Beard and Moustache Championships 2010

The European Beard and Moustache Championships 2010 in Leogang, Austria town hosts European beard contest - 'Full natural' and 'freestyle' were among the categories that had hirsute types primping, preening - and even blow-drying - their facial tresses for a stab at the top title in the weekend's European Beard and Moustache Championship.

Attracting around 150 proud beard and moustache owners from eight countries, the whiskery face-off took place in the Austrian town of Leogang.

According to reports, the event's only hairy moment (so to speak) happened when a losing Italian team tried to get the competition declared void, claiming their country invented the 'sport' in the 1970s and refusing to recognise new rules.

Men with beards and big moustaches look very manly and this sort of squabbling is unbecoming in men of hair,' remarked one wise official amid the furore.

Austria's beardy bonanza follows a distinctly more 'buzzing' tournament across the pond.

At Ontario's recent Clovermead Bees & Honey Bee Beard Competition , Tibor Szabo emerged triumphant while the losers were left feeling a bit stung (sorry).

In case the concept passed you by, the competition requires entrants to 'grow' a beard by placing a queen bee in a small cage underneath their chin, attracting the worker bees.

























Source : AFP

World's Smallest Apartment on Sale in Rome

World's Smallest Apartment on Sale in Rome - A former porter's closet measuring five square metres (55 sq ft) has gone on the market in Rome at £43,000. The property, which is being described as the world's smallest apartment, lies in the heart of the Italian capital, which has become of the world's most expensive cities for property, but is barely large enough to contain a single bed.

The owner of the bijou property says he has been inundated with queries since putting it on the market a few days ago.

Presented as a "compact bedsit", it is located on Piazza di Sant' Ignazio, a picturesque square overlooked by an enormous Renaissance church.

One report described it as "little bigger than a wigwam" while Il Giornale, a daily newspaper, commented: "In Rome, people now live like rats".

The flat consists of a ground floor bathroom with a shower, sink and lavatory and a ladder leading to a sleeping platform just big enough for a single bed. There is a single window, but to open it you have to climb over the bed.

It lies just behind Palazzo Grazioli, the imposing mansion which is rented by Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister, as his private residence in the capital.

World's Largest Pot of Bortsch Soup Recipe

A Russian chef bortsch recipes in a huge-sized pot during an international agricultural exhibition on the outskirts of Kiev, capital of Ukraine, on Oct. 2, 2010. By putting 250 kilograms of cabbages, 90 kilograms of onions, 80 kilograms of carrots, 140 kilograms of beans and 27 kilograms of salt into a 5,000-liter soup pot, chefs finally created 4,000 liters of "borscht", setting a new world record.

[borscht] ingredient It usually contains beet, which gives it a strong red color. Other typical additional ingredients, depending on preparation, Non vegetarian are vegetarian (beans, cabbage, carrots, cucumbers, potatoes, onions or tomatoes), the mushrooms and meat (chicken, pork or beef).

It is commonly accepted that the borscht is originally from Ukraine, but part of the local culinary heritage of many countries of eastern and central Europe. The soup is called barščiai in Lithuania, barszcz in Poland, borscht (Борщ) in Russia and Ukraine and bors in Romania.

There are two kinds of barszcz : white (Bialy) and red (Czerwony); it is prepared from sugar beet and is one of twelve traditional dishes from the table on Christmas Eve Polish.

Hair Washing And Massaging Robot

A HAIR washing robot that uses 3D imaging to map and "remember" a person's head for the perfect rinse has been unveiled.

The hi-tech device - designed to cater for Japan's growing elderly population - was built by electronics giant Panasonic.

The machine - which resembles a dentist's chair with a wash basin - performs a 3D scan, measuring and recording the exact shape of the head, in order to apply the ideal amount of pressure when it uses its 16 rubber fingers to wash the hair.

The prototype was shown off at the 37th International Home Care and Rehabilitation exhibition in Tokyo yesterday.

Panasonic said they created the robot to meet the needs of under-pressure workers at hospitals and healthcare facilities as Japan's "silver generation" continues to grow.

The firm added: "With 16 fingers, the robot washes hair and rinses the shampoo bubbles with the dexterity of human fingers.

"The robot's two arms scan the head three dimensionally as they move and measure and remember the head shape to apply just the right amount of pressure to each person when shampooing and massaging."

Source : The Sun

BBC Boat Made From Ice And Wood Pulp

Bid by BBC presenters to sail boat made of ice fails after ship melts When ideas are left on the drawing board, it is often with good reason.

But that didn’t stop the BBC testing out one of the craziest proposals of the Second World War...a boat made from ice and wood pulp.

