10 Deepest Lakes on Earth

Image via Flickr User Sniggity

Have you ever swam out in a deep lake and not been able to see the bottom? All you can feel is the freezing cold water beneath your feet, all you see is darkness extending to infinity.

There is nothing wrong with being afraid of deep water even if you’re the best swimmer in the world, but when you add some fantasy to the story and consider the legends and mysteries that lie underneath the murky depths, fear can eat you alive.

As with any lake, depths fluctuate with climate and in particular rainfall. Notwithstanding this, today we’ll explore the top ten deepest lakes in the world and the stories and legends behind them.

10. Lake Matano

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With a tectonic origin and located in South Sulawesi in Indonesia, Lake Matano is an important freshwater resource in the area and the country’s deepest lake, with a maximum depth of 1936 feet. It drains from Patea River and later flows through a waterfall into Lake Mahalona (the Malili Lakes).

Lake Matana is famous for its extremely clear waters and the many endemic fish species which have arisen from a single ancestor diversified over time.

9. Crater Lake

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With a violent volcanic past, the caldera lake in the Crater Lake National Park, Oregon, is a place of immeasurable beauty. Surrounding cliffs of up to two thousand feet high, two small islands and spectacular blue water, make this “outdoor laboratory” the perfect place for photographers.

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Crater lake is the deepest lake in the United States with a maximum depth of 1949 feet. It may also have one of the purest water, in North America, (in terms of absence of pollutants) thanks to the generous amounts of winter snow that supplies it with water.

It was created when Mount Mazama (12,000 feet high) collapsed 7,700 years ago following a large eruption, but the legend has more details. The Klamath Indian tribe talks about a raging war between Llao, the spirit of the Below-World who lived in Mount Mazama, and Skell the spirit of the Above-World.

Llao felt in love with Loha, daughter of the Klamath Indian chief, but got rejected and decided to punish humans with the curse of fire. Skell came in to help and after a long battle he managed to defeat Llao, whom he imprisoned deep down into the Under-World, collapsing the top of the Mount Mazama over. At last he wanted peace and decided to cover the pit with magnificent blue water.

8. Great Slave Lake

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Also known as the Grand lac des Esclaves after the Slavey North American Indians, it covers 11,000 sq miles in the Northwest Territories of Canada and goes down to 2,015 feet which makes it the deepest lake in North America. Because of the low temperatures in the area, for about eight months of the year, the lake is at least partially frozen, while during winter, the ice is so thick that trailer trucks can pass through.

There is currently no physical evidence to suggest that an unidentified large creature is living in the Great Slave Lake, but many people traveling to the lake have said otherwise. Some talk about a large hump in the water, usually mistaken for a rock until it submerges, or an alligator-like body, with a head like that of a pike.

From his house, a Roman Catholic priest even saw a large dragon-headed creature that rose six to eight feet above the water and moved rapidly on the shores of the lake. The creature was subsequently named Ol’Slavey.

7. Issyk Kul Lake

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In the Republic of Kyrgyzstan, the northern Tian Shan mountains, Issyk Kul is an endorheic saline water lake that was supposed to be an ancient metropolis, 2,500 years ago. The average water depth is 1,000 feet while the deepest point goes down to 2,192 feet.

According to the legend, during pre-Islamic times, the king of the Ossounes had donkey’s ears. He managed to hide them however, by killing all his barbers to make sure the secret wouldn’t leak out, yet one day, one of the barbers escaped and yelled the secret into a well and left it uncovered, which caused water to rise and flood the kingdom.

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It would be interesting to explore the truths behind this story, as archaeological finds indicated the presence of an advanced ancient civilization where the the Issyk Kul lake is currently located.

6. Lake Malawi

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Also known as Lake Nyasa, Lake Malawi is the most southern lake in the East African Rift valley system, located between Malawi, Mozambique, and Tanzania. At 2,316 feet deep, it’s the second deepest lake in Africa and thanks to the tropical waters it has more fish species than any other lake on Earth.

Researchers have studied sediments from core samples of Lake Malawi, which revealed that 100,000 years ago, water levels dropped to about 2,000 feet, turning the land around the lake into semi-desert and arid scrubland habitat. According to some, this may be why early man fled from Africa to colonize other parts of the world.

5. O’Higgins/San Martín Lake

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Located in Patagonia, between the Aysén Region and the Santa Cruz Province, the lake is called O’Higgins in Chile and San Martin in Argentina. It is the deepest lake in the Americas with a maximum depth of 2,742 feet (measured near the O’Higgins Glacier). The lake is very irregular consisting of eight well-defined arms with milky light-blue water coming from the suspended rock flour.

