End Of The World? Science Artist Ron Miller Envisions Apocalypse Scenarios

How will the world end? We dodged the 2012 doomsday predicted by the Mayan calendar, but scientists have provided several possible scenarios for the world's demise. Hollywood has its own set of ideas, from zombies to giant earthquakes to alien invasions.

According to Ron Miller, former art director for the Albert Einstein Planetarium at the National Air & Space Museum in Washington D.C., it's not just earth's destruction we have to worry about. He told The Huffington Post in an email:

From the end of civilization we go to the end of human life on Earth, then to the end of life of any kind, then to the destruction of the planet itself. But it can get even worse than that. After the Earth is gone, the solar system itself will eventually be destroyed, the sun will become a dark, cold cinder and, after many billions of years, will come the heat death of the entire universe.

Ron Miller has created many other engaging science image series -- including what our planet would look like with Saturn's rings, how planets in our solar system would appear to us if they were as close to earth as the moon, and what it would look like if our sun died.

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Russian Teens Allegedly Decapitate Homeless Man, Play Soccer With His Head

A pair of Moscow teenagers were detained by police this week for allegedly decapitating a homeless man with a saw and ax, reports say.

Russian tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda reported Monday that the two teens had been intoxicated when they attacked the homeless man. One of the teens allegedly cut the man's head off, then scalping it and kicking it around like a soccer ball with his companion.

The newspaper writes that the teenagers kicked the head until it landed in a trash can. They reportedly left it there and returned home to sleep. RIA Novosti reports the head was "taken away by a garbage truck in the morning."

In a statement on its website this week, Moscow's Investigative Committee confirmed that a man's decapitated body had been found Monday, adding that law enforcement officials had arrested the two suspects after following a trail of blood that led from the crime scene to the teens' apartment, where a saw, an ax and bloodied clothing were discovered.

Despite initial reports, an Investigative Committee spokesman cast doubt on claims the suspects played soccer with the man's head after the decapitation, telling MetroNews.ru that a "full picture" of what happened has yet to be established. He did, however, say the man's head may indeed have been scalped.

According to RIA Novosti, the suspects could face up to 15 years in prison if convicted of murder.

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Meet Supermarket Worker Who Ate Party-sized Birthday Cake Everyday For A Year

Supermarket worker Adam Williams needed therapy to kick his addiction to eating a whole party-sized birthday cake every day for a year.

The Asda employee revealed he had hypnosis to rid himself of the bizarre habit which left him with excruciating ­headaches – and four stone ­overweight.

Adam, 29, would buy the giant sponges – intended to feed 40 people – after they were reduced at the end of his shift.

He said: “The cakes just became part of my routine. I would eat them like someone else would eat breakfast.

“After a little while I wasn’t even eating them because I really enjoyed them, it’s just what I did – I ate cake.”

Sweet-toothed Adam ballooned to 15 stone after scoffing the sugary treats on a daily basis for more than a year.

He only decided to seek help for his cake habit when he began getting excruciating headaches if he did not have his fix.

Adam, from Coventry, said: “I started to suffer severe migraines and I guess that was because of all the sugar, if it was withdrawn from my body I felt horrible.

“It wasn’t even the cake itself that got me hooked. I just loved the sugary icing and the rest of the cake was a bonus.

If we ever had more than one stored I would just eat them all. They were so cheap from work that I kept buying them.

"They were meant to feed about 40 people.”

Adam, who lives with his girlfriend ­Chardelle, also 29, has now slimmed down to 11 stone ­— and swapped eating calorific cake for drinking healthy water instead.

He added: “I’ve never been slim, I’ve always carried some weight.

“Then the cakes started and I piled on the pounds without noticing it. It was only when I looked at the pictures that I realised how much weight I was carrying.

“Then I went to a hypnotherapy clinic as a desperate attempt to lose the weight as nothing else had worked.

“They were really good and after a session I immediately found myself drinking more water and just naturally eating less.

"I feel so much better now I’m down at 11 stone. I have much more enthusiasm for everything.”

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Bizarre Addictions: Teenager 'Addicted To Drinking Petrol'

Shannon 'drinks up to 12 teaspoons of the fuel every day and has swallowed more than five gallons in the last year alone'

This pretty teen has swapped swigging fizzy drinks for swigging petrol from a can.

