MFS - Strange But True - Places 18

Updated on MFS - Strange But True - Places 18

The Sigiriya fortress Sri Lanka.

Sigiriya (Lion's rock) is an ancient rock fortress and palace ruin situated in the central Matale District of Sri Lanka, surrounded by the remains of an extensive network of gardens, reservoirs, and other structures. A popular tourist destination, Sigiriya is also renowned for its ancient paintings (frescos), which are reminiscent of the Ajanta Caves of India. The Sigiriya was built during the reign of King Kassapa I (AD 477 – 495), and it is one of the seven World Heritage Sites of Sri Lanka.

Sigiriya may have been inhabited through prehistoric times. It was used as a rock-shelter mountain monastery from about the 5th century BC, with caves prepared and donated by devotees to the Buddhist Sangha. The garden and palace were built by King Kasyapa. Following King Kasyapa's death, it was again a monastery complex up to about the 14th century, after which it was abandoned. . The Sigiri inscriptions were deciphered by the archaeologist Senarath Paranavithana in his renowned two-volume work, published by Oxford, Sigiri Graffiti. He also wrote the popular book "Story of Sigiriya".Read and see more about this amazing place on MFS,with 2 videoclips.

MFS - Strange But True - Places 18

Updated on MFS - Strange But True - Places 18

The Train Graveyard at Uyuni - Bolivia.


Uyuni is a town in the Potosí Department in the south of Bolivia. The town's primary function is as a gateway for tourists visiting the world's largest salt flats - the Salar de Uyuni.One of the major tourist attractions of the area is an antique train cemetery. It is located 3 km outside Uyuni and is connected to it by the old train tracks. The town served in the past as a distribution hub for the trains carrying minerals on their way to the Pacific Ocean ports. The train lines were built by British engineers who arrived near the end of the 19th century and formed a sizable community in Uyuni. The engineers were invited by British-sponsored Antofagasta and Bolivia Railway Companies, which is now Ferrocarril de Antofagasta a Bolivia. The rail construction started in 1888 and ended in 1892. It was encouraged by the then Bolivian President Aniceto Arce, who believed Bolivia would flourish with a good transport system, but it was also constantly sabotaged by the local Aymara indigenous Indians who saw it as an intrusion into their lives. The trains were mostly used by the mining companies. In the 1940s, the mining industry collapsed, partly due to the mineral depletion. Many trains were abandoned thereby producing the train cemetery. There are talks to build a museum out of the cemetery.Read and see the full story at MFS,with 1 videoclip.

MFS - Strange But True Creatures/Animals 16

Updated on MFS - Strange But True Creatures/Animals 16


    The Ocean sunfish a.k.a. Mola mola.


The ocean sunfish, Mola mola, or common mola, is the heaviest known bony fish in the world. It has an average adult weight of 1,000 kg (2,200 lb). The species is native to tropical and temperate waters around the globe. It resembles a fish head with a tail, and its main body is flattened laterally. Sunfish can be as tall as they are long when their dorsal and ventral fins are extended.Sunfish live on a diet that consists mainly of jellyfish, but because this diet is nutritionally poor, they consume large amounts in order to develop and maintain their great bulk. Females of the species can produce more eggs than any other known vertebrate.Sunfish fry resemble miniature pufferfish, with large pectoral fins, a tail fin and body spines uncharacteristic of adult sunfish.
Adult sunfish are vulnerable to few natural predators, but sea lions, orcas and sharks will consume them. Among humans, sunfish are considered a delicacy in some parts of the world, including Japan, the Korean peninsula and Taiwan, but sale of their flesh is banned in the European Union.Sunfish are frequently, though accidentally, caught in gillnets, and are also vulnerable to harm or death from encounters with floating trash, such as plastic bags.
A member of the order Tetraodontiformes, which also includes pufferfish, porcupinefish and filefish, the sunfish shares many traits common to members of this order. It was originally classified as Tetraodon mola under the pufferfish genus, but it has since been given its own genus, Mola, with two species under it. The ocean sunfish, Mola mola, is the type species of the genus.Read more about this giant fish on MFS,with 3 videoclips.

MFS - Strange But True - Creatures/Animals 16

Updated on MFS - Strange But True - Creatures/Animals 16


      The Chinese Giant Salamander.


The Chinese giant salamander (Andrias davidianus) is the largest salamander in the world, reaching a length of 180 cm (6 ft), although it rarely - if ever - reaches that size today. Endemic to rocky mountain streams and lakes in China, it is considered critically endangered due to habitat loss, pollution, and over-collecting, as it is considered a delicacy and used in traditional Chinese medicine. Records from Taiwan may be the results of introductions.It has been listed as one of the top-10 "focal species" in 2008 by the Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered (EDGE) project.Read more about this rare animal on MFS,with 2 videoclips.

MFS - Strange But True - Things/Other 21

Updated on MFS - Strange But True - Things/Others 21 .

          The Voynich Manuscript.

