An Australian cat named Smokey survived 13 shots to the head from an air rifle and then found his way home after what police on Tuesday called a "shocking" act of animal cruelty.

A medical examination revealed 13 pellets lodged in his head and face. Sergeant Craig Pearse said it was remarkable Smokey had managed to get home after his ordeal. The nine-year-old moggy turned up on his owners' doorstep bleeding from his head last week, three days after he went missing from the family home in Maryborough, central Victoria.

Kit Kat is a chocolate-covered wafer biscuit bar confection that was created by Rowntree's of York, England, and is now produced worldwide by Nestlé, which acquired Rowntree in 1988, except in the United States where it is made under licence by The Hershey Company. Each bar consists of fingers composed of three layers of wafer, covered in an outer layer of chocolate. Each finger can be snapped from the bar separately. Bars typically have 2 or 4 fingers. Single fingered larger Kit Kat Chunky bars are also popular

Polar bear males can weigh more than 1,500 lbs. But when they are born, they weigh only 2lbs

World's First Computer Mouse (1964): by Douglas Engelbart

The world's first computer mouse was made by Douglas Engelbart in 1964, it consisted of two gear-wheels positioned perpendicular to each other -- allowing movement on one axis. Ergonomic shape, great button placement -- and it's made of wood.

Cat Inherits $13 Million From Owner:

Maria Assunta, a 94-year-old widow and heiress from Italy, left her 10 million euro fortune plus several properties scattered across Europe to her 4-year-old kitty, Tommaso, according to London's Daily Telegraph.

The wealthy widow, who died, originally wanted to leave her fortune to an animal welfare association that would commit to looking after Tommaso. But when Assunta's lawyers couldn't find a group that lived up to her standards, she instead drew up a will in November 2009 leaving her estate to Tommaso through a nurse named Stefania, according to the Telegraph.

Stefania, who cared for Assunta in her final months, had promised she would look after the cat and make sure he was loved after her patient died. Stefania told the Telegraph she had no clue Assunta was so wealthy.

"She was very discreet," Stefania said. "I knew very little of her private life. She only told me that she had suffered from loneliness a lot."

Tommaso, Stefania and another cat now live in a house outside Rome.

BEAUTIFUL PORTRAITS MADE WITH OLD WINE CORKS

Some artists like to be inspired over a nice bottle of wine; artist Scott Gundersen however, lets others enjoy the wine and makes art from the differently dyed corks. For his most recent portrait "Grace", he used a total of 9,217 corks to create the beautiful and surprisingly detailed image.

ORGANIC ART: HOUSES WOVEN WITH STICKS

For the past 25 years, Pacific northwest artist Patrick Dougherty has been creating beautiful, biologically based sculptures out of an unusual material: the twigs and branches of saplings.

METALMORPHOSIS:A SCULPTURE THAT ROTATES

Swirling bands of polished stainless steel form a moving, morphing bust in this fantastic sculpture by Czech artist David Černý.

"Europe has 'Silent Discos.' You
listen to music on your
headphones."

Due to noise ordinances in Europe,
club owners have created "silent
discos" where clubbers listen to
music through headphones. Rather
than use a speaker system, some
club owners have resorted to
wireless headphones to entertain
club goers.
Music is broadcasted via FM-
transmitter to the clubber's
headphones. It's called "silent
discos." The style of clubbing is
popular for music festivals, when
people want to party long after
noise ordinances would allow. Two
DJ's often compete for the
listeners, too.

THE HONEY HUNTERS OF NEPAL

When we think of honey, we don't think of scaling a cliff with giant bees to get it. These images tell the photographic story, shot by Eric Valli, of the Himalayan Gurung men of Nepal harvesting honey. The images, shot in 1987, are so modern for being an almost 25 year old shoot and while the unbelievable nature of the photos make it hard to believe that they are not staged, they simultaneously have an intimate feeling that is so natural and real.

Weird treatment in Indonesia

July 13, residents of the province of West Java, Indonesia, lying on the tracks, they believe the current through the rails can help people heal various diseases.

Your brain comes out to play at night: You'd think that your brain is more active during the day, when the rest of your body is. But it's not. Your brain is more active when you sleep.

