Dating back to as early as 1150 ., the ruins of Mesa Verde are one of the oldest in America.

They are set in the Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado, USA and are all that is left of the ancient Pueblo people, also known as the Anasazi. Around 600 houses dug in the cliffs of Colorado can be found through the park, most of them very small, but some are absolutely huge, able to house more than 250 people. The Anasazi came to these places around 550 A.D., but only started digging their dwellings into the canyon cliffs around 1150.

This baby costs $6 million but it’s the ultimate home theater experience.

Jeremy Kipnis is a music producer that also invented this incredible home-cinema system. I’m sure you think $6 million is too much for something like this but if you’re really passionate about something, money is definitely no object..especially if you have lots of it.

The Kipnis home cinema is made up of a Sony SRX-S110 Professional Video Projector with a 4,096-by-2,160 resolution, the Stewart Snowmatte 1.0 Gain Laboratory-Grade Motion Picture screen (18×10 foot) , Sony BDP-S1 Blu-ray Player, Toshiba HD-XA1 HD DVD Player with SATA Drive (72 HDTV Hours Total) and Mark Levinson N° 51 DVD/CD Media Player, HLD-X0 Hi-Vision HDTV MUSE Laserdisc Player,VC HMDH-5U D-VHS recorder. Throw in a PlayStation 3 consoles for hardcore gamers and you have the world’s most “badass” home cinema.

Image source

One of the wackiest competitions on Earth and also one of the funniest.

This year’s World’s Ugliest Dog competition was held at the Sonoma-Marin Fair in Petaluma. Twelve dogs battled for the title of world’s ugliest dog, and in the end only Gus came out on top. Winers are selected from two classes, the Pedigree class and the Mutt class. Gus won the Pedigrees class and went on to beat Reggie who had won the Mutt class. After winning the competition Gus had to meet the Ring of Champions which included winners from the previous year.

Gus is a Chinese Crested, suffering from skin cancer, he only has three legs (one was amputated due to the skin tumor) and one eye (he lost the other in a battle with a tomcat) and no hair. He was adopted by a Jeanenne Teed and her daughter Janey after they had heard he was being kept in a crate in somebody’s garage.

For winning the World’s Ugliest Dog Contest, Gus got $1,600 ,which the owners say will go to his radiation treatment.

Image source

Set in Haukadalur valley, in the south part of the country, Geysir is one of Iceland’s largest geysers.

Geysers are quite a sight to behold when they erupt and they are also one of Iceland’s most precious resources. Geysir is one of the lazier geysers, it only erupts 4-5 times a day, while others do it at intervals of 5-10 minutes. Here are some photos of Geysir’s eruption caught on camera.

That’s right, this is like a NASA-made ant farm.

Actually NASA only came up with the concept of AntWorks, developed so it could test the development of animal life in a 0 gravity environment. The prototype was created back in 2003 but these days you can buy your very-own AntWorks ant farm directly from the shop for about $40. This small ant habitat is filled with a special gel containing all the nutrients the ants need to survive so you don’t have to feed them, ever. Just sit back and enjoy watching the world’s strongest creatures (they are able to carry 10-20 time their own weight) at work. All yo have to do is lift the lid of the AntWorks colony so air can get in.

Pretty cool gadget this, I’m thinking of getting one myself since I live in an apartment and I’d just be torturing a dog if I kept it here.

Source

A fountain in Rome holds a car in the air.

This unusual fountain set up in Rome, Italy is the work of Spanish artist Juan Galdeano who wanted to make a statement that would hopefully draw attention to the issue of global warming. The fountain was built to look like it’s sustaining a hatchback Seat Ibiza, when in reality the car is being supported by an intricate installation. Let’s face it, that would have to be quite a powerful jet of water to sustain the car. The fountain is available to the public from June 5 to August 10.

Nice artwork and an important stetment to the world, bravo!

Read More »

Thousands of black plastic balls cover the Ivanhoe reservoir in Los Angeles.

It might not look like serious business, but The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power dropped 400,000 black plastic balls into one of the city’s reservoirs for a reason. The sunlight mixes with the chlorine and bromide in the water creating a deadly mix which some scientist believe may be causing cancer. The balls are meant to shade the water from the dangerous sunlight.

Sure a tart or some kind of lid would have seemed more normal, but the authorities say a tart would have cost to much too manufacture and a metal lid would have taken too long. So, although it looks like an oil spill, this was the best measure and it’s only temporary, the Ivanhoe and Elysian reservoirs will be covered by 3,000,000 black plastic balls for the next four years.

Read More »

Interacting with some animals seems impossible but this man makes the impossible, possible.

