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The Philippines’ Dragon Fireworks team took home the gold medal while Spain’s Pirotecnia Zaragozana grabbed the silver medal and Finland’s JoHo Pyro won the bronze. Croatia, Poland and Greece also took part in this year’s pyro championships, Pyronale said on its website.

In a statement, the DFA said the country’s entry “won plaudits from the thousands present.”

Designed by 20-year-old business student Vander Tenedero, the Philippines entry took spectators for a ride in a pyro show that may well be likened to a ballet of lights.

Read more: http://globalnation.inquirer.net/85845/ph-ballet-of-lights-wins-berlin-pyro-championship#ixzz2fHRfuaca

and now for some good news about the philippines...

PH ‘ballet of lights’ wins Berlin pyro championship

By Tarra Quismundo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
Tuesday, September 17th, 2013

MANILA, Philippinesâ€"More than just lighting up Germany’s skies, the fireworks bent and swayed in the air, dancing to music from gentle to jubilant in a 15-minute repertoire that wowed a global audience.

The Philippines was declared champion in the 2013 Pyronale Fireworks World Championships on Sept. 7 at the Berlin Olympic Stadium, besting five other European nations that entered the prestigious fireworks exhibition this year.

The country team, represented by 21-year-old local pyrotechnics firm Dragon Fireworks, also took home the audience award for the rousing repertoire titled “Philippines- Here Comes the Dragon.”


Screenshot from DsNLFireworks Youtube video account

he ain't a priest for nutin'.   viva, il tb papabile!

goodness me.  down with the pork barrel!  aron wa nay ipalit ug boto ang mga politiko.  sadly, there are just too many voters who care only about how much candidates give during elections. 

Legacy

More recent pictures of her were featured as part of a cover story on her life in the April 2002 issue of National Geographic and she was the subject of a television documentary, entitled Search for the Afghan Girl, which aired in March 2002. In recognition of her, National Geographic set up the Afghan Girls Fund, a charitable organization with the goal of educating Afghan girls and young women. In 2008, the scope of the fund was broadened to include boys and the name was changed to Afghan Children's Fund.

In 2010, the South African photographer Jodi Bieber won the World Press Photo of the Year award for her photograph of Bibi Aisha, an Afghan victim of facial mutilation at the hands of her estranged husband. In making the photograph, Bibi was inspired by Afghan Girl: "For me, it was putting a moment of history in perspective. It was just one thing that added to the image", she said.

/wikipedia

The team finally located Gula, then around the age of 30, in a remote region of Afghanistan; she had returned to her native country from the refugee camp in 1992. Her identity was confirmed by John Daugman using iris recognition. She vividly recalled being photographed. She had been photographed on only three occasions: in 1984 and during the search for her when a National Geographic producer took the identifying pictures that led to the reunion with Steve McCurry. She had never seen her famous portrait before it was shown to her in January 2002.

In January 2002, a National Geographic team traveled to Afghanistan to locate the subject of the now-famous photograph. McCurry, upon learning that the Nasir Bagh refugee camp was soon to close, inquired of its remaining residents, one of whom knew Gula's brother and was able to send word to her hometown. However, there were a number of women who came forward and identified themselves erroneously as the famous Afghan Girl. In addition, after being shown the 1984 photo, a handful of young men falsely claimed Gula as their wife.

Search for the Afghan Girl

The identity of the Afghan Girl remained unknown for over 17 years; Afghanistan remained largely closed to Western media until after the removal of the Taliban government by American troops and local allies in 2001. Although McCurry made several attempts during the 1990s to locate her, he was unsuccessful.

At the Nasir Bagh refugee camp in 1984 , Gula's photograph was taken by National Geographic Society photographer Steve McCurry on Kodachrome color slide film, with a Nikon FM2 camera and Nikkor 105mm F2.5 lens. The pre-print photo retouching was done by Graphic Art Service, based in Marietta, Georgia. Gula was one of the students in an informal school within the refugee camp; McCurry seized a rare opportunity to photograph Afghan women and captured her image.


1984 photograph
Front cover of the June 1985 issue of National Geographic Magazine

Although her name was not known, her picture, titled "Afghan Girl", appeared on the June 1985 cover of National Geographic. The image of her face, with a red scarf draped loosely over her head and with her piercing sea-green eyes staring directly into the camera, became a symbol both of the 1980s Afghan conflict and of the refugee situation worldwide. The image itself was named "the most recognized photograph" in the history of the magazine. (wikipedia)

Photo's subject

Pashtun by ethnicity, Gula was orphaned during the Soviet Union's bombing of Afghanistan and sent to the Nasir Bagh refugee camp in Pakistan in 1984. Her village was attacked by Soviet helicopter gunships sometime in the early 1980s. The Soviet strike killed her parents, forcing her, her siblings and grandmother to hike over the mountains to the Nasir Bagh refugee camp in neighboring Pakistan.

