One in five Britons to live to 100

More than 10 million people living in Britain today, almost a fifth of the population, will reach their 100th birthday, the Department for Work and Pensions said on Thursday.

Biggest selling album of 2010: World record

According to the United World Chart, Lady Gaga's 'The Fame Monster', a repackaged version of her earlier disc 'The Fame', sold 5.8 million copies across the globe - setting the new world record for the biggest selling album of 2010. 'The Fame Monster', a repackaged version of her earlier disc 'The Fame', sold 5.8 million copies across the globe, according to the United World Chart, compiled by website mediatraffic.de.

World's oldest human remains claimed

Israeli archaeologists have discovered human remains dating from 400,000 years ago, challenging conventional wisdom that Homo sapiens originated in Africa, the leader of excavations in Israel said.

Most expensive pizza: World record

Margo's Pizzeria, a gourmet pizzeria (owner Claude Camilleri,pizzaiolo Giovanni Staiano), is selling a pizza with white truffles and 24-carat gold leaf and buffalo mozzarella over a thin, traditional crust – for 2 382.66 U.S. dollars (€1,800) - setting the new world record for the Most expensivecommercially available pizza.
Pizzaiolo Giovanni Staiano and restaurateur Claude Camilleri preparing the most expensive commercially available pizza in the world.

New botanic database holds a million plant names

Capping the UN's International Year of Biodiversity, botanists in Britain and the United States on Wednesday unveiled a library of plant names aimed at helping conservationists, drug designers and agriculture researchers.

Largest Android Smartphone: World record

The giant Nexus S, in a San Carlos, CA Best Buy, it's a 42-inch version of the stock "Google phone," with a multitouch screen, has a working camera, Internet access and Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) - setting the world record for the Largest Smartphone.

Berlin police pepper spray snowballers

Two Berlin police officers were pelted by snowballs thrown by a group of about 40 youths but were able to fight them off with pepper spray, police said on Sunday.

Most multiple-birth children in a single class : World record

With 10 sets of twins and one set of triplets in the junior class ( 23 juniors in all), the Pearce High School in Richardson sets the new world record for the most multiple-birth children in a single

class.

Scientists seek climate clues in shattered glass

Studying the way glass or other brittle objects shatter can help scientists hone their weather forecasts and predictions of future climate, a study released on Tuesday says.

Double profit on gold and silver in 2010 for investers

Investors have received nearly double profit by investing in gold and silver this year, Geo News reported on Monday.

Strawberries and chocolate's gene codes

Teams of scientists have cracked the genetic codes of the wild strawberry and a certain type of cacao used to make fine chocolate, work that should help breeders develop better varieties of more mainstream crops.

Fastest Human Crab Walker : World record

Cameron Jones, a teenager from Pacific Cascade Middle School in Issaquah, WA, travelled in a crab position a distance of 20 m (65 ft 7.2 in) in 8,03 seconds on the set of PIX11 Morning News in New York - setting the new world record for the Fastest Human Crab Walker.
Photo: Cameron James, of Issaquah, breaks the world record in crab walking, covering a 20-meter course in 8,03 seconds.

At 14, Cameron was the youngest competitor in New York City participating in Guinness Worlds Records Day — a worldwide event.

Facebook offers tips on being popular

How can you be popular on Facebook? Easy; just ask Facebook. The company's Data Team recently concluded a pretty exhaustive study on what separates popular Facebook status posts from the chaff, but that's not all.

Baoding Chefs set world record

China--A super dumpling, 1.2 meters long and 0.86 meters wide was made by a restaurant in Baoding, north China's Hebei Province; it weighed 79 kilograms, was made with three bags of flour and 60 grams of dumpling filling - setting the new world record for the Largest dumpling.

Notaries measure The World's Largest Dumpling Moreover, inside the World's Biggest Dumpling there are 2,011 small dumplings. Those small dumplings have different flavors and can feed 100 people at the same time.

Skype to bring video chat to Apple devices

Get ready, Apple—the exclusivity of your company's FaceTime video-chatting service for the iPhone might soon be drawing to a close. And it's going to take a service as large as Skype to make the first push into Apple's territory, for rumors are intensifying that the company plans to unveil its own video-chat feature for its mobile apps at the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show in January.

Most Santas surfing at the same time : World record

Nineteen surfers, dressed in Santa attire, tackled the 4-foot waves to welcome in the Christmas holiday - setting the new world record for the Most Santas surfing at the same time.
Photo: George Trossett, also known as Surfin Santa, was out with 19 fellow Santas for some surfing on Despite the cold water, the group wanted to spread some holiday cheer.

