Thank you so very much for reading my posts.  I’d like to share some screen shots of my stats as of yesterday (December 2):

When I started this blog, I didn’t think anyone would read it.  I hope you will continue to be entertained and informed for a long time.  Feel free to give feedback or comment on what kind of posts keep you coming back for more.

Until next time,

Monique

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NOTE: I am preparing a wordpress page for a very unique blog (I haven’t seen the content anywhere on the web yet).  I’ll post a link when it’s ready, sometime in mid January.  Stay tuned for more details…

On the website below, you’ll find these couches:

1) Stuffed animals

2) Slouch couch

3) Mountain couch

4) Computers

5) Grass couch

6) Bunk bed couch

7) Coffin

Car

9) Cadillac

10) Abstract

10) Cactus couch

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Find them all here.

From the website:

“Here are actual demand notes used in successful and unsuccessful unarmed bank robberies – - accompanied by a photo of each robber and appended with details about the robbery itself. “

= a successful robbery
= an unsuccessful robbery

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See more bank notes here.

My stomach was doing ‘flip-flops’ at the point where the stuntman goes around the loop.

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Replicating the classic Hot Wheels set, Fifth Gear TV attempts to perform a full 360 degree loop in a full size car.

At the website below, you will find 30 “get-you-talking” advertisements.  Here are my picks from:

MAJOR BRANDS

Image kuteev

CHARITIES

Image The Inspiration Room

Image Frederik Samuel

PHARMACEUTICALS

Image I Believe in Advertising

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Find all the ads here.

I just love libraries; I wish I could visit every single one of them.  And I love history.  So, when I found this website, I just had to share it with you!

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1. The Great Library & Mouseion: The First Universal Library (Alexandria, Egypt)

History tells us that the first ‘universal’ library was the Great Library & Mouseion in Alexandria, Egypt. Hungry for conquest and knowledge, Alexander the Great spent the last 11 years of his life (334 to 333 B.C.) exploring the world. To broaden the enterprise, he dispatched scholars to unexplored regions to gather knowledge and map their journeys…[more info at the website below]

2. The Celsus Library: One of Antiquity’s Finest Libraries (Ephesus, Turkey)

Image: Alaskan Dude

Another early library was the Celsus Library in Ephesus, built in 110 A.D. by the Council Gaius Julius Aquila. The library became one of the largest collections of antiquity, storing an estimated 12,000 hand-written books. Books could not be taken out of the library, but were handed to readers by library officials and read in the reading room.  Interestingly, the library had its own temperature regulation system: a second set of outer walls to protect the books from humidity and temperature variations.

3. The University of Sankore: An Ancient Seat of Muslim Learning (Sankore, Timbuktu)

Image: upyernoz

All this copying provided a lot of work for scribes. The University of Sankore in Timbuktu employed an army of scribes, who earned their living copying the manuscripts. As a result, Timbuktu became a repository of an extensive collection of manuscripts.

What were scribes paid? A papyrus of the second century AD gives rates “for 10,000 lines, 28 drachmae … For 6,300 lines, 13 drachmae.” The Emperor Diocletian tried to standardise the pay scribes received throughout the Roman Empire: “to a scribe for the best writing, 100 lines, 25 denarii; for second quality writing 100 lines 20 denarii; to a notary for writing a petition or legal document, 100 lines, 10 denarii.”

4. The Bodleian: One of The Oldest Surviving European Libraries (Oxford, England)

Image: J.Salmoral

It is said that King Charles I once asked the chief librarian of the Bodleian Library if he could borrow a book. A few years later, Oliver Cromwell asked the same question. The librarian refused them both. Stuart or Roundhead, books in the Bodleian could be read on the premises or not at all.

An earlier repository of books and documents at Oxford University was destroyed in the effort to rid England of all traces of Roman Catholicism, including “superstitious books and images”. Some were burnt, some sold and others used by glove makers to press gloves. Oxford University was not a wealthy institution and did not have the resources to build up a collection of new printed books to replace those destroyed…Today’s Bodleian claims to hold 11 million volumes, and to offer fuller access to online publications and databases than any other academic institution in the UK.

