10,000 STEPS A DAY FOR A HEALTHY LIFESTYLE'S

How many steps do you walk each day?

Maybe you have heard the recent guidelines about walking 10,000 steps per day. How far is 10,000 steps anyway? The average person's stride length is approximately 2.5 feet long. That means it takes just over 2,000 steps to walk one mile, and 10,000 steps is close to 5 miles.

A sedentary person may only average 1,000 to 3,000 steps a day. For these people adding steps has many health benefits. I have outlined the basic 10,000 steps program, but also added a commentary below.

A reasonable goal for most people is to increase average daily steps each week by 500 per day until you can easily average 10,000 per day. Example: If you currently average 3000 steps each day, your goal for week one is 3500 each day. Your week 2 goal is 4000 each day. Continue to increase each week and you should be averaging 10,000 steps by the end of 14 weeks.

Wearing a pedometer is an easy way to track your steps each day. Start by wearing the pedometer every day for one week. Put it on when you get up in the morning and wear it until bed time. Record your daily steps in a log or notebook. By the end of the week you will know your average daily steps. You might be surprised how many (or how few) steps you get in each day.

 There are many ways to increase your daily steps. Use your imagination and come up with your own list:

Take a walk with your spouse, child, or friend

Walk the dog

Use the stairs instead of the elevator

Park farther from the store

Better yet, walk to the store

Get up to change the channel

Window shop

Plan a walking meeting

Walk over to visit a neighbor

Get outside to walk around the garden or do a little weeding

Continue to track your daily steps and/or mileage; and keep notes on how you feel, how your body is improving, or other changes you are making to improve your health.

If you are in very poor physical condition or at any point you feel that you are progressing too rapidly slow down a bit and try smaller increases. If you have any health concerns seek your physician's advice prior to starting or changing your exercise routine.

How to solve a Rubik's cube

The riddle of how to solve the Rubik's cube stumps most avid game players, but there are seven steps that might help the conundrum a little easier to crack. 

 

 1. Get to know your cube. For example, you should know that centre piece colours are always opposite each other. White is opposite yellow, orange is opposite red and green is opposite blue.

2. Solve the white cross.  The Rubik's website recommends you aim to create a white cross on the top face of the cube first of all. This will make the next phase easier.
3. Solve the white corners. With the white cross on the top face, you must then solve the white corner pieces. Corner pieces will have one white side plus two other colours.

4. Solve the middle layer, so the bottom two layers of your cube match in colour.
5. Solve the top layer. The first stage of this step is to try and get a yellow cross on the top face of your cube. Next, you should try and get all the yellow on the top face.
6. Position the yellow corners correctly. Twist the top face, which should be yellow, until at least two of the corners are in the right location.
7. Finally, correctly place the centre pieces.

 
An international team of scientists and Google engineers discovered that there are more than 100,000 starting positions for the Rubik's cube and they believe each can be solved in 20 moves or less.
Invented in 1974 by Professor Erno Rubik, the Rubik's cube was an instant success when it was first exported from Hungary in 1980, becoming the world's fastest-selling toy.
The 64-year-old reclusive Hungarian professor has since seen his cube achieve 350 million sales in the three decades since.
Still obtaining a cult following, almost 40,000 entries on YouTube feature tutorials and video clips of quick solutions.

Why your cat claws and bites when you rub its tummy

Animal behaviour experts have worked with Cats Protection to produce a guide to help pet owners know what their cats want.

It helps explain often contradictory behaviour by these precious animals – like why they often scratch and bite when they appear to want their stomachs rubbed.

The guide also includes advice about how to respond to these signals and common misinterpretations made by cat owners.

Among the signals they say to look out for are:

• The greeting – when the cat walks towards you with its tail up, it means it is saying hello
• The sign of trust – when the cat rolls on its back exposing its stomach it is showing it trusts you rather than wanting its belly rubbed.
• The leg rub – when the cats rubs its head and body against your legs it is saying you smell strange and is trying to mark you with its scent
• Flattened ears – when the cat flattens its ears it is frightened and needs somewhere to hide
• Licking of lips – while after eating this can just be it is cleaning itself, at other times it can be a sign of nausea or stress
• The slow blink – the cat will slowly close and open its eyes, turning its head to one side, meaning it is relaxed and is not feeling threatened

 Nicky Trevorrow, Cat Protection’s behaviour manager, said: “They are quite complicated and subtle in their behaviour, much more so than social species like ourselves and dogs.

“When a cat throws itself on its side and shows its belly, most people misinterpret this behaviour and think that it wants its belly rubbed but will get grabbed by their hand and the cat will bite them.
“What the cat is actually doing is showing a greeting behaviour and showing trust. It is actually an abuse of that trust to stroke its belly. What the cat would rather you do is to give it a slight head rub.
“When a cat comes towards you with their tail upwards, it is a sign of their greeting. The best thing to do is to acknowledge their greeting and give their head a rub."
The charity produced the short three minute video guide after conducting a survey of 1,100 cat owners to see what they thought their pets were trying to communicate.

