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Baby thrown from house to escape fire
Happy face of Mars
This picture of a crater resembling a "happy face" was acquired by the Context Camera (CTX) on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on January 28, 2008. The unnamed crater is about 3 kilometers (1.9 miles) across.
Vanity plates sell for millions
CNN's Wilf Dinnick reports on the high price for vanity license plates in Abu Dhabi:
At an auction for charity, 300 status symbol license plates were sold for a total of $56 million. Here's the most expensive license plate ever, which sold for $6.8 million.
Next month, license plate #1 goes on the market. It's worth at least $15 million -- probably a lot more.
China Confirms Ability to Stop Rain for Olympics
The Beijing Meteorological Bureau, instructed to ensure the roofless Bird's Nest stadium stays dry on the opening of the Olympic Games, say that experiments to prevent light precipitation from occurring have worked using two methods.
Clouds below freezing were sprayed with a liquid nitrogen-based coolant that breaks droplets up into smaller sizes; those above freezing received silver iodide to produce a cloud-suppressing downdraft by speeding the process of droplet coalescence.
The opposite effect may be attempted to force rain to fall before it gets to the Olympics. A pre-Games highlight involving the torch being taken to Mount Everest's top is also being prepared by the bureau, promising "very detailed" wind reports.
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Student's mouth-to-muzzle saves tiger cub
A German medical student got some unexpected practical experience at the zoo when she gave the kiss of life to a baby tiger choking on a piece of meat, the zoo director said Friday.
The student was passing the enclosure with her toddler son on a visit several weeks ago when she noticed the 4-month-old tiger choking and offered her assistance to the helpless keeper, said Andreas Jacob, director of the zoo in the eastern German city of Halle.
"The tiger tried to eat a piece of meat that was too big and started choking and shaking and then fell over," the student, Janine Bauer, told MDR radio.
"We got the piece out but he wasn't breathing so I tried mouth-to-mouth and heart massage," she added. "After 3-5 minutes he came to, thank God."
The zoo, which held a ceremony Friday to thank Bauer, has decided to call the tiger Johann, after her one-year-old son.
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Miracle escape for baby thrown from train
A newborn girl is recovering in a Russian hospital after apparently being thrown from a moving train just minutes after being born. She still has no name, but her plight has moved the hearts of thousands of people who've asked to adopt her.
Hospital transplants heart, liver, kidney into same patient
A Chinese hospital said on Sunday it had successfully transplanted a heart, liver and kidney into one patient, the first such operation in the country.
Soon, a bed that downloads films
It has sensors, temperature controls, Internet connectivity, and a home theater option.
According to an American-Chinese study, shoes first became common about 40,000 to 26,000 years ago, and such footwear changed the human toes.
Lounging Lizard Have The Perfect Post For Every Occasion
Lazy lizards like nothing better than lounging around at the home of this reptile expert. Henry Lizardlover places them in amazing poses and photographs them on his mini sofas, hammocks and even waterskis.
Henry said: "When they are calm and relaxed they like to sit in chairs.
Henry said: "When they are calm and relaxed they like to sit in chairs.
"When I get lizards to ride on a waterski they just love it. And when I get one of them to hold a guitar he will just stand there for half an hour because lizards are really comfortable doing that.
"I have been living with them in my house since 1982 and I have always had 30 to 50 lizards living with me."
Tearless onions a step closer
New Zealand scientists have completed the testing of "tearless" onions.
Crop and Food research scientist Colin Eady said the onions were still in the developmental stage, but if the research progressed well they could become the household and industry norm within the next decade
With collaborators in Japan, Dr Eady has been conducting lab tests to dry up the agent in onions that makes cooks teary-eyed.
Researchers have used gene-silencing technology to switch off the enzyme that is responsible for the "crying" compound when an onion is crushed.
Chameleons change colour to impress opposite sex
Chameleons evolved the ability to change colour so as to impress the opposite sex and their rivals, not to blend in to their surroundings.
