When legendary sex symbol Bo Derek appeared on Oprah a few months ago, Oprah kept pressing her to tell the world something profound about being a beautiful woman, and Bo kept brushing off the questions, saying, “It’s just about the way the bones line up.” That felt pretty profound to me. In our culture, the standard of beauty is narrow, and every day we face countless reminders of the ways we fall short. When it comes down it, though, our society’s definition of beauty is simple and unromantic: it’s high cheekbones and a button nose and long legs and a small waist and so on and so on. We can only congratulate or punish ourselves so many times for the way our bones line up. Here are 50 vastly different definitions of beauty that I know to be true…

1. It is beautiful to speak another language. It is beautiful to try.

2. Beauty is long hair, and short hair; brown, black, pink, yellow, or white. Beauty is a smooth bald head.

3. If you have been to hell and back, your resilience is beautiful.

4. Asking questions—especially “why?”—is always beautiful. Why? Because curiosity is beautiful.

5. You are beautiful when you are afraid to do something, and you do it anyway.

6. Flat stomachs are beautiful, sure, but big, soft bellies are beautiful, too.

7. If you can string words together into a sentence, and you’re brave enough to let someone else read it, that’s beautiful.

8. Beauty is putting paint on canvas, or strumming a guitar, or baking bread, or dancing with your eyes closed.

9. Creating is always beautiful.

10. Your bare face in the morning is beautiful. Ask the person who loves you. It’s true.

11. Beauty is the slightly horrifying realization that you still remember all the lyrics to your favorite song from 6th grade.

12. Remember the time your best friend called you crying? Because only your voice could calm her down? That was beautiful.

13. Beauty is laughing so hard your eyes are watering and your stomach hurts and you’re yelling, “Stop, stop! Seriously, I’m peeing!” (Yes. Peeing your pants can be beautiful.)

14. Beauty is telling a teenage girl that she’s going to be OK.

15. Beauty is calling someone out for saying something hurtful, even if you weren’t the one getting hurt.

16. Your legs are beautiful. No, really. They are. Look at the curve of your calves, the muscles in your thighs, the peaks and valleys of your knee.

17. Letting go of a toxic relationship? Ah, what a beautiful relief!

18. You are beautiful when you rock out so hard at a concert that your neck is sore the next day.

19. Intelligence is beautiful.

20. Worldliness is beautiful.

21. Compassion is very, very beautiful.

22. Beauty is wearing an outfit so fierce that when people compliment you on it you say, “I know, right?” and then, “Oh, I mean, thank you.”

23. Strong opinions are beautiful.

24. Respecting other people’s strong opinions is beautiful too.

25. Beauty is your hometown, whether you love it or hate it, because it helped make you who you are.

26. Beauty is telling a dirty joke and laughing so hard nobody can hear the punchline.

27. Women who never wear makeup, whatever their reasons, are beautiful.

28. Women who always wear makeup, whatever their reasons, are beautiful.

29. Floating in the ocean is a beautiful feeling.

30. Your eyes are beautiful. Nobody else has eyes like yours. They are deep and inquisitive and instantly recognizable.

31. The way our bodies tell the truth—we blush when we are attracted to someone, we blink twice when we lie—is beautiful.

32. Orgasms are beautiful.

33. Beauty is being comfortable enough with someone else to be silent. As a character in the movie Best In Show put it, “We could talk or not talk forever and still find things to not talk about.”

34. Beauty is being able to walk gracefully in high heels.

35. Beauty is digging your bare feet into the sand.

36. Beauty is sitting very still with your thoughts.

37. It is beautiful to find the strength to ask for help when you need it. We all feel like we’re drowning sometimes, and we would all be glad to pull you from the rapids.

38. Beauty is loving your pet as much as they love you.

39. Beauty is a fresh flower in your hair.

40. The physical remnants of our life experiences—wrinkles, stretch marks, scars, and sun spots—are beautiful.

41. Wisdom is beautiful.

42. Humility is beautiful.

43. Beauty is the sweaty satisfaction of a hard workout.

44. It is beautiful to finally tell someone your secret.

45. It is beautiful to turn the worst night into the funniest story.

46. Beauty is being able to truly enjoy the food you eat.

47. It is beautiful to be grateful to all the strong women who came before you: the ones who raised you, the ones who fought for your rights, the ones who were burned at the stake because they were too powerful.

48. Giving birth is beautiful. (Messy, but beautiful.)

49. Freedom is beautiful. You are free to fill your life with the things that make you happy.

50. Happiness is beautiful.

Morocco is renowned for its colors, with its cities awash in vivid shades of red, purple, green and gold. But things are a little different in Chefchaoen, a town in the northwest nestled among the Rif Mountains. Take a stroll through Chefchaoen’s streets and you’ll be hard-pressed to find something that isn’t painted a particular shade of blue.

Chefchaoen, founded in 1471, was once a refuge of Jews and converted Christians of Muslim heritage. They sought refuge in the safety of these mountains after the Spanish Reconquista in medieval times, a period in which Christian kingdoms retook Muslim-controlled areas of the Iberian peninsula. The town was painted the powder-blue of tekhelel, a natural dye made of shellfish. In the bible, Israelites are commanded to use this dye to color one of the threads of their prayer shawl.