Three quarters of those asked did not know that the cat’s upright tail meant it was pleased to see them, while a third thought a cat wanted its tummy tickled when it lies on its back.
A third of owners also failed to recognise a slow-blinking cat as meaning they were content and 65 per cent thought a purring cat means it is always happy, but it can also be a sign of pain.
Half of owners were unaware that cats show stress by licking their lips and a quarter thought cats shed hair intentionally to mark their territory.
Mrs Trevorrow added: “If a cat is stressed it is really important to give them a place to hide and to get up high."

A recent study showed that dogs make subtle facial expressions that help to convey how they are feeling.
Mrs Trevorrow added: "Unlike dogs and humans, cats have not evolved the complex facial muscles that allow them to make obvious expressions.
"They are more subtle and can be difficult to read, so owners also need to look for non-facial signals that can indicate how their cat is feeling.”

Zhangjiajie National Forest Park

The amazing Zhangjiajie National Forest Park is where James Cameron drew his inspiration from when he was working on Avatar. Wulingyuan Scenic and Historic Interest Area is located in The Wulingyuan District of the City of Dayong, Hunan Province of China and is known for its stone pillars that reach over 1km in height and resemble the ones seen on Pandora (In the movie Avatar).
The area has approximately 3,000 tall quartzite sandstone pillars.

 Zhangjiajie National Forest Park, was set up in 1982, is the first authorized national forest park in China. The area covers 480 thousand square meters (185 square miles). This park, together with Suoxiyu Natural Resource Reserve, Tianzishan Natural Resource Reserve and Yaozizhai makes up the Wulingyuan Scenic Area, also known as Zhangjiajie Scenic Spot. It is located 32 kilometers (19 miles) from urban Zhangjiajie and 28 kilometers (17 miles) from Wulingyuan Scenic Area.

 Zhangjiajie National Forest Park has been described differently, such as, majestic, eccentric, tranquil, delicate and wild. The park features grotesque peaks, lucid brooks, abundant fauna and floras and hospitable climate. There are six main attraction spots and over 90 smaller ones in the park to date.

 It belongs to the sub-tropical climate of Central Asia. Splendid mountains and luxuriant trees help form a favorable climate: warm in winter and cool in summer. The average temperature is 13Celcius (55Farenheit), the highest 17Celcius (62Farenheit ) while the lowest is 10Celcius (50Farenheit) on average in winter. The charm of the park varies with the alternation of seasons; therefore, it attracts visitors all year round. Besides its pleasant climate, the environment and air quality also provide visitors a chance to breathe healthy air which is believed to be rich in negative oxygen. It is also believed that hypertension patient may have their blood pressure lowered if they stay in the park for a period of time. This is due to the fact that dust particles in the park are 88% lower and the air 10% mistier than outside.

About 98% of the area is covered with vegetation. There are 720 species of the 102 families, including all the five most important floras, namely, the rose family, pulse family, grass family, composite family and orchid family. Some of these trees are rare and regarded as national treasure. For example, the Dove tree, known as living fossil, can be traced back as early as the Fourth Ice Age. The great variety of plants in the park takes up 82% of all the flora families in Hunan Province.

Zhangjiajie National Forest Park also boasts a variety of animals. Exuberant forests offer them ideal habitats to live in and procreate their own species. There are more than 149 kinds of chordate animals inhabitants in this park. Among them, 28 kinds are under national protection, amongst which, are the Golden Pheasant, Rhesus Monkey, Giant Salamander and Musk Deer. Visitors will be able to hear birds singing and see monkeys playing in the tree.

The park is endowed with many attraction spots, such as the Yellow Stone Stronghold (Huangshizhai), Yaozizhai, Yuanjiajie and the Golden Whip Stream.
Yellow Stone Stronghold (Huangshizhai)
Yellow Stone Stronghold (Huangshizhai), Yaozizhai is located west of the park. It is named after a story whereby Huang Shi saved Zhang Liang from misfortune when the latter isolated himself from society in this forest.
Occupying an area of 41 acres and 1,200 meters (0.8 miles) above sea level, this stronghold is the largest observing spot of the forest park. One cannot claim to have visited Zhangjiajie without visiting Yellow Stone Stronghold. The main attraction spots include Tranquil Trail in Fir Woods, Imperial Edict and the Precious Box, Needle Peak, the Southern Gate to Heaven, Five-Finger Peak and so on.


Sceneries along the Golden Whip Stream are most enchanting in the park. Named after the Golden Whip Rock that it flows by, this stream, 5.7 kilometers long (3.5 miles), joins the Lute stream in the west and Suoxi Stream in the east. A 300-meter (984 feet) walk from the gate of the park will lead you to the entrance of the Golden Whip Stream. Flanked by ridges and peaks, the crystal clear water makes it possible to observe every action of the fish in the water. Wild flowers are in abundance here.

