Sun, sea and sewage in the playground of the rich in Dubai

A noxious tide of toilet paper, raw sewage and chemical waste has transformed Dubai’s most prestigious stretch of shoreline into a foul-smelling health hazard.

A stretch of the exclusive Jumeirah Beach — a magnet for Western tourists and home to a string of hotels — has been closed.

“It’s a cesspool. Our tests show too many E. coli to count. It’s like swimming in a toilet,” said Keith Mutch, the manager of the Offshore Sailing Club, which has posted warnings and been forced to cancel regattas.

The pollution is a blow to Dubai’s reputation as an international holiday destination offering almost guaranteed sunshine and clear seas.

The debate over who is to blame is also turning toxic, pitting the city’s wealthy expatriates against local authorities, who have been criticised for failing to stop lorry drivers dumping human and industrial waste into the ocean.

The row also illustrates how Dubai’s rapid development threatens to outpace the Emirates’ ability to enforce environmental standards, angering the foreigners that the boom town seeks to attract. Mr Mutch first detected trouble during a walk on the beach last summer.

“The stench was unbearable and the water was a muddy brown. There was toilet paper in the sand,” he recalled.

He traced the sludge to a storm drain, buried behind a pile of rocks near the dock. It was spewing effluent into the sea.

He followed the drain several kilometres inland to the Al Quoz industrial area, which houses the cement, paint and furniture factories that have helped to fuel the city’s rapid growth.

There he discovered that dozens of sewage lorries carrying human waste from Dubai’s 1.3 million inhabitants emptied their tanks into storm drains such as the one leading to the sailing club. The drains, all connected, were built to carry excess water that falls during Dubai’s short rainy season.

According to some truckers — mostly poor workers from southern Asia – illegal dumping of waste is a purely financial decision.

Mosque in Brunei

Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin Mosque

Built: 1958 Cost: USD $5,000,000 Type: Holy place Observation deck: Yes Location: Kampong Ayer, Bandar Seri Begawan (formerly Brunei Town)

A mazing in appearance, but too beautiful to be true, The Omar Ali Saifuddin Mosque is Brunei’s proudest architectural achievement.

It sits on an artificial lagoon near the Brunei River in Kampong Ayer, which is appropriately enough, known as a “water village.”

A structure in the water that resembles a ship was at one time used for official state ceremonies.

The mosque is the largest in the Far East, and considered among the most beautiful in the world. It reaches a height of 52 meters and is topped with a gold dome supported by walls of Italian marble, which also forms the mosque’s columns, arches, and towers.

The stained glass was hand made in England and the carpets are Saudi Arabian

The Great White Shark - Fearsome Hunter

The Great White Shark is the largest known predatory fish in the sea, at the top of its food chain with no natural predators. They’re equipped with two of the most powerful sensing mechanisms in Nature, a highly developed sense of smell, and the ability to sense the electrical fields radiating from living creatures. Also known as the white shark, white pointer, blue pointer, man-eater, and manila shark, this killing machine averages a length up to 20 feet (6 meters) and 5,000 pounds (2,270 kilos).

Great White Sharks bear a set of nostrils near the tip of their conical snout, used solely for olfactory purposes to sniff out their prey, while breathing through their gills. The nostrils are divided by a small flap of skin separating the water into 2 flows, one incoming and one outgoing. The flow passes through a section with countless small sensory organs called lamellae, shaped like tiny flower petals covered with millions of olfactory cells. These cells are linked directly to the center of the brain responsible for detecting odors.

But the secret weapon in the Great White’s arsenal are ampullae — small pore-like markings on the snout — which provide the shark with the ability to sense the electrical fields of their prey. Each is a minute capsule filled with a gel like substance the shark excretes, sensitive to electrical discharges as low as .005 micro volts. This remarkable sensitivity is due to both the large number of ampullae, and their numerous sensory cells in each to pick up the signal which is also directly linked to the brain.

Every living creature in the sea discharges a small electrical field. Mucous membranes that coat the mouth and gills of fish also create steady current fields affected by their breathing patterns. A wounded bleeding animal produces yet another set of electrical information.

By their ability to discern these sets of information, Great Whites can detect and distinguish between prey swimming peacefully, those moving quickly in panic, and those which might be bleeding and debilitated. Recent research on interactions between great whites and various species of seals and sea lions suggests that great whites also hunt their prey visually.

These 2 sensory mechanisms make for an inescapable and formidable predator.


Food and Feeding Behavior
While young, White sharks feed on fish, rays, and other sharks, and as they begin to mature they’ll feed on marine mammals and forage for large animal carcasses. Progressing to small harbor seals, they hunt sea lions, elephant seals, and small toothed whales as they increase in size. Occasionally feeding on sea turtles and sea otters, they’ve been known to attack but not eat humans.

