The opposite of ‘sparkle’ is ‘darkle’

While most of us have seen things shimmer with light and described it as sparkling, there is an equal opposite to sparkle. The word, darkle, means to become cloudy, gloomy, dark, or be concealed in the dark!

Darkle word  originated in the 1800s, and it is believed that the original use of darkle was ‘darkling’.

(Source)

Australian crocodile Elvis steals lawnmower

An Australian crocodile reacted badly when a noisy lawnmower invaded his space - he stole it, forcing keepers to make a daring rescue.

Elvis, who lives at the Australian Reptile Park, lunged at the mower, grabbing it from operations manager Tim Faulkner and keeper Billy Collett.

Pulling it under water, the five-metre saltwater crocodile "drowned" the machine at the park near Sydney.

He then sat and watched his catch for more than an hour in his enclosure.

''Once he got it, he just sat there and guarded it,'' said Mr Faulkner. ''It was his prize, his trophy. If it moved, then he would attack it again.''

While the keeper lured Elvis to the other end of the enclosure with an offering of kangaroo meat, Mr Faulkner was able to jump in, retrieve the badly chewed up mower and two teeth that Elvis had lost in the process.

(Source)

Soap with caffeine

There is a caffeinated bar of soap that has the effect of one cup of coffee!

It is called Shower Shock. It's concentration of caffeine is so strong that it is the equivalent of drinking 1 cup of coffee per shower. This is because the caffeine is absorbed through your skin.

Shower Shock is an all-vegetable based glycerine soap, scented with peppermint oil and infused with caffeine anhydrous. Each bar of Shower shock contains approximately 12 servings/showers per 4 ounce bar with 200 milligrams of caffeine per serving.

(Source)

Shower system turned blond residents to have green hair

Source: Getty Images

Several blond residents of a southern Swedish town were left with green hair after an unusual reaction between the water supply and the shower system of a number of new homes.

Authorities began investigating when a number of inhabitants of Anderslov complained that their hair suddenly turned green. They tested the water supply in several homes to see if there was a high level of copper - known to turn hair green - but recorded only normal levels of the metal.

However, when hot water was left in the houses' water systems overnight, the amount of copper in it was found to increase to five or 10 times the normal amount.

Investigators concluded that the hot water must have peeled copper from the pipes and water heaters. The copper then was absorbed into the water, causing the shock hair colour change when residents showered.

Read more.

Snake-Stuntman

       Source: Getty Images

Liu Feinan, nicknamed as Snake King Asia, has made as name for himself by getting a snake to crawl into and through his mouth and out of his nose. Liu Feinan shows his stunt of snake crawling through his mouth and nose at China's Nanning Zoo.

(Source)

Astronomers have found 18 new alien planets,

NASA / JPL-Caltech

This artist's image shows a newly formed planet swimming

through the gas and dust surrounding the star.

Astronomers have found 18 new alien planets, all of them Jupiter-size gas giants that circle stars bigger than our sun, a new study reports.

The discoveries increase the number of known planets orbiting massive stars by 50 percent. The researchers surveyed about 300 stars using the Keck Observatory in Hawaii and instruments in Texas and Arizona. They focused on so-called "retired" type-A stars that are at least 1.5 times more massive than our own sun.

These stars are just beyond the main stage of life , hence the name "retired" and are now ballooning out to become what's known as subgiant stars.

The team scrutinized these stars, looking for slight wobbles caused by the gravitational tug of orbiting planets. This process revealed 18 new alien worlds, all of them with masses similar to Jupiter's. All 18 planets also orbit relatively far from their stars, at a distance of at least 0.7 times the span from Earth to the sun (about 93 million miles, or 150 million kilometers).

Read more.

A woman who lost the ability to smell, taste, see, and hear as a child was the first deaf-blind person to be fully educated

The woman was Laura Bridgman. Bridgman was born in 1829 and it is thought she had full use of all her senses at birth. However, at the age of two years old, she became sick with scarlet fever, due to which she lost her sight and hearing. It was later discovered, after she was educated, that she had lost or never had a sense of smell and she also had nearly no sense of taste.

The one sense she did have was touch. Amazingly, even with only this one sense and no real language, she was still pretty handy around the house as a child. She enjoyed mimicking actions demonstrated to her through touch, so her mother used this to teach her how to do certain household chores. She even learned to sew and knit.

Read more.

Second Paris built towards end of First World War to fool Germans

Photo: London news

A second Paris, complete with a Champs-Elysées and Gard Du Nord, was built towards the end of the First World War to fool German bombers.

According to archives unearthed by Le Figaro newspaper, military planners believed German pilots could be fooled into destroying the dummy city rather than the real one.

