each other

There have always been class conflicts between women, but they were rarely direct. The daughter of a wealthy man could look down on her poor governess in the nineteenth century, but if the wealthy man died, our snooty girl would be left penniless because she couldn’t inherit property. And besides, “looking down on” somebody is a psychological conflict rather than an economic one.

Today, women are competing directly with each other in the job market. Women now hold 51.4 percent of managerial and professional jobs, which means that they employ each other. They have boss/worker class conflicts that only existed between men as recently as a generation ago. This situation is part of what has allowed so many women to catch up to men in the workforce. Middle-class women are able to work professional jobs because they hire their working-class counterparts to take care of their kids and homes.

What will this mean for the future?
Bizarrely, a futuristic world of working women could take us back in time. We may return to arrangements that look a lot like what people had over a century ago, when servants and nannies took care of middle-class homes while the middle- and upper-classes ran countries and businesses. Except this time around, women’s incomes will be what allows a household to afford its servants. (Remember, the wealthiest families are dual-income.)

This could spell the end of feminism as we know it in the West. Though the women’s movement has always been riven by class and race differences, the overarching issue of women’s inequality has brought disparate factions together. In a future where women workers report to women bosses, fewer and fewer women are going to feel that they share a common social status with their sisters. In fact, female nurses might feel like they have more in common with male nurses than they do with the female hospital administrators who treat them like crap and cut their hours.

Women’s equality with men may spell an end to women’s solidarity with each other. But women will forge new alliances – ones that have nothing to do with gender. And maybe that isn’t so much the end of feminism, but the beginning of a world that no longer needs it.

[source]

Fascinating View of Earth’s Gravity in High Definition

2010-07-01T04:06:00.000-07:00

It is one of the most exquisite views we have ever had of the Earth. This colourful new map traces the subtle but all pervasive influence the pull of gravity has across the globe.
Known as a geoid, it essentially defines where the level surface is on our planet; it tells us which way is “up” and which way is “down”.

Earth’s gravity in high definition.

It is drawn from delicate measurements made by Europe’s Goce satellite, which flies so low it comes perilously close to falling out of the sky.
Scientists say the data gathered by the spacecraft will have numerous applications.
One key beneficiary will be climate studies because the geoid can help researchers understand better how the great mass of ocean water is moving heat around the world.
The new map was presented here in Norway’s second city at a special Earth observation (EO) symposium dedicated to the data being acquired by Goce and other European Space Agency (Esa) missions.

Europe is currently in the midst of a huge programme of EO development which will see it launch some 20 missions worth nearly eight billion euros before the decade’s end.
The Gravity Field and Steady-State Ocean Circulation Explorer (Goce) is at the front of this armada of scientific and environmental monitoring spacecraft.

Imaginary ball

Launched in 2009, the sleek satellite flies pole to pole at an altitude of just 254.9km – the lowest orbit of any research satellite in operation today.
The spacecraft carries three pairs of precision-built platinum blocks inside its gradiometer instrument that sense accelerations which are as small as 1 part in 10,000,000,000,000 of the gravity experienced on Earth.
This has allowed it to map the almost imperceptible differences in the pull exerted by the mass of the planet from one place to the next – from the great mountain ranges to the deepest ocean trenches.
Two months of observations have now been fashioned into what scientists call the geoid.
“I think everyone knows what a level is in relation to construction work, and a geoid is nothing but a level that extends over the entire Earth,” explained Professor Reiner Rummel, the chairman of the Goce scientific consortium.
“So with the geoid, I can take two arbitrary points on the globe and decide which one is ‘up’ and which one is ‘down’,” the Technische Universitaet Muenchen researcher told BBC News.
In other words, the map on this page defines the horizontal – a surface on which, at any point, the pull of gravity is perpendicular to it.
Put a ball on this hypothetical surface and it will not roll – even though it appears to have “slopes”. These slopes can be seen in the colours which mark how the global level diverges from the generalised (an ellipsoid) shape of the Earth.
In the North Atlantic, around Iceland, the level sits about 80m above the surface of the ellipsoid; in the Indian Ocean it sits about 100m below.
The geoid is of paramount interest to oceanographers because it is the shape the world’s seas would adopt if there were no tides, no winds and no currents.
If researchers then subtract the geoid from the actual observed behaviour of the oceans, the scale of these other influences becomes apparent.
This is information critical to climate modellers who try to represent the way the oceans manage the transfer of energy around the planet.
But a geoid has many other uses, too. Having a global level underpins a universal system to compare heights anywhere on Earth.
In construction, for example, it tells engineers which way a fluid would naturally want to flow through a pipeline.
Geophysicists will also want to use the Goce data to try to probe what’s happening deep within the Earth, especially in those places that are prone to quakes and volcanic eruptions.
“The Goce data is showing up new information in the Himalayas, central Africa, and the Andes, and in Antarctica,” explained Dr Rune Floberghagen, Esa’s Goce mission manager.
“This is, in one sense, not so surprising. These are places that are fairly inaccessible. It is not easy to measure high frequency variations in the gravity field in Antarctica with an aeroplane because there are so few airfields from which to operate.”
Goce’s extremely low operating altitude was expected to limit its mission to a couple of years at most. But Esa now thinks it may be able to continue flying the satellite until perhaps 2014.
Unusually quiet solar activity has produced very calm atmospheric conditions, meaning Goce has used far less xenon “fuel” in its ion engine to maintain its orbit.
Ultimately, though, that fuel will run out and the residual air molecules at 255km will slow the satellite, forcing it from the sky.

[source]

Over 115 Million Widows Around the World Live in Poverty

2010-06-30T10:24:00.000-07:00

Afghan widows wait in line next to a barbed wire fence to receive their food rations.

