Crazy Corner : Man Eating Up Light Bulbs !!

Zhang Yujian, a Chinese stuntman from Mudanjiang City, Heilonjiang Province, has eaten two light bulbs during his performance, on Monday. XInhua reports the glass-eating master has a record of three light bulbs eaten in just 120 seconds. Now, I’m not sure if he eats the entire thing, but he certainly made short work of the sharp glass, without any serious cuts.

I knew the Chinese had some pretty bizarre foods, at least for my taste, but Zhang Yujian is taking things a little too far. I wonder if he’d be interested in meeting Russia’s sand-eating woman, I bet they’d hit it off.

5 Most Interesting Tricks You Ever Thought !

Remove Scratches from CDs and DVDs : We’ve all got many precious discs that have been ruined by careless handling, regular damage while using or by the pet dog’s mauling.

Use these cool pointers to get some of them working again :

1. Clean the surface of the disc by running water (warm is better). You can even use soap or mild detergent to clean the grime. Always rub the disc from the center going out. Do not rub the disc in circular motion.

2. Let it dry in the air. This in itself may get it to work sometimes.

3. If that doesn’t work polish the CD using the inside of a banana peel, toothpaste or brasso. Again remember to gently rub from the center going outwards.

4. Once it gets going – the first thing to do is to quickly copy all data on to your PC – just in case it fails again.

How To Always Remember Names : Forgetting people’s names can prove extremely embarrassing and a complete disaster at time. Specially if it’s that pretty girl’s name you can’t recollect even though you got introduced five minutes ago (although that’s possibly because you were staring down her cleavage at that time).

The key to remembering names lies in association and repetition. Follow these two simple steps and you’ll never be in sticky situation again :

ASSOCIATION: Examine the person’s face discretely when you are introduced. Try to find an unusual feature, whether ears, forehead, eyebrows, eyes, lips or any other part (without going south again). Create an association between that characteristic, the face, and the name in your mind. The association may be to link the person with someone else you know with the same name. Alternatively it may be to associate a rhyme or image of the name with the person’s face or defining feature.

REPETITION: When you are introduced, ask for the person to repeat their name. Use the name frequently during the conversation. If it is unusual, ask how it is spelled or what it means.

Fold A Shirt In 2 Seconds : This one’s old but it never hurts to learn a technique that could potentially save you several hundred hours over a lifetime.

Keep Your Ties In Shape : Just as a smart straight tie can make an incredible impression – a worn out twisted one can ruin the situation.

Here are some simple tips to keep your ties in great shape :

Untying: This is possibly the most common mistake made. While this is the easiest way to get your tie off – never pull the thin end through the knot as this completely ruins the shape of the tie. Always remove your ties by following the tie-tying steps in reverse.

Cleaning: If you stain your tie, take action quickly. Blot the stain with cold water as this prevents it from setting. Seltzer water or club soda works best. If you get any greasy materials on your tie , water won’t do. Get some talcum powder on your tie ASAP. The powder will absorb the grease. After a few hours, brush off the remaining residue and clean with a soft cloth.

Ironing: Ironing a tie presses down on its rolled edges and ruins its shape. Avoid it as much as you can. If you need to remove wrinkles use steam. Simply hanging your tie in the bathroom while you take a hot shower will usually do the trick. For more stubborn wrinkles, consider purchasing a hand held steamer.

Storage: Spend a little on a tie-rack now, and save money in the long run by making your ties last. When traveling, fold your ties into fours and place them in your coat pocket. That will help maintain your ties’ shape.

Seal Chips Without A Clip : Few things feel as disappointingly avoidable as finding a bag of potato chips or kurkure completely crisp-less the morning after a party. This handy clip, however, shows how you can put an air-tight seal on your crunchy comestibles without having to get up for a clip.

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Walking With Dinosaurs After 65 Million Years !!

The prehistoric beasts are back as Walking With Dinosaurs - The Arena Spectacular gets ready to return home in 2011.

