World's untidiest car banned 世界最髒亂的車子被禁止開上路

Police in Germany banned a woman driver's car from the road - for being too untidy.

The Vauxhall Astra was so full of junk, magazines, old clothes and even bits of furniture that they could barely see the driver at it roared down a motorway near Dusseldorf.

The driver - who has not been named by police - has been banned from taking the car on the road again until it has passed a tidiness test.

Police said the car was so full of junk the woman's face was pressed up against the windscreen as she drove.

"I'm sure this will make most people feel a lot better about leaving the odd sweet wrapper lying around in their car," joked one police source. (ananova.com)

World's first refrigerated beach 世界第一座冷卻海灘

The world's first refrigerated beach is being created in Dubai so tourists don't burn their feet.

A computer-controlled system of coolant-filled pipes under the sand will keep temperatures comfortable, reports The Sun.

The beach will be created next to the new Palazzo Versace hotel in the Arab state.

Guests wanting to chill out in summer heat hitting 50°C (122°F) will also have a cooled swimming pool and a gentle breeze generated by huge blowers.

Bosses hope the gimmicks at the hotel, due to open late next year or early 2010, will attract some of the 800,000 Brits who visit Dubai each year.

British firm Hyder Consulting is overseeing the construction. The five-star hotel is linked to the Versace fashion brand and aims to attract designer-conscious clients.

Soheil Abedian, president of the company that owns the Palazzo Versace, said: "This is the kind of luxury top people want."

But Rachel Noble, of Tourism Concern, said: "Dubai is like a bubble world where the things that are worrying the rest of the world, like climate change, are simply ignored so people can continue destructive lifestyles." (The Sun)

World's first 'robot play' 全球第一齣「機器人劇」

Scientists in Japan have achieved a major breakthrough in robotics – as they've staged the world's first 'robot play'.
The two robots stars of the play, Takeo and Momoko, appear alongside human actors in the play Hataraku Watashi ('Working Me').

Set in a future where robots and humans co-exist, the drama takes place in the home of a married couple who share a house with two robots.

The robots, which were made by Mitsubishi, are programmed to deliver their lines and hit their marks – although the writer, Hirata Orisa , admitted it was frustrating waiting for the robots to be reprogrammed any time the director wanted to change an aspect of their performance.

The robot actors have yet to throw any artistic tantrums or start scene-stealing like a normal actor would – and one of their fellow human actors admitted to growing fond of them: 'You find yourself developing an affection for the robots. People were saying "they're so cute," particularly the female robot. At first I wondered what the fuss was about but I found myself smiling while I was looking at them.'

The scientists behind the production at Osaka University's Department of Adaptive Machine Systems say they hope to have an all-robot production in theatre within the next two years.

Robots have a long history in the theatre – the word robot was first introduced to the English language by Czech playwright Karel Čapek, in his 1921 play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots). (Metro.co.uk)

World's most amazing face paintings 世界最令人驚奇的臉部彩繪

Face painting usually means tigers or lions at the fair or national flags for football matches.

Well, meet John Kuhn, the Leonardo da Vinci and Picasso of face painting all rolled into one.

The drag queen, former nudist and born-again Christian is halfway through a project to create a design for his face every day for a year.

He has daubed his visage with everything from a giant carton of pop corn to Loony Toon Tweety Pie and even a big scary gorilla.

His face has hosted a menagerie of animals, but perhaps the most striking ­images are those of food.

One shows him wolfing down an ice-cream, while another transforms him into a pineapple.

He also makes a pretty convincing burger. Michigan-based Mr Kuhn, 46, who began his project in March, said he wants to take face painting 'to a higher level'.

He said: 'Face painting is the most exciting thing that has happened to me in a long while! I believe it may have magical powers!'

Sit back and have a look at his wonderful gallery of face painting art here. (Metro.co.uk)

World's remotest school 全球最偏僻的學校

Children in a remote part of China face a hazardous walk to school - because it is halfway up a sheer cliff.

The school in Gulu village, Sichuan province, lies halfway up a mountain and climbing up from the base takes five hours.

The elementary school has only one teacher who has been there for 26 years, reports the West China City Daily.

Villagers say going to school is very dangerous for the children, since the path is only 1ft 4ins wide at the narrowest point and has a sheer drop on one side.

Walking along the narrow, zigzagging path also makes the children feel dizzy, they say.

The school has five concrete buildings and a playground with a basketball hoop made of two wooden poles and a broken blackboard.

However, the children are allowed to only pat the balls, as if they throw them and they go over the edge of the cliff, it would take half a day to retrieve them.

Shen Qijun, 45, the teacher, has threatened to quit several times, but each time the villagers plead with him to stay as there would be nobody else to teach their children.

