The weekend church outing comes as Miss Fox’s next big screen effort has just debuted it’s very first poster – though the film won’t be hitting theaters until this holiday season on December 21st.

The role finds her paired up with Jason Segel in the Judd Apatow directed ‘sort-of-sequel’ titled “This Is 40″ – which is a look at the lives of Pete (Paul Rudd) and Debbie (Leslie Mann) a few years after the events of “Knocked Up”.

“Yes, it’s confirmed,” Cynthia Pett-Dante, Pitt’s manager, said in a statement to the press. “It is a promise for the future, and their kids are very happy. There’s no date set at this time.”

Chen Jejun lives alone in a thatched cottage on a hill in China’s Shuijiang municipality. He’s known by the locals as a stone cutter and master bamboo weaver, but also for his unusual habit of drinking gasoline. The slender old man estimates he drinks around 3 to 3.5 liters of gasoline every month, to relieve any physical pain. He buys gasoline from a station at the bottom of the hill, and although it’s hard for him to calculate how much gasoline he has consumed throughout his life, judging by his daily habit, reporters of the Chongqing Evening News estimate he has drunk around 1.5 tons of fuel over the last 42 years.

He first started drinking gasoline in 1969, when he suddenly began coughing and felt a sharp pain in his chest. He tried some medicine, which didn’t seem to help him much, so after the elders of his village told him he might have tuberculosis and should try drinking some kerosene, he didn’t think twice about it. After drinking his first cup he felt sick to his stomach and decided to go to bed. One hour later he woke up feeling much better, so he continued drinking the stuff to ease the pain.

In 2001, Cheng Dejun switched to gasoline, because the entire village started using electric light and kerosene was harder to come by. He says it’s just as good as kerosene, and according to doctor’s tests, Cheng appears to be in good health, despite signs of emphysema. Feng Fu, an associate professor at Second Hospital Associated with Chongqing University, says the old man must have developed some kind of immunity to gasoline, otherwise it should have killed him. He also added that the gasoline might act as an anesthetic, but it can’t cure Cheng’s pain.

Yankeyan used the OpenKinect drivers, along with image processing, tracking and rendering by OpenCV to create this great real-time lightsaber effect on his PC. All he has to do is pick up a wooden stick, and the Kinect tracks its position and the image processing software adds the lightsaber effect.
Hopefully, LucasArts will oblige us with the same when their Star Wars Kinect game comes out next year. For now, Yankeyan’s hack will have to tide us over. OpenKinect is using GitHub to share code with you! GitHub is more than just a place to share code. It’s a place to keep tabs on your favorite developers and projects, easily contribute fixes and new features, and visualize what’s going on inside your codebase! OpenCV (Open Source Computer Vision) is a library of programming functions for real time computer vision.

The young woman from Vietnam suffered an allergic reaction in 2008, and after taking some prescribed medication  the skin her face, hands and body started to wrinkle and become saggy, giving her the appearance of an old lady. It all started after Thi Phuong ate some seafood. It gave her such a bad rash that she used to scratch even in her sleep, so to alleviate the symptoms, her husband, Nguyen Thanh Tuyen, bought her some medication. It didn’t work, so she visited a local doctor who prescribed pills for dermatitis, which only made things worse, causing her face to swell up and hives to erupt all over her skin. She stopped taking them after a week and put her hopes in some Chinese practitioners in her town, in the Giong Trom district of Vietnam’s Ben Tre province. They cured her itching and hives, but her skin was becoming saggy.

Nguyen Thi Phuong’s condition wasn’t getting any better, and although she was given medication for symptoms, it also made her put on weight, and because it was too expensive, VND30,000 ($1.88) a day, she stopped taking it. After Thi Phuong’s 34-year-old husband quit his job to take care of her, in 2009, the couple quickly ran out of money and instead of treating her condition, she started looking at it as a fate from God, and stopped taking any medication. As her condition worsened, people began having a hard time recognizing her and mistook  her for an old lady, until they heard her voice.