Camouflaging themselves near rocky bottoms, they’ll watch for unsuspecting prey near the surface. Once an animal is sighted, they accelerate quickly to the surface and ram into their kill from beneath, simultaneously stunning it and inflicting a large, potentially fatal bite. They then return to feed on the carcass.

World Range & Habitat
Great Whites have one of the widest geographic ranges of any marine animal, found in all cold temperate and tropical waters from 60°N latitude to 60°S latitude. Recent satellite tracking studies reveal that they migrate long distances, sometimes crossing entire oceans.

They can be found along the central California coast hunting near elephant seal haul-out areas from October through March, and off the western cape of South Africa near cape fur seal haul-outs from May to September. In North American waters, they’ve been reported from Newfoundland to Florida, and from the Aleutian Islands, Alaska to southern Mexico. Nowhere in its range is the white shark very common, and are becoming increasingly rare.

Great White Shark Attack
The cunning Great White appears almost to be toying with this seal
prior to its ferocious attack.

Ten Of The Most Beautiful Places Of The World!

We live in a world blessed with sights that are beautiful beyond words. Every human being dreams of and possesses a desire to visit those places in their lifetime. Living in modern cities with high-rise buildings, we tend to miss out on what mother-nature has to offer and some of the man-made structures par excellence.

Look at these places and you will see beauty that fills the eye and warms the heart. It is not only inappropriate to just pick a few places from the huge expanse of the world but also humanly impossible.

They say that ‘beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder,’ and there are perhaps other places that have touched your heart. For this reason, we do not claim that these places we are bringing to you are the best, but they are certainly among the most beautiful places of the world.

The Grand Canyon, United States

Native Americans built settlements in the caves within the canyon before the emigration of Europeans. It was also considered to be a site of pilgrimage by the Pueblo people. The first recorded visit to the Grand Canyon by the Europeans was in 1869. Although, it is not the deepest canyon in the world, it is known for its extremely huge size and beautifully intricate landscape. The Grand Canyon National Park is said to be one of the first National Parks in the United States and attracts more than five million visitors a year. Weather conditions in the Grand Canyon vary a great deal between seasons as well as elevation. While winter snow is experienced by the higher elevated forested rims, the inner gorge has a desert temperature because of the low elevation.

The Great Barrier Reef, Australia

One of the natural wonders of the world, the Great Barrier Reef off the east coast of Australia is the world’s largest coral reef. It has the distinction of being placed in the World Heritage as well as the National Heritage lists.

With more than 600 islands and coral cays, the reef covers more than 300,000 sq. km. Corals make up the several reefs and cays and are responsible for a huge variety of sea life in the reef; including green turtles, several varieties of whales and dolphins, dugong, about 4000 types of mollusk, 1500 different species of fish as well as a beautiful colored bird life with 200 species. The Great Reef Marine Park is a huge tourist attraction with more than a couple of million tourists visiting the area each year. Sporting includes activities such as reef sailing, scuba diving and snorkeling amongst several others.

Cape Town, South Africa

Aptly called “heaven on earth,” this beautiful town at the tip of the African continent, with small roads surrounded by huge mountains, makes a person feel small; showing how marvelous and dominating nature can actually be.

The Cape Dutch style buildings depict the architectural heritage of the place. Beauty abounds in the black clouds that seem to pay homage to Table Mountain at all times. Cape Point, Signal Hill, Chapman’s Peak Drive, Victoria & Alfred Waterfront, Robben Island, Rhodes Memorial and the beaches are some of the famous tourist attractions. Located on the shore of Table Bay, Cape Town is famous for its natural

floral kingdom as well as its harbor. This town is one of the most popular tourist attractions of South Africa, with its wine tasting day trips, whale watching and dolphin watching.

Taj Mahal, India

The Taj Mahal in India is one of the wonders of the world and is one of the most beautiful mausoleums constructed by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his favorite queen, Mumtaz Mahal. Located in Agra, white marble is used in the creation of this symbol of love and is considered to be the pinnacle of the famous Mughal architecture.

Story goes that the emperor was grief stricken when he lost his beloved third wife, Mumtaz Mahal. It took several thousands of craftsmen, artisans and about twenty years to construct it. The masons, stonecutters, carvers, inlayers, calligraphers, painters and others were brought from the entire empire as well as from Iran and Central Asia. Semi-precious stones were used for inlay ornamentation. It later became the mausoleum of Shah Jahan too. This is a huge tourist attraction with one to two million tourists visiting it every year.

Canadian Rockies, Canada

The majestic Canadian Rockies are the Canadian segment of the North American Rocky mountains. They are a visitor’s wonderland and the playground for western Canada. They are older than the American Rockies and are formed from over thrusting.

The Canadian Rockies house five national parks, out of which four of them along with other provincial parks form a combination of a single UNESCO World Heritage Site that consists of beautiful mountain landscapes, lakes, canyons, waterfalls, glaciers, peaks, limestone caves as well as fossils. Mount Robson is the highest peak of the Canadian Rockies and climbing it is considered a challenge. These beautiful mountains are a haven for hikers and walkers alike.

