Scientists have discovered an average of two new species a week in Southeast Asia's Greater Mekong River region. Unusual animals found in this incredibly rich and diverse habitat include Desmoxytes purpurosea, a pink millipede that spews cyanide to defend itself, and Heteropoda maxima, a spider that may be the world's largest with a 12 inch legspan.

Celeb Girls' Names 2008
BEST#1. Harlow Winter Kate Madden (Nicole Richie, Joel Madden)
#2. Maddie Briann Aldridge (Jamie Lynn Spears, Casey Aldridge)
#3. Vivienne Marcheline Jolie-Pitt (Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie)
#4. Honor Marie Warren (Jessica Alba, Cash Warren)
#5. Willow Rose Owen (Mark Owen, Emma Ferguson)
#6. Sunday Rose Kidman Urban (Nicole Kidman, Keith Urban)
#7. Lily Aerin Savage (Fred Savage, Jennifer Stone Savage)
#8. Harper Lockwood (Lisa Marie Presley, Michael Lockwood)
#9. Nahla Ariela Aubry (Halle Berry, Gabriel Aubry)
#10. Riley Maddox Blaise (Richard Blais, Jazmin Zepeda)
WORST#50. Jagger Joseph Blue Goldberg (Soleil Moon Frye, Jason Goldberg)

Celeb Boys' Names 2008
BEST#1. Caleb James Bice (Bo Bice, Caroline Bice)
#2. Knox Leon Jolie-Pitt (Brad PItt, Angelina Jolie)
#3. Braydon Hart Wilkerson (Melissa Joan Hart, Mark Wilkerson)
#4. Parker Foster Aiken (Clay Aiken, Jaymes Foster)
#5. Levi Alves McConaughey (Matthew McConaughey, Camila Alves)
#6. Brendan Joseph Wahlberg (Mark Wahlberg, Rhea Durham)
#7. Jacob Emerson Fishman (Courtney Thorne-Smith, Roger Fishman)
#8. Dylan Christopher Marshall (Tracey Gold, Roby Marshall)
#9. Max Liron Bratman (Christina Aguilera, Jordan Bratman)
#10. James Monroe Hanson ( Isaac Hanson, Nicole Dufresne Hanson)
WORST#50. Bronx Mowgli Wentz (Pete Wentz, Ashlee Simpson)

Celeb Twins' Names 2008
BEST#1. Max & Emme (Lopez/Anthony)
#2. Vivienne Marcheline & Knox Leon (Pitt/Jolie)
#3. Finley & Harper (Presley/Lockwood)

The Slow Climb
While on your back, put a pillow under your butt, lift your hips, and bring your legs up and back toward your shoulders, as though you're folding in half. Once your G-spot feels sufficiently stroked, put your legs down and have him get into coital-alignment-technique (CAT) position. "He's on top, but he lifts his pelvic bone upward, aligning it with your clitoris. Then he rocks against the area until you peak. The legs-up position is a slow burn that brings you to the brink and increases sensitivity. Then the addition of clitoral rubbing takes you over the edge in a bigger way than if you had done CAT alone.

Down Dog
Lie on your stomach, lifting your butt slightly so he can enter you. Your partner can prop himself up with his hands in a push-up position or lie on top of you. Not only does this facedown configuration provide increased friction as he moves in and out, but you can gently grind your clitoral area against the bed as well.

The Criss-Cross
While you're on your back, he should lie on his side, turned toward you. Swing both legs over his hips and thighs, making a bridge over them. Then, just let him gently thrust into you. If it takes you a while to climax, this pose is ideal.

The Giddy-Up
Twist around so you're pointed toward his feet in reverse cowgirl position. Put your legs together, feet flat between his legs. With your legs together, the fit is even tighter, making the sensations more intense.

Torrid Tabletop
Lie down on the table with your butt near the edge. He enters you while standing between your legs, holding on to your hips for leverage. You can rest your feet on his shoulders or on the edge of the table. To up your odds of orgasming, clench and lift up your butt, which will increase the pelvic tension and blood flow to the area.


Lusty Lap Dance
Rather than just moving up and down, which can be especially tiring for you, sway forward and back, rubbing your clitoral area against him. If you lean back just a little bit, you'll get greater G-spot stimulation and he'll be able to play with your clitoris.

The Spoon
Lie on your side, your guy scooted up behind you. Rather than move in and out, he should stay inside you, gently thrusting against the front wall of your vagina. Since he may not be able to penetrate you as deeply though, guide his hand around your hot spot.

