Ancient Prada: Archeologists Uncover 4500 Year Old Purse

Wilma Flintstone & Betty Rubble model the latest in prehistoric prêt-à-porter.

Excavators in Germany have uncovered what is believed to be the world's oldest handbag, National Geographic reveals!

The amazing discovery—believed to be the first of its kind anywhere in the world—was found in a grave site at an ancient burial ground on a 250-acre site being excavated outside of Leipzig, Germany. The item—thought to be a ceremonial handbag used to carry precious cargo of the time—is elaborately decorated with over 100 canine teeth and is at least 4500-years-old, dating from the time of the Stone Age.

Over the millennium, the leather and fabric that the purse was fashioned from has rotted away, leaving only the dog teeth as evidence of its former glory. While a handbag made of canine teeth is an extremely rare find, canine teeth used for ceremonial decorations is actually a common theme among Stone and Bronze Age artifacts.

In fact, so many teeth from dogs have been excavated from graves around the region that it suggests dogs were as important as livestock to Stone Age man and they have been man's best friend since pre-historic times.

We know that the handbag would look right at home on the arms of Wilma Flintstone and Betty Rubble!

Because He's Worth It: Man Steals $40,000+ in Skin Care Items

A Coppell, Texas, man has turned himself into authorities after being on the lam for stealing over $40,000 worth of skincare products from stores during a six-month period starting this past December!

Efrain Hardman, dubbed the "Oil of Olay Bandit" by local media and police, was caught on various surveillance recordings, walking away with large quantities of high-end cosmetics and skincare products. It is believed his intentions were to re-sell the products on the open market, earning a hefty profit, seeing as he didn't pay anything at all for the items.

The smooth-faced 27-year-old criminal recently lost his job at an Irving, Texas, fast-food restaurant, and was in dire need of some quick cash, police are guessing. Hardman surrendered to the police after the local NBC affiliate news program aired a story about him, naming him as the prime suspect in the robberies once authorities identified him from surveillance footage recorded at several Tom Thumb grocery stores, which seemed to be his favorite target.

Hardman has been charged with four counts of theft in Coppell, but other cities in Texas are also interested in pressing charges against him.

La Dolce Vita: Italian Village for Sale on eBay for $3 Million

If you are in the market for a good deal, you might consider purchasing an entire Italian village for the bargain basement price of $3 million US!

The medieval Tuscan hill town of Pratariccia—which consists of a total of 25 abandoned houses and buildings atop a promontory —is up for sale at online auction house eBay, for a reasonable starting bid of $3 million. The once lovely hilltop hamlet has been abandoned since the late 1960s. eBay does list the village as "in need of restoration", as most of the buildings have seen better days, many with collapsed roofs and crumbling façades after decades of neglect.

Set amid beautiful rolling hills and stunning scenery, Pratariccia is nestled deep in the Tuscan countryside and only 25 miles from the Renaissance gem of Florence. The town is also close to the inhabited hilltop villages of Bibbiena and Poppi, with Poppi being famous for its castle with Renaissance frescoes and Latin manuscripts dating from the Middle Ages.

Pratariccia also borders a national park that holds the source of the Arno River which flows through Florence before emptying into the Mediterranean Sea.

The town is currently owned by an order of monastic monks and was listed on eBay earlier this month for an original asking price of $5 million US. The price was lowered in recent days. If you are interested in purchasing the fixer-upper village, you may bid for it on eBay here: 

Covered in Poo: Are Bird Dropping Facial Treatments the New Botox?

If A-List stars like actor Tom Cruise and David and Victoria Beckham look as if they haven't aged a day in the past decade or so, you can thank a helpful dose of bird poo!

It seems the Mission Impossible star has taken to using an unusual facial treatment to erase the passage of time from his face that contains the excrement of the nightingale bird. The poo is mixed with rice bran and water and then applied to the face as a mask and allowed to dry for several minutes. The facial mask is washed away, revealing a more youthful, radiant complexion. Apparently, the poo acts as a natural exfoliant for the skin, stripping away dead skin cells that dull the complexion and allow for the formation of wrinkles.

