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It won’t come with the ocean views, but you can still catch some thrills from riding your very own Ferris wheel, straight off the Santa Monica Pier.

The nine-story wheel that’s been at Pacific Park since 1996 was put up for sale Tuesday on eBay.

The wheel overlooking the Pacific has 20 gondolas and is outlined in 5,392 light bulbs. It has provided some 3 million rides and has been seen in movies, on television and in numerous photos.

Next month, however, the Pacific Wheel will be replaced by a $1.5 million modern model.

The old wheel is operational and still in “great” shape, said Cameron Andrews, a spokesman for the amusement park.

The wheel cost $800,000 when it was built. It was modified in 1998 to become the world’s first solar-powered Ferris wheel.
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A man said in his interview for the local news he was scared but determined when he pulled a family dog off a seven-year-old girl in Blacktown yesterday who was savagely mauled in a backyard attack.

Police say the Staffordshire-cross pitbull attacked the girl about 8.45am in her backyard, biting her several times and dislocating her shoulder.

The girl was taken to Westmead Children’s Hospital in a serious but stable condition.

Luke Logan, whose mother-in-law lives next door to the family, told Network Ten he climbed the fence as soon as he realised the girl was being attacked.

He says it was scary, but he just wanted to get her out of there.

The the dog was impounded by Blacktown Council officers and police say it will probably be destroyed.

Pitbulls - and any dogs crossed with them - have been restricted under NSW law since 2006.

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The world’s most expensive cup of coffee - made partly from cat droppings - is to go on sale at £50 a time.

The brew is a blend of Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee and Kopi Luwak, a south-east Asian bean collected from civet cat droppings that sells for £324 a kilo.

Created by expert David Cooper, the blend is on sale at Peter Jones department store in London.

It is believed to be the most expensive cup of coffee in the world, reports the Daily Telegraph. Proceeds go to the MacMillan Cancer Trust.

Mr Cooper said: “These rare coffees have been slowly hand roasted for around 12 minutes to ensure that we maximise the potential of each coffee.

“The final roast colour is quite dark to ensure that the espresso is perfect for a smooth latte or cappuccino.”

Kopi Luwak (”civet coffee”) is made from partially digested beans recovered from the droppings of the civet cat, a native of Indonesia.

They are said to pick the best and ripest coffee berries, before digesting the flesh of the fruit, leaving just the bean.

Customers will be relieved to know that workers wash the dung away from the beans before sale.

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According to latest news reports British scientists proved that love at first sight really exists. Their latest research on the human face and sexual behavior was published this Wednesday.

News reports say that the study conducted by the universities of Durham, St Andrews and Aberdeen on 700 heterosexuals in their twenties, showed that one look can be enough for you to determine whether a long-term relationship is on the cards, or just a one-night stand.

The journal “Evolution and Human Behaviour” says that subtle sexual signals emanate from the shape of the jaw, nose size or narrowness of the eyes, “although people were not always sure about their judgments,” the authors noted.

“Lots of previous studies have shown that people can judge a lot about a person from their face, including things like health and even some personality traits like introversion,” said Ben Jones, from the University of Aberdeen’s Face Research Lab.

“But this really is the first study to show that people are also sensitive to subtle facial signals about the type of romantic relationships that others might enjoy.”
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An off-duty police officer has been shot with a Taser stun gun by fellow officers after becoming involved in a fight with them in Perth’s entertainment district.

Two women complained to officers patrolling James Street in Northbridge early this morning that they were being harassed by a group of people.

As the officers took their details, an off-duty sergeant was standing with a group of men nearby.

When he tried to become involved in the situation, the officers advised him to let them deal with the matter.  (more…)

Palau President Thomas Remengesau Jr. extended his stay Thursday at Philippine International Airport for 12 hours when he refused to be frisked by staff of Continental Airline, which was the standard aviation procedure, officials said.

Remengesau refused to undergo a body frisking procedure at Ninoy Aquino International Airport Wednesday evening prior to boarding a Continental Airline flight.

According to Manila International Airport Authority general manager Alfonso Cusi, there was no scuffle.

Cusi said that it was just a simple misunderstanding between the Palau delegation and security airport officials.

