Showing posts with label Top World News. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Top World News. Show all posts

Duchess of Cambridge Celebrated her 30th birthday

prince william duchess of cambridge kate middleton war horse premiere
The Duchess of Cambridge turned 30 on 9th Jan, but there is no big party planned for the milestone -- instead she is said to be planning a "low-key" birthday.

On Sunday, the Duke and Duchess attended the star-studded UK premiere of Stephen Spielberg's "War Horse." Despite the rain, Kate wowed the crowds in London's Leicester Square in a black lace Alice Temperley gown -- accessorized with an umbrella, courtesy of her husband.

But Monday's festivities look set to be much quieter -- a St James's Palace spokesperson told CNN it would be an ordinary day for the Duke and Duchess, with any celebrations likely to be "private and low-key".

Her 30th birthday comes in the wake of a landmark year for Kate: The past 12 months have seen her take on her first royal engagements and marry into the monarchy in a ceremony watched by millions of people around the world.

Just weeks after the wedding, Kate and Prince William were greeted like rock stars when they took part in their first overseas tour together, visiting Canada and the United States. This year there are likely to be similar levels of excitement when the couple travels to Malaysia, Singapore, the Solomon Islands and Tuvalu, as part of the celebrations for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee.

And there is already fevered speculation as to whether the Duke and Duchess will welcome their own new addition to the royal family in the months to come.
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Ginza Tanaka unveils Solid Gold Christmas Tree Worth $2 Million

Gold Christmas Tree

For those of you who love Christmas but can’t stand falling needles and cheap plastic, Japanese jeweler Ginza Tanaka has created the ultimate Christmas tree – made of pure gold and worth a whopping $2 million.

After making a 24-karat gold horse for Japan’s newborn prince, and creating another tree worth $850,000, Ginza Tanaka decided to step it up even more and came up with a solid gold Christmas tree for this holiday season. Measuring 2.4 meters high and weighing around 12 kg, the luxurious tree is decorated with golden plates and around 60 heart-shaped ornaments, and covered with ribbon. It’s the most expensive thing Ginza Tanaka has ever made.

While $2 million is an impressive price for a Christmas tree, this is far from the most expensive tree ever. Just last year a seven-star hotel in Abu Dhabi exhibited a 13-meter-high evergreen Christmas tree decorated with silver and gold bows, ball-shaped ornaments, small white lights and expensive jewelry like necklaces and earrings hanging from its branches. It was worth $11 million.

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Boxing Legend 'Smokin' Joe' Frazier Dead at 67

Smokin Joe Frazier
Former world heavyweight boxing champion Joe Frazier, who was known for his personal and professional battles with Muhammad Ali, has died at the age of 67 after a brief fight with cancer.

The youngest of 12 children, Frazier was born in 1944 into a working-class family on a farm in the racially-segregated southeastern U.S. town of Beaufort, South Carolina. Frazier dreamed of becoming a prize fighter from an early age, watching boxing matches on his family's black-and-white television.

After fighting as an amateur for several years, Frazier won a gold medal for the United States at the 1964 Olympic Games.  But "Smokin' Joe" Frazier really made his name in the 1970s during his epic rivalry with boxing legend Muhammad Ali.

Frazier became the first man to beat Ali, winning the heavyweight title in 1971 in a dramatic, 15-round unanimous decision at New York's Madison Square Garden. Dubbed the "fight of the century," an estimated 300 million people worldwide viewed the match, which left both men hospitalized.

After Ali responded with a 12-round victory in 1974, the two men met in the Philippines for the famed "Thrilla in Manila," considered as one of the most famous sporting events in history. After battering each other for 14 rounds, Frazier was forcibly held back by his trainer after nearly being blinded by Ali's punches. Ali later said the match was the "closest thing to dying" that he had ever experienced.

The no-nonsense Frazier was often overshadowed by Ali's more aggressive and charismatic personality. Frazier resented being verbally attacked by Ali, who referred to him as a "gorilla" and accused Frazier of being too accommodating to the white-dominated society.

