A 40-year-old businessman, Tag Majid, has done something that will make A-Team fans the world over both proud and jealous. He’s actually spent $50,000 to convert an old and bashed-up 1985 GMC Vandura Van into a replica of the legendary vehicle driven by B.A. Baracus on the show.

It took him over eight months to complete the project and the vehicle is now decked out in all the colors and features of the original show van. Of course, there are a few of the latest conveniences added as well.

Majid, from Dudley, West Midlands, owns a car rental firm called Just For Hire West Midlands. He actually started the renovation of the van over a year ago, and spent a good amount of time just searching the internet for parts. He wanted to make sure that every detail down to the wing mirror, wheels and even the aerial was exactly the same as on the original. He also added a 26-inch LCD TV, a DVD player and a sound system, to play the A-Team theme tune on loop. It blares out through a speaker behind the front grille.

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Are you a die-hard fan of the Flintstones and have an extra $3.5 Million to spare? If the answer is yes, then you actually have the chance to live in a house styled in the theme of the popular cartoon. If not, well then you can just make do with looking at the pictures.

The house, located in Malibu, presently belongs to TV and Radio legend Dick Clark and his wife, but is up for sale and pretty fresh on the market. Apart from being the perfect place for a ‘Modern Stone-age Family’, there’s several other good things going for the house. For instance, the property has a 360 degree ocean and mountain view. Now, that’s probably a luxury that even Fred and Wilma wished they could enjoy. From the 23-acre estate’s glass windows, one can comfortably view the Pacific Ocean, Boney Mountains, Channel Islands, Serrano Valley and also Los Angeles. Sounds awesome, but that’s not all. The place is only minutes away from the beach, has a wine cellar, and the living and dining rooms have vaulted ceilings that open up the space. Surprisingly, there are only two bathrooms and one bedroom in the sprawling mansion. I suppose it is the ultimate place for a romantic getaway for two. Two Flintstones-lovers, that is.

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We have always been captivated by the prospect of weapons that could be fired with just a single thought. No action has to be taken by the soldier or weapons operator, all it would take is for the person to want the weapon to be fired, and it would be done. This may sound like a pipe-dream to some but British scientists believe that this could soon be a possibility. Many of the technologies and components are already in development and such devices will draw heavily on nuero-technology research. Devices and concepts such as brain-computer interfaces will have to be used, which has come against another large hurdle in ethics.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/9114975/New-thinking-cap-technologies-that-control-weaponry-a-step-closer.html

The main issue is that some of these components and technologies will have to stimulate or effect the brain’s inner workings and natural processes and will blur the line between what is human and what is machine. The risks are great but the rewards are even greater, ranging from advancements in the fields of medicine, human enhancement, and of course, warfare. However, some or all of these advancements may require a computer chip to be implemented in human brains which brings up the image of a cyborg. Because of the influence the chip would have on inner brain workings, some people are afraid that those who have the chip implemented into their brains would have a reduced sense of responsibility for their actions, which could lead to horrible consequences. Being able to control weapons of war remotely without having to risk actual human life may also cause people to become insensitive to the horrors of war.

Despite these large ethical issues, this technology, research, and these “thinking-cap” helmets and components will likely continue to advance and may one day be available as consumer or pharmaceutical products with the potential to treat things like Parkinson’s disease, although perhaps at the risk of losing our identity and individualism. Of course, the most interested party in these “thinking-cap” gadgets  is the military. The prospect of having armies being able to mind-control their weapons, perhaps even at a distance, is just too good for organizations like the pentagon to pass on. It could mean remote operating jets and tanks with no need to risk human life in future wars.

Aside from ethical issues, there are also technical problems with these innovations. How do we deal with errant thoughts when wearing these “thinking-caps”? It is unlikely that we could just get rid of the errant thoughts that the users of these devices would have while controlling the weapons. What if the user makes a mistake and tells a tank to shoot in the wrong direction? How will we catch errant thoughts and distinguish them from the real commands that need to be executed? Figuring out these problems can and will prove to be a significant challenge before these gadgets can be used in the field. However, if we can work past both the technical and ethical issues involving these “thinking caps” , it will be a major breakthrough for humanity.

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Talking to animals, especially ones that can relate to humans, has always been a dream of many people. Now, however, the language of one of the most intelligent animals, the dolphin, may soon be able to be understood by humans. Although this is not a device that you can strap onto a dolphin or human and automatically be able to have a conversation, recent research has made great strides in understanding the particular hums and whistles of our friends.