Maverick inventor Geoffrey Pyke claimed his five and a half ton craft would both save on steel and be impossible to sink.

Yet a mock-up of his brainchild took on water and melted within minutes of its launch in Portsmouth harbour yesterday.

Experts said that the experiment for science show Bang Goes The Theory probably failed because the boat was too small, and so less resistant to melting, and because the water they tested in was far warmer than the Atlantic - where the invention was designed to be used.

The crew abandon ship as the ice vessel begins to capsize as the ice quickly began to melt

In the event of steel stocks running out in the 1940s inventor Geoffrey Pyke suggested it was possible to make an unsinkable aircraft carrier using a material called Pykrete, made of both ice and wood pulp.

The bizarre mixture could be moulded into any shape and, with a slow melting rate, it was thought perfect for seafaring vessels.

The BBC decided to put Pyke's theory to the test by mixing 5,000 litres of water with the hefty material hemp and freezing it in a 20 feet-long boat-shaped mould.

It took three weeks to freeze it in one of the UK's largest ice warehouses, in Tilbury, Essex, before it was ready for launch in Gosport, Hants.

The team made it in to Portsmouth Harbour where they were saluted by members of the navy stationed on destroyer HMS Diamond.

But shortly after that, after just over an hour in the water, it began to take on water and capsized.

Four BBC presenters, who had hoped to make it all the way to Cowes on the Isle of Wight, had to abandon ship and swim to rescue craft.

Lynette Slight, of the BBC science show, said: ‘They had just got out of the marina when it began to sink.

The BBC decided to put Pyke's theory to the test by mixing 5,000 litres of water with hemp and freezing it in a 20 feet-long boat-shaped mould

It was all a little bit strange. I don’t think they realised what would happen. In the end it just tipped upside down. It was taking on too much water at the back and the engine became too low.’

Jon Edwards at the Royal Society of Chemistry said 'It’s hardly a surprise that the boat sank – the temperature in the Solent is probably a fair bit higher than the middle of the Atlantic, where Pyke designed his material to be used.

'He also used enormous cooling units to keep the pykrete in his tests below zero degrees centigrade. If they didn’t use those refrigerators, the intrepid ice-sailors from Bang never stood a chance.'

He added: 'The size of the boat may have added to their problems, too. A huge aircraft carrier, as Pyke envisioned, would have been more resistant to melting – a larger surface area of ice requires a lot more energy to start melting, so the non-surface ice stays cooler for longer.

'A 1000-ton test boat, built out of normal ice on a lake in the Rockies, lasted a whole summer.'

And an Institute of Physics spokesperson said: 'The surface to volume ratio will have been the key to success.

'If too much of the surface of the ice was exposed directly to the water, or if the volume of ice set to melt was not calculated accurately enough, then unfortunately it was always doomed to failure.'

The plan was to sail the boat, complete with outboard, to Cowes in the Isle of Wight with the show's presenters, Jem Stansfield, Liz Bonnin, Dallas Campbell and Dr Yan Wong, on board.

The Ice Boat is readied for action at Gosport Marina, Hants before it began to go wrong

All four presenters had to be rescued from the water and the boat, which seemed to melt beyond recognition in no time at all, had to be towed to shore.

Lynette Slight, production coordinator of the show, said: 'They had just got out of the marina when it began to sink.

'It was all a little bit strange. I don't think they realised what was going to happen. In the end it just tipped upside down.

'It was taking on too much water at the back and the engine became too low. They thought they could get it to Cowes - they couldn't, but you never know until you try it.'

Giles Harrison, director of the show, blamed the failure on a fault, which meant water poured into the vessel sooner than expected.

He said: 'There are a couple of reasons why we did it. There was the proposal in the Second World War, when they were running low on steel to use ice with wood pulp in it.

'It was an idea taken quite seriously, until the war ended and it was forgotten. We were essentially using that concept to see how composite materials work.

'We did anticipate that something would go wrong but we hoped to get further out than we did.

'I think we've proved that Pykrete works but it is unstable.'

Bang Goes The Theory is on BBC1 at 7.30pm on Wednesday evenings. The ice boat stunt will appear on October 13.





Source : BBC News

Penguin Wedding

Club Penguin Wedding react during a collective wedding ceremony organised by Dalian Sun Asia Polar Ocean Park in Dalian, northeast China's Liaoning Province, Oct. 1, 2010. The park threw a wedding for 4 pairs of penguins that were born in the park







Source : News Xinhuanet

Moeraki Boulders

The Moeraki Boulders are unusually large and spherical boulders lying along a stretch of Koekohe Beach on the wave cut Otago coast of New Zealand between Moeraki and Hampden. They occur scattered either as isolated or clusters of boulders within a stretch of beach where they have been protected in a scientific reserve. The erosion by wave action of mudstone, comprising local bedrock and landslides, frequently exposes embedded isolated boulders. These boulders are grey-colored septarian concretions, which have been exhumed from the mudstone enclosing them and concentrated on the beach by coastal erosion.

