World's largest Rodent pet

At eight stone, Gary the capybara is the world's largest rodent. Normally found in South America, this cuddly rodent has been adopted by a couple living in the Texas. Gary at home with his owners Melanie Typaldos and her husband Richard Loveman. The couple fell in love with the South American semi-aquatic mammals during a holiday to Venezuela.

Music making you immortal

Anyone reckon they can’t live without music? Well, now you don’t have to. Jason Leach, founder of And Vinyly, has announced a new option for those who’d rather die than live without it: have your ashes combined with 24 minutes of audiophile-quality vinyl. Although being incredibly expensive (cop $4,600 for 30 copies of a record, each one containing a bit of ash), for those who have lived their lives through music and want their legacy to be remembered by music, what better way than to actually ‘become’ music when you die? The process is pretty simple: ashes are delivered to a pressing plant and sprinkled into raw vinyl, and you can also get your all-time favourite track pressed onto your ashes for a cool extra $760. So all-in-all, you can essentially become your favourite tune when you die for $5,360. That’s a fraction of the cost of a typical burial, which the National Funeral Directors Association in England ballparks at around $6,560. Oh, and as another cute add-on, James Hague of the National Portrait Gallery in London can create an original painting for the record sleeve for around $5,470 if you feel like paying big money. The idea from Leach comes as he remembers the failure of his father trying to scatter his grandfather’s ashes from a boat; “it went terribly wrong, and they ended up sweeping him off the deck.” Tough break. Things didn’t turn out much better at his own grandfather’s memorial service either, “there was a strong breeze…and the ashes blew right into my face.”

Restaurant run by dreaded criminals

The Fortezza Medicea is the name of a restaurant in Volterra, Italy. It is housed in the town's Renaissance-era fortress (Fortezza Medicea, Medici fortress), built 1474, which is a high-security prison for criminals serving no less than seven years.[1] In 2006, the prison's administration began operating a restaurant within the prison, using inmates as staff, as a rehabilitation scheme.[2] The project was successful in attracting clients and the attention of the international press. Despite the inconveniences of dining in the Fortezza – clients must pass a background check and several checkpoints, and all cutlery is plastic – tables, as of 2007, had to be booked weeks in advance.

Alligators skyfall

On December 26, 1877, no less than the New York Times reported the following: "Dr. J.L. Smith of Silverton Township, South Carolina, while opening up a new turpentine farm, noticed something fall to the ground and commence to crawl toward the tent where he was sitting. On examining the object he found it to be an alligator. In the course of a few moments a second one made its appearance. This so excited the curiosity of the doctor that he looked around to see if he could discover any more, and found six others within a space of two hundred yards. The animals were all quite lively, and about twelve inches in length. The place whereon they fell is situated on high sandy ground about six miles north of the Savannah River." An alligator is a crocodilian in the genus Alligator of the family Alligatoridae. The two living species are the American alligator and the Chinese alligator. In addition, several extinct species of alligator are known from fossil remains.

Ivory black paint

Ivory black paint was traditionally made from charred ivory - Today it's made from charred bones of sheep and cattle. Bone char (Latin: carbo animalis), also known as bone black, ivory black, animal charcoal, or abaiser, is a granular material produced by charring animal bones. To prevent the spread of Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease, the skull and spine are never used.[1] The bones are heated to high temperatures—in the range of 400 to 500 °C (752 to 932 °F)— in an oxygen-depleted atmosphere to control the quality of the product as related to its adsorption capacity for applications such as defluoridation of water and removal of heavy metals from aqueous solutions. The quality of the bone char can be easily determined by its color. Black charcoals are usually undercharred bones that still contain organic impurities which may impart undesired odor and color to treated waters. White bone chars are overcharred bones that present low fluoride removal capacity.[citation needed] Grey-brownish bone char are the best quality chars for absorption applications. The quality of the bone chars is usually controlled by the amount of oxygen present in the charring atmosphere. It consists mainly of tricalcium phosphate and a small amount of carbon. Bone chars usually have lower surface areas than activated carbons, but present high adsorptive capacities for copper, zinc, and cadmium.[2][3][4] Charred pig bones can effectively absorb cobalt; however this process is inhibited by copper and zinc; which have a greater affinity for bone char.

