Italian archeologists have found in Egypt what may be the world's oldest indoor bowling alley. A spacious room, with a shallow lane running through into a pit and two heavy stone balls lying nearby, was found at an ancient site in the province of Al-Fayyum, 90 kilometers (56 miles) south of Cairo, and appears to be man's first attempt to create an area for a game that was to become the prototype for modern-day bowling.

The site dates back to the Ptolemaic era, which began in 332 B.C with Ptolemy I Soter declaring himself Pharaoh of Egypt following Alexander the Great's conquest, and ended with the Roman conquest in 30 B.C. The bowling room was apparently part of a residential building, with papyruses, pottery and copper utensils found at the site in abundance.

It's believed that two players would throw balls from the two ends of a lane. The one throwing a smaller ball aimed to get the ball in a hole, while one throwing a larger ball tried to block the other's shot. The lane is made from three pieces of joint marble.

Source : dsc.discovery.com

WWII Aircraft discovered at popular beach after 65 years

For 65 years, beach strollers, sunbathers and swimmers often frolicked the beach in Wales. Unaware to them, there's a large fighter aircraft lies just a few feet beneath their favorite swimming spot. The aircraft was finally surfaced after unusual weather caused the sand to shift and erode.

In the summer of 2007, a Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighter aircraft, with its distinctive twin-boom design presumed to be USAAF serial number 41-7677, emerged from the sand of a beach in Wales where it crash landed in 1942. The aircraft, largely intact and remarkably free of corrosion, is one of the most significant WWII-related archaeological discoveries in recent history

Upon learning of the discovery in September, Richard Gillespie, executive director of The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) alerted curators at the UK national aviation museums (Imperial War Museum, Royal Air Force Museum, and Fleet Air Arm Museum). Interest in the discovery was keen and, as a service to the national museums, Gillespie mobilized a seven person TIGHAR archaeological survey team to assess the aircraft’s condition, describe and record the wreck site, and collect data that will be useful in recovery operations planned for the spring of 2008. TIGHAR also notified the United States Air Force Federal Preservation Officer.

Based on its serial number and other records, "the fighter is arguably the oldest P-38 in existence, and the oldest surviving 8th Air Force combat aircraft of any type," said Ric Gillespie, who heads a U.S.-based nonprofit group dedicated to preserving historic aircraft. "In that respect it's a major find, of exceptional interest to British and American aviation historians."


Source : www.tighar.org

Birds that barks naturally

We knew from visiting the zoo and TV that parrots has a special talent of mimicking human speech. Parrots have been kept as pets for thousands of years, and the African Grey parrot was highly popular in Greek and Roman times. Meanwhile, Macaws, which are a parrot-like bird, can also be taught some speech if you have patience, but are not as chatty as a true parrot. Cockatoos are the real performers, often ruffling their beautiful head crest before repeating something you might not want to be overheard by the kids. The common parakeet or budgie, can also be taught by repetition to imitate specific things, including words and sentences but they will often pick up sounds on their own, such as a whistling kettle, or a dog barking.

But when it comes to barking, nothing can match a new species of bird discovered only a decade ago. The species was discovered in June 1998 in the Andes, Ecuador by ornithologist Robert S. Ridgely, Director of the Center for Neotrpical Ornithology at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. The new species now named Antpitta avis canis Ridgely is about the size of a duck, is one of the largest birds discovered in the last 50 years. Appeared in black and white and with long legs, it startled Robert by barking like a dog! Amazingly, the bark is a natural sound, and not a mere learned imitation. 30 of these barking birds were found. It went undetected for so long because it lives in remote parts and, of course, it doesn't sing and the barking might only be heard during breeding season

Source : www.sciam.com

Small fish, big appetite

There's a lot of strange animals out there, and sometimes it'll prompt us to think if those creatures in science fiction really does exist? Today we'll look at fish bizarre enough to give you nightmares. The picture shown below is species of fish found in deep seas and also hot tropical waters up to 1,500 meters. It's scientific name is Chiasmodon niger, or better known as the Black or Great Swallower. The Great swallower can grow up to 25 centimeters.

A typical food chain would normally be large animal eating medium size, and medium size animal preying on the smaller size. The Great Swallower reversed all we have learned about food chain. If you look carefully, besides its strange monstrous look, it has an overproportioned large mouth. By now, you should've guessed where it earn its name from. This creature can actually swallowed prey that's 3-4 times larger. It has a belly that can expand like a balloon to accommodate the larger prey. One of the explanation why they need to hunt for prey that's larger than its size is because, well, they don't have to hunt at all! All it need to do is to wait for a predator to attack, not knowing that seconds later they've turned into a prey.

In October 2007, Local fisherman, McPherson ‘Dorson’ Wright while fishing in about 1,400 feet of water off the South Coast of Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands, Mr. Wright’s spotted an object that was floating on the surface nearby. What he found was a Great Swallower. That's not all, in the belly of the Great Swallower was another fish, it was a Snake Mackerel that was more than four times its own length!