Though tekhelel is no longer available and the city’s population of Jews has diminished, the tradition has carried on through the centuries. Blue pigment is sold in pots and bags throughout the city, and residents faithfully refresh the paint on their homes, flower pots, balcony railings, doors and practically everywhere else in the community. Even the interiors of many of these buildings are painted blue.


The pigments may vary in color now, ranging from periwinkle to aqua, but the effect is no less spectacular, providing a monochromatic stage from which every other color dazzles, particularly the merchandise hung on walls outside of markets and shops.


Of course, Chefchaouen is known for more than just its unique paint job. The city offers handicrafts that aren’t available in other areas of Morocco, such as wool garments and blankets, and is also one of the main producers of cannabis in the nation. It is often sold in great abundance at stands alongside fruits and vegetables. On holidays Chefchaouen is filled with tourists, especially the Spanish. Perhaps they’re making up for lost time, as the city was closed to European visitors until 1920.

Men and women are equals in the grandest sense of the word, yes. But just as our bodies are undeniably different, so, too, are our minds. This means, as crazy as it may seem, that how you experience the world isn’t necessarily how your wife experiences it. You can’t fight the evolutionary and social causes behind these differences. Trust me, I and much greater men have tried, all in vain. But you can at least recognize these and other differences, which are explained in very readable detail in “The Female Brain,” by Louann Brizendine, M.D. These insights will make communicating with your wife and she with you much easier. In other words, you’ll more often find yourselves of one mind.

1) She Remembers More. The hippocampus, the part of the brain mostly responsible for memories, is larger in women. That’s why women are better at retaining memories, the good ones and the bad ones, like that time you bought her a Thighmaster. If it seems that your wife can recall tiny details about things, such things as your anniversary dinner six years ago, that you barely remember, well, there’s likely a physiologically reason for that.

Lesson: Don’t argue with your wife over details about something that happened months or years ago. Odds are, she’s right.

2) There’s a Reason She Cries. Women’s brains are configured in such a manner that they are four times more likely to cry than men. One reason for this is that to the male brain surprise, it isn’t so hot at picking up subtle emotional cues in others (with anger being an exception). Sometimes tears are the only way for women to get us to take notice of their feelings; otherwise, without any trace of malice, we keep our focus squarely on the night’s episode of “Ice Road Truckers.”

Lesson: If you wish your wife cried less, work harder at paying attention to the small ways she’s telegraphing her feelings. Better yet, make a habit of asking her how she feels.

3) Her Instincts Are Solid. The parts of the brain linked to gut feelings are larger and more discerning in women. In other words, there’s a factual basis behind the much-touted notion of a “woman’s intuition.” Disregard it at your own peril. And, by all means, if you’re going to the race track, it might help to have her along.

Lesson: Pay attention to your wife’s hunches. She may be picking up on things that your dude brain isn’t even noticing.

4) Her Brain Changes. A lot. Because of menstruation and menopause, the female brain goes through considerably more change than our male brain. In fact, during any given month, some parts of the woman’s brain can change as much as 25 percent! Once past puberty, the male brain is largely spared anything akin to the monthly hormone riot that is menstruation, and the dramatic brain makeover that is menopause. Count your blessings, man, count your blessings.

Lesson: If it sometimes feels that you’re talking to a different woman, well, in some ways, you are. Be patient, dear sir. She’ll thank you for it.

5) Her Head Is Filled with Words. When it comes to the language centers of the brain, women’s work differently than men’s. On average, women speak at a rate of 250 words per minute, while men average half that. In the course of a day, a woman will speak some 20,000 words, while we guys utter about 7,000. This is why we husbands sometimes struggle to keep focused on all our wives are saying, and why we sometimes struggle to find the right words, unless, of course, we’re telling fart jokes, in which case the words flow effortlessly.

Lesson: Push yourself to listen ever harder, and to respond aloud with your reaction so that your wife knows you heard her. Above all, recognize that sometimes talking is her way of processing.

Knowing these, and other, differences between your brain and your wife’s, will make you smarter and you both happier.

Growing up, we’re told that if you put your mind to something and work hard, you can accomplish anything.

And while that sounds good, it’s pretty hard not to feel like a complete idiot when you hear about some kid performing surgeries at age 7. At 7 years old, most of us were by baffled by how to prevent brain freeze when eating ice cream.

So keep telling yourself that you’re proud of your accomplishments and that you really are successful, because after you read about these 5 child prodigies, you might not feel quite as smart.

1. William James Sidis—Many believe William James Sidis to be the smartest person of all time. There are rumors that his IQ was somewhere between 250 to 300. To put that in perspective, the average IQ is supposed to be between 90 and 109. Genius IQ is considered to start around 140.