Machu Picchu, Peru

Machu Picchu in Peru, which means ‘Old Peak,” is one of the most enigmatic ancient sites in the world. According to legend, Machu Picchu was a long time ago considered to be a sacred place. The credit for the creation of the extraordinary city goes to the Inca people who have erected many stone structures and turned the place into an art form.

Two thousand feet above the Urubamba river, these ruins consist of baths, temples, palaces and about 150 houses, all very well preserved. These gray granite structures, some of which weigh more than 50 tons are so perfectly sculpted that they are nothing less than architectural genius. They were rediscovered by a Yale archaeologist in 1911. The ethereal beauty, the workmanship and history of the place attracts millions of tourists each year.

The Pyramids, Egypt

The Egyptian pyramids are massive monuments with a square base and four triangular sides rising up to a point. There was a lot of curiosity associated with the pyramids as to their formation, whether it was natural.

However, the Egyptians started constructing them after 2700 B.C. and were built as tombs for the Pharaohs. The most well-known and the largest pyramids of Egypt are the Pyramids at Giza which are said to be the largest ever built, and the Great Pyramid at Giza took 23 years to complete for about a work force of 30,000. About 118 pyramids have been identified and are very popular with people from all over the world.

Petra, Jordan

Described by the UNESCO as “one of the most precious cultural properties of man’s cultural heritage, Petra is an archeological site on the slope of Mount Hor. It is one of the new wonders of the world and is famous for its rock cut architecture.

This site was kept hidden till 1812 when it was discovered by a Swiss explorer. It was said to have been prepared by God for the Jewish people. Petra once flourished under the Roman empire but a rapid decline began with the Arabian trade being taken elsewhere. Then an earthquake caused a lot of destruction. Tourists throng the place to get a glimpse of the ruins of this beautiful city.

Great Wall of China, China

One of the seven wonders of the world, the Great Wall of China is a man-made structure that was constructed over two thousand years ago and took about 100 years to complete. The vastness of this project brings to light the immense capabilities of man.

The constructions started in the 5th Century B.C. It is actually many walls put together and stretches over 4,000 miles and was constructed to protect the Chinese Empire from the Xiongnu people in the north. The wall was initially built of stone, grass, earth and wood, but bricks were used once the production started. It is believed that about 2-3 million Chinese died as part of this project.

The Iguazu Waterfalls, Argentina-Brazil Border

Heralded as the most beautiful waterfalls in the world, the Iguazu Waterfalls are a true wonder of nature. They are located at the border of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay. While the Argentinean side allows visitors to walk right around the water or explore the National Park; the Brazilian side is known for its panoramic views and splendor.

First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, upon seeing these falls is claimed to have exclaimed “poor Niagara.” The area of the falls provides ample opportunities for rock climbing as well as water sports. Iguazu has the distinction of having the greatest annual flow when compared to any other falls in the world.

With all these and many more beautiful places that exist in our world, we are lost for choice and the only way to decide on the places to visit is to follow the heart. While some may love the tranquility of water, others may bury themselves deep in the architectural miracles or the serenity of a small town.

Is There "Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1,500 Years"?-A Contrary Point of View

To erase any doubts about our position on global warming, The Daily Galaxy believes that common sense dictates that human technological civilization has impacted natural climatic cycles.

The Stanford guest speaker was the world-renowned global warming skeptic S. Frederick Singer, a former space scientist and government scientific administrator.

Singer, who holds PhD in Physics from Princeton University, was a Special adviser to President Eisenhower on space developments, a professor of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia, and co-author of Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years.

In this New York Times bestseller, authors Singer and co-author Avery present the compelling concept that global temperatures have been rising mostly or entirely because of a natural cycle. Using historic data from two millennia of recorded history combined with natural physical records, they argue that the 1,500 year natural sunspot magnetic waves cycle that has always controlled the earth’s climate remains the driving force in the current warming trend. Man created carbon dioxide has very little effect on the earth’s climate.

Since the 1,500 year cycle was discovered in the early 1980’s it’s general characteristics have been confirmed by measurements in: tree rings (living, preserved and fossilized), pollen, coral, glaciers, boreholes, stalagmites, tree lines, and sea sediments. The most recent cycles have been recorded in human history with forced migrations, starvation, and disease during the cold portion of the cycle and greater population, expanded farm land, greater crop variety, and extra building during the warm portion.

The causes of the 1,500 year cycle are not well understood although 600 of them have been identified in the last million years. This permits the authors to be relatively confident that we have been moving into the warm phase of the cycle for the last 150 years. It also suggests that we may have one or two degrees more warming if we are to get to the typical high of the warm phase.

Although the warm phase of the cycle has been typically more regular than the cold phase, it does not move steadily to a peak and then fall off, but rather moves abruptly higher at the start of the warm phase followed by highly irregular (but modestly higher) temperatures for hundreds of years.

