The Express Tribune T2 - November 19

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THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE, NOVEMBER 19, 2011

Explore

Pets Galore What is it about having a pet that is so special?

Is it the furry, shiny coat or those all-tooinnocent eyes or maybe those big fluffy ears?

Perhaps cats and dogs are just not the type of pets you’re looking for. Maybe it’s some species of reptiles that you long for… or maybe a slimy amphibian or how about a fish, maybe even a piranha! Take your pick!

Maze

Sugar Gliders

No, it’s not licorice and it’s not a slide made of sugar. And just in case you have a wild imagination, it’s not a team of superheroes with a sweet tooth. These are in fact palm sized marsupials( mammals who give birth to undeveloped young ones)most commonly found in Australia. They are somewhat similar to flying squirrels and are called gliders because they can easily glide through trees and therefore, they love rainforests! These creatures, in addition to those buggy eyes, have a single stripe that stretches out across their tummies.

They even come with intact combs that are formed by the fusion of the 2nd and 3rd toes!

Unbelievable but true!

SOURCE:PHAWVILLE.COM

ha ha ha

A Penguin.

What happened when the cat ate a ball of wool ?

She had mittens !

What do you get from an Alaskan cow ?

Cold cream !

Wait at a buzz stop !

Why wouldn’t the snake go on the weighing machine ?

Because he had his own scales !

Why did the poor dog chase his own tail ?

He was trying to make both ends meet !

Why did the snowman call his dog Frost ?

Because frost bites !

What do you call a sleeping bull?

Sounds whimsical doesn’t it? Across the snow spread out in the cold, gloomy arctic is a creature you never knew existed but when you see its picture, you can’t stop staring. There it is with that rounded physique, short muzzle and legs and those cute thick ears. Native to Greenland, Russia and Canada, this fox can change its colour from stark white in winters to brown in summers. If you’re planning to go hiking in the arctic, then the arctic fox is the ideal pet!

How to make

Lion’s face craft

Supplies needed • Paper plate • Paint (A brown/orange colour is great, but any colour can be used) • Small foam brush or paint brush • Craft glue • Pom-poms • Wiggle eyes • Chenille stems • Scissors

Instructions Start out by painting the top of the paper plate. Let the paint dry.

1. Once the paint is dry, use a pair of scissors to cut slits, about threefourth of an inch thick all the way around the plate edge. Cut down into the plate about two inches.

2. You can easily ‘fluff’ up your lion’s

Interested in a reptile? Maybe a chameleon is what you’re looking for! It comes in a variety of colours and the plus point?

It can dance! No kidding. Commonly found in North Africa, Middle East and Southern Europe, these creatures use colours to display their emotions.

So when you spot a chameleon going dark, stand back because it’s probably in a really bad mood. It generally feels happy after a meal consisting of a variety of insects like crickets, grasshoppers, mantis or if it’s a large chameleon, maybe even small birds. One more thing… they tend to camouflage themselves when hunting so be careful where you sit!

Fish with an attitude Tired of losing yet another gold fish? Want a fish that is cute along with some attitude? Then get some redbellied piranhas. Native to South American countries like Venezuela, these little devils should always be brought in fours and never in pairs since they tend to get aggressive. However, piranhas are not violent but are in fact skittish and shy and prefer an isolated, secluded corner to a jittery one. Also, it is highly advisable to give them meals at the appropriate time otherwise they eat each other! Oh... and watch your fingers when you feed them!

What an adorable... mouse!

Arctic Fox

Which bird wrote a book?

What do bees do if they want to use public transport ?

It can hip hop!

mane by gently folding alternate strips up and down.

3. Give your lion cheeks and a nose by gluing on pom-poms. In the picture above, two brown one-and-a-half inch pom-poms for the cheeks and a three fourth inch pom-pom for the nose are used.

4. No lion would be complete without whiskers! Start out by cutting six to eight pieces of chenille stem, each about six inches long. Black might be an appropriate colour to use. Put a generous amount of glue on one end of each chenille stem piece and poke three into the bottom side of each cheek.

5. Add a pair of wiggle eyes using craft glue, and your lion is done! You can hang him up or even add a stick and turn him into a puppet.

