American man has existed on a daily diet of Big Macs

American man has existed on a daily diet of Big Macs since 1972 - and his cholesterol is fine.

Don Gorske, 57, ate his 25,000th McDonald's Big Mac on Tuesday, May 17 - the 39th anniversary of the first time he tasted the iconic burger.

He's even timed it down to mark the exact moment he first bit into a McDonald's patty at 3pm on May 17, 1972.

Incredibly, his cholesterol is just fine. Perhaps less incredibly, his taste buds don't work.

The Wisconsin man who suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder, and has kept every receipt for every Big Mac he's ever purchased.

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Alien Planet Gliese 581d

Rocky alien planet called Gliese 581d may be the first known world beyond Earth capable of supporting life as we know it, a new study suggests.

Astronomers performing a new atmospheric-modeling study have found that the planet likely lies in the "habitable zone" of its host star — that just-right range of distances that allow liquid water to exist. The alien world could be Earth-like in key ways, harboring oceans, clouds and rainfall, according to the research.

This conclusion is consistent with several other recent modeling studies. But it does not definitively establish that life-sustaining water flows across the planet's surface.

The new study assumes that Gliese 581d, which is about seven times as massive as Earth, has a thick, carbon-dioxide-based atmosphere. That's very possible on a planet so large, researchers said.

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Fields of watermelon burst in China

Watermelons have been bursting by the score in eastern China after farmers gave them overdoses of growth chemicals during wet weather, creating fields of "land mines."

About 20 farmers around Danyang city in Jiangsu province were affected, losing up to 115 acres (45 hectares) of melon. Prices over the past year prompted many farmers to jump into the watermelon market. All of those with exploding melons apparently were first-time users of the growth accelerator forchlorfenuron, though it has been widely available for some time.

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Amazing Picture

A Chinese woman poses with a four-dimensional (4D) painting on display at a contemporary art exhibition in Jilin, northeast China's Jilin's province on May 14, 2011.

Blood test that tells how long you will live

Scientists have developed a blood test, which can show the speed of ageing and give an estimate of how long a person is going to live.

The test results may be vital to life-insurance companies offering medical cover that depends on a person's lifetime risk of falling seriously ill or dying prematurely.

The controversial blood test is to go on sale to the general public in Britain later this year. It will cost just 435 pounds to keep tab on your ageing process.

The test has been designed to measure vital structures on the tips of a person's chromosomes called telomeres, which scientists believe are one of the most important and accurate indicators of the speed at which a person is ageing.

According to scientists, the test will be able to tell whether a person's "biological age", as measured by the length of their telomeres is older or younger than their actual chronological age.

Complete news.

World's Flashiest Museum

In Mexico City, telecommunications mogul Carlos Slim, widely cited as the world's richest man, recently opened a new museum to showcase his extensive collection of over 60,000 works of art from all over the world.

The outside of the museum is a windowless, metallic, six-story structure shaped like a surrealist hourglass. It is really spectacular…

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World's Best Ruins

Ruins reach across centuries to fire the imagination and fuel travel plans. The very best make you feel young, small, and utterly amazed by the architectural chops of the ancients. Among the many amazing ruins that still exist today, a few stand out as the trip of a lifetime.

Machu Picchu, Peru

The journey to Machu Picchu is epic even with relatively newfangled transportation like trains. But each year, about 25,000 people forgo the more direct routes and walk for days along the 27-mile Inca Trail to reach the ruin. Since its rediscovery a century ago, this treasure of the Inca set high in a cloud forest of the Peruvian Andes has captured imaginations worldwide. The massive stone blocks tell the story of both a sprawling agricultural zone with terracing and ancient food storehouses and an urban zone replete with temples, squares, tombs, and living quarters.

Acropolis, Greece

Waiting for the traffic to speed past at a crowded intersection in Athens, you're likely to forget that history keeps constant watch over the city. Glance up, however, and you'll catch the view Athenians and visitors alike have been admiring for the last 2,500 years. Time has battered the once-pristine temples and gates that crown the hill of the Acropolis, leaving stone ruins that retain a familiar splendor even after thousands of years of wear and destruction. The elegant proportions of the fifth-century B.C. Parthenon and the Temple of Athena Nike—both dedicated to the city's patron deity—are a reminder of how much we still rely on ancient Greece for our concepts of beauty.