The youngster, identified only as Shannon, has developed a bizarre addiction for drinking gasoline. 

Her addiction is the subject of a new TLC documentary called My Strange Addiction.

The programme claims Shannon drinks up to 12 teaspoons of the fuel every day and has swallowed more than five gallons in the last year alone.

She claims even though it hurts her, it makes her "feel good".

She said: "It tastes like sweet and sour, like a tangy sauce.

"It tingles at first and then it burns the back of my throat."

Drinking petrol can cause burns, vomiting, diarrhea and, in very large amounts, drowsiness or death.

In 2005 Brit Brian Taylor was given an Asbo because of his petrol addiction. 

The 36-year-old slashed pumps at an Asda filling station so he could sniff and drink fuel.

He was banned from all Asda supermarkets and forbidden from going within 15m of any garage for four 

years and from carrying petrol in public.

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Man Faces 13-Year Jail Term For Chalk Drawing On Wall During Protest

A protester is standing trial on criminal vandalism charges in San Diego, and faces a sentence of up to 13 years in prison if convicted, for a scribbling a series of anti-bank slogans in chalk on a city sidewalk.

Mayor Bob Filner has denounced the prosecution of Jeff Olson, 40, a man with no previous criminal record, as a waste of taxpayer money and an abuse of power that infringes on First Amendment free speech protections in the U.S. Constitution.

"This young man is being persecuted for thirteen counts of vandalism stemming from an expression of political protest that involved washable children's chalk on a city sidewalk," the mayor said last week in a memo to the City Council.

The city attorney, Jan Goldsmith, defended his pursuit of the case in remarks published on Thursday in the U-T San Diego news website, saying: "We prosecute vandalism and theft cases regardless of who the perpetrator or victim might be."

"We don't decide, for example, based upon whether we like or dislike banks," Goldsmith added. "That would be wrong under the law and such a practice by law enforcement would change our society in very damaging ways."

On Thursday, Superior Court Judge Howard Shore issued a gag order in the case, forbidding all parties from discussing the trial further. He previously ruled that Olson would not be permitted to invoke freedom of expression as a defense in the case.

Olson is charged with 13 misdemeanor counts of vandalism, each carrying a maximum penalty of one year in jail and a $1,000 fine, though he is not expected to receive as harsh a sentence as 13 consecutive years behind bars if found guilty.

He is accused of writing a series of protest slogans between February and August 2012 on sidewalks in front of Bank of America branches.

Olson has admitted to the graffiti protests, but said nothing he wrote was profane or vulgar and suggested his prosecution was politically motivated.

"I wrote, 'No thanks big banks.' I wrote, 'Shame on Bank of America,'" he told San Diego CBS television affiliate KFMB-TV. He told another local station, ABC affiliate KGTV: "If I had drawn a little girl's hopscotch squares on the street, we wouldn't be here today."

The mayor's office would not rule out the possibility that Filner might appear as a witness for Olson.

The Olson case has become the latest flashpoint in a deepening rift between Filner and Goldsmith, who was elected city attorney under the former mayor by promising to improve the office's ability to work with the city's top elected official.

The mayor and city attorney have clashed over medical marijuana dispensary crackdowns, tourism district funds, bond issues and the mayor's recent successful effort to cut $500,000 from the city attorney's budget.

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Georgia Man Paralyzed After Saving Drowning Girl, Dies Later

A Georgia dad who was paralyzed after saving a drowning girl passed away on Friday.

While hanging out at a lake in Rockmart, Ga., with his son on June 8, Mike Patterson noticed a 4-year-old struggling to stay afloat and dove in to help. The heroic dad's spinal cord was severed in the process and he died on Friday, with his family by his side, after suffering from a number of medical complications, according to a statement released by his family.

“His life and the lives of others are forever changed by his courageous, split-second decision to save another’s life,” Patterson’s family wrote in a statement.

Javaeh Jones, the little girl he helped save, emerged from the incident unscathed and her mother expressed her gratitude for Patterson’s selflessness.

"He's a God-send basically," Javaeh's mom told myfoxatlanta.com. "He was there. He was supposed to have been there."

Patterson didn’t have health insurance at the time of the accident because he had recently started a new construction job, which prompted his supporters to set up a trust to raise money for his mounting medical bills. Funds and well wishes poured in as Patterson battled scores of ailments, including respiratory problems, pneumonia, a bacterial infection and a blood clot.