When he took it to the Department of the Environment to investigate further, marine scientist Phillippe Bush snapped some photographs and sent them up to the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute in the United States. A short time later, Tracey Sutton wrote back saying the fish “was appropriately called a ‘Great Swallower’ and it normally lives in deep water.” The scientist was clearly excited by the pictures he was looking at. Mr. Sutton wrote saying “This is amazing! I have seen this fish with big prey before but yours takes the cake. It would surely rank as one of the largest, if not the largest, rations known among all fishes (relative to their own weight).”

The scientist at the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute also offered to pay to have Mr. Wright’s fish shipped to the United States. The Great Swallower found off South Sound was just 7.5 inches in length. The fish it had eaten, an extremely aggressive Snake Mackerel, measured 34 inches, which is close to three feet in length. Local Marine Scientist Phillippe Bush was in awe of the smaller fish’s appetite. Since the Great Swallower lives in deep water, not much is known about this species, and scientist is still puzzled how on earth did the Great Swallower manage to avoid an attack by the Snake Mackerel and then turned it into dinner.

Source : filaman.ifm-geomar.dete
Source : www.caycompass.com

QWERTY keyboard is not meant for computers

The typewriter was invented in 1866 by Carlos Glidden, Samuel Soulé, and Christopher Latham Sholes. The alphabetical layout of the keys was not a good one; the type bars that struck the paper jammed often. So Christopher came up with a fix for this by placing the type bars for letters of common digraphs, two-letter sequences, as far from each other as possible. The end result was the awkward and confusing QWERTY keyboard layout (named for the first six letters on the top row), which appeared on the first commercially produced typewriter in 1873. When touch-typing became popular in the 1880s, QWERTY was the norm for many keyboards. Although newer keyboards did not jam as easily, it remained the most popular layout and other layouts gradually fell out of use. The standard "QWERTY" keyboard was not designed with ease of typing in mind and don't really suits modern day computers.

The Dvorak keyboard layout was created and patented in 1936 by Dr. August Dvorak, a professor at the University of Washington, and William L. Dealey, his brother-in-law. It was the result of much effort studying typing behavior and letter frequency. Unbelievably, the layout actually makes typing easier, faster, and more efficient! The key to its success is the arrangement of the letters.

Some of the world's fastest typists are using Dvorak. A woman named Barbara Blackburn failed her high school typing course, which, of course, taught QWERTY. Then she found out about the Dvorak keyboard and after that she can type at a rate of 170 WPM and once peaked at 212 WPM, and listed for a decade as the world's fastest typist in the Guinness Book of Records! Indeed, most typists who switch from QWERTY to Dvorak easily match their old speed, and usually surpass it. Some have seen a 200-300% increase in their speed.

Unlike the QWERTY keyboard, the Dvorak keyboard includes the most common letters on the home row (the row of keys your hands rest on when you are touch-typing). The next most common letters are on the top row, and the least-used letters are on the bottom row. 60-70% of the typing is done on the home row of Dvorak, compared with 30-35% on QWERTY's home row. On Dvorak, you can type thousands of words on the home row (aoeuidhtns) but limited on QWERTY keyboard (asdfghjkl;)

It has also been proven that the Dvorak keyboard is easier to learn than QWERTY, accuracy will increase noticeably. It has been shown in studies that while a QWERTY typist's accuracy stops increasing, a Dvorak's typist's accuracy will continue to improve. More importantly, many people switch to Dvorak because it's more comfortable. The Dvorak layout was carefully adapted to fit the English language. Dvorak may actually decrease the risk of carpal-tunnel syndrome and other forms of repetitive-stress injury (RSI). You can type longer on Dvorak without making your fingers sore. In fact, most RSI sufferers no longer feel pain in their fingers after switching to Dvorak.

The fact that we still uses the QWERTY keyboards is because most people who are familiar with QWERTY do not want to make any changes. It's also because most manufacturer don't manufacture DVORAK keyboards because there's simply not enough demand for it. Typing training in schools and secretarial colleges is almost always done on the QWERTY layout both because it conforms with the expectation of industry and, ironically, because it is the layout with which most teachers or trainers are already familiar.

Source : www.theworldofstuff.com
Source : Fastest typist

Turtle shell guitar

Music is the international language that everyone can enjoy. The instruments used to make music vary from culture to culture, but they are all fairly similar. The materials used to make these instruments are similar also. Wood, plastic and metal are the typical materials used to make instruments. But sometimes, unusual items like parts of animals are used.

This guitar features a sound box made from a turtle shell. It was seized due to the classification of turtles as an endangered species under Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) .

Many countries have found many uses for turtles, especially for their shells. Turtle shell products can come in a variety forms of instruments like rattles and guitars, jewelry, ashtrays, you name it, it's probably being sold. And turtle leather is fashioned into items like boots and wallets.

Sea turtles are endangered because of over exploitation, illegal trade, and destruction of their nesting beaches. Despite regulations and an international trade ban through CITES, poaching and illegal trade is still taking place.