            We’ve always known that dolphins use different pitched whistles and sounds, especially when they meet other pods, but we are only now beginning to understand that each specific whistle has a special meaning. A certain whistle from a dolphin may be equivalent to a human saying “Hello, my name is Bob”. These whistles can also indicate that an individual dolphin is approaching on friendly terms and is not looking to attack.

            The breakthroughs in dolphin language were achieved by researchers trailing pods of the common bottle-nose dolphin around and using special underwater microphones to record certain pitches and whistles that the animals make. Times of particular interest are when different pods of dolphins were interacting  with each other. By using certain statistical techniques, researchers were able to single out signature calling whistles from the usual array of squeaks and chirps. The signature whistle noises are thought to be greetings from one pod to another. These whistles were very abundant when one pod of dolphins swam and joined with another and absent when the pods were not joined showing that these signature whistles were probably a method of getting together and communicating with other pods. Even when greeting another pod, not all the dolphins sent a greeting. Often only a few would relay the greeting and a few from the other pod would relay an answer. Since different dolphins relayed greetings and answers at different times, it is most likely that the pods had no specified spokes-dolphin and that any member of the group can relay the greeting and the response.

The presence of special whistles among dolphins may indicate that each individual has a name, much like we humans do. Researchers have caught onto this and are trying to determine how each unique dolphin develops its own unique whistle. It would be very interesting to know if these whistles are “given” at birth the way humans are given names at birth or if young dolphins have to actively develop it in order to be recognized both among the pod or in relationship to other pods when they are adults. Finding the answers to such questions may not only give us an insight on how dolphins talk but can also give us insights on group dynamics among them. Even in light of the research applications, the most exciting thing about this is that if we can learn and copy the whistle calls, we may be able to open up real conversation with another species and perhaps one day have deep heart-to-heart talks with our dolphin friends. It sounds incredible, but who knows? One day it just may be possible.

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In the world of healthy eating, eating one food and one food alone usually is not a path to success. This is especially the case if the one food you eat is a particularly unhealthy food, like chicken nuggets. Yet, that is just what Stacey Irvine has done for the last 15 years of her 17-year-old life. She also eats an occasional helping of potato chips to help with her food diversity.

            Stacey collapsed and was struggling to breathe while she was rushed to the hospital for emergency rescue. Upon arrival, doctors examined her and essentially told her to diversify her diet and starting eating fruits and vegetables, which she had never touched, or die. She had a badly inflamed tongue, anemia, and inflamed veins. Her situation was so bad and her body so deficient of essential vitamins that she had to be injected with them to survive.

However, despite the ultimatum of eat greens or die, she says she cannot give up her 15-year-old habit of only eating McDonald’s chicken nuggets and has to take many vitamin supplements a day in order to recover and remain somewhat healthy. She has, however, admitted that eating only chicken nuggets has had a detrimental effect on her health, as if that wasn’t obvious enough.

Stacey’s case is an extreme case of what is known as “food addiction” where a person is so addicted to one type of food that they refuse to eat any other food. However, even nutritionists say that this is by far the worst case they have ever faced and they haven’t seen anything quite like it. She is so addicted to chicken nuggets, she cannot even begin to fathom eating other foods, even if the consequence of not eating them is death. Even if you don’t die of vitamin deficiency with such a diet, you surely will die of either heart disease or cancer as not eating fruits and vegetables greatly increase the risk of developing those two diseases.

One of the most amazing things about this story is despite eating nothing but chicken nuggets for her main meals, this girl is not fat. She actually looks like a normal-sized girl for her age. This really doesn’t make any sense as a regular 20-piece portion of chicken nuggets from McDonald’s contains more than the daily recommended amount of fat. You’d think that after eating nothing else but nuggets, fries, and an occasional slice of toast(only for breakfast), this girl would be as big as a hippo. The only conclusion is that this girl got a really lucky draw when it came to genetics both as her genes have not allowed her to grow fat and have allowed her to stay alive for 15 years despite lacking vitamins in every non-meat category. Most people would be so big they’d almost be unable to move and would have dropped dead years ago. Its just plain unfortunate that she’s chosen to throw away this genetic jackpot for something as trivial as chicken nuggets.

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FactSpy.net - Learn something new everyday