At least 245 million women around the world have been widowed and more than 115 million of them live in devastating poverty, according to a new study launched Tuesday night by Cherie Blair, wife of the former British prime minister. The most dire consequences are faced by 2 million Afghan widows and at least 740,000 Iraqi widows who lost their husbands as a result of the ongoing conflicts; by widows and their children evicted from their family homes in sub-Saharan Africa; by elderly widows caring for grandchildren orphaned by the HIV/AIDS crisis, and by child widows aged 7 to 17 in developing countries, the report said.

“Across the world, widows suffer dreadful discrimination and abuse,” Blair said. “In too many cases they’re pushed to the very margins of society, trapped in poverty and left vulnerable to abuse and exploitation.”

She said many are cheated out of their husbands’ assets and property and expelled from their family home — and since they have no money they can’t support their children, “so misery is heaped on grief.”
Blair was in New York to launch the report entitled “Invisible Forgotten Sufferers: The Plight of Widows around the World,” commissioned by the Loomba Foundation which works in a dozen countries to help widows and educate their children.
“The plight of widows — in the shadows of the world — is a human rights catastrophe,” said Blair, the foundation’s president. “It’s really a hidden humanitarian crisis.”
She said the foundation had been working on the basis that there were about 100 million widows but decided to do a study from published sources to get a more accurate figure. She said the foundation was surprised to discover there were at least 245 million widows worldwide, almost half living in poverty.
The report stressed that persecution against widows and their children is not limited to the developing world, noting that large numbers of widows are also found in Europe and Central Asia.
According to the report, the countries with the highest number of widows in 2010 were China with 43 million, India with 42.4 million, the United States with 13.6 million, Indonesia with 9.4 million, Japan with 7.4 million, Russia with 7.1 million, Brazil with 5.6 million, Germany with 5.1 million, and Bangladesh and Vietnam with about 4.7 million each.
Blair said women become widows when their husbands are killed in conflicts, die of diseases including HIV/AIDS, or are killed because they work in dangerous conditions, the only jobs available to many poor men.
When their husbands die, she said, some women are required to be “cleansed,” some are erroneously accused of murder or witchcraft, some are required to marry another member of the family, many are disinherited and forced out of their homes and many are raped.
According to the report, over 500 million dependent and adult children of widows are caught in a vicious underworld in which disease, forced servitude, homelessness and violence are rampant and youngsters are denied schooling, enslaved or preyed upon by human traffickers.
The foundation was established in 1997 by Raj and Veena Loomba in honor of Loomba’s mother, who was widowed at the age of 37 in India when her husband died of tuberculosis and raised her seven children by herself.
“There are few resources in the world available to help widows achieve a safer, more comfortable existence and to promote their equality and pursue justice on their behalf,” Loomba said.
He said that’s why the foundation is campaigning to put the plight of the world’s widows on the U.N. agenda and to have June 23 — his mother’s birthday — declared International Widows Day to raise awareness of the crisis.

[source]

A flying car that converts from Automobile to Airplane

2010-06-30T07:32:00.000-07:00

The Terrafugia flying car received FAA approval this week.

It’s a car, it’s a plane…it’s both?
The Terrafugia Transition, a light aircraft that can convert into an automobile, will soon go into production.

The vehicle received a unique exemption from the U.S. government, which allows the production models to be 110 pounds heavier than a normal “light sport aircraft.”
Manufacturers could not fit in safety features, like airbags and crumple zones, within the 1,320 pound weight limit. The exemption will make it easier and cheaper to get a license--A U.S. light sport pilot’s permit only requires 20 hours of flying time.The two-seater vehicle uses its front-wheel drive on roads at ordinary highway speeds. But once it arrives at an adequate take off spot, it can extend its wings, take off and glide through the sky at 115 mph.
The vehicle can go 460 miles and carry 450 pounds, but requires a runway that is at least a third of a mile long. It fits into a standard-sized garage.The Transition has undergone development by startup firm Terrafugia, which was founded by MIT engineers in 2006.
According to the company, 70 people have order the Transition and have left a $10,000 deposit per vehicle. It is expected to retail for $194,000 and be delivered by the end of next year.
Terrafugia said one of the major perks of the Transition is that it can drive home if the vehicle is flying and encounters bad weather.

The Girl Who Must Eat Every 15 Minutes To Stay Alive

2010-06-29T06:50:00.000-07:00

An American girl, who suffers from a rare and undiagnosed syndrome that prevents her from putting on weight, has to eat every 15 minutes in order to stay alive.

Lizzie Velasquez, 21, from Austin, Texas, who is a communications student, weighs just four stone and has almost zero percent body fat, but she is not anorexic.

And despite eating up to 60 small meals, which consist of between 5,000 and 8,000 calories, daily, she still weighs just a little over 4st 3lbs.
“I weigh myself regularly and if I gain even one pound I get really excited,” the Telegraph quoted Velasquez, who wears size triple zero clothes, as saying.
“I eat every 15-20 minutes to keep my energy levels up.

Lizzie Velasquez

“I eat small portions of crisps, sweets, chocolate, pizza, chicken, cake, doughnuts, ice cream, noodles and pop tarts all day long, so I get pretty upset when people accuse me of being anorexic,” she explained.
Velasquez had been born four weeks prematurely weighing just 2lb 10oz, and doctors had found that there was minimal amniotic fluid protecting her in the womb.
Her mother Rita, 45, a church secretary, who kept track of her daughter’s health in dozens of notebooks, said doctors had given up on her surviving and did not expect her to.
Doctors speculated that she might have the genetic disorder De Barsy syndrome but soon ruled it out as it became clear she did not have learning difficulties.
Genetic experts they visited could not diagnose her illness, and her case fascinated doctors all over the world.
Now she is part of a genetic study run by Professor Abhimanyu Garg, MD, at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.
Professor Garg and his team now believe Velasquez may have a form of Neonatal Progeroid Syndrome (NPS) which causes accelerated ageing, fat loss from the face and body, and tissue degeneration.
People with PRS often have triangular and prematurely aged faces with a pointy nose.
“I am aware of a small number of people that have similar conditions to Lizzie but each case is slightly different,” he said.
“We cannot predict what will happen to Lizzie in the future as the medical community are yet to document older people with NPS.

