Amazing apparatus

Korean student Jeabyun Yeon, who is studying product design at Samsung Art And Design Institute, has come up with a novel concept rivaling the SCUBA gear developed by Jacques Cousteau in the 1960s. The Triton Oxygen Respirator, as he calls it, uses technology developed by a Korean scientist that allows divers to breathe freely underwater. The oxygen is extracted directly from the water through a filter of fine threads with holes smaller than water molecules. A micro compressor, powered by a micro battery, compresses and stores the extracted oxygen in a tank. The mask consists of a plastic mouthpiece and 2 arms (SKETCHES ABOVE, PHOTOS HERE) and the device will revolutionize diving if it makes it out of the studio and into the water. Of the artificial gill, blogger Bill Ottman writes, "Essentially it turns humans into fish."

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Silenced

Just as we are losing the last members of the generations entertained by silent films, the Library of Congress reveals that we are losing the films themselves. According to a landmark study commissioned by the Library's National Film Preservation Board to inventory and preserve those that are left, an estimated 70% of the nearly 11,000 films produced in the U.S. have disappeared or been damaged beyond repair. "Few art forms emerged as quickly, came to an end as suddenly, or vanished more completely than the silent film," reads the report. One film that remains is the 1923 feature ("Safety Last," starring Harold Lloyd (STILL ABOVE). Pleased to say that also still with us is my 100-year-old roommate, who is due to have a reunion with her 95-year-old sister in about an hour's time!

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Aged Aymara

"I should be about 100 years old or more," says native Aymara Carmelo Flores Laura. He lives in a straw-roofed hut near Lake Titicaca in Bolivia and works herding sheep and cattle. In fact, he is 123, and that makes him the oldest living person ever documented, since he beats Frenchwoman Jeanne Calment (1875-1997) by a year. Bolivian authorities present a Roman Catholic baptismal certificate as proof of his age, since his birth on July 16, 1890, precedes the issue of birth certificates by 50 years! Flores speaks in a firm voice and walk without a cane, although he has lost some of his sight and hearing (and all of his teeth). He told the Associated Press reporters who came to interview him, "I see a bit dimly. I had good vision before. But I saw you coming."

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Gliding, good and bad

Peggy McAlpine, 104
Kyrenia Mountains, Cyprus, April 14, 2012
To reclaim her title as the oldest person to paraglide, McAlpine ascended for the 2nd time with Highline Air Tours (1st image).The record the Scotswoman set 5 years ago had been broken by American centenarian Mary Allen Hardison, shortly after McAlpine tried bungee jumping. For this flight, she and pilot Ozgur Gokasan alit from a 2,400' peak and landed to a crowd of family, friends, and the 3 witnesses required by the Guinness World Records. Said McAlpine after it was over, "I enjoyed every minute of it. It was better than the last time. I would certainly like to do it again - especially if anyone takes my record."

Lenami Godinez-Avila, 27
Chilliwack, B.C., Canada, April 28, 2012
To celebrate her anniversary with her boyfriend, Godinez-Avila decided to hang glide with Vancouver Hang Gliding (2nd image, from their photo gallery). She and 50-year-old pilot William Orders launched from Mount Woodside with Godinez-Avila's boyfriend recording video from the ground. Seconds later, the woman began slipping out of the harness and tried to cling to the pilot. Orders tried desperately to hang on to her, but she slipped down his legs - taking one of his shoes with her - and fell 300m to her death. The RCMP recovered Godinez-Avila's body 8 hours later, and siezed both the hang glider and the video taken from the ground as evidence in the investigation. Orders was arrested and charged with obstructing justice and withholding key evidence after swallowing the memory card from the glider-mounted video camera. He was released on bail after the police were able to recover it. They are examining it and will announce the charge on Monday.

