The Most Expensive Cell Phone

The Le Million by GoldVish is the Most Expensive Cellular Phone in the world and is also the Most Exclusive according to the Guinness World of Record. It was bought by a Russian businessman for his wife for 1 million Euros. The cell phone is made of 18-carat white gold, mounted with 120-carats of VVS-1 graded diamond. It was designed by Emmanuel Gueit.


It's features are not out the ordinary. Not so James Bond gadget if you may - a worldwide FM radio, camera/video recording with 8x zoom including MMS, EDGE/GPRS, bluetooth, Quad band and 2-Gig memory.

It is guaranteed of limited production of only three pieces.

The most viewed video on Youtube

Ubelievable! The most viewed video on Youtube is a dance. No special tricks, no weird skills, no odditties whatsoever, just plain creatively performed dance. I just wonder how this fellow attracted so many visitors.

As of this post, it was already viewed 72,813,265 times, commented 105,280 and favorited 359,076 times.

Suicidal plant discovered

Botanists are marveling at the discovery of a towering palm tree on Madagascar that essentially flowers itself to death.

The palm has a huge trunk that reaches a whopping 59 feet (18 meters) in height and is topped by fan leaves 16 feet (5 meters) in diameter. The tree is the most massive palm ever found on the richly diverse island and one of the largest known flowering plants — the trees can even be spotted on Google Earth.

Hundreds of tiny flowers that burst from the treetop are pollinated by insects and birds and develop into fruit. As soon as the tree fruits, its nutrient reserves are depleted and the entire tree topples and dies.

World's first oil paintings in Afghan caves - expert

TOKYO -- Forget Renaissance Europe. The world's first oil paintings go back nearly 14 centuries to murals in Afghanistan's Bamiyan caves, a Japanese researcher says.

Buddhist images painted in the central Afghan region, dated to around 650 AD, are the earliest examples of oil used in art history, says Yoko Taniguchi, an expert at Japan's National Research Institute for Cultural Properties.

A group of Japanese, European and US scientists are collaborating to restore damaged murals in caves in the Bamiyan Valley, famous for its two gigantic statues of the Buddha which were destroyed by the Taliban in 2001.

In the murals, thousands of Buddhas in vermilion robes sit cross-legged, sporting exquisitely knotted hair.

Other motifs show crouching monkeys, men facing one another or palm leaves delicately intertwined with mythical creatures.

The paintings incorporate a mix of Indian and Chinese influences, and are most likely to be the works of artists traveling on the Silk Road, which was the largest trade and cultural route connecting the East and the West.

The Los Angeles-based Getty Conservation Institute analyzed 53 samples extracted from the murals. Using gas chromatography methods, the researchers found that 19 had oil in the paint.

"Different types of oil were used on the dirt walls with such a sophisticated technique that I felt I was looking right at a medieval board painting dating from 14th or 15th century Italy," Taniguchi told Agence France-Presse.

The discovery would reverse common perceptions about the origins of oil paintings.

The technique is widely believed to have emerged in Europe leading into the Renaissance, which flowered from 1400 to 1600.

Italian artist and architect Giorgio Vasari first wrote of oil painting in his book, "The Lives of the Artists," in the mid-16th century.

Art historians, however, argue that 15th-century Flemish painter Jan van Eyck may have known of the technique because he had developed a stable varnish, although he kept it secret until his death.

"It was very impressive to discover that such advanced methods were used in murals in central Asia," Taniguchi said.

"My European colleagues were shocked because they always believed oil paintings were invented in Europe. They couldn't believe such techniques could exist in some Buddhist cave deep in the countryside," she added.

Painters of the Buddhist murals used organic substances -- including natural resin, plant gum, dry oil and animal protein -- as a binder, which even today is an important element in paint.

A binder keeps pigment particles together in a cohesive film and allows the paint to resist decay.

The researchers are trying to restore the murals amid international efforts to salvage what is left of Bamiyan.

