Twisted Fun

Top 9 Crazy Construction Projects!!

2007-12-13T07:40:00.000-08:00

Check out what the future holds for these impressive, colossal and often record-breaking projects.

Three Gorges Dam - Sandouping, Yichang, China

Try to picture a structure one and a half miles wide, 600 feet tall and capable of creating a water reservoir that is 400 miles long. China's Three Gorges Dam project is a massive, 16-year undertaking that aims to halt the Yangtze River floods, which have claimed more than a million lives in the past century.

Halting the strong waters of the world's third longest river is no easy task, which explains the estimated $24.65 billion bill -- which some say could end up being three times as much -- and the almost two-decade-long effort that began in 1993. When completed, the dam's 26 generators are expected to create the equivalent power of 18 nuclear power plants. For six months of the year, 10,000-ton ships will be able to sail inland to the city of Chongqing, creating a huge business center in China's Sichuan province.

Trivia: The Three Gorges Dam project is expected to displace at least 1.2 million people.

International Space Station (ISS)

Sixteen nations contributed to the decade-long effort to create a humongous floating base above Earth, considered the biggest cooperative science project in history. When the ISS is complete, over 80 flights will have been made to the station, each adding another important element to the incredible construction feat.

More than four times the size of Russia's Mir station, the ISS will weigh more than one million pounds, boast almost an acre of solar panels, and be 356-feet across and 290-feet long. Development, assembly and daily running costs are estimated to be more than $130 billion.

Trivia: The ISS hosted both the first space tourist -- Dennis Tito, who paid $20 million for the visit -- and the first space wedding, between astronaut Yuri Malenchenko and Ekaterina Dmitriev, who was in Texas.

Hangzhou Bay Bridge - Cixi and Jiaxing, China

Most bridges cross rivers and lakes; there aren't too many that cross a whole sea. Hangzhou Bay Bridge is a 22.5-mile crossing that will connect the cities of Cixi and Jiaxing, in Zhejiang province in eastern China.

Connecting previously remote cities on China's economically-prosperous east coast, the six-lane S-shaped bridge will rank as the world's longest sea-crossing span. The cost of the bridge, set to be completed in 2008, topped $1.42 billion.

Trivia: The Hangzhou Bay Bridge is so long that the contractors built a service island in the middle, where commuters can stop for food and gas.

The world's tallest structure, a project in space, and the most mind-boggling construction feat ever...

The World - Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Truly a mind-boggling project, Nakheel Developments thought outside the box for its latest large-scale development in Dubai. Two and a half miles offshore from the booming Middle Eastern city is a slew of manmade islands that don't look like much yet, as construction only started in September 2003.

However, if you look down on the project from the sky when it's completed in 2008, you'll see a replica of the Earth laid out in the sea. Made of 300 islands of various sizes, the $3 billion project recreates the world map and offers business and residential buyers entire islands, which range from $6.85 million to $36 million. Malls, office buildings, mansions, and parks will adorn the islands, which will be 50 meters to 100 meters apart and will cover a total of 5.6 miles.

Trivia: Rod Stewart is apparently looking into purchasing the United Kingdom property for a cool $33.4 million.

Freedom Tower - New York City

After considering several bids, the New York government agreed on a compromise between two world-renowned architects' plans to rebuild the World Trade Center site. Daniel Libeskind and David Childs designed Freedom Tower, a 1,776-foot skyscraper whose height commemorates the year of American independence.

Beginning construction on April 27, 2006, the immense structure will have 73 stories: the first 70 will be used for office space and the top three for restaurants and an observation deck. Estimated to cost $12 billion and to be completed by 2009, Freedom Tower and its 276-foot spire will surpass Taipei Tower, currently the world's tallest building.

Trivia: A cable suspension structure supporting Freedom Tower will hold wind turbines, which will provide 20% of the building's energy needs.

Millau Viaduct - Millau, France

The same man behind the construction of Beijing's new airport put his mark on France as well, designing what is now the world's tallest bridge. Spanning the Tarn River in southern France, the Millau Viaduct's seven pillars burst from the gorge below. At its highest, the bridge reaches 1,122 feet, which is 53 feet higher than the Eiffel Tower. The bridge is approximately 1.6 miles long.

The Viaduct took three and a half years to complete, is part of the A75 route that links northern Europe to the Mediterranean, and opened with much fanfare on December 14, 2004. It cost $523 million, used two billion tons of concrete and metal, and thankfully comes with a 120-year guarantee.

Trivia: The Millau Bridge is so large it can be seen from space.

Beijing Airport - Beijing, China

Part of Beijing's massive infrastructure overhaul for the 2008 Olympics includes the construction of what is to be the world's biggest airport. Englishman Sir Norman Foster, who designed current world-record holder Hong Kong International Airport, submitted plans for this new gateway to China's capital in late 2003, and plans continued to develop throughout 2004.

The Chinese government has toyed with the idea of scaling back the grandiose project, which is set to take three years to complete, in an effort to quell its image as a showboat. But if Lord Foster has anything to say about it, this $2 billion airport will be a real humdinger.

Trivia: The proposed roof of the airport covers an amazing 80 acres.

The world's highest bridge, an amazing construction project in the sea, and more...