Singer explained that the recent warming the Earth has experienced is not dangerous and is not something humans could alter. Global warming activists such as Al Gore, Singer believes, are hyping the problem. He said that such activists have not come close to demonstrating that human-generated greenhouse gases are contributing to global warming.

If politicians truly wanted to make a change to affect energy use, Singer told the Stanford audience, they would have to increase taxes on gasoline, which would decrease use of vehicles. He believes that such taxes would hit people of low income the hardest.

Singer claimed that many businesses, such as the wind farm industry, are making money off the global warming hype. Singer said that it is essential to convince the proponents of global warming that what they are doing is counterproductive and will not make any difference to the climate.

Let’s get Singer and Al Gore to an Oxford Union debate…We suspect it would be a “Ross Perot moment” all over again.

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Some Unexpected Discoveries

Boy finds watch after it floats 2,900 km from North Pole

Awristwatch buried in the ice at the North Pole three years ago was found by a boy some 2,900 kilometres away after it floated ashore on the Faeroe Islands.

Niels Jakup Mortensen, 11, spotted a black box near his home on Suduroy, the Faeroes’ southernmost island, his mother Anna Jacobsen said. Inside, she said, was a watch that had been buried at the North Pole by Joergen Amundsen, a descendant of Norwegian polar explorer Roald Amundsen.

Jacobsen said the watch, discovered by her son earlier this month, was still working, and was accompanied by a letter from Joergen Amundsen. “It was so unbelievable,” she said. “It had been buried in the North Pole.”

Hjalmar Hatun, an oceanographer with the Faeroese Fisheries Laboratory, said the watch likely drifted south with one of the chunks of ice that frequently break away at the North Pole and are carried off by ocean currents.

The Faeroes, an 18-island Danish territory, are located halfway between Scotland and Iceland.

Hatun said the ice breaking off is not related to global warming, as the phenomenon was first observed more than 100 years ago. “So in that sense, the fact that objects from the North Pole can drift south is old news,” he said

Man Finds $182,000 hidden in bathroom wall!

The story about a contractor who discovered $182,000 in cash stashed behind a bathroom wall of an 83 year old home. Unfortunately, the money did not last too long.

While renovating homeowner and high school friend Amanda Reece’s house, Kitts found green metal boxes hidden behind a bathroom wall, labelled to return to ‘P. Dunne News Agency’. In the lockboxes were $182,000 in depression era currency, belonging to wealthy businessman Patrick Dunne.

Kitts told Reece about the cash, who rushed home and they counted a hefty $182,000. But out of greed on both parts, they were unable to negotiate a reasonable split. Kitts wanted 40%, but Reece did not want to give him more than 10%. So Reece took the matter to court, who decided in her favour.

A month after testifying in court, the Dunne family sued her for the money, splitting it between 21 descendants of Patrick Dunne.

Investors have commented that $182,000 worth of mint notes from the 1920s would probably be worth close to a million dollars.

5th-Grader Finds a Mistake at the Smithsonian Museum

Is fifth-grader Kenton Stufflebeam smarter than the Smithsonian?
Since the Smithsonian opened in 1981, millions of people have passed a display involving prehistoric time. Nobody ever reported anything amiss with the exhibit until 11-yr-old Kenton Stufflebeam noticed that a notation identified the Precambrian as an era.

Kenton, was the first person to ever spot that the famous museum had identified the Precambrian as an era. Kenton had noticed the error because his teacher had almost made the same mistake during an earth-science lesson. Of course everyone knows that the Precambrian is actually a dimensionless unit of time. Well, everyone except for the countless dimwits who visited the Smithsonian.

12-year-old finds iPhone flaw while texting girlfriend

A 12-year-old boy who uses his iPhone mostly for texting with his girlfriend has discovered what looks like a new vulnerability with the device.

“Thus all I need to do to intercept the messages from his girlfriend is to place the phone in emergency mode and wait 30 seconds for the next sickly sweet message,”

The unnamed boy, son of blogger Karl Kraft, turns on the passcode lock and disables SMS Preview in order to prevent his parents from seeing any messages, Kraft wrote on his blog.

Those settings block the display of incoming text messages and show an alert saying ‘New Text Message’ if a text comes through while the phone is locked. However, if the phone is set to emergency call mode the incoming text messages are previewed.

Woman Finds Painting Near Dumpster, It’s Now Worth $1,000,000

It’s hardly a place you would expect to find a $1 million painting. But one March morning four years ago, Elizabeth Gibson was on her way to get coffee, as usual, when she spotted a large and colorful abstract canvas nestled between two big garbage bags in front of the Alexandria, an apartment building on the northwest corner of Broadway and 72nd Street in Manhattan.
“I had a real debate with myself,” said Ms. Gibson, a writer and self-professed Dumpster diver. “I almost left it there because it was so big, and I kept thinking to myself, ‘Why are you taking this back to your crammed apartment?’”