Cable Car

On the way, girls from Tujia will present visitors traditional folk songs when requested. The main attraction spots here include: the Welcoming Guests Rock, Golden Whip Rock, Reunion Rock and the Purple Grass Pond.
The northern part of the park is the essential tourist route. Yuanjiajie is a natural platform that faces giant rocks rising from deep valleys and surrounded by higher mountains. Unique in their shapes and covered with pine trees, these rocks resemble a vivid Chinese painting.
Main attraction spots include: Back Garden, breath taking Mihun Stage and the First Bridge under the Sun.

Ancient Snake Was As Long As a Bus

A colossal snake about the length of a school bus slithered about South America's rainforests some 60 million years ago, according to an analysis of the skeletal remains of what is now considered the largest snake ever identified.
"It's the biggest snake the world has ever known," said Jason Head, a paleontologist at the University of Toronto Mississauga and part of an international team who discovered and identified the snake bones. He added, "The snake's body was so wide that if it were moving down the hall and decided to come into my office to eat me, it would literally have to squeeze through the door."
Fossils of the extinct snake species, now called Titanoboa cerrejonensis, were discovered in the Cerrejon Coal Mine in northern Colombia. From the fossilized vertebrae, the researchers conservatively estimate the snake weighed about 2,500 pounds (1,140 kg) and measured nearly 43 feet (13 meters) from nose to tail tip.

The giant reptile was a boine snake, a type of non-venomous constrictor that includes anacondas and boas. In the same fossil rainforest, the researchers also found giant sea turtles and crocodile relatives.
In fact, while alive, the snake likely gorged on its crocodilian neighbors. "We think it was a completely aquatic snake, that it didn't really go out on land except to bask every once in a while," Head told LiveScience. "And aquatic snakes generally eat aquatic vertebrates, and the only other aquatic vertebrates around are these primitive crocodiles and these giant turtles. And you can imagine it's probably pretty difficult to eat a turtle when you can't chew."
The snake's enormous dimensions are a sign that temperatures along the equator where the remains were found were once much balmier.
"The bigger you get, the more energy you need overall," Head said. "And since they get their energy from external environments, the bigger they are, the more energy they're going to require from the external environment." (Snakes are cold-blooded animals, so they don't generate their own body heat.)
The researchers calculated that in order to support the slithering giant, its tropical habitat would have needed a temperature of about 86 to 93 degrees Fahrenheit (30 to 34 degrees Celsius).
"Tropical ecosystems of South America were surprisingly different 60 million years ago," said Jonathan Bloch, a vertebrate paleontologist at the University of Florida, Florida Museum of Natural History, who worked with Head on the snake study. "It was a rainforest, like today, but it was even hotter and the cold-blooded reptiles were all substantially larger. The result was, among other things, the largest snakes the world has ever seen ... and hopefully ever will."

Meet Carissa Yip: She's nine years old and on track to become the youngest chess master in history

CHELMSFORD, Mass. — Only three years or so since first picking up the game of chess, 9-year-old Carissa Yip can already look down at 93 per cent of the more than 51,000 players registered with the U.S. Chess Federation.
She has risen so far up the rankings that she has reached the expert level at a younger age than anyone since the chess federation began electronic record-keeping in 1991, a new level she reached in recent weeks.

Carissa Yip, 9.

Her father, Percy, who taught her until she began beating him within a year, said she could reach master level in as soon as a year.
“Some never reach master level,” he said. “From expert to master, it’s a huge jump.”
But Carissa, who will be a fifth-grader at McCarthy Middle School this fall, has improved by leaps and bounds.
She first played competitively at the MetroWest Chess Club and Wachusett Chess Club, at the latter of which she’s the top-ranked player. Last fall, she competed in an international competition in Slovenia, and in December, she’ll play the World Youth Championships in the United Arab Emirates.
Carissa is hesitant when asked about her accomplishments, saying she doesn’t spend much time thinking about them.
But she also set a goal for herself this year to reach 2,100; an expert is anyone over 2,000. Anyone at 2,200 is a master. She also wants to one day become the first female to win the overall championship — not just in the female category, her father said.
“It’s not like the rating matters,” Carissa said.
She later demonstrated her ability by playing with her back to the board, reading her moves to her father and keeping track of the whole board in her head. She has been called an intimidating player in an ironic way, because she’s far short of even 5 feet tall.

Her U.S. Chess Federation ranking places her in the top 7 per cent of all players registered with the group and the top 2 per cent of female players.
Closer to home, Carissa has impressed others who have been playing chess for far longer than she has been alive.
“This was not a record she won by a few days,” said Nathan Smolensky, the president of the Massachusetts Chess Association. “It was a significant margin. So it’s very impressive.”
Among other younger stars at the Boylston Chess Club in Somerville, where Yip has played, most are in their teens and are boys, Smolensky said.
“Even they say they were nowhere near this strength when they were that young,” he said.
Carissa also has three years to reach the next level, that of master, in time to set the record for youngest to reach that step as well, Smolensky said. Five-time U.S. women’s winner Irina Krush has the record for becoming a master at age 12.

George Mirijanian, program director for the Wachusett club and past president of the Massachusetts Chess Association, said Carissa and Percy Yip, both Wachusett members, both got a standing ovation when they arrived at the club last week after Carissa reached expert level.
“In my more than 50 years with the club, I had never witnessed such an exuberant outburst from club members,” Mirijanian said. “They are really proud of Carissa and what she has accomplished.”

