Camping halfway up a rock face!

This is not for individuals with a weak heart!

How would you like to spend a camping holiday dangling 150metres[500feet] up the Bavarian Alps? It may cost you 750 sterling pounds but for thrill seekers the cost may not matter as it will definitely be a unforgettable experience.

Now ice-cool campers can now pitch their tents at the world’s most extreme site - halfway up a sheer rock face. At least you get a day’s climbing tuition thrown in and the instructor brings a safety harness and super-strength ropes

The two-man platforms are hauled up the cliff face in Waldseilgarten-Hollschlucht, an outdoor activity centre in Pfronten, southern Germany. Campers can only bring a sleeping bag, a rope and basic dinner while the instructor sleeps on the outside. The upside is the view. It’s outstanding … unless cloud and rain blows in. Robin Currie, a guide at Waldseilgarten said: ‘It’s not cheap but it is a once-in-a-lifetime experience you won’t forget.’ If that is too hardcore the centre also offers beech tree-top packages where campers sleep on ledges dangling from branches.

Opportunist politicians’ names for destructive typhoons!

Not a bad idea! But the only problem will be to find more and more typhoons, whirlwinds and other destructive natural phenomena to equal the number of opportunist politicians.This call has been forwarded through a petition sent by a group of Filipinos to Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomical Service Administration [PAGASA]. The petition had made a request to name typhoons after opportunist politicians.

In the petition via Change.org, Ismael Tolden called onnetizens [people using the internet] to support the move.

“The devastation they cause is so great... Mother Nature can't even compete with them for the destruction of life and property,” he said.

“Sign up now! Let this be a constant reminder of how our hard-earned money has been stolen or misspent by opportunist politicians,” he said.

Change.org, an alternative venue for one’s call to action, has received at least 20 petitions on such misdeeds.

After the Million People March in Luneta last August 26, more groups are organising events meant to mobilise the public to stand up against corruption.

Earlier they had asked government officials to take public transportation so they too will experience the difficulties the commuters are facing.

The giant of Rome

A man with an unnaturally long shin-bone can be called a giant.

And according to medical discoveries he may also be suffering from gigantism - a condition in which somebody grows to an unusually large size.

The recent discovery of the first complete ancient skeleton of a person with gigantism near Rome has made scientists and other specialists to wonder whether he can be called a giant or whether he was suffering from gigantism.

At 6 feet, 8 inches (202 centimetres) tall, the man would have been a giant in the third-century A.D. Rome, where men averaged about 5 and a half feet (167 centimetres) tall. By contrast, today’s tallest man measures 8 feet, 3 inches (251 centimetres).

Finding such skeletons is rare, because gigantism itself is extremely rare, today affecting about three people in a million worldwide. The condition begins in childhood, when a malfunctioning pituitary gland causes abnormal growth.

Two partial skeletons, one from Poland and another from Egypt, have previously been identified as “probable” cases of gigantism, but the Roman specimen is the first clear case from the ancient past, study leader SimonaMinozzi, a paleopathologist at Italy's University of Pisa, said.

The unusual skeleton was found in 1991 during an excavation at a necropolis in a territory indirectly managed by Rome.

At the time, the Archaeological Superintendent of Rome, which led the project, noted that the man's tomb was abnormally long.

It was only during a later anthropological examination, though, that the bones too were found to be unusual. Shortly thereafter, they were sent to Minozzi's group for further analysis.

To find out if the skeleton had gigantism, the team examined the bones and found evidence of skull damage consistent with a pituitary tumour, which disrupts the pituitary gland, causing it to overproduce human growth hormone.

Other findings - such as disproportionately long limbs and evidence that the bones were still growing even in early adulthood - support the gigantism diagnosis, according to the study, published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism. His early demise - likely between 16 and 20 - might also point to gigantism, which is associated with cardiovascular disease and respiratory problems, said Minozzi, who emphasized that the cause of death remains unknown.

The Roman giant, though, was found with no funerary artefacts, study leader Minozzi said. And, she added, his burial was typical of the time, suggesting he was included as part of society.

“We know nothing about the role or presence of giants in the Roman world,” she said - other than the fact that the second century A.D. Emperor MaximinusThrax was described in literature as a “human mountain.” Minozzi noted, though, that imperial Roman high society “developed a pronounced taste for entertainers with evident physical malformations, such as hunchbacks and dwarfs - so we can assume that even a giant generated enough interest and curiosity.”