Aside from Remengesau’s refusal to be frisked, the Continental Airline where he would be boarded, was targeted by a bomb threat and was forced to stay.

The flight was immediately resumed five hours from its original departure time, after thorough inspection has cleared the airplane from any bomb at 4:52 a.m. local time.

A man from North Potomac, Maryland made a goldmine out of the domain name he had been maintaining since 1994 for $20 a year after the web address sold for $2.6 million in an online site that auctions domains.

Chris Clark’s pizza.com received the highest bid from an anonymous bidder when the auction closed Thursday. The bidding ran for a week.

Clark, 42, registered the domain name in 1994 when the World Wide Web was just starting with the hope of snaring a contract with a pizza company for his consulting firm. He sold his business in 2000 but kept paying the $20 annual maintenance fee for the web address and used it to get advertisements.

He and a friend turned the site into a pizza directory one year ago that earned them over $5,000 before deciding to sell the name online in January. Clark was inspired by the online sale of the vodka.com for $3 million in Sedo, so he placed pizza.com in the international online auction site.

From $100 on the first day, the bid for domain name jumped to $1 million the following day on March 28.

Italian engineer Enrico Berruti admits that it was simply his personal laziness that first prompted him to come up with the idea of a bed that makes itself.

Three years later, his first prototype is on show at the five-day International Exhibition of Inventions that started yesterday in Geneva.

The bed has a contraption at the sides with tubes on which one wraps the sides of the duvet linen. A button activates the tubes to smooth over the duvet linen, while straps at the side will tighten the sheet itself.

“To be honest, I am a little bit lazy so I thought of something to do the job (of making a bed) for me,” he said, adding that the application could be practical for people with back problems who may not be able to bend.

Like many other inventors at the show, he is seeking a deal that would eventually lead to the commercialisation of his project.

In 2006 the event led to deals worth more than $US30 million ($A32.9 million), while in 2007 licences were negotiated totalling $US40 million ($A43.8 million), said the fair organiser.

Jean-Luc Vincent, who chairs the fair, said companies were increasingly “looking for ideas outside their walls”.

“Procter and Gamble, for instance finds 40 per cent of its innovations outside its own R&D department.

“The old idea, that the invention which will make a profit for the company should emerge from its own technical department is being abandoned,” he said.

This year, about 720 exhibitors from 45 countries are hoping to get similar deals with venture capitalists or businesses.

The rule of the exhibition is that an invention can be exhibited only once in Geneva and must have some form of intellectual property rights protection.

Inventions range from food products, including non-alcoholic beer jelly for breakfast, to automobile parts, such as a device aimed at saving drivers from the pain of parallel parking. In the field of heavy machinery, there is a drilling rig for underwater geological exploration.

Missouri police is still trying to determine whether to file charge against a man who shot his wife trying to punch a hole through a wall to install a satellite TV system.

Patsy D. Long, 34, of Deepwater, was pronounced dead this Saturday after being shot in the chest with a handgun fired by her husband in effort to punch a hole through the exterior wall.

“She was given CPR by neighbors and family until medics arrived,” police said. “She was transported by air ambulance, but was pronounced dead at the hospital just after 6 p.m.”

According to local news he tried a handgun after several unsuccessful efforts using other means. Patsy was outside the house and was hit by a second shot fired by her husband according to Henry County Sheriff’s Department.

“He was under the impression that everybody was inside the residence, that he knew where everybody was at,” said sheriff’s department spokesman Major Robert Hills, adding that a person involved in such incident would be charged with manslaughter.

“Once we complete a diagram of the incident, we will be submitting everything to the prosecuting attorney and let him decide if he wants to press criminal charges,” Hills said.

Henry County Coroner Scott Largent declined to release details about Patsy Long’s death until the sheriff’s department completes its investigation.

A baby girl born in Northern India is being worshiped as a reincarnated God because she was born with two faces. The baby girl was born on Monday at a hospital in the suburbs of Delhi, India’s capital.

According IBNLive.com people in rural village have been singing, dancing, offering money and asking for her blessings. Both mother and child are healthy and doing fine, according to a doctor at the hospital.

The girl, who has four eyes and two faces, is born to Vinod Singh and Sushma at Saifai Hospital in Dadri. The baby girl’s parents hope the government will help them give the little girl further treatment.