World's tallest woman dies in Indiana at age 53

A woman who grew to be 7 feet, 7 inches tall and was recognized as the world's tallest female died Wednesday, a friend said. She was 53.

Sandy Allen, who used her height to inspire schoolchildren to accept those who are different, died at a nursing home in her hometown of Shelbyville, family friend Rita Rose said.

The cause of death was not yet known. Allen had been hospitalized in recent months as she suffered from a recurring blood infection, along with diabetes, breathing troubles and kidney failure, Rose said.

In London, Guinness World Records spokesman Damian Field confirmed Wednesday that Allen was still listed as the tallest woman. Some Web sites cite a 7-foot-9 woman from China.

Coincidentally, Allen lived in the same nursing home, Heritage House Convalescent Center, as 115-year-old Edna Parker, whom Guinness has recognized as the world's oldest person since August 2007.

Allen said a tumor caused her pituitary gland to produce too much growth hormone. She underwent an operation in 1977 to stop further growth.

But she was proud of her height, Rose said. "She embraced it," she said. "She used it as a tool to educate people."

Allen appeared on television shows and spoke to church and school groups to bring youngsters her message that it was all right to be different.

After Allen was listed by Guinness as the world's tallest woman, she won a role in Federico Fellini's 1976 film "Casanova," appearing as "Angelina the Giantess." She was featured in the 1981 Canadian documentary "Being Different." She also appeared in a TV movie called "Side Show" in 1981.

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels said he met Allen twice. "Then, and from a distance, I admired very much the way she handled a uniquely difficult situation with uncomplaining grace," he said.

Allen weighed 6-1/2 pounds when she was born in June 1955. By the age of 10 she had grown to be 6-foot-3, and by age 16 she was 7-1. She wrote to Guinness World Records in 1974, saying she would like to get to know someone her own height.

"It is needless to say my social life is practically nil and perhaps the publicity from your book may brighten my life," she wrote. The recognition as the world's tallest woman helped Allen accept her height and become less shy, Rose said.

"It kind of brought her out of her shell," Rose said. "She got to the point where she could joke about it." In the 1980s, she appeared for several years at the Guinness Museum of World Records in Niagara Falls, Ontario.

"I'll never forget the old Japanese man who couldn't speak English, so he decided to feel for himself if I was real," she recalled with a chuckle when she moved back to Indiana in 1987. "At Guinness there were days when I felt like I was doing a freak show," she said. "When that feeling came too often, I knew I had to come back home."

Difficulty with mobility had forced Allen to curtail her public speaking in recent years, Rose said. She had suffered from diabetes and other ailments and used a wheelchair to get around.

A scholarship fund has been set up in Allen's name through the Blue River Community Foundation, Rose said, with proceeds going to Shelbyville High School.

"She loved talking to kids because they would ask more honest questions," Rose said. "Adults would kind of stand back and stare and not know how to approach her."

World's Smallest Fighter Plane - Unusual

General characteristics :-
Crew: 1
Length: 14 ft 10 in (4.5 m)
Wingspan: 21 ft 1 in (6.4 m)
Height: 8 ft 3 in (2.5 m)
Wing area: 90 ft² (8.3 m²)
Empty weight: 3,740 lb (1,696 kg)
Loaded weight: 4,550 lb (2,063 kg)
Max takeoff weight: lb (kg)
Powerplant: 1× Westinghouse XJ34-WE-22 turbojet, 3,000 lbf (13.3 kN)

Performance :-
Maximum speed: 664 mph (1,069 km/h)
Service ceiling 48,000 ft (14,630 m)
Rate of climb: 12,500 ft/min (3,810 m/min)
Wing loading: 51 lb/ft² (247 kg/m²)
Thrust/weight: 0.66

Armament :-
4x 0.50 in (12.7 mm) M2 Browning machine gun

This unusual fighter plane McDonnell XF-85 Goblin was designed to meet a USAAF requirement for a single-seat "parasite" escort fighter that could be carried by a large bomber. Development of two prototypes was ordered in March 1947. The resulting design was entirely the product of design constraints, which required it to fit into the bomb bay of a B-36 (although it was actually tested under a B-29). The B-36 was the intended mother ship that would carry as many as three Goblins.

A tiny, short fuselage was fitted with low/mid-set foldable swept wings, of 21 ft 1.5 in (6.44 m) span. It was powered by a Westinghouse J34-WE-7 turbojet, of 3,000 lb. (1,361 kg) thrust. There was no landing gear except for emergency skids. The fighter was intended to return to the parent aircraft and dock with a trapeze, by means of a retracting hook.

