Top tip for personal development: Staff fully qualified in zombie handling may qualify for partial exemption and accreditation in the training for handling pirate outbreaks, and for spotting the difference between genuine hot air balloons and evil giant floaty space aliens. Speak to your departmental Learning Development Partner for more details.

The Phoenix Haboob of July 5th, 2011 from Mike Olbinski on Vimeo.

However, there are a few key differences apart from the obvious outcome. A divorce dress, for instance, differs from a wedding dress in the details. Miki Saito chose a yellow color for her dress and the dress's designer, Akiue Go, gave the gown divorce-specific attention, saying, "I designed this dress so the woman's back looks the most beautiful when she turns around and walks away."

"Gamboa is the past president of the Dominion of Melchizedek, an enigmatic island nation in the South Pacific. Leaders associated with Melchizedek — named after a holy man who makes a brief appearance in the Book of Genesis — say it is an ecclesiastical state similar to the Vatican, with its own laws and religion. However, it has never received diplomatic recognition from most countries, which may be because the atoll claimed as its territorial capital lies underwater at high tide. And the prominence of convicted con artists in the upper echelons of Melchizedekian government raises questions about the country's legitimacy and true purpose."

ScienceDaily (July 14, 2011) — Scientists are reporting development of a new approach for producing large quantities of human-derived gelatin that could become a substitute for some of the 300,000 tons of animal-based gelatin produced annually for gelatin-type desserts, marshmallows, candy and innumerable other products.
. . .
Jinchun Chen and colleagues explain that animal-based gelatin, which is made most often from the bones and skin of cows and pigs, may carry a risk of infectious diseases such as "Mad Cow" disease and could provoke immune system responses in some people. Animal-based gelatin has other draw-backs, with variability from batch to batch, for instance, creating difficulties for manufacturers. Scientists thus have sought alternatives, including development of a human-recombinant gelatin for potential use in drug capsules and other medical applications.

Nyan Cat (also known as Pop Tart Cat)[1] is an internet meme, referring to an 8-bit animated gif of a flying cat with the body of a cherry Pop-Tart, leaving a rainbow behind the cat; or to a video of the animated ?.GIF?, set to a remix of the song "Nyanyanyanyanyanyanya!"

Gerber Foods Soft Drinks Limited only exports its products to Europe, thus it is very unlikely that Um Bongo is drunk in either the Republic of the Congo or the Democratic Republic of the Congo[citation needed].

Limited edition Mountain Men figures by Mountain Research. A set of four 9cm polyurethane figures. The set features four global revolutionaries -
Mao Zedong (commonly known as Chairman Mao), a Chinese revolutionary and Guerrilla warfare strategist.
Karl Marx, a German philosopher and revolutionary socialist.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, a Russian revolutionary and political philosopher.
Henry David Thoreau, an American author and poet.
Each mountain figure is dressed in hiking outfits with rucksacks and hiking boots. They come carefully packaged in printed Mountain Research box.

Derp or DERP may refer to:
Mr. Derp, a minor character in South Park
A location in Deurne, Netherlands
An alternate spelling of Darp, in the Netherlands
An acronym for "Drug Effectiveness Review Project"
In internet slang it may be used as a placeholder expression (e.g. unimportant and/or foolish dialog may be expressed as "derp derp derp"). Often used in partnership with "herp".

I know, you guys are laughing: an Apple store in Kunming? No one who doesn’t know me personally has ever heard of Kunming before. Kunming is the end of the Earth. It’s all true – but seriously, China warps your mind into believing that anything is possible, if you stay here long enough. When we went back to this store 5 days later and couldn’t find it, having overshot by two blocks, I seriously thought that it had simply been torn down and replaced with a bank in the mean time – hey, it’s China. That could happen.

You have already guessed the punchline, of course: this was a total Apple store ripoff. A beautiful ripoff – a brilliant one – the best ripoff store we had ever seen (and we see them every day). But some things were just not right: the stairs were poorly made. The walls hadn’t been painted properly.

