3D Printer Made of Legos

Engineering student Matthew Krueger didn't have the money to buy a Makerbot (a company that manufactures 3D printers.), so he did the next best thing: he designed his own which he called LEGObot. To save money Krueger built his 3D printer with materials that he already had on hand. Considering that the current construction requires manual movement programming and can only print in glue or sugar sticks, the printer can be seen as something of a beta, but it still looks pretty good for a beta.

Waterfall Printer

This cool waterfall printer, spotted in Osaka Station City, Japan is a type of fountain that has the ability to ‘print' and display the time and pretty images just like how it would look on a piece of paper. Except that this time, the canvas is a vertical plane of nothing but pure air and water as ink. The last piece of the equation – gravity makes everything come together, turning water into art.

Food Printer

The 3D food printer was designed and is being further developed in America by Cornell University's Computational Synthesis Laboratory, headed by Dr. Jeffrey Ian Lipton. The team's Fab@home technology allows three-dimensional objects to be "printed" by a syringe, whose movements are determined by computer blueprints and models. Layering lines of material ultimately generates a three-dimensional object in a process they call "solid freeform fabrication."

Although they are in no way limited to food, fab@home machines have already been used to print chocolates, cookies, and even domes of turkey meat.

While previous models have typically used only one syringe, the Cornell team is now working with multiple syringes to permit the combination of diverse ingredients in precise proportions.

3D Printing Photobooth

Shashinkan is Japanese for "photobooth," and Japanese creative agency PARTY has created the ultimate in Shashinkans with the Omote 3D. The project allows customers to buy models of themselves in three sizes: small (10cm high), medium (15cm), and large (20cm).

There are 3 steps:

First, they ask each customer to come to the store and have themselves scanned with a 3D scanner. They have to stay still for a maximum of 15 minutes during this process.

Second, a 3D model is created based on the scanned data. The details, such as hair color and clothing, are carefully modified.

Finally, from the finished 3D model a miniature figurine is printed using a 3D color printer.

Coffee Printing Machine

When ordering a latte in Taiwan, customers are prompted to snap a “selfie” on their smartphone before sending it to the machine. At the end of the coffee-making process, the machine prints the photo on the foam using edible brown powder. Text can be added, too.

The machine is the idea of the drink company Let's Coffee, which operates a chain of vending kiosks inside Taiwan's Family Mart convenience stores.

Crack Pipe Vending Machine

The first-ever crack pipe vending machine has debuted in Canada — and it surprisingly isn't in Toronto. A Canadian nonprofit organization installed the controversial vending machines in Vancouver as part of a plan to curb the spread of HIV and hepatitis among drug users.

Each machine holds 200 pipes and is restocked every five days. The pipes are sold for 25 cents.

Crack pipes, which are often made by users from glass tubes purchased from DIY stores, frequently have splintered glass, which can cause cuts and sores and spread infections like HIV.

Burrito Vending Machine

A Mobile station in West Hollywood, CA is now the home of the world's first Burritobox, a bright orange vending machine that delivers warm burritos in 60 seconds.

You can't exactly customize your burrito, but you can choose from five varieties, including shredded beef and cheese, roasted potato, egg and cheese, and chorizo, sausage, egg and cheese.

Each burrito costs $3, excluding tax and additional toppings. A side of sour cream costs an extra 50 cents while Tabasco sauce is 65 cents. Guacamole is also available for 75 cents.

Recycled Book Vending Machine

A Barrie woman has come up with a unique way to let people on the go enjoy a good read – over and over. Her concept may have you re-thinking what you throw away.

Dana Clarke, the creator of the recycled book machine explains how it's used: “When you decide what book you want, you put the toonie in, rotate it, and out comes the book.”

This is a green book vending machine – it's the color of a granny smith apple, and an environmentally-friendly way to read. For $2, you can pick out a used book and donate one when you're done. Part of the proceeds will go to literacy programs and building schools in Africa.

Clarke plans to start a crowd-funding campaign to raise money to get these machines in train stations, bus terminals, and hospitals across Canada.

Swapping Vending Machine

We're used to putting money in a vending machine and instantly receiving consumable goods—a bag of chips, a soda, or even a new pair of headphones—in return, but what if vending machines became a fresh way to reuse, recycle, and trade with people in your community? That's the idea behind Swap-O-Matic, a New York City-based vending machine project that wants to "shift culture away from an emphasis on unconscious consumption," by encouraging people to donate and receive used items for free.

To use the Swap-O-Matic, you register with an email address using the machine's touchscreen interface. New traders start out with three swapping "credits." Donating an item earns additional credits, which can be redeemed for anything else in the machine. The Swap-O-Matic operates on an honor system—no one is monitoring whether you're actually putting a pair of earrings into the machine in order to get the cool Star Wars action figure your neighbor donated. However, a "flag system" prevents misuse.

Salad Vending Machine

Forget junk food or candy bars – this vending machine sells only fresh salads.

When 27-year-old Luke Saunders told his former boss he was turning down a substantial raise and promotion to create a vending machine that would sell exclusively organic, restaurant-quality salads and snacks, he was met with looks of disbelief and confusion.

Despite the skepticism, Saunders unveiled the first of what he expects to be many of his unusual kiosks in an otherwise dreary food court in downtown Chicago.