The treatments obviously work, as Cruise, the star of the musical Rock of Ages in theaters now, looks the same as he did in 1998. The popular actor will turn 50-years-old on Monday, and is said to eschew plastic surgery and Botox injections in favor of the all-natural treatment. He almost looks as youthful as his wife [Edit: Soon-to-be-ex-wife, as Holmes filed for divorce from Cruise today! Wonder if the bird poo was part of the reason?], actress Katie Holmes, who is 17 years his junior. Superstar couple David and Victoria Beckham, who are good friends of Cruise, are also rumored to be fans of the intriguing facial treatments.

The bird dropping treatments have been used for centuries in Japan, where the formula was originally created to cleanse the skin of geishas and kabuki actors, who traditionally used heavy, powder-based makeup to theatrically conceal their facial features.

The facial treatment can be purchased online here:

Cruise hasn't aged at all in at least a decade. Could bird poo be his secret to youth?

Thriller, Tiger Once Belonging to Michael Jackson, Dies

A tiger that once belonged to the King of Pop Michael Jackson has died of lung cancer at the age of 13.

The female tiger named Thriller —after the star's bestselling album — and her brother Sabu both once lived at Jackson's mythical Neverland Estate near Santa Barbara, California. The pop superstar relinquished custody of the tigers in 2006, after a series of financial reversals. The cats were eventually given to The Birds actress Tippi Hedren, who runs the wildlife preserve Shambala fifty miles north of Los Angeles, California.

When Jackson sold the Neverland Estate, his veterinarian asked Hedren —the mother of actress Melanie Griffith —to take the sibling tigers into her sanctuary. Other animals that were a part of Jackson's extensive menagerie— including giraffes, flamingos, orangutans, elephants and dozens of reptiles —were sent to other sanctuaries in other parts of the country.

Hedren states that both the tigers arrived at Shambala in good physical and mental condition. She was upset, however, that Jackson never returned to see the tigers after parting with them, nor did he contribute financially to their care, although some of the proceeds from the sale of Michael's famous Thriller video jacket —which went for $1.8 million at auction in 2011—were handed over to help with some of the enormous expenses.

Last Monday marked the third anniversary of Jackson's untimely death.

Branded a Cheater: New Men's Ring Makes an Impression

If you are the type of person who likes to show your ownership of your husband, then you might be interested in a new ring that literally brands the phrase "I'm Married" into your hubby's ring finger.

Web site The Cheeky is now offering up the special "Anti-Cheating" ring, which leaves an impression of the phrase proclaiming the wearer's marital status. So, a philandering husband will be left with the scarlet phrase on his ring finger, even if he attempts to take off his wedding ring to fool others into believing he is single!

The branded words are only temporary, of course. (You can consult The Story of O for a more permanent solution!) The ring is made out of strengthened titanium, which is obviously stronger than the marriage of the person wearing the ring, and retails for a bargain $550.

 The web site describes the ring as follows:

"With Arnold, Tiger and two timing IMF guy in mind, we have created this wedding ring for people intent on cheating. The negative engraving on the inside means that when you are in the ‘Club’ and an attractive woman…or man comes along to chat, slipping your wedding ring off is not an option. The mark left on your skin says…I’m Married".

The site also gives the ring a lifetime guarantee, "til death...and all that".

No Sexy Tractors Allowed: Kenny Chesney Doppelgänger Gets Booted from Concert

A man with an uncanny resemblance to country crooner Kenny Chesney has received an apology after getting booted from a recent concert.

Apparently, Chesney's doppelgänger Nate Blankenship thought that he would have a bit of fun before a concert at Nashville's L-P Field, having himself photographed with fans of the singer who couldn't get up close and personal with the real deal.

Security team members approached Blankenship and told him he was "causing confusion" during the concert and proceeded to toss him out of the stadium. Now, Chesney's camp is issuing an apology, stating the star had not been informed of the incident and had nothing to do with his twin being thrown out of the venue.