So what did William James Sadis do as a child prodigy? For starters, he could read at just 18 months. He’d already written 4 books and was able to speak 8 languages fluently before he was 8 years old. He even gave a seminar at Harvard on the 4th dimension at age 9. He later attended Harvard at the old age of 11.

2. Kim Ung-yong—Kim Ung-Yong is considered by many to be the smartest man living today. Born in 1962, the former child prodigy is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records under “Highest IQ” with a score of 210.

The Korean genius entered university as a physics student when he was just 3 years old. He could do complex calculus equations and speak numerous languages while other kids his age were still trying to figure out how to tie their shoes. He eventually came over to the U.S. when he was invited to study and help NASA.

3.William Rowan Hamilton—How many languages can you speak right now? 1? Maybe 2? As a teenager, William Rowan Hamilton knew 14 languages. 14! Considering the average professional athlete can barely put together a logical sentence, that’s pretty impressive. Later in life, he developed the mathematical theory of quaternions, an important part of algebra.

4. Akrit Jaswal—Some call him the real life Doogie Howser. We call him another impressive child prodigy that makes us feel like complete idiots. Akrit Jaswal has the highest IQ of any boy his age in all of India. At age 7, he was actually performing surgeries, and now, he’s working on new theories to find a cure for cancer. Genius? Yes. But would we want the kid operating on us? Probably not.

5. Gregory Smith—At age 2, Gregory Smith was already reading. By age 10, he was enrolled in college. And at age 12, he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Yes, that Nobel Peace Prize. He lost out to Jimmy Carter, but it doesn’t change the fact that the guy is a genius. And lucky for us, he’s decided to put his intelligence to good use, founding an advocacy group promoting peace among young kids.

Also see:
Meet Victoria Cowie, The Girl With IQ Higher Than Einstein and Hawking's
Adora Svitak: The 'Dora the Explorer' In The Real World

Ever wondered what it feels like to be pregnant? Now even men can find out thanks to a new dress created by Takuya Iwamoto from the Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology and his team that simulates the weight, temperature, movement and heartbeat of a fetus (see video below).

The device can replicate the 9-month long process in two minutes or it can be worn for a longer period to experience what it feels like day-to-day. To mimic the fetus, it contains a 4-litre bag filled with warm water. Kicking movement is recreated with a lining of 45 balloons that expand and contract. But wiggling is more complex to reproduce and requires a grid of air actuators that exploit a tactile illusion. When two vibrating sources placed a distance apart move at the same time, it triggers a sensation in between the two points. So by varying vibrating pairs over time, the simulated fetus seems to squirm.

The system also contains an accelerometer and touch sensors to allow for interaction. When the suit is connected to a computer, software displays a 3D model of the fetus that changes to mimic different stages of pregnancy. The fetus on the screen appears to be in a good mood when a wearer strokes their abdomen and makes steady movements. But if the person moves around vigorously, it will trigger more intense motion.

The team hopes the system will help men better to understand what a woman goes through during pregnancy. It offers a more realistic simulation than existing systems by reproducing the temperature and movement of the fetus.

The work will be presented in August at Siggraph 2011 in Vancouver, Canada.

Remember the beginning of Waterworld, where a grizzled Kevin Costner peed into a coffee can, filtered it, and proceeded to drink his own urine? Well apparently we've already leapfrogged that bit of post-apocalyptic technology in favor of making steaks out of human waste. A team of Japanese scientists has developed a way to transform human feces into edible steaks. By extracting the proteins from human waste and combining them with a reaction enhancer, the resulting product is "meat" that's 63% proteins, 25% carbohydrates, 3% lipids and 9% minerals. For aesthetic (and culinary) reasons, the product is then dyed red and the flavor is enhanced with soy protein.

The following video explains the process in greater detail, although it's hard not to get sidetracked by the scientist's ridiculous (and eerily lifelike) pointer apparatus.



As of now the human waste meat is approximately 10 to 20 times more expensive than traditional meat, thanks mostly to the ludicrously high research costs. However, the team hopes it can eventually be priced right on par with normal steaks, offering consumers a way to be more environmentally responsible with their meat consumption, eschewing their regular purchase of New York Steak for the far more sustainable Poo York variety.

People came to South Wales from all over the globe to take part in the world skinny-dipping record on Rhossili Beach, Gower.

They tore off their clothes shortly before 8am and bravely ran into the water shrieking and whooping with delight seemingly unperturbed by the wet and wind conditions.


But their cries of joy were replaced by ooohs and aaahs once their naked bodies entered into the icy sea temperature.

Skinny dipper Lizzy White, 25, said: 'I have flown in from Australia via Brazil to take part - what was I thinking of?

'But it was great fun and very exhilarating to strip off and dive into the waves, even if they are a lot colder than what I'm used to.'

Shivering first-time skinny dipper Steve Absalom, 29, said: 'I'm quite shy and I have never swam naked before so to do it in front of 400 people was a bit of an eye-opener.

'But there was no embarrassment - it was just great fun.

'The dash from the shoreline into the waves was the hardest bit but once you are in the water - what the hell!

'I’m very proud to have helped to set the new world record - it is something I will be able to tell my grandchildren.'