__________

Related posts:

Weightless Hawking

Valley from above

Cluster ballooning

Up in the air

Hot air balloon fatalities

Wire-walking Wallendas

Aerial archaeology

Floating

Zeppelin

Supercentenarians

While I wasn't paying attention, a new category arose in the field of gerontology. "Supercentenarians" describes people who have lived to the great age of 110. These individuals have been the subjects of research and of portrait photography. In his 2003 series "Living in Three Centuries: The Face of Age," Mark Story features the photo of a 110-year-old man (1st image) whose father stood on the platform during the Gettysburg Address. Story describes, "All of a sudden I realized that I was photographing a person whose father stood next to Abraham Lincoln in 1863. I started to cry and got goose bumps because it struck me just how old 111 was, and how far it reaches back in our country's history." Here is a sampling of supercentenarians:

Sarah DeRemer Knauss (2nd image)
119 years (1880-1999), United States
Sarah lived her entire life in Pennsylvania. Nothing ever fazed her, according to her daughter, who survived Sarah by 5 years, dying at age 101.

Hendrikje Schipper (3rd image)
115 years (1890-2005), Netherlands
Henny was a premature baby, a sickly child, and a breast cancer survivor. She lived with her parents until she was 47, when she married. At age 82 she decided to will her body to science, and was found to have died of undiagnosed gastric cancer.

Christian Mortensen (5th image)
115, (1882-1998), Denmark
Christian emigrated to the U.S. at age 21 and was employed as a tailor, a milkman, a restaurateur, and a factory worker. In 1978, he arrived at a retirement home on his bicycle, declaring that he was there to stay. He died there 20 years later in his sleep, leaving no living relatives.

María Esther Heredia de Capovilla (6th image)
116, (1889-2006), Ecuador
María was born into a well-to-do military family and had 5 children of her own. She was given Last Rites at the age of 100, when she nearly died of a stomach ailment, but survived another 16 years before succumbing to pneumonia.

There is no consensus on such longevity, except that once one reaches 100, heredity is the defining factor. I would suggest that sense of humor also plays a role. When Jeanne Calment (1875-1997) of France (4th image) became a supercentenarian, she quipped, "I've only ever had one wrinkle, and I'm sitting on it."

Follow-ups

A generous helping of vegetables 9/23/10 Schools in Ohio and New York introduce carrot vending machines.

Killer squid 8/31/10 A truck hauling squid crashed in a California broccoli field.

Microhylids 8/28/10 Conservation International's search for lost amphibians has revealed another frog. An Australian lizard is evolving fromy laying eggs to giving live birth.

Audubon ate 'em 8/27/10 A rare copy of Birds of America, valued at $6 to $9 million, will be auctioned.

Frank Buck 8/16/10 A train kills a herd of elephants in India.

Ancient spirits 8/19/10 American researchers find that ancient beer was used as medicine.

Churchill's choppers 7/16/10 George Washington's dentures are on display in a traveling exhibit.

Fatal lightning 7/12/10 Earlier in the month, Hong Kong was hit by the record number of 13,000 lightning strikes in one hour. Meanwhile, rare fire tornadoes were observed in Brazil and Hawaii.

White elephants 6/29/10 Ceremony is held for a white elephant in Burma.

Swimming the English Channel 6/2/10 After successfully swimming the English Channel, quadruple amputee plans to swim the Strait of Gibraltar from Europe to Africa.

Crafty bees 5/14/10 Dog that ate a beehive wins award. Honeybees are "morning people," and like a warm drink on a chilly morning. A swarm of bees traps a North Carolina deputy in his car for 3 hours. A Texas man is stung by 1,200 bees. A Massachusetts woman is stung 500 times by wasps. A Florida treetrimmer was stung by at least 500 Africanized bees.

Environmental disaster 4/30/10 The government denies a connection between the BP oil spill and a massive fish kill in Louisiana. A total of 3,634 dead birds have been collected from th Gulf.

Xenoglossia 4/17/10 A British grandmother developed Foreign Accent Syndrome. Another woman with a rare neurological disorder has been nicknamed the "Flamingo Lady."

Corpses in strange places 4/6/10 A French chef in the freezer. A British soldier at his wedding (in spirit). A Pennsylvanian at the mall. A Japanese mother in the closet. British babies in a wardrobe. A North Carolina woman in a hearse (for 9 days). A California doctor in her boyfriend's chimney. A burial at sea failed in Florida when the body surfaced. And human remains are found in a mass grave as a result of a ghost story.

Dwarfs on display 3/26/10 World's shortest man is now 27" Colombian.

