Pandamonium! 12 panda babies cuddle

BEIJING – Too cute?

Here is some video of a dozen baby pandas playing in a crib-like structure at the Chengdu Giant Panda Research Base in China’s southwestern province of Sichuan. 

The 12 panda babies just made their debut at the research center on Monday. They were all born this year from eight different litters. 

The Chengdu base started in 1987 with only four pandas, but now it has 108 giant pandas.

China started sending its pandas overseas as a diplomatic gesture as in 1958. Now 32 giant pandas live outside China, including 13 in the U.S.

In June 2011 China began conducting its once-a-decade “panda census” to learn how many are living in the country, but the results have not been released yet. According to the last census done in 2000, there were 1,596 pandas in China, with most of them living in Sichuan province.

Gisele Bundchen Lingerie's ban by Brazil Gov

crdt to MSN

Brazil's Ministry for Women is trying to ban a TV ad featuring model Gisele Bundchen giving her husband bad news while she's dressed in lingerie. In a statement, the agency said it thinks the ad is sexist and reinforces the stereotype that women are sex objects. The lingerie company, Hope, replied that the ad shows "with good humor, that the natural sensuality of Brazilian women, which is known worldwide, can be an effective weapon when giving bad news."

What a small world

crdt to WAN

They say that home is “where the heart is,” but for one 27-year-old woman from Changzhi in northern China’s Shanxi Province named Mo Hongping, home for the last sixteen years has been a four-foot long and 1-and-one-half foot wide basket. She had been a sickly child, as according to her mother, Wang Xiuhua, she fell seriously ill with a fever when she was barely three weeks old. Inclement conditions and a mountain passage blocked with snow prevented an immediate trip to the nearest hospital. When they finally were able to take the child to the hospital, Mo was diagnosed with meningitis. Although she miraculously survived, she didn’t thrive, and her life thereafter was fraught with seizures, constant pain and other developmental problem. She was 11 years old when her “basket life” began. One day, during autumn harvest season, her mother placed her in a basket usually reserved for maize and noticed that the child seemed content just to remain. Her mother also discovered that the rims of the basket relieved some of her pain because they functioned as supports for her body, which slightly folded her frame. The basket was subsequently fitted with wheels to permit mobility, and it has been the core of her existence ever since. Is there more medical help for this poor woman, whose only crime appears to be that of poverty? Somehow, there must be, but for now life remains not a bowl of cherries, but rather a basket usually reserved for corn.

Serious Picture. Please don't smile

Chinese Man Buys Most Expensive Whiskey Ever Made

crdt to WAN

There’s good whiskey and there’s GOOD whiskey. One Chinese man must have found the Holy Grail of the stuff, because he dropped $79.400 as a deposit on a bottle that sells for $200,000. Only twelve bottles of the Dalmore single malt were produced, and the bottle is a whopping 62-years old. According to the report on ChannelNewsAsia.com, the price breakdown is about $12,000 per serving. The bottle is currently located in the Changi Aiprport in Singapore, with the man securing it via bank transfer. Another bottle was sold three months ago, but that only sold for $188,000, That guy got suckered. Vijay Mallya, who just so happens to be the chairman of Whyte & Mackay and United Spirits, the owner of the brand, stated spending more money on a bottle of whiskey than many people make in a decade was a “good investment.” Yeah, until the bottle breaks during shipment. Mallya went on to say that the bottle rose in value by about $157,000 over the past ten years, so in another ten, the new owner can sell it and make a profit.It’s rare and it’s exclusive, but with such an expensive investment, you can bet it will never be consumed. In that case, what’s the point?

Did You know?

1.Most lipstick contains fish scales!
2.On average, people fear spiders more than they do death.
3. Nose prints are used to identify dogs, just like humans use fingerprints!
4. Porcupines float in water!
5. Saturday mail delivery in Canada was eliminated by Canada Post on February 1, 1969!
6. In Tokyo, a bicycle is faster than a car for most trips of less than 50 minutes!
7. Your body is creating and killing 15 million red blood cells per second!
8. When glass breaks, the cracks move faster than 3,000 miles per hour. To photograph the event, a camera must shoot at a millionth of a second!
9. A Boeing 747 airliner holds 57,285 gallons of fuel!
10. A car uses 1.6 ounces of gas idling for one minute. Half an ounce is used to start the average automobile!

Amazing trick!

Amazing memory wire by Brusspup

Really cool trick from them. Don't forget to subscribe! Just click link above. C YA! 

Kiss Apple From South Korea: Better Breath, Better Kiss

crdt to WAN

The home of many pungent and heavily infused garlic dishes, a shared dinner followed by a possible good night kiss could have disastrous and very unromantic consequences.