Organisers of the event said their challenge had to be verified by Guinness but they believe they have smashed the previous record of 250 skinny-dippers.


Spokeswoman Alison Powell said: 'It was great fun - I have never seen so many happy smiling faces.

'We hoped for 300 people but in the end we got a lot more - I'm delighted with the turn out.'

Organisers are hoping the sponsored skinny-dip will raise more than £5,000 for the Marie Curie cancer charity.

And many of the nudists posed to have their photographs taken in the shallows to prove to their sponsors that they took part in the event.

Naked Sue Jones, 39, of Carmarthen, said: 'I'm putting my picture on Facebook for all to see.

'I've skinny-dipped before in Greece and Spain. This was the first time in Wales ... and the last!'

This Sunday, fathers and daughters everywhere will be spending quality time together talking about important life issues, reminiscing about stories from childhood, and waxing poetic about the future. While we highly encourage dad/daughter bonding, we’ve compiled this handy list of awkward conversations you may want to avoid if you plan on having a pleasant holiday with dad. After the jump, some unapproved conversation topics this Father’s Day.

1. How much you hate your stepmother/step-siblings. Even if you really do hate your new family so much you want to scream it from the rooftop, try to pretend like you don’t for just one day.

2. How heavy your flow has been lately. Any conversation where your vagina is involved is TMI for dad.

3. The story of your conception. Visa versa, any story where your dad’s penis is involved, even if it in the context of your creation, is TMI for you.

4. Your wild and crazy sex life. New addition to your sex toy collection? The guy you’re dating gave you a facial last night? You occasionally like to fool around with women? That’s wild and crazy! Congrats! But don’t tell dad.

5. That thing your therapist said about him. Dad may be to blame for the abandonment issues you are currently unpacking in therapy, but he doesn’t need to hear about it on Father’s Day. So basically, you may want to wait to share that cutting observation about him being a narcissist that your therapist made last session.

6. How bad you used to be. If dad didn’t already figure out how often you snuck out of the house when you were a teenager, where you hid your pot, or about that time you took his car out for a joyride when you were 14, no need to tell him now. Let him continue thinking you are perfect.

7. The things about him that are total dealbreakers for you in a relationship. “Hey dad, I steer clear of men with financial issues because I saw how much it affected your and mom’s marriage.” No, no, no.

8. The story of how you lost your V-card. You are still a virgin as far as your father is concerned, let’s keep it that way, shall we?

9. If/when dad cheated on mom. You may suspect or maybe you know he cheated. Maybe your dad is Arnold Schwarzenegger and you have a new brother to prove it. Still ... avoid, avoid, avoid.

10. That secret abortion your sister had. This is not your secret to share. That is item number one on your sister’s unapproved conversation list. Stop copying everything she does.

Welcome to The Destruction Company - where wealthy youngsters pay big bucks to use weapons and tools to destroy objects such as computers and pianos.

The members then visit the club's warehouse and roof top space to don protective clothing and destroy the object bit by bit.

Based at a secret location in New Jersey the club has just opened and its membership is already swelling - mostly with young heirs and heiresses and wealthy bankers.

The club says 40 per cent of the membership are female - proving that women are also keen to let off stress with a weapon and inanimate object.


A spokesman for the club said: 'Our message to our members is very clear: "It is okay to destroy things". This is not about violence, but the art of destruction.

'Many of our clients are high earning city workers. A lot of the inquiries we get by email have addresses ending with names such as Morgan Stanley.

'People can only join if an existing member invites them and we have them in for a session, to get to know them before deciding whether they can become a member.

'Only around 60 per cent of our membership is male, and we have many female clients. It all takes place in a controlled, safe environment.

'We have had some odd requests - someone wants to smash a Ferrari and one lady destroyed all her ex husband's suits.

'One common theme is technology such as computers, lap tops and iPads - there seems to be a desire out there to smash them.'



The Destruction Company is now open in New Jersey and is hoping to expand its business to Los Angeles and London.

Members pay an undisclosed annual fee to enjoy regular smashing sessions and they also pay the cost of what they destroy each time.

Inside the warehouse is an array of weapons, a 'menu' of items to smash, and hangers full of protective clothing from leather boots to hockey pads.

Members pick what they want to destroy which is them brought into the open space - before they select a weapon and begin smashing it apart.

The smashing - either individually or in group sessions - is filmed on camera so members can visit a control room and watch back footage of themselves in action.

All members sign a legal waiver and as in the film 'Fight Club' there are rules: no firearms can be used, no living things or paperwork can be destroyed, and no alcohol or drugs.

Members pay an annual fee plus the cost of what is destroyed during each session - with prices ranging from $10 (set of plates), baby grand piano ($2,000), to cars costing over $100,000.

The spokesman said: 'I think people are using the club for different reasons. Some want to let off steam, some want to shed executive stress.

'Some people want a bit of revenge on the technology that rules their lives and some think it's just a great work out.

'To others it has a real primeval appeal. We are not endorsing violence, we are giving people the chance to fee free. Sometimes it really is okay to destroy things.'