Evelyn McHale 3/2/10 A comment on this post by a reader who has researched McHale adds details about her life: "Evelyn Francis McHale was born in Berkeley California Sept. 20, 1923. She was the sixth of seven children....Around 1930, they moved to Washington, D.C., where her father became an examiner for the Federal Land Bank. Also at this time her mother left, moving to an apartment in another part of Washington. The father retained custody of all seven children. Evelyn was 6....After high school, in 1943, Evelyn became a WAC and was stationed in Jefferson Missouri. Friends say that when she was discharged, she burned her uniform. At some point, she moved to New York City to work, living with her brother and sister in law. She met and became engaged to a young man named Barry Rhodes, a 24-year-old who was just out of the Air Force and attending Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania. They were to be married at his brother's house in Troy, New York. A year before her death, Evelyn had been a bridesmaid at Barry's younger brother's wedding. After the wedding, she removed her bridesmaid gown, said, 'I never want to see this again,' and burned it. On the day she jumped, Barry said, she seemed happy and looking forward to the marriage as she boarded the train home. There was a security guard less than twelve feet from where she jumped. In her suicide note, she wrote, 'My fiance asked me to marry him in June, but I don't think I would make a good wife for anyone. He is much better off without me. Tell my father, I have too many of my mother's tendencies. I don't want anyone in or out of my family to see any part of me. Could you destroy my body by cremation? I beg of you and my family - don't have any service or remembrance for me.' She was cremated per her request." Here is a description of a tour of a secret observation deck above the 102nd floor.

Treasure trove 3/1/10 A Roman helmet has been found in England and a rare coin has been found in Israel.

Ironic deaths 2/4/10 A man in Nebraska pretended to be drowning - and succeeded. A South African poacher on an illegal fishing trip is killed and eaten by a great white shark. A Green Party candidate riding her bicycle was struck and killed by an SUV. A Minnesota man who founded a DWI Ride Home program was not wearing his seatbelt when he was killed in a crash. A North Carolina man listening for the sounds of a ghost train is struck and killed by a real train. A total of 18 people died in Italy picking wild mushrooms, but from falls not poisoning. A British teen is stabbed to death trying out a knife-proof vest.

Natural arch collapse 1/26/10 I'm glad I didn't blog about the rediscovered Ansel Adams negatives, because the story is almost certainly a hoax.

Gulp! 1/16/10 Doctors compare stories about unusual foreign bodies they have removed from their patients.

Scapegoats and sineaters 1/13/10 The grave of the last sin-eater in England has been restored.

Sinkholes 1/12/10 A family in New York was swimming when the water suddenly got sucked out of their pool.

Supper clubs and speakeasies 1/3/10 A Prohibition-era beer tunnel has been discovered in Ohio. Italian castle on the market has a dungeon.

Child heroes 12/23/09 California toddler saves her Dad. Canadian boy holds yard sale to buy a gravestone for Dad.

Nero's dining room 12/19/09 Greeks find Odysseus' palace, suggesting Homer's tale was factual. Archaeologists discover the oldest house in Britain.

Otis elevator, part 2 12/13/09 St. Louis's Gateway Arch - which I have been to the top of - is in need of repair.

Alligator urban legends 11/14/09 A flurry of alligator sightings, including swimming in the Chicago River, stuck in a Florida storm drain, under a car in Queens, on a New Jersey nature walk. A Massachusetts woman bags a 1,025lb. alligator in South Carolina.

Circus animals on the lam 11/13/09 Zoo Atlanta was missing a rattlesnake. Between 280 and 400 endangered crocodiles have escaped from a reserve in Mexico. A honey badger escaped from the zoo in Prague. The escape of a gibbon at Miami's Jungle Island triggered the escape of a 500lb tiger. A llama was also on the loose in Florida. A camel had to be rescued from a sinkhole on his owner's Oregon property. A ram broke though a window and ran wild in a house in England. Drunk baboons have taken over the suburbs of Cape Town, South Africa, but a loose baboon in Missouri was apparently a hoax.

Humpback whales 11/10/09 A total of 73 pilot whales strand themselves on a New Zealand beach. A photographer has a close encounter with pilot whales.

Odd animals 11/4/09 A hairless chimpanzee.

Docking cow tails 10/27/09 After her trailer crashed in Michigan, Bella lived for a month in the woods. A wild cow was captured in a residential neighborhood of Arizona. World's smallest cow. Raising cows for Kobe beef. Glowing eyes may be a sign of mad cow disease.

