Friday, February 29, 2008

Biggest sea reptile


A second large pliosaur has now been found on the Arctic island




The Monster's flipper alone measures 3m in length



Excavations have also yielded long-necked plesiosaurs



A fossilised "sea monster" unearthed on an Arctic island is the largest marine reptile known to science, Norwegian scientists have announced.

The 150 million-year-old specimen was found on Spitspergen, in the Arctic island chain of Svalbard, in 2006.

The Jurassic-era leviathan is one of 40 sea reptiles from a fossil "treasure trove" uncovered on the island.

Nicknamed "The Monster", the immense creature would have measured 15m (50ft) from nose to tail.

ALL MADE BY FOOD... creativity from food items..











Premature newborn lives after falling from train



AHMADABAD, India - A newborn baby girl fell through the toilet in a moving train and onto the tracks moments after her mother prematurely gave birth, surviving nearly two hours before being found, relatives said Thursday.

The child's mother, who uses the single name Bhuri, was traveling with relatives on an overnight train when she went to the bathroom shortly before midnight Tuesday and unexpectedly gave birth to a baby girl, said Arjun Kumar, her brother-in-law.

"Later, she fell unconscious and the baby fell through the toilet," he continued. "Two stations later, we knocked at the door." Bhuri opened the door, soaked in blood.

"She was on the rail track for almost 1 1/2 to two hours," said Dr. Gautam Jain, a pediatrician at Rajasthan Hospital in Ahmadabad, in the western state of Gujarat, where the baby and mother were taken.

The child, who has not yet been named, was eight to 10 weeks premature, weighed only 3.22 pounds, Jain said. She had a low heart rate and body temperature.

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Great Eye of Sauron



Astronomers at the University of California, Berkeley, and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center have released a rather remarkable Hubble image of a ring of dust around star Fomalhaut, described by New Scientist as resembling "the Great Eye of Sauron".

Fomalhaut, aka Alpha Piscis Austrini, is one of the brightest stars in the night sky, lying around 25 light years from Earth and weighing in at roughly 2.3 solar masses. Its name comes from the Arabic fum al-ħawt, or "whale's mouth", although we reckon "Sauron's Eye" might be a suitable new moniker.

Mallie's offers record-breaking 150-pound burger





Detroit-area restaurant owner believes he has broken the world record for “largest hamburger commercially available.”

After 12 hours of preparation and baking, the 134-pound burger emerged Saturday at Mallie’s Sports Bar and Grill.

The “Absolutely Ridiculous Burger,” made with beef, bacon and cheese, was delivered on a 50-pound bun, The Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press reported. It sells for $350, and orders require 24 hours’ notice.

Flipping the burger required three men using two steel sheets.

Owner Steve Mallie told The News he wanted to show that he has the biggest and best burgers.
Authenticating Mallie’s claim could take a few weeks. His burger would outweigh the 123-pound burger made last year by Denny’s Beer Barrel Pub, of Clearfield, Pa.

Man survived after being run over by train

A 34-year-old man was expected to survive after being run over by a train early Saturday morning.

Longmont Police say Todd Hirsh was sitting in the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad tracks in the 400 block of Atwood Street at about 3:11 a.m. when the incident occurred. According to police, a southbound train pulling 76 freight cars had to make an emergency stop, attempting to avoid running over Hirsh. Authorities say the train didn't stop until it had gone 75 feet south of where Hirsh was sitting. Longmont Firefighters and Paramedics were able to remove Hirsh out from under the second engine of the three engine train. He was then transported to Longmont United Hospital where his injuries were said to be non-life-threatening. Police charged Hirsh with trespassing. They say, according to preliminary reports, Hirsh smelled like alcohol.

Friday, February 22, 2008

999-meter-long wedding dress on display in Dalian




999-meter-long scarlet wedding dress is displayed in a shopping mall in Dalian, Northeast China's Liaoning Province, February 21, 2008. The hand-knitted dress features 2,008 pieces of jade, 29 golden phoenixes and 880 peonies that took dressmakers three months to finish.

Global Cooling: Amazing pictures of countries joining Britain in the big freeze


A waterfall frozen mid-air in China




A cafe in northern Greece were left decked in a thick coating of ice as temperatures plummeted and heavy snowfalls cut off villages




A row of benches at a lake in Greece glisten after temperatures dropped to minus 15C



Walkers gingerly edge along a bridge over the frozen Valaste waterfall in Estonia

The fish that is a little ray of sunshine



Looking like Casper the Friendly Ghost's distant undersea cousin, he is one of a dozen baby thornback – or roker – ray fish born as part of a captive breeding programme, hatching from eggs known as 'mermaid's purses' at the Blue Reef Aquarium in Southsea, Hampshire.

The baby rays are being looked after in a special nursery tank but, when they are large enough, they will join adult thornbacks and several sharks in a large pool.

Digging for Nazi Treasure










Has the Amber Room, the 18th-century chamber decoration the Nazis stole from the Soviet Union in World War II, finally been found? German treasure hunters say they may have solved the decades-old mystery.

Treasure hunters in Germany claim they have found hidden gold in an underground cavern that they are almost certain contains the Amber Room treasure, believed by some to have been stashed away by the Nazis in a secret mission in the dying days of World War II.

The discovery of an estimated two tonnes of gold was made at the weekend when electromagnetic pulse measurements located the man-made cavern 20 meters underground near the village of Deutschneudorf on Germany's border with the Czech Republic.

The team, which used heavy digging equipment, hasn't been inside the room but analysis of the electromagnetic test has led it to believe that the cavern contains gold.