Queen Mary 2

The largest passenger ship ever built, the QM2 is basically a floating city. Replete with a casino, a nightclub, a spa, a wine bar, 15 restaurants and bars, a library, and even a planetarium -- this ship makes the Titanic look like a kayak. The liner, which can carry more than 2,620 passengers, took almost a year and a half to build and made its maiden voyage on January 12, 2004.

A huge ship to say the least, QM2 weighs 151,400 gross tons, generates 157,000 horsepower and cost an astounding $800 million to construct. Those interested in taking a vacation on this hulk should expect to shell out at least $1,499 for a six-day transatlantic trip.

Trivia: At 1,132 feet, the Queen Mary 2 is more than twice as long as the Washington Monument is tall, and is 147 feet longer than the Eiffel Tower.

The Big Dig – Boston, Massachusetts

One of the most aggressive and intensive urban projects in North America, the Big Dig set out to remedy Boston's infamous congestion problem. The six-lane Central Artery highway had carried commuters since the 1950s, but when traffic became jammed for 10 hours a day in the '80s, city and state governments decided to completely overhaul the downtown infrastructure.

The project built two bridges, a tunnel and, most amazingly of all, it destroyed the Central Artery and built an even wider highway underground. Over 5,000 workers contributed to the Big Dig, laying the 7.5 miles and eight to 10 lanes of highway, pouring the 3.8 million cubic yards of concrete and displacing 16 million cubic yards of soil.

Trivia: The project created more than 300 acres of new parks and open areas in the Boston region.

Top 10 Most Strange Monuments!!!

2007-12-06T07:36:00.000-08:00

Oxford, UKMonaco
Oslo, Norway
Bratislava, Slovakia
Turin, Italy
Melbourne, Australia
Manhattan, USA
Los Angeles, USA
Paris, France
Erevan, Armenia

7 Insane Ways to Destroy Earth!!!

2007-11-29T07:05:00.000-08:00

A host of methods for ending the planet as we know it,

Hurled into the Sun

You will need: Earthmoving equipment

Method: Hurl the Earth into the Sun. Sending Earth on a collision course with the Sun is not as easy as one might think; even though you don't actually have to literally hit the Sun (send the Earth near enough to the Sun (within the Roche limit), and tidal forces will tear it apart), it's surprisingly easy to end up with Earth in a loopy elliptical orbit which merely roasts it for four months in every eight. But careful planning can avoid this.

This is impossible at our current technological level, but will be possible one day, I'm certain. In the meantime, may happen by freak accident if something comes out of nowhere and randomly knocks Earth in precisely the right direction. Earth's final resting place: a small globule of vaporized iron sinking slowly into the heart of the Sun.

Earliest feasible completion date: Via act of God: 25 years' time. Any earlier and we'd have already spotted the asteroid in question. Via human intervention: given the current level of expansion of space technology, 2250 at best.

Source: "Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers," by Grant Naylor

Pulverized by impact with blunt instrument

You will need: a big heavy rock, something with a bit of a swing to it... perhaps Mars

Method: Essentially, anything can be destroyed if you hit it hard enough. ANYTHING. The concept is simple: find a really, really big asteroid or planet, accelerate it up to some dazzling speed, and smash it into Earth, preferably head-on but whatever you can manage. The result: an absolutely spectacular collision, resulting hopefully in Earth (and, most likely, our "cue ball" too) being pulverized out of existence - smashed into any number of large pieces which if the collision is hard enough should have enough energy to overcome their mutual gravity and drift away forever, never to coagulate back into a planet again.

A brief analysis of the size of the object required can be found here. Falling at the minimal impact velocity of 11 kilometers per second and assuming zero energy loss to heat and other energy forms, the cue ball would have to have roughly 60% of the mass of the Earth. Mars, the next planet out, "weighs" in at about 11% of Earth's mass, while Venus, the next planet in and also the nearest to Earth, has about 81%. Assuming that we would fire our cue ball into Earth at much greater than 11km/s (I'm thinking more like 50km/s), either of these would make great possibilities.

Obviously a smaller rock would do the job, you just need to fire it faster. A 10,000,000,000,000-tonne asteroid at 90% of light speed would do just as well. See the Guide to moving Earth for useful information on maneuvering big hunks of rock across interplanetary distances.

Pretty plausible.

Earth's final resting place: a variety of roughly Moon-sized chunks of rock, scattered haphazardly across the greater Solar System.

Earliest feasible completion date: AD 2500, maybe?

Source: This method suggested by Andy Kirkpatrick

Destroyed by vacuum energy detonation

You will need: a light bulb

Method: This is a fun one. Contemporary scientific theories tell us that what we may see as vacuum is only vacuum on average, and actually thriving with vast amounts of particles and antiparticles constantly appearing and then annihilating each other. It also suggests that the volume of space enclosed by a light bulb contains enough vacuum energy to boil every ocean in the world. Therefore, vacuum energy could prove to be the most abundant energy source of any kind. Which is where you come in. All you need to do is figure out how to extract this energy and harness it in some kind of power plant - this can easily be done without arousing too much suspicion - then surreptitiously allow the reaction to run out of control. The resulting release of energy would easily be enough to annihilate all of planet Earth and probably the Sun too.

Slightly possible.

Earth's final resting place: a rapidly expanding cloud of particles of varying size.

