actres in bikini

1. Right up to the 20th century, pound bars of salt (called amoleh) were the basic currency in Abyssinia (now called Ethiopia).

2. The amazing Salar de Uyuni (the world’s largest salt flat at 4,000 square miles) in Bolivia becomes mirrorlike when a thin layer of water lies on top. This reflectivity makes it a very useful tool in calibration scientific equipment from outer space. This amazing salt flat also contains half of the world’s supply of lithium.

3. Salt is so essential to the body that if you drink too much water it can flush it out of your system and cause fatal Hyponatremia. This is what killed Jennifer Strange who entered a “Hold your wee for a wii” competition.

4. Consumption of too much salt can be deadly – you need to take about 1 gram of salt per kilogram of weight to die and this was used as a method of ritual suicide in China – especially amongst the nobility as salt was so expensive.

5. Good quality sea salt contains many essential minerals for the body. The best type of sea salt should be slightly wet from the sea it was taken from.

6. In the Middle Ages, salt was so expensive it was sometimes referred to as “white gold”. The medieval pavement of one of the transportation routes for Salt still exists in Germany where it links the inland city of Lüneburg to the German Baltic coast.

7. Black Salt is made in India by mixing salt water with harad seeds. The mixture is left to evaporate leaving behind black lumps of salt. When the salt is ground, the resulting powder is pink.

8. In Guerande, France, salt is still gathered in the same way as it was by the ancient celts, using baskets through which the sea water is strained. This makes the salt very expensive and highly sought after, especially the finest quality version called Fleur de Sel (flower of salt). This salt is sprinkled on food prior to serving – it is never used in cooking.

9. There is a very common misconception that Roman soldiers were paid in salt (hence the word Salary), but in fact they were paid in normal money. The connection with salt is possibly through the fact that the soldiers protected the salt roads leading to Rome (Via Salarium). Roman Soldiers were private employees – rather than state employees.

10. Before Biblical Judaism ceased to exist, salt was mixed with animal sacrifices. This originated from Moses in Leviticus 2:13 which states: “Whatsoever sacrifice thou offerest, thou shalt season it with salt, neither shalt thou take away the salt of the covenant of thy God from thy sacrifice. In all thy oblations thou shalt offer salt.” The salt was a symbol of wisdom and discretion.

11. After aviation fuel is purified, salt is mixed with it to remove all traces of water before it can be used.

12. Sodium Chloride (salt) is formed when the unstable metal sodium reacts with chlorine gas. It is the only family of rocks regularly eaten by humans.

13. In the early 1800s salt was 4 times as expensive as beef on the frontier – it was essential in keeping people and livestock alive.

14. Only 6% of the salt used in the U.S. is used in food; another 17% is used for de-icing streets and highways in the winter months.

15. In the late 17th century, salt was the leading cargo carried from the Caribbean to North America (most tonnage). Salt Cod was the leading cargo carried from North America to the Caribbean. It was used to feed slaves on sugar plantations.

Science is still a very mysterious subject so there are millions of trivial facts about it – this will be the first of many scientific fact lists in the future.

1. There are 62,000 miles of blood vessels in the human body – laid end to end they would circle the earth 2.5 times

2. At over 2000 kilometers long, The Great Barrier Reef is the largest living structure on Earth

3. The risk of being struck by a falling meteorite for a human is one occurrence every 9,300 years

4. A thimbleful of a neutron star would weigh over 100 million tons

5. A typical hurricane produces the energy equivalent of 8,000 one megaton bombs

6. Blood sucking hookworms inhabit 700 million people worldwide

7. The highest speed ever achieved on a bicycle is 166.94 mph, by Fred Rompelberg

8. We can produce laser light a million times brighter than sunshine

9. 65% of those with autism are left handed

10. The combined length of the roots of a Finnish pine tree is over 30 miles

11. The oceans contain enough salt to cover all the continents to a depth of nearly 500 feet

12. The interstellar gas cloud Sagittarius B contains a billion, billion, billion liters of alcohol [JFrater is planning to move there in the near future]

13. Polar Bears can run at 25 miles an hour and jump over 6 feet in the air

14. 60-65 million years ago dolphins and humans shared a common ancestor

15. Polar Bears are nearly undetectable by infrared cameras, due to their transparent fur

16. The average person accidentally eats 430 bugs each year of their life

17. A single rye plant can spread up to 400 miles of roots underground

18. The temperature on the surface of Mercury exceeds 430 degrees C during the day, and, at night, plummets to minus 180 degrees centigrade

19. The evaporation from a large oak or beech tree is from ten to twenty-five gallons in twenty-four hours

20. Butterflies taste with their hind feet, and their taste sensation works on touch – this allows them to determine whether a leaf is edible

These are the most wonderful things about our human bodies.

1. The stomach’s digestive acids are strong enough to dissolve zinc. Fortunately for us, the cells in the stomach lining renew so quickly that the acids don’t have time to dissolve it.

2. The lungs contain over 300,000 million capillaries (tiny blood vessels). If they were laid end to end, they would stretch 2400km (1500 miles).

3. A mans testicles manufacture 10 million new sperm cells each day – enough that he could repopulate the entire planet in only 6 months!

4. Human bone is as strong as granite in supporting weight. A block of bone the size of a matchbox can support 9 tonnes – that is four times as much as concrete can support.