Photos of the 26-year-old reveal she was a beautiful woman just a few years ago, but now her skin is that of a seventy-year-old. Although she has never given birth, the skin on her stomach is so saggy it looks like she has delivered three babies. But, despite her appearance, Nguyen Thi Phuong has stood by her side ever since the ordeal started and says he still loves his wife.

Many doctors have speculated over the mysterious condition of the young Vietnamese woman, but experts have yet to properly identify what caused this overnight-aging of her skin. Doctor Mai The Trach, former chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City Endocrine Association, says she only looks old, but her internal organs don’t show any signs of aging, and her hair and postures are those of a young woman. Theories regarding her disease include medicinal poisoning, allergy to certain medications and the overuse of medicines with corticoid. Others believe she may be suffering from a genetic or endocrine disorder, and Hoang Van Minh, head of dermatology at the Ho Chi Minh City University Medical Centre thinks Nguyen Thi Phuong has cutaneous mastocytosis.
After the story broke out in the Vietnamese media, many medical experts have offered to help Nguyen Thi Phuong, three hospitals in Ho Chi Minh offered her consultations, and a soap-making company has offered to pay for her consultations and treatment, even if they require her to travel overseas. It will be giving Phuong and her husband VND50 million ($2,400) for now.

It sounds like a pretty bizarre situation, especially after you read all the jokes and comments by various media outlets, regarding Babylonia Aivaz’s decision to marry a warehouse. Some joke about the awkward wedding night, others about the solid foundation of their relationship, but the fact is she’s doing it as a form of protest against gentrification. ’I’m doing this to show the building how much I love it, how much I love community space and how much I love this neighborhood. And I want to stop it from gentrification,’ Aivaz said in an interview. ’If corporations can have the rights as people, so can buildings,’ she added, referencing a Supreme Court decision on political advertising.
The unique wedding took place on Sunday, and drew about 30 attendees who watched Babylonia Aivaz tie the knot to her beloved warehouse. She said the building is actually a woman, which makes this a “gay marriage”. Believe it or not, members of the gay community found this remark insulting – “Okay, we gotta ask: Why is this like “gay marriage” (as she likes to call it)? Because, we’ll marry horses and dogs and oxen next? Why didn’t she take her loony idea about marrying a building and just call it marriage?” asked the staff of Instinct Magazine. The event itself had everything: music, snacks, wedding vows and, of course, the obligatory “I do’s”. Throughout the ceremony, Babylonia held a cardboard sign that read “Stop Gentrification”.

Raffi Stephanian scrapes the mud from cracks in the sidewalk, using his trusty tools, puts it in his Styrofoam cup and takes it to a polishing studio, where he uses a bowl and sieve to get rid of the mud, just like old prospectors used to do. Only he says the percentage of gold on the streets of New York is actually higher than in a mine, plus all the precious stones he finds are already processed and ready to be sold. And he sells all his loot to jewelry sellers in the area, to whom it belonged to in the first place.
But is this kind of modern prospecting enough to make a living in New York City? In the last six days, Raffi made $819 selling found gold to dealers in the Diamond District, and he says if done right, his method can produce up to $200 a day. He claims he makes between $40 and $60 in just one – two hours, every day. Asked if he sees himself doing this for a long time, Mr. Stephanian said he would, if the Diamond District weren’t so small. He’d probably end up cleaning the place up in order to make a living off its gutter riches.

While other people would have probably guarded this secret with their lives, Raffi even did an interview on how he does his prospecting and says he would actually like other people to enjoy doing what he does. I have a feeling he’ll be out looking for another job pretty soon, after this.

The pair of jeans in question was actually made of raw denim, which isn’t treated with any chemicals, so Le thought they would make a perfect home for bacteria, in the course of 15 months. He declared he wore them almost every day, which is pretty amazing, considering that apart from a few wear marks, they looked pretty clean.