The lake is named after South American heroes José de San Martín of Argentina and Bernardo O’Higgins of Chile, who fought together for the liberation of Chile.

4. Lake Vostok

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Out of the 140 sub-glacial lakes on earth, Vostok is the largest and the deepest, with a maximum depth of 2,950 feet. Beneath Russia’s Vostok Station, 13,000 feet under the surface of the central Antarctic ice sheet, may be the most unspoiled lake on Earth. British and Russian scientists only discovered it in 1996.

The average water temperature is -3 °C and the reason why it is still liquid below freezing is the high pressure from the weight of the ice above it.

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Scientists also discovered that the ice core may be 420,000 years old, meaning that the lake could have been sealed for over 500,000 years and the water beneath could be doubly as old.

So far there isn’t any proof of life in LakeVostok. Notwithstanding this, in case there are species living beneath the murky depths, they are most likely to have evolved special features in order to survive the lake’s oxygen-rich environment.3. Caspian Sea

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Between the southern areas of the Russian Federation and northern Iran, lies the largest enclosed body of water on Earth. It’s an endorheic lake with salty water (salinity of approximately 1.2%) that was landlocked due to continental drift 5.5 million years ago. An ancient remnant of the Tethys Ocean, (just like the Black Sea or the Mediterranean Sea) it is the third deepest lake in the world going down to 3,363 feet.

Fauna in the Caspian basin is very rich: great numbers of sturgeon (that’s where you get the great caviar), the Caspian seal and some fish endemic to the Caspian Sea like the Kkturn (Caspian white fish), Caspian roach, Caspian bream and an array of rare species of salmon only to be found in that area.

The Caspian Sea is very rich in energy resources like oil and gas deposits, which have been tapped since the 10th century. These days, the oil in the Caspian basin is supposed to be worth $12 trillion.

2. Tanganyika Lake

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Divided between Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (45%), Tanzania (41%) and Zambia, Tanganyika is the deepest fresh water lake in Africa and the second in the world with a maximum depth of 4,823 feet. The lake was “mistakenly” discovered in 1858 by two British explorers, Richard Burton and John Speke, in their quest to find the Nile’s source.

 

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A recent story on National Georgraphic talks about a cold-blooded serial killer on the shores of Lake Tanganyika. Called Gustave, it was a 20 feet long crocodile that weighted 2,000 pounds and was responsible for killing hundreds of people.

1. Lake Baikal

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Also known as the “blue eye of Siberia”, lake Baikal is located in Southern Siberia near R near the Russo-Mongolian border. Famous for being the deepest lake in the world with a maximum depth of 5,369 feet it holds a volume of water larger than that of all the great lakes combined.

Lake Baikal is a great eco-system where more than 1,700 species of flora and fauna live; two thirds of them only to be found here. Completely surrounded by steep mountains and dense forests, the lake has an estimated age of 25-30 million years, making it one of the most ancient lakes in geological history.

However, this enormous water formation may harbor a mystery of immense proportions: a gigantic animal, either of sturgeon-like appearance or a rogue sea serpent; Baikal’s very own Loch Ness Monster. No one can tell for sure if the legend is true or not, but the creature exists in people’s minds and haunts their thoughts.

Man hypnotises himself before op

Alex Lenkei has been practising hypnosis since the age of 16 Going under and ‘feeling ace’

A hypnotist from West Sussex has undergone surgery on his right hand without a general anaesthetic.

Alex Lenkei, 61, from Worthing, chose to sedate himself by hypnosis before undergoing the 83-minute operation.

He said he was fully aware of everything going on around him during the procedure but was free from pain.

The operation at Worthing Hospital involved removing some bone in the base of the thumb and fusing some joints in an attempt to improve his arthritis.

Consultant orthopaedic surgeon David Llewellyn-Clark said he was happy in agreeing to the unusual sedation on Mr Lenkei, a registered hypnotist who has been practising since the age of 16.

At one stage a hammer and chisel was used as well as a surgical saw, but I felt no pain Alex Lenkei

 

Mr Lenkei said Wednesday’s surgery “went amazingly well”.

“It took between 30 seconds to a minute for me to place myself under hypnosis, and from that point I felt a very deep relaxation.

“I was aware of everything around me, from people talking and at one stage a hammer and chisel was used as well as a surgical saw, but I felt no pain.”

Throughout the operation, an anaesthetist was on standby to administer an anaesthetic if necessary.

Mr Llewellyn-Clark said he had been confident that Mr Lenkei was a skilled hypnotist and was “delighted all went well”.