Tennis anyone? Sky is the limit

The Burj Al Arab hotel, built upon a man-made island and designed in shape to resemble the sail of a dhow, features a large cantilevered helipad that extends out from one side of the hotel and over the ocean. The helipad itself rests

692 feet above ground level, and on the day depicted in these photographs it was temporarily set up as a tennis court for the exhibition. (A year earlier, golf star Tiger Woods had engaged in a similar publicity stunt, hitting several golf balls off the helipad and into the waters of the Persian Gulf.) As Andre Agassi said of the experience of playing tennis on a platform several hundred feet in the air: "This was an absolutely amazing experience. When you first get over how high you are and start playing it's an absolute joy and it was a great time. I had no issues with the height as long as I didn't have to bungee jump off the side."

The Smart Way To Lose Weight - III

We are back with Part 3 of our weight loss series. You can checkout the earlier posts on this series below

• The Smart Way To Lose Weight - I
• The Smart Way To Lose Weight - II

We continue with our weight loss tips which were started in Part - II.

• That’s it, I’m Done: At this point you are probably thinking to yourself, “how the hell would I reduce weight if I never diet and eat whatever I want“. Well, you would reduce weight this way, if and only if you stop eating at the right time. As we mentioned before, most people eat more than their stomach actually needs. This happens when your focus is not on your food but on something else. In a public experiment that was conducted to test this theory, people walking across the street in New York were asked to try a sample of popcorn that was a week old. The unanimous response was that the popcorns tasted “awful“. The same popcorns were then re-packaged and sold to movie goers in a popular cinema house and guess what, more than 90% of the people finished the popcorn without any major complaints. In the first case, the people were completely involved in tasting the popcorn and could easily judge that they were stale, while in the second case the movie audience was more engrossed in watching the movie and didn’t even try to sense the taste of the popcorn. Therefore the only way you would know, when to stop eating, is when you eat your food consciously and stop as soon as you feel even slightly full. An easy way to start, is to eat food alone for a week without any distractions. Try to chew each bite about 15-20 times savoring the taste. In a few days you would be amazed at the amount of food that you would be leaving, and from there on your journey towards weight loss would start.
• Never give into temptation: Our last piece of advice is probably something you already know and yet it is the hardest thing to follow. The approach discussed by us however is much better than any of the other diets which prohibit you to eat the really good stuff. All you need to make sure is that you don’t eat when you are not hungry.

The approach talked about here has actually become really popular thanks to people like Paul McKenna and Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. Paul McKenna is a British hypnotist, and television personality. According the Sunday Times he is Britain’s best selling non-fiction author with a number of titles like I Can Make You Rich, Quit Smoking Today Without Gaining Weight and many more. McKenna discusses the approach talked about here, in his book I Can Make You Thin, which is now also a popular TV Show.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar on the other hand is the founder of the international Art of Living Foundation and advocates a similar approach in his programs. So unlike the celebrity diets which work for very few people, such kind of approaches work for most of us.

We hope you enjoyed reading our series on Weight Loss. We Wish You A Healthy Life Ahead.

A Man Who Grew a Horn in His Head

Ma Zhong Nan, a 93-year-old man living in a small village in China, recounts how a horn began to sprout on his head five years ago. Ma was combing his hair one day and carelessly injured his scalp. Because it was just a small wound, he did not pay much attention to it. Little did he expect that a thick, hard substance started to grow on his head.

NASA Spacecraft Confirms Martian Water, Mission Extended

TUCSON, Ariz. -- Laboratory tests aboard NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander have identified water in a soil sample. The lander's robotic arm delivered the sample Wednesday to an instrument that identifies vapors produced by the heating of samples.

"We have water," said William Boynton of the University of Arizona, lead scientist for the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer, or TEGA. "We've seen evidence for this water ice before in observations by the Mars Odyssey orbiter and in disappearing chunks observed by Phoenix last month, but this is the first time Martian water has been touched and tasted."

With enticing results so far and the spacecraft in good shape, NASA also announced operational funding for the mission will extend through Sept. 30. The original prime mission of three months ends in late August. The mission extension adds five weeks to the 90 days of the prime mission.

"Phoenix is healthy and the projections for solar power look good, so we want to take full advantage of having this resource in one of the most interesting locations on Mars," said Michael Meyer, chief scientist for the Mars Exploration Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

The soil sample came from a trench approximately 2 inches deep. When the robotic arm first reached that depth, it hit a hard layer of frozen soil. Two attempts to deliver samples of icy soil on days when fresh material was exposed were foiled when the samples became stuck inside the scoop. Most of the material in Wednesday's sample had been exposed to the air for two days, letting some of the water in the sample vaporize away and making the soil easier to handle.

"Mars is giving us some surprises," said Phoenix principal investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona. "We're excited because surprises are where discoveries come from. One surprise is how the soil is behaving. The ice-rich layers stick to the scoop when poised in the sun above the deck, different from what we expected from all the Mars simulation testing we've done. That has presented challenges for delivering samples, but we're finding ways to work with it and we're gathering lots of information to help us understand this soil."

