The World's Tallest Snowwoman

With skis for eyelashes, giant wreaths for eyes, and red-painted tires for a mouth, this super snowwoman is 122 feet tall. The world’s tallest snowman isn’t a man at all.

Creators unveiled a 122-foot snowwoman in Bethel, Maine Friday morning.

With skis for eyelashes and red-painted tires for lips, she is a whole-lot-of-woman.

Maine creators named their snowwoman “Olympia” after their Senator who is ironically named Olympia Snowe. Olympia knocked “Angus, King of the Mountain,” the record holder since 1999, right out of the park.

The 1999 record holder was named for Angus King, who was governor in Maine at the time, but Angus isn’t King anymore.

Olympia’s creators made her arms out of pine trees and she too has her share of glitz and glamour as a giant snowflake pendant, more than six feet in diameter, hangs from her neck.
This ice princess will be around for a while; she isn’t expected to melt until May.

Death Star Hotel in Azerbaijan Is No Moon

This 521-foot-high hotel is coming to Baku, Azerbaijan, either to host a bunch of Imperial forces or obliterate the local population with a giant death ray. They call it "Full Moon" but they are not fooling us: this is a fully armed, fully operational battle station. And it shall be destroyed before it's too late, with a bunch of small fighters that can escape its turbolasers and drop proton torpedoes down an exhaust port. Or maybe not, if you look at it from its side.

Yes, I know, even with 104,182 square metres, with 382 rooms over 35 floors, it's a complete letdown.

U.S. Navy ship built with steel from World Trade Center

The USS New York is now stationed in Avondale, La., where the christening ceremony is scheduled to take place at 10 a.m. Central time, according to Northrop Grumman, the ship's manufacturer.

The company says on its Web site that the bow-stem of the ship, the seventh to be named "New York," includes 7.5 tons of steel from the World Trade Center.

The USS New York, an amphibious transport dock ship, is 684 feet long, can top 24 mph, and holds a crew of 360 sailors and three Marines. It is expected to be based in Norfolk, Va.

Thousands of penguins form striking pattern

Yet this scene shows an extraordinary community at work - thousands of king penguins instinctively herding their recently born young into giant huddles to stop them freezing to death.

Parental instinct takes over in the inhospitable climate of the South Atlantic and the furry brown chicks are made to crowd together to retain their body warmth in the equivalent of bird creches - visible as brown swathes on our photo.

The picture was taken 2,000ft above the shoreline of South Georgia, a British territory close to the Falklands, by a helicopter crew from the Royal Navy's ice patrol ship HMS Endurance.

Authorities impose the minimum flying height restrictions to protect more than 25,000 birds living in the colony.

Taking into account wind chill, the temperature was -15C on the island when the shot was taken in December.