The Voynich manuscript is a handwritten book thought to have been written in the 15th or 16th century and comprising about 240 vellum pages, most with illustrations. The author, script, and language remain unknown: for these reasons it has been described as "the world's most mysterious manuscript".Generally presumed to be some kind of ciphertext, the Voynich manuscript has been studied by many professional and amateur cryptographers, including American and British codebreakers from both World War I and World War II. Yet it has defied all decipherment attempts, becoming a historical cryptology cause célèbre. The mystery surrounding it has excited the popular imagination, making the manuscript a subject of both fanciful theories and novels: numerous possible authors have been suggested for it.In 2009, University of Arizona researchers performed C14 dating on the manuscript's vellum, which they assert (with 95% confidence) was made between 1404 and 1438. In addition, the McCrone Research Institute in Chicago found that much of the ink was added not long afterwards, confirming that the manuscript is indeed an authentic medieval document.However, these results have yet to be published properly, leaving room for continued speculation.
The book is named after the Polish-Lithuanian-American book dealer Wilfrid M. Voynich, who acquired it in 1912. Currently the Voynich manuscript is owned by the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library of Yale University, and is formally referred to as "Beinecke MS 408". The first facsimile edition was published in 2005.Read more about this amazing book on MFS,with 6 videoclips.

MFS - Strange But True - People

Edward Nino Hernandez .
The Shortest Living Man man .


A 70cm (27-inch) tall Colombian has been named the world's shortest living man by Guinness World Records.

Edward Nino Hernandez, 24, weighs only 10kg (22lbs). His mother said he had not grown since he was two years old.

Mr Hernandez, who works part-time as a dancer, told the Associated Press: "I feel happy because I'm unique."

The previous record holder was He Pingping of China, who was 4cm (1.5 inches) taller and died in March - before Mr Hernandez was discovered.

Mr Hernandez is not expected to keep the title for long, however, as Khagendra Thapa Magar of Nepal is expected to take the title when he turns 18 in October.
Khagendra, currently recognised as the world's shortest living teenager, is only 56cm (22in) tall. The shortest man on record was Gul Mohammed of India, who measured just 57cm - 1cm taller than Khagendra.
More about past shortest people in the world here on MFS.,.But there is another candidate that nobody mentions a Chinese man."Remember the story of two dogs fighting over a bone?",read about the third contestant here.

MFS - Strange But True - Creatures / Animals 15

Updated on MFS - Strange But True - Creatures / Animals 15.


The Komondor Dog.

The Komondor (Hungarian plural komondorok) is a large white-colored Hungarian breed of livestock guardian dog with a long, corded coat. The Komondor is an old-established powerful dog breed which has a natural guardian instinct to guard livestock and other property. The Komondor was mentioned for the first time in 1544 in a Hungarian codex.The Komondor breed has been declared one of Hungary’s national treasures, to be preserved and protected from modification. They are quite rare in the United States, as most owners are unfamiliar with their coarse hair.Read more about this amazing dog breed on MFS,with 2 videoclips.

Meet The World's Tallest Teenager Elisany Silva

The world's tallest teenager Elisany Silva .


Elisany Silva was born on September 27, 1995 in Brazil. Now she is 14 years old and 6'9'' (206 cm) tall. And that makes her the tallest teen girl in the world. Amazing. Being so tall isn't easy, but it helped her to find a job. She will debut on the catwalk ending the designer's show in Belem, dressed as a bride.

MFS - Strange But True - People 16

Updated on MFS - Strange But True - People 16 .

The 'Tree Man of Java' Dede Koswara.


Epidermodysplasia verruciformis.

Epidermodysplasia verruciformis (also called Lewandowsky-Lutz dysplasia or Lutz-Lewandowsky epidermodysplasia verruciformis) is an extremely rare autosomal recessive genetic hereditary skin disorder associated with a high risk of carcinoma of the skin. It is characterized by abnormal susceptibility to human papillomaviruses (HPVs) of the skin. The resulting uncontrolled HPV infections result in the growth of scaly macules and papules, particularly on the hands and feet. It is typically associated with HPV types 5 and 8, which are found in about 80% of the normal population as asymptomatic infections, although other types may also contribute.
The condition usually has an onset of between the ages of 1–20, but can occasionally present in middle-age. It is named after the physicians who first documented it, Felix Lewandowsky and Wilhelm Lutz.Dede Koswara his ordeal started when he was 15 and cut his knee where a small wart developed and spread) with the bizarre condition, Dede expressed that he wants to get better and find a job and hopes that one day he will meet a girl and get married.
"This is the most remarkable case, the most severe case, I have seen in my career," said American doctor Anthony Gaspari at a news conference in Bandung, about a two-hour drive from capital city Jakarta.
For Dede (who is known by his first name), what started as a simple wart on his knee as a teenager spiraled his life out of control when it became infected. Treelike growths gradually spread all over his legs, arms, chest and face.He became physically unable to do basic functions and everyday tasks.

As a result of his condition, Dede lost his job, and his wife left him. He moved in with his parents and has been supported by extended family. His two kids often visit him at the hospital.
On 26 August 2008, Dede returned home following surgery to remove 6 kg (13 lb) of warts from his body. The surgery consisted of three steps,read more about it on MFS,with 2 videoclips.

MFS - Strange But True - People 15

Updated on MFS - Strange But True - People 15

           Armless Pianist Liu Wei .


Liu, now 23 years old, lost both of his arms in a freak accident when he was 10, after he touched an electrified wire while playing hide-and-seek. However, these tragic circumstances did not stop Liu from pursuing his dream of becoming a pianist.Heartening tales of overcoming adversity are typical fodder on "Got Talent" and other reality shows, but the shocking saga of "China's Got Talent" contestant Liu Wei makes this season's batch of "America's Got Talent" sob stories look like the pampered brats on VH1's "You're Cut Off." And this is a true sob story--seriously, if you watch the video below and don't get at least a little bit misty-eyed, you clearly have no soul.Read more on this amazing person on MFS,with 1 videoclip.

MFS - Strange But True - People 15

Updated on MFS - Strange But True - People 15 .

Liew Thow Lin a.k.a. Magnet Man.