When Patterson died on Friday, his fund had already collected more than $90,000 and his Facebook page had amassed more than 65,000 followers.

“I have never been so touched and saddened to hear of the loss of someone I've never met,” one Facebook commenter wrote. “What a tremendous human being he was.”

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911 Dispatcher Helped Dad Deliver Baby Roadside

A woman who didn't expect to give birth until mid-July delivered a healthy baby girl along a Michigan roadway with help from her husband and coaching from a 911 dispatcher.

Nicole Culwell, of Howell, was heading to St. Joseph Mercy Ann Arbor Hospital on Monday with her husband, Matthew, when she realized she wouldn't make it in time. So her husband pulled over along U.S. 23 in the Ann Arbor area, and Susannah was born, AnnArbor.com reported.

"He was great and stayed calm about it," Nicole Culwell said of her husband. "I don't even really remember her being born. I just remember holding her after and patting her back to make sure she was breathing."

The Culwells were about 10 minutes from the hospital when they stopped, and a 911 dispatcher talked them through the delivery.

"You can see the baby's head coming out," Matthew Culwell tells dispatcher Carol Lellis at the beginning of the call, a recording of which was obtained by The Associated Press.

Later, he says: "Oh my God. The baby's out. The baby's out," before asking Lellis: "What do I do?"

Matthew Culwell said it was a "huge relief" to hear the cries of his new daughter along the roadside. Help soon showed up, and a firefighter cut the umbilical cord before Nicole Culwell and the baby were transported to the hospital with her husband driving behind them.

"It's not often that you get to see your name as the person who made the delivery on your daughter's birth certificate," Matthew Culwell said.

Lellis told WDIV-TV that hearing the cry was a relief to her as well, because that assured her the baby would be OK. She said she was honored to be part of the couple's big day, and she wanted to wish the new parents good luck ahead.

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Police Officer With Photographic Memory, Can Identify Pretty Much Anyone

A Police Community Support Officer (PCSO) with an insane photographic memory is being honored for identifying nearly 250 suspects between 2008 and 2012.

Andy Pope, 34, from England, was given a "Putting the Public First Award" last week for recognizing a suspect in August 2012 -- an entire year after being shown the man's image, the Daily Mail reported.

The "Memory Man," as he's come to be known was able to memorize wanted fugitives' faces just from seeing them on closed-circuit television (CCTV) footage, according to the Birmingham Mail.

"A lot of offenders do pass through the city at some point and, when they do, I want to be able to recognize them," Pope told the paper. "I get into work 30 minutes before my shift starts and scan police systems to see if any new wanted faces have been added, and I’ll maybe have another look at lunch as a refresher."

According to the Telegraph, between August 2011 and August 2012, Pope identified 150 suspects -- equivalent to one every other shift.

In this year so far, he's already identified another 67 suspects, according to the Daily Mail.

“I don’t think I’ve got any special gift,"he told the Birmingham Mail last year, when he made headlines for his talent. "Just a knack for remembering faces.”

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Scientists Say Cutlery Shape, Weight And Colour ‘Can Influence Food Taste’

Food flavour can be affected by the colour, weight and shape of cutlery, according to scientists.

Volunteers rated white yoghurt as sweeter and more expensive than pink yoghurt when eaten from a white spoon.

The effect was reversed for yoghurt tasted from a black spoon. In this case, the pink variety was preferred.

A blue spoon also made pink yoghurt taste significantly saltier than white yoghurt, the researchers found. Yoghurt also tasted richer from a light plastic spoon than from a weighted heavier one.

In another experiment, cheese tasted saltier when offered on a knife instead of a spoon, fork or toothpick.

Lead researcher Vanessa Harrar, from Oxford University, said: “How we experience food is a multisensory experience involving taste, feel of the food in our mouths, aroma, and the feasting of our eyes. Even before we put food into our mouths, our brains have made a judgment about it, which affects our overall experience.”

A previous study showed that beverages served in glasses tinted with cold colours, such as blue or green, were rated more refreshing.

The new research is published in the journal Flavour.