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Interesting Sweat Facts

Your body has 4 million sweat glands.  Most of your sweat glands are on your hands, feet, face and in your armpits. There are no sweat glands on the nails, ears and lips.  Women have more sweat glands than men, but men typically have more active sweat glands.

Sweat or perspiration consists of water, salt, potassium and waste materials. Sweating is the excretion of moisture that is produced in special organs in the skin, i.e. the sweat glands.

You do not sweat continuously, but a little every now and then. Small quantities of sweat are excreted about six or seven times a minute. A hard working adult can sweat up to around 4 gallons (15 litres) a day. This varies depending on the temperature and humidity of the environment, but even in normal circumstances, the average person sweats up to 1.5 gallons (6 litres) per day. Half a pint (about 240 mL) of that usually comes from the feet!

Just 1% of all perspiration moisture originates from your armpits. Because this part of the body is so badly ventilated, it evaporates less quickly than in other parts of your body. And that's why it seems as though you sweat most under your armpits. You sweat more under your arms when you're standing up than if you're sitting or lying down.

Those with the condition hyperhidrosis sweat up to five times as much as those with normal sweat glands. People with anhydrosis, however, don't sweat enough to cool their bodies. This condition can be fatal if the body gets overheated.

The smell of sweat is influenced by what you eat. For example, garlic and spices give off strong odours. Clean and fresh natural clothing (e.g. cotton) prevents unpleasant odours. Smell of ammonia is caused by physical activity like sports. People who regularly engage in sports have bigger and more active sweat glands. If you’re in poor physical shape, you’ll start sweating once your body temperature reaches 37.2 degrees. If you’re in good shape, you won’t sweat until your body temperature reaches 37.7 degrees.

Pigs do not sweat. That's why they coat themselves in mud to stay cool. Dogs and cats do sweat through the pads on their feet. A rabbit's sweat glands are around its lips.

Pumice : The Floating Rock

Pumice is a type of extrusive volcanic rock, produced when lava with a very high content of water and gases (together these are called volatiles) is extruded (or thrown out of) a volcano. As the gas bubbles escape from the lava, it becomes frothy. When this lava cools and hardens, the result is a very light rock material filled with tiny bubbles of gas. Pumice is the only rock that floats on water, although it will eventually become waterlogged and sink.



It is usually light-colored, indicating that it is a volcanic rock high in silica content and low in iron and magnesium, a type usually classed as rhyolite.  If the lava hardens quickly with few volatiles, the resulting rock is volcanic glass, or obsidian. Pumice and obsidian are often found together.

More aboutPumice.

Banana Slugs

Banana slugs are usually bright yellow (giving rise to the banana sobriquet) although they may also be green, brown, or white. Some slugs have black spots which may be so extensive as to make the animal look almost solid black.

It is native to the forest floors along North America's Pacific coastal coniferous rainforest belt (including redwood forests) which stretches from Southeastern Alaska to Santa Cruz, California.

The banana slug is the mascot of the University of California, Santa Cruz.

The Pacific banana slug is the second-largest species of terrestrial slug in the world, growing up to 25 centimetres (9.8 in) long and weighs of 115 gram (4 oz). The largest slug species is Limax cinereoniger of Europe, which can reach 30 centimetres (12 in) in length.

Banana slugs can move at 6 ½ inches (16.5 cm) per minute.

Slugs use two pairs of tentacles to sense their environment. The larger, upper pair, termed "eyestalks," is used to detect light or movement. The second, lower pair is used to detect chemicals. The tentacles can retract and extend themselves to avoid damage.

Using its rasping radula or tongue, covered with 27,000 teeth it scrapes off pieces of live and dead plant tissue and the fungi/bacteria that grow about.