Shen teaches Chinese and Math to the students, but says only two students in 26 years have gone on to university because of the isolation.

A volunteer who has been teaching there for three months said: "The students work very hard, but they have never seen computers, cars or even flushing toilets." (West China City Daily -- 華西都市報)

Schoolgirl breaks record for having most snails on her face 英女學童締造最多蝸牛爬在臉上紀錄

A nine-year-old Cheshire schoolgirl has broken the world record for having the most snails on her face at once.

Tiana Walton allowed 25 of the slimy creatures to cover her eyes, nose and mouth - beating the previous record of 15 held by Australian Liam Kenny.

Before her record breaking attempt, now in the Guinness Book of World Records, Tiana's previous personal best was just nine.

She had just one minute to put the snails on her face and then had to tip her head forward for 10 seconds. Any snails that fell off during that period were not counted.

Tiana said: "I am not squeamish. It is relaxing but it feels a bit cold. They are quite smelly and you can see their big long eyes."

Asked whether she thought her new record would be beaten, she added: "I don't think many people will be bothered about putting snails on their face!"

With Tiana's success, it would seem that record breaking runs in the Walton family.

Her mother Tommy appeared in the Guinness Book of World Record in 1980 for growing the largest lemon in the world, which weighed in at 3lb 14oz. (Ananova.com)

World's most blinged-up bike 世上最貴氣的腳踏車

Scandinavian design company Aurumania has launched a limited edition run of the world's most blinged-up bike.

At just over £60,000, the Gold Bike Crystal Edition is believed to be the most expensive bicycle ever made.

Each of the ten produced, is hand-built and gold-plated with 24-carat gold, and decked out with over 600 Swarovski crystals.

Hand-sewn leather grips and a Brooks leather saddle provide finishing touches to the bike, with each limited edition number embossed with gold leaf and set into a leather badge onto the bike's headtube.

The company has also created a 24-carat gold wall holder for the bike, so it can be displayed as a work of art. (Anaova.com)

World's unluckiest cyclist? 世上最倒楣的單車騎士?

A US cyclist was knocked down by a car and a train in separate accidents within six hours of each other.

Unlucky Robert Evans, 46, from Boulder, Colorado, was first hit by a car in a hit-and-run incident.

Mr Evans was taken to hospital but later released, reports Metro.

He was on his way back to town when he was hit by a train while walking his bicycle across a railroad bridge.

He was later found in a creek and again taken to hospital, but his injuries were not life-threatening.

To add to his woes, Evans faces a ticket from police for trespassing on the rail bridge which is not open to pedestrians. (Metro.co.uk)

World's most prolific bike thief 全球最多產的腳踏車竊賊

Canadian police say they have caught the world's most prolific bike thief.

Officers recovered 2,865 stolen bicycles from the owner of a Toronto bike shop, reports The Guardian.

Igor Kenk, 49, is awaiting trial on 58 charges of theft, attempted theft, possession of stolen goods and possession of burglary tools.

He was arrested after Toronto police, noticing that bike theft had spiked sharply in June, planted bicycles on the streets and watched to see who stole them.

As plain clothes officers hid in wait, Kenk and another man walked past. Kenk seemed to tell his companion to cut the locks on two bikes, which he did, before the pair attempted to pedal away.

When police raided the Bicycle Clinic, the shop was so jam-packed that the fire service had to remove the upper-floor windows and lower the bikes out by rope.

Later, 200 more bikes were seized in Kenk's home, along with large quantities of drugs, in a smart neighbourhood in Toronto.

Ten landlords around the city also reported that they had rented garages to Kenk, which were chock-full of bikes.

Some 15,000 people have visited the police station garage where the vast collection was taken, hoping to pick out their own lost bikes.

Toronto police officers said about 500 people had so far been reunited with their bicycles. (The Guardian)

Record fish caught on toy rod 玩具釣竿釣到重量破紀錄的鯰魚

A man in the US has managed to catch and land a record-breaking catfish on a Barbie fishing rod just 2-and-a-half feet long.

David Hayes and his 3-year-old granddaughter Alyssa were angling in the pond behind his Wilkes County home when she asked him to hold her rod while she nipped to the loo.

"They hadn't no more than closed the door than the cat hit the cricket and took off," Mr Hayes told the Hickory Daily Record.

"He turned the water over and I saw his tail was about as wide as my two hands."

Alyssa returned to find her grandad battling with the monster fish.

"She said, 'Papa, you're going to break my rod,' because it was bent double," said Mr Hayes.

After 25 minutes, the pink plastic toy prevailed and Mr Hayes landed the 21 lbs,1oz catfish on the 6 lbs test line.