When the 15 months were up, Josh Le took his “contaminated” pair of jeans to one of his teachers’ laboratory, to be tested for bacteria. Professor Rachel McQueen took samples, then washed the jeans and asked Josh to wear them for another two weeks, then tested for bacteria again. Amazingly, the results of the two samples were very similar – five types of skin bacteria, and between 8,500 and 10,000 bacterial units, mostly in the crotch area. McQueen concluded that people could in fact wash their jeans less often in order to protect the environment, without fear of hazardous bacterial contamination.
However, Josh Le admitted he did have some problems with the odor of the jeans, which started smelling funny after only a few months. He solved the problem by triple bagging them and putting them in the freezer.

Spanish Architect Luis de Garrido, who specializes in sustainable building, designed Eco-House Horus to be completely energy, water, and food self-sufficient. As with his other projects, he relied on careful bioclimatic design to solve efficiency challenges.

The resulting eye-shaped, dome-shaped house has no less than 25 bedrooms and five lounges. If the world ends, Campbell and Doronin and a few dozen of their lucky friends just might be able to survive.

Campbell and Doronin are small potatoes in comparison to the island’s vastly more famous couple (hint: the island is named after one of them). As it turns out, Eco-House Horus isn’t the first time a grand gesture has been made for a ladylove on this island. A long-ago romance might have also changed the landscape of this island.

A representative of architect Luis de Garrido’s firm noted that the structure is “not an expensive house, compared with the level of this kind of house. That is, we can demonstrate that a completely sustainable building [might] be really inexpensive, and also that a self-sufficient building could be obtained by a not too much additional cost (due to a well-studied bioclimatic design).”

Turkey’s Sedir Island, aka Cleopatra Island, has been a resort destination in the Gulf of Gökova since ancient Roman times. The sand on Cleopatra Beach is said to be exceptional, and different from other nearby beaches. Local legend has it that Mark Antony imported the sand especially for Cleopatra herself, who would not set foot on any land that wasn’t Egyptian.

The black outline making up most of the eye design is comprised of photovoltaic panels, which works in combination with the geothermal system to provide all of the energy needed for the house.

When Jacqui, from Oxford, England, divorced her husband Martin, in 2003, was so happy about her new found freedom that she decided to get a tattoo in celebration of the event. But as soon  as she walked through the door of the tattoo parlor and met Andreas “Curly” Moore her life changed once again. The two fell in love on the spot and that one tattoo she had in mind turned into a gigantic piece that spanned over eight years. The only parts that aren’t covered with ink are her left armpit, her right leg and most of her face.

Curly, who also sports an impressive full-body suit tattoo, is responsible for every one of the tattoos on Jacqui’s body. Her back is covered by a swarm of dragonflies, a giant spiderweb with tarantulas coming out of it is etched on her stomach, and her right leg features Indian and Tibetan flowers. He didn’t charge her for his services, of course, but it’s estimated the epic tattoo would have cost a mind-blowing $22,000.

Although Jacqui says she’s very proud of her tattooed body, and that she plans to cover up the other 15%, the English gardener admits not everyone shares her love for tattoos. Her 21-year-old daughter Kristi isn’t too happy with her mother’s extreme makeover, but she has two tattoos of her own so she can’t object very much. Other people look at her funny and some even told her she looks disgusting. Luckily, her employers respect her art and don’t have a problem with her continuing her project.

The mine was opened in 1955 and operated by Anaconda Copper and later by the Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO), until its closure in 1982. When the pit was closed, the water pumps in the nearby Kelly shaft, at a depth of 3,800 feet, were turned off, and groundwater from the surrounding aquifers began to slowly fill the pit, rising at about the rate of one foot a month. Since the pit closure in 1982, the level has risen to within 150 feet of the natural groundwater level.