“However Lizzie is lucky to have healthy teeth, organs and bones so the outlook is good. We will continue to study her case and learn from her,” he added. (ANI)

Top 10 Photos of the Week

2010-06-28T05:39:00.000-07:00

Don’t let this innocent little baby’s looks deceive you. He is one conniving little bastard

I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, It’s a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope, which is what I do. And that enables you to laugh at life’s realities.

61.8% of the human body is water. Some people, slightly more

“After eating a large meatball last night my head still hurts”

Alien ship to their commanding officers: “Once again the political process on earth has failed
to elect any of our people. Please send dumber people!”

The game of cat and mouse was about to be turned upside down

A second ago he had a great idea …..but then it was gone

Warning: Use of steroids may cause extreme junk food cravings

Cow tipping was getting old, so he decided to move on to horses

Geometry class never teaches you how to dissect a love triangle

Even for primates, extreme vanity is like a supermodel gone weird

Randy used to laugh every time we mentioned the Colonel Mustard Curse,
but he’s not laughing anymore

In Hollywood, the need for stunt bears was rare,
but Yogi was determined to make a splash

“Maybe if I hide in here he won’t see me”

The architect of the Sky Barn overlooked one small problem – getting the cows in and out

The sewing-bike was an invention that never really caught on.
But neither did the sewing-blender or the sewing-lawnmower.

Enough with the sissy scooter jokes!

Drink Red Bull. Things happen! Yeah, …..things!

Living large in a world that shuns largeness

Sometimes its less about who’s right, and more about who’s wrong

Nelson, meet The Duke. Duke, meet Nelson

Note to Cops: Best not to give traffic tickets to lane stripers

Bacon Lake got its name for obvious reasons

Volvo’s new Street Luge was many things, but “radar friendly” was not one of them.

Every so often they found “added treasures” and dangling things between the books

[source]

Aqua Tower – Inspired by Rock Formations Around the Great Lakes

2010-06-27T06:15:00.000-07:00

Aqua Tower

Destined to be one of the most instantly recognized buildings in the world the Aqua Tower in Chicago has the simplest of ideas behind it. The idea for the tower came from the eroded rocks that can be found around the Great Lakes.

The project is the work of Studio Gang Architects, led by its principal and founder Jeanne Gang and as such is the largest project to be given to a practice led by a woman. It towers 82 storeys high and is used for both residential and business purposes.

The name reflects the nautical theme of the other buildings in the locality and you can see why, with the wave like balconies that give the tower an organic, almost living ambience. The terraces on the balconies are refined so that solar shading is maximized. Sustainability is a hugely important part of the structure, with energy efficient lighting and rainwater collection systems.

The tower also boasts the largest green roof in the city of Chicago but it was not without its challenges, most of them lying beneath. The building is directly above a ComEd substation which feeds the downtown district. Furthermore, there were old freight tunnels which ran under the site and these had to be removed of debris before being grouted solid.

When you look at the building from the sidewalk its fluid form really does give you impression of the rock formations found around nearby Lake Michigan. It is almost as if Gaudi has been reincarnated and has set the skyline of Chicago as his next city wide project, with the Aqua being the first of his triumphs (but of course the praise must go to Gang and her team, daydreaming aside).

Skyscrapers are often seen to be an expression of, to put it politely, male prowess and there has always been a certain my skyscraper is taller than yours not so friendly competition. Perhaps the elegance and fluidity of this design is due to the fact that Gang is a woman – as is at least half of the staff on her team.

What is more, the complex facade has made the building much safer for our feathered friends. Birds tend not to see sheer glass and the walls of many a skyscraper are adorned with the somewhat splattered corpses of birds. As they pick up on irregularities of structure then the building’s very design makes it safer for them and easier to avoid a collision.
It could even, in its spare but complex beauty be seen as a kind of bird’s nest itself. A thoroughly twenty first century nesting ground for high living urbanites.

[source]

British Soldier of the Future

2010-06-27T06:13:00.000-07:00

British soldier of the future.

Armed to the teeth with the latest in technology, this is the new face of the British soldier. And if he looks a little familiar, it’s probably because you’ve seen something very similar in the Star Wars movies.

Gone is the old style ‘pudding-bowl’ helmet. In its place is one which features ear protection to shield the user from loud bangs and a mouthguard - yet also allows human voices to be heard clearly, and comes with side-mounted torches to assist in night operations.
The helmet, currently under trial, forms part of what the MoD calls FIST - Future Integrated Soldier Technology - and is part of a £1billion-a-year programme to update battlefield equipment.

British soldier wearing the clothing of the future, current operational clothing and what British soldiers were wearing five years ago (From left to right)

The rest of the kit, as worn by a soldier from the Royal Anglian Regiment, is already in use and features camouflage specifically created for the conditions of Afghanistan.
It replaces two previous designs - a 40-year-old four-colour combination better suited to European woodland conditions and a lighter pattern for the desert.
The soldier holds the first all-new combat rifle used by the Army for 20 years.
The Lewis Sharpshooter is semi-automatic and said to be accurate up to 2,500ft - ideal for mountain warfare.
The SA80, standard issue since 1976, uses lighter rounds which were found to lose effectiveness at distances of more than 1,000ft.

[source]

The Amazing Marina Bay Sands Skypark Hotel Opens in Singapore

2010-06-26T05:57:00.000-07:00

Infinity pool at the Marina Bay Sands Skypark.

55 storeys up, this infinity pool could glide you straight over the edge of Singapore, if not the world. It’s part of the $6 billion Marina Bay Sands Skypark hotel, which just opened this week.