Made from reclaimed wood and surrounded by real plants with a carpet of artificial turf surrounding it, the machine is stocked at 10 a.m. every day with an array of fresh salads and snacks consisting mainly of organic, locally grown produce and assembled at a nearby kitchen just hours before. Whatever is left at the end of each day is donated to a local food pantry.

SuperTooth HD

It looks like we already have the option to text, dial our phones and use Facebook without ever taking our eyes off the road. Phew!

SuperTooth is launching the SuperTooth HD– the most advanced Bluetooth speakerphone on the market today, it has three times more power than other models and it allows drivers to answer incoming calls, select pre-dialed phone numbers, check battery level or retrieve voicemail. The SuperTooth Handsfree Assistant feature, powered by Dial2Do, allows drivers to compose and send Facebook, Twitter, e-mail and SMS messages via voice alone.

State-of-the-art voice commands are designed to provide a hands-free solution for phone use in the car. The SuperTooth HD features two speakers with a 5 watt audio output, 5.4 watt amplifier and built-in dual microphones to pick up voices more clearly. Just clip the SuperTooth HD onto the car's sun visor; no installation required.

BrailleTouch

Modern smartphones come with touchscreen displays – which are not a bad thing at all, really. However, while the hard of hearing can always enjoy the use of a smartphone or featurephone because they can see, how about the visually impaired? Georgia Tech believes otherwise, and has come up with BrailleTouch – a Braille-like texting app. This prototype app for touchscreen mobile devices intends to be the complete solution to all our modern day texting problems, without having to even look at the device's display at all – which would also bode well for the visually impaired, of course.

Textminator

Tired of shooting zombies, racing roadsters and putting together attack combos? Head on over to the less-popular side of the arcade and pop your quarter into the Textminator, a real-life arcade box that turns sending SMS messages into a game.

What? You heard that right. Instead of memorizing button-mashing combos and showing off your joystick prowess, you wrap your grubby thumbs around a cellphone controller, racing against the clock to punch the words and phrases that appear onscreen. Seriously.

The first-of-its-kind (and, hopefully, the last) coin-op arcade box, the Textminator challenges players to put their texting skills to task. You can race against time in single player mode, aiming to put your score at the top of the machine's leaderboard. Fancy a more competitive atmosphere? Challenge someone to a two-player game, going head-to-head to determine who really is faster at thumbing through small keypads.

Smartphone Holder for Strollers

 

















Texting while driving is illegal in many states, but texting while pushing a stroller is still totally legal! It's just difficult, unless you have something to mount your phone onto the handlebar of your stroller, something like the Texthook. This $26 device fits many size phones and stoller models and lets you text and push at the same time. Not just compatible with strollers, you can use the Texthook on shopping carts, bicycles and treadmills, too. Now your child is no longer an obstacle to getting your text on.

Just don't expect to be winning any prizes for Parent of the Year.

Another day, another product that attaches your iPhone to your food receptacles. Check out the UpperCup, an iPhone case that has a pop-out cup holder so you can text and hold your drink at the same time. Natwerk, the company responsible for the concept, is gathering funding over at Indiegogo. Prices start at $25 for the iPhone 4 and $30 for the 5. I don't know, but this product just isn't going to mesh with my texting style. I'm a violent, spastic texter. I imagine that a simple “BRB crying in the shower” would end with me scalding my nekkid body with hot coffee. Oh, and my with phone short circuiting, because in that hypothetical situation I'd be texting from the shower.

The Double Initial Murders shock a small New York town

The "Alphabet Murders" (also known as the "Double Initial Murders") took place in Rochester, New York in the early 1970s.

The victims were eerily similar in life and in death – all three girls were from single parent households, were Roman Catholic and had learning disabilities. The girls disappeared during the afternoon, and were all likely taken by car. Each was also sexually assaulted before being strangled. They were found in towns outside Rochester with the same initial as their first and last names – Carmen Colon near Chili, Wanda Walkowicz in Webster, and Michelle Maenza in the town of Macedon.

Over the years, suspects have included Carmen Colon's uncle and Kenneth "The Hillside Strangler" Bianchi, but the most credible lead thus far comes from Joseph Naso, 80. Naso was a photographer in the Rochester area at the time of the crimes and was found guilty of similar double initial murders in California during the 1970s - 1990s. Naso has been convicted of those murders and sentenced to death. Despite that possibility, the case in New York remains open and police continue to follow additional leads.

Hollywood's most enduring and grisly murder mystery

The fascination with the life and mysterious death of Elizabeth Short, nicknamed "The Black Dahlia," continues almost 70 years after her gruesome death.

On the morning of January 15, 1947, Betty Bersinger was walking with her daughter down a residential street in Los Angeles when she spotted what she at first thought was a broken mannequin. Upon closer inspection, she discovered the hideous truth. Short's body was cut in half and lying face up in the dirt. She was drained of all her blood and gashes were sliced into each corner of her mouth.

Short, 22, hailed from Massachusetts and drifted from state to state before trying her hand at an acting career in Hollywood. She was not successful and during her short tenure in Los Angeles she waited tables and moved from boarding house to boarding house.

Two weeks after her body was found her personal belongings – photographs, her birth certificate, her social security card, and her address book – were mailed to the Los Angeles Examiner. Gasoline had been used to wipe the package and its contents clean of fingerprints.