Enter the “kiss apple” small enough to stash in a purse or pocket and big enough to pack a  “breath wallop” for some of life’s biggest moments.

About the size of a ping-pong ball, the creators of this “do-it-yourself bad breath treatment” have another agenda: encouraging youth to eat more apples.

“We want young people to eat many apples and came up with the idea of portable apples for  bags. We can mass produce the species with stronger functions that control food odors in as few as two years,” said Hwang Hye-sung, a researcher at South Korea’s Rural Development Administration.

Apples are known to help freshen breath naturally and remove pieces of food stuck in the teeth, but some were still skeptical about the effects of the “kiss apple” on a romantic mood, which could be easily ruptured by the sudden sound of a mysterious chomping sound.

Breath mints slowly move aside for the moment and kiss apple, your time has come.

Skyscraper Shaken by Vigorous Tae Bo Workout in Seoul

crdt to WAN

A group of well-meaning recreation enthusiasts in Seoul inadvertently caused the upper floors of a 39-story building to shake, resulting in a mass evacuation. Set to the tunes of pop group Snap, 17 middle-aged individuals were in the middle of an intense Tae Bo workout when the upper floors of the TechnoMart high-rise started shaking. According to the Korea JoongAng Daily, the shaking lasted for approximately ten minutes. To determine what happened, a group of scientists recreated the situation in the gym on the 12th floor of the building. According to Chung Lan of Dankook University, the vibrations caused by the workout were recorded on a vibrometer, and this shaking coincided precisely with the unique vertical vibration cycle of the building. The result was an amplification of the vibration and thus more shaking. The shaking was felt only in the upper floors, so those below the exercise likely did not experience anything.

In North Korea,The Punishment is Always Death

crdt to WAN

There are very few positive things one can say about the North Korean communist regime. For years they have lashed out at their neighbors, openly defied any request made of them, and worst of all they basically imprisoned all of their people with the fear of death. Shin Dong Hyuk, who grew up in one of North Korea’s worst prison camps, is one of the few have have broken North Korean law and lived to tell of it.

The interview Shin Dong Hyuk gave upon successfully escaping the prison camp is truly chilling and one of the darkest looks into North Korea I have ever read.

The one thing that is a constant through everything you will read about North Korea, is that the punishment for breaking any rule, is almost always death.

“Resistance is simply unthinkable.”

Here are the 10 rules of the prison camp, as translated from Shin Dong Hyuk:

Camp Rules: The 10 Commandments

1. Do not attempt to escape. The punishment is death.

2. Never gather in groups of over three people or move around without the guard’s authorization. The punishment for unauthorized movement is death.

3. Do not steal. If one steals or possesses weapons, the punishment is death. The punishment for failure to report the theft or possession of weapons is death.

4. Obey your guards. If one rebels or hits a guard, the punishment is death.

5. If you see outsiders, or suspicious-looking people, report them immediately. The punishment for abetting in the hiding of outsiders is death.

6. Keep an eye on your fellow prisoners and report inappropriate behavior without delay. One should criticize others for inappropriate behavior, and also conduct thorough self-criticism in revolutionary ideology class.

7. Fulfill your assigned duties. The punishment for rebelling against one’s duties is death.

8. Men and women may not be together outside the workplace. The punishment for unauthorized physical contact between a man and a woman is death.

9. Admit and confess your wrongdoings. The punishment for disobedience and refusal to repent is death.

10. The punishment for violating camp laws and rules is death.

Indian Model Will Strip For World Cup Victory

crdt to WAN

For a nation almost obsessed with modesty, particularly when it comes to women’s attire, Indian citizens are shocked by a popular model’s claim that she will strip naked if India wins the Cricket World Cup. Poonam Pandey, aged 20, is a much-admired model who is currently featured on a top selling Indian swimwear calendar. She believes her offer is an incentive for players to give it their all, although as of yet, no one can say whether or not her proposal will be accepted.

“I’m a cricket fanatic and I’m a diehard supporter of my nation. India needs a lot of support and this is my way of supporting the team… I’m confident of my body and I’m doing this to excite our boys to play better,” Pandey told reporters.

Although she swears this is no publicity stunt, the lovely model received more media attention that any clothed (or unclothed) model could ever hope for. A Times of India story further propelled her offer featuring a color photograph of her wearing a skimpy bikini.

This is not the first time a model has offered to “bare it all” for a cause.