The crowds part to reveal the mighty Tyrannosaurus Rex, six tonne killer queen of the Cretaceous period.

Created in Australia in conjunction with the BBC documentary series, Walking With Dinosaurs - The Arena Spectacular has toured internationally since 2007.

The giant Tyrannosaurus Rex indulges in a little pre-dinner conversation with Sydney school children.

After playing to packed venues across the US for the past three years, the dinosaurs are set to return to home soil in 2011 to thrill Australian audiences once more.

The baby Tyrannosaurus Rex gives some the kids a sniff before bounding off to see monster mum.

The Australian tour is set to start in April 2011and takes in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Newcastle.

At 12m long, the Tyrannosaurus Rex was one of the largest terrestrial carnivores of all time, tipping the scales at about six tonnes.

The animatronic creatures used in the show were created by team at the Creature Production Company and are some of the largest free-moving models in the world.

Children from Randwick Public School in Sydney get up close and personal with the mother and baby Tyrannosaurus Rex.

The show features 20 life-sized dinosaurs ranging from human height to a Brachiosaurus, standing more than 10m tall.

The dinosaurs are the brainchild of designer Sonny Tilders.

Based out of Melbourne's docklands, he and his 50-strong team, worked tirelessly for 12 months to create the beasts that appear in the show.

The stage show cost $20 million to produce.

The giant Tyrannosaurus Rex lunges towards the unsuspecting photographer.

The creatures minor movements get their own "voodoo puppeteer" who operates the mouth and eyes and deals with the sounds effects.

The kids play nice as mother watches from above.

In the three years the show has been in the US it has put on 1097 performances, playing to 4.1 million people in 144 cities.

While Sonny Tilders does an interview we take a sneak peak inside the T-Rex's driver cockpit.

The model dinosaur is powered by 18 truck batteries, weighs in at two-and-a-half tonnes and is manoeuvred around the arena by a driver located below the creature's belly.

This is the effects keyboard used during the show to create the sounds for both the mother and baby Tyrannosaurus Rex.

A total of three operators are required to work the Tyrannosaurus Rex during the show. One drives, one controls the head and tail and the other handles mouth, eyes and sound effects.

The mother and baby Tyrannosaurus Rex let out a blood-curdling roar.

The show includes ten species of dinosaurs, spanning the 200 million-year reign of these "terrible lizards".

Creature design engineer Trevor Tighe inspects the jaws of the Tyrannosaurus Rex.

The T-Rex gets its realistic look by having air-bags that inflate under the skin. Body movement is controlled by 20 hydraulic and 10 electric motors.

School children look up as the mighty Tyrannosaurus Rex moves towards them.

It takes 33 semi-trailers to move the show from town to town and it employs 65 staff when on the road.

Note : Book your tickets which is available online at DinosaurLive . So, get there with heart full of imagination with your family and walk with Dinosaurs after 65 Million Years !!!

Miracle Surgery Of A Turtle Boy

In Pic : The turtle-like growth on eight-year-old Maimaiti Hali's back.

A YOUNG boy with a shell-like growth on his back has had life-changing surgery after he was dubbed "turtle boy" by cruel bullies.

Eight-year-old Maimaiti Hali had the growth removed by surgeons in a miracle two-hour operation, The Sun reports.

Doctors at the Urumqi Military General Hospital in China's Xinjiang province said they had used skin grafts from the boy's scalp and legs to replace the removed growth.

Dad Maimaiti Musai said: "We were told surgery wasn't possible when he was very young so we waited. But the growth got bigger and harder and became like a turtle shell.

"People bullied him and we were determined to end it. He is such a good and brave boy and he never complained. We are so glad that he is now on the mend."

In Pic : Eight-year-old Maimaiti Hali has life-changing surgery to remove a turtle-like growth from his back.

Chief surgeon Ye Xiangpo said: "The skin we removed was as thick as a bull's hide.

"We used scalp hair on the graft because it grows back very quickly. We expect him to make a full recovery."

