Christmas Power Tools = New Years Hospitalizations: Wellington - Christmas gifts of things like power tools to New Zealanders, who are dedicated do-it-yourself home handymen, lead thousands of them to hospital, a newspaper reported on Friday. The Accident Compensation Corporation received about 10,000 claims for DIY injuries last year, of which about 2,000 were classified as moderate to serious, the New Zealand Herald reported.
Pig + Space Heater = House Fire ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. — A man’s effort to keep his pig warm during Wednesday night’s freeze ended up starting a fire that caused about $50,000 in damages to his St. Johns County home. Firefighters were called about 10:20 p.m. when a home on Frances Avenue caught on fire. They later learned the homeowner brought his pig onto the porch and put out a space heater to keep it warm.
Unlikely= Not Impossible: It is a tale some would say smells a bit fishy, but Kristy Brittain swears it is true. Last Friday she was kneeboarding behind a boat off Slopen Main on the Tasman Peninsula, east of Hobart, when she was tossed from her board in rough conditions. In the fall she lost a nose stud from a piercing she had done only a week before Christmas. Miss Brittain, 25, of Magra, never expected to see the tiny stud again. Enter a hungry flathead.
Some pictures are worth 1,000 words, but others are worth 1,000,000. By (subjective) category, here are 10 of the most amazing viral images of 2007. Undoubtedly some of these you will have seen before, but some will be new as well. Click on the images below to go to the full-sized originals. Enjoy!
Most Touching: Loyal to the End
Most Geeky: Why We Love Firefox
Best of Technology: 1 Gigabyte Then and Now
Best of the Web: Why Net Neutrality is So Important
To close out the week here are some wonderful oddities you might have missed surfing the interwebs. Take the image above to start with. There are a lot of creative Advent Calenders out there with things much more interesting than candy, but a digital version? Better yet: it is interactive! Each day you can open up a new random game. Neat stuff.
So wait, what? The Earth … hollow? Yes, it’s an insane theory, and yes it is as fictitious as the fairy tales that gave rise to it, yet at the same time it can’t be directly disproved. Why? Because we have never actually dug more than about 15 miles below the surface of the Earth, so there is no 100% direct evidence the Earth is solid through an through! Does this mean Hollow Earth Theories could hold true? Sure, and Santa might actually drop by 6 billion houses a year on a sled pulled by a glorified pack of deer.
What may be most amazing about Hollow Earth theories is the fact that some people believe them even today. One self-identified scientist and explorer is currently trying to raise two million dollars to mount a mission where no man has ever gone before: through a polar ice cap and into a supposed ‘Inner Earth’ with its own oceans, continents and of course its own sun. What is strangest about his video presentation on the subject (above) is the deadpan, candid and intelligent-sounding way in which he presents his arguments.
Shocking as it may seem that some people still believe the world to be empty at its core this idea is unsurprisingly nothing new. Early theorists held that there were a series of concentric spheres within the Earth while more recent models have posited a viable interior space or even that we occupy the center rather than the interior surface of sphere with everything else in orbits within this sphere.
It’s happening (again): a high profile black man is turning white, though this case is arguably more tragic than Michael Jackson’s disputed case of vitiligo. “I’m a black man turning white on television and people can see it,” says Thomas, an anchor and entertainment reporter for the local Fox Broadcasting Company affiliate. “If you’ve watched me over the years, you’ve seen my hands completely change from brown to white” said Thomas in an interview on CNN
Think it can’t happen to you too? As it turns out, “the population incidence worldwide is considered to be between 1% and 2% (0.74% in the United States). Also known as “leukoderma” vitiligo is a bizarre “chronic skin condition that causes loss of pigment, resulting in irregular pale patches of skin.” No one knows for sure what causes this strange disease but it is suspected to be related to environmental as well as genetic factors. At least Michael now has some adults to keep him company.
