Monday, July 6, 2009

Grueling Guinea Pig Games of the 2009 Olympics

The Guinea Pig Games (GPG) Olympics have started with an amazing opening as rascally rodents display their dedication to their chosen sports. In the struggle for survival, only the fittest win out at the expense of their rivals with their stamina, prowess, and incredible feats to win gold, silver, and bronze medals.Grueling Guinea Pig Games of the 2009 Olympics
Their docile nature, responsiveness to handling and feeding, and the relative ease of caring for them, continue to make the guinea pig a popular pet, which furry fellas world-wide fear may be the very thing that bridges them from being taken seriously in their own class of world Olympics.

But recent events in the 2009 GPG Olympics have vindicated guineas throughout the planet from these stereotypes.

Grueling Guinea Pig Games of the 2009 Olympics
Rowing rodents Ricky and Rafael clawed their way to victory in the battle of the boats for the GPG Olympic rowing event for gold. Much to the GPG official’s amazement, the pair decided only moments before the race to switch boats like a golfer decides to change clubs.

“It’s like when you try on running shoes in the store. You try a pair of Nikes and a pair of Reeboks and one just feels better.” said Rafael.

It may very well have been the deciding factor than won them their prized medal.

Grueling Guinea Pig Games of the 2009 Olympics

Wil Liam Tell displayed his expert marksman with the crossbow as he took aim at his target. Tell had been promised the gold if he shot the apple nose-on, which he performed effortlessly, splitting the fruit with a single bolt from his crossbow without mishap.
Grueling Guinea Pig Games of the 2009 Olympics
It was a slam dunk when these water rats displayed no fear in the challenge to get their fur wet. Nosing ahead, Papael Phelps performed great feats in the pool, claiming 6 gold medals and 2 bronze to match the record aggregate for a single GPG Olympics, a feat which could net him $1 million from a swimwear company.

Papael says he trains for 8 hours a day in his private pool at home. The rest of his day consists mainly of feeding on fresh grass hay, apples, cabbage, carrots, celery, and spinach along with complex dietary supplements to maintain his health fitness and garner energy.

Grueling Guinea Pig Games of the 2009 Olympics
Called the Night Rider, or better known as Sir Jules (R), the British cyclist has enjoyed more success on 2 wheels than any other cycling rodent in history, with a feat of 3 gold medals under his belt at the 2005 GPG, receiving royal recognition by the Queen.

Stunned spectators watched the race in shock as the Olympic cycling champion barely won the event by a whisker in the semi-finals. Rumors have since circulated that he was distracted by the news that guineas would no longer compete with humans in the Tour de Rats in France this upcoming summer.

Grueling Guinea Pig Games of the 2009 Olympics
In a giant leap for rodentkind in the men’s pole vaulting event, Igor Bubka of the so-called “6 meters club,” broke the outdoor men’s world-record 24 times culminating in his current world record of 20.5 feet (6.25 meters).

Igor says he had a lot of practice since childhood in his homeland where poles were used as a practical means of passing over natural obstacles in marshy places in the provinces of Friesland in The Netherlands, along the North Sea.

Artificial draining of these marshes created a network of open drains or canals intersecting each other. In order to cross these without getting wet, while avoiding tedious roundabout journeys over bridges, a stack of jumping poles was kept at every home and used for vaulting over the canals.

Grueling Guinea Pig Games of the 2009 Olympics
Setting a new gold standard for his kind, Chubby Cheeks received a taste of Bad Ronnie’s badminton supremacy, losing to the austere athlete’s expert skill in the finals of the men’s GPG Olympic badminton tournament.

But the game was not without controversy of its own, when Squeakers Solomon’s coach was caught betting on his match. The gambling stint caused an outrage amongst the GPG officials and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) who called for tough love, resulting in Squeakers to be banned from the Olympics and stripped of his silver medal.

Grueling Guinea Pig Games of the 2009 Olympics
Peter Pestbrook’s (L) mother bribed him with $5 to take fencing. His talent and drive gained him a place on the 1976 Olympic Team. For more than 20 years the fluffy rodent has dominated saber fencing in the U.S. and 6 Olympics, winning the national title 13 times.