5. Each finger and toenail takes six months to grow from base to tip.

6. The largest organ in the body is the skin. In an adult man it covers about 1.9m2 (20sq ft). The skin constantly flakes away – in a lifetime each person sheds around 18kg (40 lb) of skin.

7. When you sleep, you grow by about 8mm (0.3in). The next day you shrink back to your former height. The reason is that your cartilage discs are squeezed like sponges by the force of gravity when you stand or sit.

8. The average person in the West eats 50 tonnes of food and drinks 50,000 liters (11,000 gallons) of liquid during his life.

9. Each kidney contains 1 million individual filters. They filter an average of around 1.3 liters (2.2 pints) of blood per minute, and expel up to 1.4 liters (2.5 pints) a day of urine.

10. The focusing muscles of the eyes move around 100,000 times a day. To give your leg muscles the same workout, you would need to walk 80km (50 miles) every day.

11. In 30 minutes, the average body gives off enough heat (combined) to bring a half gallon of water to boil.

12. A single human blood cell takes only 60 seconds to make a complete circuit of the body.

13. A foreskin, the size of a postage stamp, from circumcised babies take only 21 days to grow skin that can cover three (3) basketball courts. Amazing isn’t it. Thanks to science. The laboratory-grown skin is used in treating burn patients.

14. The eyes receive approximately 90 percent of all our information, making us basically visual creatures.

15. The female ovaries contain nearly half-a-million egg cells, yet only 400 or so will ever get the opportunity to create a new life.

1. Cigarettes are the single-most traded item on the planet, with approximately 1 trillion being sold from country to country each year. At a global take of more than $400 billion, it’s one of the world’s largest industries.

2. The nicotine content in several major brands is reportedly on the rise. Harvard University and the Massachusetts Health Department revealed that between 1997 and 2005 the amount of nicotine in Camel, Newport, and Doral cigarettes may have increased by as much as 11 percent.

3. In 1970, President Nixon signed the law that placed warning labels on cigarettes and banned television advertisements for cigarettes. The last date that cigarette ads were permitted on TV was extended by a day, from December 31, 1970 to January 1, 1971 to allow the television networks one last cash windfall from cigarette advertising in the New Year’s Day football games.

4. U.S. cigarette manufacturers now make more money selling cigarettes to countries around the globe than they do selling to Americans.

5. The American brands Marlboro, Kool, Camel and Kent own roughly 70% of the global cigarette market.

6. Cigarettes contain arsenic, formaldehyde, lead, hydrogen cyanide, nitrogen oxide, carbon monoxide, ammonia and 43 known carcinogens.

7. In the early 1950s, the Kent brand of cigarettes used crocidolite asbestos as part of the filter, a known active carcinogen.

8. Urea, a chemical compound that is a major component in urine, is used to add “flavor” to cigarettes.

9. The ‘Cork Tip’ filter was originally invented in 1925 by Hungarian inventor Boris Aivaz, who patented the process of making the cigarette filter from crepe paper. All kinds of filters were tested, although ‘cork’ is unlikely to have been one of them.

10. In most countries around the world, the legal age for the purchase of tobacco products is now 18, raised from 16, while in Japan the age minimum is 20 years old.

11. Contrary to popular social belief, it is NOT illegal to smoke tobacco products at any age. Parents are within the law to allow minors to smoke, and minors are within the law to smoke tobacco products freely. However, the SALE of tobacco products is highly regulated with legal legislation.

12. Smoking bans in many parts of the world have been employed as a means to stop smokers smoking in public. As a result, many social businesses have claimed a significant drop in the number of people who go out to pubs, bars and restaurants.

13. Scientists claim the average smoker will lose 14 years of their life due to smoking. This however does not necessarily mean that a smoker will die young – and they may still live out a ‘normal’ lifespan.

14. The U.S. states with the highest percentage of smokers are Kentucky (28.7%), Indiana (27.3%), and Tennessee (26.8%), while the states with the fewest are Utah (11.5%), California ( 15.2%), and Connecticut (16.5%).

15. Cigarettes can contain more than 4,000 ingredients, which, when burned, can also produce over 200 ‘compound’ chemicals. Many of these ‘compounds’ have been linked to lung damage.

16. The United States is the only major cigarette market in the world in which the percentage of women smoking cigarettes (22%) comes close to the number of men who smoke (35%). Europe has a slightly larger gap (46% of men smoke, 26% of women smoke), while most other regions have few women smokers. The stats: Africa (29% of men smoke, 4% of women smoke); Southeast Asia (44% of men, 4% of women), Western Pacific (60% of men, 8% of women)

17. Nicotine reaches the brain within 10 seconds after smoke is inhaled. It has been found in every part of the body and in breast milk.

18. Sugar approximates to roughly 20% of a cigarette, and many diabetics are unaware of this secret sugar intake. Also, the effect of burning sugar is unknown.

19. ‘Lite’ cigarettes are produced by infusing tobacco with CO2 and superheating it until the tobacco ‘puffs up’ like expanding foam. The expanded tobacco then fills the same paper tube as ‘regular’ tobacco.

20. Smokers draw on ‘lite’ and menthol cigarettes harder (on average) than regular cigarettes; causing the same overall levels of tar and nicotine to be consumed.

