|
|
|
Weekly update
US man sets Guinness record with 4,594 pound rubber band ball
CHICAGO: Building a huge ball out of more than 175,000 rubber bands is dangerous business. Really!
“The rubber bands ... sometimes they’ll break. That hurts,” said Steve Milton, whose 4,594-pound rubber band ball was certified on Tuesday as the world’s largest by Guinness World Records officials.
“As long as you wear your safety goggles, you’re good,” he said.
Milton, 26, of Eugene, Oregon, watched as four bodybuilders rolled the multicoloured, rubbery mass — 1.65 metres high and 5.7 metres around — onto a giant scale in downtown Chicago for the official weigh-in.
He raised his arms over his head when Guinness judge Sarah Wagner announced his ball had bounced the previous 3,120-pound record-holder from the books. That record was set by John Bain of Wilmington, Delaware, in 2003.
So how does a person get into the rubber band ball-building business?
“It was just a great project with me and my kids,’’ said Milton, who worked on the ball with his six-year-old son, Bryce Milton, and soon-to-be stepson, Austin Johnson, seven. “We did a little bit of research on how big rubber band balls are, and realized there was one out there that was 3,120 pounds and we knew we could do it.’’
Milton credited his success to a simple credo: add to the ball every day, even if it was for just a few minutes.—AP
Major pre-Inca burial site found in Peru
MOCHUMI, Peru: A spectacular burial site of some 20 tombs for the pre-Inca nobility of Sican in northern Peru is one of the most significant finds in the country in years, officials said on Tuesday.
The discovery should contribute to greater understanding of the Sican culture, which spanned from about 750 AD to the end of the 14th century.
“It is a religious city, a sacred settlement, and at each excavation site is a cemetery. That tells us that Sican was a very organised society,” Japan's Izumi Shimada, who has worked in the area for three decades, told the newspaper El Comercio. Shimada led the team with Peruvian Carlos Elera and archaeologists who found the pyramidal tombs containing a dozen ceremonial knives; ceremonial figures called tumis, made in an alloy of copper, silver and gold; breastplates; masks and ceramics, near the town of Ferranafe, about 800 km north of Lima.
Elera said it was the first time archaeologists were able to get a full and detailed picture of the Sican elite's burial practices.
Sican means “House of the Moon” in the muchik language. Their culture developed sophisticated metalworking for the era as well, researchers said, reaching its peak between 900-1100 AD.—AFP
China’s Yellow River turns red
BEIJING: Waste water contaminated with dye that was discharged into a section of China’s Yellow River has turned it red for the second time in a month, state media reported on Wednesday.
China’s second-largest river turned red for more than an hour Tuesday in Lanzhou, a city of two million and the capital of the western province of Gansu, the Beijing Youth Daily newspaper said.
The newspaper said the polluted section was two kilometres long.
The river was polluted by waste water discharged by a heating station, Xinhua News Agency said. The discharged water likely came from boilers in which hot water was dyed red to prevent people from diverting it for their own use.
Environmental officials have found that the discharge was not toxic, Xinhua said.
The pollution also caused the river to smell, the Beijing News paper said.
It was the second time in a month that the same section of the Yellow River turned red from pollution.—AP
Steven Spielberg warns TV networks over gruesome ads
LOS ANGELES: Steven Spielberg warned US television networks against promoting gruesome shows in prime-time slots because they could be watched by children.
Speaking to an audience at the International Emmys board of directors meeting in New York Monday, Spielberg urged television stations to be careful what they show, pointing out that he himself is a parent.
“Today we need to be as responsible as we can possibly be, not just thinking of our own children but our friends’ and neighbours’ children,” Spielberg was quoted as saying.
—AFP
65-year-old grandfather to take part in Asian Games
SINGAPORE: He might be 65 but Alan Puan is going to the Asian Games as a competitor, and he is serious about winning a gold medal. The Singaporean grandfather is expected to be the oldest among the 12,000 or so athletes at the event which gets underway in the Qatari capital Doha on December 1, but he is unfazed.
“It is my first Games, my biggest Games, and it could also be my last,” the billiards player told the Straits Times newspaper.
“But I will continue to compete as long as I feel fit. Billiards is mainly about skill. Age and stamina are not so important.
“I've never felt old at the table and I'm game for a match with anyone, any age.” His best bet for a medal will be in the doubles with 38-year-old partner Peter Gilchrist, the 1994 and 2001 world champion.
“He is still very fit, both mentally and physically, and he puts in the same amount of training time as younger players,” said Gilchrist, a Briton who took out Singaporean citizenship earlier this year.
Puan has won nine national titles and has competed at the Southeast Asian Games, but never the Asian Games.
The cue sports at the Asian Games get under way on December 4, with the billiards singles final on December 5 and the doubles final on December 6.—AFP
|
|
|
|
| Two-year-old orang-utans (pongo pygmaeus), Kena (L) and Aristo, drink milk at at Nyaru Menteng Rehabilitation and Reintroduction Centre on the outskirts of Palangkaraya, in Indonesia's Central Kalimantan province, on November 22, 2006.—Reuters | Rival cricket captains England's Andrew Flintoff (R), and Australia's Ricky Ponting (L) hold a replica of the Ashes trophy on the eve of the first test at the Gabba Cricket Ground in Brisbane, Australia, on November 22. England begins its defence of the Ashes in the first of five tests starting on November 23.—AP |
|
|
|
|