She married in the late 1980s and returned to Afghanistan in 1992. Gula had three daughters: Robina, Zahida, and Alia. A fourth daughter died in infancy. Gula has expressed the hope that her girls will receive the education she was never able to complete. (wikipedia)

Sharbat Gula (Pashto: شربت Ú«Ù,,ه‎) (pronounced [ˈʃaɾbat]) (born ca. 1972) is an Afghan woman who was the subject of a famous photograph by journalist Steve McCurry. Gula was living as a refugee in Pakistan during the time of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan when she was photographed. The image brought her recognition when it was featured on the cover of the June 1985 issue of National Geographic Magazine at a time when she was approximately 12 years old.

Gula was known throughout the world simply as "the Afghan Girl" until she was formally identified in early 2002. The photograph has been likened to Leonardo da Vinci's painting of the Mona Lisa and is sometimes popularly referred to as "the Afghan Mona Lisa". (wikipedia)

The Afghan Girl


Sharbat Gula was the subject of Steve McCurry's "Afghan Girl." The photograph was shot in December 1984.

the iconic photo of that afghan girl with the haunting eyes must be the most symbolic of the century because it was chosen as the cover of this collector's edition.

wowowow!  happy birthday, favorite magazine!  monhangyo gyod ko ni banana republic to buy us this collector's edition.

they may need NGOs to do so, and janet napoles at the moment may not be available.

i'll never understand why a woman's accessory is being equated with religion. 

some women wear stylish headscarves because they haven't done their hair.  my sister now wears headscarves because she's on chemotherapy and is thus rendered hairless.  (a headscarf feels better than a wig and is less warm.)  i wear a headscarf when i travel and the airconditioner wafts directly to my head, which would mean sure colds after an hour.  it's much better than wearing a beret, which i did once and got strange stares from other passengers for my efforts.

much is being made over an innocent woman's accessory.  and it's all because muslim women wear it more than christian women.  in our day and age, that, indeed, is a very strange attitude.

the inventor of this bra-cum-gas mask was an ig nobel awardee some years back.  they haven't thought of a woman's lower underwear that can revive you from a fainting spell.

huh?  what will they think of next?  kogon shake?

looks familiar.

Like many Americans, Prison Break actor Wentworth Miller is of multi-ethnic heritage. One of those ethnicities is Syrian.

http://news.discovery.com/

Singer and songwriter Paul Anka was born in Canada and found fame in the United States in the 1950s. His family is of Syrian-Lebanese descent.

Mitch Daniels, current president of Purdue University, has served as the governor of the state of Indiana and the director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for two years under the Bush administration. Daniels is a second-generation Syrian-American.

Actress Teri Hatcher, famous for her work most recently in Desperate Housewives and earlier in Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, has a mother who is half-Syrian.

Actress and American Pie star Shannon Elizabeth has a father of Syrian-Lebanese descent. She even appeared in a public service announcement with other celebrities to prevent hate crimes against Arabs, according to an ABC News story.

Singer, dancer, choreographer and former American Idol judge Paula Abdul has a father of Syrian-Jewish descent hailing from Aleppo, Syria. He later emigrated to Brazil and then the United States.

Tech visionary Steve Jobs was raised by an American couple in California, but his biological father was Abdulfattah "John" Jandali. Although Jobs initially sought out Jandali in his youth, he later decided against meeting the man.

Quote from: TUBAGBOHOL.com on September 17, 2013, 09:36:32 PM
* Don't eat fruits immediately - Immediately eating fruits after meals will cause stomach to be bloated with air. Therefore take fruit 1-2 hr after meal or 1hr before meal.

there go fruits as dessert.  but i noticed too many conflicting claims about eating fruits properly, including those claims in forwarded emails.  what to believe?  i have to read some more and pore through their sources.  medical doctors would be more credible than diet gurus, i suppose. 

hanep.  arang kaangayan.  tekti gyod.

The "Parade of Ignitaries" brings various supporting groups into the hall. At the 1997 ceremonies, a team of "cryogenic sex researchers" distributed a pamphlet titled "Safe Sex at Four Kelvin". Delegates from the Museum of Bad Art are often on hand to display some pieces from their collection, showing that bad art and bad science go hand in hand.

/wikipedia

In past years, physics professor Roy Glauber swept the stage clean of the airplanes as the official "Keeper of the Broom" for years. Glauber could not attend the 2005 awards â€" he was traveling to Stockholm to claim a genuine Nobel Prize in Physics.