Dr Harrar added: “Subtly changing eating implements and tableware can affect how pleasurable, or filling, food appears. So, when serving a dish, one should keep in mind that the colour of the food appears different depending on the background on which it is presented (plate or cutlery) and, therefore, tastes different.

“

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Woman Accidentally Uses Super Glue Instead of Lip Gloss

A New Zealand woman was left speechless by making a simple mistake while sifting through her medicine cabinet.

A 64-year-old woman made the unfortunate mistake of thinking a container of super glue was medicated cream. Wiithin minutes she couldn't open her mouth, the Otago Daily Times reports.

The patient, who sought anonymity from the media, was fumbling in the dark for a balm to apply to a cold sore late Thursday night, the Telegraph reported.

The super glue and cream were kept in the same tray in her cupboard, the Independent reported...

She couldn't get a whiff of the ointment, because her sense of smell was muddled by a cold. The next thing she knew, she was in bed and her lips were sealed tightly.

When she called the emergency services number, she couldn't even get a word in edgewise with the operator.

Senior Sergeant Steve Aitken said the woman "sounded gagged or possibly had a medical condition," according to the New Zealand Herald. "She could only grunt."

The glue was removed with paraffin oil at a hospital in Dunedin, the Independent said.

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Beijing Woman’s Chest Implant Bursts After Lying On Her Stomach Playing A Game On Her Cell Phone

A Beijing woman’s chest implant burst after she spent four hours lying on her stomach playing a game on her cell phone.

The woman was taken to the hospital for treatment. Doctors say poor quality of the material used in the implants, combined with excessive pressure, caused them to rupture.

A study by the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery says China ranks 3rd in the world for plastic surgery; 1.05 million went under the knife in 2011. In 2011, the US led the world in cosmetic surgeries with 3.11 million people undergoing alterations in 2011.

The rise of plastic surgery in China has caused much more than health problems. Last year, a man divorced and sued his wife after she gave birth to what he called an “incredibly ugly baby.” The man was unaware that his wife had undergone plastic surgery before they met. The wife was found guilty and was ordered to pay the man over $700,000 for the damages caused according to the court.

There are nearly 20,000 botched plastic surgery operations in China every year. A report says that there is so much demand for illegitimate operations throughout the country that illegal clinics are believed to outnumber legal practices four to one.

The low quality of the woman’s implants suggests that she possibly visited one of the illegal clinics.

There is no report of whether she won the game.

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The World’s Most Expensive Car Wash Costs a Staggering $150,000

Some people prefer to wash their cars with a hose in order to save a few bucks, but for car owners with money to burn The Ultimate Shine, a car cleaning company based in Kirkcaldy, Scotland, is offering the ultimate car cleaning experience for the unbelievable price of £100,000 ($150,000).

You’re probably thinking “this can’t be true”, right? That’s more than a brand new luxury vehicle! But apparently, for many of the world’s rich and famous, $150,000 is a fair price to pay to have their exclusive rides looking squeaky-clean. 

Paul Wilkins, who owns and runs The Ultimate Shine says his service isn’t aimed at the average driver who keeps his Ford Fiesta parked on the side of the road, but at rich car collectors who keep their rare and...

expensive vehicles in temperature-controlled showrooms and want them to look perfect. Although he doesn’t want to reveal the identities of his high-profile clientele, 34-year-old Wilkins says he cleans about three cars at the price of £100,000 per year. He also assures interested clients that they’ll be getting their money’s worth.

But how does one justify the £100,000 price tag for a one-time car cleaning operation? “Well, for that price I will fly out to any location in the world,” 34-year-old Wilkins says. “I’m usually dealing with serious car collectors who have temperature-controlled showrooms, so I travel to wherever they are kept.” After he puts on his overalls, Paul begins the cleaning process by decontaminating the body of the car and the wheels. Next, he machine polishes every bit of bodywork taking out any defects, a laborious process that can take up to a month. The dedicated car cleaner says he might have to go over it hundreds of time to make sure to make sure it’s completely clear of any marks.

Once that’s done with, he will go over the bodywork with a special alcoholic cleaning agent to ensure there are no oily stains left on the paint. Finally, it’s time for the waxing. The Ultimate Shine owner uses a special Carnauba wax which has been gathered from one of the tallest trees in a secret location in Brazil, priced at £65,000 ($100,000). His company offers different types of this luxury wax for every season, each designed to protect the car against any element.