The pit and its water present a serious environmental problem because the water, with dissolved oxygen, allows pyrite and sulfide minerals in the ore and wall rocks to decay, releasing acid. When the pit water level eventually reaches the natural water table, estimated to occur by around 2020, the pit water will reverse flow back into surrounding groundwater, polluting into Silver Bow Creek which is the headwaters of Clark Fork River. The acidic water in the pit carries a heavy load of dissolved heavy metals. In fact, the water contains so much dissolved metal (up to 187 ppm Cu) that some material is mined directly from the water.

In the 1990s plans were devised for solving the groundwater problem. Water flowing into the pit has been diverted to slow the rise of the water level. Plans have been made for more extensive treatment in the future. The Berkeley Pit has since become one of the largest Superfund sites.

The pit is currently a tourist attraction, with an adjacent gift shop. A $2 admission fee is charged to go out on the viewing platform.

* 1994 – September, EPA/DEQ issue Record of Decision (ROD) for Butte Mine Flooding Operable Unit.

* 1996 – April, Montana Resources (MR) and ARCO divert Horseshoe Bend (HSB) drainage water away from Berkeley Pit to slow filling rate, per ROD.

* 2000 – July, MR suspends mining operations due to high energy costs; HSB water allowed to flow back into pit, increasing pit filling rate.

* 2002 – March, USEPA and Montana Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) enter into a Consent Decree with BP/ARCO and the Montana Resources Group (known as the Settling Defendants) for settlement of past and future costs for this site.

* 2002 – Fall, USEPA and MDEQ issue order for Settling Defendants to begin design of water treatment plant for HSB water. Settling Defendants issue contract and begin construction of treatment plant.

* 2003 – November, MR resumes mining operations.

* 2003 – November 17, HSB water treatment plant comes on line slowing pit filling rate.

Mark Evans

Via Reuters

This gloves is going to turn you into Spiderman. It is invented by Jem Stansfield, he created it by using two vacuum cleaners he bought from the supermarket.

Of course, the human action of smoking can be considered just as pointless as the machine’s smoking…so perhaps Myskja meant his machine as a commentary on this very human addiction.

The machine works by doling out one cigarette at a time to a small holder. Once the cigarette is firmly in place, it is lit and then smoked by an electric air valve. The valve takes draws like a human smoker would, slowly turning the stick of tobacco into ashes that fall to the floor. The butt then falls as well, leaving a rather unattractive pile of debris all around the base of the machine.

For all of the death and disease represented by the machine’s repetitive action, it’s actually a beautiful piece of weird technology. And who knows – maybe watching it consume all of those chemicals could help smokers kick the habit once and for all. See it in action at the artist’s site for the full effect.

Ramona Wegemann, Etana’s owner is very proud of her dog, a purebred Rhodesian Ridgeback, but non the less exhausted after having to cope with feeding and taking care of all the 17 puppies for the first 4 weeks, as their mother wouldn’t have been able to deal with all of them.

This was Etana’s second pregnancy, but the first time she gave birth to 8 puppies, a number very common for her breed, so nobody really saw this coming. As this has turned into a full time job, both Ramona and her husband have had to dedicate most of their time, and space, to these little ones. Their living room was turned upside down as it is now occupied by a giant box housing the puppies. It’s really a full time job.

Etana has given birth to 9 male and 8 female puppies, and as you can imagine, their owners are having a difficult time telling them apart: the male puppies are called Baakir, Banjoku, Belay, Bruk, Bundu, Bayo, Bukekayo, Biton and Bulus and the female ones are Bahati, Binta, Bahya, Bashima, Batouuli, Binki, Bora, Bisa. These are all African names, because the Rhodesian Ridgeback is an African breed, but…do all African names start with a “B” or is this a real weird coincidence?

The 17 puppies were born on September 26, and since then four of them have been sold, two more are already paid for, and Ramona hopes she will be able to find good homes for all of them. But she says they are only considering families with children, not breeders.