The two men remained bitter enemies for decades. But in later years, Frazier came to forgive Ali, saying he felt no bitterness against him for his attacks outside the ring. Ali also later apologized, saying the insults were only meant to promote the fights.

Ali said in a statement late Monday that "the world has lost a great champion," and that he will always remember Joe with "respect and admiration."

Frazier's aggressiveness, close-range style and devastating left hook compensated for his relative small size. He weighed just 93 kilograms - considered small for a heavyweight boxer. Frazier retired in 1976 with a record of 32 wins, 4 losses and 1 draw.

The boxing icon's family said late Monday that he died in his adopted hometown of Philadelphia - one month after being diagnosed with an advanced form of liver cancer.
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Newfound Raptor Dinosaur had 'Switchblade' Killing Claws

Raptor Dinosaur
Battle damage linked to the fearsome curving talon of a newly discovered dinosaur relative of Velociraptor is shedding light on how it was used as a weapon, scientists find.

This research also adds to the mysterious complexity seen in the lost continent where this fossil was found, researchers added.

The newfound 75-million-year-old dinosaur is a feathered raptor named Talos sampsoni — "Talos" in homage to a winged bronze giant in Greek mythology that could run at lightning speed and that succumbed to a wound to his ankle, "sampsoni" in honor of Scott Sampson of the PBS series "Dinosaur Train," and a research curator at the Utah Museum of Natural History.

Fossilized remains are all that's left of the once mighty dinosaurs that dominated our planet. Here, the most recent finds from these ancient beasts.

The raptor dinosaurs, made famous by the book and film "Jurassic Park," all possessed unusually large, sickle-like claws on the second toes of each foot, which they held off the ground like folded switchblades.

A famous discovery made in Mongolia 30 years ago seemingly of a Velociraptor locked in mortal combat with prey — fossils dubbed the "fighting dinosaurs" — suggested these talons were used as weapons. Now the injured claw of Talos sheds even more light on how they lived with these weapons.
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Wooly Rhino Fossil Found in Tibet

High on the Tibetan Plateau, paleontologists have discovered the skull of a previously unknown species of ancient rhino, a woolly furred animal that came equipped with a built-in snow shovel on its face.

This curiosity, a flat, paddle-like horn that would have allowed it to brush away snow and find vegetation beneath, suggests the woolly rhinoceros was well-adapted for a cold, icy life in the Himalayas about 1 million years before the Ice Age. Those adaptations may have left the rhino perfectly poised to spread across Asia when global temperatures plummeted, ushering in the Ice Age.

"We think that the Tibetan Plateau may be a cradle for the origins of some of the Ice Age giants," said study author Xiaoming Wang, a curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles. Such large, furry mammals ruled the world during Earth's cold snap from 2.6 million to about 12,000 years ago. "It just happens to have the right environment to basically let animals acclimate themselves and be ready for the Ice Age cold."
Wang and his colleagues uncovered the complete rhino skull and lower jaw, along with a neck vertebra, in southwestern Tibet. The 3-foot-long (1 meter) skull is 3.7 million years old. It would have belonged to an animal that weighed 1.2 to 1.4 tons (1,090 to 1,270 kilograms), Wang said. That's close to the size of modern rhinoceroses and about 10 percent smaller than the woolly rhinos found a million years later during the Ice Age. The new rhino has been dubbed Coelodonta thibetan.

No impressions of hair were found, but based on rhino hairs preserved in permafrost in Siberia, the researchers believe this rhino would have been covered with long hairs much like the fur of a modern yak. But the most notable feature of the rhino skull was its large front horn, which was flattened to form a paddle.

"The horn is leaning forward; it's tilting forward from the nose," Wang said. "That is in line with the adaptation of snow-sweeping, so the animal does not have to strain its neck as much as it tries to sweep the snow."

The rhino had another feature that would have made it a master of winter weather. The teeth have high crowns, making them more durable and able to handle tough, high-altitude vegetation.
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Julian Pavone is World's Youngest Professional Drummer

Julian Pavone
Guinness World Records has recognized a U.S. boy as the youngest professional drummer. Julian Pavone was certified as of March 21, 2010, when he was 5 years 10 months and 3 days old, Guinness announced Tuesday.