Nobel laureate for Physics Professor Roy Glauber, the official "Keeper of the Broom" of the Ig Nobel

The ceremony is co-sponsored by the Harvard Computer Society, the Harvard-Radcliffe Science Fiction Association and the Harvard-Radcliffe Society of Physics Students.


Throwing paper airplanes onto the stage is a long-standing tradition at the Ig Nobels.


Chemist Dudley Herschbach, winner of the 1986 Nobel Prize for Chemistry, throws a paper airplane during the 23rd First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts September 12, 2013. REUTERS/Brian Snyder

Ceremony

The prizes are presented by genuine Nobel laureates, originally at a ceremony in a lecture hall at MIT but now in Sanders Theater at Harvard University.


Nobel Laureates, from left, Eric Maskin, Economics, 2007; Dudley Herschbach, Chemistry, 1986; Roy Glauber, Physics, 2005; and Frank Wilczek, Physics, 2004; look on during the annual Ig Nobel prize ceremony at Harvard University in Cambridge (AP Photo)

It contains a number of running jokes, including Miss Sweetie Poo, a little girl who repeatedly cries out, "Please stop: I'm bored," in a high-pitched voice if speakers go on too long.

   
Muneaki Tomotake (L), of Japan, presents gifts to Miss Sweetie Poo, played by Sharanda Sundaram-Senders, as Tomotake and his colleagues accepted the 2013 chemistry prize during the 23rd First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts September 12, 2013. REUTERS/Brian Snyder

The awards ceremony is traditionally closed with the words: "If you didn't win a prize â€" and especially if you did â€" better luck next year!"

"The Stinker" is the official mascot of the Ig Nobel

2013 Ig Nobel Prize Trophy

Ig Nobel Peace Prize: Belarus and its president, for making it illegal to applaud in public, and to the Belarus State Police, for arresting a one-armed man for applauding. 

(Ig Nobel Peace prizewinners usually do not attend the awarding.)


Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko
i said do not clap your hands and coo and coo...


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/ and other online sources

Public health: For medical techniques described in their report, 'Surgical Management of an Epidemic of Penile Amputations in Siam.' They recommend the techniques, except in cases where an amputated penis had been partially eaten by a duck.

REFERENCE: “Surgical Management of an Epidemic of Penile Amputations in Siam,” by Kasian Bhanganada, Tu Chayavatana, Chumporn Pongnumkul, Anunt Tonmukayakul, Piyasakol Sakolsatayadorn, Krit Komaratal, and Henry Wilde, American Journal of Surgery, 1983, no. 146, pp. 376-382.

Winners: Kasian Bhanganada, Tu Chayavatana, Chumporn Pongnumkul, Anunt Tonmukayakul, Piyasakol Sakolsatayadorn, Krit Komaratal, and Henry Wilde.


as for their diet, please ask mother duck

Probability: Researchers who discovered that the longer a cow has been lying down, the more likely that cow will soon stand up, but that once a cow stands up, you cannot easily predict how soon that cow will lie down again.

REFERENCE: “Are Cows More Likely to Lie Down the Longer They Stand?” Bert J. Tolkamp, Marie J. Haskell, Fritha M. Langford, David J. Roberts, Colin A. Morgan, Applied Animal Behaviour Science, vol. 124, nos. 1-2, 2010, pp. 1â€"10.

Winners: Bert Tolkamp, Marie Haskell, Fritha Langford, David Roberts and Colin Morgan.


ready, up, down, up, down...

Archaeology: Two researchers who parboiled a dead shrew, then swallowed it without chewing so they could examine their excrement to see which bones would dissolve in the human digestive system and which would not.

REFERENCE: “Human Digestive Effects on a Micromammalian Skeleton,” Peter W. Stahl and Brian D. Crandall, Journal of Archaeological Science, vol. 22, November 1995, pp. 789â€"97.

Winners: Brian Crandall and Peter Stahl.


Photo: Winslow Townson/AP
Brian Crandall is introduced as the winner of the Archaeology Prize during the annual Ig Nobel prize ceremony at Harvard University.

Chemistry: The discovery that the biochemical process by which onions make people cry is even more complicated than scientists previously realised.

REFERENCE: “Plant Biochemistry: An Onion Enzyme that Makes the Eyes Water,” S. Imai, N. Tsuge, M. Tomotake, Y. Nagatome, H. Sawada, T. Nagata and H. Kumagai, Nature, vol. 419, no. 6908, October 2002, p. 685.