At 32 inches long, it was 2 inches longer than the rod.

A state fisheries biologist from North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission has certified the record, which was nearly three pounds over the previous mark. (AP)

World's first sat nav - from 1920 世界第一具衛星導航裝置

It doesn't speak to you or give live traffic updates, but this is the world's first sat nav - invented in the 1920s.

The Plus Fours Routefinder was designed to be worn on the wrist - relying on good old-fashioned paper maps wound around wooden rollers, which the driver turned en route.

The tiny scrolls also showed the mileage and gave a "stop" instruction at the journey's end.

The device was intended to allow drivers to navigate around the UK, but with so few cars on the roads it never really took off.

Now consigned to the scrap heap of history, the Routefinder is one of many gadgets patented by inventors who were hoping to strike it rich with their bizarre contraptions.

It's part of a collection of weird and wonderful inventions, all conceived between 1851 and 1951, which have gone on display at the British Library in London.

Other gadgets include a clockwork burglar alarm, a candle "blower-outer", a mechanical page turner and a skirt lifter - tongs that fitted to women's waistbands to lift their skirts clear of puddles. (Ananova.com)

Piglet with monkey's face 猴臉小豬

Villagers were shocked after a monkey-like piglet was born in China.

Curious locals flocked to the home of owner Feng Changlin after news of the piglet spread in Fengzhang village, Xiping township.

"It's hideous. No one will be willing to buy it, and it scares the family to even look at it!" Feng told Oriental Today.

He says the piglet looks just like a monkey, with two thin lips, a small nose and two big eyes. Its rear legs are also much longer than its forelegs, causing it to jump instead of walk.

Feng's wife said the monkey-faced piglet was one of five newborns of a sow which the family had raised for nine years.

"My God, it was so scary. I didn't known what it was. I was really frightened," she said.

"But our son likes to play with it, and he stopped us from getting rid of it. He even feeds it milk."

Neighbours have suggested the couple keep the piglet to see how it looks as it matures. (Oriental Today)

World's fastest snail 世界最快的蝸牛

Three hundred eager competitors fought it out in a keenly contested race to be crowned the fastest snail in the world.

The annual World Snail Racing Championships in Congham, Norfolk, involves snails racing from the centre of a circle.

Snails are placed in the middle and pointed in the right direction. A snail trainer then starts the races by shouting: "Ready, steady, SLOW!"

A well-watered course is apparently the secret to a good championship as the snails like damp conditions.

Super snail Heikka, owned by thirteen-year-old Georgia Brow, claimed victory this year after taking the chequered flag in a time of 3mins 2secs.

Together Heikka, who is named after Lewis Hamilton's Formula One teammate Heikki Kovalainen, and Georgia received a first prize of a silver tankard stuffed with lettuce.

However, even Heikka was unable to beat the benchmark set in 1995 by a snail named Archie, who completed the race in a speedy two minutes.

Founder Tom Elwes started the annual snail championships in the 1960s after witnessing a similar event in France. (Roundup)

Man claims funeral record 男子宣稱締造參加最多葬禮的世界記錄

A Croatian man claims to have set a world record after attending more than 2,000 funerals.

Mijo Tkalcec, 69, from Peteranec, said he has been fascinated by funerals since he was a little boy and will travel hundreds of miles just to attend one.

He said: "I have always been interested in how people send off the deceased.

"Nothing keeps me away from one and I have been to more than 2,000 now in my life. As far as I know that is a world record."

Tkalcec, who last year buried his own wife, said: "People who know me used to find my passion for funerals quite strange but they've gradually got used to it." (Ananova.com)

Man breaks record by sitting in 39,250 seats 男子坐39,250個座位 打破世界紀錄

Jim Purol took a seat at the Rose Bowl, and then another, and then another, until he broke a world record.

The Anaheim man set a Guiness World Record on Wednesday for "Most Seats Sat in 48 Hours" by sitting in 39,250 seats.

He began the task Monday morning, and he's still going, hoping to rest his tush in each of the stadium's 92,542 seats by sometime this week.

The 56-year-old, who already holds several other world records, says he has dreamed of tackling the Rose Bowl seats for 20 years — ever since he sat in all 107,501 chairs at the University of Michigan's football stadium.

The feat has taken a toll on his body and his cleanliness, as soot on the seats rubbed off on his clothes. He says he loves the Rose Bowl but calls the place "filthy." (AP)

World's biggest portrait 世界最大的畫像

A Chinese company is printing what is believed to be the world's biggest photograph for Mother's Day.

The Chongqing city-based firm says the portrait of a mum's smiling face will be bigger than a football pitch at 9,000 sq metres.