Last year, Larissa Riquelme, a model from Paraguay, pledged to run naked through the streets of the capital city of Asuncion if her country won the 2010 football World Cup. When Paraguay lost to Spain, determined to take her clothes off, she instead posed nude in front of her national flag.

The connection between nudity and patriotism is murky at best.

What about those law-abiding citizens who don’t have such perfect bodies?

Can they love their country too in their own particular, overweight  or out-of-shape way?

Indian Man Has Been Drinking Wife’s Blood for Three Years

crdt to WAN

It’s a scene right out of a horror movie: A young woman is claiming that her husband of three years has been forcefully drawing blood from her arms with a syringe, putting it into a glass, and drinking it. The 22-year old woman, who lives in the Damoh district of Madhya Pradesh, was married to Mahesh Ahirwar, an agricultural laborer in 2007 in a Shikarpura village. He started drinking her blood a few months later, claiming it made him strong. He even did it while she was pregnant, though she didn’t start protesting until after she gave birth. Any attempt at resisting would result in her husband violently attacking her. She finally had enough and, in early July, fled with her baby to her the house of her parents. She told her sad tale to her father, who took her to the police, but the local police claimed it wasn’t in their jurisdiction. As a result, she had to return to the Hindoriya police station, which is in the area where she lived, to open up a case. Sadly, neither they nor the previous district opened up a case against the husband. Thankfully, when the townspeople of Shikarpura learned about this injustice, they decided to help, ultimately resulting in the Hindoriya police opening up a case, stating she was physically tortured by her husband.

34 fingers? Only in India

Ten fingers. Ten toes. And another 14 tossed in for good measure. A one-year old boy in India is now a record holder as Guinness has recognized his 34 fingers and toes as the most belonging to anyone in the world. Young Akshat Saxena, from Uttar Pradesh in northern India, has a condition known as polydactylism, a congenital anomaly that litterally means “many fingers.” In the case of Akshat, it involves his fingers and toes. Doctors have performed a number of surgeries to remove the extra digits, though a distinct lack of thumbs have required them to construct them from scratch out of the removed fingers. Upon seeing her child, the boy’s mother Amrita was “shocked and surprised.” The doctor revealed that her son had broken the world record, beating out a Chinese boy with a combined 31 digits. This was confirmed when they hopped online and registered the data.

"Sak Yant for local only", Thai MOC

The Culture Ministry firmly believes that foreigners inking images of Buddha and other sacred images onto their non-Buddhist skins, is highly insensitive to a nation comprised mostly of Buddhists.

Tourists visiting Thailand are known as farangs and Thais are aware that belief systems are different. Still in all, they should be respected and in this vein, tattoos of religious images are cultural no-nos for those on the outside looking in.

A Buddha tattoo, which is known as Sak Yant, has special meaning and is written in the holy language of Sanskrit. Usually, a Buddhist monk or a Brahmin priest makes them. Thais believe these religious tattoos grant strength and power to the bearer. For this reason, they are very popular among Thai boxers.

“Foreigners see these tattoos as a fashion… They do not think of respecting religion, or they may not be aware that it can be offensive,” said Niphit, who has requested that all tattoo parlors throughout Thailand refrain from the practice of etching sacred images on foreigners.

Niphit has also attempted to thwart this controversial practice on local levels by ordering provincial governors to inspect these tattoo studios to make sure they cooperate with the demands of the ministry.

Although he is vigorously seeking to push a law to ban this practice, Niphit can go no further because tattooing religious images is not considered illegal under Thai law.

Cultural sensitivities run deep and even if they are not understood they should be respected.

One can only speculate what the great Buddha would have to say about all of this.

Nice Try, Zombie plan wedding!

Happily ever after!

Museum Of Instant Noodle (JPN)

The Japanese love their noodles, so it’s no surprise that they opened a museum to show this.

The museum, opened by Nissin Foods and located in Yokohama, Japan, celebrates 40 years of the popular food beloved by broke college students everywhere. On display is the history of the instant noodle, created by Momofuku Ando, who invented chicken ramen noodles way back in 1958 after witnessing people go nuts for noodles in post-war Japan.

The museum itself is 10,000 square meters and contains a “My Cup Noodle Factory,” which allows visitors to create their own flavor. This, of course, includes restaurants that serves every type of noodle imaginable.

On its opening day, 500 people waited in line to taste the experience, including Junichiro Koizumi, the former Japanese premier. Inside, parents will be able to browse the many kinds of noodles while their kids take advantage of the “noodle play area.”