Banana slugs have a single lung which opens externally via pneumostome. The pneumostome lung cavity is heavily vascularized to allow gas exchange. Dehydration is a major problem for the mollusk. Banana slugs excrete a thick coating of mucus around their bodies and can also estivate. They secrete a protective layer of mucus, and insulate themselves with a layer of soil and leaves. They remain inactive in this state until the environment is moist again.

The slime also contains pheromones to attract other slugs for mating. Slugs are hermaphrodites, and reproduce by exchanging sperm with their mate. They produce up to 75 translucent eggs, which are laid in a log or on leaves. Slugs mate and lay eggs throughout the year. The adults provide no further care for their eggs beyond finding a suitable hiding spot, and the eggs are abandoned as soon as the clutch is laid.

Interesting Ants Facts

Ants are common insects, but they have some unique capabilities. More than 10,000 known ant species occur around the world. They are especially prevalent in tropical forests, where they may be up to half of all the insects living in some locations.

Ants look much like termites, and the two are often confused—especially by nervous homeowners. However, ants have a narrow "waist" between the abdomen and thorax, which termites do not. Ants also have large heads, elbowed antennae, and powerful jaws. These insects belong to the order Hymenoptera, which includes wasps and bees.

Enthusiastically social insects, ants typically live in structured nest communities that may be located underground, in ground-level mounds, or in trees. Carpenter ants nest in wood and can be destructive to buildings. Some species, such as army ants, defy the norm and do not have permanent homes, instead seeking out food for their enormous colonies during periods of migration.

Ant communities are headed by a queen or queens, whose function in life is to lay thousands of eggs that will ensure the survival of the colony. Workers (the ants typically seen by humans) are wingless females that never reproduce, but instead forage for food, care for the queen's offspring, work on the nest, protect the community, and perform many other duties.

Male ants often have only one role—mating with the queen. After they have performed this function, they may die.

More Ants Facts.

Owner of the Sun

After billions of years the Sun finally has an owner. A woman from Spain's soggy region of Galicia says she's registered the star at a local notary public as being her property.

Angeles Duran, 49, took the step in September 2010 after reading about an American man who had registered himself as the owner of the moon and most planets in our Solar System.

There is an international agreement which states that no country may claim ownership of a planet or star, but it says nothing about individuals.

The document issued by the notary public declares Duran to be the "owner of the Sun, a star of spectral type G2, located in the centre of the solar system, located at an average distance from Earth of about 149,600,000 kilometres".

Complete story.

Most Expensive Fruitcake

A unique of its kind, is the diamond-studded Christmas fruitcake. The delicious cake was exclusively adorned with 223 small diamonds encrusted on it that needs to be removed while eating the cake. Skilfully created by a Tokyo-based chef, the bejewelled cake was high-priced at $1.65 million.  This expensive treat was put on display in an exhibit called “Diamonds: Nature's Miracle” along with other diamond-related designs back in 2005.

3000 new words for Scrabble’s official reference books

Street slang including thang, innit, blingy, Wiki and Myspace have been added to an "official" reference book for Scrabble players.

The Collins Official Scrabble Words also now includes, from Indian cookery, keema, alu, or aloo, and gobi among nearly 3,000 new additions to those allowed in the game.

Technology-related words such as webzine, darknet and Facebook have also made the book.

The list for the latest edition of the Scrabble words book was created by staff at Collins Dictionaries based in Glasgow.

The publishers say it is the "most comprehensive Scrabble wordlist ever produced".

Financial windfall from sperm whale's vomit

A Maori tribe on New Zealand's North Island were celebrating an unexpected windfall after finding a large chunk of whale vomit while burying the corpse of a stranded sperm whale that had been mutilated by vandals.

Also called "whale's pearl" or "floating gold," the sperm whale vomit is more correctly known as ambergris, and is a rare and often valuable ingredient in fine perfumes.

The 40kg lump of ambergris has just been sold to a French company for an undisclosed sum after being discovered last year, Dargaville broker Adrienne Beuse said tens of thousands could be paid per kilogram of ambergris, dependent on its quality. Some estimates of the value of the New Zealand find were as high as $400,000.