Solved: mystery of the disappearing lake

The sudden and dramatic disappearance of a large lake which had formed on the surface of a melting ice sheet in Greenland has been documented for the first time by scientists who estimated that its outflow was greater than that of Niagara Falls.

 

Rising temperatures in the Arctic are causing more meltwater lakes to form on top of the Greenland ice sheet and satellite pictures have shown that they can disappear almost overnight for no apparent reason.

Thousands of the “supra-glacial” lakes form each summer – and last year was one of the warmest on record in the region – but scientists have little understanding of how the lakes can suddenly disappear or how far down the water flows into the 3,200ft (975m) deep ice sheet.

Now scientists have seen how they fall through the ice as a result of giant cracks that suddenly open up under the lake bottom, causing millions of tons of water to flow down to the base of the thick ice sheet where it grinds against the bedrock.

Instruments placed around the lake, which covered an area of 2.2sq miles and was up to 40ft deep, found that a huge crack or “moulin” (from the French for mill) opened up in the ice which allowed about 11.6 billion gallons of water to flow down to the bedrock in under 24 hours.

The pressure of the liquid water flowing between the ice sheet and the bedrock lifted the surface of the ice sheet by up to 20 feet at the point where the lake had formed in the summer of 2006, according to the findings of the study published in the journal Science.

The research is important because one of the questions scientists want answered is whether these huge volumes of water falling to the base of the ice sheet can lubricate its movement, so sending it faster towards the coast, where icebergs break off and contribute to a rise in global sea levels.

“We found clear evidence that supraglacial lakes – the pools of meltwater that form on the surface in summer – can drive a crack through the ice sheet in a process called hydrofracture,” said Sarah Das of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts.

“If there is a crack or defect in the surface that is large enough, and a sufficient reservoir of water to keep that crack filled, it can create a conduit all the way down the bed of the ice sheet,” Ms Das said.

“It’s hard to envision how a trickle or a pool of meltwater from the surface could cut through thick, cold ice all the way to the bed. For that reason, there has been a debate as to whether such processes could exist, even though some theoretical work has hypothesised this for decades,” she said.

The scientists believe that the lake emptied like a bathtub once the crack had formed, with much of the water disappearing in a cataclysmic outflow lasting about 90 minutes – a flow rate greater than the average flow rate of Niagara Falls.

Global positioning instruments recording the horizontal movements over the ice sheet found that the ice in the region of the lake began to move faster towards the ocean at about double the normal speed.

However, the scientists also found that the speed of movement of the ice sheet nearer the coastline was not affected significantly, indicating that the disappearance of the summer meltwater lakes may not influence the more complex dynamics that determine the rate at which icebergs “calve” from the ice sheet.

“We set out to examine whether the melting at the surface – which is sensitive to climate change – could influence how fast the ice can flow… if the ice sheet is frozen to the bedrock or has very little water available, then it will flow much more slowly than if it has a lubricating and pressurised layer of water underneath to reduce friction,” Ms Das said.

Ian Jouglin, of Washington University, said: “Considered together, the new findings indicate that, while surface melt plays a substantial role in ice-sheet dynamics, it may not produce large instabilities leading to sea level rise.”

The 5 Historical Figures Who Died The Weirdest Deaths

A small handful of great individuals are not content to get their names in the footnotes of history and then quietly expire. No, these brave few achieve greatness and then top it off by kicking the bucket in a way so ridiculously implausible that people would have talked about them for years even if they hadn’t done anything else.

These are five historical figures who died deaths that would make sure their names were written just a little bit bigger in the history books.

President Félix Faure: Sexed to Death

Think of him as the William Howard Taft of French presidents, both in his relative innocuousness and in terms of facial hair. He was nominated to run for president because his party wanted someone as plain vanilla as possible in order to avoid controversy. Faure seemed to fit the bill perfectly.

Until the day he died, that is.

Cause of death:
Bow-chicka-bow-wow.

On February 16, 1899, French president Félix Faure decided to make a booty call in his own office. Now who would have the privilege of receiving such a dubious invitation? None other than Marguerite Steinheil, a total babe who was not unlike the neighborhood bicycle, if you get our drift. Right about when they were reaching the petit mort (French for orgasm) Faure had himself a grand mort (French for having a fatal stroke right in the middle of orgasm).

We’ve been making arrangements to see that we meet our makers in more or less the exact same way.

Marguerite then went on to sleep with a number of other famous dudes including King Sisowath of Cambodia. Now we aint’ sayin’ she’s a gold digger, but she really decided not mess around with the lower income bracket.