Over 60 people have confessed to killing Elizabeth Short and while some suspects appear to be viable leads, time is running out – her murder will likely never be solved.

Highway of Tears murderer

The Highway of Tears stretches 500 desolate miles between Prince George and Prince Rupert, British Columbia, Canada. Between 1969 and 2001 anywhere from 18 to 43 women have been murdered or disappeared along this lonely section of Highway 16.

Despite at least three of the women having been identified as victims of deceased American serial killer Bobby Jack Fowler, investigators are doubtful that they will ever solve all the murders. Even with other persons of interest, there is not enough evidence to press charges.

The Canadian government strongly urges women not to hitchhike Highway 16, but for some it is simply their only mode of transportation. Researchers and the RCMP are currently studying the habits of hitchhikers along the highway in order to understand what leads people to choose hitchhiking and what governments can do to make them safer — either by offering safe, affordable transportation options or putting in measures to make hitchhiking itself less dangerous.

Rappers die in an east coast/west coast rivalry

Rappers Biggie Smalls (aka "Notorious B.I.G.") and Tupac Shakur were on good terms until 1994, when Tupac was shot five times in the lobby of Manhattan's Quad Studios on his way to visit Biggie, who was recording there.

Tupac survived and accused Biggie and producer Sean "Puffy" Combs of arranging the shooting. After his release from jail on a sexual abuse charge a year later, he signed with Death Row Records, whose shady kingpin Suge Knight had his own grudge against Combs.

The feud soon escalated into a full scale war, with the two ex-friends recording songs full of insults and thinly veiled threats. Murders of associates occurred around them and each blamed the other's entourages for the killings.

Finally, in 1996, Tupac was shot and killed after attending a Mike Tyson fight in Las Vegas. Six months later, while attending a party in Los Angeles, Biggie Smalls was fatally hit in a drive-by shooting.

Although theories continue to abound, no one has ever been brought to justice for either killing.

The haunting mystery of a quadruple murder in a small resort town

The Keddie murders is an unsolved quadruple murder that took place in Keddie, California, a small, down on its luck resort community in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains.

On April 12, 1981, the victims, Glenna Sharp, (known as Sue), her son John (age 15), and his friend, Dana Wingate (age 17), were discovered in cabin 28 by Sue's 14-year-old daughter, Shelia, who was coming home from a sleepover.

The victims were bound with electrical wire and medical tape. All had been beaten with a claw hammer and knifed. A fourth victim, 12-year-old Tina Sharp, was missing and presumably abducted from the scene. Shockingly, although other cabins were occupied nearby, no one heard a sound.

There were three survivors of the attack in a room adjacent to the crime scene. Greg and Rick Sharp, 10 and 5 years old respectively, apparently slept through it all. 12-year-old family friend Justin who was at the Sharp's for a sleepover, also survived unscathed.

Three years later, a portion of skull was found 30 miles from Keddie. Soon after, an anonymous tipster alerted the Butte County Sheriff's office that the skull was Tina's. The area was searched again and more bones were found. Despite this discovery, no new information has ever come to light and the murders remain unsolved to this day.

The rodeo clown struck by lightning TWICE in the same day

They say that the odds of winning the lottery are about the same as getting struck by lightning. 31-year-old Texan Casey Wagner should have bought lottery tickets on this particular day!

Wagner was attending the “Rednecks With Paychecks” annual off-road event when clouds started forming in the sky and rain began to fall. Taking cover under a tree while waiting for his friend to use the restroom, he saw lightning hit the very tree he was under. Said Wagner, who also works as a rodeo clown, “I saw a big old flash and I knew I was going down. I knew I was getting electrocuted and thought I was dying.”

Seconds later, a second bolt hit Wagner's rodeo clown boot and shot up along his body. “I felt like my thumb was blown off,” he exclaimed.

Amazingly, Wagner suffered no major injuries and knew just how lucky he was. He later said, “I've been given a second chance. I need to start going to church a lot more.”

The skydiver who fell 12,000 feet from the sky and lived

Michael Holmes was one of the top ten skydivers in the world with 7,000 jumps under his belt. This member of the British skydiving team was doing what he thought was another routine jump, 2.2 miles above Lake Taupo in New Zealand, when tragedy struck.

As shown in the video recorded by the camera in his helmet, when Homes tugs at the ripcord to release his parachute, nothing happens. Frantically realizing his parachute will not open, the skydiver attempts to release his reserve parachute with no luck. With dying now a very real possibility, Holmes waves goodbye to the world and screams a last message into the microphone of his camera. The video ends with the violent thud of the diver hitting the ground before the camera goes black.

You may think that the worst happened, but to his amazement – and ours – Michael Holmes only suffered a punctured lung and a broken ankle from this terrifying fall.

The racing driver who was thrown from a car after hitting a barrier and survived

Even in the extreme sport of racing, driver Martin Donnelly may be one of the luckiest guys to survive in its history.

In 1990, Donnelly was in Spain competing in the Formula One race on the Jerez circuit. In the blink of an eye, his career was over when his Lotus 102 speared off into the barrier at 140 miles an hour.

Donnelly was thrown from the vehicle with his seat still strapped to his back. His car was totally obliterated – I mean, completely!