Earliest feasible completion date: 2060 or so.

Source: "3001: The Final Odyssey," by Arthur C. Clarke

Blown up by matter/antimatter reaction

You will need: 2,500,000,000,000 tons of antimatter

Antimatter - the most explosive substance possible - can be manufactured in small quantities using any large particle accelerator, but this will take some considerable time to produce the required amounts. If you can create the appropriate machinery, it may be possible - and much easier - simply to "flip" 2.5 trillion tons of matter through a fourth dimension, turning it all to antimatter at once.

Method: This method involves detonating a bomb so big that it blasts the Earth to pieces.

How hard is that?

The gravitational binding energy of a planet of mass M and radius R is - if you do the lengthy calculations - given by the formula E=(3/5)GM^2/R. For Earth, that works out to roughly 224,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 Joules. The Sun takes nearly a WEEK to output that much energy. Think about THAT.

To liberate that much energy requires the complete annihilation of around 2,500,000,000,000 tonnes of antimatter. That's assuming zero energy loss to heat and radiation, which is unlikely to be the case in reality: You'll probably need to up the dose by at least a factor of ten. Once you've generated your antimatter, probably in space, just launch it en masse towards Earth. The resulting release of energy (obeying Einstein's famous mass-energy equation, E=mc^2) should be sufficient to split the Earth into a thousand pieces.

Earth's final resting place: A second asteroid belt around the Sun.

Earliest feasible completion date: AD 2500. Of course, if it does prove possible to manufacture antimatter in the sufficiently large quantities you require - which is not necessarily the case - then smaller antimatter bombs will be around long before then.

Sucked into a microscopic black hole

You will need: a microscopic black hole. Note that black holes are not eternal, they evaporate due to Hawking radiation. For your average black hole this takes an unimaginable amount of time, but for really small ones it could happen almost instantaneously, as evaporation time is dependent on mass. Therefore you microscopic black hole must have greater than a certain threshold mass, roughly equal to the mass of Mount Everest. Creating a microscopic black hole is tricky, since one needs a reasonable amount of neutronium, but may possibly be achievable by jamming large numbers of atomic nuclei together until they stick. This is left as an exercise to the reader.

Method: simply place your black hole on the surface of the Earth and wait. Black holes are of such high density that they pass through ordinary matter like a stone through the air. The black hole will plummet through the ground, eating its way to the center of the Earth and all the way through to the other side: then, it'll oscillate back, over and over like a matter-absorbing pendulum. Eventually it will come to rest at the core, having absorbed enough matter to slow it down. Then you just need to wait, while it sits and consumes matter until the whole Earth is gone.

Highly, highly unlikely. But not impossible.

Earth's final resting place: a singularity of almost zero size, which will then proceed to happily orbit the Sun as normal.

Source: "The Dark Side Of The Sun," by Terry Pratchett. It is true that the microscopic black hole idea is an age-old science fiction mainstay which predates Pratchett by a long time, he was my original source for the idea, so that's what I'm putting.

Gobbled up by strangelets

You will need: a stable strangelet

Method: Hijack control of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider in Brookhaven National Laboratory, Long Island, New York. Use the RHIC to create and maintain a stable strangelet. Keep it stable for as long as it takes to absorb the entire Earth into a mass of strange quarks. Keeping the strangelet stable is incredibly difficult once it has absorbed the stabilizing machinery, but creative solutions may be possible.

A while back, there was some media hoo-hah about the possibility of this actually happening at the RHIC, but in actuality the chances of a stable strangelet forming are pretty much zero.

Earth's final resting place: a huge glob of strange matter

Total existence failure

You will need: nothing

Method: No method. Simply sit back and twiddle your thumbs as, completely by chance, all 200,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 atoms making up the planet Earth suddenly, simultaneously and spontaneously cease to exist. Note: the odds against this actually ever occurring are considerably greater than a googolplex to one. Failing this, some kind of arcane (read: scientifically laughable) probability-manipulation device may be employed.

Utter, utter rubbish.

Top 10 Mafia Movies!

2007-11-26T06:53:00.000-08:00

Organized Crime has never been as interesting as it is in these movies. Some of the classics found in almost every man’s collection and which has taught many several of the most important rules of life. Never rat on your friends.
1. A Bronx Tale

2. Bugsy

3. The Departed

4. Carlitos Way

5. Donnie Brasco

6. Casino

7. Goodfellas

8. The Untouchables

9. Scarface

10. The Godfather

Top 10 Police Bribes That Never Work

2007-11-23T05:26:00.000-08:00

1: THE SHOCKER

Just don’t.

2: YOUR AUTOGRAPH

Cops never give the star treatment. Unless you are Bruce Springsteen.

3: DOUGHNUTS

They want them. You know they want them. But they will never take them because they don’t want to perpetuate the stereotype.

4: A MASSAGE WITH HAPPY ENDING

Good luck getting Starsky to strip down and lie on the hood of your car. Plus cranking a cop on the interstate might draw too much attention

5: CASH

It’s going to cost you more than any ticket you’ll receive so don’t bother

6: YOUR SACK LUNCH

Unless you packed some Top Sirloin and an Ice Cold Beer you might wanna keep your tuna sandwich to yourself.

7: A GET OUT OF JAIL FREE CARD

No one even uses those in Monopoly. You’d have a better chance of asking if you can roll doubles to get out of the ticket.