Mainmait, from Heping, northern China, said: "It was a bit painful, but I won't worry about other kids laughing at me any more.

"I am looking forward to going out in the sun without my shirt on and to going swimming with my friends."

Top 10 Scariest Zombie Films Ever

After studying a selection of classic movies and models used to calculate the effects of pandemics the University of Ottawa researchers concluded that civilization would probably be wiped out.

1.White Zombie (1932) – Directed by Victor Halperin – A young man turns to a witch doctor to lure the woman he loves away from her fiancé, but instead turns her into a zombie slave.

2.Night of the Living Dead (1968).– Directed by George A Romero – A group of people hide in a farmhouse after something causes the recently deceased to rise from the grave and feed on the living.

3.Dawn of the Dead (1978).– Directed by George A Romero – Following an ever-growing epidemic of zombies that have risen from the dead, two Philadelphia SWAT team members, a traffic reporter, and his television-executive girlfriend seek refuge in a secluded shopping mall.

4.Evil Dead II (1987) – Directed by Sam Raimi – A man takes his girlfriend to a remote cabin where they find a tape-recorder which contains a recitation of the Book of the Dead. When they play it back the spell calls up an evil force in the woods which turns the girl and a number of other visitors into zombies.

5.Army of Darkness (1992) – Directed by Sam Raimi – A man is accidentally transported to 1300 A.D., where he must battle an army of the dead and retrieve the Necronomicon so he can return home.

6.Braindead (1992) – Directed by Peter Jackson – A young man's mother is bitten by a Sumatran rat-monkey. She gets sick and dies, then comes back to life as a zombie, killing and eating dogs, nurses, friends, and neighbours.

7.Dellamorte Dellamore.(1994) – Directed by Michele Soavi – About the guardian of a cemetery in Italy who destroys corpses as they rise from their tombs.

8.Bio Zombie (1998) – Directed by Wilson Yip – A soft drink tainted with bio-chemicals has the power to turn people into flesh-eating zombies.

9.28 Days Later (2002) – Directed by Danny Boyle – Four weeks after a mysterious, incurable virus spreads throughout the UK, a handful of survivors try to find sanctuary as they try to run from victims who have turned into zombie-like psychopaths.

10.Shaun of the Dead (2004) – Directed by Edgar Wright – A man decides to turn his dead-end life around by winning back his ex-girlfriend, reconciling his relationship with his mother, and dealing with an entire community that has returned from the dead to eat the living.

Note: We like to enrich this list and therefore I need your co-operation behind this post.Please do let me know if you have some other info's behind this.

Top 10 Amazing Robots From Animals

Mother Nature's animal factory regularly cranks out sophisticated living machines designed to function in fascinating ways. So it's no surprise that researchers look to nature for inspiration when designing robots. 

The resulting machines that blend biology with computer science are called biomimetic robots. And it's not just their uncanny resemblance to living creatures that makes them special. These bots are designed to fly, swim, climb, crawl and walk into places that humans can't. Here are 10 of our most favorites ... tell me what's you view ?

1. We Have Liftoff!

Meet Carlton, an aerial scouting robot developed to support rescue and security teams. Inspired by the flying motion of flies and bees, Carlton can maintain speed and still move in the opposite direction. Imaging sensors are able produce photos of whatever surface it flies over. These photos can be used, for example, to assess the territory on the other side of a tree line before sending in real humans. Bzzz. 

2. Flying Spies

It may look like an adorable butterfly toy, but the Morphing Micro Air and Land Vehicle is a serious device. 

An air/land hybrid robot, the vehicle can fly into hostile areas, land, walk around and gather and send intelligence back to its controller. The controller can then assess how dangerous the situation is without having to physically send people in to do the data collection.

3. Slithering Segments

This modular snake robot, dubbed "Modsnake," climbs, side-winds and swims by moving its segmented frame and joints just like a snake constricts and contracts its muscles. 