“Each job is so different but what I say is that, for the £100,000 price, I will work on the car for as long as it takes. I’m a perfectionist so sometimes it’s taken me a few months before I’m happy to hand the keys back,” Wilkins told The Scotsman He’s even happy to offer a £300 ($460) valet for his clients, but says his true joy is turning amazing cars into “absolute perfection”.

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Man Pleads Guilty To Having Sex With Couch

More cushion for the pushin'!

A Wisconsin man who was caught last year having sex with a couch pleaded guilty to public lewdness Monday.

Gerard Streator, 47, was sentenced to five months in jail for the furniture fornication, according to documents obtained by The Smoking Gun.

He is also barred from possessing "pornography of any kind" and must pay $243 in court costs.

Streator was arrested in September 2012, when an off-duty police officer jogging in Waukesha, Wisc. noticed Streator on the side of the road, taking the term "love seat" far too literally.

The officer wrote that Streator was "thrusting his pelvic area against the cushions and trying to sexually gratify himself by rubbing his penis between the two cushions.”

Since his arrest, a presumably fake Twitter account for Streator, @ProudGunNut, has sprung up. The account, which uses Streator's mug shot as a profile picture and include the bio, "Silenced for supporting gun rights. Framed by the government for picking up a sofa when I wasn't wearing a belt."

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Two-headed Turtle Hatches At San Antonio Zoo

A two-headed turtle has hatched at the San Antonio Zoo and officials have named her Thelma and Louise.

The female Texas cooter arrived June 18 and will go on display Thursday at the zoo's Friedrich Aquarium.

Zoo spokeswoman Debbie Rios-Vanskike (van SKYKE') said Wednesday that the two-headed turtle appears healthy and is able to swim and walk. She says experts at the zoo don't foresee any health issues for Thelma and Louise, named for the female duo in the 1991 Oscar-winning road movie of the same name.

The San Antonio Zoo is no stranger to two-headed reptiles. The facility was home to a two-headed Texas rat snake named Janus from 1978 until the creature's death to 1995.

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Future Of Health Is Here: You Can Now Swallow Computers In Pill Form

It’s official, we are living in a bizarre Jetson’s future age. Doctors and scientists have worked together to create an ingestible computer, that basically puts Google Glass to shame. The pill-form objects contain tiny sensors that help monitor the health of your body. The pills can collect data on how your systems are running, and transmit that information back to an external computer.

Several companies are currently working on pill prototypes. Just this last year, Proteus Digital Health raised more than $60 million dollars to create their version of a computer pill, which is actually powered by the body. Rather than an internal battery system, the pill has copper and magnesium ends which generates electricity to power itself via stomach acids. ..

The Proteus model requires that users wear a special patch that transmits information from inside the body to a cell phone app that tracks everything from blood pressure to body temperature to movement and rest patterns.

The development could have huge implications for everything from the monitoring of heart disease and diabetes, to the progress of schizophrenia or Alzheimer’s. That’s great news for people who have chronic diseases that need to be managed; doctors and family members could potentially be connected to the system to help monitor the health of a loved one.  But it also could spell trouble when it comes to privacy issues surrounding health information. After all, some of this data could be used to justify dropping or denying physically compromised patients from their insurance plans.

But if you want more shocking future news, Motorola is working to create a pill that would help identify and track you so that you could be physically linked to your electronic devices. At a conference last month, Regina Dugan, senior vice president of Motorola’s advanced technology and products group, discussed a pill prototype that would wirelessly link users to everything from their phones to their cars to their home security devices. Having trouble picturing it? Imagine that simply by touching the handle of your door you’re able to automatically unlock it. Or simply by siting in your car you’re able to turn it on. “Essentially, your entire body becomes your authentication token,” said Dugan.

Pretty intense, right?

If you could swallow a pill to monitor your health––or wirelessly connect you to your cell phone––would you?

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Dutch Woman Kept Her Dead Mother In Freezer For A Week Because She Can't Do Without Her

A Dutch woman kept her dead 83-year-old mother in the freezer for a week because she couldn't bring herself to say goodbye, police said on Wednesday.

"The woman froze her mother's body and kept it for a week," police spokeswoman Esther Boot told AFP.

"She couldn't say goodbye," Boot said.