SOURCE: FAMILYCRAFTS.ABOUT.COM

If you love Despereaux Chilling’s unique big ears in The Tale of Despereaux, b tthen maybe a chinchilla is the ideal pet for you. Found in South America, pe chinchillas require really high maintenance because their teeth tend to overgrow so one needs to give them a chewy toy so that the teeth get worn out. They even have sensitive tummies! Strange for someone who looks so much like a mouse! But if yyou adore those button eyes, big ears, brush-like tail, then caring for them br shouldn’t be a big deal. sh

PHOTOS: FILE

A bull-dozer.

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THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE, NOVEMBER 19, 2011

Teen spirit Travelling tips

College apps 101 College apps may seem tough, but with the right components and some luck, you can sail right through...

TANVEER KAZMI

Letters of recommendation

God bless the folks at Shaan and National masalas. Just sauté some meat in ginger, garlic, onions and tomatoes, chuck in the masala packet, let it cook for a little while and voila — you’ll have authentic biryani, nihari or any other desi delicacy simmering on your stove. And it’ll taste exactly like home (minus that elusive ingredient — motherly love).

November and December of the final year of high school are perhaps the most stressful periods of a student’s life.

Studying for the SAT and for the school’s mid-term examinations, filling out application forms, chasing teachers for letters of recommendation, fretting about college essays and personal statements, stocking up on extra-curricular activities consume most of these two months. Throw a few obligatory social appearances and additional tuitions into the mix and 24 hours in a day suddenly seem inadequate. Unfortunately, sometimes even a student’s best efforts may be trumped by a rather compassionless Fate and heartbreak and disappointment may follow. Ultimately, it’s best to acknowledge the presence of a certain amount of chance in the college admission process — but leaving everything to luck is only justifiable in Vegas. Here’s a rundown on the components of a college application:

3. Chutneys

Grades

Letters of recommendation should provide a testament to a candidate’s characteristics, achievements and potential.

Usually, letters of recommendation are penned by counsellors and teachers, but letters from other individuals (e.g. employers, peers, etc) may be valuable if they provide additional depth to your application. Good letters of recommendation are customised for the application with a particular focus on the recommender’s interaction and experiences with the student. The letter should also clearly spell out the student’s intellectual ability.

It is more important that the recommender knows the candidate well as compared to the recommender’s rank in the school hierarchy. While it adds credibility if the recommender is the principal of a school, an ordinary recommendation from such an individual will do more harm than good. It is also preferred that the recommender have known the candidate during his final two years in high school.

If there’s something almost every Pakistani craves sooner or later, it is spices. Some homemade green chili chutney or tamarind chutney works wonders with almost any food from any cuisine — primarily because all you taste is the chutney.

These are single-handedly the most important part of your application. Of course, AS and O level results are most important here. In fact, they are pretty much what determine your chances of admission into UK universities. But your school results matter a lot too — especially if your destination of choice is somewhere in North America.

Typically, colleges in the US and Canada ask for a school transcript which includes all your grades in the past four years. So it’s best if straight As in AS and O levels are complemented by sound grades in school. If there’s too much of a contrast between school grades and Cambridge results, it indicates to colleges that a candidate is definitely intelligent, but not dedicated enough. If there is such a discrepancy and there is a good reason behind it, it always helps to mention the reason in your application and have the reason corroborated by either a guidance counsellor or a teacher.

Unfortunately, grades are the part you can do the least about as a current applicant.

So it’s best to be realistic while drawing up a college list; forget about past grades and focus on things that are under your control at the moment.

10 things found in a college-bound Pakistani suitcase OZAIR ALI

Going to college abroad may be a daunting experience for many teenagers. For most, it is the first time they are going to live alone and independently. To ease the transition, most incoming freshmen take a piece of home with them to their destination.

Here is a list of some things that the writer has come across during his stay at college:

1. Maggi noodles This product is perhaps single-handedly responsible for satisfying pangs of hunger at odd times of the night. Yes you may find this delicacy in desi stores abroad as well, but the ones from home taste so much better. In my opinion, Maggi has the highest taste-to-cooking time ratio in cooked foods. Tantalise your taste buds in five minutes.