~Shax

Source: http://bsnprogram.com/2010/50-incredibly-weird-facts-about-the-human-body/

Megapixel Camera? Try Gigapixel

ScienceDaily (June 20, 2012)

— By synchronizing 98 tiny cameras in a single device, electrical engineers from Duke University and the University of Arizona have developed a prototype camera that can create images with unprecedented detail.

The camera's resolution is five times better than 20/20 human vision over a 120 degree horizontal field.

The new camera has the potential to capture up to 50 gigapixels of data, which is 50,000 megapixels. By comparison, most consumer cameras are capable of taking photographs with sizes ranging from 8 to 40 megapixels. Pixels are individual "dots" of data -- the higher the number of pixels, the better resolution of the image.

There are 169,518,829,100,544,000,000,000,000,000 ways to play the first ten moves in a game of chess..!

1.The name 'Google' was an accident. A spelling mistake made by the original founders who thought they were going for 'Googol'.

2.Google started in January, 1996 as a research project at Stanford University, by Ph.D. candidates Larry Page and Sergey Brin when they were 24 years old and 23 years old respectively.

3.Google is a mathematical term 1 followed by one hundred zeroes. The term was coined by Milton Sirotta, nephew of American mathematician Edward Kasne.

4.Number of languages in which you can have the Google home page set up, including Urdu, Latin and Klingon: 88

5.Employees are encouraged to use 20% of their time working on their own projects. Google News, Orkut are both examples of projects that grew from this working model.

"A Rubik's cube has
43,252,003,274,489,856,000
possible combinations."

With 6 colored sides, 21 pieces and
54 outer surfaces, there's a
combined total of over 43
quintillion different possible
configurations.To put that into
perspective: if you turned the
Rubik's cube once every second it
would take you 1400 trillion years
to finish to go through all the
configurations.If you had started
this project during the Big Bang,
you still wouldn't be done yet

Dinner use to mean Breakfast:

In fact, the English word dinner comes from the French word disnar, which means breakfast. Traditionally, dinner (meaning breakfast) was the first meal of the day, eaten around noo. It also happend to be the biggest meal of the day, with a lighter meal known as supper

Worlds Smallest Deer:

The pudús are two species of South American deer they are the world's smallest deer. Pudús range in size from 32 to 44 centimeters (13 to 17 in) tall and up to 85 centimeters (33 in) long. As of 2009, both species are classified as Vulnerable

Mike - The Headless Chicken:

On September 10, 1945, farmer Lloyd Olsen of Fruita, Colorado, United States, had his mother-in-law around for supper and was sent out to the yard by his wife to bring back a chicken. Olsen chose a five-and-a-half-month-old cockerel named Mike. The axe missed the jugular vein, leaving one ear and most of the brain stem intact.

Despite Olsen's botched handiwork, Mike was still able to balance on a perch and walk clumsily; he even attempted to preen and crow, although he could do neither. After the bird did not die, a surprised Mr. Olsen decided to continue to care permanently for Mike, feeding him a mixture of milk and water via an eyedropper; he was also fed small grains of corn.

When used to his new and unusual center of mass, Mike could easily get himself to the highest perches without falling. His crowing, though, was less impressive and consisted of a gurgling sound made in his throat, leaving him unable to crow at dawn. Mike also spent his time preening and attempting to peck for food with his neck.

HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO DECOMPOSE
.
Paper Towel - 2-4 weeks
Banana Peel - 3-4 weeks
Paper Bag - 1 month
Newspaper - 1.5 months
Apple Core - 2 months
Cardboard - 2 months
Cotton Glove - 3 months
Orange peels - 6 months
Plywood - 1-3 years
Wool Sock - 1-5 years
Milk Cartons - 5 years
Cigarette Butts - 10-12 years
Leather shoes - 25-40 years
Tinned Steel Can - 50 years
Foamed Plastic Cups - 50 years
Rubber-Boot Sole - 50-80 years
Plastic containers - 50-80 years
Aluminum Can - 200-500 years
Plastic Bottles - 450 years
Disposable Diapers - 550 years
Monofilament Fishing Line - 600 years
Plastic Bags - 200-1000 years