Struggling to tell the difference between the death cap mushroom and a parasol mushroom?
What you need is a new mobile phone which can tell the difference between poisonous funghi and edible mushrooms.
The phone has been developed by a team of scientists in Austria in an attempt to prevent the dozens of people poisoned and several killed every year after eating poisonous funghi.
The researchers based at Hagenberg college, invented software which can identify 600 different funghi.
Foragers need to photograph mushrooms which can then be compared with the systems database to ensure it is edible and not a poisonous variety.
31.7.07
Phone for Mushroom Lovers
Border IDs checked without leaving car
"the world's first automated border control system that uses facial recognition technology capable of identifying people inside their automobiles," according to Pink Tentacle, and it's already being used at checkpoints between Hong Kong and Shenzhen. The biometrics system was developed to break immigration logjams in China and elsewhere, checking chip-embedded national ID cards without required motorists to leave their cars. Automated cameras scan license plates as vehicles apprach, then apply the face-recognition software to make sure that the registered driver is behind the wheel.
29.7.07
Le Pétomane
Le Pétomane was the stage name of the French professional farter and entertainer Joseph Pujol (June 1, 1857 - 1945).
He was famous for his remarkable control of the abdominal muscles, which enabled him to fart at will. His stage name combines the French verb péter, "to fart" with the -mane, "maniac" suffix, found in words like toxicomane. In English, a translation might yield "the fart maniac". His profession can also be referred to as a "Flatulist" or a "Fartiste."
Peanut Butter Diamonds
Peanut butter is being turned into diamonds by scientists with a technique that harnesses pressures higher than those found at the centre of the earth.
28.7.07
So this one time at Russian Band Camp...
Sex for the motherland: Russian youths encouraged to procreate at camp
Remember the mammoths, say the clean-cut organisers at the youth camp's mass wedding. "They became extinct because they did not have enough sex. That must not happen to Russia".
Obediently, couples move to a special section of dormitory tents arranged in a heart-shape and called the Love Oasis, where they can start procreating for the motherland.
With its relentlessly upbeat tone, bizarre ideas and tight control, it sounds like a weird indoctrination session for a phoney religious cult.
But this organisation - known as "Nashi", meaning "Ours" - is youth movement run by Vladimir Putin's Kremlin that has become a central part of Russian political life.
27.7.07
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25.7.07
Drug Bust Squared
The way U.S. and Mexican authorities describe 44-year-old Zhenli Ye Gon, he might have sprung from some pulp novelist's overheated imagination.
Born in Shanghai, he lived in Mexico and ran a pharmaceuticals company -- a front, authorities allege, that supplied Mexican drug cartels with massive quantities of a chemical used to make the street drug methamphetamine. Police raided his luxurious Mexico City home in March, carting off what they said was $207 million, most of it in $100 bills that had been stashed behind false walls and in closets. The U.S. government called it "the largest single drug cash seizure the world has ever seen."
When the law caught up with Ye Gon on Monday night, his weeks on the lam ended in an Asian restaurant on Veirs Mill Road in Wheaton -- in P.J. Rice Bistro, in Westfield Wheaton mall, near a Ruby Tuesday and a JCPenney.
This is a man who owned a fleet of luxury cars and had mistresses in several countries, according to Mexican officials. In recent years, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration said, he gambled away nearly $126 million in Las Vegas casinos.
24.7.07
23.7.07
Ja Rule & Lil Wayne get Popped
The hip-hop stars, who have recently released a duet called Uh Oh, were arrested separately following a concert in Manhattan on Sunday.
Rule, whose real name is Jeff Atkins, was stopped for speeding when a weapon was discovered in his car, police said.
Officers also found a pistol when detaining Lil Wayne, whose real name is Dwayne Carter, for smoking marijuana.
Both Carter and a companion were charged with criminal possession of a weapon and marijuana.
22.7.07
Taller than your average building
The United Arab Emirates has just stolen the crown from Taiwan in the tallest building stakes. The Burj Dubai, still under construction, reached 141 stories on Saturday 21/07/07. The structure stands an impressive 512.1m (1,680ft) tall.
Once completed, Burj Dubai will have consumed 330,000 cubic meters of concrete, 39,000 metric tons of steel and 142,000 square meters of glass, Emaar said. It will have 56 lifts traveling at 1.75 to 10 meters per second.
The Taipei 101, in Taiwan, was the previous titleholder standing at 508m high and resided above the rest of the architectural world since its opening in 2004. The developers of the Burj Dubai, Emaar properties, declined to comment on how tall the completed structure would be. What is for sure—it will be large—as large as my penis if it were a building.
21.7.07
20.7.07
Well, the NFL, despite perceptions, is "not for losers!"
In a July 12 letter, a copy of which you'll find below, Councilman Michael Polensek, 57, tore into Arsenio Winston, 18, after learning of the teenager's arrest earlier this month on a felony drug trafficking rap.
Tax evaders take on US government
"Show me the law!" says Ed, a trim 64-year-old with a silver mustache, whose forehead crinkles when he gets heated. The Browns stopped paying income taxes in 1996. They say the Constitution and Supreme Court decisions support their claims that ordinary labor cannot be taxed. But a judge ruled against them in January, convicting the Browns of conspiring to evade paying taxes on $1.9 million in income from Elaine's dentistry practice.
Now, the Browns say they're in a battle for freedom, and it just might end in bloodshed right here, in a towering turreted house with 8-inch-thick concrete walls and an American flag fluttering over the double-car garage. They have garnered national support, with blogs devoted to news about the standoff and supporters regularly showing up on the couple's doorstep with groceries.
Farfour
Tomorrow's Pioneers is a weekly children's program, shown since April 13, 2007 on the official Palestinian Hamas television station, Al-Aqsa TV. The program used a Mickey Mouse look-alike, named Farfur (or Farfour, "butterfly" in Arabic); the character has since been replaced by a bumblebee.
19.7.07
17.7.07
Jason Forrest / Donna Summer - Steppin' Off
I love how the tags for this video are: elf wizard breakcore cocaine 70's
MIT-ness
So this is what happens when you try to fit in with the MIT kids and you have a giant laundry bag...thanks Bryn for letting us share this moment. I find it highly entertaining...almost better than cybercamp...almost
11.7.07
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