A man stands next to a 490 liter Grande Cuvee TBA NV No.7 2005 of Austrian wine maker Kracher during its presentation in the small Swiss town of Rehetobel, some 40 km (26 miles) from lake Constance, November 28, 2007. The bottle, certified by Guinness World Records as the world's largest bottle of wine, holds the equivalent to 640 regular bottles, or 69,000 glasses of wine.
But the Ashe's cobra was less resistant to handling, generally less alert, and less picky. And they were bigger.
"There's a butcher here in Watamu who gives us chicken heads, and [the Ashe's cobra will] eat five or six chicken heads at once," Taylor said.
"That's very unlikely for the spitting cobra group."
Ashe's cobras are not the only kinds of snakes that get lumped together.
Researchers suspect that many different species of snake, such as the highly venomous puff adders, have been grouped into species that need greater differentiation.
Ineffective Antivenin
The greatest significance of the new finding may be for residents along Kenya's Indian Ocean coast, who are at risk of being bitten by the new cobra.
Its venom is similar to the species it was previously grouped with, but it can deliver about twice the amount of venom with a single bite.
That means that doctors previously treating bites from what turned out to be Ashe's cobras were only administering half the necessary dose of antivenin to victims.
New developments in antivenin may be made from studying the chemical makeup of the new cobra's venom, researchers add.
"The fact that this is a separate species raises a question of the efficacy of existing antivenins," said David Warrell, a herpetologist at the University of Oxford, who was not among the co-authors.
"It hasn't been studied at all, so that's a complete mystery."
"Planet Mismanagement"
Taylor of Bio-Ken says he hopes the new species will bring in more funding for research.
He wants to study the snake's venom to see how it differs from that of other spitting cobras, and to find out what role it can play in antivenin production.
The snake is not thought to be endangered, but WildlifeDirect officials said its discovery should draw attention to the animals that are being lost to human encroachment.
"A new species of giant spitting cobra is exciting and reinforces the obvious," WildlifeDirect Chairman Richard Leakey said in a news release. (Richard Leakey is a past grantee of the National Geographic Society, which owns National Geographic News.)
"There have to be many other unreported species—but hundreds are being lost as their habitats disappear under the continued mismanagement of our planet."
source: http://news.nationalgeographic.com
Malayalam famous actor Ajay kumar who is more known as UndaPakru is the shortest actor in the whole Indian industry. He has also made into Guinness book of word records of being the shortest actor to play a full-length character. He is only 2ft 10 inches tall.
He played the full-length character in the Malayalam film “Albhuta Dweep”, which was later dubbed in Tamil.
Pakru started his career in the filmdom as a mimicry artist and grew to be a full-fledged character artist. he is presently working in television serials.
An accounting mix-up led to the wrong woman being crowned Miss California USA, and she has relinquished her crown to the rightful winner, organisers say.
Christina Silva, 24, was declared the winner of the annual state beauty pageant, but she gave up the title to Raquel Beezley, who was originally named the second runner-up.
Beezley, 21, will represent the state at the Miss USA pageant next April.
The pageant's state director, Keith Lewis, said several judges questioned the results of the November 25 competition at the Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles. Lewis said the error was discovered the next day after the ballots were opened and recounted.
"It was a simple human error," Lewis said.
Silva has hired a lawyer and is weighing her legal options, according to her manager, Tony Brewster.
In a news release, Silva said she felt pressured to step down.
"They never could explain their accounting error, but told me that if I didn't give up my crown to Miss Barstow, my personal integrity could be questioned, and my career could potentially suffer," she said.
The contestants were scored by five celebrity judges who independently ranked them.
The mix-up occurred when the points were reversed, with the lowest point given to the winner and the highest to the fourth runner-up, Lewis said.
Roger Neal, who represents the Miss California USA pageant, said Beezley was the rightful winner.
The pageant allowed Silva to keep her crown, sash and necklace and returned her $US1,500 ($A1,700) entry fee after the error was discovered, Neal said. Duplicates were being made for Beezley.
source: http://www.smh.com.au
Yet David Blaine's latest is perhaps the most yawn-inducing - for him and his audience.
The American illusionist will attempt to stay awake for longer than anyone ever has before.
The latest "stunt" is set to happen in May of next year in New York's Central Park, according to U.S. reports.
David Blaine waves from inside his clear plastic box in October 2003, after spending 44 days without food inside the box suspended in the air near London's Tower Bridge
Blaine, 34, is yet to confirm the attempt but he did tell the New York Post that he had been in training.
