The XO Directory

This one is not an ugly duckling but a three-legged duck which was born in China.

The young duck is being raised by its owner in Yancheng in the Northeastern province of Jiansu after being born on September 4.

Although it is reportedly eating well and quacking all day long, a rare mutation has left the male duckling with an extra leg dragging behind him.

Its owners say removing the surplus leg is not an option and experts are now determining whether the duck will produce three-legged offspring if it breeds.

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A rare two-headed turtle captured by a turtle collector was bought by a pet store and is now on display. This two-headed turtle is a rare example of a conjoined-twin birth, its owner said.

The 2-month-old turtle, known as a red-eared slider, fits on a silver dollar. It has two heads sticking out from opposite ends of its shell, along with a pair of front feet on each side. But there is just one set of back feet and one tail.

The turtle is seemingly healthy, and the species can live 15 to 20 years, Jacoby said. The turtle has not yet been named.

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This one's really an extraordinary boy. Instead of playing with peers, he for a 4.8-metre-long python as a playmate.

In the village of Sit Tbow, 50 kilometres east of Phnom Penh, Sambath Uon, seven, reportedly refuses to go to sleep without the company of his pet, Chamreun, or Lucky, in Khmer.

The snake slithered into town in 2000, when Sambath was just a few months old.

While the boy's father tried to return the snake to the forest three times, the Burmese python loyally returned to her young master and has earned the acceptance of villagers, who think she brings good fortune.

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This chicken must be good at keeping things. A bracelet own by Aaron Giles which was lost more than two decades was found on it's gizzard after a butcher cut it. Wanna know how the butcher know who's the owner of the bracelet? Aaron's name, address and phone number was engraved on it. Pretty amazing huh.

"I've heard of livestock swallowing unusual objects, but this situation stands out," Mark Olson, who owns the meat locker, told the Sentinel of Fairmont.

Giles had lived in Fairmont as a child and played hide-and-seek and other games with his brothers in their grandfather's barn near Sherburn.

"I would spend most of my time out at his farm, and that's the only place I can think of that I would have lost it," Giles said about his bracelet on Thursday. The 31-year-old said he thinks the bracelet was lost when he was 4 or 5.

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This egg is not your typical breakfast favorite as it is the world's most expensive Faberge egg. It fetched a whopping $18.5 Million in an auction at Christie's.

The translucent pink egg contains a clock and animated cockerel and had never been seen in public before the sale was announced.

A spokesman for Christie's said a tense auction room burst into applause when the hammer went down. The piece, not publicly documented when it was made in 1902 for the Rothschild family, went to an unidentified private Russian buyer, he added.

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Not because this fish is called the Great Swallower it can eat something a lot bigger than itself. Well, it did and resulted to it's death. The Great Swallower is 7.5 inches in length and snake mackerel on it's belly is 34 inches - really a mouthful.

While fishing in about 1,400 feet of water off the South Coast of Grand Cayman, Mr. Wright’s attention was drawn to an object that was floating on the surface nearby. He motored over to investigate and picked up a dead fish that simply amazed him. It is now also astonishing scientists both here and in the United States.

In the belly of the fish was another fish, and this one was clearly much, much bigger. In fact when it was measured it was determined that the fish he picked up had eaten a ‘snake mackerel’ that was more than four times its own length.

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Jerry Mika must be overwhelmed by the amount of money in his hand - a 2 million dollar check. This "honest man" returns the mistaken check because he figured he couldn't cash it.

Expecting a $15 refund from the Utah Department of Commerce, the Draper man opened his mail recently to find a $2,245,342 check.

"I kept trying to find a way to make it legitimate so I could cash it," he said. "I did think about all the things I could do with the money ... who wouldn't?"

Mika returned the check — a mistake that occurred when an employee entered a serial number, not an amount — to state finance offices Wednesday.

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This 'nano toilet' won the Most Bizarre prize at The 49th International Conference on Electron, Ion and Photon Beam Technology and Nanofabrication Bizarre/Beautiful Micrograph Contest. This contest already took place in 2005, but this image is making the rounds again; maybe you haven't seen it yet, Nanowerk LLC reports.

Here are the price winners for the 2004 and 2007 contests' Most Bizzare category (the category wasn't available in 2006 but was brought back by popular demand in 2007).

2007 winner: Nanojogger sprints along 200nm pitch gratings after a contaminated high temperature anneal. Submitted by: Keith Morton, NSL, Princeton University.