2. Masalas

4. Mithai No, it’s probably a bad idea to take chum chum or gulab jamun in a suitcase, but mithai such as barfi can last for a while in the fridge. And it’s the ultimate comfort food.

5. A qaumi parcham Once you’ve addressed the food issues, a bit of patriotism is called for. The jhanda may be displayed proudly in your dorm room. Every once in a while you may dream of our cricket team winning the world cup to give you an excuse to wrap the flag around yourself and run around campus.

6. A shalwar kameez Even if you never wear it — and you may never get the chance to if your campus is covered in snow half the year — there’s something about the presence of the dress in your closet that is heartening.

7. A Jinnah cap Why take a piece of the homeland with you when you can take a piece of the homeland’s father? While this may not be the best fashion statement — Jinnah himself wore it in his later years — it certainly seems to be a comfortable head covering for walking in a windy, chilly city.

8. A cricket bat, electrical tape and a tennis ball For that sunny afternoon when everyone’s sunbathing and you march out with ten other guys with a chair for a wicket. It’s cricket season!

9. Chai and powdered milk We really like our chai. The key word there is “our”, not “chai”.

10. A lota Because there will be no muslim showers.

SAT (and other standardised tests) Standardised tests are a night-

Extra-curricular activities

GRAPHIC: CREATIVE COMMON

mare. They require months of continuous preparation and the test itself is as much a test of ability and intelligence as it is of stamina and remaining calm under stress. The tests are a measure of your reading, writing and quantitative skills. These skills develop over a period of time through good reading habits, regular writing, by taking part in discussions and debates and by learning to use basic math and logic. Test preparation centres cannot — and the good ones will not claim to — increase your scores substantially in a short period of time. They can, however, provide helpful test-taking tips; familiarise a candidate with the layout of the test and coach proper time management skills which can increase your chances of doing well on the actual test.

The importance of the score

With proper time management and by planning well in advance, college applications are not a daunting task varies considerably across universities. Colleges in the UK do not consider these tests at all, while American and Canadian colleges differ in the importance that they assign to scores. Ultimately, SAT scores are only one facet of an application. Very low scores are a deal-breaker for most universities and very high scores may count strongly in a candidate’s favour, but average scores need to be supplemented by other parts of the application.

Essays Sadly oft-neglected, essays are a critical part of the application and the one thing that a candidate has complete control over with a few months remaining for the application deadline.

Universities in the UK and most other parts of the world require a personal statement, which is essentially a summary of a candidate’s future goals, past achievements and reasons for choosing to apply to a certain college. Most universities are

looking for a clear statement of purpose and a plan of action.

The tone of the essay is very formal and the content is not unlike a cover letter.

In contrast, essays required

by US universities are a chance for the candidate to express themselves. It is an opportunity for candidates to give the admissions committee an insight into the candidate’s mind. American universities want the essays to be a reflection of a candidate’s personality. Therefore, a good essay is exactly that: a self-portrait that reflects a candidate’s personality, thought processes and life experiences. It is never a good idea to bluff while writing essays since admission committees are quite adept at separating truths from lies since that is their job after all.

It’s best to be yourself while writing such essays.

While this aspect doesn’t matter for UK universities and matters to a small degree for Canadian universities, it is essential for application packages heading to colleges in the US. Most of these universities simply want to know that candidates have a life outside of school. Most also appreciate it if the candidate has spent some time helping the community.

Otherwise, it is usually sufficient to be a part of the school team or take part in drama or manage clubs or organise events. It is really anything that adds new dimensions to a candidate’s personality.

If a candidate is particularly gifted at and passionate about a particular hobby that he/she intends to continue with at college, then the candidate should include proof of his/her ability and mention the desire to continue with that hobby.

With proper time management and by planning well in advance, college applications are not a daunting task. There is an element of luck involved, but it is not difficult to maximise one’s chances of securing admission into a good university abroad.