A unique cultural park made entirely out of clay has recently been open to the public, in Tangshan City, China.

1. Look at your zipper. See the initials YKK? It stands for Yoshida Kogyo Kabushibibaisha, the world's largest zipper manufacturer.

2. 40 percent of McDonald's profits come from the sales of Happy Meals.

3. 315 entries in Webster's 1996 Dictionary were misspelled.

4. On the average, 12 newborns will be given to the wrong parents daily.

5. Chocolate kills dogs! True, chocolate affects a dog's heart and nervous system. A few ounces is enough to kill a small sized dog.

6. Ketchup was sold in the 1830's as a medicine.

7. Leonardo da Vinci could write with one hand and draw with the other at the same time.

8. Because metal was scarce, the Oscars given out during World War II were made of wood.

9. There are no clocks in Las Vegas gambling casinos.

10. Leonardo da Vinci invented scissors. Also, it took him 10 years to paint Mona Lisa's lips.

11. Bruce Lee was so fast that they actually had to slow a film down so you could see his moves. That's the opposite of the norm.

12. The original name for the butterfly was "flutterby"!

13. By raising your legs slowly and lying on your back, you can't sink in quicksand.

14. Mosquito repellents don't repel. They hide you. The spray blocks the mosquito's sensors so they don't know you're there.

15. Dentists recommend that a toothbrush be kept at least six feet away from a toilet to avoid airborne particles resulting from the flush.

16. The first product to have a bar code was Wrigley's gum.

17. Michael Jordan makes more money from Nike annually than the entire Nike factory workers in Malaysia combined.

18. Marilyn Monroe had six toes on one foot.

19. Adolf Hitler's mother seriously considered having an abortion but was talked out of it by her doctor.

20. The three most valuable brand names on earth: Marlboro, Coca-Cola, and Budweiser, in that order.

21. To escape the grip of a crocodile's jaws, prick your fingers into its eyeballs. It will let you go instantly.

22. The average person falls asleep in seven minutes.

23. The "pound" (#) key on your keyboard is called an octothorp.

24. The only domestic animal not mentioned in the Bible is the cat.

25. Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.

26. The average person's left hand does 56% of the typing.

27. Dreamt" is the only word in the English language that ends in "mt".

28. It's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.

29. In Chinese, the KFC slogan "finger lickin' good" comes out as "eat your fingers off".

30. A cockroach can live for 10 days without a head.

31. We shed 40 pounds of skin a lifetime.

32. Yo-Yos were once used as weapons in the Philippines.

33. Mexico City sinks abut 10 inches a year.

34. Brains are more active sleeping than watching TV.

35. Blue is the favorite color of 80 percent of Americans.

36. When a person shakes their head from side to side, he is saying "yes" in Sri Lanka.

37. There are more chickens than people in the world.

38. The thumbnail grows the slowest, and the middle nail grows the fastest.

39. There are more telephones than people in Washington, D.C.

40. The average four year-old child asks over four hundred questions a day.

41. The average person presses the snooze button on their alarm clock three Times each morning.

42. The three wealthiest families in the world have more assets than the Combined wealth of the forty-eight poorest nations.

43. The first owner of the Marlboro cigarette Company died of lung cancer.

44. Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.

45. The world's youngest parents were 8 and 9 and lived in China in 1910.

46. Our eyes remain the same size from birth onward, but our noses and ears Never stop growing.

47. You burn more calories sleeping than you do watching TV.

48. A person will die from total lack of sleep sooner than from starvation. Death will occur about 10 days without sleep, while starvation takes a Few weeks.

49. Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying.

50. The Mona Lisa has no eyebrows.

51. When the moon is directly overhead, you weigh slightly less.

52. Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, never telephoned His wife or mother because they were both deaf.

53. A psychology student in New York rented out her spare room to a Carpenter in order to nag him constantly and study his reactions. After Weeks of needling, he snapped and beat her repeatedly with an axe Leaving her mentally retarded

54. "I am." is the shortest complete sentence in the English language

55. Colgate faced a big obstacle marketing toothpaste in Spanish speaking Countries because Colgate translates into the command "go hang Yourself."

56. Like fingerprints, everyone's tongue print is different.

57. "Bookkeeper" is the only word in English language with three consecutive Double letters.

58. Right handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left handed People do.

59. The sentence "the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" uses every Letter in the English language.

60. If the population of China walked past you in single line, the line Would never end because of the rate of reproduction

61. China has more English speakers than the United States.

62. Every human spent about half an hour as a single cell.

63. Each square inch of human skin consists of twenty feet of blood vessels.

64. An average person uses the bathroom 6 times per day.

65. Babies are born with 300 bones, but by adulthood we have only 206 in our Bodies.

66. Beards are the fastest growing hairs on the human body. If the average Man never trimmed his beard, it would grow to nearly 30 feet long in his Lifetime.

67. According to Genesis 1:20-22, the chicken came before the egg.

68. The longest place name still in use is: Taumatawhakatangihangaoauauotameteaturi- Pukakpikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu - a New Zealand hill.