Birds in fable and fact 10/22/09 British scientists observe that crows derive much of their most nutritious food by using sticks as tools.

Maldives 10/18/09 A hotel in Maldives offers an underwater bridal suite. Kiribati, which will be swamped by higher sea levels, closes off 150,000 sq. mi. of its territory to fishing to preserve it as a Marine Heritage Site.

Golf course oddities 10/14/09 A golf ball knocks out a kestrel in Sussex, U.K. A California golfer's ball sparks a 12-acre fire. A Massachusetts teenager dies mowing a golf course. A badly burned body with a severed foot was found near the 18th hole of a British golf course.

Snails 10/5/09 The sound of a snail eating gets a hospitalized woman through her darkest hour.

Gossamer 9/27/09 A deadly funnel web spider has been spotted in England.

Three clocks 9/20/09 The world's oldest working mechanical clock has been outfitted with an electric motor.

Pig butchering 9/1/09 A Florida animal control officer resigns after outrage about his slaughter and consumption of an adoptable pig.

Surviving rabies 8/18/09 Of the 3,500 Peruvians bitten by vampire bats recently, 20 have died of rabies. Bats are also terrorizing students at an Australian school. California woman attacked by 3 raccoons.

Leonardo's lion 8/17/09 A doctoral student in Canada has finally made a successful ornithopter!

Creative cremains 7/24/09 Cremation urns for trekkies. A U.K. company will press your ashes and the sound of your voice into a vinyl record. Artistic funeral urns.

X-raying fossils 7/5/10 An American team has determined that fossils of sponges 650myo may be the earliest animal life forms on earth.

Multi-purpose cemeteries 6/26/09 A pub is opening in a Rhode Island funeral home.

Birthing and hoarding bunnies 6/18/09 A Nevada man finds the body of his wife, who was missing for a month, in the clutter of their own home. New York officials rescue 80 cats from the home of an animal hoarder. A Georgia woman was living with 113 cats and 14 dogs in her house.

Vultures 5/4/09 A vulture strikes a medical helicopter in Arizona. Pilots in the U.K. warned to steer clear of stray vulture. A Native American tribe hopes to reintroduce the California condor. An Englishman can continue to take his pet owls for a walk. The fossilized bones of a bird with a wingspan of 17' have been found in Chile.

Rossetti's menagerie 5/1/09 An American millionaire leaves his fortune to Australia's Wombat Awareness Organization.

Bears in the news 4/24/09 A man in Canada fends off a polar bear with a punch in the nose, while a woman in Montana uses a zucchini. A bear in Nevada has reached legendary status. Three bears broke into a Colorado home. A Florida bear is freed from the jar on its head, while 3 others were killed by 2 vehicles in a single night.

Centenarians - and then some 3/26/09 Burma claims to have found the world's oldest woman, aged 118. The oldest person in Britain died at 111. A Kansas judge is still on the bench at 103. A 101-year-old Nebraskan is also still on the job. An Englishman lives to 100 doing what he wants to do. A Scottish woman doesn't do it for 106 years. A Florida woman is still patronizing tattoo artists at the age of 101. Pension fraud is behind some of the 230,000 missing Japanese elderly. A 99-year-old New Hampshire woman received a letter from beyond the grave. A mysterious New York heiress is still alive at 104. A Florida man who died at 98 left 398 descendants.

Iceman 3/16/09 "Oetzi" may have been deliberately buried. Meanwhile, the body of an American climber has melted out of a Canadian glacier after 21 years.

Designer legs 3/15/09 Vintage prostheses, including the Victorian hand (pictured above). An Oklahoma man and a New Jersey woman receive double hand transplants. A Florida student's hand was yanked off by a horse. An Australian teenager loses his leg after being deliberately run down by the cab driver he stiffed. A Swedish man saves his father's life by cutting off his arm to free him from forest machinery. A Scottish teenager is getting accustomed to his high-tech prosthetic arm. Amputees gather in Texas for an annual hunting event. American soldiers are accused of taking fingers as trophies. A California woman's severed fingertip regenerates. CNN offers advice on what to do if body parts fall off.

Spider prey 3/7/09 Deadly funnel web spider found in Britain.

