An anonymous reader writes "Dubai's dubious building boom has spawned a new architecture of unparalleled excess — one needn't look further than the desert region's ski slope, refrigerated beach and proposed ice cube lodge to find proof. However as of late the emirate's blustery building pace has lost its muster, and the latest mega-project to go south is The World, an archipelago of manmade islands modeled after the seven continents that seems to have sprung a leak. According to a new report issued by a property tribunal, the crumbling series of ill-fated isles is sinking like Atlantis into the sea."

If the strain of constantly typing emoticons is killing your fingers, and you've been reprimanded at work for typing :-( when you meant :-) the Emoticon Keyboard may be the answer to your prayers. The tiny keyboard connects via USB and ensures you'll never type the wrong emotion again. The only flaw I see is the lack of a giant LOL key.

The Redditch Borough Council has come up with a brilliant plan to save money heating the public swimming pool. They plan to let the local crematorium do it. If the proposal goes through, the Abbey Stadium Sports Centre will be heated from the furnaces of Redditch Cemeteries & Crematorium. From the article: "But local people have expressed concerns at the proposals, branding them 'eerie'. Simon Thomas, of Thomas Brothers Funeral Directors, said: 'I don't know how comfortable people would feel about the swimming pool being heated due to the death of a loved one, I think it's a bit strange and eerie. I'm not comfortable with it at all and I think trying to save money due to the death of someone's family member or friend is a bit sick. I think it will cause uproar and may even put people off using the facilities which would lose the council money." I guess this is one way to get the goth kids swimming.

angry tapir writes "Pope Benedict XVI Monday gave his blessing to social networking, urging Catholic Internet users to adopt a respectful Christian netiquette when spreading the Gospel online. The pope said new technologies were creating unprecedented opportunities for establishing relationships and building fellowship but warned against creating false online profiles out of vanity or diluting the Christian message to achieve popularity."

New research suggests that in addition to being one of history's cruelest conquerors, Genghis Khan may have been the greenest. It is estimated that the Mongol leader's invasions unintentionally scrubbed almost 700 million tons of carbon from the atmosphere. From the article: "Over the course of the century and a half run of the Mongol Empire, about 22 percent of the world's total land area had been conquered and an estimated 40 million people were slaughtered by the horse-driven, bow-wielding hordes. Depopulation over such a large swathe of land meant that countless numbers of cultivated fields eventually returned to forests. In other words, one effect of Genghis Khan's unrelenting invasion was widespread reforestation, and the re-growth of those forests meant that more carbon could be absorbed from the atmosphere." I guess everyone has their good points.

20 years after the fall of communism the United Russia party wants to ask the Russian people if they think Vladimir Lenin should be buried. Unlike the US, where we would put the body in a house with other famous dead people, and let the TV audience vote on who gets buried, they've decided to put up a poll. From the article: "It is not clear whether the government intends to abide by the outcome of the United Russia party's poll, but Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has said that the fate of Lenin's body will in the end be decided by the Russian people."

The USDA demands that something labeled "ground beef" contain at least 70% beef, and if you're going to call something "taco filling," it must contain "at least 40 percent fresh meat." The Beasley Allen law firm claims that Taco Bell doesn't follow these guidelines, and has filed a class action suit against the restaurant chain. According to the firm, what Taco Bell is marketing as beef only contains 36% meat. Sadly, the firm made no comment on the actual composition of Nachos Bellgrande.

wdef writes "From the Wall Street Journal: 'Chariot, a 1,500-pound, single-humped camel with spittle hanging from his lips and pompoms in his tail, just won the first-ever beauty contest at Turkey's annual camel fighting competition. According to the pageant's four stony-faced judges, Chariot had better muscle tone, prettier adornments and a more elegant tail wag as he strutted along a catwalk of rugs to the sound of Turkish pipes and drums last weekend. Plus, they said, he had exceptionally good teeth.'"

iadude writes "Gena, a 14-year-old crocodile at an aquarium in the eastern city of Dnipropetrovsk, has been refusing food and acting listless after eating a cell phone dropped by a woman as she tried to photograph him. From the article: 'Aquarium workers initially didn't believe Rimma Golovko, a new mother in her 20s, when she complained that the crocodile had swallowed her phone. "But then the phone started ringing and the sound was coming from inside our Gena's stomach and we understood she wasn't lying," said Alexandra, an employee who declined to give her last name as she wasn't authorized to speak publicly.'" Things just got twice as dangerous for Captain Hook.

dbune writes "Young people who argue with their parents over wearing the same pair of smelly jeans can now cite the work of a 20-year old University of Alberta student who wore the same jeans for 15 months straight. From the article: 'Josh Le wore the same pair of jeans to break in the raw denim, so it would wrap the contours of his body, leaving distinct wear lines. He had his textile professor test the jeans for bacteria before washing them for the first time. The results showed high counts of five different kinds of bacteria, but nothing in the range of being considered a health hazard."

cylonlover writes "At this week's SHOT Show in Las Vegas, TASER introduced its TASER Wildlife Electronic Control Device (ECD) that has been developed as an alternative tool for less effective methods of animal control used by wildlife professionals like chemical or acoustic repellents. The wildlife specific model is a three-shot, semi-automatic that can deliver a pulse from up to 35 feet (10.6 m) away and is designed for use on large animals like bears and elk."