Winners: Shinsuke Imai, Nobuaki Tsuge, Muneaki Tomotake, Yoshiaki Nagatome, Toshiyuki Nagata and Hidehiko Kumgai.

Physics: The discovery that some people would be physically capable of running across the surface of a pond - if both they and the pond were on the moon. 

REFERENCE: “Humans Running in Place on Water at Simulated Reduced Gravity,” Alberto E. Minetti, Yuri P. Ivanenko, Germana Cappellini, Nadia Dominici, Francesco Lacquaniti, PLoS ONE, vol. 7, no. 7, 2012, e37300.

Winners: Alberto Minetti, Yuri Ivanenko, Germana Cappellini, Nadia Dominici, and Francesco Lacquaniti.


(Credit: PloS One)
Alberto Minetti and colleagues tried to emulate how lizards can walk on water, concluding that humans can too in low gravity.

Safety engineering: An electro-mechanical system to trap an airplane hijacker by dropping him or her through a trap door, sealing him or her into a package and then dropping the packaged hijacker (with a parachute) to the ground where police will be waiting.

US Patent #3811643, Gustano A. Pizzo, “anti hijacking system for aircraft”, May 21, 1972.

Winner: Gustano Pizzo


(Credit: USPTO)
Gustano A. Pizzo's Anti-hijacking System for Aircraft

Medicine: A study assessing the effect of listening to opera on heart transplant patients who are mice. 

REFERENCE: “Auditory stimulation of opera music induced prolongation of murine cardiac allograft survival and maintained generation of regulatory CD4+CD25+ cells,” Masateru Uchiyama, Xiangyuan Jin, Qi Zhang, Toshihito Hirai, Atsushi Amano, Hisashi Bashuda and Masanori Niimi, Journal of Cardiothoracic Surgery, vol. 7, no. 26, epub. March 23, 2012.

Winners: Masateru Uchiyama, Xiangyuan Jin, Qi Zhang, Toshihito Hirai, Atsushi Amano, Hisashi Bashuda and Masanori Niimi.


Masanori Niimi (L), of Japan, is joined by colleague Xiangyuan Jin (R), dressed as a mouse, as they accept the 2013 Medicine Prize during the 23rd First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony at Harvard University in Cambridge. (Reuters Photo)

Joint prize in biology and astronomy: An experiment that showed lost dung beetles can use the Milky Way to find their way home. 

REFERENCE: “Dung Beetles Use the Milky Way for Orientation,” Marie Dacke, Emily Baird, Marcus Byrne, Clarke H. Scholtz, Eric J. Warrant, Current Biology, epub January 24, 2013. The authors, at Lund University, Sweden, the University of Witwatersrand, South Africa, and the University of Pretoria

Winners: Marie Dacke, Emily Baird, Marcus Byrne, Clarke Scholtz and Eric Warrant.


(AP Photo/Winslow Townson)

Psychology: An experiment that found people who think they are drunk also think they are attractive. 

REFERENCE: “‘Beauty Is in the Eye of the Beer Holder’: People Who Think They Are Drunk Also Think They Are Attractive”

Winners: Laurent Bègue, Oulmann Zerhouni, Baptiste Subra, Medhi Ourabah and Brad Bushman.

btw, lorenz, if you find the time, how about opening a thread here solely on the 7 mansions of st. teresa de avila and another one about the 7 levels of spirituality of st. john of the cross?  it would be like praying and meditating while reading these, a piece a day, very much like hofelina's minute meditation and saints for the day.

hinaot magbunok sa zambo, loll, aron wa nay sunog intawon.

she was hounded by the evil one because she posed a great challenge, someone said.  she's like a prize catch.

i will, thanks.  at this point in time, i know i'll get more from it.  (i brushed through it before not as a matter of faith but as a subject of literature, hehe.  sorry.)  she's too high up spiritually, i feel too earthbound by her standards, to be honest.  imagine, defying gravity by levitating...

Quote from: islander on September 17, 2013, 05:18:29 PM
Most of the Christian Church considers ghosts as beings who while tied to earth, no longer live on the material plane. Some Christian denominations teach that ghosts are beings who linger in an interim state before continuing their journey to heaven. On occasion, God would allow the souls in this state to return to earth to warn the living of the need for repentance. Jews and Christians are taught that it is sinful to attempt to conjure or control spirits in accordance with Deuteronomy XVIII: 9â€"12.