A Hello Kitty-themed maternity and pediatric hospital has opened in Yuanlin, Taiwan. The small 30-bed facility is authorized by Sanrio. From Reuters (Christine Lu photo):


Kittyhospitalll Director Tsai Tsung-chi said he hopes the white, mouthless cat that is one of the world's most recognisable characters will ease the pain and fear associated with childbirth and being admitted into hospital.

"I wish that everyone who comes here, mothers who suffer while giving birth and children who suffer from an illness, can get medical care while seeing these kitties and bring a smile to their faces, helping forget about discomfort and recover faster," he told Reuters.

What exactly is umami?

Taking its name from Japanese, umami is a pleasant savoury taste imparted by glutamate, a type of amino acid, and ribonucleotides, including inosinate and guanylate, which occur naturally in many foods including meat, fish, vegetables and dairy products. As the taste of umami itself is subtle and blends well with other tastes to expand and round out flavours, most people don’t recognise umami when they encounter it, but it plays an important role making food taste delicious.
‘ Food Acceptability’ and ‘ UMAMI ’

When humans eat, they use all of their senses (sight, hearing, smell, touch and taste) to form general judgments about their food, but it is taste that is the most influential in determining how delicious a food is. Conventionally, it has been thought that our sense of taste is comprised of four basic, or ‘primary’, tastes, which cannot be replicated by mixing together any of the other primaries: sweet, sour, salt and bitter. However, it is now known that there is actually a fifth primary taste: umami.

Umami discovered by a Japanese scientist
Dr. Kikunae Ikeda of Tokyo Imperial University

Dashi stock made from kombu (kelp) has long been an indispensable part of Japanese cuisine. It has also long been known that the active ingredients contained within kombu hold the key to its delicious taste. This did not escape the attention of Dr. Kikunae Ikeda of Tokyo Imperial University, and he undertook research to ascertain the true nature of this ‘deliciousness’. In 1908, Ikeda succeeded in extracting glutamate from kombu. He discovered that glutamate (or glutamic acid) was the main active ingredient in kombu and coined the term 'umami' to describe its taste. He was sure that this taste was held in common by other foods that a savoury flavour, including those used in Western meals such as tomatoes and meat, and, indeed, upon investigation it was discovered that these foodstuffs also contained umami.

“Those who pay careful attention to their tastebuds will discover in the complex flavour of asparagus, tomatoes, cheese and meat, a common and yet absolutely singular taste which cannot be called sweet, or sour, or salty, or bitter…”
Dr. Kikunae Ikeda, Eighth International Congress of Applied Chemistry, Washington 1912

Turning umami into a globally-recognized term

In the wake of glutamate, other ingredients that offer the umami taste, namely inosinate which is found in bonito flakes, and guanylate which is present in shiitake mushroom stock, were discovered. The four basic tastes of sweet, sour, salty and bitter have been widely recognised for hundreds of years, but it wasn’t until the 1980’s that various studies proved that umami, found in glutamate, actually constituted a legitimate fifth basic taste. Since then, umami’s status as ‘the fifth taste’ has been recognised internationally.

What’s with that strange sign?

It is just me, or does this sentence look a little odd?

<<¿But how much is that doggie in the window?>> demanded Claudine.

There’s something about it… but what? Aha! It looks strange because it’s using punctuation marks that come from languages other than English. Like anything to do with language, different groups of people have different ways of doing things. If you go spying inside the font options on your computer, you’ll discover several unusual kinds of punctuation from other languages that you may not have seen before.

Have a look at the sentence again, and let’s see how sharp your spying skills are. There are question marks at both the beginning and end of the question. Not only that, the question mark at the beginning is upside down. This is what you’d find if you looked at a book printed in Spanish. In an Arabic book, you might see the same question mark as in English, but pointing in the other direction and at the start of the sentence. In a Greek book, there’s a different sign altogether, what we call a semicolon. But what about those funny << >> signs? They’re speech marks. You’ll also find them in Finnish and Dutch.

Interrobang

More punctuation signs are being born all the time – just think of all the little signs you use when you’re texting.

But have you ever seen this mark?

It’s an interrobang – a punctuation mark invented by Martin Speckter in 1962. It’s for those moments when you want to use a question mark and an exclamation mark all at once. It could certainly be useful for comic book writers???

And have you ever heard of a question-comma or an exclamation-comma? These were patented by Leonard Storch, Ernst Van Haagen and Sigmund Silber in 1992, for when you want to use a question mark or an exclamation mark in the middle of a sentence.