21. ‘Lite’ cigarettes are manufactured with air holes around the filter to aerate the smoke as it is drawn in. Many smokers have learned to cover these holes with their fingers or their lips to get a stronger hit.

22. The immune systems of smokers has to work harder every day than non-smokers. As a result, a smokers’ blood will contain less antioxidants, although a smokers immune system may be quicker to respond to virus attacks due to its more active nature.

23. Smokers often smoke after meals to ‘allow food to digest easier’. In fact, this works because the bodies priority moves away from the digestion of food in favor of protecting the blood cells and flushing toxins from the brain.

24. Some people (mostly males) can be aroused by the sight of smoker smoking (usually females). This is called the Smoking Fetish, and affects a small number of the population. As with most fetishes, the reason for this arousal can usually be traced back to incidents in childhood. However, cigarettes – particularly menthols, force blood away from the penis if smoked while aroused.

25. According to the World Health Organization, approximately 25% of cigarettes sold around the world are smuggled.

26. Most smokers take up the habit in their mid teens, well before the legal age for purchasing them, and is seen as a right of passage towards adulthood. Other perceived rights of passage include: aftershave, wearing stilettos, alcohol, drugs and sexual intercourse; with a combination of these sometimes being cited as the main causes of teenage pregnancy.

27. Smoking tobacco is the ultimate gateway drug in that it is legally available, and involves mastering a unique method of intake – much more so than alcohol (which has such a significant effect that users need look no further for stimulation). Smokers looking to get ‘high’ will very rarely do so from cigarettes after the initial stages of taking up the habit.

28. Smokers generally report a variety of after-effects; such as calmness, relaxation, alertness, stimulation, concentration and many others. In fact, smoking will produce a different effect in each individual depending on ‘what they expect to get’; turning the cigarette into the worlds most popular placebo (satisfying the brains hunger for nicotine being the only ‘relaxing’ factor). The smoker will then use these expectations as a means to continue the habit.

29. Several active ingredients and special methods of production are involved in making sure the nicotine in a cigarette is many times more potent than that of a tobacco plant.

30. ‘Toppings’ are added to the blended tobacco mix to add flavor and a taste unique to the manufacturer. Some of these toppings have included; clove, licorice, orange oil, apricot stone, lime oil, lavender oil, dill seed oil, cocoa, carrot oil, mace oil, myrrh, beet juice, bay leaf, oak, rum, vanilla, and vinegar.

These are not just the standard notorious murderers; these are some of the most horrific killers to have been found guilty of their crimes.

Robert ‘Ted’ Bundy (November 24, 1946 – January 24, 1989) is one of the most infamous serial killers in U.S. history. Bundy raped and murdered scores of young women across the United States between 1974 and 1978. After more than a decade of vigorous denials, Bundy eventually confessed to 30 murders, although the actual total of victims remains unknown. Typically, Bundy would rape then murder his victims by bludgeoning, and sometimes by strangulation. He also engaged in necrophilia.

He would approach a potential victim in a public place, even in daylight or in a crowd, as when he abducted Ott and Naslund at Lake Sammamish or when he kidnapped Leach from her school. Bundy had various ways of gaining a victim’s trust. Sometimes, he would feign injury, wearing his arm in a sling or wearing a fake cast, as in the murders of Hawkins, Rancourt, Ott, Naslund, and Cunningham. At other times Bundy would impersonate an authority figure; he pretended to be a policeman when approaching Carol DaRonch. The day before he killed Kimberly Leach, Bundy approached another young Florida girl pretending to be “Richard Burton, Fire Department,” but left hurriedly after her older brother arrived.

After luring a victim to his car, Bundy would hit her in the head with a crowbar he had placed underneath his Volkswagen or hidden inside it. Every recovered skull, except for that of Kimberly Leach, showed signs of blunt force trauma. Bundy often would drink alcohol prior to finding a victim.

On death row, Bundy admitted to decapitating at least a dozen of his victims with a hacksaw. He kept the severed heads later found on Taylor Mountain in his room or apartment for some time before finally disposing of them. Bundy also confessed to visiting his victims’ bodies over and over again at the Taylor Mountain body dump site. He stated that he would lie with them for hours, applying makeup to their corpses and having sex with their decomposing bodies until putrefaction forced him to abandon the remains.

Despite having five court-appointed lawyers, he insisted on acting as his own attorney and even cross-examined witnesses, including the police officer who had discovered Margaret Bowman’s body. The Judge, when passing sentence said:

“It is ordered that you be put to death by a current of electricity, that current be passed through your body until you are dead. Take care of yourself, young man. I say that to you sincerely; take care of yourself, please. It is an utter tragedy for this court to see such a total waste of humanity as I’ve experienced in this courtroom. You’re an intelligent young man. You’d have made a good lawyer, and I would have loved to have you practice in front of me, but you went another way, partner. Take care of yourself. I don’t feel any animosity toward you. I want you to know that. Once again, take care of yourself.”

Bundy was executed in the Electric Chair at 7:06 a.m. local time on January 24, 1989. His last words were “I’d like you to give my love to my family and friends.”

