The most beautiful places on earth

The most beautiful places on earth captured by world's most expensive camera: Photographer takes award-winning image with 50 megapixel Hasselblad

 

• Self-taught photographer John Chapple has won the Hasselblad Owners Club Photographer of The Month for July

• He took the winning image of the Colorado River on a Hasselblad H3D-50 - one of the world's most expensive cameras

• Chapple also uses a panoramic Linhof Technorama 617 for many of his image to capture super-wide shots

A self-taught photographer has scooped a coveted award after taking stunning images of some of the most beautiful places on earth with the world's most expensive digital camera.

John Chapple has been awarded the Hasselblad Owners Club Photographer of The Month for July for his mesmerising image of the Colorado River  meandering around Horseshoe Bend, near Page, Arizona. 

It was taken on a Hasselblad H3D-50 - considered to be one of the best and one of the expensive cameras in the world. The basic camera price starts at £20,000 but can quickly soar higher once lens are added. 

The H3D-50 is a 50 megapixel camera - much, much higher than the standard eight megapixels found in the iPhone 5 camera and other digital recorders

   This image of the Colorado River meandering around Horseshoe Bend, near Page, Arizona, has won John Chapple the              coveted Hasselblad Owners Club Photographer of The Month for July

Stone room with a view: The underside of the Meca Arch in Utah glows from the reflected sunlight off the sandstone cliff just below it in this image taken on a super-high resolution Hasselblad 50megapixel camera

   Trick of the light: John captured this image of a man dancing in a shaft of light within Antelope Canyon in Arizona with the      Hasselblad 50 megapixel camera while on his road-trip across America

   The Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, can be seen in startling detail in this image taken on the    Hasselbald H3D-50

   John Chapple, self-taught photographer from Devon, took this image of the Perito Moreno Glacier in Argentina on a top of        the range 1DS Canon digital camera

   Chapple has travelled all around the world, including Queensland, Australia, pictured on the Linhof Technorama 617, for his      work as a news photographer

    Red sky at night: Venice Beach in California looks eerily red in this shot taken by John Chapple on a Linhof Technorama 617

   Wooden planks stick out of the calm waters surrounding Saint Petersburg, Florida, visible in the distance of this image          taken on a Linhof Technorama 617

    Chapple took this atmospheric image of the Tarr Steps in Exmoor with a panoramic view Linhof Technorama 617

   Special: Photographs on a Linhof Technorama 617, such as this onhe of a waterfall in Northern California, are taken on a        medium format film with a frame size of 6cm x 17cm meaning it can only fit four images on a roll of 120 film

   The Linhof Technorama 617 allows Chapple to take incredibly wide images that are beyond the range of normal visualisation    like this one of a ship-wrecked bot on the beach at Crow Point in Devon

    Chapple has travelled all around the world, including Queensland, Australia, pictured on the Linhof Technorama 617, for his     work as a news photographer

    This striking image of Bandon Oregon was taken late at night as the last rays of light fade on a Linhof Technorama 617

    The Linhof Technorama 617 has captured this beautiful sunset over the city of Los Angeles in all its glory

   Chapple was first inspired to become a photographer by the stunning scenery, such as Braunton Burrow, pictured, near            where he grew up in Devon

    The 6cm X 17cm Linhof Technorama 617 negatives means pictures like this one of Saint Petersburg, Florida, can be blown       up to huge sizes without the risk of blurring

   The Hasselblad H3D-50 - one of the best digital and most expensive cameras in the world, pictured left, and the Linhof          Technorama 617, pictured right, which takes 6cm x17cm negatives - meaning that it can only take four pictures per film roll 

Extreme School Punishment

At first, the photo seems to depict two fingers, but these are not what you think they are. The photo is actually of a young woman’s legs.

The woman was told to kneel in frozen peas (or possibly dried chickpeas) as a form of torture. This kind of punishment has been used in some cultures to motivate students to behave or to become subservient. This is a viral image going across the internet. Some sources have listed this photo as that of a school girl being punished by her teacher, but others have argued that the picture was sourced from a website for individuals who get a kick out of watching this type of punishment from one to another. Yes folks, believe it or not some get satisfaction by watching others who experience physical pain.

Please do share your thoughts on what you think this is and if this is an acceptable form of dicipline.