5. Chetham’s Library: The UK’s Oldest Free Public Reference Library (Manchester, England)

Image: infomotions

Chetham’s library is said to be Britain’s oldest surviving public library. Karl Marx visited the library in 1846, at the invitation of his friend Frederick Engels. In the bay of the library’s reading room, they carried out the research for Das Kapital…

6. Library of Congress: Jefferson’s Legacy (Washington D.C., United States)

Image: miss_villanelle

The Library of Congress, founded in 1800, is said to be the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. However, like the libraries of Ephesus and Alexandria, it became a victim of fire. During the War for Independence in 1814, British troops burned the Capitol building and destroyed the Library’s core collection of 3,000 volumes. One year later, however, Congress approved the purchase of Thomas Jefferson’s personal library of 6,487 books for $23,950 and the Library was restored.

Today the Library of Congress claims to be the largest library in the world, with nearly 142 million items on approximately 650 miles of bookshelves. The collections include more than 32 million books and other print materials, 3 million recordings, 12.5 million photographs, 5.3 million maps, 5.6 million pieces of sheet music and 62 million manuscripts.

7. The British Library: One of The World’s Most Extensive Collections (London, England)

Image: lisabatty

Compared to many other significant libraries, the British Library is relatively young having been brought into existence by the 1972 The British Library Act. The 1971 White Paper recognised that the constituent bodies of the proposed British Library (principally the British Museum Library) were seriously short of space and that rehousing the various collections was of top priority…

Literacy & Power: Inextricably Linked

Image: carf

…From the early sixteenth century onwards it was viewed as especially dangerous for women to read fiction.

In the Civil War era in the United States, knowledge was considered dangerous and white citizens in many areas imposed a ban on teaching slaves to read or write. In the years following the Civil War, only those who could read and write could vote, effectively fencing out many African Americans.

The First Public Libraries & The Spread of Knowledge

Image: Celeste

The dream of Thomas Bodley was to make collected books “available to the whole republic of the learned”.

In the 1840s, William Ewart, Joseph Brotherton, and Edward Edwards espoused a more democratic vision and launched a campaign to provide a system of public libraries. Brotherton and Ewart were both Liberal MPs. Edwards, however, was a Chartist and involved in the struggle for universal suffrage. A former bricklayer, he had educated himself by spending his non-working time in Mechanics’ Institute libraries, and in 1839 became an assistant in the Department of Printed Books in the British Museum.

However, when William Ewart introduced his Public Libraries Bill in 1849, he encountered considerable hostility from the Conservatives in the House of Commons. They argued that the rate-paying middle and upper classes would be supporting a service that would be mainly used by the working classes, and harked back to the old argument that: “the more education people get the more difficult they are to manage.”

After several fairly significant compromises, the Public Libraries Act became law in 1850. Due to these compromises, libraries were largely unfunded for many years and had to rely on the support of wealthy entrepreneurs. The greatest financial supporter of public libraries was Andrew Carnegie, who helped to finance over 380 libraries in Britain. It was not until 1919 that a truly comprehensive and free library service emerged.

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Please visit the website to find out about the first public libraries and more!

Related articles by Zemanta

• Borrow a book ‘wherever you are’ offer from libraries (news.bbc.co.uk)
• Director of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina at Stanford Next Month (longnow.org)

Sharing another wallpaper site–never get tired of them!  My favorites include:

(7) Enchanted Forest

(37) Survivor

(38) Distraction

(43) Leaf and Water

(48) A Dark Starry Night Wallpaper

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See all 66 images here.

This is a fantastic science-related website!

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MadSci Network represents a collective cranium of scientists providing answers to your questions. For good measure we provide a variety of oddities as well.

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Get all the details at Sci Network (http://www.madsci.org)

Image via Wikipedia

A question posted by Teddy, a science graduate of UC Santa Barbara asked this question:

…Is it known how many calories human thinking takes?  I see in your archives that the brain uses 10% of the body’s energy, and I’ve heard that our brains draw 25% of our blood flow, and that 25% of the heat radiated from our bodies is radiated from our heads, but is this true for all mammals?  For all primates?  How many calories are consumed by the “higher functions” of the brain that are special to humans, and how many by the parts that are found in other mammals?