It was situated on the northern outskirts of Paris and featured sham streets lined with electric lights, replica buildings and even a copy of the Gare du Nord – the station from which high-speed trains now travel to and from London.

(Source)

Poland's Mysterious Crooked Forest

In a tiny corner of western Poland a forest of about 400 pine trees grow with a 90 degree bend at the base of their trunks - all bent northward. Surrounded by a larger forest of straight growing pine trees this collection of curved trees, or "Crooked Forest," is a mystery.

(Source)

Tigers never changed

The discovery of a skull of the oldest tiger ever found has indicated that the beasts never changed much in two million years except turning bigger in size.

The tiger skull, unearthed in Longdan region in northwestern China, is estimated to be between 2.16 and 2.55 million years old. It's the oldest complete skull ever discovered of a 'pantherine' big cat.

The skull is a little smaller than the head of today's tigers, about the size of a jaguar, but it's very recognisable as the same species we know today.

The researchers, comparing the skull, observed that it has given indication that tigers may have originally evolved in China.

The skull had well-developed upper fangs, and appears to be of a male. It pre-dates all other known tiger fossils by nearly half a million years.

The researchers compared the skull with 207 other tiger skulls, 66 jaguar skulls and 100 leopard skulls.

Read more.

421 coins and bolts in man's stomach

A man admitted to a hospital in India with severe stomach pain was found to have swallowed around 6 kg of iron objects, including hundreds of coins and fishnet pellets. Sonography and X-ray could not reveal more than an intestinal blockage and a few lumps in the stomach.

So doctors decided to conduct a surgery, and what they found left them baffled. Surgeons removed 421 coins, 197 fishnet pellets, three keys and 19 bolts of bicycle chain in a three-hour operation.

Doctors suspect Kuleshwar Singh, 28 is suffering from a psychological or an eating disorder. Doctors said the patient is either suffering from schizophrenia or a rare condition called pica, which creates an unusual desire to eat non-nutritional items,

Read more.

Earth-like planet Kepler 22-b

Nasa scientists have confirmed the existence of the an Earth-like planet outside our Solar System.

It's called Kepler 22-b and is circling a star similar to our Sun about 600 light years away.

The planet is about twice the size of Earth, with a temperature of around 22C.

That temperature is just right for liquid water something that's important to support life.

(Source)

Planet that's just like Earth

Scientists have discovered a planet which could have the most Earth-like environment ever found - raising a 'very compelling case' for life there.

Gliese 581g, located around 123trillion miles away, orbits a star at a distance that places it squarely in the habitable - or Goldilocks - zone, Nasa said.

The research, the product of more than a decade of observations at the WM Keck Observatory in Hawaii, suggests the planet could contain liquid water on its surface.

It means it tops the league of planets and moons rated as being most like Earth.

With our planet rated at 1.0 on the Earth Compatibility Index, Gliese 581g, found in the Libra constellation, scored 0.89, ahead of Mars on 0.7.

But U.S. experts believe Saturn's moon, Titan, is still the most likely so far to support life based on surface conditions and whether vital chemical reactions are possible.

Read more.

Is a pizza a vegetable?

Is a pizza a vegetable? In the federal school lunch program in US, the answer is yes. And Congress doesn't want that to change.

Pizza -- specifically, tomato paste used in the sauce -- is considered a vegetable under rules for school lunch programs that get federal dollars. Now, the Department of Agriculture (USDA) wants to slice how much each portion of tomato paste counts toward a serving of vegetables.

The USDA doesn't object to tomato paste counting toward some of the daily vegetable requirement for kids, but says schools rely far too heavily on the pizza -- a popular if nutritionally suspect offering in school cafeterias.

The food industry complains the USDA proposal devalues its products. Omaha, Neb.-based ConAgra Foods Inc., a company that provides pizzas to schools, said it opposes the USDA plan because it would "understate the amount of tomato products ... actually consumed."

Read more.

Husband up for sale on Craigslist

A Utah woman became so annoyed by her husband's addiction to video games that she put him up for sale on US small ads website Craigslist.

Kyle Baddley, 22, spent so much time playing the recently released "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3" that wife Alyse warned her mother-in-law, "I'm going to sell your son on Craigslist."

The 21-year-old soon made good on the threat, by posting a classified ad on her local version of the website.

"I am selling my 22 year old husband. He enjoys eating and playing video games all day. Easy to maintain, just feed and water every 3-5 hours," her post on the Logan, Utah, Craigslist site read.

Kyle Baddley's future home "must have internet and space for gaming," the ad continues. "If acceptable replacement is offered will trade."

His wife said the ad was intended as a joke, but responses ranged from a man who offered himself in trade, claiming he preferred books to video games.

Read more.