Whacko World News from an Eccentric Earth

Alligator takes late-night stroll through town

2010-07-06T01:06:00.000-07:00

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Alligator+takes+late+night+stroll+through+German+town/3236987/story.html

BERLIN - An alligator was found roaming the streets of a small German town in the middle of the night, authorities said on Friday.

Police in Gross-Rohrheim got a 2 a.m. phone call on Thursday from a bystander who said he had just seen an alligator walking in front of a motorcycle shop in the centre of town.

"At first they just broke out laughing..," said police spokesman Ferdinand Derigs. "But here in the state of Hesse we’re ready for anything that comes our way."

Two officers dispatched to investigate were able to capture the 3.3-foot long alligator with equipment ordinarily used to capture dogs.

"The alligator was taken into custody," police said in a statement. Authorities soon found it had escaped from a small circus being staged at a nearby school. The alligator was later handed over to school officials.

Absent Russia will win World Cup, 8 percent of nation say

2010-07-01T13:02:00.000-07:00

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/world-cup-2010/7865389/One-in-10-Russians-believe-they-will-win-World-Cup-despite-not-qualifying.html

Russian pride was shattered when its team was denied a place at the world's most-watched sporting event, currently under way in South Africa, when they were defeated by Slovenia in the qualifying stage.

The poll, conducted by Russia's Levada Centre between the 18th and the 22nd of June, surveyed 1,600 Russian adults across 130 cities.

Brazil - currently pegged a favourite by several bookmakers - came top of the poll, with 33 per cent of Russians believing the football powerhouse would take home the trophy.

Two per cent of those polled said Turkey, a prime Russian tourist spot but also absent from the Cup, would win.

Despite the Russian team's absence, Moscow's bars have been filled with excited fans watching the matches. The Kremlin is also eagerly awaiting December's decision on whether or not its bid to host the World Cup in 2018 or 2022 has been successful.

The Russian team has previously enjoyed a mixed record in international football, securing a historic semi-final place at the European Championship in 2008. However, it failed to qualify for the 2006 World Cup in Germany.

FIFA, which runs the World Cup, considers the Russian team the direct successor to the Soviet squad, whose pinnacle of sporting achievement was victory in the inaugural European Championships in Paris in 1960. It beat fellow Communists Yugoslavia.

Gum boots designed with a blast to charge mobile phones

2010-06-29T23:12:00.000-07:00

http://arabnews.com/lifestyle/article75649.ece

LONDON: Modern festival-goers who dread ending up with a dead mobile phone battery after days stuck in a muddy field with no electric plug power points may now have a solution — power boots.

Mobile phone company European Telco Orange has introduced a phone charging prototype — a set of thermoelectric gumboots or Wellington boots with a 'power generating sole' that converts heat from the wearer's feet into electrical power to charge battery-powered hand-helds.

The boot was designed by Dave Pain, managing director at GotWind, a renewable energy company. Pain said the boot uses the Seebeck effect, named after physicist Thomas Johann Seebeck, in which a circuit made of two dissimilar metals conducts electricity if the two places where they connect are held at different temperatures.

"In the sole of the Wellington boot there's a thermocouple and if you apply heat to one side of the thermocouple and cold to the other side it generates an electrical charge," Pain told Reuters Television. "That electrical charge we then pass through to a battery which you'll find in the heel of the boot for storage of the electrical power for later use to charge your mobile phone."

These thermocouples are connected electrically, forming an array of multiple thermocouples (thermopile). They are then sandwiched between two thin ceramic wafers. When the heat from the foot is applied on the top side of the ceramic wafer and cold is applied on the opposite side, from the cold of the ground, electricity is generated.

After a full day's festival frolics music lovers can plug their phone into the power output at the top of the welly and use the energy generated throughout the day to charge their phone. But the prototype boot does have one drawback. You need to walk for 12 hours in the boots to generate one hour's worth of charge.

Thieves steal everything, including the kitchen sink, from police station

2010-06-27T09:23:00.000-07:00

http://www.mid-day.com/news/2010/jun/260610-thieves-South-African-kitchen-sink.htm

South African police on the hunt after thieves didn't leave even the kitchen sink

South Africa's police are investigating after thieves stripped a police station of all its contents, down to the kitchen sink.

The office was under renovation and ready for re-occupation when the thieves hit, South Africa's Times Newspaper reported.

The robbers helped themselves to everything of value - including doors, cupboards, basins, cutlery, tiles, furniture, electrical equipment and mortuary fridges.

Small space

Officers from the Carletonville police station, west of Johannesburg, have had to cram into three small rooms.
The space is inadequate, and there are no holding cells or parking spaces. The rent costs the police about 127,000 rand (Rs 8 lakh) each month.

It is not clear how the burglars managed to clean out the office without being detected by the security company contracted by the Department of Public Works to guard the premises.

Democratic Alliance police spokesperson Dianne Kohler Barnard said that the Department of Public Works had "failed taxpayers".

"How bizarre, that the police will now have to investigate a crime committed at a police station."

"It's absolutely terrible, but typical of Public Works. For them to allow that place to be stripped is outrageous," she said.

Public Works spokesperson Thami Mchunu said he was still gathering information about the incident.

"I will give you the full details as soon as possible," he said.

Hospital amputates legs of girl with burnt hands

2009-12-02T04:42:00.000-08:00

http://www.metro.co.uk/news/802466-hospital-amputates-legs-of-toddler-with-burnt-hands

Thembisa Kometsi was admitted for treatment after scolding herself in bath water but both of the limbs were amputated below the knee.

The two-year-old is now at home after the operation, thought to have taken place after a communication breakdown during a hospital transfer.

An investigation into how the blunder happened is under way but politicians are demanding a full inquiry.

One theory is that Thembisa had gangrene in her legs and medical staff thought she was supposed to go under the knife to remove them.

‘If any member of hospital staff has been guilty of negligence, they will face disciplinary action and possible dismissal,’ said Mandla Sidu, spokes-man for the Gauteng department of health in South Africa.

‘It is possible the girl was suffering from some form of gangrene in her lower limbs and that is why the operation was performed.

‘However, it could be that there was a miscommunication or mistake. This is what will be established.’

He added: ‘The child is with the family and we are providing them with all the support that they need. I believe the girl is recovering well.’

Thembisa is thought to have burned her hands in hot water in a bath.

She was taken to Far East Rand hospital near Johannesburg and then transferred to the nearby Charlotte Maxeke Academic hospital.

Jack Bloom, health spokesman of the opposition Democratic Alliance party, called for an independent inquiry into what he described as the ‘maiming’ of the toddler.

The snake that ate itself

2009-12-02T01:47:00.000-08:00

http://www.metro.co.uk/news/802400-reggie-the-snake-who-ate-himself

When confronted by a free lunch, it was natural for him to want a bite. But the greedy reptile was literally chasing his own tail.

Reggie's owner found him with a mouthful of himself, and headed straight for the vets. Little did he know that Reggie was close to digesting himself. Removing his tail required patience and skill because the snake's teeth face inwards.

'Its teeth were acting like a ratchet,' said vet Bob Reynolds, from Faygate, West Sussex.

'If a snake like this one is kept in a space that is too small then there is always a temptation for it to lunge at its own tail. They can't spread themselves out and think their tails are another snake.'

Reggie was close to being put down because his tail was nearly in his stomach, where it would have begun being digested. King snakes are native to California and feed on rattlesnakes and lizards. And, it seems, themselves.

Machines now beat humans at lip-reading

2009-10-16T00:19:00.000-07:00

http://www.zopag.com/news/computers-now-better-at-lipreading-than-humans/7169.html

Washington, September 10: A new study has revealed that computers are better at lip-reading than humans – a finding that could lead to novel methods of lip-reading training for the deaf and hard of hearing.

The research team from University of East Anglia compared the performance of a machine-based lip-reading system with that of 19 human lip-readers.