This isn’t the first time Nissin Foods has opened a museum; they opened one in Osaka, Japan in 1999 to great fanfare. And don’t forget the Ramen noodle museum in Shinyokohama

Chinese Scientists Clone Pig Survivor of Earthquake

Heroes come in all shapes and sizes in the animal world as well as in the human realm. Perhaps those with four feet (or hooves in this case) don’t get all the attention they rightfully deserve, but in China, this has already begun to change.

Zhu Jianqiang, whose name translates to Strong-Willed Pig, survived more than a month buried under the devastating rubble of the 2008 earthquake that afflicted China’s Sichuan province.

The 8.0-magnitude quake, which occurred on May 12, 2008, claimed more than 90,000 lives and wreaked a path of devastating destruction all across Sichuan and parts of neighboring Shanxi and Gansu provinces, was considered the worst natural disaster in a generation.

Now Zhu, who is already considered a hero, is in the headlines once again, this time as the result of a successful clone.

Over the last few weeks, scientists have produced six piglets with DNA identical to their sire. They all look a lot like their father, bearing between their eyes an identical birthmark.

As amazing as this is all by itself, consider the fact that Zhu was castrated before the earthquake struck, and the five-year-old pig (about 60 in human terms) was buried alive for 36 days before being rescued.

It is surmised that the 330-pound) pig survived his traumatic and harrowing ordeal by chewing charcoal and drinking rainwater.

It is expected that the piglets will be paired off and spend their lives in a museum and genetic institute, according to the Hong-Kong based Sunday Morning Post.

It would seem that sometimes even pigs are blessed with that intangible something that heroes are made of.

Go Zhu!

Protester In front of NYSE

Protesters march up Wall Street, past the New York Stock Exchange September 26, 2011. Protesters complaining about the power of the financial industry staged noisy demonstrations and slowed pedestrian traffic on Wall Street for a second week. 

Only In Thailand (ASE)

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LARGEST WINE FLUTE

The largest wine flute was filled with 56.25 litres (5.7 gal, 6.9 US gal) of sparkling wine produced by Agrofirm Zolotaia Balka Ltd (Ukraine) in 1st of May Square, Balaklava, Ukraine, on 6 August 2011.

The glass was commissioned from Vladimir Filipov and his team at ARTglass in Kiev, Ukraine, and measured 1.34 m (4 ft 5 in) tall, 54 cm (21.2 in) at the base, 32 cm (12.6 in) across the rim and 42 cm (16.5 in) at the widest part of the bowl.

The flute held the equivalent of 75 bottles of 70 cl (26.4 fl oz, 25.2 US fl oz) Crimean Champagne. The glass was hand-made by Filipov and his team of three glassmakers over a period of three days. It was created from 23 kg (50 lb 2 oz) of glass baked at 1,360°C (2,480°F).

Australia to end ban on women in combat (AUS)

Australian women will be allowed to serve in frontline combat roles, including as special forces soldiers in Afghanistan, after the government said on Tuesday it was dropping all gender restrictions for the military.

Australia, a close U.S. ally, will become the fourth country after Canada, New Zealand and Israel to open all combat roles to female soldiers who pass physical entry tests, Defense Minister Stephen Smith said.

"Once this is fully implemented there will be no restrictions. If a woman is fully capable of doing the entrance program for the Special Air Service or Commandos, they'll be in it," Smith told reporters.

Australia currently allows women to serve in the vast majority of jobs in the 59,000-strong military, including on submarines and as air force jet fighter pilots.

Women also serve in Afghanistan with frontline artillery units and as drone aircraft operators, but are barred from infantry combat units and special forces, which make up around 7 percent of army jobs.

Entry to the elite SAS is particularly grueling, involving endurance marches and mental tests over several days in the country's searing outback, while carrying weapons, water and an 80kg pack.

The ban will be lifted immediately, but it may be up to five years before as the army must implement new tests on and train army doctors to operate on women, Smith said.

He added that he expected no opposition from Australia's overseas allies, including U.S. and Afghan troops serving with Australian soldiers in southern Afghanistan's Uruzgan province.

"I'm not expecting any difficulty as a result of what to the government and the service chiefs is a logical extension to a very strongly held view in Australian society that all of us are equal, irrespective of our sex," he said.

Australia has around 1,550 troops in Afghanistan, based mainly at Tirin Kot in Uruzgan, and is the largest non-NATO member of the international coalition fighting Taliban insurgents in the country.

Australia was an original member of the U.S.-led coalition that invaded the country to oust the Taliban, and has lost 29 soldiers in almost a decade of conflict.

Japanese Love Hotel (18SX)

Love hotels (ラブホテル in Japanese) are wonderful, kitchy hotels in Japan that you can enjoy for romantic privacy or just to have a good story to bring back home after a trip to Japan.  This site is designed to help English speakers visit a love hotel, navigate its unique customs, and create an experience to remember with little or no command of the Japanese language.