Javed Iqbal Mughal (1956?-2001) was a serial killer from Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan. He claimed he killed 100 boys during an 18 month period. He had been arrested in June 1998 for sexually abusing 2 boys for money. He went off on bail, and began murdering boys shortly afterwards. Iqbal found boys on the street, charmed them into his confidence, and then drugged, raped, and strangled them. He then cut the body into pieces and put them in a vat filled with hydrochloric acid. Once all of the remains were liquified, he dumped them. He first used the sewer, until neighbors complained of an acrid stench. He then decided to use the Ravi River. The partially liquified remains of two boys, one of whom was named Ijaz, were the only ones found of Iqbal’s victims. He kept the rest in an acid drum outside his house. He also kept clothing and shoes as trophies of his crimes. When he got to his fiftieth victim, he started taking pictures of them.

No one had noticed the disappearance of the boys that Iqbal killed. Iqbal claimed that he could have killed 500 if he had wanted to. He reportedly said “I am Javed Iqbal, killer of 100 children … I hate this world, I am not ashamed of my action and I am ready to die. I have no regrets. I killed 100 children.”

From a letter written by Iqbal:

“I had sexually assaulted 100 children before killing them,” read the first placard. “All the details of the murders are contained in the diary and the 32-page notebook that have been placed in the room and had also been sent to the authorities. This is my confessional statement.”

Iqbal was sentenced to death by hanging, although the judge said he would have liked Iqbal to be strangled 100 times, cut into 100 pieces, and put him in acid. Before this sentence could be carried out, he was found strangled with his bed sheets in his prison cell on October 7, 2001. One of his accomplices, Sajid, was also strangled. Pakistani authorities say that the men committed suicide. Another accomplice had previously fallen to his death from a CIA window.

John George Haigh (July 24, 1909 — August 10, 1949), the “Acid Bath Murderer”, was a serial killer in England during the 1940s. He was convicted of the murders of six people, although he claimed to have killed a total of nine, dissolving their bodies in sulphuric acid before forging papers in order to sell their possessions and collect substantial sums of money. He acted under the mistaken belief that police needed a body before they could bring a charge of murder. As a consequence, he was convicted through forensic evidence and executed on August 10, 1949.

After hiring rooms in Glouster Road, London, he bumped into an old wealthy boss William McSwann in the Goat pub in Kensington. McSwann introduced Haigh to his parents, Donald and Amy, who mentioned that they had invested in property. On 6 September, 1944, McSwann disappeared. Haigh later said he hit him over the head after luring him into a basement at 79 Gloucester Road, London SW7. He then put McSwann’s body into a 40-gallon drum and tipped sulphuric acid on to it. Two days later he returned to find the body had become sludge, which he poured down a manhole.

He told McSwann’s parents their son had fled to Scotland to avoid being called up for military service. Haigh then took over McSwann’s and when Don and Amy become curious about why their son had not returned after the war was coming to an end, he murdered them too. On July 2, 1945, he lured them to Gloucester Road and disposed of them.

Detectives soon discovered Haigh’s record of theft and fraud and searched the workshop. Police not only found Haigh’s attaché case containing a dry cleaner’s receipt for Mrs Durand-Deacon’s coat, but also papers referring to the Hendersons and McSwanns. Further investigation of the sludge at the workshop by the pathologist Keith Simpson revealed three human gallstones.

It was reported that Haigh, in the condemned cell at Wandsworth Prison, asked one of his jailers, Jack Morwood, whether it would be possible to have a trial run of his hanging so everything would run smoothly. It is likely his request went no further, or, if it did, the request was denied. Whatever the case, Haigh was led to the gallows by Chief Executioner Albert Pierrepoint on August 10, 1949.

Rader is an American serial killer who murdered at least 10 people in Sedgwick County (in and around Wichita), Kansas, between 1974 and 1991. He was known as the BTK killer (or the BTK strangler), which stands for Bind, Torture and Kill, an apt description of his modus operandi. Letters were written soon after the killings to police and to local news outlets, boasting of the crimes and knowledge of details. After a long hiatus these letters resumed in 2004, leading to his arrest in 2005 and subsequent conviction.

Using personal jargon for his killing equipment, Rader casually described his victims as his “projects” and at one point likened his murders to euthanizing animals by saying he “put them down.” Rader created what he called a “hit kit,” a briefcase or bowling bag containing the items he would use during murders: guns, tape, rope and handcuffs. He also packed what he called “hit clothes” that he would wear for the crimes and then dispose of. Rader bound, tortured, and killed his victims. Rader would strangle his victims until they lost consciousness, then let them revive, then strangle them again. He would repeat the pattern over and over again, forcing them to experience near-death, becoming sexually aroused at the sight of their struggles. Finally, Rader would strangle them to death and masturbate to ejaculation into an article of their clothing, usually underwear.

Rader was particularly known for sending taunting letters to police and newspapers. There were several communications from BTK during 1974 to 1979. The first was a letter that had been stashed in an engineering book in the Wichita Public Library in October 1974 that described in detail the killing of the Otero family in January of that year. In early 1978 he sent another letter to television station KAKE in Wichita claiming responsibility for the murders of the Oteros, Shirley Vian, Nancy Fox and another unidentified victim assumed to be Kathryn Bright. He suggested a number of possible names for himself, including the one that stuck: BTK

A sample of one of his letters:

The victims are tie up-most have been women-phone cut- bring some bondage mater sadist tendencies-no struggle, outside the death spot-no wintness except the Vain’s Kids. They were very lucky; a phone call save them. I was go-ng to tape the boys and put plastics bag over there head like I did Joseph, and Shirley. And then hang the girl. God-oh God what a beautiful sexual relief that would been. Josephine, when I hung her really turn me on; her pleading for mercy then the rope took whole, she helpless; staring at me with wide terror fill eyes the rope getting tighter-tighter.

