Abstract painting found in trash sells for $1M

NEW YORK - An abstract masterpiece by a Mexican artist that was found in the trash by a woman who knew little about modern art has been sold for more than $1 million.

The painting "Tres Personajes" by Rufino Tamayo was discovered in 2003 by Elizabeth Gibson, who spotted it on her morning walk on Manhattan's Upper West Side. She said she took it home because "even though I didn't understand it, I knew it had power."

The brightly colored abstract work was purchased for $1,049,000 by an unidentified private American collector bidding by phone at Sotheby's Latin American Art sale Tuesday night.

Gibson spent four years trying to find out about the painting, finally discovering on the "Antiques Roadshow" Web site that it had been featured on the popular PBS program and described as a missing masterpiece stolen in 1989.

Gibson has received a $15,000 reward for turning in "Tres Personajes" and also will get a percentage of the sale price.

Painted in 1970, "Tres Personajes" was purchased by a Houston collector for $55,000 as a gift for his wife at a Sotheby's auction in 1977. Ten years later, as the couple was moving to a new home, it was stolen from storage.

The husband has since died, and the widow, who wished to remain anonymous, decided to sell it.

Tamayo was born in 1899 and died in 1991. His early work has similarities to that of famed 20th century muralist Diego Rivera. His later work features the vivid colors and expressions of his native state of Oaxaca. - AP

Giant Fossil Sea Scorpion Discovered

The discovery of a giant fossilised claw from an ancient sea scorpion indicates that when alive it would have been about two and a half meters long, much taller than the average man.


This find, from rocks 390 million years old, suggests that spiders, insects, crabs and similar creatures were much larger in the past than previously thought.

The claw was discovered by Markus Poschmann, in a quarry near Prüm in Germany.

The claw is from a sea scorpion (eurypterid) Jaekelopterus rhenaniae that lived between 460 and 255 million years ago. It is 46 centimetres long, indicating that the sea scorpion to which it belonged was around 2.5 metres (8 feet) long – almost half a metre longer than previous estimates for these arthropods and the largest one ever to have evolved.


Eurypterids are believed to be the extinct aquatic ancestors of scorpions and possibly all arachnids.

Some geologists believe that giant arthropods evolved due to higher levels of oxygen in the atmosphere in the past. Others, that they evolved in an 'arms race' alongside their likely prey, the early armoured fish.

Pangrams

Are you familiar with the phrase "A quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog?" It's a sentence which contains all the letters of the alphabet. This is called a Pangram from the Greek words "pan gramma", every letter. Pangrams are used to display typefaces and test equipments. For example, the pangram The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog was utilized by Western Union to test Telex/TWX data communication equipment for accuracy and reliability. It actually is the most well known pangram. Those phrases which contain all the letters of the alphabet exactly once are called perfect pangrams. Forming these type of pangrams are very difficult to achieve.

In the 1980s Michael Jones submitted two pangrams to Guinness: "Veldt jynx grimps waqf zho buck" and "Qursh gowf veldt jynx zimb pack." Guinness chose the first one. Michael writes that the second pangram "describes a scene where some Arabian coins are striking a group of flies gathered on that woodpecker. The two pangrams are formed using the alphabets only once, and without proper nouns, acronyms and abbreviations.

Here are examples of the other type of perfect pangrams which uses proper nouns, punctuation symbols and abbreviations.

Blowzy night-frumps vex'd Jack Q.
Glum Schwartzkopf vex'd by NJ IQ.
New job: fix Mr. Gluck's hazy TV, PDQ!
Frowzy things plumb vex'd Jack Q.
J. Q. Vandz struck my big fox whelp.