Ok, so if you were really to propel yourself over the edge, you’d fall into a catchment-area which sends the excess water straight back into the pool. But where’s the fun in that? The pool itself is three times the length of an Olympic-sized pool, and is the largest pool in the world at that height reportedly.

Another world record has been broken, with the hotel also becoming the most expensive hotel—knocking Abu Dhabi’s Emirates Palace Hotel off it pedestal, which cost a measly $3 billion to build back in 2004.

The pool runs across three of the hotel’s towers, which feature indoor canals, casinos, shops, theaters and a museum. As well as the hotel rooms you’d expect.

Apparently there ia a casino charge of $70 only to residents of Singapore, whose government wishes to deter them from gambling. Foreigners can enter the casino for free—though to look off the observation deck, that’ll cost $20.

[source]

Tips On How to Prevent Your Computer From Overheating

2010-06-25T07:33:00.000-07:00

Computer fire

Keeping your computer running within safe temperatures is important, especially as the temperature rises outside. Here’s how to make sure your computer’s not overheating—and how to fix it if it is.

The cooling system of your computer is one of the most important features of the device. Without the cooling system, the electrical components of your computer wouldn’t be able to function; overheating would damage the integral parts of what makes your computer work. The heat has to be dissipated in order to keep everything working within safe operating temperatures.

Why an Overheated Computer Is Dangerous

Simply put, if your computer becomes too hot, it is possible to destroy and shorten the lifespan of the hardware inside your computer, leading to irreparable damage and potential data loss. Besides losing your data, heat pecks away at your computer’s internal organs—the motherboard, CPU, and more—significantly shortening its lifespan.
Besides the most obvious reason to keep your computer cool, a hot computer will also run slower than a cooler computer. So to prevent your computer from slowing down, make sure that it is running at a moderate or low temperature.

What Temperature Should My Computer Be Running At?

Because of the different types of computer makes and models out there, the safe temperature range your computer should run at varies. The safe operating range depends on things like processor type, manufacturer, and other factors that make it impossible to give an answer that applies to all CPUs.
According to the folks at the Overclockers Club (a site dedicated to pushing CPU performance to its limits without overheating your CPU):

AMD and Intel both have maximum temperature ratings for their CPUs listed around 80C. If your CPU gets this hot, you’ve got some serious problems. Most people try and keep the CPU temperature below 40C at idle and below 55C at load.

In general, though, most desktop processors, will average between 70°C and 90°C (which is between 158°F and 194°F). Generally speaking, your computer’s processor should not exceed 95°C, or over 203°F. Thanks to computer site Computer Hope, here is a list of general temperatures your computer should be running at:

How To Check The Temperature of Your PC

Sticking your hand over your computer’s ventilation system or case isn’t an accurate way to judge how hot your computer is running. (However, it can be a good gauge of whether you computer is getting progressively hotter, or climbing to astronomical temperatures. It should not be so hot that you would want to pull back your hand.) So how do you determine how hot your system’s running? You’ve got a few options.
To check the computer’s temperature without additional software, you can check your system BIOS. Restart your computer, and on the boot screen, you should have an option to press a key (often Delete) to enter the BIOS. Once you enter Setup, navigate the BIOS menu using the on-screen instructions. You should be able to find a menu that deals with the computer’s hardware monitors and CPU. There should be a field that lists your CPU temperature.
Rather not restart your computer to check the temp? We don’t blame you. Plenty of system monitoring tools can give you a temperature read-out, like free Windows program HWMonitor, which displays the temperature of the CPU, each of the computer’s cores, video card, hard drives, along with the minimum and maximum values of each temperature. (Unfortunately, you’ll need to make sure that your hardware is supported because the program can only read certain sensors.)

We’ve featured several system monitoring options in the past that can also handle these duties, like the cross-platform, previously mentioned GKrellM (Windows/Mac/Linux), system-tray friendly app Real Temp, Core Temp, and SpeedFan. SpeedFan has the added bonus of being able to show how fast each fan is spinning, complete with RPM readings.

How to Keep Your Computer From Overheating

Most computers come with adequate cooling systems and plenty of fans, but here are some steps you can take to ensure heat doesn’t become a problem.
Keep it clean: The first step in overheating prevention is making sure that the insides of the computer are kept clean. We’ve covered how to give your computer a spring cleaning to get rid of the dust that’s a huge culprit in raising your computer’s temperature.
Like we previously mentioned, internal dust buildup over time can lead to heating problems:

Dust is an insulator. When you crack open the case of your computer and [it's blanketed with dust] you’re looking at a computer that’s facing a radically reduced life span. Every inch of it is covered with a blanket of insulating dust that raises the temperature of components across the board. Your computer might not be that dusty but given how easy it is to clean out a computer, it’s ridiculous not to. Not taking the time to dust out your computer once or twice a year is like being too busy to get your oil changed.

So what happens if you’ve got all that dust? You arm yourself with a Philips screwdriver, mechanical oil dropper, and a can of compressed air and get to work. Luckily we’ve got a step-by-step guide with pictures on how to banish those dust bunnies from your computer. While we used a damp cloth to clean our fans, typical geek procedure says to use the compressed can of air to blow out the fans, inlets, and heat sinks. Among the really important things to check for is the fan on top of the CPU, the filters over the fans, and the fan on the power supply.
Avoid hot neighbors: It’s also important to check the physical location of your computer. If you have devices nearby that are blowing hot air into the computer’s intakes, that’s not good either. Ideally, the flow of air where the fans are should be steady and adequate, with room for the computer to breathe.