69. If you leave Tokyo by plane at 7:00am, you will arrive in Honolulu at Approximately 4:30pm the previous day.

70. Scientists in Australia's Parkes Observatory thought they had positive Proof of alien life, when they began picking up radio-waves from space. However, after investigation, the radio emissions were traced to a Microwave in the building.

71. Wearing headphones for an hour increases the bacteria in your ear 700 times.

72. More than 40,000 parasites and 250 types of bacteria are exchanged during a French kiss.

73. Men can read smaller print than women, but women can hear better.

74. Coca-Cola was originally green.

75. The most common name in the world is Mohammed.

76. The name of all the continents ends with the same letter that they start with.

77. There are two credit cards for every person in the United States.

78. TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters only on one row of the keyboard.

79. Women blink nearly twice as much as men!!

80. You can't kill yourself by holding your breath.

81. It is impossible to lick your elbow.

82. People say "Bless you" when you sneeze because when you sneeze, your heart stops for a millisecond.

83. It is physically impossible for pigs to look up into the sky.

84. The "sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick" is said to be the toughest tongue twister in the English language.

85. If you sneeze too hard, you can fracture a rib. If you try to suppress a sneeze, you can rupture a blood vessel in your head or neck and die.

86. Each king in a deck of playing cards represents great king from history. Spades - King David, Clubs - Alexander the Great, Hearts - Charlemagne, Diamonds - Julius Caesar.

87. 111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321

88. If a statue of a person in the park on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle.

89. If the horse has one front leg in the air, the person died as a result of wounds received in battle.

90. If the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes.

91. Question - This is the only food that doesn't spoil. What is this? Ans. - Honey

92. A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out.

93. A snail can sleep for three years.

94. All polar bears are left handed.

95. American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by eliminating one olive from each salad served in first-class.

96. Butterflies taste with their feet.

97. Elephants are the only animals that can't jump.

98. In the last 4000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.

99. On average, people fear spiders more than they do death.

100. Shakespeare invented the word 'assassination' and 'bump'.

101. Stewardesses is the longest word typed with only the left hand.

102. The ant always falls over on its right side when intoxicated.

103. The electric chair was invented by a dentist.

104. The human heart creates enough pressure when it pumps out to the body to squirt blood 30 feet.

105. Rats multiply so quickly that in 18 months, two rats could have over million descendants.

106. The cigarette lighter was invented before the match.

107. Most lipstick contains fish scales.

Your hygiene may not be something you give much thought to, but it's something others will think about when they're forced to take notice. Nonetheless, good hygiene is simply a matter of developing good habits and practices.

When it comes to attracting women, 42-year-old New York bachelor Jim Norton has his charm. His sense of humor. But most of all, he has his Upper West Side apartment, purchased five years ago in a Trump building. Oh, did he mention it’s got breathtaking views through floor-to-ceiling windows?

“Women see windows — and skirts come off,” he says of his large one-bedroom pad, which also features a state-of-the-art kitchen with stainless-steel appliances.

“This one businesswoman, she came over, and she said she was ‘not like the other girls,’ ” he recalls of the guest, who announced that she did not sleep with men on the first date.


“Well, fast-forward an hour after seeing the apartment, and not only was she like the other girls, she was worse. They like the view.”

That certainly comes in handy when other elements of his seduction technique fall short.

“I remember another woman . . . I knew she was impressed with the place and decided to sleep with me,” says the comedian.


“I gave a horrible [sexual] performance. She walked around the apartment a couple of times before she left — almost reminding herself that this is why she just put herself through that.”

TOO SEXY FOR YOUR PLACE?

Norton, who has written two best-selling memoirs detailing his sexual exploits, points out what many men — and the brokers who sell to them — are realizing in the current economic climate. The right apartment can get you laid.

“With so many people out of work,” he says, “if a woman sees a nice place, that makes her much more willing to take the chance and sleep with you.”

Dolly Lenz, vice chairman of Prudential Douglas Elliman, has been noticing an increased emphasis among bachelors on what she calls “the sexy factor.” Rich guys — some of whom are fleeing life in the burbs after a divorce for the freewheeling life in downtown Manhattan — are increasingly buying lavish apartments to woo women.

“The swagger is back in the market,” she says.

And let’s face it: In New York, our standards — for dating and real estate — are different from what they might be elsewhere in the country. With space at a premium, most New York women aren’t expecting anything palatial — they’ll settle for the aforementioned view. Perhaps some parquet floors and a doorman.

“In New York, when you say porn, more people are likely to think you mean real estate,” says John, a multimillionaire financier who asked that his real name not be used. “Every two-bit banker at Goldman Sachs can buy you an expensive dinner or have a $175,000 Ferrari, but how many can have the $10 million trophy pad?”