Still, congrats to Faure. Not only did he die happy, but he also died the way he lived: serving as a symbol to the world for the people of France, where infidelity in the workplace is what hockey is to Canada. And who wouldn’t want to help him shuffle off his pants/mortal coil? Guy had the bitchingest mustache in all of Western Europe.

Chrysippus: Death By Performing Donkey

Chrysippus is one of the greats when it comes to philosophy. He helped create propositional logic and helped lead a group of philosophical badasses called the Stoics. But, like the greatest philosopher of the modern age (Andrew WK), when it was time to party, he would always party hard.

Cause of death:
Legend has it, the man was partying with his donkey, who will go unnamed, and the donkey had a little too much to drink. No, we’re not making this up.

The rumor further has it that the inebriated donkey then tried to eat some figs. Now, a donkey eating figs is apparently the most ridiculous thing possible, since Chrysippus started laughing so hard he keeled over and died. We’re trying to picture it, but we’re almost afraid to. Even if his donkey got up on its hind legs, batted the fig across the room with its dong, and then caught the rebounding fruit in its mouth, it wouldn’t make him laugh that hard, would it?

Unless of course he was stoned out of his mind.

The whole incident was a huge blow to the field of Greek philosophy–not only because the Stoics lost one of their greatest advocates, but because most philosopher parties after the death of Chrysippus were totally lame.

Aeschylus: Killed By Wildlife Conspiracy

Aeschylus is widely regarded to be the founder of Greek tragedy, so he’s probably the guy you should blame for depressing the hell out of you during freshman English. Modern scholars have determined that Aeschylus is also the only man in history to have a name that is literally impossible to pronounce.

Cause of death:
Bludgeoning. With a turtle.

You see, eagles in the area surrounding Sicily loved turtles just as much as Kel from Kenan and Kel loved orange soda. There’s just one problem with eating them–getting past that hard shell to the gooey center. So what do they do? They lift turtles up to great heights, and then drop them on rocks to crack them open.

Who loves turtles? Sicilian eagles love turtles.

The popular theory is that Aeschylus was just milling about out in the sun one day when an eagle mistook the top of his bald head for a rock and unleashed a world of tortoise-related hurt on the poet out of a perfectly innocent desire for a mid-afternoon snack.

That’s the popular theory. One undoubtedly promulgated by fear-mongering toupee and Rogaine merchants hoping to make a fast buck off of bald men’s crippling terror of death from above. It’s worth noting that the turtle supposedly survived. How convenient for the turtle.

And while far be it from us to accuse the eagle and the turtle of plotting the murder of one of history’s greatest tragedians, it is also worth noting that neither of them were brought in for questioning.

Arius: Farted His Bowels

Arius was one of the most prominent heretics of early Christianity. Most modern historians will tell you that all of humanity was pretty much batshit insane right up to some point in the early 20th century, so you can imagine how bad it must have been back then. That’s why Arius was labeled a “heretic” for humbly suggesting that there might have been a time when Christ hadn’t existed.

Like, say, before he was born. HERESY!

Cause of death:
How can we put this delicately? He shat out his internal organs.

According to one of his political opponents: “A faintness came over him, and together with the evacuations his bowels protruded, followed by a copious hemorrhage, and the descent of the smaller intestines: moreover portions of his spleen and liver were brought off in the effusion of blood, so that he almost immediately died.”

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If your sphincter clenched airtight at that description, you’re not the only one. But fear not–some have speculated that Arius didn’t die of natural causes, and was in fact poisoned. If that’s true, then the assassin in question must be one of the biggest assholes in the history of murder. Political assassination is one thing, making your political enemy evacuate his own intestines is another.

But this is all pure speculation. Without any real evidence of foul play, we’re going to have to chalk this up to natural causes. Excruciating, stomach-churning natural causes. Stay, regular, kids!

Herod the Great: Gangrene of the …

Herod the Great was a king of Judaea, most well known for his hand in the construction of the Second Temple and for something called “Massacre of the Innocents,” which as it turns out wasn’t the name of his awesome garage band.

Cause of death:
Pissing off God.

According to modern scientists, Herod suffered from not only a severe kidney disease, but something called Fournier gangrene.

From the above-linked article:

“The Jewish historian Flavius Josephus recorded details of his death, telling of symptoms that included intense itching, intestinal pain, shortness of breath, convulsions, and gangrene of the genitalia.”

Gangrene. Of. The. GENITALIA.

In layman’s terms? Dickrot.

OK, can we just stop the article right now? We totally do not want to think about that. We’re just thankful this is a work-friendly site, so they wouldn’t be tempted to tack on a picture of this affliction.

