If nothing else has pricked at your conscience so far; this will. This image shows only a very small sample of the millions of dead fish who turned up overnight at Redondo Beach, California, in 2011. This isn't the first time this has happened; the phenomenon occurred in both 2003 and 2005. The cause of death? Oxygen starvation. There simply wasn't enough oxygen in the water for the fish to carry on breathing.
Fish, like mammals, breathe oxygen to stay alive; they just do it using gills instead of lungs. There's only so much oxygen in the water though, and when something drains that oxygen, the fish are doomed. In this case, it was an excess of algae. Algae occurs naturally anywhere there's water, but in Redondo Beach, the algae thrived because of stimulants provided within fertilizer and other waste being dumped into the water. The algae grew too quickly, used up all the oxygen, and the fish couldn't breathe. It was a slaughter.
To insure one’s house, one’s car or to underwrite a life insurance policy, that is common practice. But who would pay an insurance premium for his/her thumb, legs or smile? Stars, of course.
At the top of the ranking are the legs of Mariah Carey, worth 810 million USD: The diva became, in 2006, the Gillette brand muse for the advertising campaign «Legs of a Goddess». She then took out an insurance policy with London Lloyds to protect her legs, a decision that is far from being insignificant. Among its customers, the London insurer then included several icons of music, such as Bob Dylan or Rod Stewart.
David Beckham’s body insured for 195 million USD: European champion with Manchester United in 1999, David Beckham was in 2006 the most renowned footballer of the planet. In relation to his sporting activities, he took out an insurance cover for his legs. The huge amount paid for his insurance would reportedly exceed the 103 million USD disbursed by Real Madrid for the cover of Christiano Ronaldo in 2009. The fashion model would later extend his insurance cover to his entire body.
15 million USD in insurance for Kim Kardashian’s curves: The curves of Kim Kardashian are her number one beauty asset. The reality TV star, who is crazy about plastic surgery, has underwritten an insurance policy worth 15 million USD to protect her famous butt.
The culinary critic Egon Ronay assured his taste buds: The famous Hungarian culinary critic has insured his taste buds since 1957, for the amount of 400 000 USD. An original insurance policy which allows him to cover his sense of taste without which he will no longer be able to practice his job.