Tanveer Kazmi is a certified guidance counsellor from the University of California, Los Angeles

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THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE, NOVEMBER 19, 2011

HP goes ultra

Tech Society

Global gaming In recent years, professional gaming has become more than being ‘just a game’ Hewlett-Packard (HP) has unveiled a lightweight laptop computer to take on Apple’s MacBook Air in the hot “Ultrabook” arena. The HP Folio will be priced at $900(Rs78,333) when it hits the market, less than two months after the Californiabased technology titan scuttled plans to abandon making personal computers.

HP tailored the Folio for business, making it thin and light with a battery life of as long as nine hours. The Folio weighs 3.3 pounds (1.5 kilograms) and features solid state drives along with 13.3-inch (33.8-centimetre) high-definition screens.

“This category of product breaks new ground and will be a likely choice for businesses to offer to employees looking for a more consumer-centric experience,” said IDC chief research officer Crawford Del Prete.

“We expect Ultrabooks will re-ignite interest in the small form factor PC category, and by 2015 expect 95 million Ultrabooks will be shipping worldwide annually,” the industry analyst said.

Folio laptops will be powered by Windows 7 operating systems, which promise to appeal to the broad array of businesses that rely on Microsoft software. AFP

A giant leap for machine kind

ILLUSTRATION: JAMAL KHURSHID

PETER ROLPH

Gaming has always been, at its heart, competitive. From the earliest days, duelling with simple spaceships in Spacewar!, to the technical accomplishments of the recently released Battlefield 3, games have always relied on the players’ competitive streak.

But competing with an often-predicable computer opponent can often be a short-lived distraction, and many games released nowadays promote themselves on the strength and longevity of their multiplayer modes. For most gamers, this is an added extra; for some, it is a serious business.

Professional gaming — also called esports — has grown considerably in recent years, with contests held between the world’s best players. For those few it can be a route to fame, success and big money.

The birth of pro-gaming is commonly attributed to the popular game Doom by id Software in 1993. Widely recognised for popularising the firstperson shooter genre; Doom also allowed players to compete head-to-head over a local network. At the time only businesses and universities had both the networks and multiple computers able to run the game well but by the time its successors Doom 2 and Heretic were released, players at home were able to compete too, using pre-internet services to dial into dedicated servers.

In 1995, several companies including id Software and Microsoft hosted the world’s first offline gaming tourna-

ment, Deathmatch 95. This format, with gamers attending a single location and using standardised hardware, defined gaming tournaments ever since. Gamers competed head-tohead in preliminary stages online and winners from both the United States and Europe were brought to Microsoft’s campus in Redmond to play the final.

In 1997, id Software hosted the Red Annihilation contest to promote Doom 2’s successor, Quake, and offered something beyond the usual prizes — a Ferrari 328. The same year, the Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL) was established, an organisation that described itself as the pioneer in esports by attracting sponsors and offering cash prizes — often tens of thousands of US dollars — to winners.

With a model for money coming in, the CPL and other pro-gaming organisations quickly expanded worldwide.

Prominent players and teams would often find corporate sponsors willing to pay travelling expenses, an eventual necessity as contests became increasingly globalised, and resulting in some who earned their living by competing in esport tournaments across the globe.

The games played at these tournaments are obviously ones allowing direct competition between individuals or teams of players. While genres such as sports and driving games are often represented, the most prominent are usually first-person shooters, oneon-one fighting games, or real-time

With increasing globalisation and the spread of technology, it is likely that competitive gaming will continue to grow internationally strategy games. Counter-Strike, the 1999 modification to Valve’s Half-Life is still popular even today, just as long-time favourites such as the Street Fighter and Tekken series have represented fighting games, even leading to specific events such as the Evo Championship series.

However, it is real-time strategy that came to define pro-gaming events.

While titles such as Warcraft 3 and Defence of the Ancients are hugely popular, one game dominates the world esport scene: StarCraft.

Modern gaming usually celebrates the most technically advanced releases, but the popularity of StarCraft — over a decade old — cannot be underestimated. The Korean Times claimed that it accounts for 70 per cent of es-

ports in the country, with five major leagues specially for it, including two run by television channels broadcasting the games. StarCraft has often been flippantly described as Korea’s national sport, and while that may not be technically true, its top players are treated like athletic heroes.