Quote from: islander on September 17, 2013, 05:20:19 PM
Some ghosts are actually said to be demons in disguise, who the Church teaches, in accordance with I Timothy 4:1, that they "come to deceive people and draw them away from God and into bondage." As a result, attempts to contact the dead may lead to unwanted contact with a demon or an unclean spirit, as was said to occur in the case of Robbie Mannheim, a fourteen-year-old Maryland youth. The Seventh-Day Adventist view is that a "soul" is not equivalent to "spirit" or "ghost" (depending on the Bible version), and that save for the Holy Spirit, all spirits/ghosts are demons in disguise.

from these i drew the conclusion that christians, as well as jews, recognize the existence of ghosts, be they spirits of the dead who had not finished their journey to the light or the evil one in disguise.  what these faiths discourage is for the faithful to call on these ghosts as we may not be able to tell the difference between the real one from the evil one.  obviously, the seventh-day adventists have a stricter take on this.

Some ghosts are actually said to be demons in disguise, who the Church teaches, in accordance with I Timothy 4:1, that they "come to deceive people and draw them away from God and into bondage." As a result, attempts to contact the dead may lead to unwanted contact with a demon or an unclean spirit, as was said to occur in the case of Robbie Mannheim, a fourteen-year-old Maryland youth. The Seventh-Day Adventist view is that a "soul" is not equivalent to "spirit" or "ghost" (depending on the Bible version), and that save for the Holy Spirit, all spirits/ghosts are demons in disguise.

Most of the Christian Church considers ghosts as beings who while tied to earth, no longer live on the material plane. Some Christian denominations teach that ghosts are beings who linger in an interim state before continuing their journey to heaven. On occasion, God would allow the souls in this state to return to earth to warn the living of the need for repentance. Jews and Christians are taught that it is sinful to attempt to conjure or control spirits in accordance with Deuteronomy XVIII: 9â€"12.

more from wikipedia (i chose this source because it is more generalized and objective and does not lean on any particular religious belief)...

The Hebrew Torah and the Bible contain a few references to ghosts, associating spiritism with forbidden occult activities. The most notable reference is in the First Book of Samuel, in which a disguised King Saul has the Witch of Endor summon the spirit/ghost of Samuel.

In the New Testament, Jesus has to persuade the Disciples that He is not a ghost following the resurrection, Luke 24:37â€"39 (some versions of the Bible, such as the KJV and NKJV, use the term "spirit"). Similarly, Jesus' followers at first believe Him to be a ghost (spirit) when they see him walking on water.

true, lorenz.  there's a thin line between a ghost of a certain appearance and and the evil one (a priest had told me to use this term instead of devil or demon) who can take any form.  but first things first... what, indeed is a ghost?  good old wikipedia tells it thus:

In traditional belief and fiction, a ghost, sometimes known as a spectre (British English) or specter (American English), phantom, apparition or spook, is the soul or spirit of a dead person or animal that can appear, in visible form or other manifestation, to the living. Descriptions of the apparition of ghosts vary widely from an invisible presence to translucent or barely visible wispy shapes, to realistic, lifelike visions.

Other winners included Brian Crandall of the U.S. and Peter Stahl of Canada, who parboiled a dead shrew, then swallowed it without chewing so they could examine their excrement to see which bones would dissolve in the human digestive system and which wouldn't.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/

Gusto Pizzo's patent won the engineering prize for his 'anti-hijacking device' which involved an electro-mechanical system that could trap an airplane hijacker by dropping him or her through a trap door.

He or she would then be sealed into a package before being dropped from the plane, attached to a parachute, to the ground where police will be waiting.

The patent read: 'A partition or barrier located immediately aft of the pilots cabin is adapted to be raised dividing the aft section longitudinally into port and starboard areas, the floors of which are dropped on command to lower the hijacker into a capsule in the belly of the plane.

'The capsule is releasable through opened bomb bay doors having attached thereto a parachute for safely returning the hijacker within the capsule to earth.'

Another animal study involved predicting the probability of when a cow is likely to stand up or sit down.


Bert Tolkamp and his team from research centres in the UK, the Netherlands and Canada discovered that the longer a cow has been lying down, the more likely that cow will soon stand up. Yet once a cow stands up, you cannot easily predict how soon that cow will lie down again. They won the probability award

Bert Tolkamp and his team from research centres in the UK, the Netherlands and Canada discovered that that the longer a cow has been lying down, the more likely that cow will soon stand up.

Yet once a cow stands up, it is now easy to predict how soon that cow will lie down again.

Although Tolkamp's study was branded 'silly' by the judges, it also has a serious side because the research can be used to determine health problems in the animals.

Masanori Niimi, from Teikyo University in Tokyo, won the medicine prize for his work into mice with heart transplants.

He discovered that a mice with a heart transplant will survive longer if they listen to particular music.

