THIS isn’t a picture you see very often and possibly with good reason – a game warden cups the pride and joy of a 550lb killing machine.

The unbelievable picture, taken by chance, shows Brit keeper Alex Larenty nonchalantly doing what most people would think twice about even with their pet tabby – let alone a lion.

Amazingly Alex, 50, is seen holding Jamu the lion’s package in the palm of his hand while the big cat looks away with feline indifference.

The shot was taken at The Lion Park, near Johannesburg, South Africa, just weeks before a man who broke into the reserve was mauled and killed by some of its lions.

Alex, who is originally from Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, said the reason he made the daring grab for Jamu’s “lionhood” was to demonstrate how much trust the animal had for him.

He said: “I was showing another warden that Jamu trusts me completely, I don’t think I would trust him with my manhood though.

“People can’t believe it’s real when they see the picture, I have to tell them ‘yes it’s real, I am holding on to a lions’ balls’.”

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Originally posted 2009-03-03 13:59:07.

Popularity: 8% [?]

A towering Turk was officially crowned the world’s tallest man Thursday after his Ukrainian rival dropped out of the running by refusing to be measured.

Guinness World Records said that 8 foot 1 inch (2.47 meter) Sultan Kosen, from the town of Mardin in eastern Turkey, is now officially the tallest man walking the planet. Although the previous record holder, Ukrainian Leonid Stadnyk, reportedly measured 8 feet 5.5 inches (2.57 meters), Guinness said he was stripped of his title when he declined to let anyone confirm his height.

Stadnyk, 39, told The Associated Press he refused to be independently measured because he was tired of being in the public eye.

“If this title had given me more health or a few extra years, I would have taken it, but the opposite happened, I only wasted my nerve cells,” he said.

“If I have to choose between prosperity and calm, I choose calm.”

Kosen, 27, told reporters in London that he was looking forward to parlaying his newfound status into a chance at love.

“Up until now it’s been really difficult to find a girlfriend,” Kosen said through an interpreter. “I’ve never had one, they were usually scared of me. … Hopefully now that I’m famous I’ll be able to meet lots of girls. I’d like to get married.”

Kosen is one of only 10 confirmed or reliably reported cases in which humans have grown past the eight foot (2.44 meter) mark, according to Guinness.

The record-keeping group said he grew into his outsize stature because tumor-related damage to his pituitary triggered the overproduction of growth hormones. The condition, known as “pituitary gigantism,” also explains Kosen’s enormous hands and feet, which measure 10.8 inches (27.5 centimeters) and 14.4 inches (36.5 centimeters) respectively.

The tumor was removed last year, so Kosen isn’t expected to grow any further.

The part-time farmer, who uses crutches to stand, said there were disadvantages to being so tall.

“I can’t fit into a normal car,” he said. “I can’t go shopping like normal people, I have to have things made specially and sometimes they aren’t always as fashionable. The other thing is that ceilings are low and I have to bend down through doorways.”

But he noted some advantages too, including the ability to see people coming from far away.

“The other thing is at home they use my height to change the light bulbs and hang the curtains, things like that.”

Kosen’s trip to the U.K. — his first outside Turkey — was organized by Guinness to publicize the release of its 2010 Guinness World Records book, this year’s repertoire of weird and wonderful records.

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Originally posted 2009-09-18 09:16:22.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Dr Alan Boss of the Carnegie Institution of Science said many of these worlds could be inhabited by simple lifeforms.

He was speaking at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Chicago.

So far, telescopes have been able to detect just over 300 planets outside our Solar System.

Very few of these would be capable of supporting life, however. Most are gas giants like our Jupiter; and many orbit so close to their parent stars that any microbes would have to survive roasting temperatures.

But, based on the limited numbers of planets found so far, Dr Boss has estimated that each Sun-like star has on average one “Earth-like” planet.

This simple calculation means there would be huge numbers capable of supporting life.

“Not only are they probably habitable but they probably are also going to be inhabited,” Dr Boss told BBC News. “But I think that most likely the nearby ‘Earths’ are going to be inhabited with things which are perhaps more common to what Earth was like three or four billion years ago.” That means bacterial lifeforms.

Dr Boss estimates that Nasa’s Kepler mission, due for launch in March, should begin finding some of these Earth-like planets within the next few years.

Recent work at Edinburgh University tried to quantify how many intelligent civilisations might be out there. The research suggested there could be thousands of them.

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Originally posted 2009-02-15 19:04:00.

Popularity: 1% [?]