850,000. Down the toilet.
Research by SimplySwitch, a company specializing in price comparison and switching carriers, found 4.5 million handsets are lost or damaged in the UK each year. Second to the death by watery grave, 810,000 handsets end up amongst the peanuts and broken hearts at a local pub, 315,000 stay behind for an extra long cab ride, 225,000 keep riding public transportation after their owners leave and 116,000 ended up in some dirty laundry.
We asked you to help us imagine how an email message travels around the world. All it took was a video camera, the Gmail M-velope..., and some creativity — and, wow, did you get creative!
A magazine owned by a millionaire friend of Nicolas Sarkozy doctored a photograph of the French president to remove his "love handles", it has been claimed.
Paris Match, the celebrity weekly owned by the media mogul Arnaud Lagardere, was said to have applied a computer air brush to the image of Mr Sarkozy to get rid of the unsightly bulges of fat around his waist, which are known as poignées d'amour in French.
My name is Nick, and I’m an all-you-can-eat-buffet-holic.
Thanks to an incredible metabolism, I’m able to eat 73 pounds of food in one sitting and not gain an ounce. This has spelled disaster for many area all-you-can-eat buffets whose owners break down and cry when they see me coming. I am a master of eating, and you can be too.
Okay, so maybe all-you-can-eat buffets (henceforth simply “buffets”) aren’t the best thing for your body; but a limitless food selection of questionable nutrition at a fixed price is a magical thing for people eating on a budget. One major problem has plagued buffet-eaters throughout the ages: a few plates later and you can’t eat any more. Even folks of gargantuan proportions often find themselves unable to down enough food to justify the price tag.
If things like health and being able to see your feet don’t really concern you, here are some tactics for eating your money’s worth at all-you-can-eat buffets that’ll have you striking fear in the heart of buffet restaurateurs everywhere.
My husband loves buffets, particularly Indian and Chinese, because he can eat a variety of foods. For this reason, buffets can be a wonderful dining experience. But is this necessarily good for our health? It all depends. You probably don’t need to continue reading if:
a. You’re an athlete and in training (and usually eat buffets to keep up your weight)
b. You work out regularly and/or don’t usually gain weight/feel too full after a buffet.
But for those of you who usually indulge at buffets and end up feeling guilty afterwards, this article is for you! A buffet shouldn’t leave you feeling bloated, lethargic, or guilty for consuming food. Instead, it should leave you feeling satisfied because you were able to enjoy a variety of foods and walk away without having to unbutton that first button of your pants!!
So, for you buffet-goers, here are some suggestions:
Takara Tomy's sold-out, holy-shit-it-really transforms Soundwave MP3 player, though they don't exactly offer an in-depth review. But who cares about the specs? It's a Transformers MP3 player that transforms.
Scientists Say Common Virus Could Cause Obesity
Scientists at the 234th national meeting of the American Chemical Society in Boston, Massachusetts this week presented the results of a study that suggests a common virus could be partly responsible for the obesity epidemic that is sweeping across America and other nations. They hope their findings will develop antiviral medication to treat "viral obesity".
In this latest study, researchers used lab experiments to show that infection with a common virus that causes respiratory and eye infections in humans, called human adenovirus-36 (Ad-36) turns adult stem cells retrieved from fat tissue into fat cells. But stem cells that were not exposed to Ad-36 did not turn into fat cells.
The scientists have also discovered that a specific gene in the virus causes the transformation from stem cells into fat cells.
"We're not saying that a virus is the only cause of obesity, but this study provides stronger evidence that some obesity cases may involve viral infections."
The research team has also identified a gene in the Ad-36 virus, called E4Orfl, that seems to play a key role in switching on the fat accumulation process in infected animals. The gene could be a target for a range of human therapies, including vaccines and anti-virals, to treat obesity, said Pasarica.
Pasarica said a lot more studies were needed, especially in humans. The team is carrying out further investigations into the factors that trigger obesity in some people with the virus while other infected people don't become obese.
The dress is comprised of 7 trashbags, 2 foot-pumps and a pair of slippers. As you walk, air is gradually pumped into the inflatable bubble at the back of the dress, allowing you to sit on it. However, your weight will slowly deflates the bubble, forcing you to get up and walk again.
According to the creator, "The balance between exercise and rest would be maintained by wearing this suit. The purpose of this project is to transform the humdrum experiences produced by routine walking commutes into an amusing interactive performance."
Using data from recent comet-probing space missions, British scientists are reporting today that the odds of life starting on Earth rather than inside a comet are one trillion trillion (10 to the power of 24) to one against. That is, we're not originally from around here. Radiation in comets could keep water in liquid form for millions of years, they say, which along with the clay and organic molecules found on-board would provide an ideal incubator. 'Professor Wickramasinghe said: "The findings of the comet missions, which surprised many, strengthen the argument for panspermia. We now have a mechanism for how it could have happened. All the necessary elements - clay, organic molecules and water - are there. The longer time scale and the greater mass of comets make it overwhelmingly more likely that life began in space than on earth.
WHEN Times editors assigned me to the religion beat, I believed God had answered my prayers.