8: A FREE PUNCH

He has a badge and a gun. He can hand out free punches all day long as long as he stands just off to the side of the DashCam.

9: A PEEK IN YOUR DIARY

It may work on you smaller siblings, but Kojack here doesn’t give a rats’ ass about which boy/girl you make out with your pillow to.

10: A HUG

Even if your offer to comfort Johnny Law is completely heartfelt, it’s also the quickest way to catch a nightstick in the groin. (Unless you’re a Grandma)

Top 10 Aphrodisiacs!!!

2007-11-21T05:59:00.000-08:00

1.Oysters

Many foods (bananas, asparagus, carrots, avocados) are considered aphrodisiacs because they resemble the penis or testicles. Oysters resemble a vagina. The Romans placed the oyster high on their list of prized aphrodisiacs. Casanova, the legend goes, would eat 50 raw oysters for breakfast. Yet interestingly, oysters (and pine nuts, another ancient aphrodisiac) are high in zinc, which is necessary for sperm production. Raw oysters are also high in D-aspartic acid and N-methyl-D-aspartate, which increased testosterone levels in one study on male rats, which could in theory increase libido, according to Karen Boyle of Johns Hopkins Hospital. "The data is questionable and mixed, but oysters do make a nice appetizer," she said.

2.Chocolate

Nope, but so what. Chocolate has phenylethylamine and serotonin two chemicals that light up pleasure areas in the brain. Chocolate is similar to sex in that it makes you feel good. This doesn't imply, and no studies have shown that chocolate increases sexual desire . Hershey's Kisses might lead to kisses, but the passion was likely firmly in place beforehand

3.Alcohol

Alcohol, a false aphrodisiac, merely lowers inhbitions and raises the level of one's irrationality. Even worse, booze and other party drugs such as cocaine and ecstasy (MDMA) contribute to erectile dysfuction , according to Karen Boyle, director of Reproductive Medicine and Surgery unit at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore: "These drugs effect blood flow by their actions on arteries and veins and [negatively] impact tosterone levels, and thus libido." A few drinks are fine, but relying on alcohol to get in the mood could be a sign of a deeper problem.

4.Spanish Fly

Not a fly and not strictly from Spain. That basically sums up the lies behind this potentially deadly aphrodisiac. Spanish Fly is ground-up blister beetle, indigenous to Europe. The beetle contains a caustic acid-like juice called cantharidin. When this stuff is ingested and eventually excreted, it causes a burning and swelling sensation in the urinary tract misconstrued as sexual stimulation. The only problem is that cantharidin is toxic, and the victims are usually women who unwittingly consume the powder in a drink. Most Spanish Fly sold today is just pepper or something to make you feel hot.

5.Rhino Horn

It's sad how our effort to promote the survival of our species through copious copulation has run other species to the brink of extincion. Rhino horn, prized by some as an alleged aphrodisiac, offers no such sexual power; and its (illegal) use in Chinese medicine for other ailments is questionable. The horns look a little like an erect penis, and in traditional medicine that's sometimes enough to mean that grinding them up and eating them will make one's own penis erect. At best, they contain nutrients, such as phosphorus, which gave our nutrient-poor ancestors a little more energy

6.Respect

Dr. Ruth often speaks of respecting your sex partner and understanding his or her needs. Sex need not be centered on vaginal penetration and male ejaculation. There are a variety ways to please your partner sexually. And the most meaningful sexual relationships begin with respect. Try it with your lover. It can be a real turn-on

7.Getting In Shape

As reported by Johns Hopkins researchers two weeks ago in the American Journal of Medicine, erectile dysfunction is highly correlated with poor physical health and inactivity. More than 50 percent of subjects with diabetes and 44 percent of those with high blood pressure had trouble achieving an erection either "sometimes" or "always." Ditto for the 26 percent of subjects who reported such sedentary behavior as watching three or more hours of television per day. Those who are fit tend to have more self-confidence, too. "Being in shape, eating helatfully, not smoking and not drinking are all ways to prevent obesity, diabetes, hypertension, kidney disease, peripheral vascular disease and hypercholesterolemia - - things that significantly impact blood flow," said Dr. Karen Boyle of Johns Hopkins Hospital. "I counsel all of my patients about making these lifestyle changes for 'penile health.'"

8.Psychoanalysis

Sometimes sexual dysfunction in men and women is a result of depression, fatigue or psychological disorder. Psychiatrists, counselors and sex therapist can often serve as a powerful aphrodisiac to enhance your libido. Psychoanalysis: sounds sexy, doesn't it?

9.Viagra

There's a reason why "natural Viagra" ads clog your email inbox. Viagra works, and scheisters are trying to cash in Pfizer's billion-dollar success story. Viagra is not an aphrodisiac, per se. One needs sexual stimulation for the drug to work. (Your heightened sexual desire is likely in place, making you buy Viagra.) Before the dawn of Viagra and similar prescription drugs about a decade ago, urologists had little success in treating erectile dysfunction with medication. Viagra increases blood flow to the penis and blocks the blood from leaving, helping men maintain an erection. There are side effects, some serious, for a small percentage of users, but guys don't seem to care.