They found that the automated system significantly outperformed the human lip-readers – scoring a recognition rate of 80 per cent, compared with only 32 per cent for human viewers on the same task.

Unlike the traditional approach to lip-reading training, where viewers are taught to spot key lip-shapes from static (often drawn) images, the new video-based training system significantly improved their ability to lip-read monosyllabic words.

"This pilot study is the first time an automated lip-reading system has been benchmarked against human lip-readers and the results are perhaps surprising," said the study''s lead author Sarah Hilder.

Charge your car while you drive

2009-10-16T00:18:00.000-07:00

http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/null/153299/german-innovation-would-charge-your-car-while-you-drive/

One of the usual complaints about electric cars is how you handle long road trips. If an electric vehicle has a range of just a couple hundred miles, and then requires eight hours plugged into the wall, well, that family drive from San Francisco to Los Angeles turns from one long (but manageable) day of driving into a three-day ordeal.

But what if you could charge your car while you were on the road? That's the idea behind Germany's IAV Automotive Engineering, which has patented a system that embeds charging electronics right into the roadway, juicing up cars as they merrily roll along.

The idea is similar to any number of wireless power innovations: Electromagnetic field generators embedded in the road would induce an electrical current in charging equipment on the underside of your car, which would charge your battery as you drive. The chargers would activate only when a vehicle is present, using an RFID tag to identify the vehicle to the charging system (in part, presumably, to bill you appropriately for power used).

IAV says the system currently works at 90 percent efficiency and would be ready for commercial rollout in about three years. Similar systems could also be adapted for home use while cars are parked: Wireless chargers could be installed in your garage, for example, freeing you from the hassle of having to remember to plug your car into wall power after a long slog home from the industrial park. Nissan has a garage-based charging system in the works, as well.

Naturally there's a bit of a problem with the idea, and that's the little matter of how you outfit a highway system as vast as America's with what sounds like relatively complicated charging equipment. The U.S. has over 46,000 miles of interstate highways alone. Adding charging circuitry to all that roadway would surely cost tens of billions of dollars or more -- and that doesn't even consider adding equipment to intrastate roads.

Still, great idea... at least in theory.

"thank you littell f***ker", says waiter

2009-09-12T11:44:00.000-07:00

http://www.caterersearch.com/Articles/2009/09/11/329843/rude-waiter-sacked-from-halifax-restaurant.html

A waiter has been sacked after signing off a customer’s bill with the misspelt words “thank you littell f***ker”.

The waiter at the Cactus Joe Mexican restaurant in Halifax put the message on the bottom of a family’s bill referring to their two year old, who had complained during the meal, according to reports in today’s Metro.

The family visited the restaurant on its opening weekend and had been seated in the advertised kid’s zone but had been frustrated by slow service and poor food which had led to complaints from the little girl.

Dad Craig Cartin said: “The meal was indifferent anyway but to be abused on the bill is unbelievably offensive, it’s awful behaviour.”

Restaurant owner Steve Ryan apologised unreservedly to the family for the message, admitting the behaviour was “inexcusable” and has invited the family back this weekend as his guests.

Bank wants thumbprint from man with no hands

2009-09-01T11:58:00.000-07:00

http://www.wtsp.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=112587

Tampa, Florida -- While most banks require a thumbprint to cash a check from someone who doesn't have an account, a Tampa man says that policy was impossible to comply with.

Steve Valdez says he was shocked when he was told he had to put his thumbprint on a check written on his wife's Bank of America check. Valdez says the check was written to him with the same address he has on his driver's license. Although he had two forms of identification both with pictures, the bank still required Valdez to give a thumbprint before it would cash the check.

But that was impossible, because Valdez was born without arms and wears prosthetic devices.

According to Valdez, when he gave the teller the check, she said "Obviously you can't give a thumbprint." But Valdez says the manager refused to cash the check unless he did.

When Valdez told the manager giving a thumbprint would be impossible, she suggested he either bring in his wife or open an account. Valdez says that's not the way the bank would treat someone without prosthetic arms, and he refused.

Valdez says he asked the bank if it had ever heard of the American with Disabilities Act and he says they told him they were accommodating him by offering the choices. But the ADA says businesses must comply with basic nondiscrimination requirements that prohibit exclusion, segregation, and unequal treatment.

A spokesman for Bank of America says while the thumbprint is a requirement for those who don't have accounts, the bank should have made accommodations.

City goes vegetarian for health and environment

2009-05-14T14:31:00.000-07:00

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8046970.stm

The Belgian city of Ghent is about to become the first in the world to go vegetarian at least once a week.

Starting this week there will be a regular weekly meatless day, in which civil servants and elected councillors will opt for vegetarian meals.

Ghent means to recognise the impact of livestock on the environment.

The UN says livestock is responsible for nearly one-fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions, hence Ghent's declaration of a weekly "veggie day".

Public officials and politicians will be the first to give up meat for a day.

Schoolchildren will follow suit with their own veggiedag in September.

It is hoped the move will cut Ghent's environmental footprint and help tackle obesity.

Around 90,000 so-called "veggie street maps" are now being printed to help people find the city's vegetarian eateries.

Roadkill cook-off, Spam Jam lure bold foodies

2009-05-14T14:27:00.000-07:00

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/TRAVEL/05/14/food.festivals/index.html

(CNN) -- Thousands of people converge on the small town of Marlinton, West Virginia, each fall for a feast whose main ingredients were unlucky enough to crawl, slither or lurk too close to a speeding car.

It's RoadKill Cook-Off time, where past years' crowds have sampled dishes like Pothole Possum Stew, Fricasseed Wabbit Gumbo and Smeared Hog with Groundhog Gravy.

Welcome to the world of unusual -- dare we say weird? -- food festivals.

Sure, you can find plenty of culinary celebrations dedicated to everything from rhubarb to seafood, but there are also options to satisfy your cravings for rattlesnake, fried pig intestines or garlic ice cream.

The RoadKill Cook-Off is so popular that it fills all the motels and hotels in the county when it takes place on the last Saturday in September, said David Cain, who runs the event and samples all the dishes.

"There are some that are better than others, but I've never really had anything that I really didn't like," Cain said. "But there was one year they cooked a rattlesnake in some kind of stew, and ... there was no way I could taste that one."

The RoadKill Cook-Off began in 1991, when organizers thought it might boost attendance at the main event: the Pocahontas County Autumn Harvest Festival.

Did it ever.

About 10,000 people from all over the country came to last year's gathering, Cain said. All dishes featured in the festival must have animals commonly found dead on the side of the road -- such as deer, squirrels and snakes -- as their main ingredient. But the meat doesn't have to be actual roadkill.

"Judges will deduct points for every chipped tooth resulting from gravel not removed from the RoadKill," the official rules warn. "All judges have been tested for cast-iron stomachs and have sworn under oath to have no vegetarian tendencies."

All about Spam

Thousands of miles away, in Honolulu, Hawaii, aficionados of canned luncheon meat gather in April for the annual Waikiki Spam Jam, described by organizers as "a street festival that celebrates the people of Hawaii's love for Spam."

Some may call it mystery meat, but it's not advisable to do so in Hawaii, which has the highest per-capita consumption rate of Spam products in the United States. Almost 7 million cans worth of the pinkish product are eaten every year in the Aloha State, according to festival officials.

The crowds at this year's Spam Jam sampled dishes such as Spam Fried Rice, Spam Burgers and Guava Mango BBQ Spam Sliders.

"I think people are amused by the whole idea because it is pretty different. Like, why would you celebrate Spam?" said Barbara Campbell, one of the founders of the festival. "It's just about having fun, and they love the different Spam items."

A restaurant that offered Spam Chili Nachos at the festival was so amazed by their popularity that it's thinking of adding the dish to its permanent menu, Campbell added.

Fans who admire the yellow and blue design of Spam cans also have a chance to splurge on Spam-themed merchandise, including T-shirts, baby items and slippers.

