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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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Associated Press news agency reports today of a miraculous survival in Switzerland.

Swiss police say a baby suffered little more than a bump after being blown onto railway tracks and being run over by a train.

The incident happened Wednesday in the northeastern Swiss town of Moehlin, close to the German border.

Police say the six-month-old was in a buggy when a strong gust of wind blew it off a platform and into the path of an oncoming train.

Luckily the infant fell between the rails. Rescuers heard the baby’s cries and found it lying beneath the train, virtually unharmed.

The child and its mother were taken to hospital and treated for shock before being released.

“There wasn’t much left of the buggy,” said Bernhard Graser of the Aargau cantonal police.

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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.  Read the full story

Popularity: 63% [?]