Italy coach plunge kills 38

AVELLINO, Italy: A speeding bus that crashed off an Italian flyover, killing 38 of its 48 passengers, may have lost parts of its engine shortly before it careered out of control, according to a report of early findings by accident investigators.
There were also claims from surviving passengers that a burst tire was to blame for what has been described as one of Italy’s worst road accidents, as residents of a small southern Italian town were travelling home late on Sunday from a weekend outing.


The coach collided with a series of cars as the driver, who was among those killed, wrestled with the vehicle but was unable to prevent it crashing through a concrete barrier and falling almost 100 feet into the ravine below.
Firemen worked through the night to recover bodies from the wreckage at the remote, rural spot near Monteforte Irpino in Campania, and also freed 12 survivors from the twisted metal and torn seats of the
coach, which was ripped in half by the impact and had its roof torn off.

“All the survivors were conscious although two later died, including a women in her thirties who spoke to the police one moment then suddenly collapsed and died, perhaps of a haemorrhage,” said one fireman.
A further nine who were travelling in cars hit by the bus were also injured.
The passengers on the bus — many of them children — were all from the town of Pozzuoli near Naples and had left their homes on Friday to visit a thermal bath and the home town near Benevento of Padre Pio, the Italian saint.
“These were families from council homes on a privately organized trip,” said Fr Paolo Auricchio, a priest from the area.
Italian police and motorway officials opened an urgent investigation into what had gone wrong. A statement from the motorway operator Autostrade per l’Italia said the coach appeared to have been travelling fast near slower-moving traffic, even though a lower speed limit had been clearly indicated.

 A motorway worker said he had seen the bus heading for the flyover at excessive speed with its front door open or broken, according to the Italian news agency ANSA, which also reported that a component from the bus’s engine had been found by investigators on the road about a mile before the crash site.
But one survivor of the crash told relations that the bus suffered a burst tire just seconds before it plunged off the flyover, which passes between wooded hills and over hazelnut groves above Naples.
Vincenzo Rusciano said: “My niece, Annalisa, told me a left-side tire of the bus burst. The driver tried to keep control in any way possible but could not manage and the bus swerved, ending up in the ravine.”

 There were also questions over the concrete barriers through which the coach crashed.
“You would think that the barriers on the viaducts and bridges should prevent this type of accident,” said Alessio Barbarulo, the head of the fire brigade division that co-ordinated the rescue effort. “But it seems the impact was so strong that even the barrier gave way.”
By dawn, yesterday rescue workers had lifted the lines of bodies off the road below, hosed away the blood and allowed the wreckage to be taken away on the back of a flatbed truck.

By mid-morning, all that remained at the scene were cast-off rubber gloves that had been used by rescue workers and a woman’s shoe by the side of the lane.
The bodies were taken to the school gym in the small town of Monteforte Irpino, where streams of relations of the dead arrived to walk down lines of open coffins spread out beneath the basketball nets, identifying their lost family members. After filing out of the gym, they sat in silent groups next to the school’s climbing frame, under an awning erected to ward off the heat. Red Cross workers circulated with plates of pasta and offers of counselling for the shocked families.
“I have lost my sister and her son — my wife just called me at work to tell me to come here,” said Amadeo Musto, 56, whose body shook with silent sobs as he spoke.

Giuseppe Di Lorenzo, who had arrived to pay his respects to a childhood friend who died in the crash with the friend’s wife and sister in law, said: “People here still can’t believe what is happening. My wife should have been on the trip, but couldn’t make it, and I thank God for that.”
The name of one victim kept recurring: Luciano Caiazzo, 40, who worked in a salami shop, had organized the trip, as he had many others over the past 15 years.
“He was a great organizer — setting up trips to religious sanctuaries and fun trips was his passion,” said Salvatore Defelice, 42, a friend who had come to offer support to relations of the victims. Mr. Caiazzo had booked trips over the years for hundreds of residents of three tight-knit neighbourhoods in Pozzuoli — Toiano, Monterusciello and Licola.

Getty ImagesFriends and relatives of the victims of coach crash on the A16 motorway between Monteforte Irpino and Baiano, react near an elementary school facility turned into a morgue on July 29, 2013 , in Monteforte Irpino, Italy.

“Everyone there will know someone who died,” said Mr. Defelice.
Enrico Letta, Italy’s prime minister, who was on an official trip to Greece, described the crash as “as huge tragedy.”
As the afternoon wore on, a priest led a prayer which the crowd stood to join, a prelude to the funeral mass planned today at a sports arena in Pozzuoli where the coffins will be sent. When the coffins were finally loaded into hearses, one by one, each was solemnly applauded by the onlookers.
There was one piece of good news among the tragedy: one family of four had all survived the 100-foot plunge.
“They were not sitting together,” said Alessio Barbarulo, the chief of the fire crew at the scene. “It is just by chance they survived.”
But the mood was best summed up by Father Auricchio. “It seems calm, but there is a lot of anger here,” he said.