What could possibly cause symptoms so unimaginably painful and (literally) emasculating? Modern science doesn’t have the answer, but the Bible sure does! After all, Herod was responsible for the Massacre of the Innocents.

According to Christian tradition, when he found out that the son of God had just been born and that he was no longer King of the Jews, Herod decided that a reasonable, measured response was to kill as many babies as he possibly could and just hope that one of them was Jesus. There were only three problems with this brilliant plan: 1) There are a lot of babies in the world, and it would be very difficult to kill all of them, 2) The wholesale murdering of hundreds of babies is the kind of thing that God tends to frown upon, and 3) Jesus is Jesus and therefore very difficult to kill, even in baby form.

Needless to say, not only did the plan fail, but it irritated God enough that he responded by murdering Herod’s kidneys and junk.

Obviously, the whole “God did it” theory hasn’t been proven, so we’ll let you draw your own conclusions. But which would you rather believe: That God was responsible, or that this shit could pretty much happen to anyone?

Top 10 Banned Films of the 20th Century

#10 - THE OUTLAW [1943]

 

Notable for bringing sex to the Western genre, Howard Hughes’ The Outlaw was shelved for years before finally receiving approval by the Hollywood Production Code Administration. The whole controversial production seems to have gone forward for one reason: To showcase actress Jane Russell’s magnificent breasts. The film’s slogan was “What are the two biggest reasons for Jane Russell’s success?” During filming, Hughes once commented, “We’re not getting enough production from Jane’s breasts.” In her memorable screen debut, Russell portrayed “Rio McDonald.” Oh yeah, The Outlaw also starrred Walter Huston (The Treasure of the Sierra Madre), Thomas Mitchell (It’s a Wonderful Life) and Jack Buetel as “Billy the Kid.”

 

 

#09 - ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT [1930]

Directed by Lewis Milestone, All Quiet on the Western Front was based on the critically acclaimed Erich Maria Remarque novel, Im Westen nichts Neues, and starred Lew Ayres as the disillusioned soldier, Paul Baumer. The film, which won an Academy Award for Best Picture, was eventually banned in Germany due to its anti-war theme: “You still think it’s beautiful to die for your country. The first bombardment taught us better. When it comes to dying for country, it’s better not to die at all.” However, during the film’s brief run in Germany, the Nazis released rats into the theaters to scare off movie patrons. All Quiet on the Western Front was also banned in Italy until 1956.

 

 

#08 - I AM CURIOUS (YELLOW) [1967]

 

Banned in Massachusetts for being pornographic, this notorious Swedish film (Jag är nyfiken - gul) faced a landmark court battle in the United States and was eventually found to be not obscene by the United States Court of Appeals. Directed by Vilgot Sjöman, the film starred Lena Nyman and is a companion film to I Am Curious (Blue) (1968). The films were named after the colors of the Swedish flag. I Am Curious (Yellow) contains documentary elements, including an interview with Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

 

#07 - THE BIRTH OF A NATION [1915]

 

Based on Thomas Dixon’s novel, The Clansman, D. W. Griffith’s controversial and extremely influential silent film classic caused riots in Boston, Philadelphia and other major cities. The NAACP organized protests at the various premieres of the film around the country. In addition, The Birth of a Nation was outright banned in several cities such as Chicago, Pittsburgh and Kansas City due to its racist themes. U.S. President Woodrow Wilson commented that the movie, which starred Lillian Gish and Mae Marsh, was “like writing history with lightning.” Griffith’s next silent film masterpiece, Intolerance, was made in reaction to the negative response he received from The Birth of a Nation.

 

 

#06 - THE TIN DRUM [1979]

 

“A savage, sweeping epic of society in chaos.” Adapted from the critically acclaimed novel (Die Blechtrommel) by Günter Grass, The Tin Drum won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. However, the film was banned in several countries, including parts of Canada, as well as in Oklahoma City for a short time, due to a controversial scene that appears to show minors engaging in oral sex.

 

 

#05 - HAIL MARY [1985]

 

In Hail Mary (Je vous salue, Marie), the Virgin Mary is a gas station attendant whose boyfriend, Joseph, drives a taxi. Even Pope John Paul II jumped into the battle over this controversial, modern retelling of the virgin birth story from Jean-Luc Godard, claiming that the film “deeply wounds the religious sentiments of believers.”