The semifinal had to be stopped for about 10 minutes after Peter lost his cork and slashed the hand of his opponent, Bitey Betus, with the score even at 42 to 42.

Pestbrook is expected to take gold for the Fencing Men’s Individual Foil, but it could be a close shave against his worldly contender.

Grueling Guinea Pig Games of the 2009 Olympics
Since 1988, table tennis has been an Olympic sport. The Chinese ping-pong team has won all medals in World Table Tennis Championships and Olympic Games 4 times, which has placed more pressure on the team.

Their head coach has maintained low goals for 2009, stating that the current team has to face greater difficulties than the last Chinese ping-pong team for game, pet, and match, but says they still have the strength to win gold medals in the 4 events.

Grueling Guinea Pig Games of the 2009 Olympics
With the amazing prowess that would make his ancestors Heracles and Zeus proud, Hairycles defeated his fellow guinea pigs in the 100-meter running race in a record 10.73 seconds, and not only took the gold, but was also crowned with a wreath of wild olive branches.
Grueling Guinea Pig Games of the 2009 Olympics
Pumping fur iron in the heavyweight true Olympic GPG weightlifting championship is Louie Long who lifted more than 5 times his weight of 13.2 pounds (6 kilos) for the title, followed by his compatriot Stinger Skittles for silver at 12.5 pounds (5.7 kilos). The bronze medal was taken by Tim Tun Tae at 12.2 pounds (5.5 kilos).
Grueling Guinea Pig Games of the 2009 Olympics
Mad Hummad Hali, widely known for his fighting style, which he describes as “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.” He’s the only guinea pig to have won the linear heavyweight championship 3 times, and the contender for this year’s gold. Hali was also the winner of the Olympic Light-heavyweight gold medal in 2005.

The heavyweight furball has made a name for himself for great hand-speed, with swift feet and taunting tactics. While Hali has been renowned for his fast, sharp out-fighting style, he also has a great chin, and has displayed great courage and an ability to take a punch throughout his career.

Grueling Guinea Pig Games of the 2009 Olympics
Splitting hairs, Lolo Lones, a beautiful world champion hurdler (L) is vying for the gold against champion hurdler Dana Dawlinson (R) who won the 400-meter hurdles world championships in 2001 and 2005 and is Australia’s best chance of a track gold.

Rani Ralkia, the reigning Olympic champion in the 400-meter hurdles, told reporters she was “shocked” to learn she had tested positive for the banned substance methyltrienolone and would be unable to defend her gold medal. A total of 15 furry pigs from Guinea including Ralkia have tested positive for methyltrienolone
source-http://www.lifeinthefastlane.ca/grueling-guinea-pig-games-of-the-2009-olympics/trucking/articles

Disgusting Delicacies

This seems like something taken out of ‘Fear Factor’. Sometimes, it is just hard to understand other cultures…Disgusting DelicaciesTarantulas, eaten in Cambodia



Disgusting DelicaciesRaw Herring, eaten in Holland


Disgusting DelicaciesStink bugs, eaten in Irian Jaya, Indonesia


Disgusting DelicaciesTuna Eyeball, eaten in Japan and China
Beetles, eaten in China
Horseshoe Crab Roe; Nast, eaten in China
Horseshoe Crab Roe; Nast, eaten in China


Octopus, eaten in ChinaRaw Octopus, eaten in China


Cooked Crickets, eaten
Cooked Crickets, eaten


Soybeans, eaten in various parts of AsiaRotten Soybeans, eaten in various parts of Asia


Duck Fetus Egg (Balut), eaten in Southeast AsiaDuck Fetus Egg (Balut), eaten in Southeast Asia


Bird’s nest soup, eaten in ChinaBird’s nest soup, eaten in China


Codfish Sperm, eaten in various parts of AsiaCodfish Sperm, eaten in various parts of Asia
Mopane caterpillars, eaten in Botswana
Mopane caterpillars, eaten in Botswana


Grasshoppers, eaten in Oaxaca, MexicoGrasshoppers, eaten in Oaxaca, Mexico
Dried lizards (for soup), eaten in Japan Dried lizards (for soup), eaten in Japan

Woman who remembers everything

Woman who remembers everything
A woman who has baffled doctors with her ability to remember every detail of every day has broken her anonymity to speak of her condition.