Damien1972 writes "Its taste has been described between a delicious custard and old gym socks, but the durian fruit is considered a delicacy in much of Southeast Asia. Still, even durian lovers may be uncomfortable with the idea of eating the fruit after it has been consumed and expelled by a wild Asian elephant. But according to the New Straits Times, wealthy businessmen are willing to pay over $300 for a sample of elephant-ingested durian, which they believe acts as an aphrodisiac."

If you've always wanted to try to eat a lion, but were afraid of being eaten first, a Tucson restaurant has just the thing for you. Boca Tacos y Tequila is now offering customers lion tacos. From the article: "Boca Tacos y Tequila has already drawn the ire of animal rights activists on its Facebook page for the announcement. But owner Bryan Mazon says that curious customers are already making reservations to try the new delicacy, to be offered on 'exotic tacos night' - every Wednesday starting from February 16."

13-year-old Walter Acre was encircled by wolves while walking home from school, but luckily for him he had some Megadeth on his phone. From the article: "Just as they seemed set to attack, the petrified youngster pulled out his phone and cranked out a song by Megadeth. Walter had previously been told not to run away from wolves but to face them and attempt to scare them away. And sure enough, the tactic worked as the sound of heavy metal music sent the animals scattering in confusion."

Researchers from Rice University have found a type of amoeba that practices a sort of "primitive farming behavior." When their bacteria food become scarce, the Dictyostelium discoideum will group together and form a "fruiting body" that will disperse bacteria spores to a new area. From the article: "The behavior falls short of the kind of 'farming' that more advanced animals do; ants, for example, nurture a single fungus species that no longer exists in the wild. But the idea that an amoeba that spends much of its life as a single-celled organism could hold short of consuming a food supply before decamping is an astonishing one. More than just a snack for the journey of dispersal, the idea is that the bacteria that travel with the spores can 'seed' a new bacterial colony, and thus a food source in case the new locale should be lacking in bacteria." It's good to know that even a single celled creature is not immune to the pull of Farmville.

A group of teenage thieves didn't get the buzz they were looking for after mistaking the cremated remains of a man and two dogs for cocaine. According to a sheriff's report: "The ashes that were taken from the house had been taken because the suspects mistook it for either cocaine or heroin. During the conversation, it was learned that the suspects had snorted the ashes believing they were snorting cocaine." After realizing that they had cremation congestion instead of a free high, the burglars threw the remains in a lake. Police divers are trying to recover the ashes.

An anonymous reader writes "Here's an example of fine Qwest workmanship. In our business park, they just installed a DSL connection for our neighbors, for which we share an exterior utility space. They left: a DSL modem stuffed in a cardboard box, wrapped in a Wal-Mart bag, sitting outside in what will be below-zero (F) temps, on top of a bank of ten natural gas meters in some of the driest air of the year. They also left it plugged into an exposed exterior power outlet above a snowbank, with network cables running around the building, through snowbanks, coupled and protected by zip-lock baggies, and into our neighbors office. Not to mention the hack-job of patching the phone cable directly into the demarcation box. And if you're wondering — I was told upon calling them that this is not their problem, and I need to contact my primary phone service provider."

Stoobalou writes "Playboy boss Hugh Hefner has confirmed that — despite Steve Jobs' protestations that Apple is pure and Android is for porn — an app for browsing uncensored back issues of Playboy is to launch later this year on the iPad. The news, which is likely to generate significantly more buzz for Apple's popular tablet as a publishing device than Rupert Murdoch's delayed digital newspaper The Daily, comes courtesy of Hefner's Twitter stream, in which he proclaimed: 'Big news! Playboy — both old & new — will be available on [the] iPad beginning in March.'"

According to Wang Han-chin his neighbors have made his life unbearable by teaching their mynah bird to curse at him. Wang claims that whenever he leaves his house the bird calls out, "Clueless big-mouthed idiot!" From the article: "He pressed charges, but the neighbours denied instructing the bird to curse and prosecutors decided to drop the charges due to insufficient evidence linking the bird to his injuries, it added."

As if the flood waters weren't bad enough for the people of Queensland, it now appears that there are sharks swimming in the streets. Two bull sharks were spotted swimming past a McDonald’s in the city of Goodna, Butcher Steve Bateman saw another making its way past his shop on Williams street. Ipswich councillor for the Goodna region Paul Tully said: "It would have swam several kilometres in from the river, across Evan Marginson Park and the motorway. It’s definitely a first for Goodna, to have a shark in the main street."