Taking advantage of the publicity and popularity of players, several corporations including Korea Telecom, Samsung and SK Telecom have employed teams, paying salaries that often exceed $100,000 for the top players. For some, even this seems like small money — Lee Yun Yeol, statistically one of the most successful players ever, signed up to a three year contract for approximately $690,000 with WeMade FOX, a professional gaming team, in 2007. On top of this, Lee also earned extra from endorsements of items such as gaming mice, claimed to be made to his standards for competition play.

However, even this pales in comparison to Lim Yo-Hwan who reportedly earns $400,000 a year — and like Lee, even more from endorsements — Lim’s fan club has over a million members, and his screen name of “BoxeR” was described by Escapist Magazine as synonymous with the sport in Korea.

He even managed to continue playing during his mandatory two years of national service, founding a team to represent the Korean Air Force in professional competitions.

The need to continue playing and

maintain skills is crucial for top players.

As pro-gamer Jarom Severson told Wired magazine in 1999 “your average basketball player isn’t going to make it to the NBA, and your average gamer isn’t going to stand a good chance of making money playing games.” Pro-StarCraft gamers often claim to play for eight hours or more a day to become above average.

Knowledge of gaming strategies, and the ability to use them quickly are key, with a competition winning performance often making over three hundred actions a minute. The place these speed skills have in public awareness were made clear when South Korea’s Defence Minister justified an apparently slow response during the country’s confrontation with North Korea in November of 2010, saying “this isn’t StarCraft”. Even with these skills, the average pro-gamer is estimated to earn the equivalent of US$20,000 a year according to PBS. This, and the level of money wagered in bets, has led to scandals — in 2010, one of the biggest names in the sport Ma JaeYoon pleaded guilty to allegations of match-fixing, resulting in a lifetime ban for himself and ten other professional players, an event that shook the community of fans and players.

With increasing globalisation and the spread of technology — not to mention the ever-growing budgets involved in developing and promoting both games and hardware — it is likely that competitive gaming will continue to grow internationally.

Robots are out there, dozens of them, going where their soft-bodied, oxygen-breathing creators can’t or won’t anytime soon. They own space. While a handful of humans hunker down in near-Earth orbit in the International Space Station, an aging craft conceived in the Reagan era, unmanned machines at this very moment are orbiting Mercury, trundling across the sands of Mars, even preparing to leave the confines of the solar system.

The space station is a thing of beauty in its way, the apotheosis of Apollo-style technology. But in terms of scientific achievements it suffers in comparison with NASA’s spaceborne fleet of robots—currently 55 strong—especially given the large funding gap that has always existed between the manned and unmanned space programs. NASA’s budget for 2012 provides about $4.5 billion for robotic space science, versus $8.3 billion for human space exploration, almost $3 billion of which goes to the station alone. And that is the outlay for a NASA without shuttle flights or plans to send people back to the moon.

Noble as human exploration may be, we would know very little about anything in the cosmos much more distant than the moon were it not for robotic explorers. Through them we have learned of lava plains on Venus, a buried ocean on Jupiter’s moon Europa, lakes of methane on Saturn’s moon Titan, and salty geysers on another Saturnian moon, Enceladus. And manned missions? Since the Apollo moon landing of 1969, NASA has mostly confirmed what it knew from the outset, which is that hurtling humans deep into space is expensive, dangerous and, for the foreseeable future, beyond reach. The reality is, when it comes to carrying out serious space science, humans simply can’t compete with spacefaring hardware. And that is probably not going to happen in our lifetime.

SOURCE: DISCOVERMAGAZINE.COM

Martian sand dunes caught in motion

Geek Guide

I spy — with more than my little eye!

Are you fascinated by James Bond’s grenade camouflaged as a ballpoint pen and Ethan Hunt’s face masks in the Mission Impossible series? If yes, then gear up to learn more about real-life espionage devices. Espionage gadgets are not merely a figment of Hollywood fantasy; in fact they have been actually used by real life undercover agents, often for deadly operations.

Here’s a peak into some rather innovative paraphernalia, which has been used by secret agents and militaries in the past.