John frequently lets his friends borrow his 5,000-square-foot Upper East Side apartment so they can bring home the ladies while he’s away on business. After letting a London hedge-funder borrow his flat for a few days, the financier reported that his friend was able to score every night with three women (though not at the same time). “He told me: ‘They were excited when they got to the door — and when they saw the view, it was a done deal.’ ”

But while ladies do love a room with a view, there’s something else they love — anything in the apartment that lends the man an air of domesticity. While the trophy apartments of yore might have been all about flashy effects — think shag carpets and wall-to-wall mirrors — these days, there’s a more subtle aesthetic at work. “We’ve gone from trophies that scream ‘bachelor pad’ to ones that scream, ‘There’s room for both of us here,’ ” says John.

Indeed, while Norton has a stunning state-of-the-art kitchen, he never sets foot in it to actually cook. He even keeps clothes in the oven.


For Ralph Sutton, 41, the appeal isn’t so much his Midtown West apartment, but rather his elevator — which opens straight into his loft. “If I wasn’t a single man, maybe my wife and I wouldn’t pick this apartment,” says Sutton, of radio show “The Tour Bus” and allaccessapp.com. “But being single, you want a place you’re proud to bring a girl home to. I think a guy who lives on the top floor of a sixth-floor walk-up better have some immaculate game.”

Jaf Glazer, a SoHo real estate broker with a roster of celebrity clients, certainly uses sex as part of his sell. His real estate signs proclaim “SoHo is sexy,” and when he describes the neighborhood to prospective (male) clients, he emphasizes that the district is teeming with models and beautiful women. He knows they’re on the hunt — and not just for real estate. “The spaces in SoHo we represent often fulfill the void people have in their life,” he says.

Mara Papasoff, managing director at Brown Harris Stevens, says that in the past, bankers looked for classic Park Avenue apartments, but now her clients shop for penthouse lofts. Lenz, who says that most of her clients could afford to buy in the Plaza, has also noticed this trend. “Today it’s a little ostentatious to be buying a Ferrari,” says Lenz. “But a trophy apartment says you’ve arrived.”

Doctors in Russia have been baffled after treating a baby girl who started showing signs of puberty at just three months old.

Milana, now seven-months-old, has regular periods, her breasts have started forming and she has developed pubic hair.

A source at the Russian Children's Clinical Hospital: 'It is the first case in our experience of a baby going into puberty.

'So far, the world's earliest registered case was for a five years old girl.'

The child is from the south of Russia, where local doctors said the baby was entirely normal at birth.

They initially suspected a tumour was responsible for the mysterious medical condition which first came to light three months after birth.

They recommended chemotherapy, which was refused by the girl's parents, Anna and Yevgeniy Gaspirovich, both 30.

The tumour diagnosis was not confirmed and Olga Bogdanova, Deputy Chief Doctor of Novokubanskaya Central Clinical Hospital, said: 'We could not understand the reason of such an extraordinarily early puberty. We are still at a loss. Perhaps it was an inherited abnormality.'

After the baby was moved to Moscow for treatment, she was found to have five times more adult female hormones than an average grown-up woman.

Doctors now intend to treat her with therapy lasting a dozen years with annual injections aimed at suppressing her hormonal activity.

However, Milana's father, a driver, is worried they will not meet the estimated B£32,000 cost.

First to notice the symptoms was Milana's grandmother Valentina, who said: 'I told my daughter that there is nothing normal in a baby having pubic hair.'

After the baby was moved to Moscow for treatment, she was found to have five times more adult female hormones than an average grown-up woman.

Doctors now intend to treat her with therapy lasting a dozen years with annual injections aimed at suppressing her hormonal activity.

However, Milana's father, a driver, is worried they will not meet the estimated B£32,000 cost.

First to notice the symptoms was Milana's grandmother Valentina, who said: 'I told my daughter that there is nothing normal in a baby having pubic hair.'

Famed sexologist Alfred Kinsey called them "group X." Big Bang Theory calls them people who, like Sheldon, "have no deal." But the one percent of the population who aren't interested in sex call themselves asexuals, aces, or, more simply, people who would pick cake over sex.

Asexuality began to emerge in the public sphere as a sexual orientation in the mid-1990s, after a massive study in the UK revealed that 1.05% of people described themselves as having "never felt sexually attracted to anyone at all." Since then, asexuals began to form communities online and in person, trying to create a comfortable place for themselves in a world where sexual indifference is often treated as a defect or disease. Though asexual communities may have precursors in millennia-old celibate religious orders, there is a big difference between choosing celibacy for religious reasons and choosing asexuality because you like cake more than sex.

Asexuality is also a futuristic sexual orientation, represented more often in science fiction than other genres, which may be why some asexuals call the Doctor from Doctor Who their hero.

Unlike homosexuality, which has been stigmatized for centuries in many cultures, asexuality isn't usually greeted with rage or disgust. Most often, say asexuals, the problem is that people don't realize that asexuality is — as the characters in Big Bang Theory put it — "a deal." Even when people do stumble across asexuality, there are a lot of misunderstandings about what it means.

Paul Cox, an asexual who is happily married to another asexual, wrote in The Guardian about what it was like to go through puberty as an asexual:

When I was 13, my father gave me a book on sex education. I felt as if I was reading about a foreign culture; I just couldn't see why anyone would go to so much trouble just to have sex. I tried looking at pornography on the internet. I wasn't disgusted or appalled - it was just boring, like looking at wallpaper.