The Taliban, ignoring global protests, dynamited the two 1,500-year-old statues, the world's biggest representations of the Buddha, in March 2001, branding them un-Islamic idolatry.

The regime was ousted later that year in a US-led military campaign after the September 11 attacks on the United States.

Although oil was used in ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome, there currently exist no examples of their use in painting. The oil was used for medicine, cosmetics or to coat boats, Taniguchi said.

Taniguchi hopes the advanced techniques used to analyze the murals would be put to use in ruins of other ancient civilizations.

Other early civilizations, including those in current-day Iran, China, Turkey, Pakistan and India may have used similar techniques as well but their ruins have not been subject to advanced, extensive research, she said.

"In analyzing old murals throughout Europe and Central Asia, I look forward to throwing light on the roots of oil paintings," she said.

Salmonella outbreak linked to pet turtles

Parents should now be aware that pet turtles are not to be meddled with. Because these small pets are now the growing concern of health officials linking them for the rise of Salmonella infections in young children. This has led to the hospitalization of more than a dozen of kids. The infection is spread from contact with the turtles, but the contact doesn't have to be direct because the virus can live on surfaces for weeks. Children tend to handle these turtles a great deal. Their fingers come into contact with all the material on the turtle and in the water. Then, there is finger-to-mouth contact, and they acquire the infection.

Gastrointestinal symptoms such as vomiting and diarrhea, caused by the bacteria, typically begin 12 to 36 hours after exposure and generally last for two to seven days

The number of purchases for these animals has been increasing despite the ban since 1975.

SpaceShipTwo, Unveiled

The ultimate tourist spot for the rich and famous is almost within reach. The new model of Spaceship Two has been unveiled by designer Burt Rutan and billionaire Richard Branson. The new spacecraft is planned to ferry passengers on suborbital joyrides. Also included in the presentation is WhiteKnightTwo, a 4-engine jet that will carry SpaceshipTwo in its midair launch. The passengers, as many as six, would get about 4.5 minutes of zero-gravity time as they could unbuckle themselves and experience weightlessness and an unparalleled view before gliding back to Earth.

"Breathtakingly beautiful," was Branson's assessment of the ship, which is now under construction at a hangar in the Mojave Desert and which may begin test flights as soon as this year.

WhiteKightTwo and SpaceShipTwo

Will Whitehorn, president of Branson's space tourism company, Virgin Galactic, insisted the project is on course. Construction on the White Knight Two is already more than 70 percent complete, he said. SpaceShipTwo is about 60 percent complete, and the company and Rutan's aerospace outfit, Scaled Composites, hope to begin test flights this summer.

About 200 prospective passengers from 30 countries have made reservations, shelling out $200,000 (U.S.) apiece. Many were in attendance for Wednesday's presentation.

The Flight Plan

Burglar finds corpse, Calls police

BERLIN (Reuters) - A Berlin burglar's break-in took an unexpected turn when he stumbled upon a corpse and felt compelled to call the police.

"He called to say he'd just broken into a flat and found a dead body," said a spokeswoman for Berlin police Thursday. "He gave the address of the place and then hung up."

Officers discovered the 64-year-old resident of the flat dead in his bedroom. The man had passed away about two weeks ago, and authorities are not treating the death as suspicious.

The burglar has not been heard of since. Local media said he fled the apartment empty-handed, but police could not confirm this.

Misprint Sends Caller to Sex Service

CALVERT, Md. (AP) - A Cecil County man who phoned the governor's office with an opinion about the mortgage foreclosure debate realized he wasn't talking to a secretary when the woman who answered greeted him with a "Hi, sexy."

Pete Pritchard of Calvert discovered the number for the governor's office is misprinted in the latest edition of the Armstrong Telephone Co. phone book. The printed number connects with a phone sex service.

The previous edition had the same mistake. Pritchard wonders if he's the first person in two years that ever called the governor's office by using that directory.

An Armstrong executive said the directory information comes from a third party source not controlled by the company. He said the error will be addressed in a message included with February bills.