"Being made aware through the media that fan Nathan Blankenship was removed from the Brothers of the Sun Tour show in Nashville on Saturday night, the promoter of the show is contacting Blankenship to resolve the matter," read a statement from Chesney's record label Sony to E! News. "No one in Chesney's management or promoter camp was aware that this fan had been escorted from the show until after it had been reported by the media."

Renee Zellweger's ex has promised to refund Blankenship his ticket money and will be sending him a gift basket of Sony merchandise as an apology.

Novelist/Screenwriter Nora Ephron Dead at 71

Award-winning novelist, screenwriter and director Nora Ephron has passed away in New York City at the age of 71.

Ephron carved out a highly-successful career for herself in Hollywood, writing the screenplays for some of the most popular comedies of the past several decades, including When Harry Met Sally and Sleepless in Seattle.

She began her journalistic career writing essays for periodicals and magazines, before trying her hand at novel-writing. Ephron admitted her 1983 bestseller Heartburn was loosely based on her marriage to Watergate journalist Carl Bernstein and detailed his alleged infidelities during the course of their marriage. The novel was later made into a film starring Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson, with Ephron writing the screenplay.

She would find her niche in writing movie scripts. She wrote the script for the Academy Award nominated film Silkwood, which would star Streep along with Cher and Kurt Russell. Her biggest success would come with her romantic comedies-dubbed "chick flicks" by the mass media. When Harry Met Sally was a huge financial success at the box office, catapulting former As the World Turns actress Meg Ryan into international super-stardom. Sleepless in Seattle was also a mammoth box office smash around the world, pairing Ryan once again with her popular co-star Tom Hanks.

More recently, she experienced success with Streep yet again in Julie & Julia, with the actress emoting as chef Julia Child (and earning yet another Oscar nomination). Her bestselling memoir I Feel Bad About My Neck And Other Thoughts About Being a Woman published in 2007 detailed her own insecurities about Hollywood and her appearance as she aged in a town that does not allow for aging.

Ephron passed away of pneumonia brought on by acute myeloid leukemia, her son Jacob Bernstein told The New York Times. She is survived by her third husband, Goodfellas screenwriter Nicholas Pileggi, and her two sons with ex-husband Carl Bernstein.

Mysterious Baltic "UFO" Cuts Off Electrical Equipment, Turns Off Cameras

The mysterious "Millennium Falcon" shaped object that rests on the floor of the Baltic Sea between Finland and Sweden is stirring up even more interest from UFO enthusiasts and scientists alike after it was revealed that electric equipment cuts off whenever instruments get too close to it.

Divers have been studying the object since its discovery in May of 2011, which was given its nickname due to its resemblance to a spacecraft featured in the popular Star Wars films directed by George Lucas.

Professional diver Stefan Hogerborn, part of the Ocean X team which has set out to study the strange object, has reported that some of the equipment and cameras being used for the exploration mysteriously cut off whenever team members are floating above the site. 


"Anything electric out there - and the satellite phone as well - stopped working when we were above the object," Hogerborn is quoted as saying. "And then we got away about 200 meters and it turned on again, and when we got back over the object it didn’t work."

Fellow team member Dennis Åsberg states, "We have experienced things that I really couldn’t imagine and I have been the team's biggest skeptic regarding these different kind of theories.I was kind of prepared just to find a stone or cliff or outcrop or pile of mud but it was nothing like that, so for me it has been a missing experience I must say."

The object was first uncovered in May of last year, but because there was no funding for a dive at the time, the team members were unable to explore the site until now. The crew had reported a strange, metallic outline along with a similar disk-shaped object some 200 meters away. Team members at the time reported that the object resembled an aircraft that looked as if it had crash landed into the ocean, with parts of it breaking up like the fuselage of a plane and scudding a large distance across the sea bed floor.

 The company designed and built a submarine in the hopes that it will lure tourists and treasure hunters willing to pay money to help continue fund the exploration. Another dive is scheduled in the coming weeks.

Supersonic: New Jet Could Fly London to Sydney in 5 Hours

A proposed new supersonic jet could be capable of flying from London to Sydney, Australia in as little as five hours.