Here are other examples of pangrams:

Quit beer," vows dizzy, puking, Michael J. Fox (by Idris Mercer)
A large fawn jumped quickly over white zinc boxes.
A mad boxer shot a quick, gloved jab to the jaw of his dizzy opponent.
A popular belief is that fornication would be a quick fix for some overzealously judicious governments.
A quart jar of oil mixed with zinc oxide makes a very bright paint.
A quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
A quick movement of the enemy will jeopardize six gunboats.
A very bad quack might jinx zippy fowls. 32
About sixty codfish eggs will make a quarter pound of very fizzy jelly.
Alfredo just must bring very exciting news to the plaza quickly.
All questions asked by five watch experts amazed the judge.
Amazingly few discotheques provide jukeboxes (40)
An inspired calligrapher can create pages of beauty using stick ink, quill, brush, pick-axe, buzz saw, or even strawberry jam.
Anxious Paul waved back his pa from the zinc quarry just sighted.
As we explored the gulf of Zanzibar, we quickly moved closer to the jutting rocks.
Astronaut Quincy B. Zack defies gravity with six jet fuel pumps.
Back in June we delivered oxygen equipment of the same size.
Back in my quaint garden, jaunty zinnias vie with flaunting phlox.
Ban foul, toxic smogs which quickly jeopardize lives.
Barkeep! A flaming tequila swizzle and a vodka and Ajax, hold the cherry.
Baroque? Hell, just mix a dozen wacky pi fonts & you've got it.
Bawds jog, flick quartz, vex nymph. 27 (by Sir Jeremy Morse)
Big July earthquakes confound zany experimental vow.
Blowzy frights vex, and jump quick. (28)
Blowzy night-frumps vex'd Jack Q. 26
Blowzy red vixens fight for a quick jump.
Boy, Max felt hazy during his quick weaving jumps!
Boys of quartz duck phlegm, vow jinx. (29)
Brawny gods just flocked up to quiz and vex him.
Breezily jingling $3,416,857,209, wise advertiser ambles to the bank, his exchequer amplified.
Brick quiz whangs jumpy veldt fox.
By Jove, my quick study of lexicography won a prize.
Campus TV quiz: just why is gold buried at Fort Knox? [Games For Insomniacs (1966) by John G. Fuller]
Cozy lummox gives smart squid who asks for job pen. (41)
Cozy sphinx waves quart jug of bad milk. (32)
Crazy Fredericka bought many very exquisite opal jewels. 48
Crux: Why joking TV blazes FM PDQ? (26) (by Toby Gottfried, 2005)
Cwm kvutza qoph jynx fled brigs. (by Greg and Peter Maggs)
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz 26 (by Dmitri Borgmann)
Dangerously frozen, he quickly judged his extremities to be waterproof.
Doxy with charming buzz quaffs vodka julep.
Dr. Jekyll vows to finish zapping quixotic bum (by Idris Mercer)
Dub waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex. 28
Dumpy kibitzer jingles as exchequer overflows.
Ebenezer unexpectedly bagged two tranquil aardvarks with his jiffy vacuum cleaner.
Emily Q. Jung-Schwartzkopf XV, B.D. (26)
Exquisite farm wench gives body jolt to prize stinker.
Exquisite wizard flock behaving jumpy (by Idris Mercer)
Fabled reader with jaded, roving eye seized by quickened impulse to expand budget.
Few quips galvanized the mock jury box. (32)
Five big quacking zephyrs jolt my wax bed.
Five jumbo oxen graze quietly with packs of dogs.
Five or six big jet planes zoomed quickly by the tower.
Five wine experts jokingly quizzed chablis sample.
Fjord-buck zags whelm qvint pyx. (26) (by Dmitri Borgmann)

3-Year old solves Rubik's cube

I don't know if this is really a 3-year old kid or just a Rubik's cube genius midget. You be the judge...


3 Year Old Solves Rubiks In 114 Seconds - Click here for more free videos

Top 10 Weird Anomalies in Medicine

Great Blunders 2!

In 1894, the president of the Royal Society, Lord Kelvin, predicted that radio had no future. The first radio factory was opened five years later. He also predicted that heavier-than-air flying machines were impossible. Today, there are more than one billion radio sets in the world, tuned to more than 33 000 radio stations around the world. The Wright Brother's first flight covered a distance equal to only half the length of the wingspan of a Boeing 747.

In the 6th century BC Greek mathematician Pythagoras said that earth is round - but few agreed with him. Greek astronomer Aristarchos said in the 3rd century BC that earth revolves around the sun - but the idea was not accepted. In the 2nd century BC Greek astronomer Erastosthenes accurately measured the distance around the earth at about 40,000 km (24,860 miles) - but nobody believed him. In the 2nd century AD Greek astronomer Ptolemy stated that earth was the centre of the universe - most people believed him for the next 1,400 years.