The rules for London-based Guinness say a drummer must play on at least one commercial record and be paid for the work. The drummer also must have given at least 20 concerts of 45 minutes or longer within five years. Julian is 7 and lives outside Detroit.

His drummer-father, Bernie Pavone, said Julian's percussion background dates back before birth.

“I used to play music on my wife's stomach all the time when she was pregnant with Julian,” Guinness quoted the father as saying.

Julian has appeared on about 150 television and news shows, including “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” “Good Morning America,” “Martha Stewart,” “The Maury Show,” “FOX News Dayside” and “Inside Edition.”

The previous record holder was Tiger Onitsuka of Japan, who was recognized at age 9 years, 9 months.
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Hamid Karzai advisor, lawmaker shot dead in Kabul

Jan Mohammad Khan, an advisor to Afghan President Hamid Karzai and a former provincial governor, was shot dead along with a visiting lawmaker during a raid on his home by gunmen, Xinhua reported.

The attack occurred around 8:00 pm on Sunday. MP Hashim Watanwal who was visiting Khan's home in Kabul's kartai Char area was also killed, an official said requesting anonymity. One of the attackers died in the firefight between his guards and the militants. A police officer was injured.

Witnesses said there were two or three attackers. Afghan and Nato-led troops cordoned off the area. Zabiullah Mujahid, purported Taliban spokesman, said in an email statement to the media that his group carried out the attack. He said Khan was killed as he was helping the coalition forces in carrying out raids against the group.

Khan, a member of Popolzai Pashtun tribe, was governor of southern Uruzgan province from January 2002 to March 2006. Khan's killing comes less than a week after Karzai's half-brother Ahmed Wali Karzai was assassinated by Taliban militants at his home in Kandhar on Tuesday.
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Ukrainian Artist Constructs Wooden Miniature Bikes By Woodcarving


The Lvov-based artist dreamed of owning a motorcycle ever since he was just a kid, and rode his first one in the seventh grade. At the same time he was always fascinated in hand-made miniatures, and developed a passion for woodcarving. So even though he couldn’t afford to buy himself a real motorcycle, he found that he could create his own perfect wooden replicas.

The idea of making his first 1:12 scale wooden motorcycle first came to Vyacheslav a year and a half ago, and it promptly turned into a hobby. He was motivated by some other motorcycle miniatures he had seen online, and wanted to see if he could make his own, from wood. In the beginning, he had some doubts he could really pull it off, but after figuring out what kind of wood to use for each component, things started going smoothly. He finished his first bike and noticed that every new one he created looked enhanced than the last.



Vyacheslav Voronovich believes the choice of the right wood spirit is crucial for his art, because every type of wood has its own exclusive characteristics. Pine is easier to work with than oak or beech, but it doesn’t even come close to them in terms of aesthetics. The most hard task is to create the tiny components (handlebars, rear-view mirrors, gear shifters, turn signals, brake discs, etc.), because they often tend to break when they’re nearly completed, and he has to start all over again. But seeing as he only works with a common cutter with disposable blades, he does a pretty splendid job.

The artist’s collection already numbers three choppers he made based on his own taste, and two sports bike replicas of the Honda CBR1000 RR and the Suzuki GSX-R600. He is at present working on a wooden replica of the Honda VT1300 CS cruiser, for which he’s using a new wood-bending expertise to make the handlebars and the frame.

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Extinction Of 'Arabian unicorn' Saved


The return of wild Oryx to the deserts of the Arabian Peninsula is being hailed as a conservation achievement story.

The latest International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species states that the wild population of the two-horned antelope species now stands at around 1,000, nearly 40 years after the last wild animal was hunted and killed.

"To have brought the Arabian Oryx back from the edge of extinction is a major feat, one which we hope will be recurring many times over for other threatened species," said Razan Khalifa Al Mubarak, Director General of the Environment Agency -- Abu Dhabi.

The species is now listed as "vulnerable" and is the first time an animal listed as "extinct in the wild" has enhanced its status by three categories.

The turn-around has been the result of conservation efforts that began in 1982 in Oman. Captive bred oryx were effectively released back into the desert habitats of the country and then in regions of Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Israel and Jordan.