Jetliner manufacturers Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Gulfstream are working in tandem with NASA to develop the first supersonic passenger aircraft for the business jet market. The consortium is working on the project, dubbed "The Son of Concorde", which would be capable of traveling at speeds of up to 2,485 miles per hour. Such a plane would be able to fly from London to Sydney-a distance of over 10,000 miles- in under 5 hours, a trip that would take almost 24 hours using conventional commercial aircraft.

As of now, the biggest obstacle the consortium faces is the "sonic boom" produced by aircraft traveling faster than the speed of sound. This problem has prevented supersonic aircraft from being feasible to use over land in the past. As of now, the fastest commercial aircraft in use, Gulfstream’s new G650, can fly 646 miles per hour and has a top speed of just 704 mile per hour.

The last supersonic aircraft in commercial use was the Concorde, which was taken out of commission in 2003 after a series of accidents, including a deadly crash at Paris' Charles du Gaulle Airport in 2000, which killed all 109 passengers aboard.

A prototype of the experimental aircraft is expected to debut at the Farnborough Air Show in London next month.  The jet, given the code name X-54, would start limited runs in 2020 and be commercially viable by 2030 if is determined to be safe and reliable.

Double Jeopardy: Alex Trebek Suffers Another Heart Attack

Popular game show host Alex Trebek is recovering from a mild heart attack.

The 71-year-old Jeopardy host was admitted into Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles on Saturday evening with chest pains. A spokesperson for Sony Television said that Trebek was "good spirits and is currently under observation and undergoing further testing. He is expected to fully recover and be back at Jeopardy! when production begins taping in July for the new season, the show's 29th.”

This is the second heart attack for the affable Trebek, who has hosted Jeopardy for the past 28 years. He suffered his first mild heart attack in December of 2007, but he was back at the podium hosting his popular game show only a few weeks later.

He also made headlines last year after he injured his Achilles' tendon chasing a female burglar that had broken into his San Francisco hotel room.

Paradise Lost: Shame of Maldive's "Garbage Island"

The islands of the Maldives in the Indian Ocean have long been associated with incredible beauty, a paradise for tourists from around the world who flock to the tiny archipelago to enjoy its amazing beaches.

But the island nations' secret shame has been revealed, as one of the islands in the chain of twenty-six atolls that make up the Maldives has been turned into a squalid area of burning garbage.

The inhabited island of Thilafushi has been transformed from its former idyllic beauty into an island of fetid, burning rubbish. Not far from the eyes of tourists, the tiny atoll is now the trash receptacle for the entire nation, which boasts a population of only 330,000 residents. Tourism, however, boosts the population of the island considerably at any given time, as over 750,000 people a year visit the Maldives, with most coming from Europe. The huge influx of visitors each year has created a nightmare in waste disposal, with the government unable to handle the immense amounts of garbage created. It has been estimated that each visitor generates more than a pound of garbage a day during their visit.

The island must cope with an estimated 300 tons of garbage each day, with very little space to deal with such copious amounts of human refuse. Thilafushi is now referred to by locals as "Garbage Island". A thick, toxic haze of continuously burning rubbish now taints the once cerulean blue skies over the island, and the garbage is stacked to the ocean's edge, marring formerly pristine white sand beaches.

Now, inhabitants of the island are scrounging among the vast piles of garbage, in search of scraps of metal or anything that can be salvaged and sold in order to make end's meet. Recently, boats have been tossing the garbage directly into the sea, not wanting to wait up to seven hours to dump their loads into the open land fill on the island. Now, the government has temporarily banned more garbage from being dumped on Thilafushi, with boats now being sent to India to dump their refuse.

A  recycling program has been put into place in earnest in an attempt to help control the overwhelming trash situation.

The Tide Is High: Scientists Say Sea Levels Rising Faster Than Expected

Sea levels around the globe could rise by as much as two to three times faster than previously expected, according to a dire new report released by think tank US National Research Council.

The committee of climate experts re-evaluated the latest United Nations estimates and updated them with new data regarding polar ice-cap melting and concluded the melt-off is accelerating the rise in sea levels worldwide at a far faster rate.