Liew Thow Lin of Malaysia is known as the "Magnet Man", or "Mr. Magnet"because he has the ability to stick metal objects to his body.Lin has performed in many charity events showing his ability. He can make metal objects, weighing up to 2kg each, up to 36 kg total,stick to his skin. He has also pulled a car using this ability.Lin's ability is not due to any source of magnetism. Scientists from Malaysia's University of Technology found no magnetic field in Lin's body, but did determine that his skin exhibits very high levels of friction, providing a "suction effect". The trait appears to be genetic, appearing in Lin's three grandchildren.But there are also others with this ability,read more about it on MFS,with 2 videoclips.

MFS - Strange But True - People 15

Updated on MFS - Strange But True - People 15 .

Jessica Cox Female pilot without arms

Jessica Cox suffered a rare birth defect and was born without any arms.She is so adept at using her feet, she is even able to insert her contact lenses and apply makeup using only her feet. In her role as a motivational speaker, Jessica has inspired audiences across the United States.She has become the first pilot licensed to fly using only her feet. With one foot manning the controls and the other delicately guiding the steering column.Read more on MFS about this amazing young woman ,who has become an inspirational source for so many,truly she belongs to "The Salt of the Earth"!With 2 videoclips.

MFS - Strange But True - Places 18

Updated on MFS - Strange But True - Places 18 .

Fort Boyard - France                   

Fort Boyard (pronounced phonetically : / bojar /) is a fort located between the island of Aix and the Ile d'Oleron , attached to the town of Ile-d'Aix , in the Department of Charente-Maritime .
If building a defensive system on the 'Loin Boyard "was considered from the seventeenth century , the project was not realized until well into the nineteenth century. Built to protect the harbor, the mouth of the Charente, the port and especially the great arsenal of Rochefort assaults of the British navy, it is converted into a prison a few years after its completion.
Fort Boyard is part of the arsenal of Rochefort Maritime extends throughout the estuary of the Charente - Maritime . Today it is a property of the General Council of Charente-Maritime .
The fort is the subject of a classification under the Historic Monuments since 1950.Read more about this place on MFS,with 2 videoclips.

MFS - Strange But True - Things /Others 18

Updated on MFS - Strange But True - Things /Others 18 .

The Lluvia de Peces or Rain of Fish -                    Honduras.

The Lluvia de Peces or Rain of Fish is a phenomenon that has been occurring for more than a century on a yearly basis in the country of Honduras.The Rain of Fish is common in Honduran Folklore. It occurs in the Departamento de Yoro, between the months of May and July.
Witnesses of this phenomenon state that it begins with a dark cloud in the sky followed by lightning, thunder, strong winds and heavy rain for two to three hours. Once the rain has stopped, hundreds of living fish are found on the ground. People take the fish home to cook and eat them.Read more about this phenomenon on MFS,with 1 videoclip.

MFS - Strange But True - Things / Other 21

Updated on MFS - Strange But True - Things / Other 21

The Dendera zodiac.

The sculptured Dendera zodiac (or Denderah zodiac) is a widely known Egyptian bas-relief from the ceiling of the pronaos (or portico) of a chapel dedicated to Osiris in the Hathor temple at Dendera, containing images of Taurus (the bull) and the Libra (the scales). This chapel was begun in the late Ptolemaic period; its pronaos was added by the emperor Tiberius. This led Jean-François Champollion to date the relief correctly to the Greco-Roman period, but most of his contemporaries believed it to be of the New Kingdom. The now-accepted date for the relief is 50 BC, since it shows the stars and planets in the positions they would have been seen at that date. The relief has been conjectured to be the basis on which later astronomy systems were based. It is now on display at the Musée du Louvre, Paris.Read more about this zodiac on MFS,with 1 videoclip.

MFS - Strange But True - People 15

Updated on MFS - Strange But True - People 15

Lizzie Velasquez.

Because of her syndrome Lizzie Velasquez is not able to gain weight. She is 21 years old right now and only weighs about 60 lbs. She has zero percent body fat as well. She is also blind in one eye and has limited vision in the other. It is so rare that it is -to this day- undiagnosed. There are only 3 people in the world including Lizzie who have it. Some researchers believe that there may be a link between Lizzie's syndrome and Progeria but so far this work remains speculative.Read more about this courageous young woman on MFS,with 1 videoclip.

MFS - Strange But True - Places 17

Updated on MFS - Strange But True - places 17

The Uffington White Horse.

The Uffington White Horse is a highly stylised prehistoric hill figure, 374 feet (110 m) long, formed from deep trenches filled with crushed white chalk. The figure is situated on the upper slopes of White Horse Hill in the English civil parish of Uffington (in the county of Oxfordshire, historically Berkshire), some five miles south of the town of Faringdon and a similar distance west of the town of Wantage. The hill forms a part of the scarp of the Berkshire Downs and overlooks the Vale of White Horse to the north. Best views of the Horse are obtained from the air, or from directly across the Vale, particularly around the villages of Great Coxwell, Longcot and Fernham. The site is owned and managed by the National Trust.Read more about it on MFS.

MFS - Strange But True - Places 17

Updated on MFS - Strange But True - Places 17

The Cerne Abbas giant.

The Cerne Abbas giant, also referred to as the Rude Man or the Rude Giant, is a hill figure of a giant naked man on a hillside near the village of Cerne Abbas, to the north of Dorchester, in Dorset, England. The 180 ft (55 m) high, 167 ft (51 m) wide figure is carved into the side of a steep hill, and is best viewed from the opposite side of the valley or from the air. The carving is formed by a trench 12 in (30 cm) wide, and about the same depth, which has been cut through grass and earth into the underlying chalk. In his right hand the giant holds a knobbled club 120 ft (37 m) in length.Read more about it on MFS,with 1 videoclip.

