The Taklamakan Desert in Xinjiang, China, was covered with snow after a heavy snowfall…
As beauty as it seems… China is suffering from the worst winter weather in decades, which are affecting the lives of millions.
A man-made saltwater lagoon on the southern coast of Chile has been acknowledged by the Guinness World Records as the world’s largest swimming pool.
The pool is just beside the coastline… how bizarre…
The swimming pool at the resort of San Alfonso del Mar in Algarrobo city measures 1,013 metres (3,323 ft) in length, covers an area of eight hectares (20 acres), contains 250,000 cubic meters of water and is navigable in small boats. [Xinhuanet]
The previous largest pool in the world is the Orthlieb pool in Casablanca, Morocco, which measures at 480×75 metres. An Olympic size pool is just 50×25 metres.
Some interesting links…
Little green ‘naked’ alien discovered on Mars
Bizarre images taken by Nasa’s Mars Explorer Spirit have emerged showing a very strange human shape walking down a hill.
Virgin unveils spaceship designs
Virgin Galactic has released the final design of the launch system that will take fare-paying passengers into space.
Most of your essentials are already distributed by vending machines: condoms, electronics, luscious 1-calorie Tab… but now, you can finally get what you (don’t) really need: medical marijuana, from Anytime Vending Machines.
Sea lions massacred in Galapagos
Ecuadorean officials are investigating the slaughter of 53 sea lions from the Galapagos Islands nature reserve, which were found with their heads caved in.
Cow gas destroyer could save planet [via]
Japanese boffins may have accidentally struck gold in the fight against global warming: they believe they have devised a way to neutralise the perilous belches of 1.5 billion cows.
Why the spy satellite won’t fall on your head
An out-of-control US spy satellite - possibly the size of small bus - is believed to be plummeting out of its orbit and is expected to crash somewhere on the planet within weeks… but space experts don’t believe the rogue satellite poses much of a threat to humankind.
Man struggles to return from the dead
Red tape is preventing a Polish man from returning from the dead.
The coldest place in the universe [via]
As far as scientists can tell, the lowest temperatures ever attained were recently observed right here on earth.
I was a bit confused when I read about Brandy, the smallest dog in the world, as I thought that the title should belong to Boo Boo instead.
Fact is, both dogs are recognised by Guinness World Records as the smallest dog in the world… the different is that Brandy is the smallest in term of length, while Boo Boo the smallest in term of height.
A one-tonne “fossil rat” has been discovered in South America.
The megarodent lived in lowland rain forests between two and four million years ago and weighed about 1,000 kilograms, based on an analysis of its 53-centimetre-long skull.
The newfound species, called Josephoartigasia monesi, is reported on Jan 16 in a study led by Andrés Rinderknecht of the National Museum of Natural History and Anthropology in Montevideo, Uruguay. [National Geographic]
A research team at Rice University in Houston, US, has claimed that they have made the darkest material on Earth, a substance so black it absorbs more than 99.9 percent of light.
Made from tiny tubes of carbon standing on end, this material is almost 30 times darker than a carbon substance used by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology as the current benchmark of blackness.
And the material is close to the long-sought ideal black, which could absorb all colors of light and reflect none. [Reuters, via Neatorama]
I wonder if there is something like ‘whiter than white’ as well.
Toothpick artist Steven Backman has carved a miniature replica of San Francisco’s landmark, the Golden Gate Bridge, using just a single toothpick! [Hat tip to Artnewsblog and Spluch]
Steven is famed for his toothpick sculptures; his famous works include a Golden Gate Bridge replica which used 30,000 toothpicks … contrary to the miniature replica above which used just one toothpick.
Both sculptures seem great to me.