But, she said, she felt she simply had to have the 38-by-51-inch painting, because “it had a strange power.”

Experts say the painting is in miraculously good condition and worth about $1 million
Art experts would agree with her. As it turns out, the painting was “Three People,” a 1970 canvas by the celebrated 20th-century Mexican artist Rufino Tamayo that was stolen 20 years ago and is the subject of an F.B.I. investigation.

Ms. Gibson said she did not suspect that the painting had any commercial value when she found it. “I am not a modern-art aficionado,” she said. “It was so overpowering, yet it had a cheap frame.”

The painting had been missing for so long that the owners, a married couple whom Sotheby’s would not identify, had long since given up hope of ever seeing it again. The husband, a Houston collector and businessman, had purchased “Three People” at a Sotheby’s auction in 1977 as a birthday present for his wife. He paid $55,000 for it.

Ten years later, when the couple were in the midst of moving from a house to an apartment in Houston, they put the painting into storage at a local warehouse. It was there that it disappeared.

How “Three People” got from a Houston warehouse 20 years ago to the streets of New York remains a mystery.

Woman googles her fiancée, finds him on America’s Most Wanted

A five-year hunt for a man accused of killing a police informant in Phoenix ended in Toronto’s west end this weekend thanks to a “courageous” young woman who turned in her boyfriend.

Mikhail Drachev, 24, who has been on the run since the “horrific” slaying of Konstantin Simberg in December 2001, was arrested by police Friday in the Rexdale apartment the pair had been sharing for more than five years.

“About a week ago, he decided to come clean and give her his real name because they were thinking about marriage,” Staff-Sgt. Paul MacIntyre said yesterday. “She Googled his name and learned he was in fact on America’s Most Wanted.”

The fugitive’s girlfriend, whose name was not released, was initially “conflicted,” MacIntyre said. Although it took her a week to tell police, she eventually “did the right thing” and should be commended, he said.

“She was with this fellow for a long time, and obviously they were very close,” MacIntyre said. “The fact that she came in to a (police) station and told us who he was, I think, showed tremendous courage on her behalf.”

Drachev and two other men are accused of attacking Simberg, 21, while he was on the phone with a cop. He was stabbed in the back, doused with gas and set ablaze.

Car Thief Finds Explosives, Thwarts Potential Terror Plot

He’s a criminal, but he “did the right thing” when it mattered - alerting cops to what he feared was a terror plot the day before the Fourth of July.

He was stunned when he looked inside - it was filled with gas cans and Styrofoam cups containing a mysterious white substance with protruding wires and switches.

The street is lined with brownstones, and there’s a ballet studio and a small Muslim school. So he drove the van 15 blocks to 37th Street and parked it at a desolate waterfront location behind the Costco store and next to some little-used piers.

Then he got out and called a cop he knows from his run-ins with the law.

“He did the right thing,” a high-ranking officer said. “And he possibly saved a lot of people’s lives.”

Another source said cops are unlikely to file charges for the break-in.

Man Buys Farm, Finds forgotten collection of 180 classic cars!

It’s the classic automotive fairy tale; buy a farmhouse that has been abandoned for 15 years only to find a shed full of vintage cars.

Imagine you’re Ali Baba, stumbling on the 40 Thieves’ treasure — only the thieves are long gone and the treasure is actually 180 European cars of various description.
That’s kind of what happened in this case, where inside a warehouse welded shut for years, a wealth of dusty cars — Jags, Porsches, Lancias, Alfas, Lotuses, Austin Minis, Renaults, open-wheel formula cars, and on and on — sat rusting for over 15 years.
No word yet on who’s claiming the cars, or what will become of them, but we’d imagine there are a few resto shops in Lisbon whose phones are ringing off the hook.

Huge collections like the one in Portugal don’t just happen. Cars are accumulated by someone with a purpose

The owner of the cars was a car dealer in the 1970s and 1980s, and decided to save the more interesting cars that came through his doors. When the barn was full, he padlocked and “soldered” the doors shut. (Perhaps welding was too permanent.)

Web sites varied on the number of cars: 58, 100, and 180 were speculated. Unfortunately none of the cars is for sale.

Dolphins Walk on Water in the Wild

A group of wild dolphins living in waters along the south Australian coast near Adelaide have stunned scientists and researchers, teaching members of the group to walk on their tails — a behavior typically only seen after training in captivity.

‘Tail-walking’ is a trick that dolphins perform using their powerful tails to rise vertically from the water and drive themselves forwards or backwards.

Billie — a female bottlenose dolphin in the group — spent several weeks in captivity at a local dolphinarium in the 1980’s in a rescue effort to recover from malnutrition and sickness after being trapped in a marina lock, and may have seen other dolphins performing tail walking during her short stay.

The scientists studying the group believe that Billie may be teaching the tail-walking — a behavior never before seen in the wild — on to other females in her group as a form of ‘culture.’