For example, a control group of mice survived an average of seven days after a transplant, although those that listened to Verdi's opera La Traviata survived for an average of 27 days.


Opera Singer Penelope Randall-Davis as Violetta in La Traviata. Researchers discovered that mice with heart transplants lived longer after listening to Verdi's opera

Dung beetles travel in straight lines by taking cues from light released by the sun, during the day, and the moon at night.

They do this to make sure they can push any dung piles to safety quickly, using the most direct course, to avoid going over old ground and running into predators or rival beetles.

Yet the insects' ability to stay on course overnight when the moon wasn't visible led the researchers to discover the beetles can also use the location and light from stars in the Milky Way as a guide.

Dung beetles travel in straight lines by taking cues from the sun, during the day, and the moon at night. Yet the winners of the Ig Nobel biology and astronomy award found that the beetles also use light from stars on nights when the moon isn't visible

The dung beetle experiment won the joint prize in biology and astronomy, given to Marie Dacke, Emily Baird, Marcus Byrne, Clarke Scholtz and Eric Warrant, who work in Sweden, Australia, South Africa, the United Kingdom and Germany.

truly touching.  and inspiring.

basta bella, cool.  where's bella aka ms da binsi?

This research was carried out by Laurent Begue, Oulmann Zerhouni, Baptiste Subra and Medhi Ourabah of France and Brad Bushman, a professor at Ohio State University who also teaches in the Netherlands.

To test their theory, people in a bar were to rate how 'funny, original and attractive' they thought they were.The results found that the higher their blood alcohol level, the higher their attractiveness rating.

Researchers also noticed the same thing happened when people had been given an alcohol-free placebo but were told they had been drinking.

A separate group of people were also asked to rate how attractive they thought each of the participants were, but the ratings varied wildly compared to how attractive the individuals thought they were.

The inventor of the trillion dollar note, Gideon Gono, won the Ig Nobel Award in 2008.

Every year, organisers try to make the awards ceremonies more 'silly' than the last and this year's ceremony included a mini-opera and a contest to win a date with a Nobel laureate.

The winners are due to give short speeches during another event this weekend at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The psychology prize went to the experiment that found people who think they are drunk also think they are attractive.

The IG Nobel Prize for psychology went to an experiment that found people who are drunk also think they are attractive. Researchers from Ohio found that the higher a person's blood alcohol level, the higher their attractiveness rating. They also found this was the case when people drank alcohol-free placebos

Editor Marc Abrahams said the point is to make people laugh and then think.

'The combination of science that is funny on its own - not because someone is making a joke, but it is funny - that's an unusual notion in the United States,' he said. 'It is becoming more acceptable again.'

For the first time, the winners received cash prizes - $10 trillion, but in Zimbabwe dollars, which means they'll receive around four U.S. dollars each.

2013 Ig Nobel Winners

The weird and wonderful experiments that won this year's Ig Nobel Prizes

The IG Nobel Awards celebrate the weirdest and funniest scientific discoveries

Researchers who found being drunk makes people think they are more attractive won the psychology prize

Probability prize went to a study that predicted the behaviour of cows

Awards were handed out by Nobel laureates at an annual ceremony

By Victoria Woollaston
13 September 2013

An experiment that proved people who think they are drunk also think they are attractive and another that showed lost dung beetles can use the Milky Way to find their way home were among the winners at this year's Ig Nobel Awards.

The ceremony was the 23rd annual event for awards that celebrate the weirdest and funniest scientific discoveries in fields including psychology, biology and physics.

The winners come from all over the world and Nobel laureates handed out the prizes during a ceremony at Harvard University on Thursday, sponsored by science magazine Annals of Improbable Research.

A live frog is magnetically levitated, an experiment that earned Andre Geim from the University of Nijmegen and Sir Michael Berry from University of Bristol the 2000 Ig Nobel Prize in physics. Geim went on to win the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2010 for his work on graphene.

Organized by the scientific humor magazine Annals of Improbable Research (AIR), they are presented by a group that includes Nobel Laureates at a ceremony at Harvard University's Sanders Theater, and they are followed by a set of public lectures by the winners at MIT.

The name is a play on the words ignoble ("characterized by baseness, lowness, or meanness") and the Nobel Prize. The pronunciation used during the ceremony is /ˌɪɡnoʊˈbɛl/ IG-noh-BEL, not like the word "ignoble".

-wikipedia

The Ig Nobel Prizes are an American parody of the Nobel Prizes and are given each year in early October for ten unusual or trivial achievements in scientific research.

The stated aim of the prizes is to "honor achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think." The awards are sometimes veiled criticism (or gentle satire).