10.Yohimbe, Tribulus and Maca

There are several traditional herbs under study for their aphrodisiac properties, and three leading contenders are yohimbe, tribulus and maca. Any combination of these might be pulverized, capsulated and sold as "natural Viagra." Most level-headed researchers, however, will warn you to stay away from this kind of stuff. Too much yohimbe, a bark from a West African evergreen tree, can kill you, which is not the kind of stiffness most guys are after. You never know what you're getting when you buy so-called natural cures . Many drugs come from plants; asprin was isolated from willow bark. So yohimbe and the like are being studied to see if there are medicinal properties that can be isolated and turned into a reliable treatment for sexual dysfunction.

Top 10 Unexplained Phenomena!!!

2007-11-17T06:06:00.000-08:00

1.Ghosts

From the Shakespeare play "MacBeth" to the NBC show "Medium" spirits of the dead have long made an appearance in our culture and folklore. Many people have reported seeing apparitions of both shadowy strangers and departed loved ones. Though definitive proof for the existence of ghosts remains elusive,eyewitnesses continue to report seeing, photografing, and even communicating with ghosts. Ghost investigators hope to one day prove that the dead can contact the living, providing a final answer to the mystery.

2.Mysterious Disappearances

People disappear for various reasons. Most are runaways, some succumb to accident, a few are abducted or killed, but most are eventually found. Not so with the truly mysterious disappearances. From the crew of the Marie Celeste to Jimmy Hoffa, Amelia Erhart, and Natalee Holloway, some people seem to have vanished without a trace. When missing persons are found, it is always through police work, confession, or accident never by 'psychic detectives'). But when the evidence is lacking and leads are lost, even police and forenzic science can't always solve the crime.

3.Intuition

Whether we call it gut feelings, a 'sixts sense,' or something else, we have all experienced intuition at one time or another. Of course, gut feelings are often wrong (how many times during aircraft turbulence have you been sure your plane was going down?), but they do seem to be right much of the time. Psychologists note that people pick up information about the world around us, leading us to seemingly sense or know information without knowing exactly why or why we know it. But cases of intuition are difficult to prove or study, and psychology may only be part of the answer

4.Bigfoot

For decades, large, hairy, manlike beasts called Bigfoot have occasionally been reported by eyewitnesses across America. Despite the thousands of Bigfoot that must exist for a breeding population, not a single body has been found. Not one has been killed by a hunter, struck dead by a speeding car, or even died of natural causes. In the absence of hard evidence like teeth or bones, support comes down to eyewitness sightings and photos and films Since it is logically impossible to prove a universal negative, science will never be able to prove that creatures like Bigfoot and the Loch nes monster do not exist, and it is possible that these mysterious beasts lurk far from prying eyes.

5.The Taos Hum

Some residents and visitors in the small city of Taos, New Mexico, have for years been annoyed and puzzled by a mysterious and faint low-frequency hum in the desert air. Oddly, only about 2 percent of Taos residents report hearing the sound. Some believe it is caused by unusual acoustics; others suspect mass hysteria or some secret, sinister purpose. Whether described as a whir, hum, or buzz and whether psyhological,natural or supernatural no one has yet been able to locate the sound's origin.

6.The Body/Mind Connection

Medical science is only beginning to understand the ways in which the mind influences the body. The placebo efect, for example, demonstrates that people can at times cause a relief in medical symptoms or suffering by believing the cures to be effective - whether they actually are or not. Using processes only poorly understood, the body's ability to heal itself is far more amazing than anything modern medicine could create

7.Psychic powers and ESP

Psychic powers and extra-sensory perception[ Esp] rank among the top ten unexplained phenomena if for no other reason than that belief in them is so widespread. Many people believe that intuition (see #3) is a form of psychic power, a way of accessing arcane or special knowledge about the world or the future. Researchers have tested people who claim to have psychic, though the results under controlled scientific conditions have so far been negative or ambiguous. Some have argued that psychic powers cannot be tested, or for some reason diminish in the presence of skeptics or scientists. If this is true, science will never be able to prove or disprove the existence of psychic powers.

8.Near-Death Experiences and Life After Death

People who were once near death have sometimes reported various experience (such as going into a tunnel and emerging in a light, being reunited with loved ones, a sense of peace, etc.) that may suggest an existence beyond the grave. While such experiences are profound, no one has returned with proof or verifiable information from "beyond the grave." Skeptics suggest that the experiences are explainable as natural and predictable hallucinations of a traumatized brain,yet there is no way to know with certainty what causes near-death experiences, or if they truly are visions of "the other side."

9.UFOs

ere is no doubt tha UFOs exist - many people see things in the skies that they cannot identify, ranging from aircraft to meteors Whether or not any of those objects and lights are alien spacecraft is another matter entirely; given the fantastic distances and effort involved in just getting to Earth from across the universe such a scenario seems unlikely. Still, while careful investigation has revealed known causes for most sighting reports, some Ufo Incidents will always remain unexplained.

10.Deja vu

Deja vu is a French phrase meaning 'already seen,' referring to the distinct, puzzling, and mysterious feeling of having experienced a specific set of circumstances before. A woman might walk into a building, for example, in a foreign country she'd never visited, and sense that the setting is eerily and intimately familiar. Some attribute deja vu to psychic experiences or unbidden glimpses of previous lives. As with intuition (see #3), research into ,human psyhology can offer more naturalistic explanations, but ultimately the cause and nature of the phenomenon itself remains a mystery.