A family friend contacted police on Monday, saying they could "no longer live" with the secret of the body in the freezer. Police went to the house in Kamperland, a small town in the southwestern Netherlands, and the 46-year-old daughter immediately confessed. "There was no indication that the mother didn't die of natural causes, but the body has nevertheless been taken for an autopsy," Boot said.

The daughter was taken to the police station, interviewed and examined by a psychiatrist and allowed to return home.

Police said the daughter was "too sad" to let her mother go.

"She wanted to keep her nearby," Boot said.

The two women had lived together for 17 years, during which time the daughter took care of her mother day and night "with lots of love," police said.

"We don't yet know if there will be criminal proceedings, that's up to the prosecutor," Boot said.

"Technically it's a crime to keep a body in the freezer."

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Couple Arrested For Public Sex By 25 Bike Cops

We're not yanking your chain with this story: Two people who were allegedly "getting lucky" in a public park ended up getting arrested by 25 cops on bicycles.

Jennifer Harvey, 41, and Richard McBride, 37, were arrested Tuesday afternoon after officers -- 25 of them, all on bikes -- say they saw them having sex on a bench near a baseball field at Naylors Run Park in Upper Darby, Pa.

"There they are, on the first base line. There's a bench, she is bent over the bench and our friend is behind her with his pants down to his ankle, banging away," is how Upper Darby Police Superintendent Michael Chitwood colorfully put it to Philly.com.

The 25 were participating in a "bicycle school" when they saw the couple in alleged action, WPVI-TV reported. The authorities were the only ones in the vicinity when they made the arrest.

Harvey and McBride were both arrested and charged with open lewdness and disorderly conduct. Chitwood suspects they were surprised by the level of police interest.

“Imaging being arrested by 25 cops,” Chitwood said, according to NBC Philadelphia. “They were as shocked as the police were.”

Harvey and McBride were both released on $30,000 unsecured bail pending a preliminary hearing July 10 in district court, the Delco Times reported.

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See Coat Is Made Entirely from Male Chest Hair

English designers spent 200 hours weaving over one million strands of male chest hair to create this fashionable fur coat. The aptly named Man-Fur Coat is 100% real and it can be yours for the modest price of £2,499 ($3900).

We’ve featured some pretty strange clothing accessories in the past, but a coat made from men’s chest hair? That’s a first, even for us. Stranger still is the fact that it was commissioned by an English dairy company called Arla, to promote their new chocolate milk, Wing-Co, which is aimed at men. The drink, which contains 40 per cent more protein that other chocolate milks, is marketed as “the manly chocolate milk for men with added man.”

Apparently, Arla believes British men have been “manning down” over the years, and the coat is meant to make them feel proud of their manliness, instead of repressing it. “We commissioned the Man-Fur Coat as a wake-up call for the nation’s gents. A way to encourage them to readopt the values of assured ‘men’s men’ from yesteryear who would laugh nonchalantly in the face of adversity and be proud of their abundant manliness,” a company spokesman said.

The Man-Fur Coat is the latest in a series of parody advertisements called “Lait d’Homme”,  but it’s actually for sale, if someone actually wants to walk around covered in chest hair. At £2,499 ($3900) it’s pretty expensive too, but then again natural fur has never been cheap.

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VIDEO: Lukla Airport In Nepal Is The World’s Scariest Airport, A Real Heart-Stopper

As if being situated at 10,000 feet above sea level, in the Himalayas, didn’t make it hard enough for pilots trying to land on or take off from Tenzing-Hillary Airport, in Lukla, Nepal, the short and  narrow runway ends at the edge of a precipice, making it one of the most dangerous airports in the world, and definitely the scariest.

Lukla is the gateway to the Himalayas, so despite its reputation as one of the world’s most dangerous airports, it’s actually one of the busiest in Nepal. Mountain climbers trying to conquer the world’s highest mountains have to land here before beginning their journey on foot, so small airplanes and helicopters land here every day. For most mountaineers, the landing on Tenzing-Hillary Airport is a lot more scarier than climbing Everest, and taking into account its extreme location and difficult weather condition, that’s perfectly understandable.