Donnelly should not have survived this crash and yet did, but not without suffering any injuries. The racer suffered two broken legs, bruising on his lungs and brain and blood loss. The crash was so violent, it even cracked his crash helmet.

After undergoing intensive care and a long recovery, Martin Donnelly now only walks with a slight limp. Thanks to this terrible crash, there has been improved impact protection on F1 cars to ensure future survivors of accidents like his.

The Empire State Building elevator operator who survived a plane hitting the building and longest elevator free fall

On July 28, 1945, a B-25 bomber crashed into the then tallest building in the world, the Empire State Building, in New York City. The impact was so hard that the plane made a hole clean through the iconic building.

Elevator operator Betty Lou Oliver was standing in the elevator on the 80th floor of the building at the time of the plane's impact, just a floor below. Oliver suffered severe burns and required immediate medical attention. Rescue crews put her right back into the elevator to get her to the hospital as soon as possible, but the cables were so badly damaged they snapped, and sent Betty Lou plummeting 75 floors to the basement of the building.

Ms. Oliver defied all odds and survived a second time that day. She still holds a Guinness World Record for the longest survived elevator fall.

Just five months later, she returned to her duties as an elevator operator in the very same building. Betty Lou Oliver survived the fall that killed King Kong!

The construction worker who survived a six-foot metal bar straight through his skull

A 24-year-old Brazilian construction worker, Eduardo Leite, was having a seemingly normal day at his job until a six foot metal rod fell from the fifth-floor of the building he was working on. It pierced his hard hat and ultimately his skull.

Miraculously, the rod entered the back of his head and exited right between his eyes. Leite just missed losing his vision in one eye and narrowly escaped having the left side of his body paralyzed. He even claimed to feel no pain when asked in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.

Leite had the six-foot metal rod removed from his head during the operation and claimed of “few complaints” after the surgery.

Paul Winchell: The artificial heart

It might come as a surprise that Paul Winchell, the man whose voice was known to millions of children as the voice of Tigger from Winnie the Pooh, was an accomplished inventor who was the first to design and patent a concept for an implantable, mechanical, artificial heart.

Winchell started in vaudeville as a ventriloquist. Originally a stutterer, he worked on his craft in school, built his own dummy and eventually got good throwing his voice. After success on stage, he starred in television's The Paul Winchell/Jerry Mahoney Show, with his dummy, Jerry Mahoney.

Later in his career, Winchell became a voice-over actor for cartoons on the Disney Winnie the Pooh film and TV cartoons.

Simultaneously, Winchell went back to school and studied pre-med at Colombia University. He then went on to study acupuncture and medical hypnotism.

The “Winch” eventually got a job at the University of Utah working with surgeons, one of whom was Henry J. Heimlich (creator of the Heimlich Maneuver). Winchell, assisted by Heimlich, developed and patented a mechanical artificial heart implanted in the chest cavity.

Winchell had 30 patents to his name including the disposable razor, a fountain pen with a retractable tip and an “invisible” garter belt, to name a few.

He continued to innovate, write, and occasionally perform until he died on June 24, 2005, at the age of 82. Thank you, Mr. Paul “T-I-double-g-ER, That spells Tigger" Winchell!

Desi Arnaz: The rerun

I Love Lucy creator and co-star Desi Arnaz is credited (along with wife Lucille Ball) for inventing several techniques that are now taken for granted in television sitcoms. Without the pioneering work they did, television would be very different indeed. In fact, you could say Arnaz invented the television rerun.

Broadcasting TV shows was very different back in the early 1950s. A show was taped live on the east coast, saved on a kinescope – a recording of a program that was filmed off of a video monitor – then rebroadcast on the west coast. Kinescopes provided an inferior image and degraded pretty quickly.

In the early days of television, most production was done in New York, but Lucy and Desi refused to leave Hollywood and insisted on taping I Love Lucy on the west coast. The network protested, claiming that live production in L.A. was impractical and because of the time difference between coasts, the network would be forced to air blurry kinescopes in the east, where most television-viewing homes were located.

So, Arnaz and Ball offered a solution – they would produce I Love Lucy on film and dispense with the kinescopes altogether.

To offset this major expense to the network, Lucy and Desi agreed to cut their joint weekly salary from $5,000 to $4,000 on the condition that their production company, Desilu (also the first independent TV production company), retained all rights to the show.

The network agreed and this paved the way for television reruns and syndication.

Zeppo Marx: An early heart rate monitor and heating pad

Perhaps the most superfluous member of the legendary Marx Brothers comedy team, Zeppo Marx was also the most mechanically inclined of the family. It is even said that he kept the family car in running order.

After leaving the group in the early 1930s, Max met a Douglass Aircraft executive at the racetrack. The executive told the vaudevillian and movie star that he was short on machinists and was, therefore, short on machine parts. Zeppo started work on those parts out of his garage and soon formed the company, Marman Products, known for marketing the Marman clamp, which is still commonly used in the aviation and aerospace industries. Thus began Zeppo's second successful career. A Day At The Races indeed!

Zeppo also received a total of three patents. The first was in 1952 for a Vapor Delivery Pad for Distributing Moist Heat (also known as a heating pad), a common item still in use to this day.