AP Photo/Salvatore LaportaPeople comfort each other outside a gym facility of an elementary school turned into a morgue, in Monteforte Irpino southern Italy, Monday, July 29, 2013.

AP Photo/Gregorio BorgiaThe wreckage of a bus is lifted by a crane after the bus crashed off a highway, seen at top, near Avellino, southern Italy, Monday, July 29, 2013.

AGENZIA CONTROLUCESTRINGER/AFP/Getty ImagesRescuers prepare the coffins of victims of a bus crash on July 28, 2013 on the road between Monteforte Irpino and Baiano, southern Italy.

A coach carrying pilgrims plunged off a motorway flyover near Naples in southern Italy, killing at least 39 people in one of the worst such accidents in Europe in recent years.
Local prosecutors on Monday launched an investigation into possible manslaughter over Sunday evening’s accident close to the town of Avellino, according to Italian media reports.
Rescuers were still battling to extract people from the manged wreckage of the coach.
The vehicle, carrying 48 people, had been travelling at high speed when it crashed on a busy dual carriageway between Naples and Bari in an area Italian media described as an accident black spot.
It rammed several cars before plunging through a crash barrier and down a steep slope before coming to a stop on its side off the road about 50 kilometres (30 miles) from Naples.
“As of now, the death toll has risen to 39,” said Transport Minister Maurizio Lupi.
The driver was among the dead and about a dozen people were injured, including children. There were reports that some people in the dozen or so cars caught up in the chaos had also been hurt.
Prime Minister Enrico Letta, on a visit to Athens, said it was a “very sad time” for Italy and observed a minute’s silence in honour of the victims before addressing a conference in the Greek capital.
Italian news agency ANSA said the manslaughter probe would look into the possible role of the driver, as well as the state of the coach and the crash barrier on the highway.
Ansa said the driver’s body would be examined for the possible presence of alcohol or drugs while traffic police have seized the vehicle documents from the coach operator Mondotravel.
An AFP photographer at the scene described rescue workers searching the crash site early Monday under arc-lights set up around the wreckage of the coach.
“The situation is critical. Our men are working to save as many lives as possible,” fire chief Pellegrino Iandolo told Sky TG24.
Rescue workers said they had pulled 33 bodies from the wreckage and found three more of people thrown from the vehicle as it plunged 30 metres (100 feet) down a ravine.
Another two died in hospital of their injuries.
“We are still trying to extract people from the vehicle,” a police spokesman said. “Our priority now is to free the wounded.”
Photographers at the scene described how fire crews raced to find any remaining survivors, as the victims were laid out under white sheets along the roadside.
They said about a dozen wrecked cars littered the highway.
“Looking down from the overpass, the scene of the tragedy: some 30 bodies covered by white sheets, lined up along the roadside,” said Cesare Abbate of Italy’s ANSA news agency.
From time to time, rescue workers called for “a moment of silence” to listen for signs of life from the wreckage, he said.
One survivor, quoted by his uncle who met him in hospital, reported hearing a tyre exploding and that the driver had been unable to control the vehicle.
The passengers had been returning to Naples following a pilgrimage to Pietrelcina, the birthplace of Saint Pio, an Italian priest canonised in 2002 who is highly venerated in southern Italy.
The Naples-Bari highway has been closed to traffic, the police said.
The last major coach accident in Europe was in March 2012 in Switzerland, when a coach carrying Belgian schoolchildren home from a skiing holiday crashed, killing 28 people, including 22 children.
The accident also comes just days after a train crash in Spain last Wednesday which killed 79 people, the deadliest rail disaster in the country in decades.
The driver appeared in court on Sunday on 79 counts of reckless homicide over the crash near the pilgrimage city of Santiago de Compostela, northwest Spain
- See more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2013/07/italy-coach-plunge-kills-39/#sthash.69pBvIGK.dpuf