Ancient "Babylonian" business transactions

Fingerprints were used in Ancient Babylon to seal documents or in signing official papers. Fingerprints could also be placed on clay tablets used for business transactions. This was a sure way of ensuring that documents would not be duplicated. History of Fingerprinting There are records of fingerprints being taken many centuries ago, although they weren't nearly as sophisticated as they are today. The ancient Babylonians pressed the tips of their fingertips into clay to record business transactions. The Chinese used ink-on-paper finger impressions for business and to help identify their children. However, fingerprints weren't used as a method for identifying criminals until the 19th century. In 1858, an Englishman named Sir William Herschel was working as the Chief Magistrate of the Hooghly district in Jungipoor, India. In order to reduce fraud, he had the residents record their fingerprints when signing business documents. A few years later, Scottish doctor Henry Faulds was working in Japan when he discovered fingerprints left by artists on ancient pieces of clay. This finding inspired him to begin investigating fingerprints. In 1880, Faulds wrote to his cousin, the famed naturalist Charles Darwin, and asked for help with developing a fingerprint classification system. Darwin declined, but forwarded the letter to his cousin, Sir Francis Galton. Galton was a eugenicist who collected measurements on people around the world to determine how traits were inherited from one generation to the next. He began collecting fingerprints and eventually gathered some 8,000 different samples to analyze. In 1892, he published a book called "Fingerprints," in which he outlined a fingerprint classification system -- the first in existence. The system was based on patterns of arches, loops and whorls. Meanwhile, a French law enforcement official named Alphonse Bertillon was developing his own system for identifying criminals. Bertillonage (or anthropometry) was a method of measuring heads, feet and other distinguishing body parts. These "spoken portraits" enabled police in different locations to apprehend suspects based on specific physical characteristics. The British Indian police adopted this system in the 1890s. Around the same time, Juan Vucetich, a police officer in Buenos Aires, Argentina, was developing his own variation of a fingerprinting system. In 1892, Vucetich was called in to assist with the investigation of two boys murdered in Necochea, a village near Buenos Aires. Suspicion had fallen initially on a man named Velasquez, a love interest of the boys' mother, Francisca Rojas. But when Vucetich compared fingerprints found at the murder scene to those of both Velasquez and Rojas, they matched Rojas' exactly. She confessed to the crime. This was the first time fingerprints had been used in a criminal investigation. Vucetich called his system comparative dactyloscopy. It's still used in many Spanish-speaking countries. Sir Edward Henry, commissioner of the Metropolitan Police of London, soon became interested in using fingerprints to nab criminals. In 1896, he added to Galton's technique, creating his own classification system based on the direction, flow, pattern and other characteristics of the friction ridges in fingerprints. Examiners would turn these characteristics into equations and classifications that could distinguish one person's print from another's. The Henry Classification System replaced the Bertillonage system as the primary method of fingerprint classification throughout most of the world. In 1901, Scotland Yard established its first Fingerprint Bureau. The following year, fingerprints were presented as evidence for the first time in English courts. In 1903, the New York state prisons adopted the use of fingerprints, followed later by the FBI.

Baskin Shark

The basking shark is the second-largest living fish, after the whale shark, and one of three plankton-eating sharks besides the whale shark and mega mouth shark. It is a cosmopolitan migratory species, found in all the world's temperate oceans. Scientific name: Cetorhinus maximus SizeLength: 6.7 - 8.8 m Weight : 6 tonnes Very little information is known about the natural ecology and behaviour of the basking shark. It receives its common name from its feeding behaviour, when individuals appear to be ‘basking’ on the water’s surface, swimming very slowly with their entire dorsal fin out of the water (2). These sharks feed passively (unlike the also plankton-feeding whale shark and megamouth shark (Megachasma pelagios) which can use its head muscles to suck water into the mouth), merely by swimming through the water with their mouths gaping (2). As water passes over the gills, plankton are retained; a fairly large shark can filter roughly 1,500 cubic metres of water an hour (6). These giant fish have occasionally been observed leaping out of the water (2), which is probably related to social behaviour (12). Basking sharks are usually solitary, although pairs and groups of up to 100 individuals have been seen (2). This species mysteriously disappears from coastal waters in the winter months and it was recently suggested that they ‘hibernate’ in the deep water. It is also thought that during this time of low food availability basking sharks shed and then replace the gill rakers (11). This suggestion has been refuted by scientific satellite tracking of sharks, revealing extensive migrations throughout all seasons (13). The only pregnant female ever caught gave birth to six live young; the prevailing view is that that these sharks are ovoviviparous (8), and it is likely that they only give birth every two to four years. A Baskin shark's liver accounts for one quarter of its body weight.