Rader plead guilty and was sentenced to life in prison – a sentence he is currently still serving.

Kroll was a German serial killer and cannibal. He was known as the Ruhr Cannibal (Ruhrkannibale), and the Duisburg Man-Eater (Duisburger Menschenfresser). He was convicted of eight murders but confessed to a total of 13.

On July 3, 1976, Kroll was arrested for kidnapping and killing a four-year-old girl named Marion Ketter. As police went from home to home, a neighbor approached a policeman and told him that the waste-pipe in his apartment building had blocked up, and when he had asked his neighbor, Kroll, whether he knew what had been blocking the pipe, Kroll had simply replied; “Guts”. Upon this report, the police went up to Kroll’s apartment and found the body of the Ketter girl cut up: some parts were in the fridge, a hand was cooking in a pan of boiling water and the intestines were found stuck in the waste-pipe.

Kroll said that he often sliced portions of flesh from his victims to cook and eat them, claiming that he did this to save on his grocery bills. In custody, he believed that he was going to get a simple operation to cure him of his homicidal urges and would then be released from prison. Instead he was charged with eight murders and one attempted murder. In April 1982, after a 151-day trial, he was convicted on all counts and was given nine life sentences.

He died of a heart attack in 1991 in the prison of Rheinbach, near Bonn.

Andrei Chikatilo was a Ukrainian serial killer, nicknamed the Butcher of Rostov and ‘The Red Ripper.’ He was convicted of the murder of 53 women and children between 1978 and 1990. In 1978, Chikatilo moved to Shakhty, a small coal mining town near Rostov, where he committed his first documented murder. On December 22, he lured a nine-year-old girl to an old house which he bought in secret from his family and attempted to rape her. When the girl struggled, he stabbed her to death. He ejaculated in the process of knifing the child, and from then on he was only able to achieve sexual arousal and orgasm through stabbing and slashing women and children to death. Despite evidence linking Chikatilo to the girl’s death, a young man, Alexsandr Kravchenko, was arrested and later tried and executed for the crime.

He established a pattern of approaching runaways and young vagrants at bus or railway stations and enticing them to leave. A quick trip into a nearby forest was the scene for the victim’s death. In 1983, he did not kill until June, but then he murdered four victims before September. The victims were all women and children. The adult females were often prostitutes or homeless tramps who could be lured with promises of alcohol or money. Chikatilo would usually attempt intercourse with these victims, but would usually be unable to get an erection, which would send him into a murderous fury. The child victims were of both sexes, and Chikatilo would lure them away with his friendly, talkative manner by promising them toys or candy. In the USSR at the time, reports of crimes like child rape and serial murder were often suppressed by the state-controlled media, as such crimes were regarded as being common only in “hedonistic capitalist nations.”

In 1988 Chikatilo resumed killing, generally keeping his activities far from the Rostov area. He murdered a woman in Krasny-Sulin in April and went on to kill another eight people that year, including two victims in Shakhty. Again there was a long lapse before Chikatilo resumed killing, murdering seven boys and two women between January and November of 1990. He was finally caught when trying to approach young children whilst under police surveillance. He went to trial on April 14, 1992. Despite his odd and disruptive behavior in court, he was judged fit to stand trial. During the trial he was famously kept in a cage in the center of the courtroom; it was constructed for his own protection from the relatives of the deceased. The trial had a very disturbing atmosphere. The relatives kept shouting threats and insults to Chikatilo, demanding the authorities to release him so that they could execute him on their own. He was found guilty of 52 of the 53 murders and sentenced to death for each offense.

He was executed by firing squad (shot in the back of the head) on February 14, 1994 after Russian president Boris Yeltsin refused a last ditch appeal by Chikatilo for clemency.

Albert Fish, also known as the Gray Man, the Werewolf of Wysteria and possibly the Brooklyn Vampire, boasted that he molested over 100 children, and was a suspect in at least five killings. Fish confessed to three murders that police were able to trace to a known homicide, and confessed to stabbing at least two other people. He was put on trial for the murder of Grace Budd, and was convicted and executed.

Fish was visited in prison by the mother of his victim Billy Gaffney to get more details about the death of her son. Fish said:

[I c]ut one of my belts in half, slit these halves in six strips about 8 inches long. I whipped his bare behind till the blood ran from his legs. I cut off his ears, nose, slit his mouth from ear to ear. Gouged out his eyes. He was dead then. I stuck the knife in his belly and held my mouth to his body and drank his blood. I picked up four old potato sacks and gathered a pile of stones. Then I cut him up. I had a grip with me. I put his nose, ears and a few slices of his belly in the grip. Then I cut him through the middle of his body. Just below the belly button. Then through his legs about 2 inches below his behind. I put this in my grip with a lot of paper. I cut off the head, feet, arms, hands and the legs below the knee.