A coach carrying pilgrims plunged off a motorway flyover near Naples in southern Italy, killing at least 39 people in one of the worst such accidents in Europe in recent years.
Local prosecutors on Monday launched an investigation into possible manslaughter over Sunday evening’s accident close to the town of Avellino, according to Italian media reports.
Rescuers were still battling to extract people from the manged wreckage of the coach.
The vehicle, carrying 48 people, had been travelling at high speed when it crashed on a busy dual carriageway between Naples and Bari in an area Italian media described as an accident black spot.
It rammed several cars before plunging through a crash barrier and down a steep slope before coming to a stop on its side off the road about 50 kilometres (30 miles) from Naples.
“As of now, the death toll has risen to 39,” said Transport Minister Maurizio Lupi.
The driver was among the dead and about a dozen people were injured, including children. There were reports that some people in the dozen or so cars caught up in the chaos had also been hurt.
Prime Minister Enrico Letta, on a visit to Athens, said it was a “very sad time” for Italy and observed a minute’s silence in honour of the victims before addressing a conference in the Greek capital.
Italian news agency ANSA said the manslaughter probe would look into the possible role of the driver, as well as the state of the coach and the crash barrier on the highway.
Ansa said the driver’s body would be examined for the possible presence of alcohol or drugs while traffic police have seized the vehicle documents from the coach operator Mondotravel.
An AFP photographer at the scene described rescue workers searching the crash site early Monday under arc-lights set up around the wreckage of the coach.
“The situation is critical. Our men are working to save as many lives as possible,” fire chief Pellegrino Iandolo told Sky TG24.
Rescue workers said they had pulled 33 bodies from the wreckage and found three more of people thrown from the vehicle as it plunged 30 metres (100 feet) down a ravine.
Another two died in hospital of their injuries.
“We are still trying to extract people from the vehicle,” a police spokesman said. “Our priority now is to free the wounded.”
Photographers at the scene described how fire crews raced to find any remaining survivors, as the victims were laid out under white sheets along the roadside.
They said about a dozen wrecked cars littered the highway.
“Looking down from the overpass, the scene of the tragedy: some 30 bodies covered by white sheets, lined up along the roadside,” said Cesare Abbate of Italy’s ANSA news agency.
From time to time, rescue workers called for “a moment of silence” to listen for signs of life from the wreckage, he said.
One survivor, quoted by his uncle who met him in hospital, reported hearing a tyre exploding and that the driver had been unable to control the vehicle.
The passengers had been returning to Naples following a pilgrimage to Pietrelcina, the birthplace of Saint Pio, an Italian priest canonised in 2002 who is highly venerated in southern Italy.
The Naples-Bari highway has been closed to traffic, the police said.
The last major coach accident in Europe was in March 2012 in Switzerland, when a coach carrying Belgian schoolchildren home from a skiing holiday crashed, killing 28 people, including 22 children.
The accident also comes just days after a train crash in Spain last Wednesday which killed 79 people, the deadliest rail disaster in the country in decades.
The driver appeared in court on Sunday on 79 counts of reckless homicide over the crash near the pilgrimage city of Santiago de Compostela, northwest Spain
- See more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2013/07/italy-coach-plunge-kills-39/#sthash.69pBvIGK.dpuf

A coach carrying pilgrims plunged off a motorway flyover near Naples in southern Italy, killing at least 39 people in one of the worst such accidents in Europe in recent years.
Local prosecutors on Monday launched an investigation into possible manslaughter over Sunday evening’s accident close to the town of Avellino, according to Italian media reports.
Rescuers were still battling to extract people from the manged wreckage of the coach.
The vehicle, carrying 48 people, had been travelling at high speed when it crashed on a busy dual carriageway between Naples and Bari in an area Italian media described as an accident black spot.
It rammed several cars before plunging through a crash barrier and down a steep slope before coming to a stop on its side off the road about 50 kilometres (30 miles) from Naples.
“As of now, the death toll has risen to 39,” said Transport Minister Maurizio Lupi.
The driver was among the dead and about a dozen people were injured, including children. There were reports that some people in the dozen or so cars caught up in the chaos had also been hurt.
Prime Minister Enrico Letta, on a visit to Athens, said it was a “very sad time” for Italy and observed a minute’s silence in honour of the victims before addressing a conference in the Greek capital.
Italian news agency ANSA said the manslaughter probe would look into the possible role of the driver, as well as the state of the coach and the crash barrier on the highway.
Ansa said the driver’s body would be examined for the possible presence of alcohol or drugs while traffic police have seized the vehicle documents from the coach operator Mondotravel.
An AFP photographer at the scene described rescue workers searching the crash site early Monday under arc-lights set up around the wreckage of the coach.
“The situation is critical. Our men are working to save as many lives as possible,” fire chief Pellegrino Iandolo told Sky TG24.
Rescue workers said they had pulled 33 bodies from the wreckage and found three more of people thrown from the vehicle as it plunged 30 metres (100 feet) down a ravine.
Another two died in hospital of their injuries.
“We are still trying to extract people from the vehicle,” a police spokesman said. “Our priority now is to free the wounded.”
Photographers at the scene described how fire crews raced to find any remaining survivors, as the victims were laid out under white sheets along the roadside.
They said about a dozen wrecked cars littered the highway.
“Looking down from the overpass, the scene of the tragedy: some 30 bodies covered by white sheets, lined up along the roadside,” said Cesare Abbate of Italy’s ANSA news agency.
From time to time, rescue workers called for “a moment of silence” to listen for signs of life from the wreckage, he said.
One survivor, quoted by his uncle who met him in hospital, reported hearing a tyre exploding and that the driver had been unable to control the vehicle.
The passengers had been returning to Naples following a pilgrimage to Pietrelcina, the birthplace of Saint Pio, an Italian priest canonised in 2002 who is highly venerated in southern Italy.
The Naples-Bari highway has been closed to traffic, the police said.
The last major coach accident in Europe was in March 2012 in Switzerland, when a coach carrying Belgian schoolchildren home from a skiing holiday crashed, killing 28 people, including 22 children.
The accident also comes just days after a train crash in Spain last Wednesday which killed 79 people, the deadliest rail disaster in the country in decades.
The driver appeared in court on Sunday on 79 counts of reckless homicide over the crash near the pilgrimage city of Santiago de Compostela, northwest Spain
- See more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2013/07/italy-coach-plunge-kills-39/#sthash.69pBvIGK.dpuf

Are Human Barbie Valerie Lukyanova is Real? Watch Bizarre Video Documentary Of YouTube Star To See Why Doll-Like Blonde Says She Is From Space [PHOTOS & VIDEO]

Valeria Lukyanova has resurfaced in a bizarre new documentary (Photo: Instagram/valerialukyanova_official).