-wikipedia

wow, what a close call.  and a great answer to a prayer.

line drawing of hubag?  cute!

about time for the two of you to make a comeback.  yuhooo!

kun ang umaabot nga news item ani naa nay mga milagro attributed to her simbako lang, na, mohilak na gyod ko.  sa kauwaw.

OT: nisuway kog facebook using a shared account with our youngest just so i could monitor her online activities.  kapurya ba diay aning facebook kasamok.  daghang nawong mag-apil-apil nga wa ko kaila.

Quote from: taga tigbao on September 16, 2013, 05:34:56 PM
I agree. My temporary absence is a direct protest of this. Ingon si Migo Mike nga give TB a second chance didtos FB pero murag tungod aning usa ka toinks dinhia, di na ko mobalik.

P.S. May bagjo sa eastern Luzon. 930 km east of Casiguran, Aurora ug gingalag Odette.

thanks for the storm notice, bai tigs.  tan-awa si tagatigbotoy nga ni pinch hit for you, gaaginod labaw pa sa toinks. 

balik lang god, bai tigs, bisag amat-amat matod pa sa ilonggo.  hinay-hinay tuod, pero with the chance of acceleration, that's why i like this ilonggo word kay way cebuano equivalent. 

anyways, kubkob na lang god tag ato dinhi.  makakaplag ra lagi ta ugma damlag ug vaccine against some medieval pestilence, who knows.

aaahhh... hahaha!  abi gyod nakog unsang cactusa na, expecting some quaint violet blossom, arang gajud, makagutom man diay nga bloom kun tan-awon.  kun fish kana, i'm on.

i only felt this being's presence very briefly last night.  thank goodness, i didn't see her anymore.  but in a few days i'll be going solo here as the banana republic is going on a ten-day trip.  i could go along, except that there would be no one for our 3 cats here.  (our usual catsitter is no longer here, that's why.)  what a reason, but it's reason enough anyway.  so i'll have to be braver and have to keep these prayers close to me.

thanks, lorenz.  great prayers you have there.  i'll have them printed.

if i could only draw portraits, i could put on paper every detail of her face and the way she smiled.  her hair is short, bob-cut, of slight body build though her frame is bigger than mine, asian, more malay than chinese.  pure filipino, in other words.  i will never forget that kind of smile.  it was enough to give me goosebumps. 

i ran from the rest room to the bed blindly.  if i saw her again, i wouldn't really know what to do.

dear guardian angel, please keep her away from us.

if only she were the guardian angel, but i knew she was not.  not with that kind of face and expression.  it's not a familiar face and i'm sure as i'm sitting here that i wasn't imagining.  it was pretty obvious that she was of another dimension.  a lost soul in need of prayers?  earthbound still?  but i'd rather not know so i won't establish contact with that apparition.

the white lady?  the banana republic asked when i told him the next day.  far from it, i answered.  she wore dark clothing.  i hope she's just passing through and is now exploring other parts of the building, he said.  i hoped so too.  i can't imagine our wee part of this 18-storey building being chosen as her permanent abode.

the strange thing was that i felt someone was coming before i saw her.  her form was outlined with some kind of dull blue-greenish light.  the smiling face wasn't really friendly, but neither was it hostile.  it was more mischievous than kind.  i don't like this, i thought. 

it took real willpower not to shout.  i can't wake the banana republic up with terror.  it's not good for the heart, i told myself.   

yes, i did, and it made worse my insomnia.

i woke up at 4:15 a.m. the other night and went to the rest room.  there was no need to close the door.  then i saw her.  she deliberately bent her body sideways to look at me, smiling as she did so. 

but chinese can still beat cebuano-visayan...

laki ulitawo uwaw
pero bu@ng nawong baga.

eh?

Quote from: Lorenzo on September 16, 2013, 06:36:19 AM
Tagalog uses too many words. Bisayans can say it better, with less words.

Quote from: chicogon on September 10, 2013, 03:38:29 AM

let me try it thus...

ang mga laki kun mangulitawo mauwaw,
pero kun magbinu@ng mga bagag nawong.

2 words less than tagalog, lorenz.

Quote from: hubag bohol on September 16, 2013, 05:47:02 AM
Jetski! Ing-ing-ing... James Bond in action!

ooops, kerpul.  no need for bond girls here.

surely not something like this...

was it something like this?

Quote from: chicogon on September 16, 2013, 11:43:08 PM
Nahimong kultura but tradition? Hmmmmm

hehe, therein lies the difference.  mora tuod ug gi-lump ni siya together with our tradition of kissing the hand of elders to show respect.  the horror, the horror.

