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The Candiru fish, or Toothpick fish, is a natural parasite commonly found living inside Amazonian Catfish. Watch this short video from BBC wildlife show ‘Weird Nature’ to learn how this small fish has become a horror story in its own right when introduced to humans!

Apple’s iPhone 3GS is much faster than Apple has claimed, according to testing by Medialets, a mobile analytics company. In tests using JavaScript, the iPhone 3GS proved nearly three times faster than its predecessor, the iPhone 3G — not twice as fast, as Apple has boasted.

Medialets also compared the iPhone 3GS speed against the Palm Pre and an Android-based smartphone. Its tests used JavaScript executed by the smartphones’ browsers, which all use WebKit open-source technology.

The WebKit project provides a JavaScript test script called SunSpider that was used in the Medialets tests. The baseline was established using Safari on a white MacBook.

The testing found that the iPhone OS 3.0 update for the iPhone 3G made it nearly three times faster than when using the previous 2.21 operating system. Medialets said the iPhone 3GS, which comes with the 3.0 OS, boosted speed another three times.

According to the Medialets results, the MacBook set the baseline at 1.36 seconds and the iPhone 3GS needed 16.5 seconds, or about 12 times as long. By comparison, the iPhone 3G with the 2.21 OS needed 132.3 seconds, or 96 times as long, but that dropped to 48.7 seconds, or 36 times, with the 3.0 operating system.

Medialets also tested the Palm Pre and found it needed 48.6 seconds, or 36 times as long, about the same as the iPhone 3G with OS 3.0. Also tested was a T-Mobile G1 with the cupcake Android 1.5 operating system, and that device needed 91.1 seconds, or 67 times as long.

AppleInsider reports that the iPhone 3GS has a 600-MHz processor and 256MB of RAM, up from the iPhone 3G’s 400-MHz processor and 128MB of RAM.

A palace is a royal residence, any splendid residence, or the official residence of some high dignitaries, as of a pope. Here’s a list of some of the most magnificent palaces in the world and their notable features.

Istana Nurul Iman – The Largest Residential Palace in the World and the World’s Largest Residence

The world’s largest residential palace in the word is the Istana Nurul Iman Palace. It is the official residence of Hassanal Bolkiah, the Sultan of Brunei. The palace is located in Brunei’s capital, Bandar Seri Begawan. It is also the largest residence of any type in the world.

Amazing features of the Palace;

• The palace was built at a cost of around $1.4 billion USD.
• Its domes are made of gold.
• It has a floor area of 2,152,782 square feet or 200,000 square meters.
• It contains 1,788 rooms and 257 bathrooms.
• It has 564 chandeliers, 51,000 light bulbs, 44 stairwells, and 18 elevators.
• It has 5 swimming pools.
• It has an air conditioned stable for the Sultan’s 200 polo ponies. Wow, lucky animals.
• It has a 110-car garage. Home to a car collection that includes custom-made Ferraris and Bentleys as well as 165 Rolls Royce.
• It has a banquet hall that can be expanded to accommodate up to 4,000 guests.
• It has a mosque that can accommodate 1,500 people.

Buckingham Palace, London, UK – World’s Largest “Working” Royal Palace

The title of the world’s largest “working” royal palace belongs to the Buckingham Palace. It is the official London residence of the British monarchy.

Remarkable features of the Buckingham Palace;

• The palace has a total area of 828,818 square feet or 77,000 square meters.
• The Buckingham Palace Garden is the largest private garden in London.
• Buckingham Palace is one of the world’s most familiar buildings and more than 50,000 people visit the palace each year as guests to banquets, lunches, dinners, receptions and the royal garden parties.
• The Gallery is hung with numerous works including some by Rembrandt, van Dyck, Rubens, and Vermeer.
• The State Ballroom is the largest room at Buckingham Palace. State banquets often over 150 guests dine off in gold plates.
• The palace contained 19 state rooms, 52 principal bedrooms, 188 staff bedrooms, 92 offices, and 78 bathrooms.

Royal Palace of Madrid in Spain – Largest Palace in Western Europe

The largest palace in Western Europe is the Royal Palace of Madrid in Spain. The Palacio Real de Madrid, also called Palacio de Oriente – Eastern Palace, is the official residence of the King of Spain. However, the king and the royal family do not actually reside in this palace, instead choosing the smaller Palacio de la Zarzuela.

Distinct features of the Palace;

• The palace has the distinction of being the largest royal palace in Western Europe in size, with over a combined area of over 135,000 m² or 1,453,122 square feet.
• The palace has more than 2,800 rooms.
• The vast palace is richly decorated by artists such as Velasquez, Tiepolo, Mengs, Gasparini, Juan de Flandes, Caravaggio and Goya.
• Royal armory and weapons dating back to the 13th century are kept in the palace.
• The world’s only complete Stradivarius string quintet is kept in the palace, including collections of tapestry, porcelain, furniture, and other objects of art of great historical importance.

Stockholm Palace, Sweden – The Largest Royal Palace in the World that is Still in Use for its Original Purpose

Stockholm Palace is the official residence and major royal palace of the Swedish monarch. It is “the largest royal palace in the world that is still in use for its original purpose”.