“I have observed all the local dolphins over a number of years, and have watched Billie occasionally performing tail-walks in the years since her release, sometimes in the bow wave of large ships, which is an awesome sight!” said Dr. Mike Bossley from the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS) in Australia, one of the scientists that’s been monitoring the group on the Port River estuary.

“About 5 years ago another female dolphin called Wave began performing the same behavior, but does so with much greater regularity than Billie. A 3rd adult female dolphin has also been seen tail-walking.”

“We can’t for the life of us work out why they do it.” Dr. Bossley added.

The scientists are attempting to figure out whether the behavior might be a form of play or communication, and whether it’s likely other members of the dolphin group will inherit the tail walking talent.

“We’re doing systematic observations now to determine if there’s something that may trigger it, but so far we haven’t found anything.”

“This indicates that they do learn from each other, which is not a surprise really, but it does also seem that they exhibit elements of what in humans we would call ‘cultural’ behavior.” said Dr Bossley.

“These are things that groups develop and are passed between individuals and that come to define those groups, such as language or dancing, and it would seem that among the Port River dolphins we may have an incipient tail-walking culture.”

Top 10: Horniest Countries

No.10 - Mexico

Want to take a sexy siesta? Meet people of the sun and fun in our No. 10 horniest country. Mexicans kick off our list of boot-knocking peoples, and they start from an early age. In fact, in May of 2008 Mexico City’s government distributed 700,000 copies of sex-ed textbooks to deliver to the city’s student population, well aware that the kids would be doing the horizontal tango one way or another. And when it comes to sex south of the border, there’s always a way. While prostitution is generally illegal in Mexico, it is legal in select cities like Tijuana where sex worker zones are set up for your benefit.

Horny hangouts: A huge spring break getaway, Mexico’s resorts often melt into one giant pickup place. Here are some of the more notable places to go in this horny country: In Cancun, check out the popular bars — Senor Frogs, Daddy ‘O and Coco Bongo. In Acapulco try Palladium, a huge disco that overlooks several other bars, there’s also Baby Lobster Bar and Thai Bar, both of which have a reputation for hot girls. Visiting Cabo San Lucas? Then you definitely need to check out Squid Roe, a popular dance bar flowing with tequila. A few other Cabo San Lucas pickup options include The Zoo and Mango deck. If you’re in Puerto Vallarta check out The Zoo (another one) and El Hilo for hot Mexican nights. In Tijuana? Hit up Senor Frogs, Mundo Cafe or Safaris.

No.9 - Switzerland

Sure, they’re politically neutral, but the Swiss definitely have an opinion about sex. That opinion roughly translates to: “Gimme more.” Apart from their regular bedroom feats, prostitution is also legal in this horny country. Every year 350,000 Swiss pay their own way for pleasure. With this level of commitment it’s no wonder they made our list of top 10 horniest countries.

Horny hangouts: If you’re traveling in Zurich, you’ll want to check out this popular spot, the Hive Bar or even Ba Ba Lu for loud music and a lively crowd that’s sure to make your night one to remember.

In the land of Latin love, sex is a foregone conclusion. Its traditional, sexually charged culture has even gone through a modern update. Recently, it’s been reported that Spanish men have turned to our modern-day Spanish fly, Viagra, to please their ladies longer — even if they are fully capable of the act without the pill. Of course, this little enhancement makes sure they meet their own expectations as well, proving that this is definitely one of the horniest countries around.

Horny hangouts: In Barcelona, visit the seaside club Baja Beach where plenty of women come to see and be seen. Your other bet for hot Spanish nights is Razzmatazz, which is a single club with five different clubs attached to it. Here to party? Ibiza’s got the answer: Just pick a bar, any bar, and you’ll do fine.

No.7 - Malaysia

In public, this country definitely appears conservative. For example, there was a recent controversy over whether sex education should be taught in high school or not — not exactly sexually liberated. However, behind closed doors lies (pun totally intended) the real story: Malaysians are swinging from the bedposts, and loving every minute of it. Occasionally we’ll get a glimpse of it - like when Malaysia’s Minister of Health was forced to step down after his homemade sex tapes made the rounds in January of 2008.

Horny hangouts: In Kuala Lumpur, check out these bars and clubs for a straightforward party: Aloha, Poppy Bar or the Rum Jungle. To “choose your own adventure” visit the Beach Club where there’s a good chance a girl comes at a price, but she’ll be worth every penny.

No.6 - Italy

Many Italians live la dolce vita with sex high on their list of things to do on a daily basis. A poll found that 32% of Italians over 60 years old have sex regularly. It’s unclear if this means seniors are schtupping around the clock or once a week. However, one thing’s clear; their frequency in the sack helped give this country a spot on our list of top 10 horniest countries.