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Alex Goddard, Grad student, Neuroscience, Harvard Medical School answers…

Hi Teddy,

That’s a good question! I think the short answer is that it’s less energy than you might expect. I’ve tried to explain why I think so below.

First, I’d say that the basic energy expenditure per unit area of brain is probably the same between different types of animals. A human brain uses more total energy than a rat brain because it’s bigger and more complex. This idea probably applies to heat generation, blood flow and caloric requirement as well.

I saw somewhere that the brain uses 20% of your caloric input for the day. I don’t think that number is absolute, but it seems reasonable. So, assuming you eat 2000 calories per day, your brain uses about 400 calories per day. Then, we need to ask, how much is spent on ‘thinking’ or cognitive abilities? (I’m leaving the idea of consciousness out of this, because it has no definition that has been agreed upon)

To start out, we need to realize that the energy expenditure of the brain at rest is really quite high. This is because maintaining a neuron’s baseline is very metabolically “expensive;” before neurons can transmit information, they have to be properly connected and maintained. A neuron’s ability to use electricity to transfer information comes at the cost of a large amount of energy; it needs to constantly pump different ions into and out of the cell (ions carry the electric charge). Maintaining the long nerves that may extend a meter (such as the ones from your brain to your spinal cord) is also metabolically taxing as new proteins have to be made constantly and shipped down the nerve. All these processes require energy, and we haven’t even sent any information down axons yet! I would contend that the amount of energy spent maintaining the cell is far more than is actually spent on sending an electrical impulse down an axon.

Ok, so cell maintenance requires a lot of energy. One could then ask the question, “What about the cognitive functions? How much energy do they require?” I think the best way to answer this would be to first ask, ‘How much of the brain is devoted to cognitive function?” If we could say that 50% of the brain was devoted to cognitive function, then we could say 50% of the energy is devoted towards maintaining cognitive function.

The answer to that question is a hard one to pin down. Most of the brain is involved in non-cognitive processing. The brain must recreate visual space from a bunch of pixels in your eye. It computes the location of a sound based on when the sound hits your right ear versus your left ear (within 2 degrees, I think). It maintains your balance, triggers fight-or-flight responses, and decides how your fingers must move to type on a keyboard. Lots of non-cognitive processes are going on.

Furthermore, cognitive abilities are distributed all over the brain. (For those not familiar with brain anatomy, take a peek here for reference for the following descriptions: http://normandy.sandhills.cc.nc.us/psy150/outerbr.gif )

For instance, a brain scan (functional MRI) of people doing arithmetic showed activity in frontal lobe, temporal lobe, and occipital lobe (although activation of the occipital lobe, the site of vision processing, may have had to do with the subjects seeing the math problem). Language processing and generation is located mainly in the temporal lobe and frontal lobe. Decision-making and determining the consequences of actions is thought to occur in the frontal lobe. Generally, the frontal lobe is thought to be a hot seat of ‘cognitive ability,’ but it is not a pure ‘cognitive center.’ It is thought to be involved in non-cognitive decision making (i.e. determining unconscious preference and value). So to ask how much of the human brain is solely dedicated to cognitive tasks, I’d have to hazard a very hand-waving guess of 5%. And that’s a pretty liberal guess. And most of the energy used is spent on maintaining the cells and connections in these areas, not the actual cognitive processing itself.

How does that relate to other animals, primate and non-primate? Primates have a very similar level of cognitive power. They do appear to have a simple form of language, and may even be able to read! ( http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/chimps.htm ). They can make complicated decisions. Non-primate animals definitely have cognitive abilities as well, such as decision making, risk assessment, and memory formation, though the degree to which these decisions are ‘conscious’ as in humans is quite debatable. I don’t know if I could put a number on how much more brain space and energy is spent on cognition by humans, because it could be the type and amount of connectivity between cells that is more important than the percentage of cells in the brain.