5 Deadly Digestive Problems

2007-11-15T09:15:00.000-08:00

On the long list of unpleasant ways to die, it’s hard to imagine anything topping "exploding colon." We’ll take the stomach flu, heartburn death by paper cuts even! Just please, please, spare us these fates.

1. Farting to Death

Sounds like a third-grade punch line, but maybe it’s so funny because it’s true. The average person expels about a half liter of gas per day. Put bluntly, that’s somewhere between 13 and 17 daily farts. And although any 11-year-old with a matchbook and curiosity knows that gas passed is flammable (since it contains primarily hydrogen and methane), it’s not dangerous for the excessively gassy to work around open flames.

Once in a while, though, someone will blow up from gas. The problem usually occurs during colonic surgeru when heat (or spark) comes into contact with flammable intestinal gases after inadequate "bowel evacuation." The resulting explosion is sometimes fatal.

Anyone who’s ever suffered from colon surgery can tell you exactly what "bowel evacuation" entails - you drink a laxative the day before surgery and find yourself in the bathroom with enough time to read Anna Karenina. Unpleasant, sure, but better than blowing up on the operating table.

2. Pica

Pica, an eating disorder in which sufferers feel compelled to eat nonfood items, is usually seen in children. At least 10% of kids enjoy eating dirt or paste or plaster, but adults suffering from pica often develop unusual tastes.

Strangely, the same such cravings pop up so often they have their own names. Pagophagia is the compulsive eating of ice; coprophagia describes eating (often animal) feces; coniophagia involves - get this - the pathological consumption of dust from Venetian blinds.

And pica can be fatal. Too much plaster might lead to fatal lead poisoning, for instance, and consuming clay can lead to a potentially deadly intestinal blockage. (Image: Baobao, an 18-year-old Mongolian girl eating dirt

3. Roundworms

About 25% of the world’s population is infected with roundworms (that’s Ascaris lumbricoides to the Latin scholars), which is even more disconcerting when you consider that one generally contracts roundworms by swallowing egg-ridden human feces. Once infected, the eggs hatch in the stomach and insentines then migrate throughout the body.

Although completely disgusting, roundworms are only occasionally deadly - they can cause edema in the lungs; and the female worms, which can grow 18 inches long, sometimes perforate the intestines, leading to peritonitis.

But the most terrifying wormy complication involves anesthesia. Because worms find anesthesia irritating, they sometimes migrate up the trachea and nasal passages or down the intestines during surgery. It’s been reported, for instance, that one pregnant woman had several of the nematodes worm out of her nose and mouth while she was giving birth.

4. Celiac Sprue

Dieters seeking low-carb lifestyle might do well to seek out celiac sprue, an intestinal ailment that amounts to an allergy to the protein gluten - found in such foods as wheat, barley, and rye.

When celiac sufferers ingest the dreaded stuff, the immune system responds by attacking the small intestine, which leads to a sort of intestinal balldnes Villi, hairlike protruberances that line the small intestine, absorb nutrients into the body, but when people with celiac eat gluten, the villi get flattened or otherwise damaged, making proper nourishment impossible.

If left undiagnosed, celiac can lead to massive malnutrition, wasting, and even death. But people with celiac can lead perfectly healthy lives provided they forswear gluten. Which means no beer. Which is, frankly, unacceptable.

5. Megacolon

A blessedly uncommon but life-threatening disorder, megacolon is characterized by the one-two punch of a massively inflated colon (one), and the accompanying abdominal distension (two). Although generally a complication of bowel diseases like ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease, megacolon occasionally develops from severe - and we mean severe -constipation . One such example is on display at Philadelphia’s Mütter Museum, which collects all manner of medical oddities (from John Wilkes Booth’s thorax to a tumor removed from President Grover Cleveland’s jaw). The crown jewel of the Mütter Museum’s collection is a five-foot-long megacolon. Bearing a distinct resemblance to Jabba the Hutt, the monstrosity was removed from a man who, unable to move his bowels, died with 40 pounds of excrement in his gut.

Contradictions United!!!

2007-11-13T04:26:00.001-08:00

The Top 10 Most Bizzare Phobias!!!