Celebrating the 'stinking rose'

Some unusual food festivals can tickle the nose as well as the palate. Vampires may hate garlic, but the pungent cloves draw huge crowds of hungry mortals each July to the Gilroy Garlic Festival in Gilroy, California, "the garlic capital of the world."

If you're a fan, pack some breath mints and enjoy everything from traditional garlic-infused fare like scampi and stuffed mushrooms, to more exotic choices. Garlic ice cream, anyone?

Those who have tried the frozen dessert describe it as an "acquired taste."

"I would say when you first taste it, it's like regular vanilla ice cream, and then give it about 10 seconds, and you feel the kick of garlic," said Peter Ciccarelli, director of media relations for the festival.

"It's not something that people would eat by a bowlful, nor would they put chocolate syrup on it."

Last year's festival drew more than 100,000 people who consumed more than 15,000 servings of garlic bread and 10,000 servings of garlic fries. Almost 3 tons of the "stinking rose," as garlic is sometimes fondly called, were used to flavor the dishes.

A meal with legs

The truly adventurous foodies may opt for BugFest and the leggy dishes served up by Café Insecta at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh each September.

Popular choices include the Ant-Chilada, a cheese enchilada in which toasted freeze-dried ants are used as both the filling and topping, and Hush-Grubbies, in which wax worm grubs are coated with hush-puppy batter and deep fried.

For dessert, visitors can try Chocolate-Chirp Cookies, which have crickets baked in.

"We basically use recipes that we would use for any other dish and substitute the protein," explained Matthew Busch, head chef at the museum's Acro Café, who creates the dishes at Café Insecta during BugFest. So, instead of doing a shrimp stir-fry, the museum might do a scorpion stir-fry.

Busch, who said he tries anything he cooks, recommended the Hush-Grubbies, calling the bugs inside "tasty" and "a little buttery." Stir-fried scorpions, on the other hand, can be a little bitter, he cautioned.

Watching the reactions of visitors who dig in to the bug-laden food is Busch's favorite part, and he described seeing an entire range of responses, from people who are gung-ho and want to try everything to those who are squeamish and have to be peer-pressured to take a bite.

Some people's strategy is just to eat around the bugs, Busch said.

Tenants asked to give 'death notice'

2009-05-11T10:31:00.000-07:00

http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?Tenants_to_give_1_month%92s_death_notice&in_article_id=654465&in_page_id=34

Some council tenants are being asked to give their landlord four weeks notice of when they might die.
The ruling has sickened families who have been left to pay the rent charged to their relatives after their deaths.

But Charnwood Borough Council in Leicestershire said the only way the charges could be avoided was if the tenant notified officials of being a month away from death's door.

Jim Seaton, of Ibstock, Leicestershire, was sent a rent bill 18 days after his stepfather, Raymond Smith, died aged 80.

'I asked the council, “How does a dead man give one month's notice?' But they told me, “Sorry, rules are rules.”'

And Amanda Harrison said the council acted like 'vultures' after she was sent a bill for £229 after her aunt died, aged 88.

Cllr David Slater, lead member for housing, said he would do 'everything in his power' to overturn the 'absolutely ludicrous' and 'distasteful' policy.

However, Charnwood Neighbourhood Housing, which deals with the contract, insisted the notice period was needed to maintain income and to ensure properties were re-let quickly.

Grow up, stop fretting, dying cancer teen told

2009-03-12T13:04:00.000-07:00

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1160894/Grow-stop-worrying-What-doctor-said-X-Factor-singer-months-killed-cancerous-tumours.html

A teenager died from massive cancerous tumours after his GP repeatedly failed to diagnose the disease and told him to 'grow up a bit and stop worrying', an inquest has heard.

Christopher Chaffey, 19, was so worried about his failing health that he visited his doctor's surgery half a dozen times in the 15 months up to his death.

His symptoms were dismissed as minor and allegedly put down to 'panic attacks'.
Even when a blood test was 'significantly abnormal', the GP thought it indicated mild anaemia instead of taking it more seriously.

X Factor contestant Mr Chaffey found the same attitude at a hospital casualty department when he was taken there by ambulance with a headache, vomiting and chest pains.

A doctor at Hull Royal Infirmary believed he had an anxiety-related condition and told him to consult his GP.

But the teenager's body was gradually being ravaged by cancer and he died two months later - two days after doctors finally discovered the true nature of his condition.

A post-mortem examination found tumours in his neck and skull, as well as a huge tumour affecting his heart and lungs which weighed four-and-a-half pounds.

The alleged medical blunders were revealed at an inquest in Hull.

Dr Sahra Ali, a consultant haematologist who was involved only at the very end of his treatment, told the hearing that the lymphoma would have taken months to develop.

The doctor added: 'It's a very sad case which is treatable and potentially curable if it would have presented at an earlier stage.'

Mr Chaffey, of Coniston, near Hull, was a music fan and had been a contestant in The X Factor two years earlier, although he failed to get beyond the first round.
He was forced to postpone his A-level studies in media and law because of his health problems.

The inquest heard how Mr Chaffey's GP, Joseph Austin, ordered blood tests in July 2007 after the teenager complained of excessive sweating and hair loss. The tests showed abnormalities, but were not considered important.

Repeat blood tests the following April showed his haemoglobin levels had fallen, which the GP diagnosed as a mild type of anaemia.

Independent expert Bill Holmes said these blood test results should have been 'explored more actively'.

He said night sweating was a well-recognised symptom of lymphoma, although GPs usually came across more innocent causes.

Mr Chaffey's mother Patricia, 40, told the hearing that when her son went back to the GP with his taxi driver father Paul, 43, they were allegedly told 'he should grow up a bit and stop worrying there's something wrong with him'.

She took him back to the GP when bouts of fainting prevented him from doing voluntary work at a charity shop.

Mrs Chaffey told the GP about prominent veins on her son's chest, his voice becoming hoarse, and that she sometimes had to sleep in his bedroom, but the doctor put it down to panic attacks, the inquest heard.

Dr Austin said he never suspected his patient was suffering from anything serious. Asked by coroner Geoffrey Saul whether he had ever suggested to a member of the family that the problem was in the mind, Dr Austin replied: 'No, I never told him that.'

On July 19 last year, when Mr Chaffey was taken to Hull Royal Infirmary, tests were ordered by Dr Mohammed As'Ad, who also decided there was nothing physically wrong with him.

Later, consultant Mark Higson concluded there had been 'several' missed opportunities at the A&E department when the cancer could have been picked up.
Mr Chaffey's father got in touch with the Psychosis Service for Young People, which put him on a six-month plan to cope with anxiety, but his health continued to worsen and his weight to drop.

On September 17 last, the family spotted a lump on his neck and he was seen by an out-of-hours doctor. He was admitted to hospital but by then it was too late.
The inquest continues.

Free lunch on offer

2009-03-05T05:36:00.000-08:00

http://thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2009/3/5/lifefocus/3385487&sec=lifefocus

AS the credit crunch bites deeper into Londoners’ pockets, many restaurants are at their wits’ end trying to boost their fledgling business.

First, there was Cha Cha Moon near Oxford Street. It caused a stir with its price-busting £3.50 (RM18.50) deals for popular hawker fare such as Singapore fried noodles and Penang prawn mee until recently.

Then came Little Bay in Farringdon, which literally tore up the bills and asked customers to name their price instead.

“No food bills – pay us what you think the food is worth,” declared a blackboard outside the eatery in east London. Some see it as a psychological ploy to test one’s self-respect.

In the end, many would have paid up more than what was on the table – an ego-boosting trip for some, while saving the blushes for others.

Of course, there were also those who saw the chance for a too-good-to-be-true meal. Some had the audacity to leave as little as two pence (about 10 sen) for the food before slipping off.

But no one had bargained for what a Vietnamese Chinese restaurateur came up with next – he’s paying customers £1 (RM5.30) to eat as much as they can!

Now, that’s what you call a real Chinese takeaway. It’s about paying people to stuff themselves with aromatic duck, honey roast spare ribs and chicken noodle soup while fighting recession at the same time.