The project is costing more than £70,000 - and it took three months to find the right woman to pose for the photo.

Director Mr Li, who has already lodged a bid to get into Chinese record books, said: "We wanted to find the perfect mother's smile in this city."

The Chongqing Changhong Printing Company, which says it is their biggest ever order, is working round the clock to finish the picture in time for May 11 when Mother's Day is celebrated in China.

"Usually we only stock two tonnes of inkjet paper, but this deal needs 4.4 tonnes, so we had to buy extra," company manager Mr Shen told the Chongqing Business Daily.

It is much too big to print in one piece so the picture is being printed on rolls of paper which will be put together to make up the giant portrait.

"The printer has been working around the clock for the last 20 days and we still have ten to go," added Mr Shen. (Chongqing Business Daily)

Megan Fox is world sexiest woman in 2008 梅根福克斯是2008全球最性感女性

Megan Fox was named the world's sexiest woman on Wednesday by men's FHM magazine. The 21-year-old Transformers (變形金剛) co-star topped FHM Online's reader poll of the 100 Sexiest Women in the World for 2008.

"Megan Fox is the deserving winner of this year's FHM title. She's young, she's hot, she's a rising star and her sex appeal has definitely transformed this year's list," said FHM Online U.S. Editor JR Futrell. (Random Citations)

World's smallest Mona Lisa 世界最小的「蒙娜麗莎的微笑」

A Hampshire artist has painted the world's smallest Mona Lisa - and it's less than a quarter the size of a postage stamp.

The tiny replica of Leonardo Da Vinci's most famous painting is just 11mm high and seven millimetres wide.

Andrew Nicholls, 44, from Farnborough, painstakingly recreated the Mona Lisa in record 70:1 scale after reading about the previous holder on a hobby craft website.

To break the record he had to paint his entire masterpiece while peering through a magnifying glass.

Mr Nicholls used a 0000 gauge brush, consisting of just a few strands tapered to a fine point, to layer his acrylic paint on a piece of card.

He said: "I have been painting tiny pictures for dolls houses for five years now and can produce one of them in about an hour.

"But the detail of the Mona Lisa was much more difficult and I wanted to get it right.

"I used a tiny 0000 gauge paintbrush and don't believe it's possible to make the painting any smaller without compromising on detail or using a magnifying glass to see the finished item."

The previous record of 9 x 13 millimetres was held by Yves Gerard, from Luxembourg, whose work is housed at the Musee de la Miniature in Drome, France.

Mr Nicholls added: "I have never seen the original Mona Lisa but I would love to visit Paris and see it. It would be incredible to see my work mounted next to the original, so people can get some idea of scale." (Ananova.com)

World's largest cell phone 全世界最大的手機

A Chinese man is hoping to get in the record books after creating what he claims is the world's largest working mobile phone.

Mr Tan, of Songyuan city, says his 3ft high phone, which weighs 48lbs, is an exact copy of his own phone - but 620 times bigger.

A local journalist tested the phone by making calls and sending text messages and pronounced it completely functional, reports City News.

Tan says it has all the functions of a normal phone, with a built-in camera and internet access but has to be plugged into the mains as he hasn't managed to build a big enough battery.

"The only other difference is that I didn't incorporate the vibrate function," he said.

Tan, an electronics enthusiast, says he came up the idea for the giant phone a year and a half ago and finally started work on it with his father six months ago.

"Many friends worried I couldn't finish it, and only my father encouraged me to continue," he said.

"The neighbours were always knocking on my door asking what was going on with all the noise from the apartment, and even my wife was complaining." (City News)

Islam overtakes Roman Catholicism as the world's largest religion 回教取代天主教成為全球最大宗教

Islam has surpassed Roman Catholicism as the world's largest religion, Reuters cited Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano as reporting.

Islam has overtaken Roman Catholicism as the biggest single religious denomination in the world, the Vatican said.

Monsignor Vittorio Formenti, who compiled the Vatican's newly-released 2008 yearbook of statistics, said Muslims made up 19.2 percent of the world's population and Catholics 17.4 percent.

"For the first time in history we are no longer at the top: the Muslims have overtaken us," Formenti told Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano in an interview, saying the data referred to 2006.

He said that if all Christian groups were considered, including Orthodox churches, Anglicans and Protestants, then Christians made up 33 percent of the world's population -- or about 2 billion people.

The Vatican recently put the number of Catholics in the world at 1.13 billion people. It did not provide a figure for Muslims, generally estimated at around 1.3 billion.

Formenti said that while the number of Catholics as a proportion of the world's population was fairly stable, the percentage of Muslims was growing because of higher birth rates. (Reuters&Random Citations)