MFS - Strange But True - Creatures / Animals 15

Updated on MFS - Strange But True - Creatures / Animals 15

The Aye-aye.

The Aye-aye (Daubentonia madagascariensis) is a lemur, a strepsirrhine primate native to Madagascar that combines rodent-like teeth with a long, thin middle finger to fill the same ecological niche as a woodpecker. It is the world's largest nocturnal primate, and is characterized by its unusual method of finding food; it taps on trees to find grubs, then gnaws holes in the wood and inserts its elongated middle finger to pull the grubs out. The only other animal species known to find food in this way is the Striped Possum. From an ecological point of view the Aye-aye fills the niche of a woodpecker as it is capable of penetrating wood to extract the invertebrates within.Read more about this animal on MFS,with 2 videoclips.

MFS - Strange But True - Things / Other 20

Updated on MFS - Strange But True - Things / Other 20

The Tarring and Feathering.

Tarring and feathering was a physical punishment, used to enforce formal justice in feudal Europe and informal justice in Europe and its colonies in the early modern period, as well as the early American frontier, mostly as a type of mob vengeance (compare Lynch law).
In a typical tar-and-feathers attack, the subject of a crowd's anger would be stripped to his waist. Hot tar was either poured or painted onto the person while he was immobilized. Then the victim either had feathers thrown on him or was rolled around on a pile of feathers so that they stuck to the tar. Often the victim was then paraded around town on a cart or a rail. The aim was to hurt and humiliate a person enough to leave town and not cause any more mischief.Read more about this strange practice on MFS,with 1 videoclip.

MFS - Strange But True - Creatures / Animals 15

Updated on MFS - Strange But True - Creatures / Animals 15

The Tibetan Sand Fox.
The Tibetan Sand Fox (Vulpes ferrilata) is a species of true fox endemic to the high Tibetan Plateau in Nepal, China, and India, up to altitudes of about 5300 m. It is sometimes referred to as the Tibetan Fox, or simply as the Sand Fox, but this terminology is confusing because the Corsac Fox (Vulpes corsac), which lives in arid environments north and west of the Tibetan Plateau, is often called the "Sand Fox" or "Tibetan Fox" as well. Rüppell's Fox (Vulpes rueppellii) is also known as the "Sand Fox".Read more about this beautiful animal on MFS,with 1 videoclip how the animal chases his prey.

MFS - Strange But True - People 15

Updated on MFS - Strange But True - People 15
The Cagot People.
The Cagots were a persecuted and despised minority found in the west of France and northern Spain: the Navarrese Pyrenees, Basque provinces, Béarn, Gascony, and Brittany. Their name has differed by province and the local dialect: Cagots, Gahets, and Gafets in Gascony; Agotes, Agotac, and Gafos in Basque country; Capots in Anjou and Languedoc; and Cacons, Cahets, Caqueux, and Caquins in Brittany. Evidence of the group exists back as far as AD 1000.
Cagots were shunned and hated. They were required to live in separate quarters in towns, called cagoteries, which were often on the far outskirts of the villages. Cagots were excluded from all political and social rights. They were only allowed to enter a church by a special door, and during the service a rail separated them from the other worshipers. Either they were altogether forbidden to partake of the sacrament, or the Eucharist was handed to them on the end of a stick, while a receptacle for holy water was reserved for their exclusive use. They were compelled to wear a distinctive dress, to which, in some places, was attached the foot of a goose or duck (whence they were sometimes called Canards). So pestilential was their touch considered that it was a crime for them to walk the common road barefooted or to drink from the same communion cup as non-Cagots. The Cagots were restricted to the trades of carpenter, butcher, and rope-maker.Read more about these people on MFS.

MFS - Strange But True - Things / Other 20

Updated on MFS - Strange But True - Things / Other 20.
To the Struggle Against World Terrorism.
To the Struggle Against World Terrorism (also known as the Tear of Grief and the Tear Drop Memorial) is a 10-story-high sculpture by Zurab Tsereteli that was given to the United States as an official gift of the Russian government as a memorial to the victims of the September 11 attacks and the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. It stands on The Peninsula at Bayonne Harbor in New Jersey and was dedicated on September 11, 2006 in a ceremony attended by former U.S. President Bill Clinton.Read more about this memorial on MFS,with 2 videoclips.

MFS - Strange But True - Things / Other 20

Updated on MFS - Strange But True - Things / Other 20.
The Radium Girls.
The Radium Girls were a group of female factory workers who contracted radiation poisoning from painting watch dials with glow-in-the-dark paint at the United States Radium factory in Orange, New Jersey around 1917. The women, who had been told the paint was harmless, ingested deadly amounts of radium by licking their paintbrushes to sharpen them; some also painted their fingernails with the glowing substance.
Five of the women challenged their employer in a court case that established the right of individual workers who contract occupational diseases to sue their employers.Read more about them on MFS,with link to Spike : 1000 ways to die.