Masturbation was another topic of conversation in those days, and I did masturbate. It wasn't a sexual urge for me, I didn't fantasise, it was just something my body decided to do. People say about asexuals: "But if they masturbate doesn't that make them sexual?" It's hard to explain, but if you're asexual you don't necessarily feel an explicit connection between masturbation and sexual orientation. It's just part of having a human body - a physical, biological process.

Later, Cox describes discovering the asexual community through the message boards at Asexuality.org, and at last coming out as an asexual. Once he realized he wasn't alone, he began exploring what it meant to have relationships without sex. When he met his future wife through an asexual group online, he discovered that he wanted a romantic, long-term relationship.

And Cox realized, as many asexuals do, that a lack of sexual desire doesn't foreclose the possibility of marriage. It just means that the marriage won't be conventional. On their wedding night, Cox and his wife stayed up late with their friends playing Scrabble in the honeymoon suite.

Science fiction writers from Kurt Vonnegut and Karen Healey to Greg Egan and Elizabeth Bear have written about characters who identify as asexual, and the idea of becoming asexual for the good of a space colony is played for weirdness in Bruce Sterling's Schismatrix. Asexuals also romp through the post-human worlds of Iain M. Banks and Charles Stross.

I'd suggest there are two main reasons why SF authors have written asexuals into their future societies. First of all, many authors imagine that humans of the future will be completely liberated from the need to reproduce biologically, using seriously retrograde penis/vagina methods. Once the species can reproduce using biotechnology, we are freed up to explore the idea that maybe not everybody wants or needs to have sex, and so asexuals will become an ordinary part of any post-human society. The second reason I think that asexuality figures into science fiction is that asexual relationships themselves free humans from the traditional constraints imposed on romantic couplings. If you don't base your most intimate relationships on sex, then you're able to reimagine human intimacy in all kinds of new ways.

And indeed, this is precisely what asexuals are doing right now.

Over at Kitch Magazine, Helen Havlak profiles Alexis, an asexual college student who is very active in online communities like AVEN (the Asexuality Visibility and Education Network). Alexis talks about how Doctor Who's time traveler is one of the heroes of the asexual community, because he has incredibly close friendships with people but seems mostly uninterested in sex. Havlak emphasizes that one of the benefits of asexuality is being able to embrace friendships as central emotional connections:

Overall, Alexis said, many asexual relationships don't differ all that much from a "normal" sexual relationship. Open relationships do tend to be a greater presence on AVEN than in the general public, though, and many asexuals have more fluid life plans than getting married and having kids at a certain age. "Some people re-adopt that plan later," Alexis said, "but on their own terms."

One perk of identifying as asexual, Alexis told me, is that many people find that "discovering their asexuality liberated them from feeling like they had to be held up to certain standards, and it helped them become much closer to a lot of their friends, in that they started treating their relationships more like friendships, and their friendships more like relationships." She clarified, "In a certain way, they try to remove the ‘just' in front of ‘just friends,' because no, a friendship does not have to be in any way a lesser kind of relationship than a romantic one. Society makes you think that your goal in life is to find a specific romantic relationship. And ultimately, we should build emotionally close relationships with everyone around us."

Just as homosexuals are helping to redefine what marriage means, asexuals are helping to redefine friendship. And they are becoming a stronger, more visible group in the process.

A World Health Organization team of experts concluded the ever-present communication devices can cause brain cancer -- and advised the planet's 5 billion cell users to cut their exposure to the radiation they emit.

WHO's International Agency for Research on Cancer panel said yesterday they examined every published study on the subject and concluded cellphones are "possibly carcinogenic."

The finding reverses WHO's previous verdict that there are no risks from cellphone use. It also triggered a rebuke from the ever-expanding industry and skepticism from other cancer experts.


The WHO study put phones in the same category as a long list of potential cancer-causers, including the pesticide DDT, lead, chloroform, talcum powder and even pickled vegetables.

That category is the third-highest on WHO's list, below those items that definitely cause cancer or "probably" do.

The US-based wireless association CTIA said the WHO scientists "did not conduct new research, but rather reviewed published studies."

Some studies, including those done by the FCC and Food and Drug Administration, have found no cancer link. But the European Environmental Agency has called for taking cellphone dangers much more seriously, saying they may be as risky as smoking.

One study found that among heavy users -- who averaged 30 minutes on their cells over a 10-year period -- there was a 40 percent increased risk of a brain tumor called a glioma, WHO said.

Other experts questioned the WHO finding, pointing out that there hasn't been a worldwide spike in brain cancer during the last 30 years -- while cellphones have become almost indispensable.

Kurt Straif, who heads WHO's monographs program, issued a word of caution.

"It is not at the moment clearly established that the use of mobile phones does in fact cause cancer," he said. It's up to "the individual consumer to make a decision about whether the current level of evidence is strong enough to take such precautionary measures."