Horny hangouts: Visiting Florence? Check out the Red Garter, a classic American-style bar with an international reputation as a pickup joint. Your second choice should be Moyo, a laid-back club whose volume lets you have a conversation. In Milan, good bets for passionate encounters are Propaganda, a huge nightclub, plus The Shocking Club, a club known for its crazier theme nights. And when in Rome, visit the Drunken Ship, a popular party bar, and don’t forget to do it as the Romans do it.

No. 5 - Poland

For a fairly conservative culture, Poland has earned a steamy reputation as one of the horniest countries out there. Poland has an annual Eroticon festival that showcases the latest and greatest sex toys and mechanisms in the adult industry. Even one of Poland’s politicians was caught in a sex scandal. However, the most obvious evidence of Poland’s hound-dog ways has to be the two Polish women who once held the world gangbang record, which they completed in their home country. Need we explain?

Horny hangouts: If you’re going to Warsaw, you’ll want to visit Organza, a club with a good share of women. Or for variety check out the two-floor bar Zoo; this bar features plenty of space to party or chat up women. Now Krakow: While you’re there go to Cien Klub, described as an institution it’s a big club with lots of girls. Krakow also features Frantic, another two-floor bar and the Goraczka Freak Club, not that kind of “freak,” but a good party place filled with ladies nonetheless.

No.4 - China

The more China’s Cultural Revolution thaws, the more its sexual revolution heats up. Want proof? Just in the past eight years, 5,000 sex shops have opened in Beijing alone. Plus, China even has a SEXPO, where Chinese residents come to check out sex paraphernalia. And with 70% of the world’s sex toys made in China, its horniest country status means that a good deal of their hard work won’t have to go very far.

Horny hangouts: If you’re visiting Shanghai, you need to check out these better-known spots: Bar Rouge, Zapata’s and Windows. If you’re in Beijing, you’ve got a few options: Visit the Sanlitun Lu District, often dubbed “bar street” for all its action. For the tried-and-true joints check out Bar Blu, Suzie Wong and Brown’s, all renowned meat markets. And for your seedier pick you need to head to Maggie’s, a popular nightclub known for its working girls.

No.3 - Russia

Was the Cold War’s biggest secret that the Russians were having more sex than we were? Since the fall of Communism it looks a lot more likely that it actually was. Russian’s libidos are inspiring them to fill tons of new Moscow clubs and bars where hookups are a nightly pastime in this horny country.

Horny hangouts: In Moscow, go to The Hungry Duck, a crazy bar that runs ladies’ nights with male strippers three times a week, then lets men in the door once the strippers are off stage. Sure, nothing is set in stone, but you’d have to try hard to miss this softball pickup pitch. Other Russian hot spots include Night Flight, where you can pick up Russian girls, and Propaganda, which is better-known for housing tourists rather than locals.

No.2 - Brazil

Considering this is the birthplace of the thong, it makes sense that sex is as essential as breathing in Brazil. This horny country’s beaches are filled with gorgeous women and during its annual Carnaval even the most stubborn inhibitions disappear and this destination proves its spot on our top 10 horniest countries list.

Horny hangouts: In Rio, definitely visit the Lapa district. It’s a huge party spot, filled with clubs and gyrating women. Other Rio options include the Nuth Bar, a two-story nightclub notorious as a pickup bar, plus Baronetti or Club Six. Up for more adventure? You can negotiate your price openly at Help.

No. 1 - Greece
This country has a long tradition of sex that dates back to ancient times — these are the guys that brought us pederasty and Sapphic love. With its temperate Mediterranean weather, beaches and tons of islands, Greece’s ingredients make it the No. 1 horniest country in the world.

Horny hangouts: Set aside some time, and plenty of protection, because there are a number of pickup spots throughout the islands and on the mainland. First, in Athens, try out Hoxton in the Gazi district, it’s a trendy bar where backpackers are known to hang out. For the islands, Corfu is renowned for its infamous pickup spot, The Pink Palace. And while on the island of Los, check out these bars: Kahlua, Slammer Bar or the Red Bull Bar. Finally, make sure to check out Mykonos, an island known for its partying. While in Mykonos, visit Paradise Beach club that’s set right on, you guessed it, a beach. Paradise Beach is a big hangout, where clothing has been known to occasionally disappear.

Top 10 Most Overlooked Mysteries in History

Over the last few months we have gone through 30 of the worlds greatest mysteries but what we haven’t covered are ancient mysteries. This list aims to put that right! Here are ten great unsolved mysteries of science. Do you have a theory that might solve one of these mysteries? If so, tell us in the comments!

10. Rongorongo

While many people know of the Moai of Easter Island, not that many people know of the other mystery associated with Easter Island. ‘Rongorongo’ is the hieroglyphic written language of the region’s earlier inhabitants. Rongorongo is strange in that no other neighbouring oceanic people used a written language. It appeared around the 1700s, though was unfortunately lost after the early European colonizers banned it because of its ties to the native islanders’ pagan roots.