“It’s my way of giving a little back to my loyal customers who had supported me during the good times,” said James Huynh of Oriental Aroma in Wootton Bassett, Wiltshire.

He admitted that he had been incurring losses every day. Yet the day would come when his goodwill would earn back more business from his return customers.

“My mother used to tell me from childhood that if you’re prepared to give a little without expectation, in time you can only prosper,” said Huynh who arrived in Britain as a refugee about 30 years ago.

So it looks like the advice has been working well for him so far. Hence, the extraordinary offer believed to be the first of its kind in the country.

And since the promotion began recently, it has become the talk of the town, attracting a growing number of customers with queues forming even outside the restaurant.

Critics may sneer that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Well, the catch is you have to spend at least £5 (RM26.50) on drinks to qualify for the offer.

Huynh, however, insisted the drinks price was not a catch but merely to prevent undesirable people from “gate-crashing” the restaurant.

Say what you like. The ineluctable truth is that the economic crisis has left restaurateurs scraping the barrel for more innovative ideas to attract customers.

Bloodpressure medicine for erasing painful memories

2009-03-03T06:57:00.000-08:00

http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/55455/

In 1999 a postdoc in my lab, Karim Nader, walked into my office with an idea for a new experiment. He outlined his plan to test a controversial theory in neuroscience called memory reconsolidation that contradicted what we had learned as a field about how memories were stored. The experiment he proposed seemed like such a reach that I told him not to bother doing it. As luck would have it, Nader wasn't a particularly obedient postdoc.

A month later, Nader came back into my office and said, "It worked." I looked at him surprised. "What worked?" I asked. "The reconsolidation experiment," he told me. I was amazed. Most neuroscientists, myself included, believed that a new memory, once consolidated into long-term storage, is stable. It's as if every long-term memory had its own connections in the brain. Each time you retrieve the memory, or remembered, you retrieved that original memory, and then returned it. Reconsolidation theory proposed a radically different idea—that the very act of remembering could change the memory. Therefore, every time you remembered, you'd recall the memory as it was the very last time you remembered it, rather than the memory that was created the first time. And it would be replaced as a new representation. This theory suggested that the very act of remembering might render memories fragile, subject to change or perhaps erasure. If Nader's pilot findings were correct, it might have huge implications in treatments for soldiers and other patients with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD): Could traumatic memories be dampened or erased by simply remembering? Nader's pilot data convinced me to focus my attention and lab resources on studies of reconsolidation, and many other labs soon followed. Reconsolidation took off like wildfire.

Ideas about reconsolidation had been around since the 1960s but didn't catch on. The theory popped up again in the 1990s, but still didn't gain much traction. The reason our study grabbed everyone's attention had to do with how we did the study. Most work on this topic had used an experimental protocol that affected the whole body and brain. While the results had suggested the possibility of reconsolidation, there were always alternative explanations and questions: With the drug having such widespread actions how does one know it's affecting memory as opposed to motivation or attention or other factors? Instead, we administered the drug locally. Because we knew that the amygdala was the area in the brain that stored fear memories, we could inject a tiny amount of the drug directly into the site. If that disrupted the animal's ability to perform the task, the effect was likely due to a disruption of memory and not to the other factors. In the years that followed the publication of our paper,1 the field of reconsolidation blossomed. Hundreds of studies have been done since.

I have spent 25 years or so working out the neural basis of emotion, with a number of successes along the way. But I had never experienced anything quite like this. It wasn't that everyone accepted the idea. In fact, it is still quite controversial. It's sometimes said that the success of a scientific publication is based on how many other publications result. By that measure, reconsolidation has been a whopping success story, and one I might have easily missed.

The people who knew me as a boy would never have predicted that I would have become a neuroscientist. I grew up in Euncie, Louisiana, a typical small town that I longed to leave. My parents, however, wanted me to stay in Eunice and attend the new junior college that had just opened up there. I was resistant to the idea, so they put a deal on the table. They'd let me leave Eunice and go to college in Baton Rouge if I became a business major and came back to town to be a banker. People will say anything under duress: I told them they had a deal.

Brain training 'doesn't work'

2009-02-27T10:44:00.000-08:00

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/feb/26/brain-training-games-which

People who spend money on "brain trainers" to keep their minds agile may get the same results by simply doing a crossword or surfing the internet, according to research published today.

A panel of experts, including eminent neuroscientists, found there was no scientific evidence to support a range of manufacturers' claims that the gadgets can help improve memory or stave off the risk of illnesses such as dementia.

Devices such as the Nintendo DS, endorsed by the actor Nicole Kidman and the singer Cheryl Cole, have enjoyed a surge of popularity recently. But the experts employed by the consumer group Which? concluded that much of the evidence supporting the claims was "weak" and that in some cases other activities, such as playing standard computer games, could have the same effect.

Importantly, none of the "brain training" claims were supported by peer-reviewed research published in a recognised scientific journal.

Which? asked a panel of scientific experts to examine gadgets and their claims. They included Dr Kawashima's Brain Training, Mindfit and Lumosity.

Martyn Hocking, editor of Which?, said: "If people enjoy using these games, then they should continue to do so - that's a no-brainer. But if people are under the illusion that these devices are scientifically proven to keep their minds in shape, they need to think again."

Which? members who had written to the organisation about brain training were asked to try the products for a month. One of the experts, Dr Adrian Owen, assistant director at the Medical Research Council's cognition and brain sciences unit in Cambridge, said of the research involving one group: "If they'd been asked to play Space Invaders for a month and improved at it - as surely they would - would we have concluded this was a beneficial form of brain training? Probably not."

Michael Scanlon, a neuroscientist from Lumosity, defended the company's research standards, and said: "We would never say Lumosity is proven to improve day-to-day living, but there is more and more evidence it does. We have actually conducted our own clinical trials to measure effectiveness of the product."

Also under the spotlight was Mindfit, a CD-Rom endorsed by the scientist Lady Greenfield. Two of the three studies it used to support its claims that it improved mental performance were found to be flawed. It also claimed that "cognitively challenging" activity protects against Alzheimer's. Bruce Robinson, chief executive of MindWeavers, which produces MindFit, said: "If you look at the wider evidence in the field the broad conclusion is that brain stimulation is working. With the MindFit product, a study was done by an independent medical centre in Israel which supported that evidence. We are not claiming MindFit will stop Alzheimer's."

Nintendo said: "Nintendo does not make any claims that Brain Training is scientifically proven to improve cognitive function. What we claim is the Brain Training series of games, like playing sudoku, are enjoyable and fun. These exercises can also help to keep the brain sharp."

Tried and tested

Dr Kawashima's Brain Training (Nintendo) £110 including DS console:

Instructions say it can help consolidate memory and creativity

Which? No evidence that using this product will have any functional impact on your life whatsoever

Mindfit (PC CD-ROM) £88

Company claims "exercises important abilities known to decline in later life"

Which? Tests didn't show using it was significantly better than playing Tetris

Lumosity (online training system) Luminos Labs, £4.99 a month

Company says: "Exercises ... designed to stimlulate neuroplasticity that leads to improved cognitive ability"

Which? Does not mean improvements on tasks will lead to improvements in day-to-day living

Overtime is 'as bad as tobacco' for dementia

2009-02-27T05:49:00.000-08:00

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/4803218/Long-hours-put-workers-at-risk-of-dementia-according-to-research-into-damage-to-brain.html

Extreme tiredness and stress could be as bad for the brain as smoking, according to the study.

The report, published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, found middle-aged workers clocking up more than 55 hours a week have poorer mental skills, including short-term memory and ability to recall words, than those working fewer than 41 hours.

The findings suggest the long-term damage to the brain caused by excessive time at work has been underestimated.

One in eight British workers puts in more than the supposed European maximum of 48 hours a week.

Researchers, led by Dr Marianna Virtanen from the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, monitored 2,214 British civil servants from the 1980s.