2007-11-03T08:21:00.000-07:00

From Wikipedia: “A phobia is an irrational, persistent fear of certain situations, objects, activities, or persons. The main symptom of this disorder is the excessive, unreasonable desire to avoid the feared subject. When the fear is beyond one’s control, or if the fear is interfering with daily life, then a diagnosis under one of the anxiety disorders can be made.” Here are the top 10 Bizarre phobias!
1. Neophobia - Fear of Newness Neophobia is the fear of new things or experiences. It is also called cainotophobia. In psychology, neophobia is defined as the persistent and abnormal fear of anything new. In its milder form, it can manifest as the unwillingness to try new things or break from routine. The term is also used to describe anger, frustration or trepidation toward new things and toward change in general. Some conservative and reactionary groups are often described as neophobic, in their attempts to preserve traditions or revert society to a perceived past form. Technophobia can be seen as a specialized form of neophobia, by fearing new technology
2.Paraskavedekatriaphobia - Fear of Friday the 13th
A Friday occurring on the 13th day of any month is considered to be a day of bad luck in English, German, Polish, Bulgarian and Portuguese-speaking cultures around the globe. The fear of Friday the 13th is called paraskavedekatriaphobia, a word that is derived from the concatenation of the Greek words Παρασκευή, δεκατρείς, and φοβία, meaning Friday, thirteen, and phobia respectively; alternative spellings include paskevodekatriaphobia or paraskevidekatriaphobia, and is a specialized form of triskaidekaphobia, a phobia (fear) of the number thirteen.
3.Panphobia - Fear of Everything
Panphobia, also called omniphobia, Pantophobia or Panophobia, is a medical condition known as a “non-specific fear”; the sufferer finds themselves in a state of fear but with no known target, and therefore no easy remedy. It has been described as “a vague and persistent dread of some unknown evil”. This fear is often seen as a secondary condition to schizophrenia.
4.Taphophobia - Fear of being Buried Alive
Fear of being buried alive is the fear of being placed in a grave while still alive as a result of being incorrectly pronounced dead. The abnormal, psychopathological version of this fear is referred to as taphophobia. Before the advent of modern medicine the fear was not entirely irrational. Throughout history there have been numerous cases of people being accidentally buried alive
5.Pteronophobia - Fear of being Tickled by Feathers
Pteronophobia is the irrational fear of being tickled by feathers. Certain childhood events, such as tickling a baby, can lead to this fear as the child may feel trapped. It is related to the fear of tickling.
6.Ithyphallophobia - Fear of Erections
Defined as “a persistent, abnormal, and unwarranted fear of an erect penis”, each year this surprisingly common phobia causes countless people needless distress. To add insult to an already distressing condition, most fear of erection therapies take months or years and sometimes even require the patient to be exposed repeatedly to their fear. Known by a number of names - Medorthophobia, Phallophobia, Ithyphallophobia, and Fear of an Erect Penis being the most common - the problem often significantly impacts the quality of life. It can cause panic attacks and keep people apart from loved ones and business associates.
7.Ephebophobia - Fear of Youths
The psychological and social fear of youth. The effects of ephebiphobia appear to cause damage throughout society. At least one major economist has proposed that the fear of youth can have grave effects on the economic health of nations. Coinage is attributed to a 1994 article by Kirk Astroth published in Phi Delta Kappan. Today, common usage occurs internationally by sociologists, government agencies, and youth advocacy organizations that define ephebiphobia as an abnormal or irrational and persistent fear and/or loathing of teenagers or adolescence.
8.Coulrophobia - Fear of Clowns
Coulrophobia is an abnormal or exaggerated fear of clowns. It is not uncommon among children, but is also sometimes found in teenagers and adults as well. Sufferers sometimes acquire a fear of clowns after having a bad experience with one personally, or seeing a sinister portrayal of one in the media. The weird appearance of the clowns, swollen red noses and unnatural hair colors makes these persons look so mysterious and treacherous. Adults who are victims of coulrophobia know what they fear is completely irrational and illogical, but they can’t escape the circumstance.
9.Ergasiophobia - Fear of Work
Ergasiophobia can be a persistent and debilitating disorder in some people, causing significant psychological disability and dysfunction. These individuals may actually be suffering from an underlying mental health problem such as depression or Attention Deficit Disorder.
10.Gymnophobia - Fear of Nudity

Gymnophobia is a fear or anxiety about being seen naked, and/or about seeing others naked, even in situations where it is socially acceptable. Gymnophobes may experience their fear of nudity before all people, or only certain people, and may regard their fear as irrational. This phobia often arises from a feeling of inadequacy that their bodies are physically inferior, particularly due to comparison with idealized images portrayed in the media. The fear may also stem from anxiety about sexuality in general, or from a persistent feeling of vulnerability associated with the thought that those who have seen the gymnophobe naked will continue to imagine the gymnophobe nude.

Would you eat this cake?

2007-10-28T09:13:00.001-07:00

Happy birthday, creepy guy!

The best sexist ads in the world

2007-10-25T06:27:00.000-07:00

Anyone can make sexist ads but it takes a certain amount of focus, greed and sheer insensitivity to make ads like the ones below

From Campari's copious cleavage (which actually belongs to Salma Hayek), to the Heineken TV spot which re-imagines the female of the species as having a keg of beer instead of a womb, Media Circus raises a warped salute to the ads which dared to go further into the abyss

We apologise for the low-quality of the Bond and Bond ad (third row, middle) but there was no way it could be omitted and the company wouldn't give us anything better.

World’s 10 Stories You Don’t (MayBe) Know,Because It’s Underreported

2007-10-18T08:24:00.000-07:00

After months of fighting, Islamist militants in June defeated the warlords in capital city Mogadishu and now control most of southern Somalia. The country, which has not had a functioning central government since 1991, has become “the largest potential safe haven for al Qaeda in Africa,” according to the International Crisis Group. This fall a U.N. report detailed how Iran and other countries were smuggling arms to the Islamists and how some 700 Somali fighters were sent to Lebanon to fight alongside Hizballah. Amid all the bloodshed, humanitarian workers are struggling to deliver aid to Somalis, who, after enduring a severe drought, are now dealing with massive flooding.