Notable features of the Palace;

• The personal offices of the monarch and the other members of the Swedish royal family as well as the administrative offices of the Royal Court of Sweden are located there.
• The palace is used for representative purposes by the king whilst performing his duties as the head of state.
• The palace is guarded by the Hogvakten, a royal guard of members of the Swedish Armed Forces which dates back to the early 16th century.
• The palace is built of brick, with midsections of the west, south, and east facades covered by sandstone.
• The roof is covered with copper and is surrounded by a stone balustrade which stretched around the entire main building.
• The palace has 609 rooms and is one of the largest royal palaces in the world still in use for its original purpose.
• The palace contains Sweden’s oldest museum, which includes old weapons and uniforms.
• The Treasure Chamber which contains the Swedish crown jewels is located at the west.
• Museum of antiques is located in the northeast wing and contains ancient sculptures found in Italy.

The Forbidden City, Beijing, China – World’s Largest Palace Complex

The Forbidden City which is the world’s largest palace complex, is neither occupied as a residence nor is it one continuous building.

Splendid features of the Palace;

• The total square footage of the complex is just less than 7,750,000 square feet, but with the vast open courtyards of the complex, the totaled square footage of the Forbidden City’s collective buildings is smaller than that of Istana Nurul Iman.
• For almost five centuries, it served as the home of the Emperor and his household, and the ceremonial and political centre of Chinese government.
• The complex consists of 980 surviving buildings with 8,707 bays of rooms and covers 720,000 square meters.
• The palace complex exemplifies traditional Chinese palatial architecture.
• The Forbidden City was declared a World Heritage Site in 1987 and is listed by UNESCO as the largest collection of preserved ancient wooden structures in the world.
• The construction of the palace lasted 15 years, and required more than a million workers.
• The Forbidden City is the world’s largest surviving palace complex and covers 72 hectares.
• The Forbidden City is surrounded by a 7.9-meter high city wall and a six-meter deep, 52-meter wide moat. The walls are 8.62 meters wide at the base, tapering to 6.66 meters at the top.
• At the four corners of the wall sit towers with intricate roofs boasting 72 ridges.
• The Hall of Supreme Harmony which was the ceremonial center of imperial power, is the largest, and rises some 30 meters above the level of the surrounding square. It is the largest surviving wooden structure in China.
• The northern ramp, behind the Hall of Preserving Harmony, is carved from a single piece of stone 16.57 meters long, 3.07 meters wide, and 1.7 meters thick. It weighs some 200 tons and is the largest such carving in China.
• The Forbidden City is surrounded on three sides by imperial gardens.
• The Forbidden City contains Equestrian painting of the Qianlong Emperor (r. 1735-1796) by Giuseppe Castiglione.
• The collections of the Palace Museum are based on the Qing imperial collection. Some 1.17 million items were stored in the Forbidden City.
• The imperial libraries housed one of the China’s largest collections of ancient books and various documents.
• The Palace Museum holds 340,000 pieces of ceramics and porcelain.
• The Palace Museum holds close to 50,000 items of paintings. Of these, more than 400 date from before the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368). This is the largest such collection in China.
• The Palace Museum’s bronze collection dates from the early Shang Dynasty (founded c. 1766 BC). Of the almost 10,000 pieces held, about 1600 are inscribed items from the pre-Qin period (to 221 BC).
• The Palace Museum has one of the largest collections of mechanical timepieces of the 18th and 19th centuries in the world, with more than 1000 pieces. The collection contains both Chinese- and foreign-made pieces.
• The Museum’s collection of jade includes some 30,000 pieces.

These palaces are amazingly beautiful. Other palaces with notable features are; the Russian Imperial Palaces in St Petersburg, the Papal Palace in Rome, Potala Palace, Palace of Versailles in France, and many others.

The Winter Palace – St. Petersburg, Russia

The Winter Palace was the winter residence of the Russian tsars.

The Papal Palace or Palace of the Vatican – Vatican City

The Papal Palace is the official residence of the Pope in the Vatican City.

The Potala Palace – Tibet

The Potala Palace was the former chief residence of the Dalai Lama. Today the Potala Palace has been converted into a museum by the Chinese.

The Palace of Versailles in France

It was once the center of power and the former official residence of the French Monarchy.

Mushrooms have traditionally been associated both with life and death, food and poison, making them a powerful symbol.

The photo below, taken over the mountains of Gatlinburg, Tennessee, is a natural mushroom cloud formation. It causes no harm but rather provides a scenic view.

Notable mushroom clouds that synthetically and naturally occurred in the world.

Here are a handful of the most destructive mushroom clouds that appeared on Earth. They have caused much destruction to mankind and to nature as well.

Mount Pinatubo Mushroom Cloud

This peculiar mushroom is the giant mushroom-cloud which was formed during the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines on June 15, 1991. The effects of the eruption were felt worldwide. It ejected roughly 10 billion metric tons of magma, and 20 million tons of SO2, bringing vast quantities of minerals and metals to the surface environment. It injected large amounts of aerosols into the stratosphere -more than any eruption since that of Krakatoa in 1883.