The other two patents were received in 1969 for "Cardiac pulse rate monitor" and "method and watch mechanism for actuation by a cardiac pulse." When used together, they were meant to alert people with heart problems. The watch part had two dials. One was driven by the wearer's pulse and the other operated at a normal heartbeat rate. So, if the pulse-driven part – which was run by an electric powered magnet – started to go too fast or too slow, it would trigger an audible alarm. In other words, it was an early heart rate monitor.

As Harpo would say in gratitude, “Honk honk!”

Abraham Lincoln: A method for buoying vessels over shoals

Abraham Lincoln is forever cherished in history as being one of the greatest U.S. presidents. He brought about the emancipation of slaves and preserved the Union during the Civil War. He is also the only president to hold a patent for an invention.

Earlier in life, Lincoln learned a bit about river navigation when he took a flatbed down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. Years later, as a young Congressman on his way home to Illinois, he became stranded on a sandbar and saw that “the captain ordered the hands to collect all the loose planks, empty barrels and boxes and force them under the sides of the boat. These empty casks were used to buoy it up.”

This inspired Lincoln to develop his own device of fabric bladders that could be inflated and would lift the vessel above the water's surface.

Lincoln's invention was never manufactured but a scale model of the ship outfitted with the device Lincoln made survives and is now in the Smithsonian Institution.

Michael Jackson: Anti-gravity shoes

We all know Michael Jackson was one of the most successful singers and entertainers in music history, but how many of you know that he actually invented and patented something?

A video for a new Michael Jackson song during the singer's peak of popularity was a bonafide event. Each one had to be bigger and better than the last. For “Smooth Criminal,” the seventh single release from the singer's Bad album, Michael created a video that was truly groundbreaking.

In “Smooth Criminal,” Michael dances and “fights” with thugs, showcasing his trademark moves. Sure, there are cool moments throughout the video, but the coolest is when Michael tilts his hat and leans at an impossible 45-degree angle.

Jackson was held by wires to achieve this effect, but how would he do it live?

Michael solved the problem with the help of two designs and developed a “method and means for creating (an) anti-gravity illusion” patent for a shoe. The normal looking loafer has a strap around the ankle to secure it the dancer's foot with a heel that has a secret slot that locks into a small post on stage.

Michael used this “method and means” live in concert, wowing concertgoers and selling 7.5 million copies of the single.

Ise Grand Shrine: The Holiest and Most Important Shrine in Japan

Ise Grand Shrine in Japan is a Shinto shrine dedicated to the goddess Amaterasu-ōmikami. The Ise Jingu Shrine consists of two main shrines and about 125 additional shrines.

The shrine is one of Shinto's holiest and most important sites. Access to the site is strictly limited; the only person who can enter is the priest or priestess, who must be a member of the Japanese imperial family. The general public is allowed to see little more than the thatched roofs of the central structures, which are hidden behind four tall wooden fences.

Every twenty years, the two main buildings inside the Ise Jingu Shrine are rebuilt. The shrines that are rebuilt are Naiku, or the "Inner Shrine," and Geku, or the "Outer Shrine," and they, as well as other parts of the complex that undergo any rebuilding, are rebuilt according to the original design blueprints from over 1,000 years ago. This rebuilding tradition is part of the Shinto belief in the transience of life and the renewal that follows death. It is also an invaluable way to pass on ancient building techniques from one generation to the next.

Niihau: An Exotic Hawaiian Island Closed to Most Visitors in Order to Preserve Its Indigenous Culture and Wildlife

Niihau is the seventh largest of the inhabited Hawaiian Islands. This island has no paved roads. There are no stores, no restaurants, no electricity, and no indoor plumbing. On the other hand, Niihau has the only school in Hawaii—and perhaps the only one in the country—that relies entirely on solar power for its electricity.

Elizabeth Sinclair purchased Niihau in 1864 from the Kingdom of Hawaii and private ownership passed on to her descendants, the Robinson family.

In 1915, Sinclair's grandson, Aubrey Robinson, closed the island to most visitors with the purpose of preserving its indigenous culture and wildlife. Even relatives of the inhabitants could visit only by special permission.

Today, the island is generally off-limits to everyone except relatives of the island's owners, the natives, U.S. Navy personnel, government officials, and invited guests. There are very rare helicopter tours to the isle so you can wander along one of the beaches, but getting anywhere near the locals is strictly forbidden, giving it the nickname "The Forbidden Isle."

Poveglia: A Very Small Island Near Venice Suspected of Being Haunted (Italy)

Poveglia is a small island located between Venice and Lido in the Venetian Lagoon, northern Italy.

For centuries Poveglia has been a refuge, a stronghold, a place of exile, and a dumping ground for the diseased and deceased.

In 1348, the Bubonic Plague arrived in Venice and Poveglia, like many other small islands, became a quarantine colony. Fearing the unbridled spread of the disease, Venice exiled many of its symptom-bearing citizens there. At the island's center the dead and the dying - who were mistaken for dead bodies - were burned on giant pyres. These fires would burn once more in 1630 when the Black Death again swept through the city.

In the 20th century the island was again used as a quarantine station, but in 1922 the existing buildings were converted into a hospital for the mentally ill. This went on until 1968, when the hospital was closed and the island once again became uninhabited.

Legends surround the island of hauntings by the victims of plague and war, as well as a crazy doctor of the mental institution who supposedly butchered and tortured patients.

Today, the island is closed to locals and tourists. In recent years, Italian construction crews attempted to restore the former hospital building, but unexpectedly stopped without reason.