Nantotechnology experts from the Scotland's University of Glasgow, led by Professor David Cumming, produced a Christmas card featuring a Christmas tre

Norwegian reindeer owners have a Christmas safety tip for Santa -- put reflectors on the fleet-footed animals so they won't get hit by cars.

University of Glasgow set world record

Nantotechnology experts from the Scotland's University of Glasgow, led by Professor David Cumming, produced a Christmas card featuring a Christmas tree etched on a tiny piece of glass,which is is 200 micro-metres wide by 290 micro-metres tall - setting the world record for the Smallest Christmas card.

UK royal coin raises eyebrows

The design for an official commemorative coin to mark the engagement of Britain's Prince William and Kate Middleton was unveiled on Thursday, but not everyone might recognize the bride-to-be.

British hairdryer set world record

An 80-year-old electric hairdryer, made by a Siemens branch in Britain, remains in perfect working order and, according to its owner, retired insurance company director John Wilcox, it has never broken down or even needed a service - setting the world record for the Oldest working electric hairdryer.

Weighing a hefty 2lb the dryer's only controls are on/off and hot/cold. It came with a Bakelite carry-case – now slightly cracked – complete with a vanity mirror.

Sony to buy back factory from Toshiba

Sony is planning to buy back a Japanese factory from Toshiba as it seeks to double output for sensors used in cameras and smartphones amid rising global demand, reports said Thursday.

US teen birthrate hits new low amid overall drop

The U.S. teen birthrate dropped to its lowest level in the seven decades government researchers have been tracking it, government researchers said on Tuesday.

Michael Jackson Poster set world record

A 29070 square feet poster (171ft x 170ft) has been erected over Heathrow airport to mark the release of "Michael",Michael Jackson's posthumous album - setting the new world record for the Largest poster.

The World's Largest Poster, made of PVC and weighing one ton, took engineers three hours to install – and is less than 3,000 meters from one of Heathrow's main runways, literally viewable by all planes arriving/ departing.

How Penguins got their coats

Those tuxedo-wearing birds that inhabit Earth's coldest continent may have evolved a means of retaining heat when they were still living in warm climates, scientists now suggest.

124 year old tree set world record

One hundred and twenty-four years after it marked its first yuletide, the 14-inch tree originally bought in 1886 which now belongs to Paul Parker, 45, of Bath, England, valued at $1,585, sets the world record for the Oldest Artificial Christmas Tree. The mini-tree is made of a green fibrous material and sits on a base decorated with cherubs, Jesus and Mary.

The World's Oldest Christmas Tree was passed down to him by his mother Janet, who received it from her great-great-aunt Lou in the 1940s, according to the Daily Mail newspaper.

"She treasured it when she was alive, and my father Grahame is comforted that I will be carrying on the family tradition," Parker told the newspaper.

The ornament was originally purchased for sixpence, but was valued at 1,000 pounds, or $1,585, in 2005 by the television show "Antiques Roadshow."

"But putting a price to this kind of object is ridiculous," Parker told the Daily News. "As the oldest Christmas tree in history, it has no peers."

snails take over Miami Beach

Dozens of giant pink snails have invaded Miami Beach in what appears to be a bizarre cartoon migration along Florida's sun soaked coast, but is fact an art project to promote a clean environment.

The international REgeneration Art Project, which has already made its mark in Paris, Milan and Prague among other cities, will remain in this tourist-favored beach community until January 3, said organizers Cracking Art Group.

The 45 colorful mollusks, which are made of recycled plastic, are intended to "play with the city in order to rebuild it ideally and mentally," said the international artistic collective Cracking Art Group, which has joined forces with Italy's Galleria Ca d'Oro for the project.

Placed throughout the city, the huge pink snails are "designed to inspire a community-wide conversation about the importance of recycling and its environmental impact, while leaving a potent artistic trace on the Miami Beach community," said the organizers.

Largest cake sculpture

As part of the Qatar National Day celebrations, a team of 25 hotel chefs from the Ritz-Carlton- Doha (under the guidance of the hotel's Executive Chef Matthew Morrison) worked for 1,176 hours (six days) to prepare a cake sculpture weighing 1,670kg, measured 8m in length, 4m in width, 16cm in height - setting the new world record for the Largest cake sculpture.

Weighing 1,670kg, the World's largest Cake Sculpture was prepared by The Ritz-Carlton Doha for Qatar Foundation for Combating Human Trafficking's (QFCHT) national day programme.