MFS - Strange But True - Creatures / animals 15

Updated on MFS - Strange But True - Creatures / animals 15.
The Geoduck.
The geoduck (pronounced /ˈɡuː.iːdʌk/ "gooey duck"), Panopea generosa, is a species of very large saltwater clam, a marine bivalve mollusk in the family Hiatellidae.
The shell of this clam is large and contains small wings, about 15 centimetres (5.9 in) to over 20 centimetres (7.9 in) in length, but the extremely long siphons make the clam itself very much longer than this: the "neck" or siphons alone can be 1 metre (3.3 ft) in length.
Etymology
The unusual name of the clam is derived from a Lushootseed (Nisqually) word gʷídəq meaning "dig deep", and its phonemically counterintuitive spelling is likely the result of poor transcription rather than anything having to do with ducks. Alternate spellings include gweduc, gweduck, goeduck, and goiduck. It is sometimes known as the mud duck, king clam, or when translated literally from the Chinese characters 象拔蚌, the elephant trunk clam or "penis clam".
Between 1983 and 2010, the scientific name of this clam was confused with an extinct clam, Panopea abrupta (Conrad, 1849), in the scientific literature.Read more about it on MFS,with 3 videoclips.

MFS - Strange But True - People 13

Updated on MFS - Strange But True - People 13

Lakshmi Tatama a.k.a. The Girl With Eight Limbs.
Lakshmi Tatama (Hindi: लक्ष्मी तात्मा = Lakṣmī Tātmā) is an Indian girl born in 2005 in a village in Araria district, Bihar, having "4 arms and 4 legs." She was actually one of a pair of ischiopagus conjoined twins where one twin was headless due to its head atrophying and chest underdeveloping in the womb. The result looked like one child with four arms and four legs.Read more about her on MFS,with 2 videoclips.

MFS - Strange But True - People 11

Updated on MFS - Strange But True - People 11.
Julia Gnuse, commonly known by the nickname The Illustrated Lady, holds the Guinness Record for being the most tattooed woman in the world,having coverage of 95% of her body (including her face).Gnuse was born with porphyria, a condition in which sunlight results in blistering of the skin. As the blisters often result in scarring, she began getting tattoos as a way to cover up the scars. However, the tattoos do not prevent the skin from blistering as they are purely aesthetic.Read more about her on MFS,with 1 videoclip.

MFS - Strange But True - Places 17

Updated on MFS - Strange But True - Places 17.
The Badlands Guardian.
The Badlands Guardian is a geomorphological feature located near Medicine Hat in the south east corner of Alberta, Canada. Viewed from the air, the feature bears a strong resemblance to a human head wearing a full native American headdress. Because of additional man-made structure, it also appears to be wearing earphones. The apparent earphones are a road and an oil well, which has been in place only a few years, and will likely become invisible once the well falls into disuse and its superficial features are eroded.Read more about it on MFS,with 2 videoclips.

MFS - Strange But True - Places 17

Updated on MFS - Strange But True - Places 17.
The Fallen Monument Park.
Fallen Monument Park is a park outside the Krymsky Val building in Moscow shared by the modern art division of Tretyakov Gallery and Central House of Artists. The origins of this expatriate English name are unknown; in Russian, the park is either simply named Sculpture Park of the Central House of Artists (Russian: Парк скульптуры ЦДХ) or referred to by its legal title, Muzeon Park of Arts.

Muzeon Park was established by the City of Moscow in 1992 and currently displays over 700 sculptures. It is split into themed sections, i.e. the Oriental Garden, Pushkin Square, Portrait Row, although the best known part — the fallen monuments themselves — appeared here before 1992. In October 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed, smaller socialist realism statues of Soviet leaders and unidentifiable workers and peasants were removed from their pedestals, hauled to the park and left in their fallen form. They were rectified later, although missing original pedestals. In 1990s these statues shaped the park outline, but as more and more modern sculpture was added and as the young trees grew up, they became a less obvious minority. Opening animation in the film GoldenEye and one of the levels in the Nintendo 64 game of the same name were based on images of the fallen monuments, although in both the game and film the park was located in Saint Petersburg.Read more about it on MFS,with 1 videoclip.

MFS - Strange But True - Things / Other 20

Updated on MFS - Strange But True - Things / Other 20.

The Icelandic Phallological Museum.
The Icelandic Phallological Museum (Icelandic: Hið Íslenzka Reðasafn) in Húsavík, Iceland (formerly in Reykjavík) is a museum devoted to phallology. As of September 2009, the museum houses 272 specimens from 92 species of animals displayed, like hunting trophies, embalmed in formaldehyde, or dried in display cases. The museum attempts to collect penis specimens from every mammal in Iceland, including several species that are endangered or currently extinct in Icelandic waters.Read more about it on MFS,with 2 videoclips.

MFS - The Many Faces Of Spaces

 

Taking a break for a week because of the great weather!

MFS- The Other News will be updated daily ,but with less topics.

MFS - Strange But True - People 13

Updated on MFS - Strange But True - People 13.
Prahlad Jani ("Mataji").
Prahlad Jani, an Indian sadhu who claims to have gone without food for decades, spent ten days under strict observation by physicians at Sterling Hospital, Ahmedabad, India, in 2003. The study was led by Dr Sudhir Shah , a well known and ardent proponent of Jain philosophy, the same doctor who led the study of Hira Ratan Manek. Reportedly, during the observation, he was given only 100 millilitres of water a day to use as mouthwash, which was collected and measured after he used it, to make sure he hadn't consumed any. He was reported to enter Samadhi state of consciousness almost daily during meditation. Throughout the observation, he passed no urine or stool, but doctors say urine appeared to form in the bladder, only to be reabsorbed. However, Jani was not engaged in strenuous exercise during the ten-day trial, and longer trials were not recorded under similarly strict observation. Further, his weight did drop slightly during the 10 days, casting some doubt on his claim to go indefinitely without food. Jani claims a goddess sustains him through amrit that filters down through a hole in his palate. The Indian Rationalist Association has criticised the Indian Ministry of Defence for agreeing to take part in the tests, and for being taken in by a "village fraud". Sanal Edamaruku of the Indian Rationalist Association claimed to have been repeatedly denied sending an independent team to survey the room where Jani was held. He also claimed that "this particular hospital, led by this particular doctor, keeps on making these claims without ever producing evidence or publishing research." The Indian Rationalist Association also said that individuals making similar claims have all reportedly been exposed as frauds.Read more about him and the practice of Inedia (Latin: "fasting")on MFS,with 1 videoclip.