Known locally as Al Maha, the Arabian Oryx is thought to be exclusively adapted to living in harsh, dry environments with its ability to smell water from miles away.

It is thought that it was also the source of the unicorn legend, as when viewed in profile the two horns appear as one.

Eight new species of amphibians are classified as decisively endangered, just one place from "extinct in the wild." The IUCN says that amphibians are one of the most threatened species groups with an estimated 41% at risk of extinction.

The main threats come from habitat loss, pollution, diseases and invasive species.

The IUCN estimates that human impact has meant extinctions are happening at anything between 100 and 1,000 times the natural rate.
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Michel Lepire Wins Hampton Beach Sand Sculpting 2011 Award


The 11th Annual Master Sand Sculpting Competition in Hampton Beach, NH completed its competition on Saturday. The first place winner was Marc Lepire from Charlesbourg, Quebec, Canada with a sculpture titled "Phase Shifter." Lepire wins a cash prize of $3,000 and a trip to the World Solo Championships in Fort Myers Beach, FL.

Karen Fralich from Bulington, Ontario, Canada took second place with the sculpture, "There Was an Old Woman Who Sends Her Kids to Summer Camp." Third place went to Justin Gordon from Groveland, Massachusetts, for his sculpture "And they Ride Among us." Fourth place was the sculpture "Morphobia" made by Guy-Olivier Deveau of Quebec City, Canada. And fifth place went to Carl Jara of Lyndhurst, Ohio with the sculpture "Lamb."

The "People's Choice" Award was given to Michel Lepire from Charlesbourg, Quebec, Canada for the intricately designed sculpture, "Prestine Nature."


The "Sculptor's Choice" reward was given to Marc Lepire for his piece, "Phase Shifter."

The sculptures this year ranged from a gratifying set of hands holding baby's feet to a depiction of the Old Woman in the Shoe to a nod to Boston Bruins' with a sculpture of M.V.P. Tim Thomas.

The sculptors carved over three days, from June 23-25, to full their own private sculpture using 10 tons of sand. Voting took place and awards were given out on Saturday, June 25 and the Awards Presentation took place at 8 p.m. on the Sea Shell Stage. The band the Continentals provided musical entertainment.

The sculptures will stay on display through June 29th, and will be lit for night viewing.
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Yoda Crowned World's Ugliest Dog 2011


A 1.8-pound scruffy mutt named Yoda who has been mistaken for a rat won the World's Ugliest Dog title for 2011 t at the Sonoma-Marin Fair in Petaluma.

Yoda won a trophy 15 times her size and $1,000. The beady-eyed pooch also gets a picture shoot and an overnight stay in the Loft Suite at the Sheraton Sonoma County, according to fair officials.


Her owner, Terry Devine Schumacher, said her daughter found Yoga in a grassland 14 years ago when the pup was 2.

"I told her to put it down because I thought it was a rat," Schumacher said.

Fair officials permitted the spectators to vote this year via text. Other favorites in the 23rd annual contest were Icky, Cuda, Handsome Hector and Ratdog.
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$2 Million Worth Of Antique Dolls Collected By Doll Addict


Kathy Libraty, an antique doll collector from Brooklyn, New York, has spent the last 25 years searching for antique dolls, and now has an inspiring collection of over 1,000 objects that’s worth around $2 million.

Believe it or not, Kathy’s attraction with dolls didn’t start when she was a little girl. In fact she remembers she was more of a tomboy and had no real interest in dolls or any girly stuff. Born in France, she and her parents immigrated to the US when she was only 4. After graduating from Brooklyn College with a BA in Art, her zeal for photography took her to Europe and the Middle East, where she took a real concern in history and old art. When she and her husband, Frank, bought an old Victorian house, Kathy decided to pursue her love for antiques and started attending country auctions. She was intrigued that people sometimes remunerated large amounts of money for wigless doll heads, broken limbs and crooked-eye dolls, but not enough to start spending money on them, herself.