Apple never writes “Apple Store” on it’s signs – it just puts up the glowing, iconic fruit.

From 1955 to 1990, Kermit the Frog was voiced and performed by Jim Henson. After that, Steve Whitmire, known for his smart-mouthed Rizzo the Rat, took over. Whitmire’s Kermit sounded a lot like Henson's, but his voice was a little thinner, and his singing more rhythmic and less melodic. Let me preface my next statement by saying that I know it will seem ridiculous to the casual reader, inflammatory to a good many fans, and downright specious to the expert of rhetoric, but for me watching Steve Whitmire’s Kermit is akin to watching someone imitate a mythic and longed-for mother—my mother—wearing a my-mother costume in a my-mother dance routine. This person’s heart is in the right place, which only makes it worse. “You should be happy,” the person pleads with me, “Look, Biddy! Your mother is not gone! She is still here.” Now, no one would ever do that. No one in her right mind would think it would work. A child knows his mother’s voice like he knows whether it's water or air he's breathing. One chokes you and one gives you life. Strangely, I feel the same about Kermit. Whitmire is an amazing performer—especially as the lovable dog Sprocket on “Fraggle Rock”—but, when he's on screen as Kermit, I can feel my body reject it on a cellular level.

In theory, copyright is a good thing, a necessary protection for artists that allows them to reap the rewards of their hard work. But 70 years after an author's death is too long a period. It holds the work in an artificial suspension, the property of stewards who may, as the years go by, have less and less of a relationship with the original impulse that animated the art.

The Copyright Term Extension Act is sometimes called “The Mickey Mouse Protection Act” because it stayed the mouse’s impending deliverance into the public domain until 2036. But whom exactly does Mickey need protection from? The public domain—isn’t that us? What does Congress think we’re going to do to him?

You have cut off my communication, disrupted my personal and professional life, effectively stolen vast amounts of my personal and professional data, accused me of something without telling me that I am accused, accused me of something without telling me what it is that you have accused me of, blocked any direct communication with my accuser, and given me no ability to appeal this decision or to speak with someone on the facts of the case. This company is headed down a very, very menacing path if it continues in this way.

Almost three-quarters of the electorate voted on Saturday on whether divorce should be introduced in Malta.

A majority Catholic country, Malta is the only EU country not to allow divorce.

Malta is one of only two countries in the world (with the Philippines) to ban divorce - apart from the Vatican.

NCSE's "Project Steve" is a tongue-in-cheek parody of a long-standing creationist tradition of amassing lists of "scientists who doubt evolution" or "scientists who dissent from Darwinism."
Creationists draw up these lists to try to convince the public that evolution is somehow being rejected by scientists, that it is a "theory in crisis." Not everyone realizes that this claim is unfounded. NCSE has been asked numerous times to compile a list of thousands of scientists affirming the validity of the theory of evolution. Although we easily could have done so, we have resisted. We did not wish to mislead the public into thinking that scientific issues are decided by who has the longer list of scientists!
Project Steve pokes fun at this practice and, because "Steves" are only about 1% of scientists, it also makes the point that tens of thousands of scientists support evolution. And it honors the late Stephen Jay Gould, evolutionary biologist, NCSE supporter, and friend.

Generations of schoolchildren, openly, and many adults, perhaps more guardedly, have delighted in fantastical depictions of space travel.
From Star Wars back to 2001: A Space Odyssey and even further back to comic hero Dan Dare and Victorian illustrations for the stories of Jules Verne and HG Wells, the way spaceships should look has been an important issue - before the first rocket booster ever fired.
But the fanciful reputation of sci-fi novels and films aside, the illustration of spacecraft might actually have a realistic place in the design of future vessels.

Marcus du Sautoy reveals a hidden numerical code that underpins all nature. He reveals how significant numbers appear throughout the natural world and govern the planet.