The popular idea that they evolved to alter hues of their skin colour to be unobtrusive and avoid being eaten is overturned today: they are simply being flashy.
Happiness resumes at 50
A new study reveals that the middle age blahs are almost universal, but not forever
Closing in on 40? 50? Feel like life is passing, er, has passed you by? Maybe even left you in the dust? You're not alone. In fact, new research shows that fellow midlifers throughout the world--or at least a significant chunk of it--share your pain. But fear not: if you endure, the study shows, things will begin looking up again, once you get over that speed bump in the road of life called (gasp!) middle age.
Researchers from Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H., and the University of Warwick in Coventry, England, after scouring 35 years worth of data on two million people from 80 nations, have concluded that there is, indeed, a consistent pattern in depression and happiness levels that is age-related and leaves us most blue during midlife.According to the study, set to be published in the journal Social Science & Medicine, happiness follows a U-shaped curve: It is highest at the beginning and end of our lives and lowest in-between.
World Largest Moose
orthern Sweden have the all-clear for the construction of the world's largest elk, or moose as the animal is known in North America. Perched on top of a mountain, the 45-metre (148-foot) elk will double as a restaurant and concert hall that can seat up to 350 guests. From its antlers, more than 500 metres above sea level, visitors will be able to enjoy the spectacular view over the valleys below.
A junction in the nortern part of Sweden, a destination for people all over the world, a monument dedicated to wilderness, nature and the king of the forest. Our goal is for this giant moose to be "born" before the end of 2009.
Situated on top of the mountain "Vithatten"
2 legs in the district of Arvidsjaur and region "Norrbotten".
2 legs in the district of Skellefteå and region "Västerbotten."
Construction completly made of gluelam wood with steeltubes in the legs and in the "pinetree".
Approx. 47 m long, 12 m wide, 35 m on the back, ca 45 m on the antlers. The antlers incl. tines approx. 100 m².
Situated on top of the mountain "Vithatten"
2 legs in the district of Arvidsjaur and region "Norrbotten".
2 legs in the district of Skellefteå and region "Västerbotten."
Construction completly made of gluelam wood with steeltubes in the legs and in the "pinetree".
Approx. 47 m long, 12 m wide, 35 m on the back, ca 45 m on the antlers. The antlers incl. tines approx. 100 m².
read more: world largest moose
California approved vending machines that will sell marijuana.
patients can buy legal *medical* marijuana at a Los Angeles herbal nutrition center.
They will go through security, submit their prescription, pay and pick up their drugs.
Store employees call it a safe, fast way to order prescriptions.
Vince Mehdizadeh, Owner of Herbal Nutrition Center says, "They'll slide a card to get into the store after hours. They'll be greeted by a security guard right there. They'll slide card in and they'll fingerprint in to verify that it's them. A camera takes a picture of them, verifying that they're actually at the machine. And they get the medicine and they move on."
The state will start with two prescription vending machines offering medical marijuana.
Owners believe they could become as common as pop machines.
Tantric Master Breaks Ice Record in NYC
In this photo provided by Rubin Museum of Art, Wim Hof, of the Netherlands, stands up to his neck in ice for an hour and twelve minutes, Saturday, Jan. 26, 2008, outside the Rubin Museum of Art in New York, during a successful attempt to break his previous world record for immersion in an outdoor ice bath.
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Researchers report blackest black yet made
US researchers have made the darkest material on Earth. The new substance is so black, it absorbs more than 99.9 percent of light.
Made out of tiny tubes of carbon standing on end, the new material is about 30 times darker than the current standard of blackness by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology.
The leader of the research team at Rice University in Houston, Pulickel Ajayan, said "All the light that goes in is basically absorbed. It is almost pushing the limit of how much light can be absorbed into one material."
The reflective index of the material is 0.045 percent. The reflective index of black paint is 5-10%.
The material can be used in solar energy conversion. It can also be used in infrared detection or astronomical observation .
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