Couple with 99 grandchildren possibly record holders

Hans and Josie Schaffer of Bedford, United Kingdom are possibly world record holders, now that they have a total of 99 grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

The pensioners spend most of the year saving for Christmas gifts. Their eleven children have brought them 56 grandchildren and 43 great-grandchildren.

"The kids just kept coming – and then their kids just kept coming," said Josie, 77, to the Sun newspaper.

Husband Hans was a prisoner of war in World War II, and went to work as a farmer for Josie's family. Now 85, they're about to celebrate their 60th anniversary.

While there is no existing record with Guinness for alive couples with the most grandchildren, Guinness World Records authorities say the couple very well might hold the record.

Glasgow resident Margaret McMillan had 123 grandchildren, but died last year at 98. It wasn't until her funeral that the number, which included 15 great-great-grandchildren, was established by the family.

Source: http://www.wikinews.org

Boomerang returns after 25 years

BRISBANE, Australia - Boomerangs really do come back - even after 25 years. Officials in an Australian Outback town were surprised when a boomerang - an angled throwing stick traditionally used by Aborigines as a hunting weapon - arrived in the post.

Along with it was a note from a guilt-ridden American who said he stole it years earlier from a museum in the mining town of Mount Isa, and now felt rotten about it.

"I removed this back in 1983 when I was younger and dumber," said the note, according to Mount Isa Mayor Ron McCullough. "It was the wrong thing to do, I'm sorry, and I'm going to send it back," said the note.

The boomerang was stolen from the now-closed Frank Aston Underground Museum , which once displayed old mining equipment and Aboriginal artifacts.

McCullough on Thursday named the contrite thief as Peter from Vermont, but said it would be unfair to release his full identity.

McCullough said the parcel was sent to the location of the old museum, now a paper manufacturing plant and community center, and was then handed to the Mount Isa council. He declined to reveal the value of the donation.

McCullough said the boomerang would be returned to its rightful owner, if he could be found.

Boomerangs come in returning and non-returning varieties. A typical returning boomerang, when thrown properly, can travel between 25 to 50 yards in the air before returning to the thrower.

Sex toy triggers bomb scare

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - A Swedish bomb squad called out to disarm a suspicious package on Wednesday did not find a ticking bomb. But they did find a vibrating sex toy.

A janitor alerted police after he found the package in a garage of an apartment building in Goteborg, the country's second-largest city, police spokesman Jan Strannegard said.

The package was humming and vibrating suspiciously, so police took no chances and sent out a team of explosives experts. After having cordoned off the area, they opened the package with bomb disposal equipment, only to find the battery-operated device inside.

"The package was vibrating when the janitor found it, but I think it had sort of died out by the time it was disarmed," Strannegard said. - AP

A Hipo-size Rodent Discovered

A 1-tonne rodent has been discovered by scientists in Uruguay. But there is no need to worry, Josephoartigasia monesi is around 2 million years old and fossilised.

J. monesi's skull, a whopping 53 centimetres long, was discovered in a broken boulder on the coast of Uruguay by Andrés Rinderknecht of the National Museum of Natural History and Anthropology, and Ernesto Blanco of the Institute of Physics, both in Montevideo.

By comparing the skull's dimensions to the body sizes of existing rodents, the researchers determined that its owner probably weighed about 1000 kilogrammes, making it the world's largest known rodent.

However, unlike today's rodents, the relatively small size of the animal's teeth suggests it did not have a great deal of chewing power and might have fed on soft vegetables and fruit.

The discovery displaces Phoberomys pattersoni, a 700 kg cousin of the guinea pig that roamed the Orinoco delta in Northern Venezuela some 8 million years ago. When a nearly intact P. patersoni skeleton was described in 2003, its size was compared to that of a cow and it was hailed as the world's largest rodent.

"There no doubt whatsoever that this was a huge and exceptional animal because of its size," says Marcelo Sánchez of the University of Zurich, Switzerland, who discovered the P. patersoni skeleton.