The Vatican Secret Archives: The Archives Themselves are Off Limits to Everyone Except a Few People

The Vatican Secret Archives, located in Vatican City, is the central repository for all of the acts promulgated by the Holy See. The entrance to the Archives building is adjacent to the Vatican Library off the Piazza of St. Peter's. The archives also contain the state papers, correspondence, papal account books, and many other documents which the church has accumulated over the centuries. In the 17th century, under the orders of Pope Paul V, the Secret Archives were separated from the Vatican Library, where scholars had some very limited access to them, and remained absolutely closed to outsiders until 1881, when Pope Leo XIII opened them to researchers, more than a thousand of whom now examine its documents each year.

The use of the word "secret" in the title "Vatican Secret Archives" does not denote the modern meaning of confidentiality. Its meaning is closer to that of the word "private," indicating that the archives are the Pope's personal property and do not belong to any particular department of the Roman Curia or the Holy See. The word "secret" was generally used in this sense in phrases such as "secret servants," "secret cupbearer," "secret carver," or "secretary," much like an esteemed position of honor and regard comparable to a VIP.

In other words, you can view any document you wish because the archives are not secret, despite their name. However, you cannot enter the archive. You must submit your request for a document and it will be supplied to you.

The Vatican Secret Archives have been estimated to contain 52 miles (84 km) of shelving, and there are 35,000 volumes in the selective catalogue alone. The only documents you can't access are those which are not yet 75 years old (in order to protect governmental and diplomatic information). Indexes are available for people who want to see if a document exists in the archives.

The Negev Nuclear Research Center: A Nuclear Installation Located in the Desert (Israel)

The Negev Nuclear Research Center is an Israeli nuclear installation located in the Negev desert, about thirteen kilometers southeast of the city of Dimona, Israel.

Its construction commenced in 1958 with French assistance, according to the Protocol of Sèvres agreements.

Information about the facility remains highly classified. But in 1986, Mordechai Vanunu, a former technician at Dimona, fled to the United Kingdom and revealed to the media some evidence of Israel's nuclear program and explained the purpose of each building, also revealing a top-secret underground facility directly below the installation.

In January 2012, media reports indicated that the Israel Atomic Energy Commission had decided to, at least temporarily, shut down the research center's reactor. The site's vulnerability to attack from Iran was cited as the main reason for the decision. In October and November 2012, it was reported that Hamas had fired rockets at Dimona (rather Negev Nuclear Research Center), but the facility was not harmed or damaged in any of the attempted strikes.

Of course the airspace over it is closed to all aircraft. They also implement the necessary measures to prevent unauthorized entry, so the area around it is heavily guarded and fenced off.

A jet transporting military personnel vanishes over the Pacific Ocean in the early days of the Vietnam War

On March 16, 1962, Flight 739 was charted by the U.S. military to transport Army personnel and South Vietnamese from Travis Airforce Base in California to South Vietnam. The Super Constellation propeller jet had 96 passengers and a crew of 11.

After refueling in Guam, the plane headed for the Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines, but never made it. It went down somewhere in the Western Pacific. No wreckage or bodies were ever recovered. An hour after Flight 739's last radio communication, a Standard Oil tanker reported an explosion in the sky.

Was it a sabotage? A missile? Engine problems? No one knows, but the Civil Aeronautics Board concluded in its accident report “It can be reasonably assumed” that whatever befell Flight 739, “happened suddenly and without warning."

A squadron of five planes disappears over the Bermuda Triangle

Artist's depiction of the five TBM Avengers that disappeared.

On December 5, 1945, five U.S. Navy Avenger torpedo-bombers – Flight 19 – took of from Ft. Lauderdale Naval Air Station on an over water navigation training flight. All five planes and the 14 men on them disappeared over the Bermuda Triangle.

Two hours into the flight, Flight 19's squadron leader reported his compasses had failed and his position was unknown. The other planes also reported similar malfunctions. Two more hours of confused messages occurred, with the last one being from the squadron leader calling for his men to ditch their aircraft because they were running out of fuel.

An hour later, a Mariner aircraft took off on a search and rescue mission for Flight 19 with a 13 man crew. It too disappeared. A tanker cruising off the coast of Florida reported seeing an explosion 20 minutes after the Mariner took off.

Hundreds of ships and aircraft combed thousands of square miles of the Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico and even remote parts of Florida, but no trace of Flight 19 or the Mariner were ever found.

Popular big band leader disappears on a flight over the English Channel

On December 15, 1944, big band leader Glenn Miller was scheduled to fly from an RAF base in England to Paris to play a show. His plane, a Norseman C-64 aircraft, never arrived.

Miller joined the war effort in 1942, at the peak of his popularity as a musician. At 38, he was already too old to be drafted, but wrote the Army in hopes of leading its band. The Army accepted him, and he was promoted to Major in 1944.

The official word on Miller's disappearance was that his plane had hit bad weather over the English Channel, but rumors ran rampant. Some believed the aircraft was shot down by a German assassination squad, while others believed he made it to Paris, but was killed by a Parisian MP. The craziest theory, however, came from a German journalist in the 90s, who claimed Miller died of a heart attack in the arms of a French prostitute and the American military covered up the episode.