He said: "I'm dropping 30 pounds. I do two hours every day on the treadmill. I'm on a raw diet that includes brown rice. No red meat. No animal products besides cooked fish.
"If I do this thing, which you claim I'm doing, I'll do it on my feet. Standing up."
There is much debate surrounding the current length of the sleep deprivation record - and the record holder.
The Guinness Book of Records does not now accept record attempts related to sleep deprivation due to the possible health risks.
Some believe the record is held by Toimi Soini from Finland who claimed to have kept awake for 11 days and 12 hours - or 276 hours - in February 1964.
He beat Randy Gardner, a 17-year-old California student who kept awake for 264 hours just a few days earlier.
Others claim the accepted current world record holder is 43-year-old Tony Wright from Penzance, Cornwall, who stayed awake for a little more than 11 days, or 264 and 15 minutes hours in May of this year.
Wright had stayed awake just enough to beat Gardner's record, apparently without realising the previous Soini record which was deleted from the Guinness Book amid concerns that it would cause others to beat it with dangerous consequences in 1989.
Blaine spoke of his understanding of the current state of the record: "It's been tried before. In 1959, Peter Tripp stayed awake eight days, but it resulted in permanent brain damage.
"In 1964, 17-year-old Randy Gardner did it for a high school science project. He lasted 11 1/2 days but recovered fully. No damage."
Blaine added: "A guy in London tried but fell short. Another did 19 hours but slept two hours each night, so that doesn't count. Also he was seated in a rocking chair."
He added: "After 36 hours of sleep deprivation it's like being drunk, 72 hours and paranoia sets in, Day Four the mind goes into hallucinations and you're dreaming while awake.
"The problem is there's no way to know how to offset brain damage or to train for this because there isn't sufficient research. I believe the first guy's mistake was not being in great physical condition. Also he used stimulants to keep awake, which I assume did him in."
Blaine continued: "Basically I'm a human guinea pig pushing the borders of human endurance, so I've spent the last year and a half figuring out this next step. Preparing for it.
"Prepare, study, train, learn and you face the fear. When I know something's coming I'm not afraid. If right now a giant spider suddenly landed on me, I'd be terrified. But if I knew one's about to land on me, I'd prepare for it. The way to train against fear is to prep against it."
New York-born Blaine has previously spent more than a month suspended in a transparent plastic box above the river Thames, and frozen in a case of ice in New York's Times Square, among other stunts.
source : http://www.dailymail.co.ukAnt infestations, oil and failed parachute jumps are some of the unusual fates which have befallen innocent data storage devices recently, according to data recovery company Kroll Ontrack's list of the most unusual recovery jobs it has faced in the last year.
This year the company has seen more damaged portable devices than ever before. Strange ways of damaging hardware in the company's top ten countdown this year include:
10. All in a spin: A customer who told engineers she had 'washed away all her data' after putting a USB stick through a cycle in her washing machine.
9. Feeding time: A father who, while feeding his baby daughter, forgot about the USB stick in his top pocket. As he leant over the high-chair the device fell into a dish of apple puree.
8. Row, row your boat: A fisherman took his laptop in his rowing boat. Both he and the laptop went overboard, taking all his data to the bottom of a lake.
7. Honeymoon hell: One wedding photographer overwrote the photos of one wedding with another event - and needed to escape the wrath of the newly weds.
6. Melting point: During an experiment, a scientist spilt acid on an external hard drive and burnt away his important data.
5. Shattering blow: In the middle of an argument, a businessman threw a USB stick at his partner, with the device ending up in several pieces on the floor. Unfortunately it contained valuable company plans.
4. Fire alarm: A fire destroyed an office, sparing only a few CDs which had melted to the inside of their cases.
3. Ooooops: A scientist was fed up with his hard drive squeaking, so drilled a hole through the casing and poured in oil - which stopped both the squeaking and the hard drive.
2. Here goes…: To test the functionality of a parachute, a camera was dropped from a plane. The parachute failed and the camera shattered into several pieces but the device's memory stick was reassembled and the footage was recovered.
And the number one weird and wonderful data disaster is…
1. Data repellent: After discovering ants had taken up residence in his external hard drive, a photographer took the cover off and sprayed the interior with insect repellent. The ants were killed off and the data was eventually recovered.
All the hardware on the list was recovered, the company said.
Sourced from: http://www.silicon.com