As a serious Christian, I had cringed at some of the coverage in the mainstream media. Faith frequently was treated like a circus, even a freak show.
I wanted to report objectively and respectfully about how belief shapes people's lives. Along the way, I believed, my own faith would grow deeper and sturdier.
But during the eight years I covered religion, something very different happened.
Time flies when you're having fun. Unless you're photographer David Michalek. Then it practically stands still. The proof is in Michalek's latest project, Slow Dancing, which was on view this summer outside the New York State Theater at Lincoln Center. On a rainy Manhattan night, Michalek explains to me what he had to go through to create his epic work of art — super-slow-motion, hi-def films of 45 dancers leaping, pirouetting, and stomping. The images are projected on three screens, each five stories high.
The effect is remarkable. By slowing down just five seconds of conventional dance movements Michalek reveals a rich world of hidden undulations, minuscule adjustments, and concealed strain. It takes 10 minutes for each five-second sequence to unspool. Eadweard Muybridge would have loved it.
Benefits:
1) Save money, time, and labour in the war against flooding with reusable bags filled with a safe biodegradable polymer and water
2) Build dikes in half the time with fewer people
3) Deploys quickly and easily
4) Easy to use: automatically inflates in only 3 - 5 minutes (expands from 1 lb to 34lbs)
5) Requires less labor to prepare or use
6) Can be inflated at point of use, no need for heavy infrastructure
Preparation (remotes filling with sand and transported to site)
7) Very efficient: requires no more storage space than a normal, empty
sandbag
8) Easy to ship or move
9) Reusable
10) Environmentally friendly
11) Uses natural jute bag or polypropylene plastic bag and water absorbing
resin (PRTR approved, the same as baby diapers)
12) Product dissolves naturally in ground
The movie that has been astounding audiences in theaters around the world is now available on a high-quality, feature-packed DVD.
In this provocative, critically acclaimed documentary, you will discover:
* The early founders of Christianity seem wholly unaware of the idea of a human Jesus
* The Jesus of the Gospels bears a striking resemblance to other ancient heroes and the figureheads of pagan savior cults
* Contemporary Christians are largely ignorant of the origins of their religion
* Fundamentalism is as strong today as it ever has been, with an alarming 44% of Americans believing Jesus will return to earth in their lifetimes
* And God simply isn't there
Dazzling motion graphics and a sweeping soundtrack propel this uncompromising and taboo-shattering documentary that Newsweek says "irreverently lays out the case that Jesus Christ never existed."
The God Who Wasn't There includes provocative interviews with:
* Sam Harris, PEN Award-winning author of The End of Faith
* Robert M. Price, Jesus Seminar fellow and author of The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man
* Alan Dundes, Professor of Folklore at the University of California at Berkeley
* Richard Carrier, historian and author of Sense and Goodness Without God
* Barbara & David P. Mikkelson, authors of the Urban Legends Reference Pages at snopes.com
* And many others
Levitation has been elevated from being pure science fiction to science fact, according to a study reported today by physicists.
In earlier work the same team of theoretical physicists showed that invisibility cloaks are feasible.
Now, in another report that sounds like it comes out of the pages of a Harry Potter book, the University of St Andrews team has created an 'incredible levitation effects’ by engineering the force of nature which normally causes objects to stick together.
Professor Ulf Leonhardt and Dr Thomas Philbin, from the University of St Andrews in Scotland, have worked out a way of reversing this pheneomenon, known as the Casimir force, so that it repels instead of attracts.
Their discovery could ultimately lead to frictionless micro-machines with moving parts that levitate But they say that, in principle at least, the same effect could be used to levitate bigger objects too, even a person.
The M200X volantor has completed over two hundred successful test flights. It has been extensively hard-tooled so that derivatives not requiring FAA certification are now available.
Recreational and utilitarian models include:
Demonstrators for use over one’s own property (M200D)
Versions that operate within ground effect--approximately 10 feet AGL (M200G)
Experimental or homebuilt variants (M200E)
Rescue configuration capable of docking with skyscrapers (Firefly 3)
Depending on the number of orders received the prices could vary between $125,000 for the M200G to $450,000 for the Firefly 3. Information on potential military and/or para-military applications of the M200R and M200M are welcome.
The man, who happens to actually live in Dubai's Burj Al Arab seven-star hotel, snagged himself a Bugatti Veyron and then decided it was necessary to spend a little bit more money with some pimper... But really, our only question here is -- does the man wipe himself on the toilet with hundred dollar bills, or does he pay someone to do that for him? Oh yeah, and the going price we're assuming is significantly more than the $1.2 million for the standard Veyron.
Now, another round of 20 teams will try to win $500,000 from the space agency for building a robotic climber that can hoist itself up on a thin carbon tether, under its own power source, 100 meters within 50 seconds. (Last year, a Canadian team lost the race by 2 seconds.)
The Spaceward Foundation, the nonprofit group that organizes the space elevator competition, said Tuesday that its third annual contest will be held October 19 to 21 in Salt Lake City. It's part of NASA's Centennial Challenges, a series of government-sponsored competitions that support space exploration by encouraging private industry and universities to develop related technologies for cash prizes.