Sánchez says that while the latest discovery is "incredible", it is only a matter of time before another, larger rodent is unearthed. This is because South America saw a huge explosion in the diversity of rodents after the continent split from North America and became an island some 65 million years ago. Dinosaurs had just been wiped out and many animal groups were filling the void they left behind.

Without competition from other mammals which were diversifying on the other side of the water in North America, rodents of all sizes emerged in South America.

Just one giant species remains today of the rodent explosion: a 50 kg guinea pig known as the capybara which lives in much of South America and is the largest living rodent.

Pearls found in dinner plates!

It's raining pearls at dinner plates.

Last month, a Florida couple found a rare purple pearl while eating a plate of steam clams. George and Leslie Brock stopped into Dave's Last Resort & Raw Bar during a day at the beach. George Brock was about halfway through a dozen clams when he chomped down on something hard - a rare iridescent purple pearl. The gem could be worth thousands.

In another incident, Mike McHenry of Washington Township, NJ, found a pearl while eating his fried oysters. He thought he had chomped down a piece of shell and insted spit out a pea-sized pearl.

"You might break your teeth on it if you crunch down too hard," he said of his discovery at Russo's Ristorante in Washington Borough.

Russo's owner, Rick Giacobbe, said McHenry's discovery marked the first time in his 33 years in the restaurant business that a customer found a pearl in an order of oysters. He said the guy he orders seafood from is flummoxed, too.

"He said maybe once in a couple of years his girls will find something and it's a teeny tiny thing," Giacobbe said. "This was half the size of a jellybean."

While Brock's purple pearl may be worth thousands, it appears McHenry isn't so lucky.
Greg Fliegauf, who manages Fliegauf Jewelers for his uncle, thinks the pearl isn't worth much because it's misshapen and has some discoloration.

"It's a souvenir I'll put on my bar, maybe," McHenry said.

UFO Sighted in Texas

Stephenville, TX (AHN) - Residents of a Texas community found themselves stunned by a celestial scene involving what many believe was a UFO.
Eyewitness accounts told of a large, silent, object with flashing lights, with residents insisting that it was lower to the ground than an airplane.

"People wonder what in the world it is because this is the Bible Belt, and everyone is afraid it's the end of times," explained Steve Allen, a freight company owner and pilot. He insisted that the thing he saw, a mile long and half a mile wide, was "positively, absolutely nothing from these parts."

Local officials insisted that there had to be a logical explanation to the sighting -an argument that was trashed by residents who insisted that the object's behavior of changing light configurations was nothing like that of a plane. Residents from other towns also insisted on spotting the object over several weeks, and have given accounts that were similar to those being given by Stephenville citizens.

"You heard about bug bass or big buck in the area, but this is a different deal" said Ricky Sorrells, whose friends teased him when he came forward after others revealed they saw the object. "It feels good to hear that other people saw something, because that means I'm not crazy."

A supporting AP article reported that while a Joint Reserve Base Naval Air Station official confirmed that there were no plans deployed to that area during the night of Jan. 8, Major Karl Lewis insisted that the object must have been an illusion caused by airplane lights, which he described to glow much brighter during sunset.

"I'm 90 percent sure this was an airliner," said Maj. Lewis.

Texas is one of the states with the most reported UFO sightings, at about 200 per month. Other states are California and Colorado.

Singer Bjork Attacks Anew!

Iceland singer and songwriter Bjork attacked Glen Jeffrey, a Herald photographer, on her arrival at Auckland International Airport yesterday. This is the second time Bjork attacked a journalist, the first happened last 1996 in Thailand (YouTube). She grabbed and tore Jeffrey's T-shirt from behind after the latter photographed her arriving.

"I took a couple of pictures and I got about three or four frames of her ... and as I turned and walked away she came up behind me, grabbed the back of my black skivvy and tore it down the back.

"As she did this she fell over, she fell to the ground. At no stage did I touch her or speak with her." Jeffrey said. Bjork said nothing throughout the incident while a man accompanying her tries to pacify the singer.