Walking around 2,200 miles across 23 states is quite a challenge for any 48-year-old, but Mr Bendl decided to make it even tougher by rolling a 36-kg-heavy inflatable globe, everywhere he goes. It may sound useless and stupid, but it’s actually for a good cause – raising awareness about diabetes and the complications it causes.

World Guy lost his 54-year-old mother to diabetes, in 1987,and always wanted to do something memorable in her honor. In the late 1990s, he took the giant canvas globe he and his son used to play with and embarked on a 160-miles-long journey across Kentucky, for the American Diabetes Association, and also began walking in parades around the state. In 2007, after he and his wife got divorced, Erik Bendl set out on his first major trek across America, a 430-mile walk from Louisville to Pittsburgh.

Now, he’s halfway through his fifth long walk, talking to people he encounters and posting their stories on his blog, via the Blackberry smartphone hanging around his neck. He is accompanied by his dog, Nice, who loyally follows him on his daily 10-mile walks. When he completes his daily trek, he returns to his van, drives it to the spot he ended his walk, sleeps and does it all again the next day.

VIA Oddity Central

Since the cost of producing the vehicles and playsets for the 12″ dolls was prohibitive, as well as taking up space in living rooms, Takara decided to produce a miniature version of the Henshin Cyborg line which was called Microman.

The first series, Microman Zone, included four figures and several vehicles in kit form that needed to be assembled. Microman Zone proved to be popular and by its second year, the Microman line was spun-off from the “Henshin Cyborg” line.

Unlike other toylines at the time, Microman figures were marketed as being the “actual” size of the real thing. Microman figures were cyborg beings from the planet Micro Earth that disguised themselves as toys. All of the Microman toys used 5 mm connectors and ports, which allowed parts from one toy to be attached to another toy to form new toys.

Lady Gaga was at the New Museum in New York City for her “Lady Gaga X Terry Richardson” book signing last night. Even with the rain she still donned crazy platforms with a super long hem on her dress. Presumably when everyone goes around the table listing what they’re thankful for at Lady Gaga’s Thanksgiving, she’ll mention something about being grateful she doesn’t fall down in crazy shoes more often. Just like the pilgrims were.

Lady Gaga wowed the crowd again when she arrived at the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards arrivals at the Staples Center, Los Angeles on January 31. The first of her four outfits — a sparkly solar-system styled affair — was paired with some eyecatchingly odd shoes, which left us wondering how she even walked down the red carpet without tipping over!

In a statement to Us Magazine, Armani wrote, “We hear Lady Gaga’s music everywhere we go… It is like a soundtrack of our times. In addition to her formidable songwriting skills, she is a modern fashion phenomenon. I am delighted to be creating these outfits on such an important night for her, the Grammys, and I wish her the best of luck.”
Lady Gaga — née Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta — returned the compliment, stating, “I am honored to be wearing Armani this evening. The series of pieces Mr Armani created for me are truly iconic; they represent not only beautiful fashion, but my spirit and essence as an artist.”

We’ve already heard about adventure tourism, which typically involves a mountain bike ride, white water raft action, or another adrenaline based sport. However, danger tourism takes your adventure to the next level.The sketchy mountain side path leads you up the Huashan Mountain near Xi’an, China. China Highlights describes the road, “Huashan Mountian is located some 240 kilometers away from Xi’an, approximately a two and half hours drive.  It is one of the five sacred mountains in China. Huashan Mountain is well-known for its sheer cliffs and plunging ravines. It is the most dangerous mountain in China for climbers.”

At the peak of the mountain, you’ll find a number of Buddhism and Daoism temples, buildings and scriptures.

Her story began early in the childhood when, because of the abnormal height ( 6ft 9ins at the age of 13 ) and the wickedness of others , Lindsay began to drink on her own, only making it worse. At the age of 16, during a fight with another girl, Lindsay lifted her off the ground and then threw her into a brick wall. Not long after, she left home and started a career as a model, where we can see that she began to have a good feeling about the way her body looked.