Participants in their early 50s were put through a series of brain function tests. Those doing the most overtime recorded lower scores in two of the five key brain function tests - reasoning and vocabulary.

The researchers said: "This study shows that long working hours may have a negative effect on cognitive performance in middle age. The link between cognitive impairment and dementia later in life is clearly established.

"The difference between employees working long hours and those working normal hours is similar in magnitude to that of smoking, a risk factor for dementia."

Professor Cary Cooper, an expert in workplace stress from Lancaster University, told the Daily Mail: "Working long hours obviously makes you very tired. If you do that on a consistent basis it's going to affect your brain function. Long hours are not just bad for health, they are also bad for your performance."

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/02/26/earlyshow/health/main4830822.shtml

(CBS) New research from The Journal of American Epidemiology says that long hours on the job are weakening your mental abilities and could put you at risk for developing dementia.

Neurologist Caroline Brockington stopped by the Early Show to discuss the new study with co-anchor Julie Chen.

"It really looked at a group of people who work greater than 55 hours. And looking at their cognitive functioning, how well they were able to reason and do their job. And it seems that they had declined in their cognitive abilities," Brockington said.

According to Brockington, the people tested in the study had problems with memory, problems with functioning appropriately and problems with reading and comprehension.

"But help me define 'work.' Because could this same study apply to someone who, a man or a woman, who stays at home taking care of the kids and the home and all that?" Chen asked.

"Certainly. I think it could be translated into anybody who works. It just depends on what are the things that result from working hard? Meaning you don't sleep well, right? You probably don't exercise well. You don't eat well. And all those things result in a decline in your memory or short-term memory," Brockington said.

"So what is it about overworking our brains that makes us not be able to remember things, challenges our ability to reason?" Chen asked.

"The brain needs the appropriate rest. It can't be working 24 hours a day. So if you look at it as a computer, it can't continue to take in all the stimuli without rest. So again, when people work a long time and they don't rest or they don't have enough sleep, they don't have enough exercise, they don't eat well, all those things influence how the brain functions," Brockington explained.

"What are the signs that my brain is overworked?" Chen asked.

"That you can't remember things, that your vocabulary gets lost, that you have problems with concentration. You have problems with sort of multitasking. You have difficulty doing those things," Brockington said.

"So if you have these signs, what do you do?" Chen asked.

"Well, you need to get some rest. It's really balance, right? Finding the right balance between work and doing the things that you know are right in terms of a healthy lifestyle. Again, getting enough rest, getting exercise, eating right, those types of things are important," Brockington said.

It sounds like the study is really about getting enough sleep. Is that it?" Chen asked.

"Well, it's getting enough sleep and getting sleep on a routine basis. Meaning a lot of people sleep at different times. But really if you can find your own routine and stick to it, it's probably the best way to improve your memory over time," Brockington said.

"Is there anything we can do to our brain to let it rest while we're at work?" Chen asked.

"Well, there's probably a few things. Number one, if you really overload it -- to get out of that stimulus, to get out of that environment. So instead of the phone ringing and you're answering questions, etc., if you can just get yourself out of that moment and go to a quiet place," Brockington said.

She also suggested power napping, which consists of 20 or 30 minutes of just napping.

"It's really going to allow your brain to rest and sort of reboot, so to speak, so that you're more alert. You can concentrate better. Those type of things," Brockington said.

"And what are the long-term effects? If we don't take care of this now, what's going to happen down the road?" Chen asked.

"They speculate in the study maybe that it would increase somebody's risk of dementia, which is really long-term memory problems," Brockington said.

"I'm going to take a power nap," Chen said.

'Antarctic Alps' and 'lakes' found

2009-02-25T05:57:00.000-08:00

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16659-alpine-mountain-range-revealed-beneath-antarctic-ice.html

A series of prefabricated buildings perched on stilts create a boxy but unremarkable hamlet on the Antarctic ice. What is astonishing about this research base is that it is set 500 metres above the peaks of a 3500-metre mountain range.

The Gamburtsev mountains are not a new discovery – they were first located 50 years ago by a team of Russian scientists. But little was known about their scale and morphology. Now, an international team has returned with data revealing that if you could strip away the ice, the view would look rather like the European Alps (see image).

The team set up camp in two locations near to Dome A – the highest point on the ice sheet, where temperatures average -30 °C.

For weeks they flew two aircraft over the ice, exploring the hidden peaks with radar and aeromagnetic sensors, and covering a distance equivalent to three trips around the globe. Gravity sensors on the surface of the ice collected yet more data.
Toothy range

"We now know that not only are the mountains the size of the European Alps, but they also have similar peaks and valleys," says Fausto Ferraccioli, a geophysicist with the British Antarctic Survey. "This adds even more mystery about how the vast East Antarctic ice sheet formed."

The Gamburtsev range is thought to be the birthplace of the ice sheet. It sits at the centre of the continent, far from warming sea air, and reaches between 3000 and 4000 metres above sea level. This means that some 35 million years ago when the ice sheet started to form, the range would have been very cold.

It is unclear, though, how fast the ice spread across the continent, and whether the ice formed the jagged landscape or the peaks were there first.

If the ice sheet formed slowly, glaciologists would expect to see rounded plateaus in places where it eroded the rock, but the surveys found no such soft landscapes. This may suggest that the ice grew very rapidly, effectively preserving an ancient Alpine landscape beneath kilometres of ice. On the other hand, Ferraccioli says it would be foolish to ignore the possibility that the flow of rivers and glaciers carved deep valleys as the ice sheet was forming.

How the mountains came to be in the first place is also something of a mystery. One theory – that they were volcanic peaks – was weakened by data published last year, which found that the sediment downstream from the peaks is not volcanic in origin.
Hidden fault?

Yet it is difficult to see how the peaks could have grown out of the collision of two tectonic plates – East Antarctica is generally thought to be a homogenous, stable plate.

One of the first tasks in sifting through the data, says Ferraccioli, will be to see if there is any evidence of major differences in the geology of the mountains. Such differences could be a sign that there is an inactive fault line beneath the ice that could have formed the range.

Alternatively, a broad collision elsewhere could have pushed the mountains up within the plate – a bit like a lump of play dough being squished between two wooden blocks. Two portions of the ancient supercontinent Gondwana collided at roughly the same time as the Gamburtsev range is thought to have first emerged, but quite where that happened isn't known.

One thing is certain from the preliminary data: there's liquid water in them there valleys. "The temperatures at our camps hovered around -30 °C," says Robin Bell, of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University. "But three kilometres beneath us, at the bottom of the ice sheet, we saw liquid water in the valleys. The radar mounted on the wings of the aircraft transmitted energy through the thick ice and let us know that it was much warmer at the base of the ice sheet."

The grey city roller

2009-02-25T05:43:00.000-08:00

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/7909096.stm

A rollerblading Belfast pensioner has been fined £300 after he was filmed skating along a street in England.

Geoff Dornan, 71, now living in Ormskirk, Lancashire, was caught on CCTV skating through Chapel Street in Southport in October 2008.

He said it was to keep fit, but Sefton Council said his rollerblading was a nuisance and a danger to the public.

Mr Dornan was found guilty on two counts of breaching a by-law but has since lodged an appeal.

He was also ordered to pay £1,800 costs, but the fines were suspended after Andrew Scott, defending, said an appeal notice had been handed to the prosecution.

The appeal case will be heard at a crown court at a later date.

In his defence, Mr Dornan, a retired youth worker, told the court he took up rollerblading seven years ago as a way of keeping fit.

He said he enjoyed skating down the town's main street as he enjoyed moving to the music from buskers, but he insisted that he always gave right of way to pedestrians.

He also told the court he tried to give people as much space as possible and used his rollerblades responsibly.

He said: "The reason I do the skating is primarily for my health benefit.

"I think people suspect that I am more dangerous than I am."

But the council said he was contravening a by-law which forbids skating on Chapel Street.