Crop circles 3/1/09 Why people are drawn to them.

White Bengal tiger 2/29/09 The MGM Grand in Las Vegas is under scrutiny after a lion attacked its trainer.

Footprints 2/28/09 A California scientist finds that ancient humans used stone tools even earlier than thought. Evidence from Spain suggests that early humans practiced cannibalism regularly.

Snake handlers 2/21/09 Photos from a West Virginia church. Polish newlyweds find 7' python in their toilet and an elderly Polish woman finds a 6' anaconda in hers. Wisconsin woman kills rattlesnake on her porch with an ice chopper. Guam is dealing with its brown tree snake problem by dropping poisoned mice from the sky.

Killer chimpanzees 2/17/09 The Connecticut woman who owned the chimp that ripped up and nearly killed Charla Nash died back in May. A New York woman was attacked by a monkey in July while staying at a bed and breakfast. Meanwhile, a new monkey species is discovered in the Amazon.

Disturbingly young parents 2/14/09 An 11-year-old rape victim gives birth in Mexico.

Polydactyly 2/3/09 Thanks to Chase for this link to photos of the Ernest Hemingway Home, including one of the many polydactyl cats.

Speaking of taxidermy 2/1/09 Exotic animal mounts in Maine are looking for a good home.

Corpse flower 1/30/09 One of the rarest flowers in the world blooms for the 1st time in 200 years.

Animal accidents 1/16/09 University of Virginia researcher is studying bird vomit. British workers stripe a road right over a dead hedgehog.

More mammoths 1/6/09 British researchers confirm that mammoths were not hunted to extinction.

Rats! 12/20/08 Hundreds of frozen rats were stolen in Pennsylvania.

Alive! 9/25/08 Survivors of the 1972 Andes plane crash lend their support to the miners trapped in Chile.

How old?

Two women in 2 different centuries have claimed to live past the age of 150. The 1st was proven to be a hoax, and the 2nd cannot been authenticated.

Joice Heth (pictured above) was billed by American showman P.T. Barnum as "The greatest national and natural curiosity in the world." She was said to have been born in 1674, had nursed future president George Washington (1732-1799) while a slave, and was on tour in 1835 at the age of 161. Even though she was blind, toothless, nearly paralyzed, and toured with Barnum for only 7 months, Heth springboarded his career after he purchased her for $1,000 from her former promoter R.W. Lindsay. Her act - which consisted of telling stories about "little George," singing hymns, and entertaining questions from the audience - raked in a handsome profit for the showman. She performed for as long as 12 hours a day, 6 days a week, in everything from museums and concert halls to taverns and railway houses across the northeastern United States. Because of doubts raised repeatedly in the press about the authenticity of her age and even her person - some of it stirred up by Barnum himself to reignite interest, Barnum promised a postmortem examination. After Heth died of natural causes on February 19, 1836, Barnum engaged the services of surgeon David L. Rogers to perform an autopsy in New York's City Saloon before an audience of 1,500 - each of whom purchased a ticket for the privilege. When Rogers declared the age claim a fraud (she was probably no older than 80), Barnum insisted there was a case of mistaken identity and that Heth was still alive. Later he admitted the hoax.

Turinah has been discovered recently by census workers in Indonesia, who believe her claims to have been born in 1853, making her 157 years old. She still works around the house, has smoked clove cigarettes all her life, and has an adopted daughter aged 108. "Despite her age she still has an incredible memory, clear sight and has no hearing problems," says statistics bureau official Jhonny Sardjono. Turinah speaks fluent Dutch, a language used during the colonial period which ended in 1945. Although the Indonesian government accepts her age, the Guiness Book of World Records will not consider her claim - which would make her the oldest person who ever lived - because she burned her identification documents to avoid being linked to the attempted Communist takeover of the country in 1965.

Follow-ups

Vivisection 1/22/10 British scientists are blowing up live pigs to study the effects of bombs. A man in Oaklan Park, Florida, performs a "coffee-table operation" on a dog he was watching and kills it. Here is a video (caution) of a seriously twisted experiment by Russian scientists.

Gatorland! 1/21/10 Scientists have determined that a shared breathing mechanism indicates that alligators and birds shared a common ancestor.