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Forest covered with Fog


After weeks of fair weather, winter has finally set in, with freezing fog lifting to reveal an icy landscape across much of northern England.


The Vale of York in North Yorkshire experienced a particularly strong chill which encased trees and hedges in a perfect white frost.


In Tadcaster, the River Wharfe was still navigable by swans, though all around it was brittle under a blanket of ice.



And in parts of Leeds and Sheffield, temperatures fell to as low as -3c.

US blasts out-of-control toxic satellite with £5m heat-seeking missile



The U.S. Navy has blasted a disabled spy satellite carrying a tank of toxic fuel out of the sky over the Pacific with a heat-seeking missile.

A senior defence official said that the specially-designed missile launched at the satellite, which experts feared would crash to the Earth, had destroyed the satellite's main fuel tank, full of toxic hydrazine fuel - making the mission a complete success.

The 5,000lb USA 193 satellite, which is about the size of a small bus, was equipped with rocket thrusters loaded with toxic hydrazine fuel.

Orbiting 130 miles above the Earth, scientists feared the satellite would crash with the fuel tank intact, causing contamination.

The missile alone cost nearly US$10 million (£5 million), and officials estimated that the total cost of the project was at least US$30 million (£15 million).

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

world's most expensive flat which costs £100million in central London


The computer-generated picture visualises the £100 million One Hyde Park penthouse, the most expensive flat in the world, upon completion in 2010.

Other homes in One Hyde Park, Knightsbridge, have already sold at record prices of £6,000 per square foot.

Russian oligarchs, oil barons, Saudia princes and A-list stars are among those said to be buying the Candy brothers apartments.

The most expensive penthouse apartments will feature bullet proof windows, purified air systems and "panic rooms" and everyone on site will have access to an underground passage leading to the nearby Mandarin Oriental hotel.

Monday, February 18, 2008

Wooden supercar



A US designer is working on the world's first wooden supercar.

Joe Harmon, 27, started the project with other students at North Carolina State University to see whether it was possible to build a performance car out of wood.

Their creation - the Splinter - should be completed later this year and they believe it should be capable of speeds in excess of 240mph.

Sky turns black as thousands of starlings flock into Gretna Green







These amazing pictures show thousands of starlings flocking to the famous village of Gretna Green - as tourists look on in amazement.

The birds fluttered overhead, turning the sky black above the village which is notorious for runaway weddings.

The event is a seasonal phenomenon and birdwatchers come from miles around to catch a glimpse of the amazing skies.

World’s largest salad





Pulpi, a town in the province of Almeria, southern Spain, has entered the Guinness Book or Records in September for creating the world’s largest salad.

It took 20 chefs more 16 hours to prepare the 6700kg salad, with lettuce, tomatoes, onions, peppers and olives. A Guinness World Records judge was on the spot to confirm the new record.
The salad was later distributed to restaurants in Pulpi, and was served for free for their customers.

World’s largest gold coin (100kg)



The largest gold coin in the world, weighing 100kg and with a face value of CA$1 million was recently on display in Abu Dhabi, UAE.

The gold coin, produced by the Royal Canadian Mint in 2007, is approximately 50cm in diametre and about 3cm thick and has a purity of 99.999%.

Although the 100kg coin has a face value of $1 million, it would cost approximately CA$2.6 million (or US$2.4 million) to purchase, based on the market value of gold.

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Amazing moment the world's biggest Christ was struck by lightning



This was the dramatic scene as the world's largest statue of Jesus was hit by lightning.
The bolt parted the thunderclouds over Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to strike Christ the Redeemer.
The statue is 130ft tall, is made of 700 tons of reinforced concrete and stands atop the 2,296ft Corcovado mountain overlooking the city.

Dubai to Build World's Largest Arch Bridge









Dubai is set to spend $817-million on building the world's largest arch bride, at 617-feet tall and 1-mile in length. Expect it to be in service by 2012.

Man Builds Full Scale Mercedes F1 From 956,000 Matchsticks





Michael Arndt is a man of matchsticks. Over the course of six years, using 956,000 matchsticks, 1686 tubes of glue, and at least three different varieties of mustache, he built a full-scale replica of a McLaren 4/14 F1 car, at a cost of around 6000 Euros. The giant model takes up Arndt's entire kitchen and probably his social life. It can be broken down into 45 parts for easy transport to various matchstick-builders conventions.

Cheers! World's fattest man drops 230kg



The world's fattest man, according to the Guinness Book of Records, proudly announced he has lost 230kg - nearly half his original weight - in less time than doctors had expected.

"I'm going to throw a big party," Manuel Uribe said.

"I'm getting out of my house and going for a walk" in Monterrey, where he lives in northern Mexico.

Mr Uribe, 42, weighed in at 570kg at his heaviest and for five years has been bed-ridden at his home, where his mother and fiancee help him.

Doctors from neighbouring United States, Italy and Mexico for two years have been helping Mr Uribe lose weight through dieting and exercise.

His goal, he said, is dropping to a slim 120kg in four more years.

Total Recall: The woman who can't forget

A woman who has the remarkable ability to recall every trivial detail of every day of her life may be the key to unlocking the secret of how the human mind works.

Given any date, the 42-year-old Californian can recall the day of the week, major news events, and usually what the weather was that day, in what she describes as a "running movie that never stops".

The woman, known only as AJ, cannot forget things - even if she wants to, reports New Scientist. Her remarkable memory goes back to her teens; she can picture where she was, what she was doing and what made the news on any date since the mid 1970s.

Happy Valentines Day