Lastly, I’ll just briefly mention one interesting tidbit of info. The process of being aware of your surroundings apparently requires a lot of energy, which is not surprising. The basic idea is that as you transmit information, it uses some energy. According to one report, “The high resting brain activity is proposed to include the global interactions constituting the subjective aspects of consciousness. Anesthesia by lowering the total firing rates correlates with the loss of consciousness.” That is to say, low conciousness = lower firing rates = less total energy consumed. fMRI really uses a measure of metabolism to determine firing rates:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=12806834&query_hl=4

I hope that provides some insights. I don’t know if we know enough to calculate an absolute number. If you have more questions, please do submit them!

-Alex G

from What are the energy requirements of thought?

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Can anyone translate that answer for the scientifically-challenged folks like myself?

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Presenting a calendar made of matches…

“The idea was to create as unique a calendar so that the process of its presenting would become an outstanding event.  Alongside with this, it was important to expose the idea of “energy”, as it is predetermined by the name and logo of the company.  Each page is a month and it looks like a comb made of matches that correspond to the days.  The matches are real and the construction of the calendar is absolutely safe.”

Specifics

• 9.8 inches wide, 5 inches high.
• Bound on metal spring 1.2 inches diameter
• Silk printing 2 colors.
• Matches are dipped in a special chemical solution and covered with sulphur, striking surface stripes are applied on both sides of a stand base.

from Calendar Made of Matches

It was published on Fri May 4, 2007 10:07am EDT…

PATNA, India (Reuters) – Hundreds of people are flocking to a remote village in eastern India to catch a glimpse of an old man who has spent six years lying inside his own grave waiting to die as he mourns for his wife, officials said.

Basanta Roy claims he is 103 and spends his day clearing weeds from the grave and lying in it. Belonging to a Hindu caste who bury their dead, Roy dug his grave close to his wife’s after she died in the late 1990s.

“He cleans his grave every day and waits for his death, which seems to be eluding him,” said Shyam Narayan Ram, a senior government official from Jharkhand state.

from “Mourning man lies in own grave, and waits to die“

I was so moved by this modern day Romeo & Juliet story.  If you can provide any details or links regarding this gentleman, please post it.

Thank you.

Fact: In ancient Rome, the job of the “nomenclator” was to whisper or announce the names of people as they approached a politician.

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You can always just say politely, “I’m sorry, I don’t recall your name,” but if you’d rather try to disguise your forgetfulness a bit, give these a try:

1. The “I know your name, but I’m blocked” dodge:
“I keep wanting to call you “David,” but I know that’s not right.”

2. The “Of course I know you — in fact, I want all your information” dodge:
“Hey, I’d love to get your card.”

3. The “The tip of my tongue” dodge:
“I know I know your name, but I’m blanking right now.”

4. The “You’re brilliant!” dodge:
“Wow, you have a terrific memory. I can’t believe you remember my name from that meeting six months ago. I can’t remember the names of people I met yesterday! So of course I have to ask you your name.”

5. The “Sure, I remember you” dodge:
“Remind me – what’s your last name?” If you ask a person for his last name, he’s likely to repeat both names. “Doe, John Doe.”

6. The “One-sided introduction” dodge:
“Hey,” you say to the person whose name you can’t remember, “let me introduce you to Pat Smith.” You introduce the two and say the name of the person whose name you remember. Almost always, the nameless person will volunteer his or her name.

Taken from The Happiness Project

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The Yoomi baby bottle (sells in the UK for $35) heats to the temperature of breast milk with just the touch of a button.  The milk is ready to use in 60 seconds after heating to around 32-34 degrees celsius.

The device was born out of desperation after the birth of the inventor’s  eldest boy Danial.  Their experiences of stumbling around the kitchen in the early hours heating milk in the microwave or begging waiters for hot water when out to warm the bottle in, mirror those of millions of other couples.