Jill Price, 42, can remember every part of her life since she was 14 but considers her ability a curse as she cannot switch off.

She described her life as like a split-screen television, with one side showing what she is doing in the present, and the other showing the memories which she cannot hold back.

Every detail about every day since 1980 - what time she got up, who she met, what she did, even what she ate - is locked in her brain and can be released to come flooding back by common triggers like songs, smells or place names.

Mrs Price, a widow who is a school administrator, sometimes struggles to sleep because the vivid memories crowd her mind and stop her relaxing. Her condition is so rare that scientists had to coin a term for her condition - hyperthymestic syndrome from the Greek thymesis, for remembering, and hyper, meaning well above normal.

For years she remained anonymous, referred to only by initials in scientific journals while experts at the University of California-Irvine tested her ability.

Mrs Price said her memory started working overtime after her family moved to Los Angeles when she was eight and from the time she was 14, in 1980, she can remember absolutely everything. Neuroscientists say a trauma such as moving the family home can trigger major, lingering changes in the brain, especially in children who cling to memories of how their life had been. Mrs Price said: "Some memories are good and give me a warm, safe feeling.

"But I also recall every bad decision, insult and excruciating embarrassment. Over the years it has eaten me up. It has kind of paralysed me." Mrs Price was so worried by her condition that in 2000 she asked neuroscientist Professor James McGaugh, a world expert on memory, what was wrong. She wrote to him: "My memory is too strong. It's like a running movie that never stops.
"Most have called it a gift. But I call it a burden. I run my entire life through my head every day and it drives me crazy!"

Professor McGaugh spoke to her and was astonished. He said: "You could give her a date picked at random from years ago and within seconds she'd tell you what day of the week it was, and not only what she did but other key events of the day."

From the age of 10 until she was 34, Mrs Price kept a daily diary, which allowed scientists to check events as she remembered them now against what she wrote down at the time. Mrs Price, who has written a book called The Woman Who Can't Forget, blames her vivid memories for many years of depression. Professor McGaugh has since discovered five other adults with similar powers and 50 more "possibles".

He said MRI scans indicated their brains were a slightly different shape to normal. Two other patterns have emerged. Mrs Price and three of the other five are left-handed and they all compulsively collect things like TV guides, old films and theatre programmes.

10 Words You Won’t Believe Shakespeare Invented

10 Words You Won’t Believe Shakespeare Invented Shakespeare invented more words than most people even know. Seriously, there’s at least 1,500 different words and phrases that don’t appear anywhere prior to the Bard of Avon putting them on paper. When he got stuck trying to think up a word, the man just made his own.

It’s kind of like what rappers do today, except the words Shakespeare made up got embedded into our culture and have formed the cornerstone of our discourse, rather than being obnoxiously spouted by white college students trying to be ironic. And while they weren’t all winners (”unhair” still seems to be struggling) others, as you’ll see, are so common you’ve probably already quoted Shakespeare today and you didn’t even know it. Fo’ sheezy.

Eyeball First UsedEyeball First Used:A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III, Scene ii, Oberon to Puck.
“Then crush this herb into Lysander’s eye;
Whose liquor hath this virtuous property,
To take from thence all error with his might,
And make his eyeballs roll with wonted sight.”

Translated: “Grind leaves and shit into that guy’s eyes until he goes blind.
Where We’d Be Without It: Totally unable to explain where we sniped this guy in Call of Duty 4.
Why It’s Un-Believable: Yep, as far as we know that’s the first time anybody wrote the word “eyeballs.” “Eyes” were there, “balls” were there, yet no one until Billy thought to put the two together. Well, there was one guy, but according to historical records that ended in an arrest for assault and indecent exposure.


PukingPuking

First Used:As You Like It, Act II, Scene vii, Jaques to Duke Senior.

“They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.”

