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Here’s a quick and fun 4×4 crossword puzzle, courtesy of The Loquacious Haruspex (what? look it up: loquacious haruspex).
Across
1. Sign of Cancer
5. A "positive" electron?
6. Feeling?
7. "Over here"
Down
1. Fry, to Nigel
2. 2 are 11 yards
3. Pale & Dark
4. Neal Cassady, e.g.
How do your answers compare to the solution? Link – Thanks Adrian!
Not satisfied with man-made islands, Dubai is planning to add a strange building to its list of amazing architecture: a rotating skyscraper.
Why? So every residence of the tower will get the same wonderful view, of course!
Scientists discovered a new species of butterfly that arise from the merging of two distinct species!
Lycaeides Melissa and Lycaeides idas – the genetically distinct butterfly species that initially gave rise to the new hybrids – do not regularly mate. But Zachariah Gompert at Texas State University in San Marcos, US, and colleagues found that when they do mate, they produce offspring that are able to breed with each other and produce further generations.
Fashion-gangs, who call themselves "sape" for the French slang for clothes, roam the ghettos of Congo. They even have their own version of turf wars:
They don’t carry guns and rarely brawl, but occasionally they invade one another’s turf, dressed to the nines, of course, in what they call a "Defi de Sape," or fashion challenge.
Think "West Side Story" meets "Zoolander." They flash labels, not knives.
"If we see them walking down our street, we run home, change into our best and come back out to prove that we’re not nobodies," said Willy Biselele, 28, a leader of the 100 Years War.
The winner is the team with the most expensive or rarest collection. One recent standoff was televised by a local station.
Matthias Laska, a professor of zoology at the Linköping University in Sweden, discovered that monkeys use perfume too!
In most of these cases, the scientists speculate that the leaf mash might have been used to mitigate topical skin infections or repel bugs.
But Laska and his team found that of the plants used by the Mexican spider monkeys, only wild celery is known to have insect-repelling compounds and antifungal properties. The other plants simply smell good.
The scientists, therefore, conclude that self-anointing "may play a role in the context of social communication, possibly for signalling of social status or to increase sexual attractiveness".
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EggFacts:
· Egg Width: 25.7 feet
· Egg Height: 18.3 feet
· Total Height: 31.6 feet
· Material: Aluminum skin
Cons:
· It’s not made of chocolate
Located in Vegreville, Canada, this egg has an inscription on its base:
This Pysanka (Easter Egg) symbolizes the harmony, vitality and culture of the community and is dedicated as a tribute to the One-Hundredth Anniversary of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police who brought peace and security to the largest multi-cultural settlement in all of Canada.
I didn’t know this about India: supermarket finally came to the world’s second most populous nation.
On a recent Friday morning in the southern India city of Hyderabad, one of the country’s biggest companies, Reliance, plunged into the retail market by opening 11 neighborhood supermarkets simultaneously across the city. Hyderabad, a hub for the country’s new tech-driven economy, is India’s fastest growing city and its sixth largest city. …
India has only a few dozen very large supermarkets, but Reliance plans to change not just the scale of what Indian retailers have seen before, but also the way they get products to market.
I’ve never been to India, so I can’t tell you if the article’s take on supermarkets and India, as well as the title of this post, are right or not. Link – via All This ChittahChattah
Jeffrey Bernstein made these interactive step sequencer (each block comes with an IR transmitter and receiver) that allows you to pick up and mix the order up – heck, just see the clip and you’ll see what I mean.
Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] – via onetonnemusic and Create Digital Music
A cargo container fell off a ship and spilled its content of thousands of bags of Dorito chips on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Scavengers immediately took advantage of the situation (the chips are fresh thanks to their airtight packaging). Link – via digg
Too bad this egg is not meant to be eaten!
A Belgian city has entered the Guinness book of records with the biggest Easter egg ever.
The Belgian chocolate producer Guylian made the chocolate egg with at least 50.000 bars on behalf of the city of St. Niklaas.
The egg measured 8.32 metres high and beats the record of Kwazulu-Natal in South-Africa in 1996.That egg was 7.65 metres high.
Twenty-six craftsman worked altogether 525 hours to build the egg. They needed 1950 kg of chocolates.
Link via Uniquedaily
Is it possible that so many societies can proudly claim so many powerful and influential people and still be called "secret"? Well, no. Here are six of the most famous of the world’s supposedly secret societies. But if anyone asks, you didn’t hear it from us.
This is the granddaddy of all not-so-secret secret societies. Freemasonry, or "The Craft" as its members call it, most likely has its roots in 17th-century stone workers’ guilds. Mason lore, however, extends its origins back to biblical times, linking the society to the building of the Temple of Solomon. Freemasonry is split into numerous subgroups and orders, all of which consider God the Grand Geometrician, or Grand Architect of the Universe. At their hearts, these groups are all means of exploring ethical and philosophical issues, and their rituals and symbols are famous (or infamous). Take, for instance, the square-and-compass logo often seen on the backs of Cadillacs. Or the use of secret handshakes, passwords, and greeting posture/gesture called "due guards," all collectively known as the Modes of Recognition. The list of famous Masons is massive, a virtual Who’s Who of modern history, explaining the many conspiracy theories regarding the Masons’ influence and intentions. Mozart, FDR, Harry S. Truman, George Washington, Mark Twain, Voltaire, Benjamin Franklin, John Wayne, W.C. Fields, and Douglas MacArthur were all Masons. But perhaps the Masons’ greatest strides have been made in fast food: KFC’s Colonel Sanders and Wendy’s founder Dave Thomas knew how to secret-shake with the best of ‘em.