Shown here in the lab and then in action, Modsnake can slip through pipes, chain link fences, rocky areas and water easily with its waterproof skin and wireless remote controls. Here's how it works: Sine waves are sent through the robot's body, propelling it either forwards or backwards. Linear progression of these movements can bend or turn it.

4. All-Terrian Vehicle

Inspired by four-legged animals, Asguard is a surveillance robot that can walk over multiple kinds of terrain and swim in water, much like how dogs and horses can. It can move indoors and out, and be sent to crawl around disaster areas to assess the conditions.

5. Big Wheel 

There's no passing IMPASS. With it's novel spoke-wheel mechanism, the Intelligent Mobility Platform with Active Spoke System, or IMPASS, can climb multiple steps at a time or explore deep holes with its long, protruding legs. The robot's rimless wheels and spokes that shorten or lengthen individually allows IMPASS to propel itself forward. Each foot at the end of its legs is equipped with a terrain sensor so the robot can assess its surroundings and maintain balance while recording the ground's stability. 

The Robotics & Mechanisms Lab (RoMeLa) at Virginia Tech believe IMPASS could be useful in search-and-rescue missions, anti-terrorist operations and scientific exploration. 

6. The Rock Climber

This four-legged robot can leap into action at a moment's notice, scaling walls (or stairs in this case) like a goat would scale a mountainside. Called ARAMIES, for Ambulating Robot for Autonomous Martian Investigation, Exploration and Science, the robot is part of the space robot series at the University of Bremen and was developed for exploring canyons and crater walls on Mars and the moon. 

Each one of its 26 active joints -- six in each leg and two in its head -- is equipped with position sensors, electrical current sensors and temperature sensors for analyzing extreme environments. It also features an extending claw that can help it rock climb walls up to a 70-degree incline.

Although Scorpion is in its third year of development at the University of Bremen, a copy of the robot is being tested at the NASA Ames Research Center to study if there are advantages for using legged systems in future missions.

7. Hey, I'm Flexible

Don't be afraid of getting stung, Scorpion is here to help. This eight-legged, walking robot  imitates the movements of the arthropod from which it gets its name. 

Controlled through voice commands and a data glove, this insect-looking robot has very flexible legs and a biological motor system to allow quick, smooth movement over all kinds of terrain, from hazardous to planetary. Its creators hope Scorpion can be used as an assistant to other robots for gathering photos and other data on space missions.

8. Double Jointed 

Another creepy, crawly insect-looking robot is the Multi-Appendaged Robotic System, or MARS, which moves very much like a spider racing along the ground. Its six-legged walking algorithm allows the robot to simultaneously change its direction, speed, height and orientation -- quickly adapting to uneven terrain.

In lifting its "knees,” MARS' limb configurations with individually controlled joints also allow it to adjust its gait to counter any "foot sinkage" on soft ground. It can even send emails!

9. Man On!

Meet our future fellow man : DARwIn

The Dynamic Anthropomorphic Robot with Intelligence imitates a multitude of human function, including vision processing, reaction, standing up, cooperating and coordinating with other robots (playing nicely with others) and, most importantly, walking and running successfully. It's used to study two-legged robot locomotion. 

Built with sensors in every joint and limb, a brain-like computer and cameras, this battery-powered robot can actually identify and process objects. 

DARwIn also scored big in this past summer's International RoboCup at the only American-built robot to challenge. RoboCup is a worldwide competition for robotics labs to build humaniod robot soccer players and have them go head-to-head in heated matches. Their hope is to create a robot time by 2050 that can beat real human soccer players.

10. Crawling Towards the Future

Toddlers can be difficult study subjects. They communicate and process the world differently than children and adults so it can be a real challenge to learn more about the way their body functions. What's the solution?

The EPFL (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology) in Lausanne Switzerland has a student team working on a robot that has the size and appearance of a three-and-a-half-year-old child. Named iCub, the robot is a joint project between 15 different partners across Europe, including EPFL, to study how infants learn to crawl and manipulate objects, without the late-night feedings and crying.

The computerized brain of this baby bot was built from research gathered on the cognitive function of real infants. The iCub brain can think about several actions, choose one, act on it and then reflect on that action.