Brown recluse spider

Brown recluse spiders bite more than 7,000 people in Brazil every year causing serious skin lesions and even death. The anti-venom used as treatment comes at the expense of many animal lives. But could a breakthrough in synthetic spider venom lead to a more humane solution?

"The first time I was bitten, I nearly died," says Adelaide Fabienski Maia, a school assistant from Curitiba.

"I put my shorts on in the morning and felt a bite but didn't realise what it was. It wasn't until the evening that my face started burning up. I looked at the bite area and it was red."

Adelaide was soon rushed to hospital with the classic target-shaped lesion caused by the venom eating away at her skin.

It was only thanks to a dose of anti-venom that she's still around to tell the tale.

But the anti-venom currently available comes with its own risks - mostly to the animals involved in the production process.

Venom is milked from thousands of brown spiders before being injected into horses. This triggers an immune response that creates life-saving anti-venom for humans - while drastically reducing the horses' own lifespan.

Now scientists in Brazil have come up with a synthetic venom alternative that could save many of those lives.

Not so incy-wincy :

The Loxosceles family of venomous brown and recluse spiders is found in North and South America, Africa, Australia and some parts of Europe.

At 6-20mm long, they are by no means the world's biggest spiders. Even their bite is almost painless. But their venom can cause large sores and lesions through dermo-necrosis - literally "death of the skin".

It is the only family of spiders in the world to cause the skin to die in this way. Scientists have linked it to a rare enzyme in the venom called sphingomyelinase D, which damages and kills skin tissue.

In a small percentage of cases where anti-venom is not administered quickly enough, people can die through organ failure.

But many more deaths - of spiders and horses - are caused through the anti-venom production itself.

"We milk the spiders once a month for three to four months," says Dr Samuel Guizze, a biologist at the Butantan Institute, Sao Paulo's pioneering centre for anti-venom production.

It involves one technician gingerly picking up a spider and giving it an electric shock while a second scientist rushes to draw the venom into a syringe.

As only a tiny squirt of venom is surrendered each time, it means that tens of thousands of individuals must be bred for milking.

"The amount of venom obtained per spider is very small," says Dr Guizze. "We then inject the venom into horses and after 40 days the horses are bled and the antibodies [anti-venom] separated from the blood."

Unsurprisingly, being injected with brown spider venom has an effect on the horses' health over time. Their lifespan is reduced from around 20 years to just three or four.

Sadly, the spiders fare even worse - dying after just three or four venom extractions.

Alternatives to animals
Six hundred miles away at the Federal University of Minas Gerais, a breakthrough in venom technology promises to greatly reduce the anti-venom industry's reliance on animals.

                                             Brown spider venom kills the skin and leaves horrific wounds


Dr Carlos Chavez-Olortegui is a senior biologist and spider venom specialist.

"We identified the parts of the venom responsible for creating antibodies, and we made a protein chain containing only these parts," he told the BBC.

By making a man-made copy of the active venom ingredient, it means that real spiders could soon be completely superfluous to the process,

And, although horses will still be needed for the foreseeable future, the synthetic venom is non-toxic. This means that horses will still make the right anti-venom in their blood but without experiencing the poisoning effects of being injected with real venom.

Dr Chavez-Olortegui says this new technique will enable horses to be retired after a few years and go on to live a full life

Indeed in the future, he hopes animals can be removed from the process altogether.

A vaccine for the future ?

But the study has also shown tantalising possibilities for creating a vaccine.

Trials have shown that animals injected with synthetic spider venom start to produce antibodies that protect them from the effects of real brown spider bites.

Chavez-Olortegui hopes that these results could eventually pave the way for a human vaccine.

"More tests are required to see if the level of immunisation is maintained long-term, but we believe we are on the right path to making a human vaccine soon," says Chavez-Orortegui.

The potential vaccine is seen as a major breakthrough for science but could have only limited applications in the real world - as the cost of developing the vaccine is weighed against the chance of being bitten.

But in a country where 26,000 spider bites were reported in 2012 alone - 7,000 of which involved brown spiders - there could well prove to be quite a demand.

Adelaide Fabienski Maia, who has the dubious honour of living in the "brown spider capital" of Brazil, has since been bitten a second time.

Although they're not naturally aggressive, brown spiders have a nasty habit of sleeping inside people's clothes.