In addition to this horrifying description, Fish confessed to eating parts of Billy:

I made a stew out of his ears, nose, pieces of his face and belly. I put onions, carrots, turnips, celery, salt and pepper. It was good. Then I split the cheeks of his behind open, cut off his monkey and pee wees and washed them first. I put strips of bacon on each cheek of his behind and put them in the oven. Then I picked 4 onions and when the meat had roasted about 1/4 hour, I poured about a pint of water over it for gravy and put in the onions. At frequent intervals I basted his behind with a wooden spoon. So the meat would be nice and juicy. In about 2 hours, it was nice and brown, cooked through. I never ate any roast turkey that tasted half as good as his sweet fat little behind did.

At his trial, several psychiatrists testified about Fish’s sexual fetishes, including coprophilia, urophilia, pedophilia and masochism. X-rays of Fish’s pelvis show needles which he inserted in to his skin for sexual pleasure.

Dahmer murdered at least 17 men and boys between 1978 and 1991, with the majority of the murders occurring between 1989 and 1991. His murders were particularly gruesome, involving acts of forced sodomy, necrophilia, dismemberment, and cannibalism. Dahmer committed his first murder when he was 18, killing Steven Hicks, a 19 year-old hitchhiker. Dahmer invited Hicks to his house, and killed him because he “didn’t want him to leave.”

On September 25, 1988, he was arrested for sexually fondling a 13-year-old Laotian boy in Milwaukee, for which he served 10 months of a one year sentence in a work release camp. However, in 1988 there was not yet a law requiring offenders to register when convicted of a sex crime against a minor. He convinced the judge that he needed therapy, and he was released with a five-year probation on good behavior. Shortly thereafter, he began a string of murders that would end with his arrest in 1991.

In the early morning hours of May 27, 1991, 14-year-old Milwaukee Laotian Konerak Sinthasomphone (the younger brother of the boy Dahmer had molested) was discovered on the street, wandering nude. Reports of the boy’s injuries varied. Dahmer told police that they had an argument while drinking, and that Sinthasomphone was his 19 year-old lover. Against the teenager’s protests, police turned him over to Dahmer. They had no suspicions, but reported smelling a strange scent. That scent was later found to be bodies in the back of his room. Later that night Dahmer killed and dismembered Sinthasomphone, keeping his skull as a souvenir. By the summer of 1991, Dahmer was murdering approximately one person each week.

On July 22, 1991, Dahmer lured another man, Tracy (Traci) Edwards, into his home. According to the would-be victim, Dahmer struggled with Edwards in order to handcuff him. Edwards escaped and alerted a police car, with the handcuffs still hanging from one hand. Edwards led police back to Dahmer’s apartment. The story of Dahmer’s arrest and the gruesome inventory in his apartment quickly gained notoriety: several corpses were stored in acid-filled vats, severed heads were found in his refrigerator, and implements for the construction of an altar of candles and human skulls were found in his closet. Accusations soon surfaced that Dahmer had practiced necrophilia, cannibalism, and possibly a form of trepanation in order to create so-called “zombies.”

The court found Dahmer guilty on 15 counts of murder and sentenced him to 15 life terms, totalling 937 years in prison. At his sentencing hearing, Dahmer expressed remorse for his actions, also saying that he wished for his own death. On November 28, 1994, Dahmer and another inmate named Jesse Anderson were beaten to death by fellow inmate Christopher Scarver while on work detail in the prison gym. Dahmer died from severe head trauma in the ambulance en route to the hospital.

Richard Trenton Chase (May 23, 1950 – December 26, 1980) was an American serial killer who killed six people in the span of a month in California. He earned the nickname The Vampire of Sacramento due to his drinking of his victims’ blood and his cannibalism. He did this as part of a delusion that he needed to prevent Nazis from turning his blood into powder via poison they had planted beneath his soap dish.

On December 29, 1977, Chase killed his first victim in a drive-by shooting, Ambrose Griffin, a 51-year-old engineer and father of two. Chase’s next victim was Teresa Wallin. Three months pregnant, Teresa was surprised at her home by Chase, who shot her three times, killing her. He then had sex with the corpse and mutilated it, bathing in the dead woman’s blood. On January 27, Chase committed his final murders. Entering the home of 38-year-old Evelyn Miroth, he encountered her neighbor, Don Meredith, who he shot with the same .22 handgun. Stealing Meredith’s wallet and car keys, he rampaged through the house, fatally shooting Evelyn Miroth, her 6-year-old son Jason, and Miroth’s 22-month-old nephew, David. As with Teresa Wallin, Chase engaged in necrophilia and cannibalism with Miroth’s corpse. Chase returned to his home, where he drank David’s blood and ate several of the infant’s internal organs before disposing of the body at a nearby church. A witness saw him leaving the scene where he left perfect fingerprints and shoe-prints – leading to his arrest.

On May 8 Chase was found guilty of six counts of first degree murder and was sentenced to die in the gas chamber. Waiting to die, Chase became a feared presence in prison; the other inmates (including several gang members), aware of the graphic and bizarre nature of his crimes, feared him, and according to prison officials, they often tried to convince Chase to commit suicide. On December 26, 1980, a guard doing cell checks found Chase lying awkwardly on his bed, not breathing. An autopsy determined that he committed suicide with an overdose of prison doctor-prescribed antidepressants that he had been saving up over the last few weeks.

Gilles de Rais (a French nobleman) is considered to be the precursor to the modern serial killer. Before he began his killing spree, he rode as a military captain in the army lead by St Joan of Arc – though it is unlikely that she knew him. He was accused and ultimately convicted of torturing, raping and murdering dozens, if not hundreds, of young children, mainly boys.