No.2 TUBERCULOSIS GETS EVEN SCARIER

Worldwide, tuberculosis — a bacterial lung disease spread mainly by coughing — kills one person every 18 seconds. And because HIV activates latent TB infection, tuberculosis has become the leading cause of AIDS-related deaths in the developing world. The TB vaccine is not very effective; diagnostic tests fail to identify at least 50% of cases, and patients often fail to complete the six-month treatment regimen, which contributes to new drug-resistant strains. Of the 9 million or so new TB cases each year, about 425,000 of them are resistant to standard medicines. One severely resistant strain that emerged in southern Africa this year is virtually impossible to treat.

No.3 INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY REFORMS

Whatever happened to the post-9/11 push to reform U.S. intelligence gathering and make sure the myriad agencies are all playing nice with each other? Not surprisingly, there has been little information about what’s going on with the spooks. Details from classified documents revealed that the intelligence budget has more than doubled in the past eight years and that the CIA is teaching FBI agents some of its tradecraft. But five years after the World Trade Center attacks, there was also word of new initiatives being launched to eliminate overlap and bring order to the chaotic fight against terrorism. So… uhh… how’s that going?

No.4 CONGO’S STILL-RAVAGED STATE

Although the Democratic Republic of Congo received some attention this year for holding its first free elections in four decades, the war-torn country — where nearly four million people have died as a result of the conflict since 1998 — is still home to one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. Congo is plagued by malnutrition, malaria and other largely preventable conditions that kill 1,200 people a day — a death toll, as UNICEF points out, that is the equivalent of suffering a 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami every six months. More children die in Congo before reaching their fifth birthday than in China, a country with 23 times the population.

No.5 CIVILIAN CASUALTIES IN IRAQ

Not credible. That’s how President Bush described a peer-reviewed study this fall that calculated some 600,000 Iraqis had died from war-related violence since March 2003. The Johns Hopkins study, based on a survey of 1,849 Iraqi households, was dismissed by the White House for its small sample size. But in December, the Iraq Study Group (ISG) lambasted the Pentagon for “significant underreporting of the violence in Iraq.” For example, official accounts tallied 93 attacks one day in July, yet, according to the ISG, “a careful review of the reports for that single day brought to light 1,100 acts of violence.” Maybe those Johns Hopkins academics weren’t so far off after all.

No.6 THE $10 BILLION EFFORT TO REBUILD AFGHANISTAN

Things are bad in Iraq, but how goes it in Afghanistan? A joint report by the Defense Department and the State Department found that the U.S.-trained police force in Afghanistan is not capable of carrying out routine law enforcement work. Managers of the $1.1 billion training program, the report concluded, can’t keep track of how many officers are on duty, let alone what happened to all the equipment that has gone missing. Another report on contractors, by a California-based watchdog group, detailed such grim outcomes as new schools so shoddy they had to be rebuilt after a winter’s worth of snow and a highway that started crumbling before it was finished.

No.7 RECORD NUMBER OF AMERICANS JAILED

The Justice Department reported in November that a record 7 million people — or one in every 32 adults in the U.S. — were behind bars, on probation or on parole at the end of last year. Some 2.2 million Americans were in prison or jail on Dec. 31. 2005, but there was little coverage of this population’s 2.7% rise from the previous year or of its eight-fold increase since 1975. Nor was there much discussion of overcrowding (the federal prison system is operating at 34% over capacity) or of the cost associated with keeping so many people behind bars (it costs more than $20,000 per year for every person incarcerated).

No.8 MORE U.S. TROOPS WILLING TO REENLIST

While there was much talk about the Army raising the maximum age for new recruits from 35 to 42, the lesser-known development is that the Pentagon managed not only to meet, but to exceed its 2006 reenlistment goals for every branch of the military. Most significantly, the Army met its retention goal of 64,200 in August, with two months to spare before the end of the fiscal year. Another surprising sign of the times: by mid-October, the Marine Corps had received 3,870 re-enlistment applications and thus was on its way to meeting 63% of its annual retention goal less than two weeks into the new fiscal year.

No.9 A SPRAWLING INSURGENCY IN INDIA

Fueled by rampant poverty in rural areas, a 10,000-strong Maoist army threatens to take the shine off of India’s economic boom. The rebels are known as Naxalites after the eastern town of Naxalbari, where the violent peasant uprising began in 1967. Their attacks in impoverished but mineral-rich regions — on everything from mines and factories to trains and jails — led to at least 625 deaths in the first nine months of 2006, according to the Asian Centre for Human Rights. In August, India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh ranked the growing Maoist rebellion alongside terrorism as the greatest threats facing the country’s stability.

No.10 MIDDLE-CLASS NEIGHBORHOODS ARE SHRINKING IN THE U.S.

The percentage of middle-income neighborhoods in the 100 largest metropolitan areas across the country dropped from 58% in 1970 to 41% in 2000, according to the Brookings Institution. The study, which defined moderate-income families as those with incomes between 80% and 120% of the local median, found that these neighborhoods are disappearing faster than the proportion of metropolitan families earning middle incomes, which in three decades has fallen from 28% to 22%. The trend suggests that people are moving out of economically diverse neighborhoods, and the resulting disparities between high- and low-income neighborhoods make it harder for lower-income homeowners to move up the residential ladder.

Source: TIME