Even on its best days, the airport is only available for takeoffs and landings for only a few hours, before the fog sets in or strong winds start to blow. And even then, a miscalculation of just a meter or two on landing can cause a plane to either hit the side of the mountain, or go through a fence and hit a rock wall.  Taking off is no walk in the park either, as failure to build enough speed before the end of the runway can lead to a crash in the abyss below.

Carved out of the side of a mountain, Lukla’s extreme airport was built by Sir Edmund Hillary in 1965, 12 years after he became the first man to conquer Mount Everest. Today, mountain climbers can just jump on a plane in Kathmandu and arrive in a matter of hours, instead of taking a daylong bus trip and trekking for five straight days. But you’re not going to see any Boeings or Airbuses landing on Tenzing-Hillary’s single runway. The bumpy asphalt track is just 65 feet wide, and can only accommodate small aircrafts like the Twin Otter or Dronier.

With a gradient of 12%, it’s also one of the steepest runways in the world. Planes have to go around the mountain and land uphill which helps stop the aircraft before it hits the fence and crashes into a cliff, but pilots have to reserve propeller even before touch down. Navigation is done by sight only, and pilots have to negotiate thick clouds and strong winds in order to safely land or take-off from Lukla.

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Texas Democrat Speaks For 13 Hours Straight To Kill An Anti-Abortion Bill

A Democratic state senator in Texas plans to speak for 13 straight hours without a bathroom break on Tuesday in order to kill a bill that would dramatically reduce access to abortion in the state.

Despite a citizen's filibuster that lasted until 3:45 a.m. on Friday, the state House of Representatives passed a bill that bans abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy in Texas, severely limits access to medication-induced abortions and regulates first-trimester abortion clinics as ambulatory surgical centers. State Sen. Wendy Davis (D) is hoping to delay final passage of the bill by speaking continuously on the Senate floor until the Texas legislature's special session ends at midnight on Tuesday. She is not allowed to go to the bathroom or lean on anything in the meantime.

"I have to ask the question," Davis said during her filibuster on Tuesday, "What purpose does this bill serve? And could it be, might it just be a desire to limit women's access to safe, healthy, legal, constitutionally-protected abortions in the state of Texas?"

"The intent of this bill by the people that helped write it, and I'm one of them, is to increase safety," replied state Sen. Bob Deuell 

He added, "Do you think the traditions of the Texas senate are more important than women's safety?"

Davis said the bill would likely shut down all but five of the 42 abortion clinics in the state of Texas, and no one has been able to tell her how the clinic regulations would increase safety for women. The requirements that clinics be regulated in the same way as ambulatory surgical centers would be imposed on many clinics that do not provide surgical abortions.

Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, flew to her home state of Texas on Monday night to show solidarity with Davis and the hundreds of people who have flooded the state capitol from all over Texas to support her.

"It feels right to be home," Richards told The Huffington Post in an interview. "As my mom would say, a bell has rung that cant be unrung here. People have started to speak up, and it's good to see, no matter what the outcome, that there are people engaged and enraged here in ways I havent seen in years."

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Suspect Spends 7 hours In Ocean While Running From Police

A California suspect is being treated for hypothermia following a standoff with police that saw the man spend hours in the ocean.

Cmdr. Jesus Ochoa of the Coronado Police Department said the man, whose name was not released, fled from officers who attempted to arrest him on a felony warrant for narcotics violations around 9:50 p.m. Sunday near the Hotel Del Coronado and he ran a short ways into the ocean, KFBM-TV, San Diego, reported Monday.

The man, who is in his 40s, was shirtless and remained in the water for seven hours while police waited for him to emerge and surrender, Ochoa said.

The suspect was arrested early Monday and taken to a hospital, where he was being treated for hypothermia.

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PHOTO: Baby Found Floating Inside Well In Lagos

This was sent in by a reader yesterday...

"Please we saw this cute fair hairy baby boy, swollen and floating inside well, in my street at lagos, Isachi.

Gush some girls are so heartless. I have been crying, my husband opened the well last night then I saw it,Police men came to fetch out the baby this afternoon and I saw the baby this afternoon, just two houses after mine.

The mother’s blood and placenta is on the street .

The worst part of it, she dropped the baby in front of a woman that has been looking for child for the past years.The well is in front of the house that the woman is living,police came and she has ran away even the 3 girls who are her room partners have all ran away.

Guys, there is no other name for this, it is pure wickedness. may his gentle soul rest in peace.

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