Did You know?

1.The opposite sides of a dice cube always add up to seven.
2.The U.S. eastern seaboard consumes almost 50% of all ice cream sandwiches.
3.Smokers eat more sugar than non-smokers do.
4.Tomatoes were originally thought to be poisonous.
5.Butterflies taste with their feet.
6.The average person can live for eleven days without water, assuming an average temperature of 60 degrees fahrenheit.
7. A male baboon can kill a leopard. =)

Sex workers, poisoned ponds used to poach wildlife (AF)

In Zimbabwe, poachers for the first time are poisoning watering holes to snare tusks from elephants.
In South Africa, a Thai national allegedly evaded rhino hunting quotas by using Thai sex workers as fake hunters. And 13 safari operators, veterinarians and even a pilot are to appear in court next week, accused of poaching rhinos and trying to smuggle out their horns. The cases show how the skyrocketing price in Asia for tusks, horns and other wildlife parts is undermining increased efforts to crack down on smuggling. The parts are used for alleged medicinal properties or, in the case of ivory, for artwork. Elephant tusks and rhino horns have doubled in price on the black market from just a few years ago. Poachers can get around $1,800 a kilo (2.2 pounds) for tusks and $10,000 a kilo for rhino horns. ”Asian and African governments must work together to disrupt trade chains and to bring wildlife criminals to justice,” said Morne du Plessis, who heads the WWF chapter in South Africa. “Demand for rhino horn and elephant ivory is threatening to destroy a large part of Africa’s natural heritage.” Zimbabwe’s wildlife agency reported Tuesday that nine elephants and at least five lions died from poisoning at watering holes in recent weeks. The elephants’ ivory tusks were removed but the lions’ heads and skins were left intact, said agency spokeswoman Caroline Washaya-Moyo, suggesting that the lions were accidental victims of the crime. Buffalo were also killed, as were vultures that preyed on the dead animals. The conservation group Born Free estimates that 35,000 elephants are killed each year for their ivory across Africa, some 15 percent of the total population. In South Africa, a Thai businessman is accused of violating rhino hunting quotas by using Thai sex workers to pose as hunters in photos with dead rhinos. The allegation is that the women never even fired a weapon and were used to evade South Africa’s cap of one rhino a year per hunter. The suspect, Chumlong Lemtongthai, allegedly paid nearly $10,000 per kilo (2.2 pounds) of rhino horn and sold them on the black market for $55,000 a kilo. While his trial is pending, 13 South Africans will be formally charged on Sept. 30 with buying hundreds of rhinos at auctions, then slaughtering them to illegally sell the horns in Asia. Dubbed the “Groenewald Gang” after Dawie Groenewald, owner of Out of Africa Adventurous Safaris, the defendants include his wife, two vets and a helicopter pilot. The carcasses of 20 rhinos were found on Groenewald’s property with their horns cut off. The defendants are expected to enter guilty or not guilty pleas at their arraignment. ”The Groenewald Gang has challenged the conventional wisdom of what a poacher is,” says Matt Lewis, who heads WWF’s African species program. “This is not a desperate and impoverished villager taking up a gun and going off to shoot someone else’s animal in order to get a few dollars to feed his family. This group orchestrated a plan to profit from the exploitation of rhinos in a systematic way, while appearing to be involved in the conservation of that species. Very devious, very crass and driven purely by greed.” Last month, South Africa’s government said it might stop rhino trophy hunting due to the abuse by some parties. And Britain and the U.S. are sponsoring a workshop in South Africa next week on strategies for attacking the problem. Already this year, 165 arrests have been made and 287 rhinos were illegally killed in South Africa alone. At that pace, 2011 will top 2010, when 333 rhinos were poached. Some 25,000 rhinos are estimated across all of Africa, an improvement from 2007 when there were 22,000, but experts worry that trend could soon shift.

Exploding toilet injures woman at GSA building

A woman was taken to the hospital Monday with serious but non-life-threatening injuries after a toilet exploded in a federal government building in Washington, building officials said, according to WUSA-TV. Employees in the GSA regional office were sent a memo warning them to not use the restrooms, WUSA reported. “DO NOT flush toilets or use any domestic water,” WUSA quoted the memo as saying. “Due to a mechanical failure, there is high air pressure in the domestic water system that resulted in damage to toilets. The engineering staff is working to correct the issue.
“There has been damage to flushed toilets that has resulted in injuries. We will announce when the issue is resolved.”