The World’s Quietest Room ; Will Drive You Crazy in 45 Minutes ...

Ah, the Sound of Silence.

A Minnesota lab has a room that is said to be the quietest in the world. It's so quiet in fact that the only sound you'd hear is your own body.

You can eavesdrop on your heart beating, your stomach gurgling - sometimes you can even hear your lungs.

Orfield Laboratories president Steven Orfield told the Daily mail when there's nothing to hear, the ear produces "auto emissive" noises, acting as a microphone and loudspeaker.

"'In the anechoic chamber, you become the sound," he said.

The walls are double, made of insulated steel, concrete and fiberglass acoustic wedges that are a metre thick (about 3 feet). The floor is mesh, "like a trampoline" all of which make the room 99.99% sound-proof.

Orfield said the experience is definitely weird and many people who tour the room walk out within seconds.

In fact, if you're in there for any length of time, you have to sit down because it can be so disorienting. Orfield said the longest anyone's held out is 45 minutes.

In a study published in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, subjects exposed to this type of chamber, for as little as 15 minutes in the dark, reported psychosis-like experiences.

Generally though, the room is used for far less scary, more practical reasons. Orfield said many companies, such as Harley Davidson, use it to test how loud their products are.

NASA uses a similar chamber for its astronauts, who are placed in a water-filled tank to see how well they respond to hallucinations.

Guinness has recognized the room in Minnesota as the world's quietest chamber, but unofficially a chamber at the University of Salford in Manchester, England has claimed to record even lower decibels.

Amber Rose Has Reportedly Filed For Divorce From Wiz Khalifa

Amber Rose has filed for divorce from her husband of just over 2 years, Wiz Khalifa, and is requesting full custody of their 1-year old son, Sebastian, citing irreconcilable differences as the reason she’s filing. Wiz Khalifa and Amber Rose were one of Hip-Hop’s–and music’s, in general–most popular and beloved couples, especially on social media. In fact, just a few weeks ago, Amber Rose was on Instagram twerking for Wiz when it was announced that Khalifa’s 3rd LP, Blacc Hollywood, debuted at #1 on Billboard.

According to the TMZ report, Amber will be allowing Wiz visitation, and they’ve managed to obtain the divorce papers.

Just last month, Wiz Khalifa interviewed with our chairman and a member of our Senior Editorial staff for his Power 30/SOURCE360 issue cover story, but he made no mention of any impending changes in his and Amber’s relationship.

10 Selfies Taken Moments Before Death

#1 No Fear of Heights

Xenia Ignatyeva took a selfie from a bridge 28 feet off the ground to impress her friends. The 17-year-old Russian girl lost her balance and fell on a cable, which tragically electrocuted her.

#2 Jenni Rivera

In December of 2012 Mexican pop star Jenni Rivera and her entourage took this selfie right before taking off on a private jet which sadly crashed and left no survivors.

#3 Happy

On April 26, 2014 Courtney Sanford posted this picture of her reacting to the Pharrel Williams song 'Happy' while driving through North Carolina; seconds later she crashed into a truck and the accident proved to be fatal.

#4 Jadiel

This is a selfie snapped by a famous Puerto Rican reggaetón musician Jadiel, uploaded to Instagram moments before he had a fatal motorcycle crash in New York in May, 2014.

#5 MH17 Selfie

Gary Slok and his mother took this selfie minutes before taking off from Amsterdam on Malaysian Airlines flight MH17, which was shot down over Ukraine in July, 2014.

#6 Gun Selfie

21-year old Oscar Otero Aguilar lost his life when he tried to take a selfie with a gun for his Facebook page in July of 2014. The Mexican gun enthusiast accidentally shot himself in the head and didn't survive.

#7 River Selfie

A 13-year-old girl named Karen Hernández wanted to snap a selfie on the banks of the El Tunal river in Durango, Mexico. Unfortunately she fell into the river and drowned; firefighters recovered her body in July.

#8 On Top of the Train

In March 2014 a 21-year-old man died in Jaén, Spain by electrocution when he climbed to the top of a movie train to take a selfie.

#9 Iranian Girls

These two women wanted to take a selfie while singing karaoke in their car . . . The Iranian girls stopped watching the road to record this video and crashed into another car. They survived and took another selfie on the way to the hospital.

#10 Cliff Selfie

A Polish couple on vacation in Portugal tried to take a selfie on the edge of a cliff on August 10, 2014 . . . they both fell to their death.

50 Boko Haram fighters arrested in Nigeria's Borno State

Fifty suspected members of Boko Haram group were arrested Wednesday by troops in northeastern Nigeria's state of Borno, epicenter of violence in Africa's most populous country, a top military officer said.

The terror suspects were nabbed when a truck conveying them was intercepted by troops in Biu area of the northern state, said the source who wanted to be anonymous.

The suspects, who had already made confessional statements, were whisked to a detention center in Biu, the source told Xinhua, noting they were in transit to Gombe, a neighboring northeastern state, when a youth vigilante group alerted the security operatives.

In their confessional statements, the suspects, aged between 18 and 25, said they were all on the run following the killing of one of their leaders in a crossfire with security operatives last week, the source added.

Analysts say this development further confirms the recent progress in Nigeria's counter-terrorism approach in ending the five-year insurgency of Boko Haram, a group which has proved to be a major security threat in the West African country.