Still another explanation – and perhaps the most likely – came from RAF navigator Fred Shaw who claimed to have seen Miller's plane hit in a "friendly fire" accident while bombs were being jettisoned after an aborted raid on Germany.

A Boeing 727 is stolen from an airport in Luanda, Angola

On May 25, 2003, a Boeing 727-223 aircraft was stolen from the Quatro de Fevereiro Airport in Luanda, Angola.

The former American Airlines jet was owned by the Miami-based company Aerospace Sales & Leasing, and being leased to TAAG Angola Airlines at the time of its disappearance. Ben Charles Padilla – a certified flight engineer, aircraft mechanic, and private pilot – and helper John Mikel Mutantu were working with Angolan mechanics to return the 727 to flight-ready status after a business deal gone bad. Neither man could fly it – Mutantu was not a pilot and Padilla had only a private pilot's license. A 727 requires a three person trained crew.

After Padilla and Mutantu boarded the plane, the aircraft began taxiing and maneuvering erratically with no communication between the crew and the control tower. The 727 took off with its transponder and lights off. The jet and the two men have not been seen since.

While it's believed that Padilla was at the controls, some members of his family claim he was hired to repossess the jet after Air Angola failed to make payments, while others fear he was being held against his will.

The mystery of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 continues....

Pilot suicide. Mechanical failure. Hijacking. Theories continue to multiply daily regarding Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, which disappeared on March 8, 2014.

What we know so far: the Boeing 777 – carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew members – disappeared from radar approximately an hour after taking off from Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia. The plane, heading for Beijing, China, was declared lost by the Malaysian government five hours after take off. It was last detected at a normal cruising altitude of 35,000 feet about 140 miles southwest of Vietnam's southernmost province.

Four days after the flight disappeared, Malaysian officials revealed evidence that the plane had turned toward the Malacca Strait, which put it on the opposite side of the Malay Peninsula, away from its scheduled route.

Combined with the knowledge that that the 777 changed altitude – first reaching 45,000 feet and then dropping to about 23,000 feet – and may have flown for as many as six hours after the last official message received, investigators believe that catastrophic failure is a highly unlikely scenario and the change in direction was, in fact, intentional.

As of this writing, several countries have joined in the search – now spanning many oceans and continents – for the missing jet, but there is still no trace of the aircraft or any concrete explanation to the cause of its disappearance.

Correction: It has been confirmed that Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 crashed in the southern Indian Ocean, west of Perth, Australia. Some debris has been spotted in the area, but has yet to be identified as being from Flight 370.

A medival amusment park is still open to visitors

This is where all the Medieval adrenaline junkies went to kill time after all the dragons had been slayed.

Klampenborg, located about 7.5 miles north of Copenhagen, Denmark, is home to a 400-year-old marvel known today as the Bakken Amusment Park.

The park contains over 100 rides including roller coasters, merry-go rounds, a tunnel of love, snack bars, open air restaurants and much more. The park was open to the public in 1583 and has been operational ever since. It also boasts a wooden roller coaster from 1932.

During the Medieval period, Europe was home to many similar parks such as Bakken, but most of these ancient pleasure gardens did not survive the test of time. The park preserves its good old charm even to this day, as only bicycles and horse drawn carriages are allowed inside, which makes Bakken a one of a kind amusement park.

Is a vintage white wine from 350 A.D. drinkable?

They say that wines get better as they age, but historians are debating on whether or not to open the world's oldest bottle of wine that has been on display at the Pfalz Historical Museum for over 100 years.

Nobody knows how this wine would taste even though it's not spoiled microbiologically. The curators are not sure how the wine and the bottle would handle being opened –  many are convinced it wouldn't be palatable.

The bottle in question was buried with a Roman noble in the German countryside and found sometime during WWI. Most historians agree it was buried in approximately 350 AD.

A 19th century motorcycle that people ride even today

This is a motorbike that simply doesn't go out of fashion. What else can be the reason for a manufacturer to make the same model for over 50 years?

The history of the Royal Enfield dates back to 1891 to a small factory in England that produced some of the finest motorcycles of the time. The bike underwent some changes over time, until the formation of the "Bullet" model.

The company moved from England to India over the latter part of the 20th Century and the Madras based manufacturer has been reproducing the 1949 model motorcycle to this day. However, certain modifications have been introduced to keep up with the local laws and other specifications.

Royal Enfield the oldest continuously produced motorcycle in the world. The company is now eyeing a global expansion and has even come back to England after a very long time.

The light that never goes out

No, we're not talking about the light at the end of the tunnel. This is a regular filament light bulb that has been burning bright since the time of Edison himself, at a fire station in Livermore, California.

The light has achieved celebrity status and has its own Guinness World Record. It was installed in the Livermore Fire Station in 1901 and has been turned off only for about a week since then. It was designed by Adolphe Chailet whose bulb designs have been known to last longer than Edison's inventions.

The light has its own fan club, a CCTV camera and a website and if that wasn't enough, nobody knows how it still continues to burn.

61-year-old WITCH still calculates

If you are imagining a really old woman with a crooked nose zapping around on a broomstick, you are imagining the wrong kind of witch. The WITCH that we're talking about is actually the Hardwell Dekatron, a 61-year-old giant calculator that looks like something right out of Star Trek. The WITCH weighs over 2.5 tons, has over 10,000 moving parts and can work relentlessly for over 80 hours in a week without making a single mistake. It is made completely out of parts that were commonly available in a 1950s telephone exchange.