MFS - Strange But True - People 14

Updated on MFS - Strange but True - People 14

Maxi Mounds a.k.a. The Women with the largest Augmented Breasts in the world. 18 + Topic
Maxi Mounds is an American nude model, stripper and pornographic actress from Long Island, New York. Mounds is known for her extremely large breast implants. Mounds' implants are polypropylene string breast implants, which irritate the breast tissue, causing the breasts to grow continuously as they fill with fluid. Mounds' breasts each weigh twenty pounds.
Mounds holds the Guinness World Record for the "World's Largest Augmented Breasts".Read and see more about her on MFS,with 1 videoclip.

MFS - Strange But True - Places 17

Updated on MFS - Strange But True - Places 17.
The Hospices de Beaune or Hôtel-Dieu de Beaune.
The Hospices de Beaune or Hôtel-Dieu de Beaune, a former charitable almshouse of the XVth century that is now a museum, is located in Beaune in Burgundy.
The Hospices de Beaune is a charitable institution in Beaune, France. It was founded in 1443 by Nicolas Rolin, chancellor of Burgundy, as a hospital for the poor and needy. The original hospital building, the Hôtel-Dieu, one of the finest examples of French fifteenth-century architecture, is now a museum visited by more the 400'000 tourists every year. Services for patients are now provided in modern hospital buildings.
An important charity wine auction is held in November each year (formerly in the great hall of the Hôtel-Dieu).The hospice possesses many artistic treasures, among them the mural paintings of the 17th century in the Salle St Hugues and an altarpiece, the Last Judgment, painted by Rogier van der Weyden.
Read more about this remarkable place on MFS,with 2 videoclips.

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The Turtle ship a.k.a. Geobukseon or Kobukson.

The Turtle ship, also known as Geobukseon or Kobukson, was a type of large warship belonging to the Panokseon class in Korea that was used intermittently by the Royal Korean Navy during the Joseon Dynasty from the early 15th century up until the 19th century.
The first references to older, first generation turtle ships, known as Gwiseon , come from 1413 and 1415 records in the Annals of the Joseon Dynasty, which mention a mock battle between a gwiseon and a Japanese warship. However, these early turtle ships soon fell out of use as Korea’s naval preparedness decreased during a long period of relative peace.
Turtle ships participated in numerous victories against Japanese naval forces that supported Toyotomi Hideyoshi's attempts to conquer Korea from 1592-1598, inflicting heavy losses. However, their historical role may have been exaggerated since "the entire Korean fleet probably did not have more than half a dozen turtleboats in action at any one time". Korean admiral Yi Sun-sin is credited with designing the ship while one of his lieutenants, Na Dae Yong, was in charge of building it. His turtle ships were equipped with at least five different types of cannon. Their most distinguishable feature was a fully covered deck that was shielded to deflect cannon fire, and with iron spikes to discourage enemy men from attempting to board the ship.Read more about these vessels on MFS,with 3 videoclips.

MFS - Strange But True - Creatures / Animals 14

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The narwhal .
The narwhal (Monodon monoceros) is a medium-sized toothed whale that lives year-round in the Arctic. One of two species of whale in the Monodontidae family, along with the Beluga whale, the narwhal males are distinguished by a characteristic long, straight, helical tusk extending from their upper left jaw. Found primarily in Canadian Arctic and Greenlandic waters rarely south of 65°N latitude, the narwhal is a uniquely specialized Arctic predator. In the winter, it feeds on benthic prey, mostly flatfish, at depths of up to 1500 m under dense pack ice. Narwhal have been harvested for over a thousand years by Inuit people in Northern Canada and Greenland for meat and ivory and a regulated subsistence hunt continues to this day. While populations appear stable, the narwhal has been deemed particularly vulnerable to climate change due to a narrow geographical range and specialized diet.Read more about them on MFS,with 3 videoclips.

MFS - Strange But True - Creatures / Animals 14

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The Dumbo Octopus.
The octopuses of the genus Grimpoteuthis are also known as "Dumbo octopuses" from the ear-like fins protruding from the top of their head-like bodies, resembling the ears of Walt Disney's flying elephant. They are bathyal creatures, living at extreme depths: 3000-4000 meters, and are some of the rarest of the Octopoda species. There are fourteen types of Grimpoteuthis and little is known about most of them. Members of the species are found in both the Pacific and the Atlantic oceans.
They can flush the transparent layer of their skin at will, and are pelagic animals, as with all other cirrate octopuses.
They hover above the sea floor, searching for worms, bivalves, pelagic copepods, and other crustaceans. They move by pulsing their arms, shooting water through their funnel, or by waving their ear-like fins. They can use each of these techniques separately or all simultaneously. The males and females are different in their size and sucker patterns. The females lay eggs consistently, with no distinct breeding season.Also they are without enlarged sucker fields on the arms of males.Read more aboutthem on MFS,with 1 videoclip.

