MEIGNORANT

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin visited the Ussuri reserve in Siberia on August 31, 2008 to observe researchers monitoring tigers in the wild. Scientists demonstrated a new satellite tracking collar fitted with GPS-Argos receiver and a tranquilizer gun to the Prime Minister. Then they took him to the taiga forest where a rare 5 year-old female Amur tiger was trapped.

© AP Photo/RIA-Novosti, Alexey Druzhinin

The recent G8 meeting in Japan was quite uneventful with just a handful of lame jokes. This is definitely not the kind of party it used to be in the past. Check out how fun the summit was just two years ago:

The President of The Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan would get the party rolling.

Extreme sport enthusiasts always dreamed of an attachable rigid-wing system to add airplane-like agility to skydiving. This concept has become quite popular in recent years, and many have claimed it as their sole invention. Nevertheless, the idea goes back deep into the times of Icarus. The photo below shows the trial of a rigid-wing system on an airfield in Moscow, 1935. The designer comrade Sanfirov tries the rigid-wing, his solution for stealth deployment of airborne troops:

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Putin and Medvedev in the church, apparently praying for forgiveness of their sins:

Turtle pie

Seafood pie

There is an ancient tradition of wild hyena feeding in Harar, Ethiopia, which is still being practiced today. As far as I understand, this is a rite of peace-offering. The wild hyenas enter the city in great numbers during the night, and they are quite capable of snapping limbs from poor fellows sleeping on the streets. Those wild beasts are really strolling through the city in the dark, I saw them myself!

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For several centuries the rite of hyena feeding has been performed by a single family. Fathers were passing the skill to their sons, and so on.
The guy on the first photo carries a basket full of rotten meat outside the city wall and summons hyenas with scary inhuman shouts. The beasts come and get their portion of stinking meat. For the greater effect the feeding is done mouth-to-mouth style...

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According to a friend of mine it was filmed in the Red Sea, Egypt. Me looked all over the internet, but couldn't define these species. Nevertheless, it would be so cool, if some other weed on the surface could do the same trick.

Recently I've come across this fascinating version of chess. I've had an opportunity to play it and lost. Apparently I need more practice, but the concept itself is beautiful!

The regular chess rules are used, although the shape of the board is obviously different.