It wasn’t until one day, 25 years ago, that Kathy Libraty actually became addicted to collecting antique dolls. She and Frank were driving around the neighborhood when they saw a man emptying boxes of antiques into a dumpster. She saw a doll’s leg sticking out and told Frank to stop the car. They went up to the man and asked him if he was going to chuck all those things away, and he just replied “Yeah, it’s all grimy old junk”, so they offered to take it off his hands. When they got home and looked through the “junk” they found a rare 24″ George Borgfeldt doll, numerous composition mama dolls, and a broken bisque Cuno and Otto Dressel Shoulder head doll. She often wondered what other treasures that man had thrown away in the dumpster that day, but the wonders she managed to get her hands on stimulated her to go out into the world and discover her own priceless treasures.
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New Lytro Light-Field Camera Allows You Focus After You Shoot


An American company says it has developed a camera that can focus pictures - after they have been taken.

Californian firm Lytro says its camera uses a light field sensor to capture more visual information from a scene than a traditional camera.

By capturing all existing light data emitted from a scene, including the direction of light rays, photos can be manipulated with computer software to change the focus from foreground to background, or to change the image from 2D to 3D.


Bringing the image into focus later also avoids "shutter lag" - the small delay between pushing a shutter button and a picture being taken - caused by mechanical focusing.

Capturing more light information should also permit for clearer photos in dark rooms and other low-light situations, they said.

"To make an analogy with a music-recording studio, taking a conventional photograph is like recording all the musicians playing together, rather than recording every instrument on a separate audio track," company founder Ren Ng wrote in his PhD dissertation on the technology.

Prototypes of the camera are being tested but it is not yet accessible to consumers.
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Rocket Ruin’s A Family's Life In Libya's Misrata


Twelve-year-old Faraj Abu Shaiba is burned and in distress but somehow he manages a weak smile from his hospital bed.

Monday evening, a rocket fired by forces loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi slammed into his home in Misrata's Ruwaisat neighborhood.

Faraj's 14-year-old brother, Ibrahim, was killed instantaneously washing his hands at the sink before evening prayers.

"I found this place was on fire," said Ibrahim's uncle, Abdallah, who rushed to the house when he heard the blast. "I threw water on him, and then took him to the ambulance. But he was already dead."

Three rockets hit Misrata Monday evening in quick sequence all packed with metal balls.

"We were sitting at home, the whole family," said Ibrahim's father, Ali. "We didn't know what happened."

The father received burns to his arms and legs. Ibrahim's mother, Fatima, was also wounded in the attack.

"She has got second degree burns to both legs. Both limbs and the face," said Dr. Mohammed Froka. "She has first degree burns on the face. But her situation when she was brought here was a little bit critical."

The day before the attack, the mother gave birth to a son. The family has named him Ibrahim, after the brother who died in the attack.

The older Ibrahim was buried Monday night, just hours after he was killed -- the latest grave in this city's rapidly growing cemeteries.
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Atomic Reactor Turns Into Popular Amusement Park


Wunderland Kalkar is an exclusive amusement park built on the site of a never-used power plant, complete with a fast breeder reactor, in Kalkar, Germany.

Construction of the Kalkar nuclear plant began in 1972, but was constantly delayed due to technical difficulties and protests from those anxious about the security of nuclear power. When it was completed, over 10 year later, authorities decided to pull the plug on the project, and the $4 billion complex was dismantled in less than a decade. The fast breeder reactor remained in place, and in 1995 Dutch entrepreneur Hennie van der Most bought what was left of the Kalkar plant for a mere €2.5 million and managed to turn it into a lucrative amusement park visited by over 600,000 people, every year.


Wunderland Kalkar has around 40 rides, for children and adults alike, and a 400-bed hotel. Among the most motivating features of the park are the swing ride set up inside the cooling facility, and the climbing wall on its outer walls. Also, chairoplanes, quad bikes, go-karts and a whole bunch of other fun gadgets make trips to Wunderland Kalkar a blast for the entire family.
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Floating Japanese Photographer Captures Herself ‘Levitating’


Japanese photographer Natsumi Hayashi has created a new brand of photography, with pictures that seem to challenge gravity. Though it may look like she's floating naturally in the air, it took hard work to pull off these pics.

