Monday, June 30, 2008

Harajuku Fashions: FASCINATING!-2





Harajuku Fashions: FASCINATING!-1

The Harajuku Girls are teenagers in the area of Harajuku (district in Tokyo where it all began) who are dressed in any fashion style and may be members of various sub-cultures including Gothic, Lolita, Ganguro, Gyaru and Kogal. They may also be dressed as characters from an anime, movie or manga. Uniquely only to Japan, these teenagers express themselves freely with the Harajuku fashion.





Creativity with Cans








Friday, June 27, 2008

Rare Flowers - Orchid, Tunicate & More

Blue Bell Tunicate

Flower Power

Luscious Lotus

Orchid in the Blue

Purple Foxglove

passion flower

The Skeleton Bar

The Skeleton Bar, designed by HR Giger, the same designer from the Alien films for which he received multiple awards, it is located in Gruyere, Switzerland.





Alien Sunset - A Mystery ?



Our solitary sunsets here on Earth might not be all that common in the grand scheme of things. New observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope have revealed that mature planetary systems -- dusty disks of asteroids, comets and possibly planets --are more frequent around close-knit twin, or binary, stars than single stars like our sun. That means sunsets like the one portrayed in this artist's photo concept, and more famously in the movie "Star Wars," might be quite commonplace in the universe.

Binary and multiple-star systems are about twice as abundant as single-star systems in our galaxy, and, in theory, other galaxies. In a typical binary system, two stars of roughly similar masses twirl around each other like pair-figure skaters. In some systems, the two stars are very far apart and barely interact with each other. In other cases, the stellar twins are intricately linked, whipping around each other quickly due to the force of gravity.

Astronomers have discovered dozens of planets that orbit around a single member of a very wide stellar duo. Sunsets from these worlds would look like our own, and the second sun would just look like a bright star in the night sky.

But do planets exist in the tighter systems, where two suns would dip below a planet's horizon one by one? Unveiling planets in these systems is tricky, so astronomers used Spitzer to look for disks of swirling planetary debris instead. These disks are made of asteroids, comets and possibly planets. The rocky material in them bangs together and kicks up dust that Spitzer's infrared eyes can see. Our own solar system is swaddled in a similar type of disk.

Surprisingly, Spitzer found more debris disks around the tightest binaries it studied (about 20 stars) than in a comparable sample of single stars. About 60 percent of the tight binaries had disks, while the single stars only had about 20 percent. These snug binary systems are as close or closer than just three times the distance between Earth and the sun. And the disks in these systems were found to circumnavigate both members of the star pair, rather than just one.

Though follow-up studies are needed, the results could mean that planet formation is more common around extra-tight binary stars than single stars. Since these types of systems would experience double sunsets, the artistic view portrayed here might not be fiction.

The original sunset photo used in this artist's concept was taken by Robert Hurt of the Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

8 Pictures Captured Around The World about Global warming-2

5)A man flying a kite in Tiananmen Square last Boxing Day. Pollution levels on a typical day in Beijing are five times above World Health Organisation standards for safety, and are worse in the summer, worrying Olympic athletes. Three million cars and coal-fired factories, steel mills and skyscraper builds throughout the city have caused the smog. To 'clean' the air for the Olympics, Chinese authorities will take 1m cars off the road and are closing factories a month in advance

6)A worker cleaning dead fish at Guanqiao Lake in central China's Hubei province last July. Hot weather and untreated industrial waste killed an estimated 50,000kg of fish. Drought, a growing population and booming industry led to critical water shortages. Last year the Yangtze river fell to its lowest level since 1866. The government trucked water to millions of people. Low water levels worsen the pollution diverted into lakes and rivers from manufacturing and sewage

7)A plane skims the parasols as it lands on the Dutch island of Saint Martin in the Caribbean. If these holidaymakers are flying long haul each has contributed more greenhouse gases than a single car does in a year. Global aviation accounts for 3.5 per cent of all emissions, but with air travel becoming economically possible for larger numbers this could increase to 15 per cent by 2050, wiping out gains in other sectors. Aviation emissions growth is not included in the new Climate Change bill


8)AES Drax in Yorkshire pumps smoke out of the tallest chimneys in the country. The coal-fired power plant emits more CO2 – 22.8 million tonnes annually – than the 100 least-industrialised nations combined. Drax provides 7% of Britain's electrical power. Burning fossil fuels to turn steam turbines and create electricity accounts for a quarter of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, and coal has the highest carbon content of all fuels

8 Pictures Captured Around The World about Global warming-1

1) Cattle wander around their still-smouldering pastureland in Rondonia, Brazil, one of the many huge tracts of the Amazon rainforest which are being torched to make way for agriculture. In the first five years of this century alone, Brazil burnt an area the size of England and Wales. Deforestation is responsible for 17% of human greenhouse gas emissions [GHGE], mainly through the burning of wood, which results in even fewer trees to absorb CO2


2)Chinstrap penguins perch on top of an eroded blue iceberg near Candlemas Island. Icebergs are simply fragments of glaciers, and last October an iceberg half the size of Greater London 'calved' from the vast Pine Island Glacier (Pig). Over the past 20 years, Pig has been thinning at 40 times the previous stable rate. Antarctica holds enough ice to raise global sea levels by 57m. The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has projected sea level rises by 2100 of between 20 and 80cm '


3)A girl carrying mangoes on her head descends to a village on the Olusosun landfill site in Nigeria. The Olusosun dump is Africa's largest, comprising 100 acres of garbage and collecting 2,400 metric tonnes of rubbish every day from Lagos, one of the fastest-growing cities in the world. Lagos's population has tripled in the past 15 years and the infrastructure can't cope. Roughly 1,000 homes have been built on Olusosun – the residents collect scrap from the dump and sell it


4)A kangaroo lies dead on Richard Walker's farm in New South Wales. In summer 2006/7 Australia experienced a 'one in a 1,000 year' drought. Rainfall in South Australia was the lowest since 1900, while temperatures in the country were the highest since the 1950s. Many regions were experiencing their fifth year of drought, and crops failed while livestock died. In Sydney, householders were fined A$220 (£100) if they were caught watering gardens, Perth's drinking water became saline