Source : discover.com

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World's Most Bizzare Sculptures In Public Places

Maddeningly bizarre, "cast in stone" - so people will have to live with it!

We have to say right away: we love these wicked additions to urban landscape - the weirder the better, less boring gray expanses and zombie-spawning parking lots! But we have to ask ourselves, what sort of oxygen these artists were inhaling, and what sort of psychedelic lunch they were eating before going on with something like this (see more than 30 examples below, some maybe slightly nsfw!). 

We number each sculpture, and let you vote in the comments which one is the most unforgettable, disturbing and bizarre! As for me, I am going to erect a metal scarecrow on the roof of my building to scare off police helicopters, or build a nutty shrine for squirrels in my backyard, all the while fighting off local zombing...er, "zoning" by-law enforcers.

Should we start with the SuperLambBanana? Sure! -

1. Liverpool, England

2. People, shot full of holes, appropriately across L.A. Police Department.

3. A little overweight, Erevan, Armenia

4. San Jose, Costa Rica.

5. "Unfinished City of Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Project

6. The Lady Fish, San Francisco

7. Disabled statue on Trafalgar Square in London

8. Finger sculpture, similar to "Le Pouce" one, in France

9. City of Wilmington's tribute to the 1898 Wilmington Race Riot

10. "The Angel of the North" in Gateshead, England

11. Happy in Chattanooga, Tennessee 

12. Skull involved in non-traditional activity, Prague

13. Nameless example somewhere in Russia

14. Don't come close :)

15. Armenia, Erevan

16. Nazgul is spotted in Prague, the same one sits in Salzburg, Austria

17. Instead of surveillance camera...

18. David Cerny's classic "Pissing Men", Prague

19. Monument to Franz Kafka, Prague

20. Heavenly angel, resting... Prague again

21. Chattanooga, Tennessey 

22. Petrozavodsk, Republic of Karelia, Russia

23. A guy and a horse melting into a blob - but rather, this is Baron Münchhausen, pulling himself up;

24. Watering problem solved, Wateringen, Holland 

25. Resting from trouble, in Moscow 

26. More Russian characters

27. A Street Sweeper, by Tzereteli 

28. Try to sit on this bench (street art by Brad Downey)

29. ...in the meantime something big and round is getting ready to fall; Barcelona, Spain

30. Turin, Italy

31. Illustration to the "Fox and Crow" fable by Krylov 

32. A kiss in Kharkov, Ukraine

33. A fat, fat pigeon, Raffle Place, Singapore 

34. Ear creature in Cologne, Germany

35. Buddies, in Cheltenham, England 

36. Some parenting angst, in Vigelands Park, Oslo - Norway

37. Holey umbrella in Minsk, Belarus

38. Bathers in Singapore 

39. Flying families, Moscow...

40. and overturned horses (by David Cerny, Prague) 

41. Urban guys resting

42. and working... in Stockholm, Sweden, right outside Berzelii Park

43. Statue in Hungary, definitely having issues...

44. Steampunk character, "Birth Machine Baby" by H. R. Giger

45. Spectacular urban "fountain" in Karlsruhe, Germany

46. Bicycle in concrete, in Sarajevo.

47. FDR Memorial in Washington, DC 

48. Downtown Salt Lake City, showing "Survival of the Fattest"

49. Anatomy lesson in Manhattan

50. These ones are classics... Melbourne, Australia

51. Los Angeles, California

52. These are probably less known: "Cry in the Wilderness" in Minsk

53. and playful sculptures, unknown location 

54. Lenin having a break from politics

55. Mermaid milking herself, Bologna, Italy

56. and a guy, not really having a brain, looks like...

57 . This is an entirely different kind of street art (Germany), simply brilliant !!

58. Some metamorphosis, unknown

59. Square head in meditation, in Nice, France 

This is only a first part of projected (truly monumental) series, so send us tips and images of whatever sculptural weirdness you spotted in public places !

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