A team of 25 hotel chefs worked for 1,176 hours (six days) on the Qatari map-shaped, vanilla cake with butter-cream icing, which by the time ready had a potent 480kg of sugar, 10,800 eggs, 800kg of flour and 302kg of butter, Ritz-Carlton executive chef Mathew Morrison said.

"We are very proud given this excellent opportunity to enter the Book of Records, and to showcase our culinary expertise with such a unique piece on the occasion of Qatar National Day," Morrison said.

The sheer magnitude of the work meant the largest cake sculpture in the world had to be made with the participation of over two dozen chefs, led by hotel's pastry chef Khalid Rashwan.

Monday night's lunar eclipse

A total eclipse of the moon Monday night will coincide with winter solstice, which means the moon will appear high in the sky and be visible throughout all of North and Central America, including Seattle — weather permitting. Starting around 10:33 p.m. PST, the full moon, normally illuminated by the sun, will pass through the shadow, or umbra, created by Earth blocking the sun's light. Some indirect sunlight still will manage to pierce through and give the moon a ghostly color — brown or maybe deep red rather than the usual orange-yellow tinge, thanks to recent volcanic eruptions that have dumped tons of dust into the atmosphere. The sky will darken as the shadow progresses across the moon, and more stars will appear in the sky as sunlight reflected from the moon fades. The forecast for the Seattle area is for mostly cloudy skies, with showers. Unlike a total solar eclipse, when the sun is blotted out, a lunar eclipse rarely turns the moon totally black. Because of sunrises and sunsets that scatter and refract light from the sun around the world, the moon generally appears bright and coppery orange, or sometimes brown or dark red-black, depending on how much pollution is in the atmosphere. The most recent total eclipse of the moon was on the night of Feb. 20-21, 2008. Totality will last a generous 72 minutes, and the process then will reverse, with the moon completely emerging from the umbra at 2:01 a.m. Tuesday. "It's perfectly placed so that all of North America can see it," said eclipse expert Fred Espenak of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Also unlike a solar eclipse, which generally can be seen only from selected places on Earth, a lunar eclipse can be seen from anywhere on the side of the planet facing the moon. The next lunar eclipse will be on June 15, but North America will miss out because the continent will be facing the wrong way. Another eclipse will occur Dec. 10 but will be interrupted by moonset and sunrise. The next total lunar eclipse for the entire continent won't occur until April 14-15, 2014, an unusually long wait.

Monday night's lunar eclipse

A total eclipse of the moon Monday night will coincide with winter solstice, which means the moon will appear high in the sky and be visible throughout all of North and Central America, including Seattle — weather permitting. Starting around 10:33 p.m. PST, the full moon, normally illuminated by the sun, will pass through the shadow, or umbra, created by Earth blocking the sun's light. Some indirect sunlight still will manage to pierce through and give the moon a ghostly color — brown or maybe deep red rather than the usual orange-yellow tinge, thanks to recent volcanic eruptions that have dumped tons of dust into the atmosphere. The sky will darken as the shadow progresses across the moon, and more stars will appear in the sky as sunlight reflected from the moon fades. The forecast for the Seattle area is for mostly cloudy skies, with showers. Unlike a total solar eclipse, when the sun is blotted out, a lunar eclipse rarely turns the moon totally black. Because of sunrises and sunsets that scatter and refract light from the sun around the world, the moon generally appears bright and coppery orange, or sometimes brown or dark red-black, depending on how much pollution is in the atmosphere. The most recent total eclipse of the moon was on the night of Feb. 20-21, 2008. Totality will last a generous 72 minutes, and the process then will reverse, with the moon completely emerging from the umbra at 2:01 a.m. Tuesday. "It's perfectly placed so that all of North America can see it," said eclipse expert Fred Espenak of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Also unlike a solar eclipse, which generally can be seen only from selected places on Earth, a lunar eclipse can be seen from anywhere on the side of the planet facing the moon. The next lunar eclipse will be on June 15, but North America will miss out because the continent will be facing the wrong way. Another eclipse will occur Dec. 10 but will be interrupted by moonset and sunrise. The next total lunar eclipse for the entire continent won't occur until April 14-15, 2014, an unusually long wait.

Emirates Palace sets world record

United Arab Emirates--The Emirates Palace hotel–already the home of the world's first gold ATM–has decked out a 43-foot-high Christmas tree with about $11-million worth of precious jewelry from a local jeweler - setting the world record for the Most expensively dressed Christmas tree.

Virgin Galactic joins fray

Virgin Galactic, a U.S. offshoot of Richard Branson's Virgin Group, joined two separate teams vying for a $200 million NASA program to spur the development of private-sector space taxis, the company said.

