“I blinked and, what just happened?” — isomnitanify

“In the last hour of the last day of alligator hunting season, Tres Ammerman wrangled in the beast of all beasts: a 14 foot 3 1/2 inch long gator, breaking the state record. The last state record was set back in 1997 and the gator was just over 14-feet. Ammerman’s gator, which he caught just west of Melbourne, is three inches longer and much older. It’s estimated he’s somewhere between 50 and 60 years old. Ammerman plans to sell the massive gator to a taxidermist at a $1,000.00 a foot. That’s over $14,000.00, a sweet treat for the man who went hunting for a gator Halloween night. “I feel like I hit the lottery. I do, it’s just amazing,” said Ammerman.” w/ photo + video

“To explain the video in detail: 48 hours of construction time is the accrued time of construction. Workers rest after 10pm everyday. As you may see on the left corner the clicker registers 46 hours as time to finish the main structural components, and another 90 hours to finish the building enclosure. For a building of this size a conventional approach would take anywhere from 3 months to anything goes.” — differentenergy

“Visitors to a safari camp close to where the film Out Of Africa was shot stood in awe as they witnessed the annual wildebeest migration. But as they watched thousands of animals cross the raging Mara river they were astonished to see a hippo come to the rescue of two drowning stragglers. The strong current separated a wildebeest, or gnu, from her calf and she watched helplessly as it was swept away. ‘To everyone’s amazement the hippo came to the gnu’s rescue and pushed it gently to the river bank,’ said Abdul Karim, the head guide at Sanctuary Olonana in the Masai Mara, Kenya.” w/ photos

“The sculpture was imposing, elevated off the ground it was visible from my hotel room and on the morning of the unveiling the 3,283 yellow helmets gleamed proudly in the Andalucian sun. The sculptor, Rafael Melida and his team had spent 1,239 hours on this project over the last 3 months. All the plastic helmets were made with recycled plastic especially for this sculpture. They had been diligently ordered and then soldered onto a metal frame by the team of sculptors after students at the Univeristy of Huelva aided the collection of all these helmets.” w/ photos

“When the zen ends, the ass kicking begins.” — Zippo27907

“Lady solves the entire puzzle with one letter.”

“In the quest to grow replacement human organs in the lab, livers are no doubt at the top of many a barfly’s wish list. With its wide range of functions that support almost every organ in the body and no way to compensate for the absence of liver function, the ability to grow a replacement is also the focus of many research efforts. Now, for the first time, researchers have been able to successfully engineer miniature livers in the lab using human liver cells. The ultimate aim of the research carried out at the Institute for Regenerative Medicine at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center is to provide a solution to the shortage of donor livers available for patients who need transplants. Additionally, the laboratory-engineered livers could also be used to test the safety of new drugs.  The livers engineered by the researchers are about an inch in diameter and weigh about 0.2 ounces. Even though the average weight of an adult human liver is around 4.4 pounds, to meet to minimum needs of the human body the scientists say an engineered liver would need to weigh about one pound because research has shown that human livers functioning at 30 percent of capacity are able to sustain the human body.” w/ photos

“They look like tiny toys you’d find in a Christmas cracker – but these incredible silver beetles are the real deal. The shell of extraordinary futuristic-looking creatures, which measure around an inch in length, dazzles in the stunning metallic colour. And, with their feet a snazzy purple, they make for an extraordinary sight. The funny-looking beetles were snapped by professional photographer Roland Seitre in the mountain region of Costa Rica, Central America. The 52-year-old, who lives in France, said he had seen the bizarre bug as a specimen in a museum before but had never spotted them in the wild. He explained: ‘It was astonishing – their pure metallic colour made them look like a toy or something from outer space.” w/ photos

“He doesn’t cheat, he just has a lot of free time.”