Lindsay Hayward began her professional wrestler career in June 2008, at which point she started to train hard at the gym, eating 5oz of chicken every two hours in order to build muscle and gain strength. Known by the fans as Isis, the 109Kg female signed a contract with WWE ( World Wrestling Entertainment ) in the summer of 2010 under which Lindsay received a new stage name, Aloisia, and she was going to be part of their NXT show. But, with this amazing debut very close to her, on September 15th 2010, Vickie Guerrero announced that the contract between the two parties ( Lindsay Hayward and WWE ) ended. The reason seems to be some pictures taken, according to Lindsay, 5 years ago.

This year, the event has managed to bring together around 200 professional climbers from all over the world, all eager to start climbing some of the oldest, most important buildings in the city. “It is the new sport of the future and we are pioneering it – street bouldering. And with the Sondrio Street Festival we have established ourselves as the world center for street bouldering,” a spokesman of the council explained.

Last year, 75 climbers showed up for this offbeat event, but the numbers of people interested in street bouldering is definitely on the rise. On December 18, over 200 climbers took part in the various events that included scaling granite columns, stone walls and even a 40 meter tall bell tower. Just like last year, winners were rewarded with a delicious pizza and pints of beer.

Burrows, who works as the Assistant Imaging Director for 96.5 Jack-FM here at CBS Radio in Seattle, as well as troops as a 501st Legion member in the Titan Garrison under the designation TK-757, decided to change his middle name to Megatron for a variety of reasons, all stemming from a conversation about tomatoes as he explains below.

Why did you decide to change your middle name from Michael to Megatron?
The decision to change my name came after a long discussion that a few of my friends and I had about middle names, Burrows explains. “My ex-girlfriend’s brother changed his middle name from Bernard to Tomato when he was in high school. Bernard was a family name that he really didn’t care for, and he had been called Tomato on his high school sports teams for years, so he asked his mom for permission and made it happen.

After that conversation, we all talked about what I could change my middle name to, since Michael was so “ordinary”. With all the excitement that my friends and I had about the Transformers movie coming out and Megatron being my favorite character from that universe, it was an easy choice. I also liked the fact that my middle initial wouldn’t change, so my banking and financial paperwork could stay the same. I can still maintain the “professional” Jason M. Burrows, while having the fun of a totally unique name. At first, the whole thing was all theoretical, but after researching the cost and process, I decided to go for it.

What was the legal process like?
The legal process was surprisingly easy. The hardest part about it was gathering the $100 for all the court fees. I didn’t have the extra hundred laying around, so my friend Adam suggested that I ask for donations. On a whim, I posted the story on my Livejournal page with a PayPal donate button, and my friends answered the call! My friend Deven donated the initial $20, then suggested that I have people sponsor a letter after that, so each letter of Megatron is “owned” by a different friend!

Once I had the cash in hand, I chose to go to the court July 2 since the movie was opening at 8pm that evening. I filled out the paperwork, turned it in with the filing fees to the clerk and was told to be back at the courthouse at 1:30pm to go before the judge. I agreed and showed up to Judge Eilleen Kato’s courtroom. She came in and said that she’d be hearing name changes first. The first lady got up and changed her last name to honor her birth family. Next, a family went up, and the mom and dad both said that their daughter would like her name changed to Jessica, so the judge signed that order. I was third on the list. I walked to the front, where she had me raise my right hand to swear that I would tell the truth, whole truth and nothing but the truth. She asked if my name change was to defraud creditors, I said no. She asked if it would be detrimental to anyone else, I said no. She then asked if I was indeed changing my middle name to that of my childhood hero, I smiled and said, ‘”Yes Ma’am.” She said, ‘Then I do order and decree that your name be changed from Jason Michael Burrows to Jason Megatron Burrows” with a huge grin. There were quite a few chuckles from the courtroom. I was handed the paperwork and headed back to work.