On Sunday, the Nigerian Defense Headquarters via a statement confirmed that some Boko Haram fighters had begun to surrender with their weapons voluntarily, following relentless onslaught by troops.

The terrorists surrendered on Saturday, pleading for mercy, the statement said.

At least 13 insurgents were also killed in a crossfire with Nigerian forces after a local market was attacked in the same northeastern state last Friday.

Boko Haram seeks to enshrine the Islamic Sharia law in the Nigerian constitution.(Xinhua) 

http://www.shanghaidaily.com/article/article_xinhua.aspx?id=242973

Liverpool gets go-ahead for Anfield expansion

LIVERPOOL has been granted permission to redevelop its Anfield home by the city's municipal authorities, the Premier League club announced on Tuesday.

Members of Liverpool City Council's planning committee voted in favour of the scheme after visiting the stadium, which currently seats 45,276 and has been Liverpool's home since 1892.

Liverpool will now be able to proceed with the first phase of the project -- the addition of 8,500 seats to Anfield's main stand, taking the ground's overall capacity to around 54,000.

"Today's approval by the Planning Committee is another step on our journey which we embarked on nearly two years ago," Liverpool's chief executive officer Ian Ayre told the club's website.

"We received very positive support for our proposals during a public consultation exercise earlier this year and whilst we are delighted about the progress made today, there are still some steps that we need to navigate through in order to give us the certainty that we need to proceed with our expansion plans."

Construction work on the main stand is expected to begin early next year and be completed in time for the 2016-17 season. Matches will continue to be played at Anfield while the work is carried out.

The planning committee also approved outline proposals to expand the Anfield Road stand by adding 4,800 new seats.

In its current state, Anfield is dwarfed by the stadiums of some of Liverpool's main rivals, such as Manchester United's Old Trafford (75,731 capacity) and Arsenal's Emirates Stadium (60,338).

As a result, whereas United generated £127 million ($208 million, 161 million euros) in matchday revenue during the 2013-13 season, Liverpool's equivalent income was £52 million, according to financial analysts Deloitte's latest Annual Review of Football Finance.

http://www.shanghaidaily.com/sports/snooker/Liverpool-gets-goahead-for-Anfield-expansion/shdaily.shtml

Samsung launches Note 4 'phablet' ahead of schedule

Samsung Galaxy Note 4 tablets are displayed at a launch event in Seoul on September 24, 2014. South Korea's Samsung launched the latest version of its oversized Galaxy Note smartphone earlier than expected, with US rival Apple reporting record sales of its latest iPhone 6

American journalist freed from Somali pirates

(CNN) -- American journalist Michael Scott Moore, held for more than two years by Somali pirates, has been freed, Moore's family and a Somali official told CNN on Tuesday.

"We are just elated," Marlis Saunders, Moore's mother, said in a brief conversation. "It took a lot of work for us to get this point. And to hear he is free -- just joyful, I can't describe it."

"All this is just so new," said Saunders, who lives in Redondo Beach, California. "I did not have much time to talk with him. We just have a lot of things to do and I cannot talk anymore. We need a little time to evaluate all this."

The governor of Somalia's Mudug region, Ahmed Muse, told CNN that local elders negotiated Moore's release, adding that the journalist is "physically and mentally" worn out.

Moore boarded a plane at an airport in Galkayo, in the north-central part of Somalia, Muse said.

Muse would not say where the journalist is headed.

"I'm absolutely thrilled," said Michel Todd, who was Moore's web editor at Pacific Standard magazine. "It's like seeing somebody come back from the dead. It's a marvelous resurrection."

Todd said Moore was a weekly freelance columnist who wrote often about Somalia. He had been researching Somali pirates.

"As a news organization, we wanted to write about his capture," Todd said. "But we had been encouraged by the FBI and State Department to (not) write about it because this would hurt his cause. They said, if you really care about the guy, that is not a good idea, raising his profile would make his release more difficult."

Todd said Moore's stories suggested that illegal European fishing was driving Somalis into piracy.

"Of all the people for the pirates to nab," he said. "He wasn't necessarily a spokesman, but he was someone who was more amenable to getting (the pirates') point across. I'm not saying he was pro-pirate, but he was pro-truth and that seemed like something that might have been helpful to Somalis."

Maria Streshinsky, editor of Pacific Standard, said, "We are thrilled, but it has been really far too long. It's been such a worrisome situation. We are just elated. We may have a toast and a beer in his honor. I hope he is healthy."

Pacific Standard is a publication of the Miller-McCune Center for Research, Media and Public Policy, a California-based nonprofit. PSmag.com claims to reach nearly one million readers each month with research-based articles about the social sciences,

Moore's mother declined to comment when asked if a ransom was paid for her son.

Muse said he did not know if a ransom was paid.

In lawless Somalia, it's common -- particularly among pirates -- that people are kidnapped and their freedom negotiated for ransom. The pirates operate in the Gulf of Aden, one of the globe's most trafficked shipping waterways.

The U.S. State Department confirmed in January 2012 that officials had spoken with Moore's family and been in touch with contacts in Kenya and Somalia to get more information.

The department noted at the time that a travel warning for Somalia cautioned U.S. citizens of the risks of traveling to the country and recommended avoiding it.

Freed journalist Peter Theo Curtis back in the U.S.

CNN's Ray Sanchez and journalist Mohamed Sheikh Nor in Somalia contributed to this report.