The calculator was initially used for mathematical modeling at the Atomic Energy Research Establishment in Harwell. It was eventually phased out, dismantled into 50 parts and put into storage. However, in November 2012, the device was put together again and is considered to be the world's oldest working digital computer.

The WITCH has not only defied death, but has literally come back from the grave.

Barbie Malibu Mansion – a life-size mansion inspired by Barbie's dream house

In honor of Barbie's 50th birthday celebration, interior decorator extraordinaire, Jonathan Adler, decked out a real-life 3,500-square-foot pad overlooking the Pacific Ocean to look like the blond doll's outrageous home. He lined Barbie's bedroom with wall-to-wall pink carpeting emblazoned with her initial. The closet is filled with 50 pairs of pink peep-toe heels while her kitchen is stocked with cupcake-making ingredients. An in-house museum features 25 vintage Barbie dolls on display. In the garage? A pink Volkswagen New Beetle with a motorized pop-up vanity in the trunk. Adler's favorite furnishings are hanging in the living room: an original Andy Warhol portrait of Barbie valued at over $200,000 and a chandelier — designed by "Project Runway" contestant Chris March — that's made up of over 30 blond wigs and took more than 60 hours to craft. He also admires a one-of-a-kind black-and-white wall mirror created with 64 dolls. The house is perched on a cliff in Malibu overlooking the ocean. It's a fantasyland for anyone.

Acqua Liana, Florida – The most luxurious eco mansion

Frank McKinney, known as the real estate “artist,” has built a 15,000-square-foot “eco-mansion.” Is that possible? I am not sure whether to look in awe at all the sleek green that money can buy, or to recoil from the notion that 15,000 feet of excess is environmentally friendly. Inspired by trips to Bali, Fiji, Tahiti and Hawaii, the three-story, 15,000-square-foot, 7-bedroom, 11-bath mansion features floating sun terraces, a waterfall spa with a fire feature in the water and an arched aquarium wet bar. Green features inside the one-off mansion include enough solar panels to cover a basketball court generating enough energy for two or three average-size homes. A water system that collects enough run-off water to fill the average swimming pool every 14 days and environmentally conscious lighting reduces electricity consumption by 70 per cent. There is enough reclaimed wood to save 10.5 acres of Brazilian rain forest.

Versailles, Florida - The largest family home ever built in the US

This 30 bedroom mansion boasts its own bowling alley, roller skating rink and Olympic sized swimming pool to make it the largest family home ever built in the US. Time share mogul David Siegel and his former beauty queen wife Jacqueline began building the huge estate three years ago. But with almost 18 months of work still to be carried out on the property they have put it on the market at $75m. Experts believe a further $25m needs to be spent before anyone can move in.

As well as 30 bedrooms the home would have 23 bathrooms with spectacular views over Lake Butler, about 20 miles from Orlando. The hand-built windows for the house cost more than £2m and other luxuries include a ballroom and a children's theatre. There is a garage with enough space for 20 cars, three swimming pools, a large boat house, formal gardens, and a one-story gatehouse with an apartment. There is also a baseball field, two tennis courts, a 60 foot by 120 foot Grand Hall with a 30-foot stained glass dome, two grand staircases, a 37 foot by 30 foot kitchen, 10 satellite kitchens, a two-story wine cellar and a rock grotto with three separate spas behind an 80-foot waterfall. All 23 full bathrooms have full-sized Jacuzzis, 160 tripled paned windows and Brazilian mahogany French-style doors that alone cost pds2.million.

The property was called Versailles as the entrance was modeled after the Palace of Versailles in France.

Fleur De Lys, Beverly Hills – Mariah Carey's palace

For the woman with the most expensive pair of legs, it was only fair she also had one of the most expensive houses in the world. Mariah Carey apparently had no problem scraping together a nice down payment on this palace in Beverly Hills. The Fleur De Lys is among the world's most expensive estates with an asking price of $125 million. Maria Carey's new digs were built by a Texan billionaire on 5 acres; it is 41,000 square feet of pure diva luxury and will also be modeled after the most extravagant home of its time: the Palace of Versaille, the former home of Marie Antoinette. Surrounding the mansion are rolling lawns, ornamental gardens and mature trees, a 3,000-square-foot manager's house, staff quarters for 10 people, a spa and pool with a pavilion, a championship tennis court, and a lavish garden folly.

Antilla, Mumbai - The first Billion dollar home

Mukesh Ambani, the fifth richest man in the world and head of the Mumbai based petrochemical giant Reliance Industries is estimated to be worth somewhere in the region of $43 billion. He is also the owner to-be of a 27-story skyscraper in downtown Mumbai that is to cost him colossal $2 billion! His wife Nita Ambani was staying in the Mandarin Oriental in New York and was so impressed with the interior Asian style decor that she wanted something similar for her to live in. What resulted from that is the world's largest and most expensive home ever. Every story in the Antilla's skyscraper home will be built to a different specification. The vast variation of materials to be used in its build has tremendously added to its overall cost. The meticulous planning that has gone into this architectural design is astounding and once the 27 -story tower is built it will certainly become a spectacular site for all eyes. Hirsch Bedner Associates are the designers behind this project.