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World’s first full-face transplant

A team of surgeons has carried out the world's first full-face transplant on a young Spanish farmer unable to breathe or eat on his own since accidentally shooting himself in the face.

During the 24-hour surgery, doctors lifted an entire face, including jaw, nose, cheekbones, muscles, teeth and eyelids, and placed it masklike onto the man. The Spanish patient has a completely new face from his hairline down and only one visible scar, which looks like a wrinkle running across his neck.

Transplant experts hailed the surgery, carried out in March 2010 at Barcelona's Vall d'Hebron Hospital, as a significant advance.

Complete news.

Climate change strips Arctic of much snow cover

The Arctic is one of global parts that is warming up fastest today. Measurements of air temperature show that the most recent five-year period has been the warmest since 1880, when monitoring began.

Other data, from tree rings among other things, show that the summer temperatures over the last decades have been the highest in 2000 years. As a consequence, the snow cover in May and June has decreased by close to 20 percent.

The winter season has also become almost two weeks shorter - in just a few decades.

Besides, the temperature in the permafrost has increased by between half a degree and two degrees.

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Germany Cow Turned Pony

A teenager whose parents refused to buy her horse is over the moo-n — after teaching a cow to showjump.

Regina Mayer has spent hours training dairy animal Luna and can now ride her with equine ease.

Not only do the unusual pair regularly go on long rides through the German countryside, they also hurdle over makeshift jumps created with beer crates and painted logs.

Regina, who lives in Laufen, southern Germany, said of Luna: "She thinks she's a horse."

Regina said of her first ride: "She was really well behaved and walked normally. But after a couple of metres she wanted me to get off. You could see that she got a bit peeved."

The 15-year-old, who rides Luna every day, added: "It's a lot of work, but I enjoy it. When she wants to do something she does it, when she doesn't, she doesn't.

More about Regina and Luna in action.

Guinness record for loudest purr

Smokey, a 12 year-old female British short-hair cat, has been recognised by Guinness World Records as having achieved the Loudest purr by a domestic cat at 67.7 dB (LA peak). Smokey is owned by Ruth Adams (UK) and lives at Spring Hill farm, Pitsford, Northampton, UK. Smokey is the world's loudest cat with a purr as loud as a vacuum cleaner.

Most domestic cats reach 25 decibels but she peaked at 67.7.

That is louder than people chatting (60) and not far from a lawnmower (90) or car horn (110).

It’s incredible to think that a cat’s purr can be as loud as a vacuum cleaner!

Deepest part of the ocean

Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench is the deepest point in Earth's oceans. The bottom there is 10,924 meters (35,840 feet) below sea level. If Mount Everest, the highest mountain on Earth, were placed at this location it would be covered by over one mile of water. The Challenger Deep is named after the British survey ship Challenger II, which discovered this deepest location in 1951.

The Mariana Trench is located at a convergent plate boundary. Here two converging lithospheric plates collide with one another. At this collision point, one of the plates descends into the mantle. At the line of contact between the two plates the downward flexure forms a trough known as an ocean trench.

(Source)

Colorful Ladybugs

Many people are fond of ladybugs because of their colorful, spotted appearance. But farmers love them for their appetite. Most ladybugs voraciously consume plant-eating insects, such as aphids, and in doing so they help to protect crops. One ladybug can eat up to 5,000 insects in its lifetime!



Most ladybugs have oval, dome-shaped bodies with six short legs. Depending on the species, they can have spots, stripes, or no markings at all. Seven-spotted ladybugs are red or orange with three spots on each side and one in the middle. They have a black head with white patches on either side.


The name "ladybug" was coined by European farmers who prayed to the Virgin Mary when pests began eating their crops. After ladybugs came and wiped out the invading insects, the farmers named them "beetle of Our Lady." This eventually was shortened to "lady beetle" and "ladybug."


There are about 5,000 different species of ladybugs in the world. These much loved critters are also known as lady beetles or ladybird beetles. They come in many different colors and patterns, but the most familiar in North America is the seven-spotted ladybug, with its shiny, red-and-black body.