2004 winner. Fishing with Nanotubes – These micro fish appear hooked on nanotubes with a catalyst bait. Submitted by: David Tanenbaum and Markus Brink (Pomona College). Source

A 27-year-old named Alexis Lemaire, a doctoral student in artificial intelligence from Reims, made a world record calculating the 13th root of a random 200-digit number in just 72.4 seconds using only his brain.

French "mathlete" Alexis Lemaire showed off his rare mental agility Thursday, claiming a new world record after working out in his head the 13th root of a random 200-digit number in just 72.4 seconds.

Lemaire, a 27-year-old doctoral student in artificial intelligence from Reims, near Paris, sat at a laptop computer that randomly selected the figure and displayed it on the screen. The number was so long it ran over 17 lines.

Lemaire, who says he doesn't consider himself a nerd or a geek, then took just over a minute to identify two quadrillion, 397 trillion, 207 billion, 667 million, 966 thousand, 701 as the 13th root. In other words, the number multiplied by itself 13 times produces the 200 digit number originally generated by the computer.

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This 33-foot chair in Anniston, Alabama is the world's largest. It promotes the Miller's Office Furniture and was built in the 1980s. Link

A Chinese girl who has lived with body parts of a parasitic twin growing out of her back for 11 years is to finally have an operation to remove them.

Yin Xin, of Changzhi town, Shanxi province, was born with an undeveloped foetus growing from her back.

It protruding chest and arm has grown in size along with Yin's own body. At age 11, it is now so big that it is damaging her health.

Her parents, who have saved up for the operation since her birth, say they now have enough money for the surgery to go ahead.

"All that could be seen of it at first was its arm," her mother said. "But now it is taking on more and more of a human shape, an arm and chest and even the backside can also be seen."

Yin is currently undergoing tests at the Armed Police General Hospital, where doctors plan to remove the twin in several stages of surgery.

"The abnormality is causing her many problems," a spokesman said. "She is 11 years old, but only three foot eight inches tall, and her shoulders and back have been deformed by the extra body parts.

"But we are confident that the operation will be a success and she will be able to have a relatively normal life after that."

Chinese media has quoted doctors as saying that there had been fewer than 20 such cases reported around the country. Source

Dr. Abdul Manan, a surgeon at the Nishtar hospital in Multan, Pakistan, points to an x-ray of a glass bottle lodged in a man's lower abdomen November 21, 2007. A 60-year-old man came to the hospital to have the Pepsi bottle removed, with which he said armed thieves had assaulted him before robbing him of two buffalos, Manan said.

The X-ray picture shows a 5-centimeter nail stuck in an unidentified South Korean patient's skull Thursday, Dec. 2, 2004. According to a Seoul hospital, doctors found the nail after the man came to the hospital, complaining about a severe headache. They speculate that the nail stuck in the man's head four years ago in an accident but the man didn't know about it.

In this brain scan of a 44-year-old French civil servant, published in the journal Lancet in July, the dark area shows the swollen, fluid-filled space that has crowded his skull, leaving little room for his brain.

A recent undated X-Ray shows a cell phone in a Salvadoran prisoner's lower intestine. Four men, all members of the Mara Salvatrucha street gang, were caught with cell phones, a charger, and spare chips which they had attempted to smuggle, according to authorities at Zacatecoluca prison, 65 km (40 miles) from San Salvador, on September 7, 2006.

The skull X-ray of a 37-year-old man who had a knife embedded in his brain during a disagreement in central Wellington, New Zealand, early on Sunday, July 27, 2003. Neurosurgeon Martin Hunn removed the knife after lengthy surgery. The patient is in a serious but stable condition in Wellington Hospital. A man has been arrested and charged over the stabbing.

A presurgery X-ray of Houdini, a 12-foot Burmese python that swallowed an entire electric blanket with the electrical cord and control box, is shown in Ketchum, Idaho, Wednesday, July 19, 2006. It took surgery on Tuesday, July 18, 2006, to save the python after it swallowed the electric blanket. This X-ray shows some of the tangle of the blanket's wiring and mechanism in the python.

This photo of an X-ray provided by Imperial Point Animal Hospital in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Saturday, Sept. 24, 2005, shows a 13-inch serrated knife that somehow was swallowed by Elsie, a 6-month-old Saint Bernard puppy. The dog had the blade between her esophagus and stomach for about four days before it was removed in a two-hour operation. The puppy has an 8-inch scar, but is fine and back with her family.