Valeria Lukyanova, also known as the Human Barbie, is starring in a new documentary about her spiritual life. Vice followed the Ukrainian model for a film called Space Barbie. It is about as weird as you would expect.

The world knows Valeria Lukyanova as the girl who turned herself into a real-life Barbie doll," the video description read. "Controversy has surrounded her every move since her computer-perfect visage went viral last year.
"However, what most of the world doesn't know is that Valeria is not a real girl at all, but a time-traveling spiritual guru whose purpose is to save the world from the clutches of superficiality and negative energy."

At one point, Valeria Lukyanova claimed she heard voices in her head and could see people from other planets.
"I [once] asked myself whether everything was alright with my head," Lukyanova said. "One day I decided to visit a psychiatrist ... He said that I was very lucky I ended up coming to him because if it was another doctor, I definitely would have been taken into a 'special place.'"
She even claimed that she is not human.
"She's not a fraud," Vice director Will Fairman said. "She genuinely believes she's from another planet. 100 percent. She's not making any money from her life — not even from the seminars she gives — which is originally why I thought she was doing this."

The video description claims she is not a real girl. Instead, she is a "time-traveling spiritual guru whose purpose is to save the world from the clutches of superficiality and negative energy." It also says that Lukyanova delivers a life-changing philosophy to the human race by "physical perfection."
Vice's documentary-maker Will Fairman decided to travel to Ukraine to film the 23-year-old model because he believed "there had to be something more behind it all." "I followed it up and discovered she was a new age opera composer and gave seminars on spirituality," 

                   
Valeria Lukyanova: Did She Have Plastic Surgery?
"She's not a fraud," Fairman said. "She genuinely believes she's from another planet. 100 percent. She's not making any money from her life - not even from the seminars she gives - which is originally why I thought she was doing this."
It has been rumored that she underwent numerous plastic surgery procedures for a pinched waist and perfect face after which Lukyanova turned into a real-life Barbie doll, who she considers is the "most perfect woman." But she has denied having surgery.
'She is paranoid about not looking perfect. I don't know exactly where it comes from," Fairman added. "She seems to have a quite a lot of issues about her physical self, and is incredibly fixated with her image."

"I come from a place where only love and joy exist," she said. "But I noticed the media is only interested in negativity: show someone in a bad light, show someone's mistakes...There are hate blogs and communities about me who post bad pictures about me and try and worsen my mood."
Despite those who despise Lukyanova, the Ukrainian star now has 877k Facebook fans and over 7,500 Twitter followers.

Why the IQ test does not measure intelligence..

"The scale, properly speaking, does not permit the measure of intelligence, because intellectual qualities are not superposable, and therefore cannot be measured as linear surfaces are measured."

— Alfred Binet (Creator of the IQ Tests), 1905 

For many, many years now, psychologists and other IQ supporters have been taking IQ tests, distributing IQ tests, and comparing their IQ scores with their peers, thinking that it meant that they were smarter than others. But that's wrong. The IQ test does not measure intelligence, it is a socially constructed concept that attempted a method of measuring intelligence. The thing is, it cannot be done. Everyone is smart in their own way, no one is completely over-superiorly smarter than another.

Take a person with 200 IQ and put him in a room. So let's say this person with 200 IQ does not know how to play the piano, do you expect him to be able to play Bach's Toccatta and Fugue in D minor instantly, by just looking at the music sheet? I think not. Do you expect him to learn any faster than a person with 100 IQ? A lot of people would say yes to this question, but it really depends on whichever one knows the strategy to improve. The person with 100 IQ might be able to play 20 other instruments excellently, and is considered a prodigy since he's only 15, but, given the IQ test, he doesn't know much about words or math or history, and therefore got a low score on it. This 15 year old kid isn't considered an idiot or average, he would be a lot faster in picking up the notes, since he can most likely play by ear, while the 200 IQ man does nothing with his life.
Take the 200 IQ man again and give him some painting tools. Would he be able to paint anything artistically well at his first try painting? Probably not. If the people with the highest IQ's are so smart, why do they suck at so many things? They might be good at taking their IQ tests, but you might already be able to tell, they suck at a lot of other things people with a lower IQ are way better at.
The main problem is, creativity isn't considered the same as intelligence. That is wrong, creativity is also intelligence. School kills so much of our kid's creativity these days that most adults completely separate the two categories. Getting the highest IQ in the world will literally gain you no useful skills in life. IQ scores can be improved, with study and practice, but that certainly doesn't mean you are any smarter than anyone else. You might know how to do some math problems, but if you don't even know how to socialize with your peers, then what's the point?
Some people actually think that everyone is born with an IQ. I say that is wrong. Einstein, and I am not saying he is dumb, he is a genius of course, couldn't even remember his phone number, address, how to tie his shoes, and a lot of other things. But he still discovered that energy is convertible to mass. How did he figure that out? There were thousands of other physicists working in their labs, doing their experiments, while Einstein was working at a patent office. The thing is, Newton had a law back then, or something that was considered one of Newton's Fundamental laws of physics, and it was that time is always the same, no matter what. The physicists back then would not defy any of Newton's laws. Einstein however, he was never exposed to this law, and therefore was the possibly the only person in the world that thought time could change depending on a person's speed. That's how he came up with the theory of relativity, it was his creative thinking that lead him to that. But, if you took Einstein, or any of the other smartest people you know, and put them in a place with little education, like somewhere in Africa, that person would almost 100% not turn out to be the genius he originally became, because his environment now became different.