Did you face opposition from your family?
I actually haven’t told my parents about the change yet! My sister thinks I’m nuts, but she’s getting a kick out of how much fun I’m having with it. She’s due with her second kid in September and I’ve been sending her a bunch of name ideas. After I informed her of the name change, she told me not to bother sending Transformer names.

Did you friends and family think it was pretty cool?
Most of my friends’love the fact that I changed my name. I’ve only received a few weird looks, but for the most part everyone thinks it’s pretty cool.

How do you think the name change will affect how people see you?
I don’t believe it will affect how people view me. I think that most people won’t ever know, since I don’t regularly use my middle name. The people that are close to me know and they like it, so that’s good enough for me. A few people have said that they’d be interested to see what future employers think when they look at my resume, but I figure if you don’t have a big enough sense of humor to find the fun in my name, I probably don’t want to work for you anyway.

Do you feel more powerful now?
That’s a good question. I think I’d have to say yes, I do feel more powerful. Now, once I install the fusion cannon on my arm, I’ll be set. *laugh*

Gun, Tank, T-Rex or Jet – which is the best Megatron and why?
The Generation 1 version of Megatron will always be my favorite. The gun all the way. One of my favorite memories as a kid was flying into Reno with my grandparents after returning from the Philippines. I had my original G1 Megatron in the gun form in my carry-on bag and got stopped by security. I ended up having to put him in a cardboard box and check him as luggage.

If there was a Transformers-Star Wars crossover, how well would Megs work with the Empire?
Ooh, Transformers-Star Wars crossover that’s tricky. I think that the Decepticons would work well with the Empire to start, but the power struggle between Vader and Megatron would end up working against them, leading to the Rebel/Autobot victory – unfortunately.

Any advice to fans who want to go about legally changing their name to their favorite character?
My advice to fans who want to change your name would be – if you really want to do it, put on your Internet flame-retardant armor and go for it. And ignore what people say on forums. I-ve been called a lot of names since people found out, but in the end I’m happy with my decision and that’s much more important to me than what other people think.

Video games won out over more traditional options in an online poll that residents used to pick their street names, said Antonio Almudi Miranda, president of the Arcosur neighborhood association.
“We are people who grew up living with video games. We know them very well,” he said. “I’m 25. I’m the same age as Mario.”
The government-sponsored Arcosur project aims to build more than 21,000 residences for people ages 20 to 35 who are buying their first homes, he said. Construction began last year.
A dozen of the development’s streets will be named for video games, Almudi said. Names of musical composers and Spanish monuments will grace the neighborhood’s remaining 46 roads.
Super Mario’s street is nearly a kilometer long and will have hundreds of homes on it, Almudi said — and his will be one of them. The English and math teacher said he’s looking forward to living on a street named after someone his students will recognize.
Residents are proud to have Super Mario represented in the neighborhood, he said, and grateful that their street signs will not feature names of war heroes or violent characters.
At Saturday’s festivities, representatives from Nintendo handed out prizes in honor of Super Mario’s 25th anniversary, Almudi said.
But there’s also a serious side to the publicity stunt, he said. Future residents hope increased media attention will pressure the government to finish building the neighborhood on time — by June 2012.
“We wanted to make noise and show that there are a lot of us who are in this neighborhood,” he said. “We want our homes now, because we are many young people and we have been waiting.”
Once it’s constructed, more than 60,000 people are expected to live in the neighborhood, Almudi said.
“The majority of us are lawyers, police officers, engineers, businessmen, teachers and hard workers of all kinds,” he said. “Surely we have a lot of plumbers.”

Via CNN

An army of red monsters is marching west from Russia. They have eight legs, and huge claws, and they grow up to 6ft wide. They’ll eat anything they can catch. There are 10 million of them, and they’re multiplying rapidly.
So, I ask you, what better way to spend a short break than to nip up to Norway, catch a few with your bare hands and eat them with garlic mayonnaise?