"Tiger" was just a 3-month-old kitten about 8 inches long when she ripped off and swallowed a three-inch antenna from a TV remote control. Veterinarians at the Mesa Animal Hospital in Arizona removed the antenna, but the image will likely remain engraved in their minds for years to come. Source

The giant catfish of the Mekong River is the world's largest freshwater fish. It is capable of reaching 10 feet (3 meters) in length and 650 pounds (295 kilograms). It live mainly in the lower half of the Mekong River system, in Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam. Once plentiful throughout the Mekong basin, it's population have dropped by 95 percent due to overfishing. Link

Refusing to surrender himself to his farm machinery, Sampson Parker cut off his arm and live to tell his gruesome experience. This guy's really tough.

A farmer was forced to cut off his arm with a penknife after getting pulled into a piece of farm machinery.

Brave Sampson Parker made the gruesome decision after the machine blew up and a raging fire broke out around him. When he first got stuck Parker called out for help, but when no one came to his aid he began to cut off his fingers using the pocketknife.

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Measuring 2,165 feet long and 330 feet wide and weighing at 5.7 tons, this Israeli flag is the world's largest. It was produced by a Filipino evangelical Christian.

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At $25,000, this cup of haute chocolate is the world's most expensive dessert. It was declared by the Guinness World Records.

Created by Serendipty 3, a popular New York restaurant, it is made from slushy mix of cocoas from 14 countries, milk and 5 grams of 24-carat gold topped with whip cream and shavings from a La Madeline au Truffle and served in a goblet with a band of gold decorated with 1 carat of diamonds and served with a golden spoon diners can take home.

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Just 1oz short of the Jack Herman, this another Boyzilla weighed at 14 pounds at birth

"I couldn't understand why he wasn't coming easily," said Miss Ellerton, who gave birth naturally with only gas and air to help her.

"Once his head appeared I could see the surprise on everyone's faces. It was very painful but it was all worth it for our big bundle of joy."

Shaune is still less than a week old and is already the size of a six-month-old. He is two-feet long and, in the age-old unit of baby weight, the equivalent of seven bags of sugar.

Miss Ellerton, 24, whose other children Alex John, four, and Amy Louise, two, weighed around 8lbs each, said nothing had prepared her for the size of the task.

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Tusks that belong to the prehistoric Elephant-like mammal called Mastodon is now considered the world's longest tusk. It measures 16.4 feet (5 meters) and 15 feet (4.6 meters) and was discovered well preserved.

The mastodon was probably between 25 and 30 years old when it died, say Tsoukala and Dutch colleague Dick Mol of the Rotterdam Museum of Natural History. Based on the partial skeleton, the researchers believe the animal stood 11.5 feet (3.5 meters) tall at the shoulder and weighed about six tons.

The scientists hope the rare find might shed some light on why mastodons went extinct in Europe about two million years ago, even though the mammals continued to roam North America until about 11,000 years ago.

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At 14lb 8oz at birth, Jack Herman is really a junior giant. She was delivered his mom, Sara Herman, via caesarean operation.

As a first-time mother, Sara Herman thought it was only to be expected that she had an enormous bump after five months.

What she and doctors failed to realise was that the petite mother-to-be, who is only just over 5ft, was expecting a giant.

When Jack eventually arrived via caesarean section at 37 weeks he weighed an astonishing 14lb 8oz.

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A two-faced cat was born to an anonymous owner from Arizona who refused to get named. She is determined to let the cat lived as long as it could refusing to let it put to sleep.

"I started feeding him every 15 minutes from an eye-dropper," she said.

"I fed him like that for two or three months before starting him on proper cat food."

Vets believe the cat, which has two mouths, two noses and four eyes, may have two brains, as one face can go to sleep while the other remains awake and it can blink independently on each one.

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Dogs are really weird. :)

An Indian man who believed he had been cursed for stoning to death two dogs has atoned for his sin by marrying another dog in a traditional Hindu wedding ceremony.

P. Selvakumar, a 33-year-old farm labourer from the southern state of Tamil Nadu, married the four-year-old stray bitch after it was bathed and processed to his village temple dressed in an orange sari and garlanded with flowers.

Friends and relations attend P. Selvakumar's wedding to a dog

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Scopolamine is a colorless, tasteless, odorless drug. It is also known as hyoscine and is classified as a tropane alkaloid. The drug can be obtained from plants in the Solanacea (nightshade) family. Most scopolamine comes from jimsome weed, or as in Columbia, borrachero trees. The plants it can be derived from are many, and abundantly available. This makes its use widespread, and exceedingly dangerous. It is, surprisingly, one of the most feared substances in what is arguably the drug capital of the world, Columbia.