 

 

#04 - LAST TANGO IN PARIS [1973]

 

Directed by Bernardo Bertolucci, Last Tango in Paris (Ultimo tango a Parigi) details the bizarre relationship of an American widower (Marlon Brando) and a young Parisian woman (Maria Schneider). The film caused much controversy for the so-called “butter scene,” which is extremely tame by today’s standards. Schneider, who claims she is still haunted by the scene, was quoted in the New York Post (July 23, 2007), claiming that the scene wasn’t part of the original script: “The truth is it was Marlon who came up with the idea . . . I should have called my agent or had my lawyer come to the set because you can’t force someone to do something that isn’t in the script . . . I was crying real tears. I felt humiliated and, to be honest, I felt a little raped . . . Thankfully, there was just one take . . . I never use butter to cook anymore - only olive oil.” According to a court in Bologna that banned the film: “Obscene content offensive to public decency . . . presented with obsessive self-indulgence, catering to the lowest instincts of the libido, dominated by the idea of stirring unchecked appetites for sexual pleasure, permeated by scurrilous language . . . accompanied off screen by sounds, sighs and shrieks of climax pleasure.”

 

 

#03 - THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST [1988]

“I am here to set fire to the world!” Martin Scorsese directed this adaption of Nikos Kazantzakis’ controversial 1953 novel that is notable for the scandal it caused as well as for its bizarre casting that included Willem Dafoe as Jesus, Barbara Hershey as Mary Magdalene, Harvey Keitel as Judas Iscariot, David Bowie as Pontius Pilate and Harry Dean Stanton as Paul. Numerous religious leaders throughout the United States organized protests against The Last Temptation of Christ (many of whom didn’t bother to make an effort to watch the film!) and several Southern cities such as Savannah, Georgia, banned the film. In addition, Blockbuster Video initially refused to carry the title in its stores. Scorsese was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Director for his efforts (Barry Levinson ended up winning the award for Rain Man).

 

 

#02 - TITICUT FOLLIES [1967]

 

“Don’t turn your back on this film . . . if you value your mind or your life.” A fascinating (and extremely disturbing!) black and white documentary dealing with the mistreatment of patients at the Massachusetts Correctional Institution, a prison hospital for the criminally insane, Titicut Follies was banned in the United States after a ruling by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court determined that the film violated the patients’ right to privacy. However, many critics believed that the film was removed from circulation by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to protect its own reputation. Finally, in 1992, the film aired on PBS and is now widely available.

 

 

#01 - CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST [1980]

 

“Oh, good Lord! It’s unbelievable. It’s horrible. I can’t understand the reason for such cruelty!” Directed by Italian filmmaker Ruggero Deodato and filmed in the Amazon Rainforest, Cannibal Holocaust was banned in many countries upon its initial release due to its graphic gore and sexual violence, as well as for several gruesome (and genuine!) animal slayings that appear in the film. Rumors also circulated that it was a snuff film (which at least proved to be untrue!). Countries that banned the movie at one time or another include Italy, New Zealand, Australia, Malaysia, Burma, Norway, South Africa, Finland, Turkey, Singapore, Germany, Iran and Morocco. Believe it or not, Cannibal Holocaust remains banned in several countries to this day . . . “Man is omnipotent; nothing is impossible for him. What seemed like unthinkable undertakings yesterday are history today. The conquest of the moon for example: who really talks about it anymore? Today we are already on the threshold of conquering our galaxy, and in a not too distant tomorrow, we’ll be considering the conquest of the universe, and yet man seems to ignore the fact that on this very planet there are still people living in the stone age and practicing cannibalism.”

Man Survives 1,500-Ft. Drop Down Mt. St. Helens

An experienced snowmobiler, John Slemp, 52, of Damascus, Ore., miraculously survived a 1,500-foot plummet into the crater of Mt. St. Helens. He is the first person ever to fall into the crater.

After dropping into the crater of Mount St. Helens, John Slemp miraculously survived with minor injuries.

(ABC News)

On Saturday, Slemp, his son Jared and a family friend took their snowmobiles up to the crater’s rim, where John and Jared parked their vehicles, then crawled on their bellies to peer over the cornice — a dangerous overhanging shelf of snow at the crest of a mountain — into the crater itself.

The cornice broke loose and Slemp dropped about 150 feet. His son began to slide down with him until their friend grabbed him and pulled him back to safety. The elder Slemp landed on a snow bank, but when he stood to climb back up the crater, the shelf of snow crumbled beneath him and he tumbled about 1,300 feet further down the crater, riding a tidal wave of avalanche debris on his hands and knees.

At 5:20 p.m. PT, the sheriff’s office received a phone call that a man had fallen off the crater rim but was up and moving around.