The deadly sting

signed to kill in the most surreptitious manner. In 1978, famous Bulgarian anti-communist dissident Georgie Markov, renowned for his harsh criticism of the autocratic Bulgarian regime, was jabbed by a KGB agent with an umbrella while queuing up for a bus in London. The incident looked like an accident and the famous journalist did not realise that an assassin had injected him with a pellet filled with ricin — a highly toxic natural protein which is impossible to trace. Markov subsequently died of blood poisoning but the details of his murder remain shrouded in mystery to date.

Don’t get fooled by this umbrella’s banal appearance. With a tip that shoots a tiny pellet of deadly poison, this device is de-

Sn(p)oop tool How do you make T-1151 radio transmitters look as inconspicuous as possible? By disguising them as animal droppings. Just below four inches in length and with peat moss crusted shells, the Doo transmitter effectively relays radio messages. Initially developed by United States military intelligence in 1970, these gadgets were camouflaged as dog or monkey faeces and placed throughout Vietnam’s jungles during the Vietnam War to identify key enemy positions to overhead aircraft for reconnaissance or strikes.

SOURCE: MSNBC.MSN.COM

NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has caught sand dunes on the surface of Mars in the act of shifting. Images from the spacecraft show dunes and ripples that have been pushed by wind as much as three metres over the course of several years.

“Mars either has more gusts of wind than we knew about before, or the winds are capable of transporting more sand,” Nathan Bridges, planetary scientist at the Johns Hopkins University and lead author of a paper in Geology, said in a press release, “We used to think of the sand on Mars as relatively immobile, so these new observations are changing our whole perspective.”

SOURCE: WIRED.COM

24

THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE, NOVEMBER 19, 2011

offbeat Panda pot-tea

A prickly escape This terrified bobcat scurried 50 feet up a cactus to flee from a hungry lion. And he was so scared he stayed there for six hours, despite his predator vanishing after a few minutes.

The lion clearly thought better of clambering up a huge stalk covered in spikes. But for the bobcat, it proved an escape from certain death, no matter how painful.

He certainly chose a historic plant. The Giant Saguaro Cactus is around 300 years old.

SOURCE: MIRROR.CO.UK

Potty wildlife expert An Yanshi has bagged five tons of panda pooh to create a new type of tea.

Yanshi — seen here collecting a lorry load of the stuff from the Giant Panda breeding centre in Chengdu, Sichuan province, southern China — believes the rich fertilser will give his brew a unique aroma that will make it a connoisseurs’ favourite.

College lecturer Yanshi explained: “Pandas have a very poor digestive system and only absorb about 30 per cent of everything they eat. That means their excrement is rich in fibres and nutrients.”

Yanshi plans to sell his most expensive blend for nearly £50,000 (Rs6,800,000) per kilo and aims to secure the Guinness World Record for the planet’s priciest cuppa.

“It has a mature, nutty taste and a very distinctive aroma while it’s brewing,” he explained.

SOURCE: WEB.ORANGE.CO.UK

Jobs over - used in 2011

Enter the dragon — on very small legs Some sculptors work in marble, others in cement or metal. But Taiwan’s Chen Forng-shean uses things like rice, sand and dental floss to create tiny creatures no bigger than a thumbnail.

His latest creation, a dragon made out of gold foil and black resin, is a mere 1.2 centimetres long, not quite half an inch, and stands only 0.9 cm high. Complete with legs and claws, it is barely visible to the naked eye.

“The hardest part about making this dragon is the sculpting for the limbs and the claws. These are the most delicate parts, also its open jaw and its whiskers,” said Chen. He maintains that the dragon is the world’s smallest.

“After the dragon was complete I had to pay attention to its body so it looks like the dragon is above the clouds, that’s the dragon’s spirit.”

A recently retired plate designer for Taiwan’s Central Engraving and Printing Plant, the 56-year-old Chen began creating miniature sculptures as a hobby three decades ago.

The dragon took Chen three months to complete, and he failed several times. It went on display, part of a continuing tradition of sculpting animals from the twelve-animal Chinese zodiac.

Next year is the Lunar Year of the Dragon.