Kite-fighting 1/19/10 Friend Franck Cordes notes that there is a chapter on kite-fighting in The American Boys Handybook of Camp-lore and Woodcraft by Daniel Carter Beard (orig. 1882).

Gulp! 1/16/10 Moments after I published this post about the swallowing disorder pica, I was contacted by follower Lisa Wood, a gifted artist who collaged a series of plates based on the case histories of the swallowed objects in the very collection I mentioned. And her friend is writing a book on the same subject, due out later this year!

Disaster intensity scales 1/13/10 Here are some aerial photos of the earthquake damage in Haiti from National Geographic. As horrible as the tragedy and its aftermath is, unburied corpses do not pose much of a health risk. Scientists have identified a number of seismic zones throughout the world that are past due for an earthquake.

Mirror miscellany 1/17/10 Reader Kent Schnake points out the often overlooked observation that as long as a mirror is well-polished, we don't see it - we see what is reflected!

Sinkholes 1/12/10 Rubislaw Quarry in Aberdeen, Scotland - the largest man-made hole in Europe - has been sold.

Views from space 1/11/10 There are disputes over the ownership of a large meteorite that fell in Australia. Another meteorite fell through the roof of a doctor's office in Lorton, Virginia. Meanwhile, the Great Wall of China has been recreated in chocolate (although I don't usually link to weird chocolate).

Good cove, bad cove 1/6/10 Dolphins have taken up hydroplaning to catch the fish closest to shore. A French researchers suggests that heroic acts by animals like dolphins are more common than thought. Here is a story from this summer of a beluga whale carrying a struggling diver to the surface in China.

Snakes to the rescue 1/4/10 Federal officials have banned 9 species of constrictors from being imported into the U.S.

Parade floats 1/2/10 The plane that Capt. Sullenberger safely crash-landed in the Hudson River is for sale.

Bushmeat 12/27/09 A curious young chimp in the Congo investigates the remote video camera. The heart-wrenching tale of a humanized chimp named Jerry. A chimp is at the center of a custody battle in Sarasota, Florida.

Nipple shields 12/20/09 There is a strange time capsule in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada - a 1950s-era drugstore - and look what's on the shelf toward the end of the video!

Circus animals on the lam 11/13/09 Spanish photographer Jose Luis Rodriguez has been stripped of his title of photographer of the year because it was discovered that the wolf in his award-winning photo had been rented from a wildlife park. The hippo who escaped from the zoo in Montenegro has returned to her enclosure.

Humpback whales 11/10/09 Close encounters with beluga whales in the Arctic circle.

Odd animals 11/4/09 This strange creature that turned up in Texas has been identified as a hairless raccoon.

Engineering feats 11/1/09 A schematic drawing of the British warship H.M.S. Temeraire, built in 1793.

One man band 10/24/09 Here is a deft performance by a member of the Brooklyn-based chamber music ensemble Project Trio.

Lizard lore 10/17/09 Villagers in Indonesia are supplying Asian demand for geckos to be used in traditional medicines.

Dinosaur eggs 10/3/09 American paleontologists have announced that prehistoric velociraptors also spit venom at their prey. Australian scientists blame humans for the demise of the megafauna that lived 400,000 years ago.

Animal clarity 8/16/09 The unusual shell of the scaly-foot snail, discovered in 2003, may assist in the design of armor for soldiers and vehicles, say American researchers. Similarly, the silence of owls in flight (pictured) have inspired aircraft technology.

Jaws in 1916 8/8/09 A harrowing account of an Englishman being eaten by a shark while on holiday in Cape Town, South Africa.

Creative cremains 7/24/09 The far-flung posthumous travels of American adventurer Ralph White. Ongoing repairs at a crematorium in Coventry, U.K., are marring Sikh death rituals.

Bride and groom 6/1/09 A British teacher sacrificed himself and drowned to save his bride on their honeymoom in Egypt.

Cave paintings at Lascaux 5/27/09 Plans are afoot in Italy to breed the aurochs depicted in cave paintings back from extinction.

The art of David Teniers the Younger 5/22/09 Japanese macaques huddling together for warmth.

Chihuahuas in the weird news 5/2/09 What's a follow-up without a chihuahua story? This one was found by security staff at the Dublin airport being smuggled in a Bulgarian man's suitcase.