 By the year 2100, the National Research Council estimates that global sea levels will rise on an average between 20-55 inches (50 and 140 centimeters). A United Nations panel on climate change in 2007 had projected a rise of only seven to twenty-three inches worldwide during the same time frame.

In terms of near-future sea level changes, the committee has predicted a rise in coastal water levels by three to nine inches by the year 2030 with a rise of up to 19 inches by 2050.  These rates are considerably higher than predicted in a report released by climate experts in the year 2000.

The committee was initially convened by an executive order from California to assess sea level rise in order to make preparations for coastal impact, and to make the first detailed predictions for the US West Coast. The study concluded that Oregon and Washington State would perhaps be less impacted by the rising tides, as tectonic activity in the region is actually causing  land in the area to rise higher.

The study also concluded that the change in sea levels would continue to contribute to the increase in severe and catastrophic weather events globally.  The study predicted that seismic activity in California could cause a sudden rise in sea levels along the coastline by as much as a meter (3.3 feet), with devastating results.

OMG! You Killed Kenny: Man Who Threatened South Park Creators Gets 12 Year Sentence

A man who threatened the lives of South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker has received a 12 year prison sentence handed down by a New York court.

33-year-old Jesse Curtis Morton of Brooklyn, New York, received the sentence after posting online threats against Stone and Parker as well as a host of others who he deemed "enemies of Islam". Morton, who converted to the Muslim religion, founded the now-defunct Revolution Muslim web site, which attacked individuals and organizations perceived as an affront to Islamic beliefs.

Morton offered an apology at his sentencing, stating he "contributed to a clash of civilizations" by espousing a violent ideology. "I justified atrocities by Muslims simply because they were carried out by the weak against the powerful."

The incident stemmed from an episode of South Park where the Prophet Muhammad was depicted in a bear costume. Islamic laws strictly forbids any characterization or drawings of the Prophet from being published, which is a punishable offense considered to be blasphemous.

The always irreverent cartoon has courted controversy countless times since its debut on the Comedy Central cable network in 1997, featuring off-color and often offensive humor as well as stinging parodies of contemporary themes.

Founding Father: Book Belonging to George Washington Sells for Eight Figures

A book once belonging to American president George Washington sold at Christie's Auction House in New York City for almost $10 million.

The book, titled The Acts of Congress, was printed in 1789 and contains Washington's annotated copy of the American Constitution, a draft of the Bill of Rights, as well as handwritten notes in the margins and his signature and family crest on the title page.

A fierce bidding war commenced at Christie's between two unidentified parties, but ultimately the winning bid of $9,826,500 was offered by the Mount Vernon Ladies Association, which owns and runs Washington's historic Mount Vernon estate in Virginia.

The book remained at Mount Vernon until 1876, when it was sold by Washington's nephew Lawrence for only $13, around $300 in today's money. It at one time belonged to publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst— who Orson Wells used for the basis of his classic film Citizen Kane.

The amount is one of the highest ever paid for a bound manuscript. The book is expected to be returned home to Mount Vernon by the Association.

Not So Good Humor: Northeast Faces Ice Cream Bar Shortage

As parts of the country swelter under an oppressive heatwave, the Northeastern half of the United States faces a dire emergency: a shortage of Good Humor ice cream bars!

It seems that this year's freakishly warm Spring has left the venerable ice cream company with a low stock of its most popular ice cream bars, including the flavors Chocolate Eclair, Toasted Almond and Candy Center Crunch. Fans of the yummy summer-time favorite in the Northeast might find that their local stores will be completely out of the cooling treats.

A company representative assures that stock of the more popular flavors will be hitting retail outlets again over the next few weeks. ""We are confident that all issues will be resolved by mid-summer," parent company Unilever spokesman Jeff Graubard said in an email.

That can't come soon enough to ice cream truck drivers in the area affected by the outage, as they've seen sales of their scrumptious treats fall by at least 5 percent during the shortage, as customers are very particular to the flavors they want. Drivers report that often customers will opt not to buy anything at all once they've discovered that their favorite flavor is unavailable to purchase.