“I’m not surprised,” Undersheriff Dave Cox said. “There was an avalanche warning in effect and the weather conditions were such that, for that elevation, the snow was unstable. There were high temperatures, which means the snow was starting to melt … [Slemp] just happened to be the impetus that caused that cornice to give way.”

The coordinator of the rescue, Chief Tom McDowell, director of North Country emergency medical service, said Slemp first made a vertical drop of about 100 to 200 feet, then hit a snow bank and tumbled until the crater leveled out.

“We’ve always anticipated anyone falls off the crater rim is not gonna survive,” McDowell said.

But Slemp was wearing a heavy snowmobile suit as well as a helmet and heavy boots, and he happened to fall in an area without craggy crevices or boulders which could have killed him.

“[He] picked a great place to do this,” Gary Kapezynski, the training coordinator for the volcano rescue team, said. “This was one of two places at the crater which were snow covered and there were very few cliffs … if he’d have gone off in other places, I don’t think he would have made it.”

The two men at the top of the crater did not call rescuers themselves. Stuck there without a cell phone, they were equipped with only a family radio service walkie-talkie, which is usually only supposed to work within a range of a couple miles. According to McDowell, the walkie-talkie managed to randomly pick up the signal of a family of campers in Mossy Rock, a city about 20 miles away.

“[The camper] was the one who called the sheriff’s office. He maintained contact with the people left on the crater rim, and he would relay information back and forth with me,” McDowell said, “‘Fortuitous’ would be a good word to describe this.”

By communicating through the camper, the rescuers knew that Slemp was fully conscious and even walking around.

McDowell dispatched a helicopter with two rescuers and equipment, and as the helicopter flew over the crater, the rescuers saw Slemp standing up and waving.

The helicopter descended about 1,500 feet into the crater, where the pilot performed what is called a one-skid landing — which is not actually a full landing but a tricky hover involving only a single part of the helicopter touching down.

“You hover with one skid pointed in the snow with very little clearance and [the pilot] was able to do that, let Will get out and get to the patient,” Kapezynski said.

To pick up the rescuer and Slemp, the pilot “then [did] the same thing to go back in.”

Slemp was pretty banged up but he was healthy enough to scramble down and get into the helicopter. His leg was splinted and the rescuers checked him out as the helicopter flew back.

The rescue effort was swift and wrapped up in 2.5 hours, by about 7:30 p.m. PT.

Cox said that injuries on Mt. St. Helens are fairly common. “We have injuries on the mountain just about yearly from people trying to climb … you get people who are ‘day hikers’ who think it’s just a stroll up to the crater rim, but it’s still a fairly technical mountain to climb.”

As Slemp left the crater in the rescue helicopter, his son and friend left the crater rim to return home in the car they drove in. Slemp appeared to have one more thing on his mind, and he made a request of his rescuers.

“Did you tell those guys that the car keys are in the snowmobile, parked at the top of Mt. St. Helens?” he asked.

Slemp was taken to Yacolt, Wash., for medical care, and transferred to Legacy Emanuel Hospital in Portland, Ore. The hospital did not return calls inquiring about Slemp’s condition, but Slemp’s brother-in-law Randy Fairley told ABC News that, to his knowledge, Slemp was recovering.

 

Alicia Keys has theory on Tupac-Biggie feud

There’s another side to Alicia Keys: conspiracy theorist. The Grammy-winning singer-songwriter tells Blender magazine: “‘Gangsta rap’ was a ploy to convince black people to kill each other. ‘Gangsta rap’ didn’t exist.”

 

There’s another side to Alicia Keys: conspiracy theorist.

The Grammy-winning singer-songwriter tells Blender magazine: “‘Gangsta rap’ was a ploy to convince black people to kill each other. ‘Gangsta rap’ didn’t exist.”

Keys, 27, said she’s read several Black Panther autobiographies and wears a gold AK-47 pendant around her neck “to symbolize strength, power and killing ’em dead,” according to an interview in the magazine’s May issue, on newsstands Tuesday.

Another of her theories: That the bicoastal feud between slain rappers Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G. was fueled “by the government and the media, to stop another great black leader from existing.”

Keys’ AK-47 jewelry came as a surprise to her mother, who is quoted as telling Blender: “She wears what? That doesn’t sound like Alicia.” Keys’ publicist, Theola Borden, said Keys was on vacation and unavailable for comment.

Though she’s known for her romantic tunes, she told Blender that she wants to write more political songs. If black leaders such as the late Black Panther Huey Newton “had the outlets our musicians have today, it’d be global. I have to figure out a way to do it myself,” she said.