Ladybugs are colorful for a reason. Their markings tell predators: "Eat something else! I taste terrible." When threatened, the bugs will secrete an oily, foul-tasting fluid from joints in their legs. They may also play dead. Birds are ladybugs' main predators, but they also fall victim to frogs, wasps, spiders, and dragonflies.


Ladybugs lay their eggs in clusters or rows on the underside of a leaf, usually where aphids have gathered. Larvae, which vary in shape and color based on species, emerge in a few days. Seven-spotted ladybug larvae are long, black, and spiky-looking with orange or yellow spots. Larvae grow quickly and shed their skin several times. When they reach full size, they attach to a leaf by their tail, and a pupa is formed. Within a week or two, the pupa becomes an adult ladybug.


Ladybugs are most active from spring until fall. When the weather turns cold, they look for a warm, secluded place to hibernate, such as in rotting logs, under rocks, or even inside houses. These hibernating colonies can contain thousands of ladybugs.



Tooth implanted into the eye of blind man

When Martin Jones met his wife he never imagined that one day he would get to see what she looked like.

The 42-year-old builder was left blind after an accident at work more than a decade ago.

But a remarkable operation - which implants part of his tooth in his eye - has now pierced his world of darkness.

The procedure, performed fewer than 50 times before in Britain, uses the segment of tooth as a holder for a new lens grafted from his skin.

(Source)

The first microwave oven was 5 1/2 feet tall and weighed 750 pounds

Like many of today's great inventions, the microwave oven was a by-product of another technology. It was during a radar-related research project around 1946 that Dr. Percy Spencer, a self-taught engineer with the Raytheon Corporation, noticed something very unusual. He was testing a new vacuum tube called a magnetron, when he discovered that the candy bar in his pocket had melted. This intrigued Dr. Spencer, so he tried another experiment. This time he placed some popcorn kernels near the tube and, perhaps standing a little farther away, he watched with an inventive sparkle in his eye as the popcorn sputtered, cracked and popped all over his lab.

The next morning, Scientist Spencer decided to put the magnetron tube near an egg. Spencer was joined by a curious colleague, and they both watched as the egg began to tremor and quake. The rapid temperature rise within the egg was causing tremendous internal pressure. Evidently the curious colleague moved in for a closer look just as the egg exploded and splattered hot yoke all over his amazed face. The face of Spencer lit up with a logical scientific conclusion: the melted candy bar, the popcorn, and now the exploding egg, were all attributable to exposure to low-density microwave energy. Thus, if an egg can be cooked that quickly, why not other foods? Experimentation began...

Dr. Spencer fashioned a metal box with an opening into which he fed microwave power. The energy entering the box was unable to escape, thereby creating a higher density electromagnetic field. When food was placed in the box and microwave energy fed in, the temperature of the food rose very rapidly. Dr. Spencer had invented what was to revolutionize cooking, and form the basis of a multimillion dollar industry, the microwave oven.

Engineers went to work on Spencer's hot new idea, developing and refining it for practical use. By late 1946, the Raytheon Company had filed a patent proposing that microwaves be used to cook food. An oven that heated food using microwave energy was then placed in a Boston restaurant for testing. At last, in 1947, the first commercial microwave oven hit the market. These primitive units where gigantic and enormously expensive, standing 5 1/2 feet tall, weighing over 750 pounds, and costing about $5000 each. The magnetron tube had to be water-cooled, so plumbing installations were also required.

(Source)

Octopuses: Weird sea-creatures

When it comes to weird sea-creatures, octopuses are hard to beat. There’s the well-known ink-squirting defence system, the bird-like beak, and the eight tentacles with their double rows of suckers.

Octopuses have two eyes and four pairs of arms, and like other cephalopods they are bilaterally symmetric. An octopus has a hard beak, with its mouth at the center point of the arms. Octopuses have no internal or external skeleton, allowing them to squeeze through tight places. Octopuses are among the most intelligent and behaviorally flexible of all invertebrates.

Octopuses live in all oceans. This salt water creature tends to be small in warm tropical waters and larger in colder waters. Largest one ever caught was 600 pounds, the tentacles spanning 33 feet! But usually they range from 50 to 90 pounds. Most only live to be 1 or 2 years old but some big ones live to be 4.