The teams, led by Orbital Sciences Corp. and Sierra Nevada Corp., both propose flying passengers on reusable winged spaceships that launch on expendable rockets and land on runways like NASA's space shuttles.

Female students set world record

Nineteen students from Karachi Grammar and other schools, led by Aymen Saleem Yousuf, squeezed into a standard smart car - setting the new world record for Most People crammed Into a Smart Car

Lighthouse encased in ice

High winds and subzero temperatures have caused crashing waves to turn the Cleveland Harbor West Pierhead Lighthouse into a larger than life ice sculpture.

Americans sickened by food

WASHINGTON: About one in six Americans, or 48 million people, get sick from tainted food each year, according to new figures that US officials said Wednesday provide the best data yet on foodborne pathogens.

Weed threatens Nepal's jungles

The lush jungles of the Chitwan national park in southern Nepal are among the last remaining refuges of the endangered royal Bengal tiger and the rare one-horned rhino.

Bahama Buck's sets world record

Bahama Buck's, a shaved ice company built a massive snow cone which weighed-in at 25,095 pounds and stood taller than a house - setting the new world record for the Largest snow cone.
Photo: Blake Buchanan shapes an attempt at the world's largest snow cone Thursday in the Bahama Buck's parking lot.

The previous Guinness world record for the Largest snow cone was a 4,600-pound snow cone make ten years ago by Mammoth Mountain Ski Resort in California.

Fastest Violin Player of the world

violinist Ben Lee of acclaimed electric violin duo FUSE played 'Flight of the Bumblebee' by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov on£1M Swarovski Crystal Violin in an astonishing 58.515 seconds - setting the new world record for the Fastest Violin Player.

Ben played the piece in an astonishing 58.515 seconds stripping nearly 5 seconds off the previous record.

What's the future for shopping online?

LONDON: From the ill-fated Boo website to the newer and infinitely more successful Amazon Windowshop for the iPad, retailers have been aiming for years to replicate the high-street shopping experience on a computer.

Charity turns cane toad pest into princely footwear

SYDNEY: The warty and toxic cane toad may be the most reviled animal in Australia, but a charity has devised a way to make good use of the invasive pests -- fashioning them into sneakers fit for a prince.

Twitter valued in billions as popularity climbs

SAN FRANCISCO: A fresh infusion of investment cash pushed Twitter's market value up to 3.7 billion dollars on Wednesday with the number of people using the microblogging service climbing to 175 million.

Facebook crimes soar by 7,400%

WASHINGTON: Crimes committed on Facebook have soared 7,400% in the past three years. The website has been used by perverts to groom victims and by criminals to make threats, intimidate, bully and harass people.

China uncovers 2,400-year-old soup: state media

BEIJING: Chinese archaeologists believe they have discovered a 2,400-year-old pot of soup, sealed in a bronze cooking vessel and dug up near the ancient capital of Xian, state press said Monday.

Egypt to reopen beaches after deadly shark attack

ISMAILIA: Egypt said on Sunday it was reopening its shores to tourists at a popular Red Sea resort after a series of shark attacks over the last two weeks, which killed one person and injured four.

Google apology to New Zealanders over Wi-Fi data

WELLINGTON: Internet giant Google said sorry to New Zealanders Tuesday for collecting personal data from wireless networks for its "Street View" mapping service, in the latest in a series of apologies.

NASA sold computers with sensitive data, report says

CAPE CANAVERAL: NASA failed to delete sensitive data on computers and hard drives before selling the equipment as part of its plan to end the Space Shuttle program, an audit released on Tuesday shows.

NASA is getting rid of thousands of surplus items as it prepares to end the space shuttle program next year.

The Office of Inspector General found what it termed "serious" security breaches at NASA centers in Florida, Texas, California and Virginia.

"Our review found serious breaches in NASA's IT (information technology) security practices that could lead to the improper release of sensitive information related to the Space Shuttle and other NASA programs," NASA Inspector General Paul Martin said in a statement.

"NASA needs to take coordinated and forceful actions to address this problem."

The report cites 14 computers from the Kennedy Space Center that failed tests to determine if they were sanitized of sensitive information, 10 of which already had been released to the public.

It also found that hard drives were missing from Kennedy and from the Langley Research Center in Virginia. Some of the Kennedy hard drives were later found inside a dumpster, where they were being stored before sale, that was accessible to the public, the audit says.

Investigators also found several pallets of computers being prepared for sale that were marked with NASA Internet Protocol addresses, which the report said could help hackers gain access to the NASA internal computer network.