The multiplatinum songstress behind the hits “Fallin”’ and “No One” most recently had success with her latest CD, “As I Am,” which sold millions.

What Does Google Know About Us?

 

The better question might be, what doesn’t Google know about us, according to Gartner analysts.

LAS VEGAS — Google knows almost everything connected to the Web, but there is one major source of untapped data the company has scarcely touched to date. Can you guess that area?

If you cried “e-commerce transactions” you would be right, according to analysts at the Gartner Symposium ITexpo 2008 here April 10.

Thanks to a powerful database management system and corresponding technologies, the company is able to access just about anything that hasn’t been encrypted, said Gartner analyst Richard Hunter in his presentation on what kind of information Google corrals on the world.

The one area where Google isn’t particularly strong is in e-commerce transactions, where its Google Checkout platform sees only about 1 percent of what is sold on the Internet.

“This is obviously an area of great interest for them because so much of their current revenue is devised of advertising,” Hunter said.

The conversation shed a new light on the rumor that Google could buy online travel power Expedia. Some financial analysts applauded this notion, while others booed the premise. The naysayers claimed Google would be broadening its business too much, while the cheerleaders claimed Google would be able to tap a new world of advertising.

Both lines of reasoning are true, but after Hunter’s presentation it became clear that a major e-commerce buy is the missing link for Google’s massive data warehouses, which touched 100 exabytes of data in 2007.

Clearly, Google knows the behavior patterns of its users. Do a search and the company will tailor ads based on your searches. Do some more searches, open your Gmail account and you will find about four paid links related to those searches. The company also knows a lot about the computers where its Google Apps are installed.

Google Casts a Wide Web

Google sees 67 percent of searches, knows the traffic of more than 1.5 million Web sites, as well as the physical locations of several things thanks to its Google Earth application.

For example, Gartner analyst Mark Stahlman used his mobile phone and Google Earth to pinpoint the location of our conference room in the Mandalay Bay resort here. The search vendor is also trying to learn the physical location of any cell phone user, thanks to its Google My Location application.

In another example, Hunter showed how a fellow analyst was able to find a person’s name and address through Google’s Picasa photo album application.

“When you put together their understanding of a physical location with their understanding of the user and their knowledge of their users’ locations, you can derive a lot of meaningful information from the confluence of those things,” Hunter said.

Google’s information purview extends to businesses, of course. Hunter asked the audience of about 200 if their companies use Google Apps. A surprising 46 percent said they used them.

Indeed, for a company that corralled 100 exabytes of data in 2007, the better question might be: What doesn’t Google know?

And while you’re at it, think about what e-commerce giant Google might be inclined to target to fill out its information and online ad holes. Will it be Expedia? Amazon? eBay?

Space Is Full of Crap

The European Space Agency has just released images showing all the satellites and human-made debris now orbiting space as a result of 51 years of launching stuff since Sputnik. That’s about 6,000 satellites up there—of which only 800 remain operational—plus thousands of other objects from launches and accidents. According to their mindblowing simulations things are getting a lot worse:

About 50 percent of all trackable objects are due to in-orbit explosion events (about 200) or collision events (less than 10).

Yes, we knew that there was a lot of crap out there, but not to this extent. According to the ESA, this is really bad news and urgent measures are needed. Explosions in space are not disastrous on their own, but because of the aftermath. One example: a geostationary satellite travels at 6,213 miles per hour. If it explodes, all the debris stays near the orbit, forming a cloud around the Earth within a few days, as this simulation shows:

The ESA is urging to introduce measures to mitigate this problem, like the complete depletion of fuel in rocket stages (like some Delta launchers already do following NASA’s Procedural Requirements for Limiting Orbital Debris) or returning objects to Earth once their mission is complete (perhaps to destroy them on re-entry,) just like SES Americom is going to do with their brand-new AMC-14. This satellite failed to reach its projected altitude and now has to be splashed into the sea because of a dispute with Boeing, which won’t let SES Americom use their patented recovery method to put the satellite into the right geostationary orbit.

The impact of these measures could be huge, as reflected by this simulation of how things could look by the year 2112, with and without taking action:

While the idea of bringing back used stages and satellites back to Earth may seem too expensive, in the long run it’s clear that leaving all this trash up there is going to have huge consequences to the development of space exploration and colonization. Those concepts may still seem science fiction for many, but as these simulations show, the current and future problem is very real, and could be extremely dangerous.

This is how it looks when orbital debris hits a spaceship, simulated in a laboratory.

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Kobe Bryant jumps over Aston Martin

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x510iv_real-or-fake-kobe-bryant-jumps-over_sport