Translated: “All humans have seven things in common. One of those things is that when they were babies, they threw up on their governesses.”
Where We’d Be Without It: Without a proper search term for many of the funniest videos on the internet.
Why It’s Un-Believable: Imagining Shakespeare’s quill scratching parchment whenever we’re hugging the toilet after our ninth vodka tonic gives it a surreal quality that certainly doesn’t help the hangover.


Skim MilkSkim Milk
First Used:Henry IV, Part I, Act II, Scene iii, Hotspur Soliloquy.
“O, I could divide myself
and go to buffets, for moving such a dish of
skim milk with so honourable an action!”

Translated: “I should knock myself out for telling our awesome plan to such a douche nozzle.”
Where We’d Be Without It: Drinking only thick, full, silky whole milk, the way God intended.
Why It’s Un-Believable: We haven’t done the research necessary to determine whether people in Shakespeare’s time drank skim milk, so we’re going to assume that he not only coined a word, but simultaneously launched an entire branch of dairy products. For a modern rap corollary, imagine if the Milkshake Song had invented the word milkshake, and the concept of milkshakes. Pretty unbelievable.


ObsceneObscene

First Used:Love’s Labours Lost, Act I, Scene i, Ferdinand to Costard.
“Then for the place where; where, I mean, I did encounter
that obscene and preposterous event, that draweth
from my snow-white pen the ebon-coloured ink, which
here thou viewest, beholdest, surveyest, or seest;”

Translated: “That’s where I saw it happen, the thing I wrote about which you now see, see, see or see.”
Where We’d Be Without It: The FCC would have to describe 50’s next album as “probably not something you want the kids to hear.”
Why It’s Un-Believable: Shakespeare was such a filthy writer, it’s hard to imagine him inventing a word that would inevitably be used against him. After all, this is the man who used the word “country matters” in Hamlet to mean “matters pertaining to the cunt.” Beat that, Fiddy.


Hot-BloodedHot-Blooded

First Used:King Lear, Act II, Scene iv, King Lear to Regan.
“Necessity’s sharp pinch! Return with her?
Why, the hot-blooded France, that dowerless took
Our youngest born, I could as well be brought
To knee his throne, and, squire-like;”
Translated: “I’d rather blow the King of France than do what you just said.”
Where We’d Be Without It: Without any tactful way to describe our angry drunk of a boyfriend when our friends ask where those bruises came from.
Why It’s Un-Believable: Because the wild, untamed riffs of Foreigner have no place in classical English literature, except maybe the fight scene at the end of Macbeth. Nothing underscores a beheading like electric guitar.


The Game is AfootThe Game is Afoot

First Used:Henry IV, Part I, Act I, Scene iii, Northumberland to Hotspur.
“Before the game is afoot, thou still let’st slip.”
Translated: “Dude, we haven’t even shuffled the cards and you’re already in the Lollipop Woods.”
Where We’d Be Without It: Reading the less-than-gripping adventures of Sherlock Holmes and his signature catchphrase, “My dear Watson, I do believe this shit is bananas.”
Why It’s Un-Believable: Because Sir Arthur Conan Doyle owned it so thoroughly, we’re surprised his estate hasn’t filed a retroactive copyright lawsuit. Of course Shakespeare could only pay in ducats, so it probably wasn’t worth the effort.


EpilepticEpileptic

First Used:King Lear, Act II, Scene ii, Kent to Cornwall.
“A plague upon your epileptic visage!
Smile you my speeches, as I were a fool?
Goose, if I had you upon Sarum plain,
I’ld drive ye cackling home to Camelot.”
Translated: “Fuck you, retard. I want to fight you.”
Where We’d Be Without It: Without the medical definition to apply when we see someone flailing wildly, we’d quickly start staggering dangerously into politically incorrect territory, just as those afflicted stagger dangerously towards…well, whatever’s around them at the time. We’d also have one less legitimate reason to hate anime.
Why It’s Un-Believable: He was a poet, an actor, and a doctor?! It makes us wonder if Shakespeare might have invented other afflictions that didn’t catch on, like tuberculasers or genital slurpees.


