The Guinness Book of World Records on Monday named 114-year-old Yone Minagawa as the world's oldest person after Emma Faust Tillman from the U. S. died. Tillman was also 114. Hospital staff at the nursing home where Minagawa is living in Fukuchi, southern Japan, greeted her with a poster that read, "Congratulations, you're No. 1. "

Raindrops can fall at 20 miles per hour causing what is called "splash erosion" of soil. Soil erosion caused by rain is a major problem that costs businesses, individuals and governments money every year. In agriculture alone water erosion causes an estimated $27 billion in on-site losses, and frequently causes economic losses downstream as well.

In an attempt to increase the productivity of its workers, Bangkok municipal office has launched a new nap program just past noon where civil servants are invited to take an afternoon nap. The Pathumwan district office in central Bangkok has reportedly set up a lunchtime "nap room" that has an ambience of soft music, sweet-smelling flowers and blinds drawn. Also there are strict rules that bar mobile phones and talking.

A German painter has taken to decorating coffins with flowers and other symbols of nature on the belief that plain coffins failed to address the emotional needs of society. He stumbled on the idea while working for a funeral home. Alfred Opiolka, 46, says that dealing with death is much more bearable for the bereaved when you remember the beauty of life in a person's final resting place.

horticultural event in Pyongyang held in honor of the 60th anniversary of the North Korean Communist Party provided viewers with the first glimpse of the newly hybridized floral axis of evil. Crowds looked upon richly adorned floats covered with two special flowers named after the impoverished but nuclear equipped nation's last two despots, current eccentric, despot, and man about town, Kim Jong-Il, and the former leader of the rouge nation, Kim's father, Kim Il Sung .