Each tentacle of an octopus contains a double row of 120 suckers each ranging in size from a pinhead to 2 ½ inches in diameter. With them he can not only grab his prey, but also taste it. The combined grip of these 8 arms exceeds 2000 pounds!

The octopus has no bones. The only hard part is the beak. Because of this, a 60 pound octopus can actually work its way through a 2 inch hole to escape.

Octopuses have three hearts. Two branchial hearts pump blood through each of the two gills, while the third pumps blood through the body. Octopus blood contains the copper-rich protein hemocyanin for transporting oxygen. Although less efficient under normal conditions than the iron-rich hemoglobin of vertebrates, in cold conditions with low oxygen pressure, hemocyanin oxygen transportation is more efficient than hemoglobin oxygen transportation.

The octopus produces a poison in its saliva. It is spit this into a wound inflicted by the beak. This is lethal to crabs, lobsters, and eels but only burns the skin of people. Lunch is then passed by the tentacles to the mouth to be ingested.

They have numerous strategies for defending themselves against predators, including the expulsion of ink, the use of camouflage and deimatic displays, their ability to jet quickly through the water, and their ability to hide. An octopus trails its eight arms behind it as it swims. All octopuses are venomous, but only one group, the blue-ringed octopuses, is known to be deadly to humans.

Octopuses are highly intelligent, likely more so than any other order of invertebrates. The maze and problem-solving experiments have shown that they show evidence of a memory system that can store both short- and long-term memory.

A revolutionary synthetic blood saved the life of a woman

A revolutionary synthetic blood - straight out of science fiction - has saved the life of a Victorian woman.



Doctors at The Alfred brought Tamara Coakley, 33, back from the brink of death after a horrific car crash left her with severe blood loss and dangerously close to heart failure.


This was the first reported case of the synthetic blood reversing cardiac hypoxia and anaemia in a trauma patient.


A last-ditch effort to save Mrs Coakley's life led to 10 units of the haemoglobin-based oxygen carrier, called HBOC-201 to be flown in from the US.


It contains a molecule derived from cow's blood and restored the level of haemoglobin in her blood, which carries oxygen to the tissues.


(Source)



New record for tornadoes in US

Preliminary data from the National Weather Service show that more than 600 twisters have touched down in April, smashing the existing record of 267 set in 1974.

The outbreak — the deadliest in nearly 40 years — that devastated large swaths of north central Alabama and other southern states appears to follow a historic pattern. Over the decades, the annual number of tornadoes occurring in the U.S. has climbed — from a low of 201 in 1950 to a record high of 1,817 in 2004. Last year's total was 1,525.

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Dmitri Mendeleev and Vodka

It was in the 14th century that vodka was first described as "Russia's national drink".

Some 500 years later, in 1894, after centuries of unregulated production, Dmitri Mendeleev, Professor of Chemistry at St. Petersburg University and creator of the Periodic Table of Elements, established the absolute standard for vodka distillation.

Mendeleev's perfect balance of 40% alcohol by volume gave Russian vodka a precise formula for what had been, until then, a process closer to alchemy than chemistry.

Today, Russian Standard vodkas take Mendeleev's 19th century ideas and distillation to 21st century levels of quality by combining the finest hand-selected wheat from the black soil of the Russian steppes with the pure, soft waters of Lake Ladoga to create a classic Russian spirit with an exceptionally pure, smooth taste.

(Source)

Sloth : the world's slowest mammal

The sloth is the world's slowest mammal, so sedentary that algae grows on its furry coat. The plant gives it a greenish tint that is useful camouflage in the trees of its Central and South American rain forest home.

Sloths are identified by the number of long, prominent claws that they have on each front foot. There are both two-toed and three-toed sloths.

All sloths are built for life in the treetops. They spend nearly all of their time aloft, hanging from branches with a powerful grip aided by their long claws. (Dead sloths have been known to retain their grip and remain suspended from a branch.) Sloths even sleep in trees, and they sleep a lot—some 15 to 20 hours every day. Even when awake they often remain motionless. At night they eat leaves, shoots, and fruit from the trees and get almost all of their water from juicy plants.