Emmett Kelly 4/25/09 An example and explanation of the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon, a form of synchronicity.

Bears in the news 4/24/09 The den of a black bear hibernating in Minnesota is being monitored by a remote camera that just captured the birth of her 3 cubs!

Giants 4/17/09 A German model stands 6' 9" tall.

Centenarians 3/26/09 Here is a fantastic video of people aged 1 through 100.

Spider prey 3/7/09 Video of a giant centipede eating a bat. And watch this toad's defense when it is about to be eaten by a tarantula!

Megafishes 2/15/09 A blind British woman landed a 214lb catfish in Spain, after which she released it back into the river.

Disturbing decapitations 1/23/09 A human head and a red flower were found at the tomb of a Mexican drug lord.

Caves 1/15/09 A BBC video of the Crystal Cave of Giants in Chihuahua, Mexico.

More mammoths 1/6/09 DNA analysis of frozen soil by an international team of scientists shows that woolly mammoths existed for thousands of years longer than previously thought.

Dr. Seuss 12/25/08 A disagreement in Minnesota parallels the plot of Dr. Seuss's story The Zax.

Blizzard of 1888 12/14/08 Many wondrous photographs of ice caves around the world. A long-predicted form of stable ice has been confirmed in the lab by British scientists. Scientists have assessed that the ice in the artic Beaufort Sea is "rotten." Pioneering 19th c. images of snowflakes by American photographer Wilson A. Bentley have gone on sale. Photos and an explanation of hair ice. And a live audio feed from under the ice in Antarctica.

Conjoined twins 11/29/08 The world's oldest conjoined twins, Ronnie and Donnie Galyon of Ohio, are moving in with their brother rather than into an assisted-living facility.

Albinos 11/18/08 "White Bambi" spotted in the Italian Alps.

Oldest zoo in the world 11/10/08 A neighborhood association has stopped the Oakland Zoo from its practice of cutting down non-native trees and feeding the crunchy snacks to elephants and other animals. An Asian elephant has been born for the 1st time at the Melbourne Zoo. A Norwegian man who is trying to collect 1 million giraffes to win a bet is nearly halfway there.

Animal extinction 11/9/08 The eel population in London's River Thames have dropped precipitously (98%).

Follow-ups

Views from space 1/11/09 An incredible photograph that shows an avalanche on Mars!

Recent feral children 1/10/09 "Cambodian jungle girl" Rochom P'ngieng, who spent 18 years in the jungle before being found and returned to her family in 2007, has begun to speak again.

Follow-ups 1/9/09 In a follow-up to a follow-up, I linked to a story about a chicken in a sweater. Apparently, it's not the only chicken to be sporting clothing.

Hit and (unsuccessful) run 1/6/09 A 23-year-old woman inTokyo struck and killed an 80-year-old pedestrian, then drove 8km home with the woman's body lodged in her windshield.

Follow-ups 1/4/09 In this set of follow-ups, I linked to a story about a dog whose strangled tongue had swollen to several times normal size. Here is a story about a dog learning to cope after getting its tongue stuck in a paper shredder.

2009 in review 12/31/09 While USA Today suggests that the word "tweet" be tossed, the American Dialect Society has voted it the 2009 Word of the Year.

Eye news 11/21/09 Recent news articles about special effects contact lenses and prisoners tattooing the whites of their eyes sent me searching for weird contact lenses: cat eyes, spirals, fire, Hello Kitty, and extra-wide for that anime look (pictured). And if those aren't strange enough, here are some that offer eye jewelry.

Alligator urban legends 11/14/09 Some photos of Nile crocodiles hatching from their eggs.

Circus animals on the lam 11/13/09 The hippo at a private zoo in Montenegro has escaped in a flood.

Library of Human Imagination 11/9/09 Another wealthy man, Scott Jones, has been able to outfit the house of his dreams - including this spiral stair slide!

Fatal coyote attack 11/2/09 Two boys in British Columbia, Canada, were saved from cougar attacks - one by his dog and the other by his Mom. By the way, the cougar, puma, and mountain lion are all the same animal.