According to surviving accounts, Rais lured children, mainly young boys who were blond haired and blue eyed (as he had been as a child), to his residences, and raped, tortured and mutilated them, often ejaculating, perhaps via masturbation, over the dying victim. He and his accomplices would then set up the severed heads of the children in order to judge which was the most fair. The precise number of Rais’s victims is not known, as most of the bodies were burned or buried. The number of murders is generally placed between 80 and 200; a few have conjectured numbers upwards of 600. The victims ranged in age from six to eighteen and included both sexes. Although Rais preferred boys, he would make do with young girls if circumstances required.

At the transcript of the trial, one of Gilles servants Henriet (an accomplice to his crimes) described the actions of his master, which were essentially:

Henriet soon began to collect children for his master, and was present whilst he massacred them. They were murdered invariably in one room at Machecoul. The marshal used to bathe in their blood; he was fond of making Gilles do Sillé, Pontou, or Henriet torture them, and he experienced intense pleasure in seeing them in their agonies. But his great passion was to welter in their blood. His servants would stab a child in the jugular vein, and let the blood squirt over him. The room was often steeped in blood. When the horrible deed was done, and the child was dead, the marshal would be filled with grief for what he had done, and would toss weeping and praying on a bed, or recite fervent prayers and litanies on his knees, whilst his servants washed the floor, and burned in the huge fireplace the bodies of the murdered children. With the bodies were burned the clothes and everything that had belonged to the little victims. An insupportable odour filled the room, but the Maréchal do Retz inhaled it with delight.

There is still so little known about outer space by modern science, but of that little we do know, there are some extraordinarily amazing things.

Fact: If two pieces of metal touch in space, they become permanently stuck together

This may sound unbelievable, but it is true. Two pieces of metal without any coating on them will form in to one piece in the vacuum of space. This doesn’t happen on earth because the atmosphere puts a layer of oxidized material between the surfaces. This might seem like it would be a big problem on the space station but as most tools used there have come from earth, they are already coated with material. In fact, the only evidence of this seen so far has been in experiments designed to provoke the reaction. This process is called cold welding.

Fact: Sunspot activity may be the primary reason for the beautiful sound of Stradivarius violins

Antonio Stradivari is considered to be the greatest violin maker ever. He lived in Italy in the 17th and 18th centuries. Scientists have been unable to work out what it is about his violins that makes them so incredible, but they do know that the timber used to make them is a very important contributing factor. From the 1500s to 1800s, the earth underwent a little ice age mostly due to increased volcanic activity and decreased solar activity (this is called the Maunder Minimum). As a result of this cooling, the types of trees that Stradivari used for his violins were particularly hard (due to slow growth). Hard timber is especially good when making violins. It is very probable that had Stradivari lived in a different age, his violins would not be prized as they are today. This picture above is made of three overlapping photos. It shows the rings in the spruce tree used to make the most famous Stradivarius violin, the “Messiah.” The first row of numbers gives the width of each ring in millimeters (one mm is about the thickness of a fingernail). The bottom row gives the years in which each ring grew.

Fact: Earth has at least 4 moons

Okay – that is not actually true – but it is very close. In 1986, Duncan Waldron discovered a asteroid (5km across) that is in an elliptic orbit around the sun with a period of revolution virtually identical to that of Earth. For this reason the planetoid and earth appear to be following each other. The periodic planetoid is named Cruithne (pronounced krin-yə) after an ancient group of Scottish people (also known as the Picts). Because of its unusual relationship with Earth, it is sometimes referred to as Earth’s second moon. Cruithne, is fainter than Pluto and would require at least a 12.5 inch reflecting telescope to attempt to be seen. Since its discovery, at least three other similar asteroids have been discovered. These types of objects are also found in similar relationships to other planets in our Solar System. In the image above (courtesy of Paul Wiegert), the earth is the blue circle with a cross in it, and Cruithne’s orbit is shown in yellow.

Fact: Uranus was originally called George’s Star

When Sir William Herschel discovered Uranus in 1781, he was given the honor of naming it. He chose to name it Georgium Sidus (George’s Star) after his new patron, King George III (Mad King George). This is what he said:

In the fabulous ages of ancient times the appellations of Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn were given to the Planets, as being the names of their principal heroes and divinities. In the present more philosophical era it would hardly be allowable to have recourse to the same method and call it Juno, Pallas, Apollo or Minerva, for a name to our new heavenly body. The first consideration of any particular event, or remarkable incident, seems to be its chronology: if in any future age it should be asked, when this last-found Planet was discovered? It would be a very satisfactory answer to say, ‘In the reign of King George the Third.’

Uranus was also the first planet to be discovered with the use of a telescope.

Fact: The Big Dipper is not a constellation, it is an asterism

Many people consider the big dipper to be a constellation but, in fact, it is an asterism. An asterism is a pattern of stars in the sky which is not one of the official 88 constellations; they are also composed of stars which are not physically related to each other and can be vast distances apart. An asterism can be composed of stars from one or more constellations – in the case of the Big Dipper, it is composed entirely of the seven brightest stars in the Ursa Major (Great Bear) constellation.