The monsters in question are red king crabs and, while they’re not likely to put an end to the human race, they’re certainly enough to give it a few nightmares. They have shells covered in evil spikes and chillingly complex, insect-like mouth parts, all blown up to outlandish proportions.

They look like something dreamt up by the special-effects department of a film studio specialising in gratuitously nasty horror B-movies, then rejected by the director as implausibly unpleasant. I have stared deep into their stick-mounted eyes from a distance of six inches, and all I saw there was a dumb, relentless malevolence.

If you’d like to do the same, you need to go to Finnmark, at the very top of Norway. If you look on the map, it’s that spiky mohican haircut of land that fans out way, way above the Arctic Circle. Briefly, this is why the crabs are there: king crabs are native to Kamchatka, 2,500 miles away at the eastern end of Siberia.

David Blaine broke the Guinness world record for breath-holding today by staying underwater for 17 minutes and 4 seconds on “The Oprah Winfrey Program.”

It was quite a feat, particularly considering what “Oprah” did to his heart. When I watched him train in a swimming pool on Grand Cayman Island by doing a 16:09 breath hold, his heart rate went down to 46 beats per minute right away and then stayed fairly low (sometimes up to the 60s) throughout. But he told me was concerned he’d have a tougher time slowing his heart on television, and sure enough, he did.
After he filled his lungs with pure oxygen, his heart rate remained at 130 during the second minute of the breath-hold and then stayed above 100 for much of the time. It was 124 in the 15th minute. The higher the heart rate, the more quickly oxygen is consumed, and the more painful the carbon dioxide buildup. But apparently his CO2 tolerance training (repeated breath holds every morning) was just enough to compensate. In the last minute his heart rate became erratic and he got concerned enough to start rising from the bottom of the water-filled sphere, but he kept his head underwater more than a half minute longer than the old record of 16:32.

“I really thought I was not going to make it,” he told me afterwards. “At minute 12 I felt the pain coming, and by minute 14 it was overwhelming. This was a whole other level of pain. I still feel as if somebody hit me in the stomach with the hardest punch they could.”
Besides the pressure of performing on television, he explained, there were a couple of other unexpected distractions working in the sphere: A heart-rate monitor happened to be close enough to his ear so that he heard its beeping, and he had to keep his feet locked in holds at the bottom of the sphere — instead of just floating freely, as he’d done in the pool on Grand Cayman. Back then he’d said he was so relaxed he “wasn’t even there” during most of the breath-hold. But when he emerged from the sphere today, he told Ms. Winfrey, “I was pretty much here the whole time.”

When she asked him what he’d been thinking about, he replied, “You.”
Mr. Blaine asked me to send his thanks to the Lab readers who encouraged him. And before today’s breath-hold, he offered an answer to readers’ questions about how and why he set out to break the world record:.

I have been fascinated by the idea of long breath-holds since I was just 5 years old. Houdini claiming to be so tough underwater
and living up to his claim inspired me as well. As a boy on the YMCA swim team in Park Slope in Brooklyn at age 5, I would win by not breathing across the length of the pool. At age 11 I was up to 3 minutes and 30 seconds. Back then I would fight to hold my breath for so long.
It wasn’t until I met Kirk Krack, my freediving coach, that taught me to relax into it. The stillness changes everything. It is much easier to go further when the condition is accepted instead of opposed. My next challenge was to control the heart rate. I found out that by doing good cardio training and not eating foods for the sake of indulgence but rather for the nutritional value the body functions like a well maintained machine.

I also use breathing techniques to control feelings, but the absence is the exact opposite. In order to go without breathing for extended periods, it is important to remove all thought as much as possible. That feeling cannot be described very well, other than I try to imagine going into the abyss of the ocean as I begin the breath hold and then everything fades slowly away.
Well, that wasn’t so easy to do today, but Mr. Blaine said he was more than satisfied with the results: “It’s better when you have to fight, anyway.”