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The SS America.
The SS America was an ocean liner built in 1940 for the United States Lines and designed by the noted naval architect William Francis Gibbs. She carried many names in the 54 years between her construction and her 1994 wrecking, as she served as the SS America (carrying this name three different times during her career), the USS West Point, the SS Australis, the SS Italis, the SS Noga, the SS Alferdoss, and the SS American Star. She served most notably in passenger service as the SS America, and as the Greek-flagged SS Australis for Chandris. In 1941, she carried two Nazi spies from the Duquesne Spy Ring in her crew: Erwin Wilhelm Siegler and Franz Joseph Stigler. Both men were charged by the FBI with espionage and sentenced to 10 years and 16 years' imprisonment, respectively.Read more about her fantastic life on MFS,with videoclip.

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The owner holding the new 2010 largest horse in the world Big Jake.

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Big Jake the largest horse in the World,read more about him on MFS.

MFS - Strange But True - Things / Other 17

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The technique of Chinese Foot Binding.Warning : content contains graffic images wich some viewers may find offensive.
Foot binding (simplified Chinese: 缠足; traditional Chinese: 纏足; pinyin: chánzú, literally "bound feet") was a custom practiced on young girls and women for approximately one thousand years in China, beginning in the 10th century and ending in the early 20th century.
Foot-binding resulted in lifelong disabilities for most of its victims, though as the practice waned in the early 20th century, according to a study conducted by the University of California, San Francisco, "some girls' feet were released after initial binding, leaving less severe deformities." However, some effects of foot-binding were permanent, especially if a girl's arches or toes had been broken or other drastic measures taken in order to achieve the desired smallness. In the 1990s and early 2000s, some elderly Chinese women still suffered from disabilities related to bound feet.Read more about it on MFS,with 1 videoclip.

MFS - Strange But True - Places 16

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The Mount Roraima.

Mount Roraima (also known as Roraima Tepui or Cerro Roraima in Spanish, and Monte Roraima in Portuguese), is the highest of the Pakaraima chain of tepui plateau in South America. First described by the English explorer Sir Walter Raleigh in 1596, its 31 km² summit area is defended by 400 metre (1,300 ft) tall cliffs on all sides. The mountain includes the triple border point of Venezuela, Brazil and Guyana.

Mount Roraima lies on the Guiana Shield in the southeastern corner of Venezuela's 30,000 km² Canaima National Park forming the highest peak of Guyana's Highland Range. The tabletop mountains of the park are considered some of the oldest geological formations on Earth, dating back to some two billion years ago in the Precambrian Era.
The highest point in Guyana and the highest point of the Brazilian state of Roraima both lie on the plateau, but Venezuela and Brazil have higher mountains. The triple border point is at 5°12'08N, 60°44'07W, but the mountain's highest point is Maverick Rock, 2,810 m, at the south end of the plateau and wholly within Venezuela.Read more about this place on MFS,with 1 videoclip narrated by Sir David Attenborough.

MFS - Strange But True - People 14

Updated on MFS - Strange But True - People 14. 18 + Topic

Lolo Ferrari, born Eve Valois (February 9, 1963 – March 5, 2000) was the stage name of a French dancer, actress, and singer billed as "the woman with the largest breasts in the world" though their size was artificially achieved.

The Guinness Book of Records says each of her breasts weighed 2.8 kilograms (6.2 lb) and contained three litres of saline.She appeared in the French Guinness Book of World Records in 1996 and again in the Guinness Book of World Records in 1999.Read more about her on MFS,with 2 videoclips.

MFS - Strange But True - Places 16

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The Great Mosque of Córdoba.

The (Great) Mezquita (of Córdoba or Cordova), now known as Catedral de Nuestra Señora de la Asunción (English: Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption) is a Roman Catholic Cathedral originally built as a Mosque on the place (and partly with materials) of what previously had been a Christian Visigothic Church in the Andalusian city of Córdoba, Spain. It is regarded as perhaps the most accomplished monument of the Umayyad dynasty of Córdoba. After the Spanish Reconquista, it was turned into a church, with a Gothic cathedral inserted into the center of the large Moorish building. Today the entire building is used to house the Cathedral of the diocese of Córdoba in Spain.Read more about it on MFS,with 2 videoclips one of them being a 45 minutes footage about the true origin of the church.

MFS - Strange But True - Creatures / Animals 14

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The Sumatran Rhinoceros.
The Sumatran Rhinoceros (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis) is a member of the family Rhinocerotidae and one of five extant rhinoceroses. It is the only extant species of the genus Dicerorhinus. It is the smallest rhinoceros, standing about 120–145 centimetres (3.9–4.8 ft) high at the shoulder, with a body length of 250 centimetres (98 in) and weight of 500–800 kilograms (1100–1760 lb). Like the African species, it has two horns; the larger is the nasal horn, typically 15–25 centimetres (6–10 in), while the other horn is typically a stub. A coat of reddish-brown hair covers most of the Sumatran Rhino's body.Read more about this animal on MFS,with 3 videoclips.

MFS - Strange But True - Things / Other 19

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The Svalbard Global Seed Vault a.k.a. Doomsday vault.