Jeffrey spoke to Auckland police yesterday. He said: "I don't see being assaulted as I'm working as a press photographer as an acceptable thing."If anybody assaults anybody you have the right to a legal recourse, whoever they are."

A spokeswoman for Auckland International Airport said staff would review video footage if police requested it.

Separated Twins Unknowingly Marry

BRITAIN -- Twins who were separated at birth got married without realizing that they were brother and sister, a lawmaker said, urging that more information be provided on birth certificates for adopted children to prevent incest. A court annulled the British couple's union after they discovered their true relationship, Lord David Alton said. "It involved the normal birth of twins who were separated at birth and adopted by separate parents," he said. "They were never told that they were twins. ...The judge had to deal with the consequences of the marriage that they entered into and all the issues of their separation." Under British law, only a mother has to be named on a birth certificate. Such certificates are also not required to identify births that result from in vitro fertilization or to identify the sperm donor. British law does not require parents to tell children that they were the result of donated sperm. (AP)

All about fireworks

Let's open the new year with a bang...

The first fireworks were provbably made in China 2000 years ago. They are used to celebrate weddings, religious festivals and keep evil spirits away. It is believed that gunpowder was discovered accidentally by a Chinese alchemist who mixed sulphur and salt peter (potassium nitrate) over a fire. The Chinese name for gunpowder is "huo yao" (fire chemical).

Placing gun powder into bamboo stalks and then throwing them onto a fire to be ignited produced a louder and more powerful bang; hence the firecracker was born. Fireworks were soon applied to warfare by attaching them to arrows. The first such use, circa 1200 A.D., involved placing powder into paper tubes with a fuse or a trail of gunpowder wrapped in tissue paper that was attached to the arrows.

The first recorded fireworks in England were at the wedding of King henry VII in 1486. Fireworks became very popular in Great Britain during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. William Shakespeare mentions fireworks in his works, and fireworks were so much enjoyed by the Queen herself that she created a "Fire Master of England." King James II was so pleased with the fireworks display that celebrated his coronation that he knighted his Fire Master.

The first fireworks recorded in America were set off by an Englishman, capt. john Smith, famous int he story of Pocahiontas.in Jamestown in 1608

The world's largest single firework was set off at a festival in Japan in 1988. The shell weighed half-a-ton and the burst was over a kilometer across. The biggest fireworks event in the world is held in Madeira, Portugal at the New Years' Eve celebrations, as referred in the Guinness World Records.
In 1996, a string of firecrackers were lit that lasted 22 hours for the Chinese New Year in Hong Kong.

An aerial shell has 2 fuses. The user lights the external fuse, and a second, internal fuse burns as the shell flies up igniting the burst or break.

The first Independence Day fireworks celebration was in 1776, and was memorialized by then future President John Adams as follows: "The day (Independence Day) will be the most memorable in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival...it ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade...bonfires and illuminations (fireworks) from one end of this continent to the other, from this day forward forevermore."

Static electricity in synthetic clothing can ignite fireworks. Those who make fireworks wear cotton all the way down to their underwear.

The most dangerous fireworks-related tragedy in the world occurred on May 16, 1770, during the marriage of King Louis XVI to Maria Antoinette. After the celebratory fireworks show, there was a stampede where approximately 800 people where killed.

The earliest recorded use of gunpowder in England, and probably the western world, is by the Franciscan monk Roger Bacon.

Early fireworks were enjoyed more for the sound than the show—in its simplest forms gunpowder explodes quickly, leaving a terrific bang but not much to see other than a rather brief golden glow. Over time people discovered that using chemical compounds with greater amounts of oxygen made the explosives burn brighter and longer.

The multi-hued displays we know now began in the 1830s, when Italians added trace amounts of metals that burn at high temperatures, creating beautiful colors. Other additives also produced interesting effects. For example, calcium deepens colors, titanium makes sparks, and zinc creates smoke clouds.