Kevin Richardson is an animal behaviourist that has bonded so much with wild big cats that he isn’t even afraid to sleep with them in the wild. He’s great friends with lions, cheetahs, leopards or hyenas and they all treat him like he’s one of their own. Former student of child psychology, Kevin decided to switch to animals when he decided he could trust a lion over a human every time. He never uses whips, sticks or leashes, just a lot of patience and most importantly respect for the felines.

Although these photos may seem unbelievable, they are very real and Kevin says he can get close to any big cat under a year old and become friends with it, but he feels most safe and comfortable around animals he has known from birth. He has had one accident when a 4-year-old male lion attacked and started biting him, but something about Kevin’s passive reaction made him stop. ever since then Kevin never engages wild animals if he feels there is something wrong.

Known as the Lion Whisperer by most people, Kevin Richardson is a real-life beast master.

Read More »

Eating sushi off a beautiful naked body, now that’s what I call a meal.

Hadaka Sushi is a restaurant set on the Sunset Strip, Los Angeles, where rich people can serve delicious sushi right off human platters. The art of arranging pieces raw fish on naked human bodies is known as Nyotaimori (which translates as “female body arrangement”) and it is a very old Japanese tradition, so old its origins are unknown.

Not anybody can afford such an extravagant meal, the model alone costs $1100 and the food is extra. But it appears there are plenty of people out there willing to pay such a price, some of them even asked for male model as platters and the restaurant obliged. Although not the first “naked sushi” restaurant in America, it is the first, and so far only, one in LA. And I think it’s going to be a hit, because, as the owner says, “sex sells, especially on the Strip”.

Source 1, 2

Coober Pedy is a place where people like to live underground.

Coober Pedy is a small Australian town, famous for being the opal capital of the world because of the large quantity of opal stones that are mined here. What people don’t know about this place is that the locals mostly like to live underground. A tradition that goes back to the early 1900, when the first miners arrived in the area, cave-boring in the hillsides is still popular. The temperatures here during the Summer are unbearable for some, so they opt for underground living quarters, at approximately the same price as a surface-built house. The first one keeps a constant, cool temperature during the Summer while the second needs air-conditioning. It can get quite cold during the winter, though.

One of the most popular attractions in Coober Pedy are the underground churches.

Read More »

KAZ is an Italian-Japanese joint project to make an electric limousine.

Keio Advanced Zero-Emissions vehicle, that’s what KAZ stands for. It took 5 years to build and cost $4 million but the result is more than impressive: it has 6 electric engines powering the limousines six wheels, each producing 74 horse-power and 74 lb-ft. of torque. That means this baby goes from 0 to 62mph in just 7 seconds, reaches a quarter mile in 15 seconds and has a top speed of 193.3 km/h.

It’s is powered by 84 lithium batteries that can carry the car for 186 miles on a single charge. It might not be the best-looking car out there but it’s environment-friendly and it runs perfectly.

Read More »

Yeah, this convinced me to stay a bachelor for life.

We TV hosted the Bridezilla contest to celebrate the fifth season of their Bridezillas television show, on June 3rd, in Time Square, New York. The brides participating in the contest had to race to the top of a multi-layered artificial cake where they had to participate in a cake-eating contest, for the grand prize of $25,000. The winner managed to eat 9 mini-cakes in just 2 minutes and said she’ll use the money for an extravagant wedding.

Read More »

Now this is what I call juicy art.

I could think of a few things to make a sculpture out of, but oranges…definitely not on my list. I have to admit these look pretty cool though and I hope they ate the oranges after the presentation.

Read More »

A building partially covered with real gold.

Built in 1397 as a retirement villa for Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, Kinkaku is a three-story building, with the last two, fully covered with pure gold leaf. The temple was set on fire by a monk in 1950, but it was restored and the new gold coating dating from 1987 is much thicker than the original one.

Kinkaku is one of Japan’s most beautiful attractions and it serves as a “shariden”, a place where relics of Buddha are stored.

Read More »

This is one of the most beautiful glaciers in the world.

Named after explorer Francisco Moreno, Perito Moreno glacier is one of only three Patagonian glaciers that are not retreating. The 30 km-long ice formation sometimes advances into the L-shaped”Lago Argentino” acting as a natural dam and separating its two halves. The water on one side of the river rises with up to 30 meters higher above the normal level of the lake, in its attempt to brake the icy barrier. The enormous amount of pressure produced by the pushing waters sometimes breaks the frozen dam in an extraordinary event. This glacier rupture cycle isn’t regular, it occurs between once a year and once in more than a decade, but if you happen to see it, it’s totally worth the wait.

The Perito Moreno Glacier is part of the Southern Patagonian Ice Field, the world’s third largest fresh water reserve.

Read More »