9. Lost City of Helike

In the late 2nd century AD, the Greek writer Pausanias wrote an account of how (4-500 years earlier?) in one night a powerful earthquake destroyed the great city of Helike, with a Tsunami washing away what remained of the once-flourishing metropolis. The city, capital of the Achaean League, was a worship centre devoted to the ancient god Poseidon, god of the sea. There was no trace of the legendary society mentioned outside of the ancient Greek writings until 1861, when an archeologist found some loot thought to have come from Helike - a bronze coin with the unmistakable head of Poseidon. In 2001, a pair of archeologists managed to locate the ruins of Helike beneath the mud and gravel of the coast, and are currently trying to peice together the rise and sudden fall of what has been called the “real” Atlantis.

8. The Bog Bodies

This mystery may even be a problem for those legendary investigators from CSI and the like! The bog bodies are hundreds of ancient corpses found buried around the northern bogs and wetlands of Northern Europe. These bodies are remarkably well preserved, some dating back 2,000 years. Many of these bodies have tell-tale signs of torture and other medieval “fun”, which have made some researchers postulating that these unfortunate victims were the result of ritual sacrifices.

7. Fall of the Minoans

The Minoans are best known for the legend of Theseus and the Minotaur, but it is in fact the demise of this once-great civilisation that is more interesting. While many historians concentrate on the fall of the Roman Empire, the fall of the Minoans, who resided on the island of Crete, is an equal, if not greater mystery. Three and a half thousand years ago the island was shaken by a huge volcanic eruption on the neighbouring Thera Island. Archeologists unearthed tablets which have shown that the Minoans carried on for another 50 years after the eruption, before finally folding. Theories of what finally ended them have ranged from volcanic ash covering the island and devastating harvests to the weakened society eventually getting taken over by invading Greeks.

6. The Carnac Stones

Everyone has heard of Stonehenge, but few know the Carnac Stones. These are 3,000 megalithic stones arranged in perfect lines over a distance of 12 kilometers on the coast of Brittany in the North-West of France. Mythology surrounding the stones says that each stone is a soldier in a Roman legion that Merlin the Wizard turned in to stone. Scientific attempts at an explanation suggests that the stones are most likely an elaborate earthquake detector. The identity of the Neolithic people who built them is unknown.

5. Who Was Robin Hood?

The historical search for the legendary thief Robin Hood has turned up masses of possible names. One candidate includes the Yorkshire fugitive Robert Hod, also known as Hobbehod or Robert Hood of Wakefield. The large number of suspects is complicated further as the name Robin Hood became a common term for an outlaw. As literature began to add new characters to the tale such as Prince John and Richard the Lionheart the trail became more obscure. To this day no one knows who this criminal really was.

4. The Lost Roman Legion

After the Parthians defeated underachieving Roman General Crassus’ army, legend has it that a small band of the POWs wandered through the desert and were eventually rounded up by the Han military 17 years later. First century Chinese historian Ban Gu wrote an account of a confrontation with a strange army of about a hundred men fighting in a “fish-scale formation” unique to Roman forces. An Oxford historian who compared ancient records claims that the lost roman legion founded a small town ne

ar the Gobi desert named Liqian, which in Chinese translates to Rome. DNA tests are being conducted to answer that claim and hopefully explain some of the residents’ green eyes, blonde hair, and fondness of bullfighting.

3. The Voynich Manuscript

The Voynich Manuscript is a medieval document written in an unknown script and in an unknown language. For over one hundred years people have tried to break the code to no avail. The overall impression given by the surviving leaves of the manuscript suggests that it was meant to serve as a pharmacopoeia or to address topics in medieval or early modern medicine. However, the puzzling details of illustrations have fueled many theories about the book’s origins, the contents of its text, and the purpose for which it was intended. The document contains illustrations that suggest the book is in six parts: Herbal, Astronomical, Biological, Cosmological, Pharmaceutical, and recipes.

2. The Tarim Mummies

An amazing discovery of 2,000 year old mummies in the Tarim basin of Western China occurred in the early 90s. But more amazing than the discovery itself was the astonishing fact that the mummies were blond haired and long nosed. In 1993, Victor Mayer a college professor collected DNA from the mummies and his tests verified that the bodies were all of European genetic stock. Ancient Chinese texts from as early as the first millennium BC do mention groups of far-east dwelling caucasian people referred to as the Bai, Yeuzhi, and Tocharians. None, though, fully reveal how or why these people ended up there.

1. Disappearance of the Indus Valley Civilization

The ancient Indus Valley people, India’s oldest known civilization had a culture that stretched from Western India to Afghanistan and a populace of over 5 million. le—India’s oldest known civilization—were an impressive and apparently sanitary bronze-age bunch. The scale of their baffling and abrupt collapse rivals that of the great Mayan decline. They were a hygienically advanced culture with a highly sophisticated sewage drainage system, and immaculately constructed baths. There is to date no archaeological evidence of armies, slaves, conflicts, or other aspects of ancient societies. No one knows where this civilization went.