If Your Computer Overheats Anyway

Here’s a word of caution: If your computer is overheating, resist the urge to take the side of the case off the computer. It’s a rookie mistake that will often make the problem worse. Because most computers are very carefully designed to ensure that cool air is delivered to critical components, removing the side of the case disrupts the circulation (convection) system.
Instead, shut down the computer and let it cool down. From then on, you can plan a course of action that involves doing some cleaning if necessary, potentially upgrading your BIOS (check your motherboard’s manual or web site for details), or planning some system-cooling upgrades if necessary.
If your computer is clean, your BIOS are up to date, and you’re still having temperature problems, crack open your computer and check for damaged fans and heat sinks. Check for cracks, missing pieces, and make sure all the push pins are secure and all the appropriate fans are running. Secure and/or replace any loose or damaged cables. If you find you’ve got broken fans or a damaged heatsink, you can buy and install new cooling hardware for relatively cheap, and finding a highly rated, compatible fan or heatsink on a site like Newegg can potentially go a long ways toward keeping your computer cooler.
If you’re not comfortable cracking open your PC and installing new parts, this is the point that you may want to consider finding some professional help.

10 Amazing Land Art Pieces

2010-06-23T05:20:00.000-07:00

“Ancient Language,” Atacama Desert, Chile

From high plains to deep gorges, deserts to rural fields, sculptor Andrew Rogers uses rock walls to outline the forms of symbols important to cultures around the world. Over the past decade, his massive land art pieces have spanned five continents.
The world’s largest land art exhibit he debuted in Turkey’s Cappadocia region is just part of his ambitious “Rhythms of Life” project. Here are 10 of his awe-inspiring artworks.

“Bunjil,” Australia

The wedge-tailed eagle is an important ancestral spirit of the Kulin land in western Australia. The indigenous Wathaurong people believe the eagle “made the animals and the plants and taught the people how to behave on Earth….and how to conduct the ceremonies that would ensure the continuation of life” — a theme Rogers says resonated with his concept of his project as “a continuous link between past and present.”

“Rhythms of Life,” Australia

This design is one that Rogers replicates around the world. It juxtaposes “shapes and lines echoing the unpredictable journey through life,” the artist says. This version was formed along the southern coastline of Australia, in Geelong, where the area’s slabs and boulders of local limestone provided Rogers with raw materials.

“Sacred,” Slovakia

This symbol below the 2,500-year-old Spišsky Castle in Slovakia depicts the image of a Celtic horse discovered on “an ancient coin found in the region, which was the crossroad of major trading routes and an important commercial center,” Rogers says. “In Celtic culture, the horse was a symbol of power associated with war and valor.”

“Ancient Language,” Chile

This undulating two-headed creature is based on an ancient Aguadan petroglyph of a llama found near the Rio Grande in Chile. Rogers constructed the work on the poetically named Plain of Patience at the end of the Valley of the Moon, named for its lunar-like landscape formations.

“The Messenger,” China

Situated in the Gobi Desert not far from the end of China’s Great Wall along the ancient Silk Road network of trade routes, this figure on horseback is inspired by a drawing found in the nearby tomb of an emperor of the Wei Jin Dynasty.
“The figure depicts a royal messenger whose task was to ride the length of the empire carrying important news and messages,” Rogers says. “Thus the image reinforces the idea of interconnections that tie a people and world together.”

“Rune,” Iceland

This work spells out the word for “now” in runes, the ancient Icelandic language, in a location 60 miles from the Arctic Circle. Rogers says he was drawn to the idea of sculpting “the concept of the passing moment, ‘now’… [in] rocks delved from a 10-million-year-old mountain.”

“Rhythms of Life,” India

In India, Rogers repeated his iconic “geoglyph” on an extremely steep hillside located in an arid semi-desert area in Rajasthan. The site is near a 400-year-old fortress and a 1,200-year-old temple, which corresponds with his pattern of selecting locations with rich human history for his works.

“Slice,” Israel

This work in Israel’s Arava Desert, an ancient inland sea bed, is “a huge cross section of a nautilus shell with an intricate expanding form that provides a metaphor for the possibility of growth and rebirth in this now nearly lifeless place,” Rogers says.

“Labyrinth,” Nepal

This ancient symbol of a maze was constructed in Jonsom, Nepal, in the deepest gorge on earth, near a river held sacred by local people.
Though labyrinths around the world may vary in their form, Rogers says they are “all characterized by a single meandering path leading from a center point to an exit. In both Hinduism and Buddhism, the labyrinth is seen as a path of contemplation for those seeking divine wisdom or peace.”

“Circles,” Bolivia

Located 4,360 meters above sea level on a ridge of the Cerro Rico Mountains in Bolivia, “Circles” is the highest contemporary land art installation in the world.
Its concentric rings are based on a petroglyph found in the nearby area of Betanzos, which may have marked a grave or the birth of a firstborn child, or signify a fertility symbol or an element of sun worship.

How Much Are Your Body Organs Worth?

2010-06-23T05:17:00.000-07:00

How much are my organs worth? A lot, but is it worth the risk? Each year in the U.S roughly 7000 people die waiting for an organ transplant. This may be reason enough for those in need of a transplant to try and purchase one elsewhere. Perhaps unsurprisingly, organ trafficking is on the rise. Here are some facts and figures surrounding this bloody trade…

Top 10 Photos of the Week

2010-06-20T06:36:00.000-07:00

These are indeed desperate times

For those of you who think you have all the answers, you’re not asking the right questions. Those of you who think you know the right questions, well, clearly you’re not finding good answers. This has forever been life’s big dilemma. Problem spotters don’t talk to the problem solvers, and by solving the wrong problem, the problem solvers are creating new problems for the problem spotters to spot. If only we had a solution for that.

If only he were wearing airbags

The light you see at the end of a tunnel may indeed be a flock of sheep

The reasons why Luke Skywalker got his name

Classic thinking inside the box

Even for Harry Potter, casting a spell sometimes backfires

Nothing says 5 o’clock stubble like the 5 o’clock lawn crew

I want my feathers back…. NOW!!!!!

Best to snatch and run, and I do mean RUN!!!!!