Since landing on May 25, Phoenix has been studying soil with a chemistry lab, TEGA, a microscope, a conductivity probe and cameras. Besides confirming the 2002 finding from orbit of water ice near the surface and deciphering the newly observed stickiness, the science team is trying to determine whether the water ice ever thaws enough to be available for biology and if carbon-containing chemicals and other raw materials for life are present.

The mission is examining the sky as well as the ground. A Canadian instrument is using a laser beam to study dust and clouds overhead.

"It's a 30-watt light bulb giving us a laser show on Mars," said Victoria Hipkin of the Canadian Space Agency.

A full-circle, color panorama of Phoenix's surroundings also has been completed by the spacecraft.

"The details and patterns we see in the ground show an ice-dominated terrain as far as the eye can see," said Mark Lemmon of Texas A&M University, lead scientist for Phoenix's Surface Stereo Imager camera. "They help us plan measurements we're making within reach of the robotic arm and interpret those measurements on a wider scale."

The Phoenix mission is led by Smith at the University of Arizona with project management at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and development partnership at Lockheed Martin in Denver. International contributions come from the Canadian Space Agency; the University of Neuchatel, Switzerland; the universities of Copenhagen and Aarhus in Denmark; the Max Planck Institute in Germany; and the Finnish Meteorological Institute.

The 14 Turning Points in 60 years of India's Independence

The 14 Turning Points in
60 years of India's Independence.

1947: Independence and Partition
Muslim refugees crowd onto a train near New Delhi during the bloody Partition of Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan. Some 15 million people are displaced and an estimated 500,000 killed in the savage violence sparked by Britain's division of its former colony.

1952: Towards Socialism
The Congress Party, headed by India's first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, triumphs in the young nation's first general election. Nehru establishes a five-year plan for agricultural reform, committing India to a socialist path to development.

1962: India vs. China
Reinforcements head to the front after China steamrolls India's unprepared defenses, seizing a chunk of Kashmir that it holds to this day. The defeat is a dark moment in India's young history and a political blow from which Nehru never recovers. Battling ill health, he dies two years later.

1965: The Second Kashmir War
Housewives and students take target practice in Dhaka, East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), responding to a government call to arms during India and Pakistan's second major conflict over the disputed Kashmir region. The Second Kashmir War ends indecisively with a U.N.-mandated ceasefire.

1971: Independence for Bangladesh
Indian troops are hailed as liberators as they enter Dhaka, East Pakistan, during India and Pakistan's third major conflict. The war ends with a decisive Indian victory and statehood for East Pakistan, which becomes known as Bangladesh.

1975: The Emergency
Beset by growing political disorder, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, Nehru's daughter, declares emergency rule. Thousands are detained during India's flirtation with authoritarianism, but the experiment is short-lived: the Emergency is lifted in 1977 and subsequent elections sweep Gandhi and the Congress Party out of power.

1983: A Win for India
India wins the Cricket World Cup for the first and only time in the cricket-obsessed nation's history, beating tournament favorites West Indies in the final.

1984: Gandhi Assassinated
Indira Gandhi, returned to power in 1980, is killed by her own Sikh bodyguards, leading to anti-Sikh riots in Delhi where thousands die. She is cremated by her son Rajiv (second from left) and daughter-in-law Sonia (in sunglasses) — a Prime Minister and future head of the Congress Party, respectively.

1992: The Destruction of the Babri Masjid
Far-right Hindu activists raze a 16th-century mosque, the Babri Masjid, in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh, claiming it had been erected on top of a Hindu temple. The destruction sparks religious riots throughout India.

1998: A New Nuclear Power
With its new Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee (third from left) in attendance, India shocks the world by detonating a nuclear weapon beneath the remote Thar Desert on May 11; two weeks later, Pakistan replies with a weapons test of its own. The prospect of two antagonistic nuclear powers on the subcontinent raises fears of nuclear war, especially after India and Pakistan clash again over Kashmir less than a year later.

2002: Gujurat Burns
After a train carrying Hindu pilgrims is allegedly set on fire by Muslims, a brutal backlash in the western state of Gujarat results in the deaths of nearly a thousand people. The riots, carried live on television nationwide, spark an outcry against the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), whose officials in Gujarat are accused of being complicit in the violence.

2003: The World's Back Office
India's fourth-quarter GDP growth hits double-digits, thanks to bumper crops and growth in IT and outsourcing. The 10.4% rate is the fastest among emerging nations.

2004: New Faces and Old
Under Sonia Gandhi, the Italian-born widow of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, a resurgent Congress Party sweeps the ruling BJP out of power. Manmohan Singh, a former Finance Minister who spearheaded India's economic reforms, is appointed Prime Minister.

2007: The Sky's the Limit
In early July, the Bombay Stock Exchange Sensex Index eclipses the 15,000 mark for the first time. The milestone means India's markets have soared fivefold in five years.