WormholeWormhole


First Used:The Rape of Lucrece.
“To fill with worm-holes stately monuments,
To feed oblivion with decay of things,
To blot old books and alter their contents,
To pluck the quills from ancient ravens’ wings.”
Translated: A more eloquent version of what goth kids are thinking all the time.
Where We’d Be Without It: Well, for one, we wouldn’t have a handy phrase to describe what worms create when they burrow through moist earth. Also, we wouldn’t be able to FLY FUCKING STARSHIPS THROUGH SPACE AND TIME.
Why It’s Un-Believable: Mainly because it’s from the goddamned future. When you invent a word that describes technology so far beyond your own time’s that it makes the neutron bomb look like a guy clapping really hard, you can take the rest of the day off. The Starfleet Federation, producers of Sliders and future population of Tau Ceti IV Alpha Base thank you, William Shakespeare.


Alligator<br />First UsedAlligator
First Used:Romeo and Juliet (First Folio), Act V, Scene I, Romeo Soliloquy.
“And in his needie shop a Tortoyrs hung,
An Allegater stuft, and other skins
Of ill shap’d fishes, and about his shelues,
A beggerly account of emptie boxes.”
Translated: No one knows.
Where We’d Be Without It: Try and think of a single word that rhymes with “see you later” and pairs well with “in a while, crocodile.” What’s that? You can’t? Shakespeare, bitch.
Why It’s Un-Believable: Because it’s hard to imagine what people called them before then. We figure cries of “Ye Gods, watch out for that Chompapottamus!” were much more common in those days.


Household WordsHousehold Words

First Used:King Henry V, Act IV, Scene iii, Henry to Westmoreland.
“Familiar in his mouth as household words
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember’d.”
Translated: “Five hundred years from now, there won’t be a single man, woman, or child on Earth who doesn’t remember the names Bedford, Talbot, and Exeter. Everyone will know exactly what happened in this war and what’s important about St. Crispin’s Day, especially people who read comedy articles on the internet during their coffee breaks. The reference will not go over their heads in the slightest, for they will recall Salisbury as a brilliant tactician and ingenious statesman, and certainly not as a bland slice of cafeteria meat.”
Where We’d Be Without It: Unable to describe the entries in this list.
Why It’s Un-Believable: Because so few people have the foresight to invent words to describe their own legacy. In fact, other than this phrase, we can only think of one person who invented a word that perfectly captures the sum of their impact on the planet. And even then, not everyone counts “strategery” as a word.

10 Things Your Body Can Do After You Die

Get Married

Death is no obstacle when it comes to love in China. That’s because ghost marriage—the practice of setting up deceased relatives with suitable spouses, dead or alive—is still an option.

Ghost marriage first appeared in Chinese legends 2,000 years ago, and it’s been a staple of the culture ever since. At times, it was a way for spinsters to gain social acceptance after death. At other times, the ceremony honored dead sons by giving them living brides. In both cases, the marriages served a religious function by making the deceased happier in the afterlife.

While the practice of matchmaking for the dead waned during China’s Cultural Revolution in the late 1960s, officials report that ghost marriages are back on the rise. Today, the goal is often to give a deceased bachelor a wife—preferably one who has recently been laid to rest. But in a nation where men outnumber women in death as well as in life, the shortage of corpse brides has led to murder. In 2007, there were two widely reported cases of rural men killing prostitutes, housekeepers, and mentally ill women in order to sell their bodies as ghost wives. Worse, these crimes pay. According to The Washington Post and The London Times, one undertaker buys women’s bodies for more than $2,000 and sells them to prospective “in-laws” for nearly $5,000.


Tour the Globe as a Scandalous Work of Art

Beginning in 1996 with the BODY WORLDS show in Japan, exhibits featuring artfully flayed human bodies have rocked the museum circuit. BODY WORLDS is now in its fourth incarnation, and competing shows, such as Bodies Revealed, are pulling in $30 million per year. The problem is, it’s not always clear where those bodies are coming from.