As Hover-Dog rounded the first corner he suddenly realized he wasn’t very good at using his air brakes

Pigeons think the world of beer. But after a few beers, their not always sure where the world is

For some guys it a lot of work getting the blood to flow to the right head

…and then she gave this sign

There’s a fine line between beauty and being a total freak. These girls are not big on lines

As most farm kids know, every party is more fun when you add hydraulics and green tractors

For some reason, dogs don’t get that whole “incredible view” thing

There is a reason why bulls aren’t a big fan of intimacy

Remind me not to have these guys name my band

For Bob and Mary, martial disputes were an ongoing problem until they tried this

Cindy Lauper and Pee Wee Herman make a great couple …………of idiots

…and then this happened

We call it the crotch grass

No problem on this one

I’d like to help, but I just don’t know where to push

World’s Most Expensive Model Car

2010-06-19T07:01:00.000-07:00

The Bugatti Veyron Diamond Ltd is on sale for two million pounds – twice as much as the real thing. Liverpool-based designer Stuart Hughes took two months to create the intricate 1:18 scale model in partnership with Swiss luxury model car maker Robert Gulpen.

Weighing in at 7kg, it has been created with platinum, solid 24ct gold, and a 7.2ct single cut flawless diamond on its front grill. The 10 inch car also boats functional steering and a highly detailed engine. In a limited edition of three, owners also get a certification of authenticity, an aluminium case and photo documentation of the manufacturing process

This is the world’s most expensive model car. The Bugatti Veyron Diamond Ltd is on sale for two million pounds – twice as much as the real thing. Liverpool-based designer Stuart Hughes took two months to create the intricate 1:18 scale model in partnership with Swiss luxury model car maker Robert Gulpen. Weighing in at 7kg, it has been created with platinum, solid 24ct gold, and a 7.2ct single cut flawless diamond on its front grill. The 10 inch car also boats functional steering and a highly detailed engine. In a limited edition of three, owners also get a certification of authenticity, an aluminium case and photo documentation of the manufacturing process

This is the world’s most expensive model car

via impact lab

The World’s Most Dangerous Operating Bridge

2010-06-18T07:26:00.000-07:00

The world’s most dangerous bridge is located between two Pakistani cities Passu and Husaini.

People living in the Gilgit-Baltistan region of Northern Pakistan were cut off from the rest of Pakistan until 1978 due to the mountainous terrain and lack of roads. You could take a small airplane, but that was reserved for only the richest citizens.

For everyone else, the only way to travel was by walking across mountain passes to Rawalpindi. In 1978, the Karakoram Highway was completed and the region was connected, but inter-region travel remains as difficult as it was 100 years ago.

Travel through this region include the rickety cable and plank bridges which cross Northern Pakistan’s mountain streams and rivers. Among these is the Hussaini Hanging Bridge, crossing Borit Lake in the Upper Hunza. This rope bridge is both long and poorly maintained. Many planks are missing, and strong winds shake the bridge as you cross it. It does little to ease nerves that a previous, older, broken bridge hangs in tatters next to the “new” one.

Despite its dangerous looks, however, the Hussaini is is a relatively safe bridge and has become something of a tourist draw, with hikers testing their nerves as they carefully work their way across.

via impact lab

Remarkable Photos of Kids and Their Pets – Part 2

2010-06-17T06:04:00.000-07:00

If only either one of them could read

Occasionally we come across photos that are beyond exceptional. Here are a set of photos of kids and their pets that fall into the remarkable, and breathtaking range.

Remarkable Photos Of Kids And Their Pets PART-1

via impact lab

Remarkable Photos Of Kids And Their Pets

2010-06-17T06:02:00.000-07:00

“No symphony orchestra ever played music like a two-year-old girl laughing with a puppy.” Bern Williams

A child’s first pet has become accepted knowledge in recent years that children with pets receive numerous benefits including increased kindness toward other children, increased self-esteem, even stronger physical and emotional development.

Remarkable Photos Of Kids And Their Pets Part -2

via impact lab

Man Has Extra Bones Growing In His Body

2010-06-16T10:36:00.000-07:00

By the time we reach middle school, one of the facts we learn in science class is that the average adult has 206 bones, give or take a few.Yet Danbury resident Dan Aziere has more than that in his body.

A lot more.
He estimates he has about 50 extra bones.

"They are around every joint, and there are a lot around my rib cage," said Aziere, 41, who works as a senior claims adjuster for Geico in Danbury.
Aziere suffers from multiple hereditary exostoses, a rare genetic disorder in which benign tumors grow from the growth plate or the surface of bones throughout the body.
Since the age of 5, he has undergone 19 surgeries to remove 42 bones. He has had extra bones in his leg, shoulder, ankles, knees, hips, arms, wrists, back, chest, and almost all his fingers.
They've ranged in size from as small as a pencil eraser to as large as 4 inches long by 2 inches wide by 1 inch high.
MHE is on Aziere's father's mother's side of the family. His father, Richard, has it, but he has a much milder form of it than Dan does.