Source : www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk
Source : www.worldwildlife.org

Beetle's one of Nazi memorabilia

A tiny, blind, brown beetle that hides in caves in Slovenia is changing hands for as much as 1,000 euros (1,300 dollars) because it is named after Adolf Hitler, a Munich insect collector said.

The creatures were given the scientific name Anophtalmus hitleri in honor of the Nazi dictator when they were discovered in the 1930s. Collecting them has become a fad among neo-Nazis in recent years.

"There has been a rush for them. Collectors are scouring the caves," said Martin Baehr, the entomologist at the State Zoological Museum in Munich. "Almost all of our specimens at the museum have been stolen."

The bug was named by a German, Oscar Scheibel, the first to describe it scientifically. Some accounts say he received a letter of thanks from Hitler for the "honor". Species names, which are adapted to Latin form, can be descriptive or derived from proper names.

Not to loose out, U.S also copied the same idea. Agathidium bushi, Agathidium cheneyi, and Agathidium rumsfeldi are species of round fungus beetles named after George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld, respectively.

Giant catfish

Thailand's fishermen netted a catfish as big as a grizzly bear in 2005. It's the largest freshwater fish ever found weighing at a massive 646 pound.

The Mekong giant catfish (Pangasianodon gigas) species is listed as critically endangered by the World Conservation Union (IUCN), which means it faces a high risk of extinction in the wild. The rare specimen, captured in Chiang Khong district, is the largest since Thailand began keeping records in 1981.

“It’s amazing to think that giants like this still swim in some of the world’s rivers,” project leader Zeb Hogan project leader said in a statement. “We’ve now confirmed now that this catfish is the current record holder, an astonishing find.”

Local environmentalists and government officials had negotiated to release the fish so it could continue its spawning migration in the far north of Thailand, near the borders of Thailand, Laos, Myanmar and China, unfortunately the adult female later died and eaten by the locals.

The researchers said the Mekong giant catfish is declining as a species due to habitat destruction and upstream dams.

The Mekong River Basin is home to more species of massive fish than any river on Earth, they added, and Mekong fish are the primary source of protein for the 73 million people that live along the river.

Source : www.msnbc.msn.com

9/11 attack appears on $20 bill

Six years have passed since the tragic Tuesday morning that shocked America, and the world. Some of us may have already forgotten what has happen and some even not realising what took place.

For those who wish to find out, it's all in the $20 bill. The picture of the terrorist attack on America in Sept 11, 2001 actually appears in the $20 bill, so no need to go and search everywhere for the image.

Below is the instructions given on how to reveal the image of the WTC and the Pentagon on fire on the $20 bill. Those who might feel offended, please do not read further. Please click here for the next story.

This is a look at the back of the normal $20 bill.

Now fold it into half.

Fold the left side away from you.

Fold the right side and you'll see what appears to be the image of Pentagon on fire.

Flip the bill over and you can see the similarity of the World Trade Center while burning. Amazing, huh?

Tribute to all the men, women and children who lost their lives;
All those who sacrificed their lives;
And to all the Heroes that responded to the emergency 11 September 2001

Cat found with wings

A cat in Xianyang, Shanxi province in China has sprouted a pair of hairy wings with each measured about 4 inch long.

According to it's owner, Granny Feng said she began noticing bumps after the cat was harassed by a bunch of female cats. And just after a month time, those wings were fully developed.

According to experts, the phenomenon is more likely caused by three different possibilities. The most common is long haired cats having matted fur. Felted mats of fur can form along the body and flanks if a long haired cat is not properly groomed.

Another reason is cause by a skin condition called feline cutaneous asthenia or FCA. The third explanation is a form of non-functional extra limbs covered with fur and might resemble wings.


Source : www.ananova.com

Ancient chewing gum

Chewing gum was invented in the 1800's but long before that people already has a habit of spitting 'gum'. The 'gum' that was found recently was about 5,000 years old!

Although 5,000 years ago, their 'gum' is actually made from tree bark. Teeth marks is still clearly visible. It's thought people chewed the gum to stop them getting ill, as it contained things called antiseptic compounds, which can kill germs.

Even for that, it amazes me how those people back then manage to find out the benefits of chewing. Now, we have dozens of researchers that helped us out.

By the way, more about chewing gums, did you know? Chewing gum helps you to remember words better, and chewing gums were banned in Singapore for 12 years and till this day only gum aimed at helping smokers to quit is allowed in pharmacies.

Source : 5000 year gum
Source : Gum helps to remember
Source : Singapore gum ban

World war II tank found in good condition

In sept 14 2000, a world war II-era Soviet T-34 tank was pulled out from lake near Johvi, Estonia. The tank had been resting at the bottom of the lake for five decades.

Thanks to a local boy, when one day while he was walking near the lake and noticed tank tracks leading into the lake. He also saw air bubbles emerging from the lake thus believing that there must be a tank underneath. He told the story to the leader of the local war history club, and later on they arranged for an expedition to look for the tank.

Amazingly, the tank is in good condition. With no rust and all systems in working condition, the tank started with only minor maintenance.

Source : http://www.englishrussia.com