The by-law states that "no person shall skate, slide or ride on rollers, skateboards or other self-propelled vehicles in such a manner as to cause danger or annoyance".

Chairman of the bench, Fraser Wallace, said: "We find the manner of your skating put pedestrians at risk and exposed them to harm."

He said it was clear Chapel Street was not meant to be used as a "skate park" and said Dornan's behaviour "causes a danger" to the public.

You can listen to an interview with Geoff Dornan on Radio Ulster's Good Morning Ulster programme after 0800 GMT on Wednesday.

Boy, 13, Father of one

2009-02-23T14:14:00.000-08:00

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7889033.stm

The case of the 13-year-old who has fathered a baby highlights a worrying trend of "children having children", the Tory leader has said.

David Cameron was speaking after Alfie Patten's girlfriend Chantelle Steadman, 15, gave birth on Monday.

Latest figures from UK National Statistics show there were 7,826 conceptions in under-16s in 2006 - down 1,000 from 10 years earlier.

Sexual health experts said teens should be encouraged to have "ambition".

Children's Secretary Ed Balls said it was an "awful" and "unusual" case.

"I want those kids to be safe and also the young child as well, and I want us to do everything we can as a society to make sure we keep teenage pregnancies coming down," he said.

Mr Cameron said: "It is really worrying in our country today you've got children having children - and obviously we all hope that these very, very young children will grow up and be good parents, but frankly parenthood isn't something they should be thinking about.

"That's what's gone wrong and we've got to put it right."

Former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith, who now runs the Centre for Social Justice said it "exemplified the point we have been making about broken Britain".

He told the BBC the problem of teenage pregnancies was concentrated in certain communities.

"Quite often what fails to recognise is that in some of the more difficult communities, this has become pretty much the norm.

"I've visited many estates where there are very huge collections of very young mothers, often with multiple children - and often 'guesting fathers'.

"This is a major problem in the UK."

No prosecution

The teenagers, both from Eastbourne, had kept the pregnancy secret until Chantelle's mother Penny noticed her daughter was getting bigger.

Chantelle had her baby in Eastbourne District General Hospital, and is now home with her family.

Sussex Police said no action would be taken with it "not in anyone's interests" to prosecute.

East Sussex County Council said the teenage parents will be supported with intensive monitoring and health visitor support.

Tony Kerridge, a spokesman for the sexual health specialist Marie Stopes International, said: "These sorts of lifestyle choices can be dealt with on an educational level if teenage girls realise what they are contemplating is a route into social deprivation and being in the benefits culture for the rest of their lives.

"It may seem like a short term solution to problems at home, but the mid to long term prospects are probably a life stuck on benefits.

"We should, as a society, be encouraging our young people to have much bigger and better aspirations than that."

Simon Blake of Brook added: "Most under-16s aren't having sex, but young people do want more education about sex.

"They want their parents to talk to them, their school to talk to them and they want confidential services to go to."

Mandatory education

Speaking on a visit to the Midlands, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said: "I don't know the individual details of the case, but of course I think all of us would want to avoid teenage pregnancies."

Beverley Hughes, children and young people's minister, said 80% of under-18 pregnancies were in 16 and 17-year- olds.

"Evidence shows that good quality sex and relationship education and parents talking to their children delays early sex and increases the use of contraception whenever they do have sex.

"We know that life as a teenage parent is hard, with outcomes for them and their children often very poor.

"That's why the government has issued guidance to local areas on providing the right support to improve the welfare of both the teenage parents and child."

Pupils learn the three Fs in 'filth' class

2009-02-20T11:40:00.000-08:00

http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?10-year-old_pupils_learn_the_three_Fs_in_swearing_class&in_article_id=544677&in_page_id=34&in_a_source

A class of ten-year-olds at a church school were encouraged to write down the rudest words they knew - and then grade them in order of offensiveness.
The youngsters were told to produce the list by a male teacher who wanted them to decide how upsetting the phrases would be if they were used to bully people.

The litany of lewdness included variations on the F-word, crude slang for sex acts, female and male genitalia, and racist and derogatory name-calling.

Parents were furious when their children returned home from Great and Little Shelford Church of England Primary School near Cambridge and saw their 'vocabulary of filth'.

Yesterday, parents who declined to be named for fear of reprisals, spoke of their disbelief.

One mother said: 'When my ten-year-old showed me an exercise book with words like "c***sucker" rewarded with a tick from the teacher, I was disgusted.

'You don't expect your children to learn this kind of filth at school, particularly one linked to the church.'

Another added: 'I don't want to sound prudish but it is a pity there isn't more emphasis placed on the three Rs in schools these days.

'Some of the words used were so bad, I'd never heard them before.'

Headteacher Alison Evans has since apologised over Fred Laband's lesson and ordered the abusive material to be ripped from all 30 pupils' exercise books.

'On reflection, it has been agreed it was inappropriate to record these words in writing and the pages have been removed,' a letter sent to parents said.

Dentist fear girl starved to death

2009-02-11T11:45:00.000-08:00

http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?Dentist_phobia_girl_starved_to_death_after_refusing_food&in_article_id=526915&in_page_id=34

An eight-year-old girl starved to death after developing such a fear of dentists she refused to eat, an inquest heard today.
Sophie Waller underwent an operation to remove her milk teeth after she stopped eating or speaking because of pain in one of them.

However the inquest was told that after she was discharged she continued to refuse to eat solid food.

Her parents Janet and Richard, from St Dennis, Cornwall, said they told doctors Sophie was only consuming small amounts of yoghurt, fruit and "build up" drinks prescribed by a GP and were told she would be "ok".

A week later Sophie was so emaciated they could see her spine through her back and her hair was falling out.

The couple told the hearing they rang the hospital but were told by a nurse not to bring her in as she was now under the care of community child psychologist Dr Kerry Davison.

Mrs Waller, 34, said: "No-one saw her after she was discharged from hospital.

"I told Kerry Davison she was sucking on a water melon, she told me that was enough for her to survive on."

Paediatric pathologist Dr Marie-Ann Brundler said Sophie died on December 2, 2005 from acute renal failure caused by starvation and dehydration.

Dr Brundler said she would have expected a health professional to have noticed Sophie's emaciated state had they seen her before she died.

Mrs Waller said Sophie was "devastated" when she discovered her teeth had gone and had a long-standing phobia of dentists.

The inquest heard she lost around 11 kilos in the four weeks before she died, consuming small quantities of yoghurt, mashed up fruit and fruit juice.

On November 28 Mrs Waller said the hospital refused to take Sophie back and after speaking to Dr Davison she was advised to contact her GP who prescribed "build up drinks" over the phone but did not see and examine Sophie.

Mrs Waller said: "The only contact we had was with Kerry Davison and the one time with the GP.

"I just wished she had come out to look at her or if the hospital had let us return."

Mr Waller, 35, said: "This could have easily been avoided, if we could have just gone to the hospital."

Workers urged: Go home and multiply

2009-01-26T13:23:00.000-08:00

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/01/26/canon.babies/index.html

By CNN's Kyung Lah

TOKYO, Japan (CNN) -- Even before one reaches the front door of Canon's headquarters in Tokyo, one can sense the virtual stampede of employees pouring out of the building exactly at 5:30 p.m.

In a country where 12-hour workdays are common, the electronics giant has taken to letting its employees leave early twice a week for a rather unusual reason: to encourage them to have more babies.

"Canon has a very strong birth planning program," says the company's spokesman Hiroshi Yoshinaga. "Sending workers home early to be with their families is a part of it."

Japan in the midst of an unprecedented recession, so corporations are being asked to work toward fixing another major problem: the country's low birthrate.

At 1.34, the birthrate is well below the 2.0 needed to maintain Japan's population, according to the country's Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare.

Keidanren, Japan's largest business group, with 1,300 major international corporations as members, has issued a plea to its members to let workers go home early to spend time with their families and help Japan with its pressing social problem.

One reason for the low birth rate is the 12-hour workday. But there are several other factors compounding the problem -- among them, the high cost of living, and social rigidity toward women and parenting.