Of Aziere's three siblings, only his late brother Gary had the condition.
Two of Aziere's three children have MHE -- 11-year-old Alex and 6-year-old Jessica. To date, the disorder hasn't caused them any problems.
When Aziere was a teenager, due to bone growth in his calf, he had a surgery that left him with paralysis and a drop-foot.
"The doctor accidentally cut the sensory nerves, so I can't feel the top half of my leg and the top of my foot from the knee down," Aziere said.
After the surgery, he became very depressed.
"I didn't want to talk to anyone or be with anyone. I was wondering why God had let this happen to me," he said. "Then I woke up one day and realized that (feeling this way) is silly. I'm alive."
From that point on, he has maintained a positive attitude about his condition, and he tries to project that attitude onto others.
"In my line of work, the people I see were just involved in a car accident and are very upset. I tell them to be thankful that they are here to complain about their problem. Whenever I tell them about my condition, by the time they leave they tell me that I have completely changed their outlook," he said.
Aziere's physician, Dr. John Dunleavy, orthopedic surgeon at Danbury Orthopedic Associates on White Street, said, "the prevalence of MHE is between one and two people out of every 100,000. I have seen less than five cases of MHE over the last seven or eight years."
Dunleavy explained that while MHE can be uncomfortable, the bone masses themselves aren't painful.
"They can cause pain when they encroach upon surrounding tissues in the body," he said.
"Over 1,600 families in 57 countries around the world are registered with us as having MHE. Fourteen of those families live in Connecticut," said Chele Zelina, president of the MHE Coalition in Ohio, a nonprofit organization formed in 2000 to provide support and information to people living with MHE and their loved ones.
She added that "scientists have found that people with MHE are missing a coating on a chromosome. Research is now taking place around the world to find a cure for this condition."
"My motto in life is that things can always be worse," said Aziere, who has no planned surgeries at this time.
"I can pretty much do anything that anyone else can do except barefoot water-ski. While I have snow skied and water-skied, I had never barefoot water-skied before, so it really doesn't matter to me that I can't do it now," he chuckled.
While it's been helpful to know there are other people in the world who also have MHE, Aziere said his family -- which includes his wife, Barbara, and his son, Nathan, 9 -- is most important in helping him get through it.
"As long as I have other people around me that care for me, I can handle anything," he said.

via impact lab

Top 25 Finalists in the 2010 Electrolux Design Lab Competition

2010-06-15T07:30:00.000-07:00

Refrigerator of the future.

It’s not always easy to predict the future, but if we are asked to design for a particular scenario, then the job gets easy. For its 2010 competition, Electrolux Design Lab went with the theme: The 2nd Space Age; this essentially translating to designing a home environment for the year 2050, when 74% of the global population are predicted to live in urban areas. Student designers had to predict how people will prepare and store food, wash clothes, and do dishes. Quite a task but plenty of surprises from across the globe! Here are the Finalist 25, the countdown has begun!

Before I give you the randomly listed 25 designs, here’s a bit of background on the theme: The idea is to design an appliance or a suite of appliances that will help combat the space crunch, limited resources plus advocate energy savings at the same time.

25) A- Laundry: Community Laundry Concept by Kai Wai Lee

A communal laundry for the entire apartment block! Space saving indeed but what makes it different from the usual Laundromats is that there are individual laundry baskets for each family to take home, fill up with the dirty clothes, to bring back and wash.
24) Bio Robot Refrigerator by Yuriy Dmitriev

The Bio Robot fridge cools biopolymer gel through luminescence and uses non sticky, odorless gel to envelope stored food as individual pods. Sans doors and drawers, the fridge can be oriented vertical or horizontal, as per the home requirements.
23) Bio Tank, Robotic ‘FishWasher’ by Akifusa Nakazawa

The Bio Tank does the dishes, is a pet and a composter…all-in-one! The Robotic fish cleans up the dish, turns the food and grime into bio fuel. It filters to clean the water, meaning no replacing the dirty water either…coz there won’t be any!
22) Bx7 Preparation Unit by Losif Mihailo

Don’t pack in vitamin pills like Samantha in Sex and The City 2, instead gorge on capsules of zinc, calcium, magnesium, or carbohydrates with water to for nutritious juice!
21) Clean Closet – All in One Laundry Concept by Michael Edenius

This is the closet of the future so it has the right to include cleaning facilities in it! So basically when you hang your clothes, the internal scanner scans it for dirt and cleans it accordingly and at the end of the cycle you got fresh, hung clothes in a closet.
20) In-home Clothing Printer by Joshua Harris

It’s the future and you absolutely have the right to print and wear your own clothes. I wonder if this means I can print my own Dior Couture and LV fashion when I’m in 2050!
19) Community Fridge by Pedro Sanin Perez

Taking community living to another level is this share-your-fridge concept. Each house gets its own space in a large community refrigerator that takes charge of the refreshments and groceries. Crunch in your code, details of what you want to snack on and your personal fridge dispenses the goodies via the common dispensing shaft. I know many of you may want to bicker about this concept, coz it’s got many pros and cons; I’ll put this one up as an individual post with details, later. So hold your breath till then.
18) Dismount Washer – Wash & Go Laundry by Lichen Guo

The Dismount Washer combines the laundry basket and the washing machine drum into one. Basically you hook up the washing drum onto the wall mountable motor (or ‘energy stick’) and let it do its business. The concept addresses only the space-crunch aspect of the modern world.
17) Eco Cleaner by Ahi Andy Mohsen

As discussed earlier, the Eco Cleaner cleans the dishes and turns the dirt to compost for plants. It also predicts a future where meals will be more easier to cook as capsules!
16) Elements Modular Kitchen by Mathew Gilbride

All-In-One Kitchen Shelving is a modular system with wall-mounted appliances that provide flexible modes of cooking, refrigeration, air conditioning, lighting, and environmental design. All this so that you have more prime space to call home! More details on this cool project soon!
15) External Chilling – External Refrigerator by Nicolas Hub

This refrigerator is a unit meant to be installed outdoors, as in the balcony. It’s meant to take advantage of the changing weather; in winters the low temps outdoors require the fridge to consume lesser energy to keep foods fresh and during the summers, solar panels harness the goodness of the sun!
14) Freedge – The Inside-Out Fridge by Matthew McNaughton

Quite similar to the External Chilling, Freedge too is based on the concept of harnessing the goodness of the winter months to the food’s advantage. However this design sees the iteration of a pull out drawer rather than wall mounting.
13) GAIA Wall Mounted Air Purification by Ankit Kumar

Ankit from India is probably too aware of the health issue thanks to our polluted environment. Dust and grime are a part of our daily routine here. His offering to the Design Lab Competition is the GAIA Root, a wall mounted ‘personal ecosystem’ that creates energy from a living wall of plants providing air circulation, air purification and temperature control. Hot, humid and dusty Mumbai so needs this!
12) The Snail Micro Induction Heating System by Peter Alwin