Redoubt Volcano Mushroom Cloud

This gigantic mushroom cloud that billowed over the sky was formed by Redoubt Volcano’s eruption in 1989. The mushroom-shaped plume rose from avalanches of hot debris (pyroclastic flows) that cascaded down the north flank of the volcano. This volcano is situated in Alaska, USA.

Mount St. Helens Mushroom Cloud

The huge mushroom cloud above was created by the eruption of Mount St. Helens on May 18, 1980. The bulge and surrounding area slid away in a gigantic rockslide and debris avalanche, releasing pressure, and triggering a major pumice and ash eruption of the volcano. Fifty-seven people were killed. This volcano is located in Washington, USA.

Ngauruhoe Volcano Mushroom Cloud

The massive mushroom cloud above was formed during the volcano’s eruption in 1974. This volcano with a near perfect cone is located in the Tangariro Massif. It has been New Zealand’s most active volcano in historic times, with more than 60 eruptive episodes since its first recorded eruption in 1839. Another eruption occurred in 1977.

Those were deadly and dangerous mushroom clouds created by nature. The mushroom clouds below were all manmade. Some of these mushroom clouds devastated thousands of human beings directly and indirectly and some destroyed many valuable ecological sites in the world.

Bikini Atoll Mushroom Cloud

This huge mushroom cloud is from a 23 kiloton atomic bomb detonated 90 feet underwater during Operation Crossroads along the Bikini Atoll in Marshall Islands on July 25, 1946. This was the second atomic detonation of the operation. The first blast of the operation, which took place on July 1st, was detonated at an altitude of 520 feet. The inhabitants of this place were paid and relocated. After a few years, a few residents went back but soon again remove from the area because it is still highly contaminated.

Castle Romeo Mushroom Cloud

This magnificent mushroom cloud with prominent condensation ring is from a Castle Romeo hydrogen bomb test which was detonated on March 27, 1954, after several delays (which played havoc with the planned experimental measurements program) at Bikini Atoll, on a barge moored in the middle of the crater from the Castle Bravo test. It was the first such barge-based test, a necessity that had come about because the powerful thermonuclear devices destroyed islands if they were set off on land.

Ivy Mike Mushroom Cloud

This mushroom cloud that seem provided a scenic view is from Ivy Mike, a codename given to the first US test of a fusion device where a major part of the explosive yield came from fusion. It was detonated on November 1, 1952 by the US on Enewetak Atoll in the Pacific Ocean, as part of Operation Ivy. The device was the first full test of a staged fusion bomb, and is generally considered the first successful test of a hydrogen bomb.

First Atomic Explosion Mushroom Cloud

This mushroom cloud which is about 8 miles high is emitted from the first atomic explosion test in the New Mexican desert that took place on July 16, 1945. It’s a plutonium-core nuclear bomb which was raised to the top of a 65-foot-high steel tower in the New Mexican desert. The Trinity test began when the bomb, called “the gadget”, was detonated on July 16 at 5:30 a.m. The scientists, watching 10 miles from the tower, had disagreed on what would happen following the detonation — from nothing to the end of the world. Instead it caused an explosion that was about the equivalent of 19 kilotons of TNT.

Soviet Atomic Bomb Mushroom Cloud

This is Russia’s first nuclear test named Joe-1 by the west was detonated at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in Kazakhstan on August 29, 1949. Its estimated yield was about 22 kilotons which formed a mammoth mushroom cloud.

Little Boy Mushroom Cloud in the Hiroshima Bombing

Little Boy was dropped on the city of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, creating this gigantic mushroom cloud and killed more than 140,000 people, mostly, civilians. Thousands more died later due injuries and illnesses attributed to exposure to radiation emitted by the explosion.

Fat Man Mushroom Cloud in the Nagasaki Bombing

This is the Fat Man mushroom cloud from the nuclear explosion over Nagasaki which rises 18 km (11 mi, 60,000 ft) into the air from the hypocenter. The explosion took place on August 9, 1945, three days after the bombing of Hiroshima. 80,000 perished instantly and thousands more died later due to exposure to radiation from the explosion. Six days later, Japan surrendered. These are to date the only attacks with nuclear weapons in the history of warfare.

Approximately, there have been 2,000 nuclear tests performed on the different part of the world. Eight countries have performed nuclear tests – the USA, UK, France, China, Russia, India, Pakistan and North Korea. There is speculation that Israel has an arsenal of nuclear weapons supplied by the US although it has never performed a test.

Production of nuclear weapons should be stopped at once, if not, the world will be on the brink of destruction.

Some people wear spikes – Iguana Mike has them transdermally implanted into his skull.

This post is about egg design but it’s nothing to do with Easter egg. In this article,  you will see a list of Creative Egg Pictures where artist create an expression on the eggs by drawing faces on it to make it look more cool and unique and took a picture in perfect angle. Here is a  showcase of Funny and Clever Egg Photography for inspiration.

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