Dr. Gunther von Hagens, the man behind BODY WORLDS, has documented that his bodies were donated voluntarily to his organization. However, his largest competitor, Premier Entertainment, doesn’t have a well-established donation system. Premier maintains that its cadavers are unclaimed bodies from mainland China. And therein lies the concern. Activists and journalists believe “unclaimed bodies” is a euphemism for “executed political prisoners.”

The fear isn’t unfounded. In 2006, Canada commissioned a human rights report that found Chinese political prisoners were being killed so that their organs could be “donated” to transplant patients. And in February 2008, ABC News ran an exposé featuring a former employee from one of the Chinese companies that supplied corpses to Premier Entertainment. In the interview, he claimed that one-third of the bodies he processed were political prisoners. Not surprisingly, governments have started to take notice. In January 2008, the California State Assembly passed legislation requiring body exhibits to prove that all their corpses were willfully donated.


Become a Soviet Tourist Attraction10 Things Your Body Can Do After You Die

Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin wanted to be buried in his family plot. But when Lenin died in 1924, Joseph Stalin insisted on putting his corpse on public display in Red Square, creating a secular, Communist relic. Consequently, an organization called the Research Institute for Biological Structures was formed to keep Lenin’s body from decay. The Institute was no joke, as some of the Soviet Union’s most brilliant minds spent more than 25 years working and living on site to perfect the Soviet system of corpse preservation. Scientists today still use their method, which involves a carefully controlled climate, a twice-weekly regimen of dusting and lubrication, and semi-annual dips in a secret blend of 11 herbs and chemicals. Unlike bodies, however, fame can’t last forever. The popularity of the tomb is dwindling, and the Russian government is now considering giving Lenin the burial he always wanted.

Unwind with a Few Friends

Today, most of us think of mummies as rare and valuable artifacts, but to the ancient Egyptians, they were as common as iPhones. So, where have all those mummies gone? Basically, they’ve been used up. Europeans and Middle Easterners spent centuries raiding ancient Egyptian tombs and turning the bandaged bodies into cheap commodities. For instance, mummy-based panaceas were once popular as quack medicine. In the 16th century, French King Francis I took a daily pinch of mummy to build strength, sort of like a particularly offensive multivitamin. Other mummies, mainly those of animals, became kindling in homes and steam engines. Meanwhile, human mummies frequently fell victim to Victorian social events. During the late 19th century, it was popular for wealthy families to host mummy-unwrapping parties, where the desecration of the dead was followed by cocktails and hors d’oeuvres.


Fuel a City

Cremating a body uses up a lot of energy—and a lot of nonrenewable resources. So how do you give Grandma the send-off she wanted and protect the planet at the same time? Multitask. Some European crematoriums have figured out a way to replace conventional boilers by harnessing the heat produced in their fires, which can reach temperatures in excess of 1,832 degrees F. In fact, starting in 1997, the Swedish city of Helsingborg used local crematoriums to supply 10 percent of the heat for its homes.


Get Sold, Chop Shop-Style

Selling a stiff has always been a profitable venture. In the Middle Ages, grave robbers scoured cemeteries and sold whatever they could dig up to doctors and scientists. And while the business of selling cadavers and body parts in the United States is certainly cleaner now, it’s no less dubious.

Today, the system runs like this: Willed-body donation programs, often run by universities, match cadavers with the researchers who need them. But because dead bodies and body parts can’t be sold legally, the middlemen who supply these bodies charge large fees for “shipping and handling.” Shipping a full cadaver can bring in as much as $1,000, but if you divvy up a body into its component parts, you can make a fortune. A head can cost as much as $500; a knee, $650; and a disembodied torso, $5,000.

The truth is, there are never enough of these willed bodies to meet demand. And with that kind of money on the mortician’s table, corruption abounds. In the past few years, coroners have been busted stealing corneas, crematorium technicians have been caught lifting heads off bodies before they’re burned, and university employees at body donation programs have been found stealing cadavers. After UCLA’s willed-body program director was arrested for selling body parts in 2004, the State of California recommended outfitting corpses with bar code tattoos or tracking chips, like the kinds injected into dogs and cats. The hope is to make cadavers easier to inventory and track down when they disappear.