Visitors to the exhibit said they were astonished by the piece, one example of a high-end Chinese art thousands of years old. REUTERS

There’s a croc in my What a charmer! bath tub...

He likes to move it move it!

A man is facing a year in jail after police discovered a rare crocodile living in his bath.

The three-year-old Cuban crocodile — critically endangered in the wild — will one day reach nine foot long and is said by experts to be the most intelligent and aggressive croc in the world.

Owner Fabio Lazelli was caught out when his neighbours dialed 999 after a bust up at their apartment block in Cremona, Italy.

“They demanded to be let into his flat and were astounded when they found a crocodile swimming around in the bathtub,” said one resident.

Lazelli — also facing a £70,000 (Rs9,520,000) fine — is understood to have smuggled the croc into the country as an egg, hatching it out at home.

Wildlife experts have now moved the two feet long beast to the reptile house at the specialist Bio park in Rome.

One said: “He’s very lucky we got it when we did. These crocodiles are the most intelligent of their kind, fast, and aggressive. As it got older he would have been in real danger.”

Potty pensioner Edwin Shackleton has powered, glided and roared into the record books after travelling on over 200 modes of transport — aged 84.

The adrenalin-loving granddad has enjoyed the delights of a microlight, hot air balloon, pony and trap, Segway, hovercraft, punt and rickshaw.

Edwin has spent nearly three years notching up the wacky record that has also seen him ride on a tank, a motorised bicycle, yacht, gyroplane and quad bike. He is now hoping his travel spectacular will get him in the Guinness Book of Records.

Edwin — who was an aircraft structural test engineer until his retirement in 1987 — has already made an appearance in the Guiness Book of Records.

While in his 70s, he broke the record for flying in the greatest variety of aircraft. It was following this challenge that his thoughts turned to what he could do next.

He comments: “I was wondering what I could do instead.

Then I saw a TV programme where Charlie Boorman went from Ireland to Australia using 100 different types of transport. So I decided to do the same here”.

SOURCE: WEB.ORANGE.CO.UK

SOURCE: WEB.ORANGE.CO.UK

Liu Fei pulls a snake through his nose and then out of his mouth — and survives to perform another day.

Fei, from east China’s Jiangxi Province, has been performing the death-defying act for the past 30 years — what a charmer.

Sometimes, when he feels like it, the 53-year-old will even use two 3 feet snakes instead of one.

It hasn’t all been smooth sailing for the snake swallower though — Fei has had several close calls with his wriggly friends, the most serious being when he swallowed one accidentally. Luckily for him, the serpent died in his stomach before it could cause any damage. He does live a charmed life it seems.

SOURCE: METRO.CO.UK

“Arab Spring” and “Royal Wedding” were deemed the top phrases of 2011, while late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs is the year’s top name, according to a global survey of the English language.

“Occupy” — be it Iraq or Wall Street — and “deficit” were the two single top words of the year in a list that reflected global turmoil, the Texas-based Global Language Monitor said. REUTERS

‘High’ school

It’s the kind of high school where a pass has a very different meaning.

Because at Pili — in China’s rugged northern Xinjiang Uygur region — the pass is 1,500 feet above a sheer drop down a precipice which 42 pupils have to pick their way across on their way to and from school.

Guided by parents and staff, the youngsters scramble over the sloping rock face finding foot and handholds that would make even a goat think twice.

“It’s very steep but we’re mountain people here and used to walking like this. We haven’t lost one yet — there are severe penalties for truancy,” joked one teacher.

SOURCE: WEB.ORANGE.CO.UK

Surfing goatee

Surfing is a very popular past-time in the sunny state of California — so much so that it appears even a local goat has a penchant for riding the waves.

The animal was seen balancing on a surfboard as it caught a wave to the beach earlier this week.

The pet, named Goatee, took to the water with its owner Dayna McGregor, who was celebrating his birthday on Grover Beach.

Dayna said: “She did pretty well, she got up on a couple of waves. I say got up — we put her on a couple of waves.”

“She was pretty successful.”

He originally bought the female goat to eat the weeds in his garden but soon took her in as a pet.

SOURCE: METRO.CO.UK