Local Māori legends explained the boulders as the remains of eel baskets, calabashes, and kumara washed ashore from the wreck of an Arai-te-uru, a large sailing canoe. This legend tells of the rocky shoals that extend seaward from Shag Point as being the petrified hull of this wreck and a nearby rocky promontory as being the body of the canoe's captain. In 1848 W.B.D. Mantell sketched the beach and its boulders, more numerous than now. The picture is now in the Alexander Turnbull Library in Wellington. The boulders were described in 1850 colonial reports and numerous popular articles since that time. In more recent times they have become a popular tourist attraction, often described and pictured in numerous web pages and tourist guides.

Two Legged Pig

A Two Legged Pig which can walk on two legs has become a local celebrity in China. The 10-month-old porker is known by villagers as "Zhu Jianqiang" (Strong-willed Pig) after it was born with only two front legs and learned to balance on them well enough to walk.

According to its owner, Wang Xihai, it was one of nine piglets born in a litter this January.

He said: "My wife asked me to dump it but I refused as it's a life. I thought I should give it a chance to survive and unexpectedly it survived healthy."

Several days after its birth Wang decided to train the two-legged piglet to walk by lifting it up by its tail.

He said: "I trained her for a while each day. After 30 days she can now walk upside down quite well."

Wang said since the birth of the pig, which currently weighs 50kg (110lbs), his home has been besieged by visitors.

A circus even offered to buy for the pig for a large sum but Wang refused to sell.

He said "She proved to us that no matter what form life is it should continue to live on. I won't sell it no matter how much the offer is."

Bacon Kevin Bacon Statue

Kevin Bacon sculpture made out of bacon J&D Foods, a US company specialising in bacon products, has commissioned an artist to create a life-sized bust of actor Kevin Bacon out of bacon.

The piece -- which took three months to make -- is called Bacon Kevin Bacon and comprises of a Styrofoam core covered in dried “bacon bits” a bacon-based crunchy salad topping. These were glued onto the bust and varnished to ensure longevity. It measures around 60 centimetres high and sits atop a marble base.

J&D Foods’ co-owner Justin Esch told AOL: "It should be in art gallery somewhere, but it would also look nice on a coffee table. I think it'll tie together any room nicely. Bacon makes everything better, including art."

Artist Mike Lahue created the artwork, which is due to be auctioned on eBay this week for charity Ashley’s Team, a non-profit organisation that helps children with cancer and their families. The charity was set up in J&D Foods co-owner Dave Lefkow’s daughter’s name. Four-year-old Ashley was diagnosed with leukaemia last year. The auction starts today and continues for 10 days.

The eBay ad advises that Bacon Kevin Bacon is not edible. The sculpture has been lacquered to ensure that the buyer doesn’t have a revolting piece of rotting meat on their hands.

According the auction page: “Owning Bacon Kevin Bacon will automatically make you the coolest person you will ever know, a champion of the underground meat sculpture movement and honestly should really tie any room together nicely. After all, bacon does make everything better.”

J&D Foods is responsible for a range of bacon-related novelties, including bacon-flavoured salt, lip-balm and mayonnaise (aka “Baconnaise”). It also created MMMvelopes, which taste like bacon when the seal is liked. The company partnered with Seattle-based bacon-crafting creative shop What Do Bacon Do? for the project.

According to the AOL report, J&D Foods obtained direct permission from Bacon to use his likeness to raise funds.









Source : Gizmodo

Real Life Pac-Man Discovered

Deviant Artist Kalapusa, best known for his Piranha Plant garden sculpture, is back at it, this time with a lifelike Pac-Man sculpture. As you can see, Pac isn't nearly as adorable when rendered in more than 8-bits, which is exactly why you should never make love to Ms. Pac-Man

has created a “realistic” yet very alien version of Pac-Man.





Source : Geekologie

Worlds Tallest Sand Sculpture

Worlds Tallest Sand Sculpture Officials from the Guinness World Records can be seen measuring the height of a sand sculptures in Zhoushan city in east China’s Zhejiang featuring a Nigerian tale on how a hummingbird become the king of all animals.

The 22.43-meter-tall sculpture was recognized to be the world’s tallest sand sculpture. Over 20 artists spent 75 days building it.

The former record holding sculpture was 20.91 meters tall.

The sand sculpture festival has attracted talents from home and abroad to create scenes on the theme of a trip to Africa.











Source : Faded Tribune