Using high density sugar crystal battery for power, the Snail heats up food via magnetic induction. Latching onto utensils externally, the appliance uses its inbuilt sensors to detect the type of food and thus set the heating time and intensity.
11) The Inflower – Small Laundry Cleaning Units by Jianjiang Yin

Inflower is this compact handheld unit that works as a cleaner of stains sans water. Solar powered, the unit uses nano technology to clean clothes and even doubles up as an air purifier for stored clothes.
10) Instinct Vacuum Cleaner by Berty Bhuruth

The Sheep-like Cleaner is a robotic vacuum cleaner concept that visualizes the room it has to clean in 3D and then charts its course of action. It will even satisfy your cravings for a robotic pet! Just Kidding!
9) The Kitchen Hideaway by Daniel Dobrogorsky

Virtual Reality comes to the kitchen! Imagine thinking of a delicious 3-course meal and robotic chefs in a communal kitchen laboring over the stove to cook it! That’s the future..2050! Headset, imagination and obedient robots is all that you need.
8 ) Lupe Hand Held Washing Machine by Il-seop So

I’m biased but I simply adore the idea of washing, ironing & drying in one go! Lesser time spent on cleaning means more on the computer for me!
7) Mesh Cooker – Expandable Oven & Hob by Lucian Cucu

The Mesh Cooker is a portable device that uses retractable aluminum and expandable Teflon to a variety of foods. The Mesh Cooker can be placed on a table or anywhere near a socket to plug it in. The cooker doubles up as an oven with a cooking plate – heating food within or on top depending on how you like it. When not in use the Mesh Cooker folds away in to a 30 x 10 cm space.
6) MESO- Food Injection by Bogdan Ionita

I’m a little spooked by the Meso, but I guess it has to do with my fear for needles. What the Meso proposes is a device that directly injects nutrients to your blood stream after determining what food groups you require. This may be ok for the folks in 2050, but I’d still want to bite into a juicy burger…It’s got all the nutrition I need!
5) Space Saving Kitchen Range – Modular Kitchen Appliance by Shin Woosup

What a wonderful idea, one modular appliance that is efficient enough to prepare the entire breakfast. A toaster, a kettle and an induction hob, that’s what the Modular Kitchen Appliance is all about!
4) Preserved Egg Sweep Robot by Kai Dung

Four Balls, no pun intended, clean up your home for you; recharge at a base station and behave like tennis balls on the clay court. Confused? Don’t be, I’m talking about the Preserved Egg Sweep Robot. Enjoy the service while you can.
3) The Drum Washing Machine by Andras Suto

Another heavy-duty Communal Laundry System that allows the community to share the washing facilities. Basically it features an extractable washing machine drum that doubles up as a laundry basket for transportation between home and wash-area.
2) Zephyr Integrated Laundry System by Dulyawat Wongnawa

Zephyr is a storage unit that cleans clothes using ‘Airwash’ technology (with ozone being created to remove bacteria and odors, as currently found in industrial cleaning) and steam to remove wrinkles.
1) Qumi Flexible Cooking Unit by Ilia Vostrov

Qumi is a fold out universal kitchen set that can be used for heating, frying and steaming a wide variety of food types (including water based meals such as soup). Its supposed to be hung up on the induction charging hook, when not in use. The concept features no display or control panel, and all instructions are supposed to be processed via mobile devices in the network ready home of the future.
The final countdown will have 8 finalists battling it out in September, in London. They will be invited to present their concept to a jury of expert designers. The first prize of a six-month paid internship at an Electrolux global design centre and 5,000 Euros. A second prize of 3,000 Euros and third prize of 2,000 Euros are also on offer.

via impact lab

Top 10 Photos of the Week

2010-06-13T03:54:00.000-07:00

Sorry, but the rest of the world is laughing at you, not with you

Gloomy days often give you a gloomy outlook on life. Much like too much time in the sun will give you a sunburn, too much time in the gloom will give you a “gloomburn.” The only way to fix a gloomburn is to rub a mixture of apple pie and sunshine on the inside of your mind. Very few doctors know why it works, they just know that it does.

“I’m sorry. (sniff, sniff) I’m really, really sorry”

Meanwhile, back inside the Mushroom Hotel…

You will never thoroughly grasp the concept of water until it grasps you back

…and when one lone ladybug sat through Mary Poppins,
evolution took another tiny step forward

In the future, the square fruit in the grocery store will be found next to the square
vegetables and the square poultry sections

It would be another week before he could afford a new tire,
but in the mean time, this would have to do

Once again the Black Shadow members of the Asian Mafia were going through an identity crisis.
I was about the hair. It was ALWAYS about the hair

A zoo run by flies is such a zoo. No really…

When you look at yourself in the mirror, what do you see? Do you see Super Homer,
or do you see the same yellow piece of crap that has been stinking up the airwaves for years?

When he finally came out of the closet, he found he had missed the whole damn thing

Casting for the new Tarzan movie brought out more than a few crazies, and even a couple people too

Please, please, please DO NOT let the Photoshop people determine the next stage of human evolution

Erotic symbolism is often used to cover up the fact that the cat is indeed naked

Even though it was pretty damn ingenious, smuggling humans is just wrong

If only the shape of their trucks could make their beer taste better…

After three days in the meth lab, Whiskers was well past the red zone on the gnarly meter

Microsoft’s latest strategy session. Which one represents Steve Balmer?

Remind me not to mess with these guys

The first stage of Superman Training requires you have a father who truly believes humans can fly

Stop laughing at me…

Once again Charlie was late for the prayer meeting

The future of Detroit isn’t looking so good

No one knew exactly why he started pulling buses, they just instinctively knew
that if they ever needed one moved, he was their guy

via impact lab