The gadget that makes a difference is the sealed warmer unit that sits inside the bottle and beneath the teat.  Pressing a button on the side of the unit triggers heating of a solution contained within the warmer.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1230382/The-baby-bottle-heats-60-seconds.html#ixzz0Xyi7lZMp

Fantastic for desktop wallpaper…

These scenes produce spectacular atmosphere and look stunning. Today, we have collected 55 truly brilliant landscapes captured by photographers that will definitely inspire you.

Here are some of my favorites:

Active Volcano

Angry Clouds

Margate

Tornados

Weather

Source

Using only tape and garbage bags, Joshua Allen Harris creates giant inflatable animals that become animated when fastened to a sidewalk grate.  Steven Psyllos caught up with Harris recently to discuss his older works (including a bear and a giraffe) and unveil a new beast that looks not unlike the Cloverfield monster.

A young mother has become the first in the world to get a new part of her body made from her own stem cells.  The woman in Spain received a new windpipe — grown in a lab.  British doctors who were involved in the revolutionary transplant say it heralds a new era in medicine…Health Correspondent Thomas Moore explains.

Image via Wikipedia

Fingerprint ridges are formed during the third to fourth month of fetal development. The ridges begin to develop on the skin of the thumbs and fingers.

Source

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The earliest dated prints of the ridged skin on human hands were made about 4,000 years ago during the pyramid building era in Egypt.  In addition, one small portion of palm print, not known to be human, has been found impressed in hardened mud at a 10,000-year old site in Egypt.

It was common practice for the Chinese to use inked fingerprints on official documents, land sales, contracts, loans and acknowledgements of debts.  The oldest existing documents so endorsed date from the 3rd century BC, and it was still an effective practice until recent times.  Even though it is recorded that the Chinese used their fingerprints to establish identity in courts in litigation over disputed business dealings, researchers fail to agree as to whether the Chinese were fully aware of the uniqueness of a fingerprint or whether the physical contact with documents had some spiritual significance.

Source

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Source

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The Federal Bureau of Investigation established its first fingerprint identification division in the year 1924, with a collection of 810,188 fingerprint files taken mostly from the Leavenworth Penitentiary. These files became more and more important with the emergence of an increasing number of intellectual criminals who crossed all legal and state lines.  Today, the FBI has in possession more than 250 millions different sets of fingerprint records. This collection is enormous and is composed of both civil as well as criminal prints. The civil file includes prints of government employees and candidates for federal jobs.

Source

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Related articles by Zemanta

• Touchless 3-D Fingerprinting (technologyreview.com)

“Police forces in the US are piloting a new kind of police car. Not only does it make a sound and flash its lights when speeding to an emergency it also rumbles, shaking the ground up to 200 feet away giving pedestrians and other drivers advance notice to MOVE!!! The technology is currently being tested in New York.”

Image via Wikipedia

Reported in the Massachusetts Bar Association Lawyers Journal, the following are questions actually asked of witnesses by attorneys during trials and, in certain cases, the responses given by insightful witnesses:

1. “Now doctor, isn’t it true that when a person dies in his sleep, he doesn’t know about it until the next morning?”
2. “The youngest son, the twenty-year old, how old is he?”
3. “Were you present when your picture was taken?”
4. “Were you alone or by yourself?”
5. “Was it you or your younger brother who was killed in the war?”
6. “Did he kill you?”
7. “How far apart were the vehicles at the time of the collision?”
8. “You were there until the time you left, is that true?”
9. “How many times have you committed suicide?”
10. Q: “So the date of conception (of the baby) was August 8th?”
A: “Yes.”
Q: “And what were you doing at that time?”
11. Q: “She had three children, right?”
A: “Yes.”
Q: “How many were boys?”
A: “None.”
Q: “Were there any girls?”
12. Q: “You say the stairs went down to the basement?”
A: “Yes.”
Q: “And these stairs, did they go up also?”
13. Q: “Mr. Slatery, you went on a rather elaborate honeymoon, didn’t you?
A: “I went to Europe, sir.”
Q: “And you took your new wife?”
14. Q: “How was your first marriage terminated?”
A: “By death.”
Q: “And by whose death was it terminated?”
15. Q: “Can you describe the individual?”
A: “He was about medium height and had a beard.”
Q: “Was this a male or female?”
16. Q: “Is your appearance here this morning pursuant to a deposition notice which I sent to your attorney?”
A: “No, this is how I dress when I go to work.”
17. Q: “Doctor, how many autopsies have you performed on dead people?”
A: “All my autopsies are performed on dead people.”
18. Q: “All your responses must be oral, OK? What school did you go to?”
A: “Oral.”
19. Q: “Do you recall the time that you examined the body?”
A: The autopsy started around 8:30 p.m.”
Q: “And Mr. Dennington was dead at the time?”
A: “No, he was sitting on the table wondering why I was doing an autopsy.”
20. Q: “You were not shot in the fracas?”
A: “No, I was shot midway between the fracas and the naval.”
21. Q: “Are you qualified to give a urine sample?”
A: “I have been since early childhood.”
22. Q: “Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?”
A: “No.”
Q: “Did you check for blood pressure?”
A: “No.”
Q: “Did you check for breathing?”
A: “No.”
Q: “So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?”
A: “No.”
Q: “How can you be so sure, doctor?”
A: “Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.”
Q: “But could the patient have still been alive nevertheless?”
A: “It is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law somewhere.”

By anisha
Published: 5/4/2001

…These questions will either break the ice, get a laugh, or completely confuse the witness…

“Just how old were you really on your twenty-fifth birthday?”
“Can you see without your glasses or your teeth?”
“What was the defendant doing while you were in the bathroom?”
“Do you still feel you are brain damaged?”
“Where did you live in town after you moved away?”
“What don’t you know about the accident and when did you find out?”
“Just when did you realize you hadn’t been killed in the accident?”
“You’re just saying that to confuse me, or is that your normal way of talking?”
“Did you look at the defendant when you saw him?”
“Can you describe what you didn’t see?”
“Was that when you were in a coma or had you already left the hospital?”
“Are you qualified to be an expert or is there somebody else more qualified to make that conclusion?”
“I think we all know who will be the judge of that, right Judge?”
“Could you repeat that again for those who heard it the first time?”
“I see you have clothes on today.”
“What do you mean exactly by that particular phrase you elucidated?”
“Could you be more specific than “I don’t remember?”
“And what time was it by the watch you weren’t wearing?”
“Do you have a first name, John?”
“Do you consider yourself to be an honest or a dishonest person when you promise to tell the truth?”
“Have you ever lied to anyone before today?”
“Have you ever driven drunk before the accident?”
“And how many teeth would you estimate you have?”
“Are you able to touch your nose and walk a straight line better today than you were on the date of the accident?”
“Can you estimate how many wives you have?”
“Do you consider yourself to be as honest as the Judge in this courtroom?”
“Have you been practicing what you would say today?”
“And exactly when did you come up with a conclusion that would make sense?”
“We’ve never met before today, except for that time in Vegas, have we?”
“Have you ever been to Vegas?”
“Does your wife know about that trip?”
“What caused you to be a child when you were that age?”
“Did you eventually become an adult?”
“Do you know what questions I’m going to be asking you to give me answers to or are you just guessing?”
“You seem confusing. Are you speaking too fast or would you like me to slow down?”

Source

The Poseidon Resort in Fiji (opening in early 2010) has underwater suites and island villas.

To get information on their beach bungalows, the underwater library, the wedding chapel, the restaurants, and more visit: Poseidon Resort

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What a lovable, charismatic woman!  Here’s her first video.

91 year old cook and great grandmother, Clara, recounts her childhood during the Great Depression as she prepares meals from the era. Learn how to make simple yet delicious dishes while listening to stories from the Depression.