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault (Norwegian: Svalbard globale frøhvelv) is a secure seedbank located on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen near the town of Longyearbyen in the remote Arctic Svalbard archipelago. The facility was established to preserve a wide variety of plant seeds from locations worldwide in an underground cavern. The seed vault holds duplicate samples, or "spare" copies, of seeds held in genebanks worldwide. The seed vault will provide insurance against the loss of seeds in genebanks, as well as a refuge for seeds in the case of large scale regional or global crises. The island of Spitsbergen is about 1,300 kilometres (810 mi) from the North Pole. The seed vault is managed under terms spelled out in a tripartite agreement between the Norwegian government, the Global Crop Diversity Trust (GCDT) and the Nordic Genetic Resource Center (also known as NordGen and previously named the Nordic Gene Bank, a cooperative effort of the Nordic countries under the Nordic Council of Ministers).
Read more about it on MFS,with 1 videoclip.

MFS - Strange But True People 14

............................A special for "Boobsquake"

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Sheyla Hershey a.k.a. The woman with the Largest Implants. 18 + topic.
Sheyla Almeida Hershey (born December 19, 1979) is a Brazilian-born adult model and entertainer living in Houston, Texas. She is known for her extremely large breast implants. In May 2008, after 8 operations, she had a recorded breast size of 34FFF.The Brazilianversion of Guinness World Records awarded Sheyla Hershey with the record of the largest breast implants. Read and see more about her on MFS,with 2 videoclips.

MFS - Strange But True - Creatures / Animals 14

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The Nomura's jellyfish.
Nomura's Jellyfish (エチゼンクラゲ, echizen kurage?, Nemopilema nomurai) (for some time in the genus Stomolophus) was named in tribute to Mr. Kan'ichi Nomura (18??-19??), Director General of the Fukui Prefectural Fisheries Experimental Station, who in early December 1921 sent a specimen in a 72-litre wooden tank to Kishinouye, who found that it was unknown and spent some time at the station to study living specimens. It is a very large jellyfish, in the same size class as the lion's mane jellyfish, the largest cnidarian in the world. The diameter of one fully-grown is slightly greater than the height of an average fully grown man.

Growing up to 2 meters (6 feet 7 inches) in diameter and weighing up to 300 kilograms (ca. 660 pounds), Nomura's Jellyfish reside primarily in the waters between China and Japan, primarily centralized in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea.Read more about them on MFS,with 1 videoclip.

MFS - Strange But True - Things / Other 19

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The Turk a.k.a. the Mechanical Turk .
The Turk, the Mechanical Turk or Automaton Chess Player was a fake chess-playing machine constructed in the late 18th century. From 1770 until its destruction by fire in 1854, it was exhibited by various owners as an automaton, though it was explained in the early 1820s as an elaborate hoax. Constructed and unveiled in 1770 by Wolfgang von Kempelen (1734–1804) to impress the Empress Maria Theresa, the mechanism appeared to be able to play a strong game of chess against a human opponent, as well as perform the knight's tour, a puzzle that requires the player to move a knight to occupy every square of a chessboard exactly once.

The Turk was in fact a mechanical illusion that allowed a human chess master hiding inside to operate the machine. With a skilled operator, the Turk won most of the games played during its demonstrations around Europe and the Americas for nearly 84 years, playing and defeating many challengers including statesmen such as Napoleon Bonaparte and Benjamin Franklin. Although many had suspected the hidden human operator, the hoax was initially revealed only in the 1820s by the Londoner Robert Willis.Read more about it on MFS,with 3 videoclips.

MFS - Strange But True - Creatures / Animals 13

Updated on MFS - Strange But True - Creatures / Animals 13 .Gharial a.k.a. Indian Gavial

The gharial (Hindi : घऱियाल, Marathi : सुसर Susar) (Gavialis gangeticus), sometimes called the
Indian gavial or gavial, is one of two surviving members of the family Gavialidae, a long-established group of crocodile-like reptiles with long, narrow jaws. It is one of the three crocodilians found in India, the other being the Mugger crocodile and the Saltwater crocodile.
It is a critically endangered species. The gharial is one of the longest of all living crocodilians.

Ancestry


The fossil history of the Gavialoidea is quite well known, with the earliest examples diverging from the other crocodilians in the late Cretaceous. The most distinctive feature of the group is the very long, narrow snout, which is an adaptation to a diet of small fish. Although gharials have sacrificed the great mechanical strength of the robust skull and jaw that most crocodiles and alligators have, and in consequence cannot prey on large creatures, the reduced weight and water resistance of their lighter skull and very narrow jaw gives gharials the ability to catch rapidly moving fish, using a side-to-side snapping motion.Read more about this animal on MFS,with 1 videoclip.

MFS - Strange But True - Places 16

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Fujian Tulou a.k.a. Earth castles.
Fujian Tulou (simplified Chinese: 福建土楼; pinyin: Fújiàn Tǔlóu) is "the most extraordinary type of Chinese rural dwellings" of the Hakka and others in the mountainous areas in southwestern Fujian, China. They are mostly built between the 12th to the 20th centuries.

A tulou is usually a large, enclosed and fortified earth building, rectangular or circular in configuration, with very thick load-bearing rammed earth walls between three and five stories high and housing up to 80 families. Smaller interior buildings are often enclosed by these huge peripheral walls which can contain halls, storehouses, wells and living areas, the whole structure resembling a small fortified city.
The fortified outer structures are formed by compacting earth, mixed with stone, bamboo, wood and other readily-available materials, to form walls up to six feet (≈2m) thick. Branches, strips of wood and bamboo chips are often laid in the wall as additional reinforcement. The end result is a well lit, well-ventilated, windproof and earthquake-proof building that is warm in winter and cool in summer.Tulous usually have only one main gate, guarded by 4-5 inch thick wooden doors reinforced with an outer shell of iron plate. The top level of these earth buildings has gun holes for defensive purposes.Read more about them on MFS,with 3 videoclips.