Quote from: hubag bohol on September 16, 2013, 04:23:26 PM
Hmm, isn't it possible to have a tradition of aberrations, Madame?

uh-huh.  will aberrant tradition be fine with you?

aside from legislation attempts at changing the name of edsa to cory aquino avenue and attempting to change the name of carlos p. garcia avenue in tagbilaran(?)...

tangtanga nang mga epal nimo, congressman relampagos.  (i saw too many for comfort during a ride from tubigon to tagbilaran late last year.  naa pa ba na sila hangtod karon?)

henceforth, makakita ta ug tarpaulin or billboard ug congressman (nga niahat ug kagwapo sa iyang hulagway sa epal) announcing to all and sundry that he's responsible for such and such a project, THINK that:

1) naa siyay kickback sa funding ana nga project

2) he's not supposed to undertake infrastructure projects because he's supposed to legislate, and

3) that billboard or tarpaulin is overpriced

hinaot unta.  imagine unsa diay unta kangilngig sa funding for our marginal farmers and fishermen.  napakasakit, kuya chic.  ang nakaparat kay we are fond of punishing ourselves.  morag as a nation of masochists we also love self-pity... pobre ta, ing-ani ra ta.  di baya gyod diay.

Others facing charges

Staff of lawmakers

Atty. Jessica Lucila Reyes â€" Chief of staff (COS) of Sen. Enrile
Richard Cambe â€" staff of Sen. Revilla
Ruby Tuason â€" representative of Sen. Enrile and Sen. Estrada
Pauline Labayen â€" staff of Sen. Estrada
Jose Sumalpong â€" COS of former Rep. Lanete
Jeanette dela Cruz â€" district staff of former Rep. Lanete
Erwin Dangwa â€" COS of former Rep. Dangwa
Carlos Lozada â€" staff of former Rep. Dangwa

Officers of government corporations

Alan Javellana â€" former president of the National Agribusiness
Corporation (NABCOR)
Gondelina Amata â€" president of the National Livelihood
Development Corporation (NLDC)
Antonio Ortiz â€" former director general of the Technology
Resource Center (TRC)
Dennis Cunanan â€" former deputy director general, now director
general, of TRC
Salvador Salacup â€" former president of ZNAC Rubber Estate
Corporation (ZREC), now assistant secretary at the Department of
Agriculture

NGO officials

Jocelyn Piorato â€" head of Agricultura para sa Magbubukid
Foundation Inc.
Nemencio Pablo â€" head of Agri and Economic Program for Farmers
Foundation Inc.
Mylene Encarnacion â€" Countrywide Agri and Rural Economic
Development Foundation Inc.
John Raymond de Asis â€" Kaupdanan para sa Mangunguma
Foundation Inc. 
Evelyn de Leon â€" Philippine Social Development Foundation Inc.
Ronald John Lim â€" Ginintuang Alay sa Magsasaka Foundation Inc.

Employees of government corporations

NABCOR
Victor Cacal
Ma. Ninez Guanizo
Julie Johnson
Rhodora Mendoza

NLDC
Alexis Sevidal
Sofia Cruz
Chila Jalandoni

TRC
Francisco Figura
Marivic Jover


Read more: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/488567/napoles-3-senators-face-plunder-raps-over-pork-barrel-scam#ixzz2f8D2IAbv

Charges for involvement in malversation, direct bribery and other graft and corrupt practices

Rodolfo Plaza of one district of Agusan del Sur, P42,137,800 from PDAF allocations of P79,500,000

Samuel Dangwa of the lone district of Benguet, P26,770,472 from PDAF allocations of P54 million

Constantino Jaraula of Cagayan de Oro, P20,843,750 from PDAF allocations of P50.5 million


Co-conspirator of the accused lawmakers

Janet Lim-Napoles

Plunder charges

(Each accumulated more than the P50 million plunder threshold through a series of transactions over time through misappropriation, conversion, misuse, and malversation of the cash value of the project cost allocated from their PDAF and through their acceptance of kickbacks or commissions.)

Senator Ramon Revilla Jr., P224,512,500
Senator Juan Ponce Enrile, P172,834,500
Senator Jose "Jinggoy" Estrada, P183,793,759
(former) Masbate 3rd district Rep. Rizalina Seachon-Lanete, P108,405,000
(former) Apec Rep. Edgar Valdez, P56,087,500

how inspiring.  naa gyoy maayo bisag asa, even in the most unlikely places.

just trying to put this thread up front...

aw, unsa may naa ana basta di lang fil-am.

even a donation of 1k pesos or less can go a long way for this elementary grades teacher.

paging, moneytree aka sir balong and anybody else who care about strangers in dire need.  seriously, now...