Over the centuries, lots of groups have called themselves the Illuminati ("Enlightened Ones"), but the one we’re talking about here began as the Bavarian Illuminati. A radical product of the Enlightenment and offshoot of the religion-based Freemasons, the Illuminati espoused secular freethinking and intellectualism and proved a threat to Europe’s old order. Although they were officially banned by the Bavarian government in 1784, some claim that they live on to this day in other guises (see "the Trilateral Commission"). So what’s the Illuminati’s goal? To establish a new world order of capitalism and authoritarianism, of course! They’ve been accused of manipulating currencies, world stock markets, elections, assassinations, and even of being aliens. One common myth is that the eye-and-pyramid image on the dollar bill is a symbol of the Illuminati watching over us. Nope. It’s a symbol of strength and durability (though unfinished, symbolizing growth and change), and the all-seeing eye represent the divine guidance of the American cause. Or so the government says.
This organization has a $42 million, 17-story headquarters building on Lexington Avenue in New York City, claims 85,000 members in 60 countries, and was featured in Dan Brown’s bestseller The Da Vinci Code. Now that its existence has been significantly unsecretized, this ultraorthodox Catholic sect has definitely raised its share of eyebrows. Founded in 1928 by Saint Josemaría Escrivá (a Spanish priest who bore an uncanny resemblance to Karl Malden), Opus Dei is the short name for the Prelature for the Holy Cross and the Work of God. The sect (some would say cult) stresses a return to traditional Catholic orthodoxy and behavior, especially celibacy, with members falling into one of three levels. Numeraries live in Opus Dei facilities, devote their time and money to the prelature, attend mass daily, and engage in mortification of the flesh (wearing a spiked chain around the thigh called a cilice, taking cold showers, or flagellating themselves with a knotted rope called "the discipline").
Next come Associates (kind of Numeraries, but living "off campus"), then Supernumeraries (the rank-and-file members). The group did gain the praise of Pope John Paul II, and has engaged in a lot of charity work. yet, critics accuse the group of being linked to fascist organizations like Franco’s government in Spain, and of anti-Semitism and intolerance, even of other Catholics.
Top dog among all the collegiate secret societies, Yale’s Skull and Bones dates to 1832 and goes by other spooky names like Chapter 322 and the Brotherhood of Death. With a large number of Bonesmen who have attained positions of power, including the president and the head of the CIA, it’s no wonder that rumors abound that the society is hell-bent on obtaining power and influencing U.S. foreign policy. The fact that they meet in an imposing templelike building on the Yale campus called (what else?) the Tomb doesn’t really help. Bonesmen are selected, or "tapped," during their junior year and can reveal their membership only after they’ve graduated. But they can never talk about it. The Bones have been accused of all sorts of crazy rituals and conspiracies, including drug smuggling and the assassination of JFK (a hated Hahvahd man, after all). It’s even rumored that the skull of Geronimo resides in the Tomb, stolen from its resting place by Prescott Bush, Dubya’s granddad. In one of the more commonly known rituals, the initiate spends all night naked in an open coffin, confessing all his sexual experiences to the group. So, who’s lucky enough to have made such as confession? George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, John Kerry, William Howard Taft, McGeorge Bundy, William F. Buckley, and Henry Luce are just a few.
This is a weird one. In the majestic forests of Sonoma County north of San Francisco lies the Bohemian Grove, the 2,700-acre wooded retreat of the Bohemian Club, the nation’s most exclusive men’s club. Every July since 1879, the "Bohos" have gathered at the Grove for a two-week encampment, where they’re divided into more than 100 residential camps with names like Owl’s Nest, Cave Man, and Lost Angels. Membership has included, well, just about everybody important: Ronald Reagan, Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon (who once called it "faggy"), Gerald Ford, Colin Powell, Dick Cheney, and many CEOs and wealthy business leaders like Malcolm Forbes. Each encampment opens with a robed-and-hooded ceremony called the Cremation of Care, in which an effigy called "Dull Care" (symbolizing worldly concerns) is burned before a 40-foot concrete statue of an owl, symbol of wisdom and the club’s mascot. Throughout the week, plays are staged (called High Jinx and Low Jinx), there’s lots of eating and drinking (and, reportedly, urinating on trees), and members are treated to speeches called Lakeside Talks. Some opponents go so far as to accuse the group of Satanism, witchcraft, homosexuality, and prostitution, while more reasonable observers object to the Lakeside Talks as national policy discussions to which the public is not privy. But above all, it’s seen as a way that some of the elite meet others of the elite, thereby ensuring that they’ll all stay elite. All this makes the club’s seemingly anticonspiratorial slogan – "Weaving spiders, come not here" – that much more ironic.
While not, on its face, as juicily sinister as some of the other societies on this list, the Trilateral Commission has been accused of all sorts of underhanded shenanigans by its critics. Formed in 1973 by David Rockefeller, the Commission includes over 300 prominent citizens from Europe, Asia, and North America in a forum for discussing the regions’ common interests. But conspiracy theorist hold that the Trilateral Commission, along with the Council on Foreign Relations and others, is really just a front for a larger, more sinister order called the Round Table Groups, founded in London over 100 years ago and bent on the creation of new world order, a global capitalist police state. Yikes! (For the record, some say that the Round Table Groups are themselves just fronts for another society, the Illuminati, so who knows?) American members of the Trilateral Commission have included Bill Clinton, Henry Kissinger, Jimmy Carter, Dick Cheney, and Dianne Feinstein.
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From mental_floss’ book Forbidden Knowledge: A Wickedly Smart Guide to History’s Naughtiest Bits, published in Neatorama with permission.
Be sure to visit mental_floss‘ extremely entertaining website and blog!
