Hunters on Bank Island in Canada’s Northwest Territory shot this bear that turned out to be the world’s first grizzly-polar bear hybrid:
Officials seized the creature after noticing its white fur was scattered with brown patches and that it had the long claws and humped back of a grizzly. Now a DNA test has confirmed that it is indeed a hybrid — possibly the first documented in the wild.
This is a rare deleted scene from "Star Wars: A New Hope". When Luke sees the Star Distroyer attacking Leia’s ship high above the planet he races off to Anchorhead to tell his friends. When he arrives he finds his best friend Biggs is back for a visit. The two reconnect and Biggs tells Luke he’s going off to join the rebellion. After this scene Luke goes home and helps his Uncle buy two new droids to replace the one that broke down at the beginning of this deleted sequence.
In case the clip above doesn’t play, see:YouTube Link
Posted by Alex in Pictures on May 11, 2006 at 1:05 pm
From the website:
This is the largest digging machine (or trencher or rotating shovel) in the world. It was built by Krupp and is shown here crossing a road in Germany on the way to its destination, an open air coal mine. Although at the mine the treads are unnecessary, it was cheaper to make the machine self-propelled than to try and move it with conventional hauling equipment. Some factoids:
The machine is 95 meters high and 215 meters long (almost 2.5 football fields in length)
Weight is 45,500 tons (that’s equivalent to a bumper to bumper line of jeeps 80 miles long)
It took 5 years to design and manufacture at a cost of $100 million
Maximum digging speed is 10 meters per minute
Can move more than 76,000 cubic meters of coal, rock, and earth per day
Meet David Lucas, a farmer from Mildenhall, Suffolk, UK. He has been selling gallows to African countries with deplorable human rights records for about 10 years.
The execution equipment he says he sells ranges from single gallows, at about £12,000 each, to "Multi-hanging Execution Systems" mounted on lorry trailers, costing about £100,000.
Amnesty [International] said the export of gallows, which will be made illegal by an EC regulation in July, was "appalling".
But Mr Lucas said the trade was not sick and "business is business". He added some people deserved the death penalty.
Volkswagen has a new storage facility in Wolfsburg, Germany – the multi-story parking garage can store the same number of car as a comparable facility in the US, but takes only 20% of the space. The automated retrieval system also allows the cars to be selected and delivered in less time and without the potential of being damaged by the attendant:
Collecting your new car is an event in itself. "In a fully automated procedure, your new car is brought down to you from one of the 20-story Car Towers. Large signboards in the Customer Center show you when your turn has come. Then, you’re handed the keys, your picture is taken, the glass doors open and your brand-new car appears. You’re all set to go".
This was the first time I had attempted a prank like this, so I expected the control box to be locked, and the programming functions password-protected. I was wrong. First of all, the control cabinet had no lock. Swinging open its door, I found a deliciously inviting handheld keypad, then took a wild guess and pushed a button labeled STOP. The display on the control box flashed ENTER PASSWORD. I was about to give up in disgust when I noticed that someone had written the password in large Sharpie lettering above the box.
With only a few minutes of road sign hacking, I had programmed an homage to the 1951 sci-fi film The Day The Earth Stood Still, the phrase that was used to stop Gort, the robot in the film, from taking over the world.
Yet another reason why you should stay away from drugs:
An Oregon man who went to a hospital complaining of a headache was found to have 12 nails embedded in his skull from a suicide attempt with a nail gun, doctors say.
Surgeons removed the nails with needle-nosed pliers and a drill, and the man survived with no serious lasting effects, according to a report on the medical oddity in the current issue of the Journal of Neurosurgery.
The unidentified 33-year-old man was suicidal and high on methamphetamine last year when he fired the nails — up to 2 inches in length — into his head one by one.
Kurt Steiner of Emporium, PA is the world record holder for stone skipping. From the website:
Not only did he outskip all other competitors, but no one had previously seen a skip in competition with such an amazingly high count. The rapid-fire pitty-pats resulting from the cast made counting very difficult, but the judges settled on an official count for the day’s competition of 34, which sealed a first-place finish for Steiner for the 2002 competition.* With video cameras present that day, officials felt it might be worthwhile to review the video footage, since the skip very well may have set a new world record. Upon review, it was determined that the skip had far exceeded 34, and was worthy of submission to the Guinness World Record committee for authentication. It has taken over a year, but the Guinness officials have declared Kurt’s skip a new world record, with a count of 40!
Apparently, in the great state of Florida, hogs are a real problem:
Hogs are anything but endangered. In Florida, they are something like the computer virus of the mammal world, known for a voracious appetite for fragile native plants, birds, snakes and small animals. A couple of hungry hogs, rooting for vittles during the wee hours, can turn a lush field into a moonscape by sunrise. The state hires folks such as Whidden to get rid of them.
He has steady work catching hogs because Hernando de Soto brought them to Florida when he came calling in 1539. Now hogs are found in 31 states. Hunters shoot about 100,000 hogs a year in Florida. Hog removal specialists eliminate an additional 3,300 wild hogs from state property. The hogs are gaining ground anyway.
Spook catches hogs the hard way: by hand. He has nothing against guns but finds it more exciting to grab one while it is otherwise engaged by his dogs. Even so, the outcome is in doubt, since the hog is often a good deal larger than Spook, boasts bigger teeth and fears for its life.
A rare mirage of a city appeared off the shore of Penglai City, Shandong Provice, China:
Thousands of tourists and local residents witnessed a mirage of high clarity lasting for four hours off the shore of Penglai City in east China’s Shandong Province on Sunday.
Mists rising on the shore created an image of a city, with modern high-rise buildings, broad city streets and bustling cars as well as crowds of people all clearly visible.
Experts said that many mirages have been recorded in Penglai, on the tip of Shandong Peninsula, throughout history, which made it known as a dwelling place of the gods.
They explained that a mirage is formed when moisture in the air becomes warmer than the temperature of sea water, which refracts rays of sunlight to create reflections of the landscape in the sky.
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