Meet the Indian origin girl who gets photographed every day of her life
London, May 16 (ANI): An Indian origin girl has a photograph for every single special moment of her life starting from the ultrasound scan to her 18th birthday. Up till now Suman Bansal has 6,575 images which she got in the form of one remarkable giant portrait on her 18th birthday, a website reported.
Her accountant father Munish Bansal, who lives in Kent, has been clicking his daughter’s pictures every day since she was born on May 16, 1996. The accountant said that he just wanted to see how the memories change day to day and he wanted to observe it closely. (ANI)
Now, chocolates with edible holograms
Washington: A chocolatier in Switzerland has found a way to etch microstructures into chocolate that refract light to produce holographic images. No stickers, no additives, no paint. The holograms work similar to those etched into credit cards, except these are edible, Mashable reported.
Lausanne-based Morphotonix starts by carving a microscopic pattern into a master mold made from metal. That mold in turn is used to create a plastic mold in which the chocolate is poured. Dark and milk chocolate varieties have been made, but not all chocolate is made equal. (ANI)
Dracula’s castle up for sale?
London: You may have some images of the dreaded Dracula’s castle in your mind – the 13th-century fortress in Transylvania called Bran Castle. It is another thing the castle did not actually belong to Dracula but to the Habsburg royal family.
The Romanian government has now placed an $80 million (Rs.470 crore) bid to buy it, according to media reports. Though the fictional vampire never lived here, Bram Stoker, the author of 1897 novel “Dracula”, chose to give Dracula a home that matched Bram castle in description.
“Bram Stoker never visited Romania. He depicted the imaginary Dracula’s castle based upon a description of Bran Castle that was available to him in turn-of-the-century Britain,” read a statement on the Bran Castle website.
“Indeed, the imaginary depiction of Dracula’s Castle from the etching in the first edition of ‘Dracula’ is strikingly similar to Bran Castle and no other in all of Romania,” it said.
In the novel, Stoker describes the fortress as sitting high above a valley, perched on a rock above a flowing river.
This castle is the only such fortress in Transylvania that fits the bill, the Bran Castle website noted.
When creating the character of Dracula, Stoker drew inspiration from a real-life man with an apparent taste for blood – Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia, modern-day Romania.
Also called Vlad the Impaler, the prince seemed to have a fondness for impaling his enemies. (IANS)
Texas woman, 31, arrested for posing as high school teenager
TEXAS: A 31-year-old woman has been arrested after several months posing as a teenage student at a private high school in Texas, local media reported.
Charity Johnson enrolled in October as a sophomore at New Life Christian School in Longview under the name “Charite Stevens,” with identification that said she was 15 years old, broadcast station KLTV said.
Johnson told school officials she had been home-schooled and had no prior transcripts. A school district representative could not immediately be reached for comment.
Tamica Lincoln, a woman who lives in the area, told KLTV she took Johnson in after she claimed to be a teenage orphan from an abusive household, enrolled her in school and met with her teachers.
“I took her in as a child, did her hair, got her clothes and shoes,” Lincoln said.
But Lincoln said she started to doubt Johnson’s story and alerted police. Johnson was arrested Sunday after identifying herself to police as the alias she used to enroll in school, the TV report said. Johnson was charged with failure to identify and giving false information, according to jail records. (Reuters)
Man suspected of stealing toilet tank from Seattle restaurant
Los Angeles: Seattle police are looking for a man suspected of stealing the toilet tank from a restaurant bathroom as workers at a Subway sandwich franchise prepared his family’s meal, police said on Monday.
The man went to the Subway shop in West Seattle with his family on Sunday evening. After placing an order, he entered the restroom and remained inside even after his wife knocked on the door, asking why he was taking so long, and then left without him, Seattle police said in a statement.
When the man eventually emerged from the bathroom, he hurriedly exited the store in possession of a large plastic garbage bag, police said.
An employee who later entered the bathroom discovered the toilet tank was missing. In addition, the bathroom sink was stuffed full of paper towels and still running, while the bathroom key was gone, police said.
Subway workers valued the stolen toilet tank at $550, police said. Witnesses at the scene were able to provide police with a description of the man, who remains at large, police said. (Reuters)
California cat that chased off attacking dog gets baseball invite
California: Tara, the California cat that became a YouTube sensation after being caught on video saving a boy from a dog attack, has been invited to “throw” the first pitch at a minor league baseball game, Bakersfield Blaze officials said on Friday.
Video footage showed a dog dragging 4-year-old Jeremy from his tricycle in a driveway in Bakersfield.
Tara, the family’s cat, ran to the rescue, broadsided the dog, and chased it away from the child. She then returned to the boy.
“Thankfully, it wasn’t worse,” the child’s father, Roger Triantafilo, wrote in a posting with the video. “My son is fine.”
Local minor league baseball team the Bakersfield Blaze has invited the cat, assisted by the Triantafilo family, to throw the first pitch at a May 20 game.
“We will be attempting to have her throw out the first pitch. Now, how that goes off, we’ll see, but the idea is to have her pitch the ball,” said Philip Guiry, assistant general manager for the Blaze. Jeremy will also pitch a ball.
The dog, described as an 8-month-old Labrador-Chow mix, is scheduled to be euthanized four days after the game, according to Bakersfield police.
The Triantafilo family could not be reached for comment. (Reuters)
Get to work early if want a good raise!
Washington: Have you received a less favourable appraisal from your boss this year? You are likely coming to office late. A study has found bosses to be favouring employees who, even though on flexible timings, arrived early.
Researchers decided to see if workers were, as it has been claimed, being penalised for working flexi-hours.
“Perhaps, we hypothesised, it matters in which direction an employee shifts hours,” said lead researchers Christopher Barnes from University of Washington.
Although flexi-time has been introduced in several firms but the question was if the bosses practically favoured this approach.
Google allows many employees to set their own hours, while at Microsoft, many employees can choose when to start their day between 9 a.m. and 11 a.m.
The team found that people do make a greater natural implicit association between morning and conscientiousness.
“The field study we conducted tested the hypothesis that supervisor ratings of conscientiousness and performance would be associated with the timing of an employee’s work day,” Barnes was quoted as saying in media reports. Across 149 employee-supervisor relationships, employees who started work earlier in the day were rated by their supervisors as more conscientious, and thus received higher performance ratings.
“Team leaders must come to accept that the people who use flexi-time to start their day late are not necessarily lazier than their early-bird colleagues,” the researchers noted. (IANS)