Lightning in Indian states 'kills 32'

At least 32 people have been killed following lightning strikes in the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Orissa, reports say.

Twenty-three people died in seven districts of Andhra Pradesh. Nine people were killed in the eastern state of Orissa.

Overgrown Australian sheep Chris 'breaks world record'

An overgrown Australian sheep affectionately named Chris has set a new unofficial world record following a hair cut from five shearers.

Welfare crews warned it risked death because it was so woolly from living in the wild for several years.

Stuck on the iPhone “S” cycle? It’s cheaper than ever to break out.

This may the most ridiculous first-world problem I've ever written about. But I'm not writing this only for me. I'm writing this for you, my friends. I know you're out there. I'm one of you.

I, too, am an S-person.

What am I talking about? There are basically two types of iPhone users: Numbered-release people and S-release people. For years, Apple has alternated between the two types of release -- iPhone 3, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, etc. But in nearly all cases, the big "wow!" changes come on the

The Prettiest Homes in America

   If your current house is overrun with clutter...or crabgrass...or Fisher-Price jumparoos, take a break from your worrying and have a look at these nine beautiful abodes. From historic estates to zero-energy eco-havens, we’ve rounded up some of the prettiest residential spots in the entire country.

Fallingwater: Mill Run, Pennsylvania

Oh, Frank Lloyd Wright… what can’t you do? This iconic house built over a 30-foot waterfall is a total architectural marvel, thanks to cantilevered floors and T-shaped beams integrated into a monolithic slab of reinforced concrete.

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Facebook offers free education software in US

Much of the traditional learning is done online 

Facebook has taken its first steps into the education market with software that it claims allows children to learn at their own pace.

It is working with non-profit Summit Public Schools which has pioneered a teaching method that allows students to learn online and be mentored in class.

Facebook said that he project was completely separate from its social network.

There has been some scepticism about the technology firm's move.

In a blog post, Facebook's chief product officer Chris Cox said that the firm wanted to create a classroom "centred around students' ambitions". (Read more... )

Brown Rice or White Rice - Which should you Choose?

Brown rice (or "hulled" or "unmilled" rice) is whole grain rice. It has a mild, nutty flavor, and is chewier and more nutritious than white rice, but goes rancid more quickly because the bran and germ—which are removed to make white rice—contain fats that can spoil. Any rice, including long-grain, short-grain, or glutinous rice, may be eaten as brown rice. Although widely believed to be superior nutritionally to white rice, the nutritive value of brown rice has recently been challenged due to concerns over arsenic levels.

Yoga Music: Healing Flute Music for Balancing Chakras and Meditation

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Gravestone Indonesia's Unique Delicious Food

What is Kijing? Kijing is gravestone called in the Java language. Malay called Mussels, and in Sundanese name Haremis. Gravestone similar names shellfish that live in the river. Gravestone really like to settle on the sandy river bottom and cold temperature.

His skin is yellow, there is also a section that is blue-black. Her skin was as hard as marble slippery but not fluffy. If opened, it would look like inside the mussel or Kupang in East Java language is similar but the white shells and flattened wide.

 (See also: bamboo shoots bamboo shoots unique Indonesian food)



When I was sitting in 3rd grade, I had jaundice. By mom I required to drink a glass Kijing stew every night. In the morning I drink a decoction Gathering Comedy mixed palm sugar. Mother tradisionla prescription drug was very effective. Within three (3) days is involved in the change. no queasy stomach again and the eyes and the skin is not too yellow anymore. Within a month had recovered one hundred percent and up to now never come back again.

Besides drinking , gravestone can also be used as a delicious and inexpensive meal . Each bathing and fishing to time , we are looking Kijing crowded at peak times . Smpai at home , gravestone washed with clean water , then boiled until the skin broke. Diambilah contents with a fork and dumped feces black For some people this dirt is not removed and co- consumed .

After it is cleaned again with water and can be cooked according to taste . Here given one of my favorite recipes . CHILI COOK gravestone Tauco IJO Material: gravestone that has been peeled and cleaned . Can be mixed with tempeh and tofu . Seasoning : Cabe Ijo , Shallots , Garlic, Ginger , Laos , Salam , lemongrass , salt , white sugar , Tauco , Tomato .



Cooking : Kijing fried Do Until dry , wilt origin Only. * All Seasonings chopped and pan-fried, then fried Kijing input , then the last in tauco . Can be added coconut milk . Cooking Up Mature and enjoy WITH Warm white rice plus a warm sweet tea . Sitting cross-legged eating differences mat and wear hands only, called lesehan.