Unsurprisingly, Adelaide doesn't fancy taking any more chances.


"If there were a vaccine, I'd take the whole family today."



Source : BBC News

Wierd Fetish

Fetishes and paraphilias are taboo in our society. Many people have them, but they see them as embarrassing and as things they need to hide. Some of them are seemingly harmless; some are just gross; and others could even get you in trouble with the law. Here are ten of the weirdest:

Formicophilia :

This is deriving sexual pleasure from insects crawling on the body, specifically on the genitals. It is more common in developing countries, perhaps because homes are infested with insects. This could lead to an individual's genitals being exposed to insects (especially if they have outdoor bathrooms, as many developing countries do), and if this happens at a young age when they are sexually developing, they may derive pleasure from it.

Plushophilia :

Perhaps liking one of your stuffed animals a little too much as a child can lead to this fetish. It is being sexually attracted to stuffed animals or people dressed in animal costumes. Some plushophiles like to masturbate using small stuffed animals, and some like to dress up in costumes and have sex with others wearing costumes. Someone who is into bestiality, but doesn't want to actually have sex with animals could also enjoy this fetish.

Vorarephilia :

This is arousal by the thought of being eaten by someone, eating someone else, or watching someone eat somebody else. It is called "vore" for short. Perhaps this is related to cannibalism, but how someone develops a fetish like this, I really could not even speculate upon. It involves pure fantasy (at least hopefully it does), since it would be very difficult to make any of the aforementioned situations reality.

Inflatophilia :

This fetish can vary in what the inflatophile enjoys. It can be an attraction to inflatable animals and toys, deriving sexual pleasure from wearing inflatable suits, or just being aroused from the thought of people inflating like balloons. Perhaps an inflatophile could enjoy the company of a blow-up doll a little too much. This is another fetish that any psychologist would probably have a hard time explaining.

Erotic asphyxia :

This is a dangerous practice wherein a person enjoys cutting off their air supply while having sex or masturbating. Those who practice this fetish claim that it makes orgasms more enjoyable, but sometimes they can't get the rope, belt, or seatbelt that they use to strangle themselves loose fast enough, so it can be deadly.

Robot fetishism :

This is a fantasy that involves the thought of having sex with a robot, having sex dressed as robots, or having sex with a person who is transformed into a robot. I'm sure that there are many geeks out there who fantasize about having sex with a perfect android woman, but this fetish can also involve fantasizing about having sex with a non-humanoid robot. I guess someone who really loves technology or science fiction could be into this.

Burusera :

This is a Japanese term for a panty fetish. It is an extremely prevalent fetish in Japan. There are burusera shops in Japan that sell used schoolgirls' panties, and there even used to be vending machines on the streets where men could buy them. The men buy them to smell them. Since laws have been passed forbidding this practice with girls under the age of eighteen, young girls have still profited off of the practice by letting men pay them to simply sniff their panties under their skirts while they are wearing them. I have no idea why this has become so popular in Japan. Maybe they really enjoy their fish there? 

Erotic lactation :

This is simply the breastfeeding of an adult by a lactating woman for sexual arousal. Nipple stimulation during sex is widely practised  but erotic lactation is much more taboo. Perhaps it gives the male in the relationship a sense of security (or maybe he just gets curious about what breast milk tastes like and decides he likes it). It's a bit strange that nipple stimulation is a turn-on for women when their main purpose is for feeding babies :/

Klismaphilia :

This is deriving sexual pleasure from receiving an enema. It's not too surprising that people can get aroused from it, especially if they enjoy anal sex. A klismaphile may also enjoy pornographic films that portray someone receiving an enema and deriving sexual pleasure from it.

Hybristophilia :

This is often known as the Bonnie and Clyde Syndrome. It is a sexual attraction to someone who has committed a gruesome crime. Many inmates who are imprisoned for outrageous crimes receive love letters from women. It's a very odd phenomenon. I guess the average bad boy isn't enough for women who are hybristophiles.

It's amazing what our minds can cause us to derive sexual pleasure out of. We may not understand why we are attracted to certain things, but there is usually an underlying cause that gets embedded in the brain at some point at time (usually as a child) that leads to these fetishes and paraphilias. Just be careful on which ones you act upon and be aware that some fetishes may hurt and disturb others.

Wierd :/

Animal Fetish !!