Happy Halloween! 10/31/09 My Mom pointed out an article in a magazine about the town of Collinsville, Connecticut, where we lived in the late 1970s/early 1980s. Who knew that after I moved away, a huge Halloween tradition would begin?! I found lots of other celebrations of my favorite holiday on the web: Greenwich Village, New York; Meadville, Media, and Nazareth, Pennsylvania; Little Five Points, Georgia; Anoka, Minnesota; Toms River, New Jersey; Morris Cove, Connecticut; North Halsted, Illinois; West Hollywood, California; Bonner Springs, Kansas; Wellfleet, Massachusetts; Rutland, Vermont; Portsmouth, New Hampshire; Key West, Florida; and Georgetown in Washington, D.C. Good to see so much spirit out there!

Shackleton 10/28/09 Here is a fascinating look inside the hut used by British explorer Robert F. Scott on his Antarctic expedition.

The Mary Rose 10/15/09 A 1925 Bugatti that spent 73 years at the bottom of a Swiss lake has been raised and auctioned.

World's heaviest insects 8/28/09 CBS Sunday Morning featured the insect art of Christopher Marley.

Femur scepter 7/18/09 Scientists in Italy have developed a way of turning rattan wood into bone that is almost identical to the human tissue.

Hazards of hail 6/16/09 A woman in Lakeland, Florida, has kept a "pet snowball" in her freezer for 33 years!

"Seven Pounds" 6/14/09 A man fishing off the side of huge ship off north Queensland, Australia, was stung by a jellyfish that was carried up 25M by a spray of water. A woman in Buffalo, New York, had to make the agonizing decision of who to donate her kidney to - her brother or her sister.

Oldtimer 6/6/09 Miep Gies, the Dutch woman who hid Anne Frank and her family for 2 years and saved the teenager's diary, has died at the age of 100. Dorothy Geeben, America's oldest active mayor, has died at the age of 102. Joe Rollino, famous Coney Island strongman, was struck and killed by a car at 104. Frank Knight, a Maine centenarian, has to cut down a 240-year-old tree that he has been nursing for 50 years.

Elusive animals 6/4/09 An invertebrate zoologist in South Carolina has determined that the green sea slug produces enough chlorophyll to be considered both an animal and a plant. Scientists have found that killer whales in the North Atlantic are in the process of splitting into 2 different species. A nocturnal cricket that pollinates orchids has been discovered on an island in the Indian Ocean. A new and very large (14cm) spider has been found in Israel. And a new species of bird has been discovered in the Borneo rainforest (it's rather nondescript, so I almost didn't include it, but I like the phrase "snacking on mistletoe").

Whales, articulated and dismantled 5/28/09 In this post, I linked to a time-lapse video of the installation of a humpback whale skeleton at the Museum of Osteology. Here is a time-lapse video of an army of ants reducing a lizard to bone.

Vultures 5/4/09 The house and lawn of a woman in Ridgeway, Virginia, have been besieged by a flock of 30-35 hostile vultures.

Bears in the news 4/24/09 A bear of mythical proportions is terrorizing the inhabitants of Incline Village, California. After a bear ravaged his plane in Alaska, a charter pilot patched it up with duct tape and plastic sheeting and flew it home.

Rediscovery of ancient Egypt 4/19/09 A massive statue of an Egyptian pharoah has been found in the Sudan - further south than any other.

Tree tales 4/14/09 There has been a trend on the coast of Poole, Dorset, U.K.: gouging the trunks of trees that block the view so that they will die.

Fossil fuels 3/25/09 Coal in Xuan Wei county of Yunnan province, China, has been linked to the area's highest incidence of cancer in non-smokers.

Snow ropes 1/27/09 In this post were snow photos taken by my brother-in-law in Seattle. Here is a photo my Uncle Chuck took recently in Illinois showing the Mississippi River frozen over. Here are some pictures of snow bales taken in Yeovil, Somerset, U.K., recently. Speaking of snow and ice, a Canadian man was forced to take down this great snow fort that he made for his kids.

First U.S. face transplant! 12/17/08 A Swedish teenager does not need a face transplant after a devastating skin disease (caution), because her own face grew back. Meanwhile, a woman from Belgium has a new windpipe - transplanted from a cadaver and first implanted in her arm to grow new blood vessels.

Fatal tiger mauling 10/28/08 A 66-year-old Canadian man who kept exotic cats has been mauled to death by his tiger.