In Columbia alone, there are over 50,000 reported cases of Scopolamine drugging, although rarely does this receive media attention, in Columbia or elsewhere. The drug is used almost primarily by criminals as a way of making victims so docile that they have been known to help thieves rob their own homes and empty their own bank accounts. Additionally, women have been drugged repeatedly and held as sex slaves, or have been convinced to willingly give up their own children. The most horrifying side effect of the drug is not is ability to make zombies of its victims, but the complete amnesia it causes. Source

The biggest and largest Thresher shark ever recorded has been caught by a trawler off the Cornwall coast.

The 510 kg/1122 lb shark measured over 4.75 m/15'10" and was caught by a trawler fishing for squid and John Dory in the English Channel near Land's End peninsula.

Roger Nowell, the skipper of FV Imogen, spotted a shoal of scad near the bottom on his echo sounder and shot his trawl. The monster shark was among the haul.

Douglas Herdson, Information Officer at the National Marine Aquarium, told Practical Fishkeeping: "It was a female Common thresher, Alopias vulpinnis. Thresher sharks are one of the largest of the 28 types of sharks found in British waters.

"They are not common but are caught from time to time around our coasts, especially in the central Channel and off the coasts of Devon and Cornwall.

"When it was landed at Newlyn Fish Market it was found to weigh a monstrous 510 kg/1122 lb; making it one of the heaviest Thresher sharks ever caught anywhere in the world and the second giant from Cornish waters in a few weeks." Source

At $1,000 or £500, this bagel is currently the world's most expensive. Bagels are food landmarks of New York. This pocket-bursting bagel was created by chef Frank Tujague of The Westin New York hotel at Times Square, to help raise funds for Les Amis d'Escoffier Scholarship which provides scholarships to students of the culinary arts.

"Bagels are a New York food landmark, which is where the base for this dish came from. White truffles are a simple, quality ingredient that takes the meal, or the bagel in this case, to the next level," said Tujague.

"I wanted to create something that speaks to New York, and is also a reflection of my culinary passion for seasonality and fine ingredients," said Tujague.

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A 10 pounds hairball from an 18 years old girl is the worlds' biggest hairball that is ever removed from a human body. It was removed from her stomach via surgery.

Doctors at Rush Medical Center in Chicago carried out a scan and were amazed to find the huge mass of hair blocking her entire stomach, according to NEJM.

The hairball measured 15 inches by 7 inches by 7 inches when it was removed.

Once the hairball was removed, the patient was discharged and given psychiatric help. A year later the teenager has gained 20 pounds and has stopped eating her hair, the journal said.

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Last November 8, 2007, Guinness launches the most expensive TV ad in its 80-year marketing history, with highly unusual domino rally.

The ad - part of a £10m campaign - begins with 6,000 dominoes, leading on to objects such as books, paint cans, tyres, flaming hay bales, fridges, suitcases and even cars.

Created by ad agency AMV BBDO, "Tipping point" was directed by Nicolai Fugslig, the man behind the camera for Sony Bravia's "Balls" commercial.

Watch the video here.

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Britons is now the biggest cocaine user in the world. In a recent study, it has overtaken Americans who consume 4.8 per cent compared to 4.9 per cent for Britons over the same period.

The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction said nearly one in 20 Brits took cocaine last year as it replaced cannabis, ecstasy and speed as the most fashionable choice among young people, the Daily Mail reported.

Figures revealed that 4.9 per cent of British men and women aged between 15 and 34 used the drug last year - about 800,000 young people.

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Discovered in Germany, this Prehistoric Sea Scorpion is considered the world's largest bug ever known.

The size of a large crocodile, the 390-million-year-old sea scorpion was the top predator of its day, slicing up fish and cannibalizing its own kind in coastal swamp waters, fossil experts say.

Jaekelopterus rhenaniae measured some 8.2 feet (2.5 meters) long, scientists estimate, based on the length of its 18-inch (46-centimeter), spiked claw.

The find shows that arthropods—animals such as insects, spiders, and crabs, which have hard external skeletons, jointed limbs, and segmented bodies—once grew much larger than previously thought, said paleobiologist Simon Braddy of the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom.

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An Indonesian man whose body is covered with extraordinary tree-like growths has spoken of his hope that an American doctor will cure his unique condition and help him rebuild his family life.

Dede, now 35, baffled medical experts when warty "roots" began growing out of his arms and feet after he cut his knee in a teenage accident.

Sacked from his job and deserted by his wife, Dede has been unable to look after his two children Entang and Utis, who are now aged 16 and 18.

They have been brought up apart from their farther by his extended family on the other side of their remote village south of the capital Jakarta.

With Dede's condition considered life threatening, he had resigned himself to missing out on the remaining joys of fatherhood.

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