Nature's coming attraction: Geminid meteor shower

CAPE CANAVERAL: Stay tuned for nature's coming attraction.

Early next week, the Geminid meteor shower will make its annual appearance, just in time for Christmas. Astronomers consider it the best meteor shower of the year, with more than 100 meteors streaking through the night sky every hour.

Dog causes emergency flight landing in Pittsburgh

NEW YORK: A plane heading to Phoenix had to make an emergency landing in Pittsburgh after a dog on board bit a flight attendant and a passenger.

Kids don't get enough exercise from sports

NEW YORK: Parents hoping to keep their kids active often sign them up for sports, but a new study finds that this may not be enough.

SpaceX postpones test flight of cargo capsule

CAPE CANAVERAL: Technical issues have forced Space Exploration Technologies to postpone Tuesday's planned launch of its Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule, which NASA wants for cargo runs to the International Space Station after its space shuttles are retired next year.

Why be buried in a boring coffin?

GHANA: Why be buried in a boring coffin, when you can get handmade coffins that look like a fish, lobster, snake, bird, shoe, beer bottle, even a cigarette?

For the Ga tribe in coastal Ghana, funerals are a time of mourning, but also of celebration.

The Ga people believe that when their loved ones die, they move on into another life — and the Ga make sure they do so in style.

They honor their dead with brightly colored coffins that celebrate the way they lived.

The coffins are designed to represent an aspect of the dead person’s life — such as a car if they were a driver, a fish if their livelihood was the sea — or a sewing machine for a seamstress. They might also symbolize a vice — such as a bottle of beer or a cigarette.

You can order your own coffin. Wood-carved, painted and in every form you like. If you spent your life, working as a fisherman, you can get buried in a seaworthy 2 m boat model (including crew).

People who only dreamt of having an own car get buried in a wooden Mercedes-Benz. The customers pay between 500 and 1000 $ for such examples of one-way art, which will leave a lasting impression on the day of their funeral. Until this day comes, the coffins are stored in the owners house-dreams of a future which will come true in the beyond.

Scientists say on way to solving anti-matter mystery

GENEVA: European scientists reported the creation and capture of anti-hydrogen atoms in a novel magnetic trap and said it put them on track to solving one of the great cosmic mysteries -- the make-up of anti-matter.

Anti-matter is of intense interest outside the global scientific community because it has often been cited as a potential source of boundless and almost cost-free energy.

The announcement from CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, came just three weeks after another of the three teams working separately on the problem at the particle research centre near Geneva said they had briefly made and caught the elusive atoms for the first time.

"With these alternative methods of producing and eventually studying anti-hydrogen, anti-matter will not be able to hide its properties from us for much longer," said Yasunori Yamazaki of the team that scored the latest breakthrough.

Anti, or neutral, matter is believed to have been created in the same quantities as conventional matter -- the substance of everything visible in the universe including life on earth -- at the moment of the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago.

A theme of much science fiction, it was only discovered by U.S. physicist David Anderson in 1932.

As the latest breakthrough was reported, CERN engineers were closing down the centre's showpiece Large Hadron Collider or LHC for a two-month break after eight months of scientific success in research into how the universe began.

CERN's Director-General Rolf Heuer said that new discoveries were rolling in so fast that it was likely the initial phase of LHC operations would be stretched to the end of 2012, a year longer than planned.

His deputy Sergio Bertolucci said the LHC was moving rapidly into totally new territories of scientific knowledge and the coming months could bring real insight into the "dark matter" that makes up 25 percent of the universe.

Physicists and cosmologists speculate that "dark matter" -- so called because it reflects no light and cannot be seen -- could account for at least some of the missing anti-matter, particles which were first spotted at CERN in 2002.

Some suggest it may have also some relation to the "dark energy" that constitutes about 70 percent of the universe leaving only 5 percent for the visible parts -- galaxies, stars and planets -- that can be observed from earth or nearby.

Monday's announcement said the "ASACUSA" experiment, in a CERN storage ring known as the Antiproton Decelerator or AD, captured "significant numbers" of anti-hydrogen atoms in flight in a particle trap called CUSP.

Last month the parallel, and complementary, ALPHA experiment at the AD captured 38 anti-hydrogen atoms in flight and held them fleetingly, making possible initial observations of their properties and behaviour.

New equipment developed by ASACUSA, ALPHA and a third experiment, ATRAP, has overcome the problem that prevented close study of anti-particles until now -- the fact that when they meet other matter they self-destruct.