In addition, Japan's population is aging at a faster pace than any other country in the world.

Analysts say the world's second-largest economy faces its greatest threat from its own social problems, rather than outside forces. And the country desperately needs to make some fixes to its current social and work structures, sociologists say.

Canon says its 5:30 p.m. lights-out program is one simple step toward helping address the population problem. It also has an added benefit: Amid the global economic downturn the company can slash overtime across the board twice a week.

"It's great that we can go home early and not feel ashamed," said employee Miwa Iwasaki.

$3.8 million for a woman's virginity

2009-01-22T16:23:00.000-08:00

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/01/22/virginity.value/index.html

By Elizabeth Landau
CNN

(CNN) -- Is a woman's virginity worth $3.8 million? That's how much Natalie Dylan, a 22-year-old from San Diego, California, said she has been offered through an auction she announced in September.

Her private auction through the Moonlite Bunny Ranch, a legal brothel in Nevada, has given her lots of "business opportunities," she said.

Her top bid comes from a 39-year-old Australian, but she has no immediate plans to settle the auction, she said in a recent interview with CNN.

Some men may seek virgins because they want them as trophies, or desire purity. But as to why men would bid so much money on virginity, she said she has no answer.

"I honestly don't know what they see in it," she said.

If you think Dylan's auction amounts to prostitution, she completely agrees. She also said she's not breaking any laws -- after all, prostitution in Nevada is legal.

"I feel people should be pro-choice with their body, and I'm not hurting anyone," she said. "It really comes down to a moral and religious argument, and this doesn't go against my religion or my morals. There's no right or wrong to this."

The idea that virginity has a high value harkens back to the days of early humans -- if a man has sex with a virgin woman, he knows for sure that her children will be his, anthropologists reason. In early civilizations, women were also considered the property of men, said Laura Carpenter, assistant professor of sociology at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee.

In America, women were expected to remain virgins until marriage through the 1950s, Carpenter said. But with the availability of the pill and the IUD in the 1960s, combined with youth counterculture and gay rights movements, it became more common for women to engage in premarital sex, she said.

Attitudes shifted toward the conservative side in the 1980s with the worldwide HIV/AIDS pandemic, which made the stakes much higher for choosing a sex partner, especially for men. Abstinence-based education programs also took off around that time, with government support, she said.

Today, about 95 percent of Americans have sex before they're 25, Carpenter said. But worldwide, virgin prostitutes can claim larger fees, certain cultures still attach larger dowries to virgin brides, and some women undergo reconstructive surgery to restore their hymens.

In looking at Dylan's auction, "To some extent it's not new. The new part is the Internet," Carpenter said.

Dylan is not the first to hold a public sale for her sexual innocence. An Italian model reportedly had plans to sell her virginity for more than $1 million in September. Dylan said she was inspired by a report of a Peruvian woman who put her virginity up for sale.

Some think Dylan's auction may be indicative of a shift in the way society treats sexuality.

"In a world that is teeming with brand messages, with sponsorships everywhere, intimacy is really just the next thing to go," said Jon Ray, a 24-year-old marketing consultant in Austin, Texas, and author of the blog Who is Jon Ray?

Brett Austin Vanderzee, a 19-year-old student at Oklahoma Christian University who has pledged to stay a virgin until marriage, finds Dylan's actions somewhat appalling, but not shocking.

"It's kind of crazy, but I think it's the general direction that society has been heading in for a while," he said. "We're becoming more accepting of things that normally would have been considered unwise."

Kiara Daines, a 17-year-old from Detroit, Michigan, said she's saving herself until marriage for personal and religious reasons. Both Vanderzee and Daines said they have endured teasing from their peers because of their choice to remain abstinent.

Others say there's just too much hype around virginity. Martha Kempner, vice president for information and communications for the nonprofit Sexuality Information and Education Council of the U.S., said telling a young woman to stay"pure" misses the point that sexuality will influence her long after she loses her virginity.

"By putting the emphasis there, [on virginity], we're actually devaluing the rest of women, the rest of her, and the rest of her sexuality for the rest of her life," she said.

A recent study in the journal Pediatrics showed that religious teens who take virginity pledges are as likely to have sex before marriage as their religious peers, and less likely to use condoms or birth control when they become sexually active.

Many people say losing one's virginity has different implications for men than women. While young women see the act as a symbolic giving of themselves, young men are more prone to want to get it over with and brag about it. Similarly, says Kempner, women are taught to keep themselves "pure" and help men exercise control, while there's a "boys will be boys" attitude around men.

Do men really think that virginity is worth millions of dollars?

Audacia Ray, a 28-year-old former sex worker from New York and author of "Naked on the Internet: Hookups, Downloads and Cashing In on Internet Sexploration," is skeptical. She views Dylan's auction as a publicity stunt and doesn't anticipate she'll "continue in the industry."

The importance of a woman's virginity may vary in different cultures, but generally there's not the high value there used to be, Ray said.

"It begins to be viewed more as a burden over time -- a burden in that losing virginity is an event, so that it has to somehow mean something, which is part of the reason why people are all up in arms about Natalie," she said.

How do Dylan's friends and family feel? Dylan, who said she was raised in a conservative, non-Christian religious household, said although her mother doesn't agree with her, she still loves her as a daughter. Generally people have been supportive, said Dylan, who uses "Natalie Dylan" as a pseudonym.

"I've talked with my exes, some different guys, and they understand it's just a business deal, and they know me, and they know I'm not this promiscuous girl. Honestly, even if I didn't do this, I'd always be the girl who thinks prostitution is OK," she said. "I would always want to find a partner that can accept me for me."

Barak berry

2009-01-22T16:19:00.000-08:00

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/01/22/obama.blackberry/index.html

Self-confessed BlackBerry addict Barack Obama may not have to kick the thumbing habit after all, despite the concerns of a notoriously technophobic White House.

The new U.S. president was often seen hunched over the mobile e-mail device during his election campaign and even featured at No. 2 on one celebrity Web site's list of obsessive BlackBerry users.

But, like previous Oval Office incumbents, Obama had been expected to take a vow of technological celibacy following his inaugural oath on Tuesday, despite telling CNBC in an interview that security officials would have to "pry it out of my hands." He protests that a mobile device would help him stay in touch with the real world. Should President Obama be allowed to keep his BlackBerry? Tell us what you think

E-mail has long been treated with suspicion by the Secret Service because of fears it could be hacked into by foreign espionage agencies, or that sensitive information could reach the public domain via a single mis-stroke of the "send" key.

President George W. Bush was forced to give up using e-mail when he took charge, while President Bill Clinton sent just two e-mails during his administration -- one to test that the system worked and the second to veteran astronaut John Glenn before his trip into space in 1998.

There are also concerns that mobile devices such as BlackBerries, which contain built in GPS technology, could be hacked into, revealing the president's location within a few feet.

But according to reports Thursday, Obama could now be in line to receive a spy-proof alternative to his favorite toy.

Writing on his blog for the Atlantic magazine, Marc Ambinder reports that the National Security Agency has approved a $3,350 smartphone -- inevitably dubbed the "BarackBerry" -- for Obama's use.

The exclusive Sectera Edge, made by General Dynamics, is reportedly capable of encrypting top secret voice conversations and handling classified documents.

But Obama may have pushed his Secret Service handlers' technological patience far enough. Ambinder also reports that instant messaging in the White House will still be a definite no-no :(

iPhone App Helps Snipers Hit Targets

2009-01-21T16:29:00.000-08:00

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,481004,00.html

Is your iPhone or iPod Touch a bit too, well, artsy? Not rugged or manly enough for your taste?

Here's the solution: the Bulletflight ballistics calculator, which predicts the trajectory of bullets fired from high-powered sniper rifles by taking into account half a dozen variables including wind speed, distance, outside temperature and altitude.

After digesting all the information, Bulletflight tells you where exactly on the sniper scope you should position your target in order to hit it.