Fact: The Sun loses up to a billion kilograms a second due to solar winds

Solar winds are charged particles that are ejected from the upper surface of the sun due to the high temperature of the corona and the high kinetic energy particles gain through a process that is not well understood at this time. Also, did you know that 1 pinhead of the sun’s energy is enough to kill a person at a distance of 160 kilometers.

Fact: The light hitting the earth right now is 30 thousand years old

The energy in the sunlight we see today started out in the core of the Sun 30,000 years ago – it spent most of this time passing through the dense atoms that make the sun and just 8 minutes to reach us once it had left the Sun! The temperature at the core of the sun is 13,600,000 kelvins. All of the energy produced by fusion in the core must travel through many successive layers to the solar photosphere before it escapes into space as sunlight or kinetic energy of particles.

Fact: The moon is drifting away from Earth

Every year the moon moves about 3.8cm further away from the Earth. This is caused by tidal effects. Consequently, the earth is slowing in rotation by about 0.002 seconds per day per century. Scientists do not know how the moon was created, but the generally accepted theory suggests that a large Mars sized object hit the earth causing the Moon to splinter off.

Fact: We are moving through space at the rate of 530km a second

Our Galaxy – the Milky Way is spinning at a rate of 225 kilometers per second. In addition, the galaxy is travelling through space at the rate of 305 kilometers per second. This means that we are traveling at a total speed of 530 kilometers (330 miles) per second. That means that in one minute you are about 19 thousand kilometers away from where you were. Scientists do not all agree on the speed with which the Milky Way is travelling – estimates range from 130 – 1,000 km/s. It should be said that Einstein’s theory of relativity, the velocity of any object through space is not meaningful.

Fact: If you put Saturn in water it would float

The density of Saturn is so low that if you were to put it in a giant glass of water it would float. The actual density of Saturn is 0.687 g/cm3 while the density of water is 0.998 g/cm3. At the equator Saturn has a radius of 60,268 ± 4 km – which means you would need an extremely large glass of water to test this out.

Millions of iPad 2 units are already in the hands of consumers, and Apple's tablet is set to launch in several additional countries starting tomorrow. As with any product, sometimes users face manufacturing issues or other problems.

Here's a list of the problems and complaints surrounding the iPad 2 since launch:

Canceled orders. Apple spontaneously emailed many iPad 2 buyers to let them know a glitch in their system resulted in canceled orders. For those who had a shipping date 2-3 days out and are now facing 3-4 weeks before getting an iPad 2 this is a major bummer. Thankfully, most of the kinks in the system are probably worked out by now.

Backlight bleeding. Some iPad 2 displays have light leaks around the edge, or light patches in other places on the screen. These light leaks are not normal and are most obvious when viewing a dark image. You can check your iPad 2 display for defects including light leaks and dead pixels before contacting the Apple Genius Bar for an inspection.

Yellowing on screen. Discoloration has also been seen on some iPad 2 displays. Typically this disappears in a few days of use as bonding glue dries after production. Normally devices are not shipped so quickly after manufacturing, so the glue dries before you receive the iPad. Similar problems were seen on the iPhone 4 last year.

Wi-Fi issues. Similar to the connection problems experienced by original iPad owners last year, some iPad 2 owners are having problems staying connected to Wi-Fi networks. Firmware updates fixed the issue for most original iPad owners. Unfortunately, iPad 2 units that have dropped Wi-Fi connections already have the latest iOS firmware version 4.3 installed.

FaceTime freezing. Apple's video chat software reportedly is prone to freezing up. iPad 2 owners have experienced the app working properly, but then later not taking live video until the iPad is rebooted. An image of the last frame appears frozen in the app when this bug hits.

Microphone distortion. There are microphone sound quality differences between iPad 2 models. The 3G + Wi-Fi models feature a mic opening in plastic, while on Wi-Fi only models the mic is surrounded by aluminum. This has been shown to negatively affect sound quality on the 3G-enabled iPad 2.

Speaker quirks. A new speaker grille made its way onto the iPad 2, but audio quality is unchanged from the original iPad. Some have complained that the volume is lower, but keep in mind the new speaker design faces slightly backward, not just down. In any case, sometimes the iPad 2 doesn't register when headphones are removed and pipe sound to the speaker. Plugging them back in and unplugging again might help, but if the problem persists see Apple.

Mysterious heat. The iPad 2 is a computer, and heavy processing such as video gaming will produce heat in the circuitry and battery. Some warmth is normal, but an excessive amount could indicate a visit to Apple is in order. Thanks to its slimmer design and faster processor, some who have compared the iPad 2 to the original iPad have noted an increase in heat on the new tablet.

Poor quality camera. Sure, the front facing camera is expected to be low resolution for FaceTime. But the iPad 2 has a main camera that pales in comparison to current smartphone cameras. Sure it records HD video at 720p, but it snaps still photos at only 960 x 720 resolution. This clocks in at under one megapixel.

No improvement in screen resolution. Those looking for a Retina display or any improvement in the clarity of the iPad screen will be disappointed. The iPad 2 sports the exact same resolution as the original iPad.

If you're in the market for an iPad 2, be aware of these concerns now that the initial US launch is complete. As manufacturing problems are corrected less defects should arise. Rest assured that a visit to the Apple Store will resolve any warranty-related issues. For the rest, we'll have to look forward to new specs on the next generation iPad 3.