Clara Cannucciari is a 94 year-old internet sensation. Her YouTube® Great Depression Cooking videos have an army of devoted followers. In Claras Kitchen, she gives readers words of wisdom to buck up Americas spirits, recipes to keep the wolf from the door, and tells her story of growing up during the Great Depression with a tight-knit family and a pull yourself up by your bootstraps philosophy of living. In between recipes for pasta with peas, eggplant parmesan, chocolate covered biscotti, and other treats Clara gives readers practical advice on cooking nourishing meals for less. Using lessons she learned during the Great Depression, she writes, for instance, about how to conserve electricity when cooking and how you can stretch a pot of pasta with a handful of lentils. She reminisces about her youth and writes with love about her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Claras Kitchen takes readers back to a simpler, if not more difficult time, and gives everyone what they need right now: hope for the future and a nice dish of warm pasta from everyones favorite grandmother, Clara Cannuciari, a woman who knows whats really important in life.

The videos of the account of Pastor Daniel Ekechukwu’s resurrection are hard to understand in places.  For more information, see the link at the bottom of this post.

Nigerian pastor Daniel Ekechukwu physically died in the late evening of Friday, November 30th, 2001, was dead for at least 42 hours, visited heaven and hell during the time of his physical death, and was raised from the dead between 3:50 P.M. and 5:15 P.M. on Sunday, December 2nd, 2001 in the basement of the Grace of God Mission, located in Onitsha, Nigeria.

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Part 1 – Introduction of the events preceding his death.

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Part 2 – Angelic encounter in the ambulance where they take him to heaven and explain the differences between the gathering of the angels vs the gathering of the saints.

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Part 3 – Description of the heavenly mansions and singing flowers.  Then an angel takes Daniel to hell where he describes the experience…the angel explains the reason why the pastor encounters a soul who practiced witchcraft (Rev 21:8).

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Part 4 –  The angel explains to Daniel why if the book of life was closed, hell would be Daniel’s portion.  Powerful message about reaping the harvest of unforgiveness and Daniel’s insatiable desire for revenge…

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Part 5 – Daniel’s experience about coming back to his body, which was lying in the mortuary for three days.

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Much more information about this story can be found here.

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A Point to Ponder:

1) I was thinking about the number of views this video received so far: Views: 22,271.  Compare that to Susan Boyle: Views: 78,717,532.  Just thought I’d throw that in.

2) Regarding salvation–if everyone is going to heaven, why did Jesus have to die?

Source

These totally fall in the ‘weird’ category …

Find lots more here - Source

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Get these beauties here - Source

The biologists from Dow AgroSciences, NAU Imaging and Histology Core Facility, ASU International Institute for Species Exploration and W. M. Keck Bioimaging Laboratory are pleased to present the Ugly Bug contestants for 2009. Each of the bugs are anxious to be crowned champion so be sure to vote soon and vote often.

On the list:

1. Macrosiphon: “The Blade” Aphid
2. Xylocops “The Hammer” Carpenter Bee
3. Periplanta americana “La Cucaracha” Cockroach
4. Acanthocephala “The Leaf Foot” Coreidae
5. Tipulidae “The Gollywhopper” Crane Fly
6. Apis “Sweetness” Honey Bee
7. Harpegnathos “The Ringleader” Jerdon’s Jumping Ant
8. Polistes “The Shocker” Paper Wasp
9. Hadurus “The Stinger” Scorpion
10. Agulla “Stretch” Snakefly

Cast your vote here.

A bottle of beer found in the wreckage of the Hindenburg sold for $16,680 (USD) at auction, shattering the world record.

The brown bottle of Lowenbrau lager was discovered in the wreckage by Leroy Smith, a fire chief on the scene.  Smith discovered a total of six bottles and a pitcher at the scene of the disaster.  He distributed four of the bottles as souvenirs to colleagues and one to the Lowenbrau brewery in 1977, where it still remains.  The final price was much higher than expected.  Early reports suggested that the beer was expected to fetch $4,000-$8,000.  According to the Gazette & Herald, bidders from all over the world battled over the bottle, the majority of which were from the US.  With the addition of the buyer’s premium, the total cost of the bottle was L10,810.  The label on the bottle remains intact and legible, and though the brew survived the disaster, the auctioneer cautioned against quaffing the beverage, saying that the 62-year-old suds would “taste putrid.”

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