On 11 September, 1948, the Empire State Building in New York was attacked with hundreds of birds of various species

The hypothesis about the existence of little-studied forms of life in the Earth's atmosphere has been an attraction for scientists for quite a long time. Nations around the globe have numerous stories, fairy-tales and legends about such creatures, the most popular of which are sylphs, giant fire birds, fairies, flying snakes and dragons. This weird theory has been gaining more and more details lately to prove its credibility.

The mysterious creatures of the sky can be traced in the history of the Roman Empire. According to ancient manuscripts, giant red ravens were seen flying in the sky above Rome in the year 106 B.C. Ancient writings say that the birds were carrying red-hot stones in their beaks. The ravens dropped and stones down on the ground, having scorched a half of the city. Similar fire-like creatures reminiscent of birds were seen in France and Portugal, in Middle Ages. They were called fire elementalias, specters of fire. Fire-birds caused numerous fires in the middle of the 1980s in San-Juan, Puerto Rico. Eyewitnesses said that the birds were huge, with a wing-spread of about four meters. 

Fire snakes and dragons were described in historical documents too. An outstanding incident took place in September of 1891 in the American town of Crawfordswille, Indiana. There is a story in the archives of the town about a 10-meter long fire snake, which appeared above the central square of the town. A lot of people saw the snake – they all said that it was a live creature. A local pastor vowed that the snake had red eyes of fire and the heat of its breath could be felt at a considerable distance. It is noteworthy that similar creatures could be seen in the sky above Indiana in the 60s and 70s of the current century. Film director William Gordon Allen used eyewitnesses' stories to create a colorful image of the fire snake. The illustration appeared in the documentary film “Overlords of the UFO,” which was released in 1976. 

Mass deaths of birds, or their sudden migration can also be considered an indirect evidence to prove the existence of an unknown form of life in the atmosphere of the planet. On 11 September, 1948, the building of New York's highest skyscraper, the Empire State Building, was attacked with hundreds of birds of various species. Eyewitnesses said that the birds were slamming into windows, as if they were trying to fly away from an imminent danger. Hundreds of birds fell down on the ground dead in May of 1917 in the US town of Baton-Rouge, Louisiana. A lot of them had strange burns on their bodies. A similar incident occurred in August of 1960 on the outskirts of Capitola Beach, when numerous birds fell down dead too. Ornithologists could never determine the reason of their death.

 American researcher Charles Fort wrote in his work “The Book of the Damned” that there were weird, jelly-like beings living in the Earth's atmosphere. Medusa-like creatures, Fort wrote, had stings and tentacles, which they used to hunt for birds. The existence of such creatures seemed to be unbelievable for a very long time, until American scientists developed a special substance, aerogel. The lighter-than-air gel is a substance, the state of which is represents both hard and gas condition. Researchers proposed that the flesh of the mysterious creatures could be made of a similar substance. The theory can be partly proved with an incident, which occurred on 28 December, 1958, in Florida. Detective Faustin Galegos found a strange object outside his house. The detective said that he took the object in his hands, but could not feel that he was holding it. It was a translucent ball, the size of a soccer ball, and it was practically weightless. The detective did not manage to preserve it, because it virtually melted in the air several hours later. Faustin Galegos said that he had an impression of holding an unknown dead creature in his hands. 

The most uneasy mentioning about the mysterious creatures of the sky belongs to researcher Robert Gardner. According to him, a transport aircraft of the US Air Force took off from an army base in San Diego in the summer of 1939. The plane, carrying 12 passengers aboard, returned to the base in about an hour, after it had sent an SOS. When servicemen opened the hatch, they saw that all 12 passengers were dead. The commander was the only person, who stayed alive, but he died in several minutes too. The dead military men had strange burns on their skin, but it did not become possible to find out their origin and what really happened on board the plane. Investigators determined that the crew and the passengers used their personal guns. The hull paneling of the plane was damaged with gunshots, as if the people were trying to kill a very fast enemy. Apparently, they failed to kill a mysterious creature.