Draco volans the Flying lizards, Rare and Unique animals

Draco volans, commonly known as the flying dragon, is a species of lizard endemic to Southeast Asia.
It is a member of the genus of gliding lizards Draco. It can spread out folds of skin attached to its movable ribs to form "wings" that it uses to glide from tree to tree over distances upwards of 8 metres

Evidence that Earth's first mass extinction was caused by critters not catastrophe

Fossil of frond-like Ediacaran species found in Namibia.

In the popular mind, mass extinctions are associated with catastrophic events, like giant meteorite impacts and volcanic super-eruptions.

But the world's first known mass extinction, which took place about 540 million years ago, now appears to have had a more subtle cause: evolution itself.

"People have been slow to recognize that biological organisms can also drive mass extinction," said Simon Darroch, assistant professor of earth and environmental sciences at Vanderbilt University. "But our comparative study of several communities of Ediacarans, the world's first multicellular organisms, strongly supports the hypothesis that it was the appearance of complex animals capable of altering their environments, which we define as 'ecosystem engineers,' that resulted in the Ediacaran's disappearance."

The study is described in the paper "Biotic replacement and mass extinction of the Ediacara biota" published Sept. 2 in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

"There is a powerful analogy between the Earth's first mass extinction and what is happening today," Darroch observed. "The end-Ediacaran extinction shows that the evolution of new behaviors can fundamentally change the entire planet, and we are the most powerful 'ecosystem engineers' ever known."

The earliest life on Earth consisted of microbes - various types of single-celled microorganisms. They ruled the Earth for more than 3 billion years. Then some of these microorganisms discovered how to capture the energy in sunlight. The photosynthetic process that they developed had a toxic byproduct: oxygen. Oxygen was poisonous to most microbes that had evolved in an oxygen-free environment, making it the world's first pollutant.

But for the microorganisms that developed methods for protecting themselves, oxygen served as a powerful new energy source. Among a number of other things, it gave them the added energy they needed to adopt multicellular forms. Thus, the Ediacarans arose about 600 million years ago during a warm period following a long interval of extensive glaciation.

Ediacaran fossil found in the Swartput Farm site.

"We don't know very much about the Ediacarans because they did not produce shells or skeletons. As a result, almost all we know about them comes from imprints of their shapes preserved in sand or ash," said Darroch.

What scientists do know is that, in their heyday, Ediacarans spread throughout the planet. They were a largely immobile form of marine life shaped like discs and tubes, fronds and quilted mattresses. The majority were extremely passive, remaining attached in one spot for their entire lives. Many fed by absorbing chemicals from the water through their outer membranes, rather than actively gathering nutrients.

Paleontologists have coined the term "Garden of Ediacara" to convey the peace and tranquility that must have prevailed during this period. But there was a lot of churning going on beneath that apparently serene surface.

After 60 million years, evolution gave birth to another major innovation: animals. All animals share the characteristics that they can move spontaneously and independently, at least during some point in their lives, and sustain themselves by eating other organisms or what they produce. Animals burst onto the scene in a frenzy of diversification that paleontologists have labeled the Cambrian explosion, a 25-million-year period when most of the modern animal families - vertebrates, molluscs, arthropods, annelids, sponges and jellyfish - came into being.

"These new species were 'ecological engineers' who changed the environment in ways that made it more and more difficult for the Ediacarans to survive," said Darroch.

He and his colleagues performed an extensive paleoecological and geochemical analysis of the youngest known Ediacaran community exposed in hillside strata in southern Namibia. The site, called Farm Swartpunt, is dated at 545 million years ago, in the waning one to two million years of the Ediacaran reign.

Simon Darroch in Namibia searching for fossils.

"We found that the diversity of species at this site was much lower, and there was evidence of greater ecological stress, than at comparable sites that are 10 million to 15 million years older," Darroch reported. Rocks of this age also preserve an increasing diversity of burrows and tracks made by the earliest complex animals, presenting a plausible link between their evolution and extinction of the Ediacarans.

The older sites were Mistaken Point in Newfoundland, dating from 579 to 565 million years ago; Nilpena in South Australia, dating from 555 to 550 million years ago; and the White Sea in Russia, dating also from 555 to 550 million years ago million years ago.

Darroch and his colleagues made extensive efforts to ensure that the differences they recorded were not due to some external factor.

For example, they ruled out the possibility that the Swartpunt site might have been lacking in some vital nutrients by closely comparing the geochemistry of the sites.

It is a basic maxim in paleontology that the more effort that is made in investigating a given site, the greater the diversity of fossils that will be found there. So the researchers used statistical methods to compensate for the variation in the differences in the amount of effort that had been spent studying the different sites.

Having ruled out any extraneous factors, Darroch and his collaborators concluded that "this study provides the first quantitative palaeoecological evidence to suggest that evolutionary innovation, ecosystem engineering and biological interactions may have ultimately caused the first mass extinction of complex life."