In the early 20th century a world market for only 4 million automobiles was made because "the world would run out of chauffeurs." Shortly after the end of World War II (1945), the whole of Volkswagen, factory and patents, was offered free to Henry Ford II. He dismissed the Volkswagen Beetle as a bad design. Today, more than 70 million motorcars are produced every year. The Beetle became one of the best-selling vehicles of all time.

The telephone was not widely appreciated for the first 15 years because people did not see a use for it. In fact, in the British parliament it was mentioned there was no need for telephones because "we have enough messengers here." Western Union believed that it could never replace the telegraph. In 1876, an internal memo read: "This telephone has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication." Even Mark Twain, upon being invited by Alexander Graham Bell to invest $5 000 in the new invention, could not see a future in the telephone.

Irish scientist, Dr. Dionysius Lardner (1793 - 1859) didn't believe that trains could contribute much in speedy transport. He wrote: "Rail travel at high speed is not possible, because passengers ' would die of asphyxia' [suffocation]." Today, trains reach speeds of 500 km/h.

In 1943, Thomas Watson, the chairman of IBM forecast a world market for "maybe only five computers." Years before IBM launched the personal computer in 1981, Xerox had already successfully designed and used PCs internally... but decided to concentrate on the production of photocopiers.

After the invention of the transistor in 1947, several US electronics companies rejected the idea of a portable radio. Apparently it was thought nobody would want to carry a radio around. When Bell put the transistor on the market in 1952 they had few takers apart from a small japanese start-up called Sony. They introduced the transistor radio in 1954.

In 1894, A.A. Michelson, who with E.W. Morley seven years earlier experimentally demonstrated the constancy of the speed of light, said that the future of science would consist of "adding a few decimal places to the results already obtained."

Perhaps the guy who got it wrong most was the commissioner of the US Office of Patents: in 1899, Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, assured President McKinley that "everything that can be invented has been invented."

Strange way to play a piano...

Just you wondering how amazing the guy playing the piano with balls in the last post, watch the complete act.

Crazy Skills

Watch and be amazed!

A Dove Film

This commercial is AWESOME!!!

Strange History

In 200 BC, when the Greek city of Sparta was at the height of its power there were 20 slaves for every citizen.

The first-known contraceptive was crocodile dung and was used by the Egyptians in 2000 BC.

The Hundred Year War actually lasted for 116 years – from 1337 to 1453.

The shortest war there has ever been was between Britain and Zanzibar during 1896. It lasted for a pathetic 38 minutes.

Everyone in the Middle Ages believed -- as Aristotle had -- that the heart was the seat of intelligence.

Fourteenth century physicians didn't know what caused the plague, but they knew it was contagious. As a result they wore an early kind of bioprotective suit which included a large beaked head piece. The beak of the head piece, which made them look like large birds, was filled with vinegar, sweet oils and other strong smelling compounds to counteract the stench of the dead and dying plague victims.

In England and the American colonies they year 1752 only had 354 days. In that year, the type of calendar was changed, and 11 days were lost.

The condom was invented in the early 1500's, and was originally made of linen.

In the Great Fire of London in 1666 half of London was burnt down but only 6 people were injured.

It has been calculated that in the last 3,500 years, there have only been 230 years of peace throughout the civilized world.

At the height of inflation in Germany in the early 1920s, one U.S. dollar was equal to 4 quintillion German marks.

In 1778, fashionable women of Paris never went out in blustery weather without a lightning rod attached to their hats.

During the time of Peter the Great, any Russian man who wore a beard was required to pay a special tax.

In 1892, Italy raised the minimum age for marriage for girls to 12.

Ancient Egyptians shaved off their eyebrows to mourn the death of their cats.

In ancient Rome, a runaway slave was considered a criminal because he had stolen himself!

Roman women especially enjoyed when their husbands went to war against Germany because the naturally-blond hair of Germans captured in battle would be used to make wigs!

According to Juvenal, the streets of Rome were so noisy that people living near them would die from lack of sleep!

The punishment of a Vestal Virgin who broke her oath of chastity was to be buried alive!

In early Rome, a father could legally execute any member of his household!

In May 1948, Mt Ruapehu and Mt Ngauruhoe, both in New Zealand, erupted simultaneously.