Three-toed sloths also have an advantage that few other mammals possess: They have extra neck vertebrae that allows them to turn their heads some 270 degrees.

More about sloths.

Prohibition of death

Prohibition of death is a political social phenomenon and taboo in which a law is passed stating that it is illegal to die, usually specifically in a certain political division or in a specific building.

The earliest case of prohibition of death occurred in the 5th century BC, in the Greek island of Delos; dying on Delos was prohibited on religious grounds.

Today, in most cases, the phenomenon has occurred as a satirical protest to the posture of the governments of not approving the expansion of municipal cemeteries with no more space for additional corpses. In Spain death has been prohibited in the Andalucian town of Lanjarón. In France there have been several settlements which have had death prohibited. Prohibition of death has occurred in three settlements in southern France: Cugnaux, Le Lavandou, and Sarpourenx. Whilst in a town—Biritiba Mirim—in Brazil, an attempt to prohibit is currently taking place.

More on this interesting prohibition.

Underwater Post Office

Vanuatu Post has created an official Post Office with a difference. It is the world’s only Underwater Post Office. Vanuatu Post’s Underwater Post Office, found just off Hideaway Island near Port Vila, has quickly become one of the busiest post offices for postcards in the world.

Visitors from around the world have literally donned their masked snorkels, postcards in hand to experience the world’s first underwater post office.

And they have not been disappointed. The Post Office is only 50 metres offshore and at just three metres below the surface, is very accessible to all.

The fibreglass post office is surrounded by beds of coral and shoals of multi-coloured fish in a marine sanctuary off Hideaway Island on the outskirts of Port Vila.

Placed on site by Vanuatu Post, this official and currently unique postal location was opened for business on Monday May 26, 2003. A special flag floats above the site when there are postal workers in the water.

They provide you buy special waterproof postcards available from shops on terra firma in Port Vila.

Then one can scuba dive three metres down to have your postcards embossed with a waterproof stamp, specially created by Vanuatu Post to celebrate the 83-island archipelago's status as a marine paradise.

Out of hours the post cards can be posted in the underwater post box attached to the post office or taken to the main post office in town. All are guaranteed to receive the special cancellation from this unique underwater paradise before being delivered both locally and internationally.

It is all aimed at drawing attention to the diversity of Vanuatu's underwater world, and easily accessible dive sites. The landscape beneath the waters mirrors that found above: mountainous terrain with plunging cliffs, grottoes and overhangs, huge caves and intricate interconnecting underwater tunnels formed by frozen lava - and life abundant over all. Sea fans, soft corals and acropora gardens, plate corals and sponges and thousands of curious fish are there for all to see.

Vanuatu Post has released two stamp issues commemorating the world’s first underwater post office.

Hooded Pitohui : The most poisonous bird

The Hooded Pitohui, is common and widespread throughout New Guinea.

This species, together with its close relatives, the Variable Pitohui and the Brown Pitohui, are the first documented poisonous birds. A neurotoxin called homobatrachotoxin found in the birds' skin and feathers, causes numbness and tingling in those touching the bird.

The hooded pitohui was the first poisonous bird to be identified. Of the three poisonous Pitohui species, the hooded pitohui (Pitohui dichrous) is the most brightly coloured and by far the most poisonous. It is followed by the variable pitohui (Pitohui kirhocephalus) and the rusty pitohui (Pitohui ferrugineus).

Pitohuis are brightly coloured, omnivorous birds. The Hooded Pitohui is brightly coloured, with a brick red belly and a jet black head. The skin and feathers of some pitohuis, especially the Variable and Hooded Pitohuis, contain powerful neurotoxic alkaloids of the batrachotoxin group. It is believed that these serve the birds as a chemical defence, either against ectoparasites or against visually guided predators such as snakes, raptors or humans. The birds probably do not produce batrachotoxin themselves. It is most likely that the toxins come from the Choresine genus of beetles, part of the bird's diet.