At a young age, Natsumi Hayashi had a revelation: Keeping both feet on the ground is hyped.



“I got a thought from an English idiom that says ‘to have one’s feet firmly planted on the ground’ applies to a practical type of person,” Hayashi said in an interview. “In Japan, we have the exact same idiom. But I am not a practical person at all. Therefore, I try not to have my feet on the ground in my self-portrait photos to show my true self.”


Her self-portraits are so fanciful and unforgettable that they’re sparking an Internet sensation and garnering attention all over the globe. What makes them so unusual? Well, for starters, in each photograph Hayashi appears to be levitating.

She achieves this state of mid-air wizardry by jumping up and down.
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Iconic Dress Of Marilyn Monroe Sold For $5.6 Million


Marilyn Monroe's white "subway" dress sold for more than $5.6 million in a Beverly Hills, California sale in which bidders paid another $2.7 million for three other Monroe movie outfits.

It was the first in a series of auctions to sell the huge Hollywood history collection that singer, dancer and actress Debbie Reynolds accumulated over the past 50 years.

Collector Keya Morgan said bids were "totally crazy, particularly in this recession."

Bidding for the iconic ivory pleated dress Monroe wore in "The Seven Year Itch" was "completely magical," Morgan said.

With the auction company getting a $1 million commission, the buyer will pay $5.6 million. It had been predictable to sell for $2 million, the auction house, Profiles in History, said.

Other items sold at the auction included a blue cotton dress and a pair of ruby slippers made for Judy Garland in the 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz. Although both items were only test costumes never worn in camera, they fetched a combined value of nearly $1.75 million.

A bowler hat worn by Charlie Chaplin in numerous films sold for $135,300.

Racing silks and riding pants worn by a young Elizabeth Taylor in "National Velvet fetched $73,800.
Get custom made wristbands with desired color, message and stylish artworks.
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Triplets Of Rare Snow Leopard debut In Swiss Zoo


Rare snow leopard triplets have made their first public appearance at Basel Zoo in northwestern Switzerland. The zoo showed off the eight-week-old cubs beside their mother, Mayhan and father, Pator.

Mayhan, the cubs' mother, was paired with father Pator in 2009 as part of a Europe-wide zoo breeding program. The pregnancy was confirmed in January this year.

The zoo said the cubs, which are still being suckled by their mother, are probable to remain in Basel for their first three years but will later travel as ambassadors for their endangered species.

Snow leopards are an endangered species and only 4,000-6,000 are supposed to still live in the wild.

They are mainly found in the mountains of Central Asia and the Himalayas.

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Man Married To A Mannequin Out Of His True Love


Ned Nefner, 38, is gladly married to his 6-foot-tall mannequin wife, Teagan. The two met back in the ‘80s when Ned spent some time in a Children’s Home. Teagan was just a head when they began their relationship. Over time, he built her a body and ultimately the two were married in 1986.

There are a couple of Facebook pages for Nefer, including the "Syracuse Mannequin Man" and "The guy pushing the manequin." Everyone seems to want to help him, giving him food and noting where they've seen him. And many people talk about Ned's love of Teagan.

A social welfare auditor told the paper, "This is definitely one of the very oddest things I've ever come across, but he seems very happy. I wouldn't sort him as dangerous at all. He seemed quite happy in his own little world."
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Artist Larry Moss Recreates Famous Icons Using Balloons


If Japan is famous for Origami paper folding art show originality and creativity, but now Americans are pompous to variations in this art with balloons, to create files named Airigami very soul, according to news. One of the authors of the balloon was "twisted" Larry Moss is from Rochester (New York, USA).



The Rochester-based artist creates Airigami, which translates as the fine art of folding air, and his delicate masterpieces are by far the most detailed balloon sculptures I have ever seen. Moss uses latex balloons to create all kinds of installations, from giant sculptures to wearable fashion objects, and even intricate replicas of some of the world’s most famous icons and Spinosaurus (Dinosaur Entirely of Balloons.

Among his most impressive works are recreations of Boticelli’s Birth of Venus and Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa.
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