This poor fellow (Oscar) was in an accident with a combine, losing his legs. An ambitious veterinarian took him to a neuro-orthopedic surgeon, who crafted little peg-legs for Oscar and embedded them directly into the bone. The skin and bone, led by injected cells, have grown right over the cat side of the pegs, sealing against infection, and Oscar can now walk almost normally. The cost was enormous ($3000 not counting the surgery), but the little guy is mobile again.

Sand mandalas have been in practice for thousands of years, according to Tsepak Rigzin, assistant program director for Drepung Loseling and an adjunct Tibetan language instructor at Emory. Monks use a grated metal rod and a traditional metal funnel called a chak-pur to carefully place millions of grains of colored sand on a table.

There are hundreds of colorful mandala designs to choose from, Rigzin said, but they all share a basic format of geometric shapes and spiritual symbols.

“Normally the monks who do this, they have to go through a lot of training programs and they have to be authenticated by their masters,” Rigzin said. “They have to memorize the oral texts and learn the ritual.”

Following their traditions, the monks wiped away the sand painting within an hour of its completion.

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Which is the stupider line to be in, camping out in line to see Twilight or to buy an iPhone? Damn…this is a tougher question than I thought.

Men take a fraction of a second to decide if they are attracted to a woman or not – but they should not be called shallow because they are genetically programmed to do so, scientists say.

Men weigh up potential partners almost instantaneously based on their appearance because their “ancient” genetic preference for attractive mates leads them to, experts claim.

According to research, a woman with an attractive face is taken by men to be fertile and able to continue the family line, appealing to the man’s survival instinct.