Snuggle Up with Your Stalker

When a beautiful young woman named Elena Hoyos died from tuberculosis in Florida in 1931, her life as a misused object of desire began. Her admirer, a local X-ray technician who called himself Count Carl von Cosel, paid for Hoyos to be embalmed and buried in a mausoleum above ground. Then, in 1933, the crafty Count stole Elena’s body and hid it in his home. During the next seven years, he worked to preserve her corpse, replacing her flesh as it decayed with hanger wires, molded wax, and plaster of Paris. He even slept beside Elena’s body in bed—that is, until her family discovered her there. In the ensuing media circus, more than 6,000 people filed through the funeral home to view Elena before she was put to rest. Her family buried her in an unmarked grave so that von Cosel couldn’t find her, but that didn’t stop his obsession. Von Cosel wrote about Elena for pulp fiction magazines and sold postcards of her likeness until he was found dead in his home in 1952. Near his body was a life-size wax dummy made to look just like Elena.
Not Spread an Epidemic

In the aftermath of natural disasters such as tsunamis, floods, and hurricanes, it’s common for the bodies of victims to be buried or burned en masse as soon as possible. Supposedly, this prevents the spread of disease. But according to the World Health Organization (WHO), dead bodies have been getting a bad rap. It turns out that the victims of natural disasters are no more likely to harbor infectious diseases than the general population. Plus, most pathogens can’t survive long in a corpse. Taken together, the WHO says there’s no way that cadavers are to blame for post-disaster outbreaks. So what is? The fault seems to lie with the living or, more specifically, their living conditions. After a disaster, people often end up in crowded refugee camps with poor sanitation. For epidemic diseases, that’s akin to an all-you-can-eat buffet.
Stand Trial

In 897 CE, Pope Stephen VI accused former Pope Formosus of perjury and violation of church canon. The problem was that Pope Formosus had died nine months earlier. Stephen worked around this little detail by exhuming the dead pope’s body, dressing it in full papal regalia, and putting it on trial. He then proceeded to serve as chief prosecutor as he angrily cross-examined the corpse. The spectacle was about as ludicrous as you’d imagine. In fact, Pope Stephen appeared so thoroughly insane that a group of concerned citizens launched a successful assassination plot against him. The next year, one of Pope Stephen’s successors reversed Formosus’ conviction, ordering his body reburied with full honors.

Stave Off Freezer Burn

At cryonics facilities around the globe, the dead aren’t frozen anymore. The reason? Freezer burn. As with steaks and green beans, freezing a human body damages tissues, largely because cells burst as the water in them solidifies and expands. In the early days of cryonics, the theory was that future medical technology would be able to fix this damage, along with curing whatever illness killed the patient in the first place.

Realizing that straight freezing isn’t the best option, today’s scientists have made significant advances in cryonics. Using a process called vitrification, the water in the body is now replaced with an anti-freezing agent. The body is then stored at cold temperatures, but no ice forms. In 2005, researchers vitrified a rabbit kidney and successfully brought it back to complete functionality—a big step in cryonics research. (It may help in organ transplants someday, too.) But science has yet to prove that an entire body can be revived. Even worse, some vitrified bodies have developed large cracks in places where cracks don’t belong. Until those kinks get worked out, the hope of being revived in the future will remain a dream.

Saturday, July 4, 2009

Words Cannot Describe This Tattoo [WTF]

pussy Tattoo

Words Cannot Describe This Tattoo [NSFW]. It`s all fun and games until someone tries to hump her arm... [NSFW means NSFW -- You`ve been warned]

15 Awesome and Creative Inventions

Collection of innovative gadgets and creative concept designs that promise to make our lives more comfortable and exciting.

Two Way Doors
Bottleclip
Laser Guided Scissors
Staircase Drawers
K-wine Food Plates
Zipper Earphones
Node Power Outlet
Coffee Top Caddy
Ketchup Gun
Weight Watch Belt
Laser Bike Lane
The Rolling Bench
Carpet Alarm Clock
Bundle Box Coffee Bag
Pizza Scissors