The application is preprogrammed for three kinds of rifle sold by Knight's Armament Company (KAC) of Titusville, Fla., which commissioned and sells the app for $11.99 through Apple's iTunes App Store.

Among the weapons is KAC's M110 sniper rifle, which went into service with the U.S. Army in 2007. Profiles for other kind of weapons, as well as the ammunition they use, can be added manually.

The Firearm Blog praise Bulletflight's "sheer awesomeness," but noted that there's already another iPhone/iPod Touch app called iSnipe that does essentially the same thing, retails for $4.99 and isn't tied in to a specific arms manufacturer.

Gym uses people instead of dumbbells

2009-01-20T16:45:00.000-08:00

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23623416-details/Gym+offers+human+weights+who+shout+encouragement/article.do

A LONDON gym has replaced its dumbbells with human weights to encourage people to exercise.

Members of Gymbox in Bank can choose to lift one of five differently sized people, including two midgets and a 155kg man.

The gym already runs a "chav fighting" self-defence class and "WAG workouts", classes aimed at making women more attractive to footballers.

The human weights, who sit on adapted machines, are said to help gym goers by letting them visualise what they are lifting. They will also shout words of encouragement.

Gymbox owner Richard Hilton said: "Creating a mental image of what you want to happen is proven to improve performance. The human weightlifting apparatus is the ultimate embodiment of visualisation theory.

"We're optimistic our members will see better results with our new human weight machine."

A spokeswoman for the gym denied using midgets as weights was tasteless. She said: "We have to have a small person because some people can only lift low weights."

The weights include Mike Edwards, 64, who weighs 55kg and is nicknamed the "micro male" and 155kg Matt Barnard, 37, from Clapham, who is known as "the super human".

India employs brain scans to ascertain guilt

2008-10-21T11:44:00.000-07:00

3 mts 16 secs

Women Fake Calls and Texts More says 3 Mobile

2008-10-08T08:21:00.000-07:00

Research by 3 suggests we’re turning into a bunch of ‘Communifakers’ who’d rather pretend to talk and text than look like a Billy no mates in the pub. According to its bullet proof scientific analysis ‘43% of women, almost a third of men (32%) and three quarters (74%) of all 18-24 year olds are guilty of pointless phone fondling.

Why? Well (stat overdose alert), 36% of us do it while waiting for friends, and 35% do it when we don’t want to avoid speaking to someone in the street (oh the irony!). And according to psychotherapist Lesley Haswell; “People experience the need to appear socially busy at all times and ‘just waiting’ is a no-no. Our basic human instinct is to be part of a group. Alone we can feel more vulnerable.”
So there you have it folks, we’re a nation of phantom-phoners and faux-texters because deep down we’re all just a little bit insecure. It’s not that we’re actually too busy watching films, surfing online, checking out Google Maps, emailing, doing the accounts, editing .docs and playing Orcs & Elves II to make a phone call.

Black bear busts secret Utah pot farm

2008-09-05T06:53:00.000-07:00

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/weird-news/story/673281.html

PANGUITCH, Utah -- One Utah community is cheering a special bear - but don't call him Smokey.

Investigators say a large black bear raided a clandestine marijuana growing operation so often that it chased the grower away.

"This bear is definitely law-enforcement minded," said Garfield County Sheriff Danny Perkins. "If I can find this bear I'm going to deputize him."

Deputies found food containers ripped apart and strewn everywhere, cans with bear teeth marks, claw marks and bear prints across the Garfield County camp on Tuesday.

Perkins said the operation on Boulder Mountain included 4,000 "starter" sacks of pot and 888 young plants.

"This particular bear apparently was not going to give up and basically chased these marijuana farmers away," Perkins said. "Our county is so tough on drugs that even the wildlife are getting in on the action."

Snakes on a plane ... no, really

2008-09-05T06:52:00.000-07:00

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24295370-5012747,00.html

CREW on an Air India jet discovered a snake coiled under a seat, but were unable to catch it.

The snake was disturbed during a routine check on the Air India A319, which had landed at Delhi after a domestic flight from Srinagar.

The serpent evaded capture by slipping into an air vent and could not be found even when staff unscrewed panels, opened all the doors and fumigated the plane.

"There was commotion, which scared the snake and it went further inside," the Hindustan Times quoted an airport official as saying.

Reports that the snake was a venomous cobra were denied by an airline spokesman.

"There was a snake but not a cobra. We have no details of what kind of a snake it was, or where it is now," he said.

He denied the jet had been grounded or that its flight to Mumbai had been delayed.

The incident echoed the plot of 2006 hit movie Snakes on a Plane.

UPS driver goes 1 million miles, no crashes

2008-09-05T06:51:00.000-07:00

http://www.mercurynews.com/natbreakingnews/ci_10388219

PALESTINE, Texas—A routine package delivery turned into a milestone for a UPS driver in East Texas.

Brent Boyd on Thursday surpassed 1 million miles on his UPS delivery van, the same vehicle he's driven for 22 years with the company.

The odometer on Boyd's 1987 GMC truck rolled over to all zeros as he began his delivery route near Palestine (PAL'-uh-steen).

The 51-year-old says he's never had an accident with his company vehicle.

Boyd told The Associated Press that his truck has gone through at least three engines and been repainted almost as many times.

But he's resisted offers for a new van. Boyd says the truck is "like home" and feels like "sitting in the recliner in your house."

Cats rescued after apparently starting house fire

2008-09-05T06:50:00.000-07:00

http://www.firefightingnews.com/article-US.cfm?articleID=54111

Tennessee - Chattanooga firefighters rescued several cats during a house fire that investigators say was probably caused by the cats themselves. Fire department spokesman Bruce Garner said firefighters responded to an alarm Thursday morning and found a fire in the kitchen. While no one was home, they found about 10 cats inside.

Some of the cats escaped the house on their own, but some showed signs of smoke inhalation. Firefighters used oxygen bottles and special masks to revive several of the cats. Garner said one cat was not expected to survive.

Capt. Lesley Morgan said the cause of the fire appears to be accidental and most likely from a cat knocking over an unattended candle in the kitchen.

Greek rural postmen top odd book title list

2008-09-05T06:47:00.000-07:00

http://www.boston.com/news/odd/articles/2008/09/05/greek_rural_postmen_top_odd_book_title_list/

LONDON—It may not be a best-seller, but "Greek Rural Postmen and Their Cancellation Numbers" has won a literary accolade: oddest book title of the past 30 years.

The book topped a poll to find the weirdest-ever winner of Britain's Diagram Prize for unusually monickered volumes.

It beat previous winners including "Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Nude Mice" and "How Green Were the Nazis?" in an online vote. The results were announced Friday by trade magazine The Bookseller, which organizes the prize.

The runner-up was "People Who Don't Know They're Dead." Third place went to "How To Avoid Huge Ships."

The Bookseller's charts editor, Philip Stone, said -- possibly with tongue in cheek -- that the winning book may have benefited from Britons' concern about the closure of rural post offices across the country.

"I sincerely believe that this title provides further proof to the current government that the British public are passionate about the maintenance and continuation of local mail delivery services," he said. "And not just nationally, but internationally."

Rules for the prize, launched in 1978, say the books must be serious and their titles not merely a gimmick. "Greek Rural Postmen" was published in 1994 by a British stamp-collecting organization.

Its co-author, Derek Willan, said he didn't consider the title odd.

"It purely describes what's in the book," Willan, 91, told the British Broadcasting Corp. "This book was issued by the Hellenic Philatelic Society of Great Britain and it is of interest to Greek philatelists."

"Robin Hoods" steal at the store, give to the poor?

2008-09-04T06:45:00.000-07:00

Reuters

ATHENS (Reuters) - Greek anarchists stormed a supermarket on Thursday and handed out food for free in the latest of a wave of raids provoked by soaring consumer prices.

About 20 unarmed people, mostly wearing black hoods, carried out the midday robbery in the northern city of Thesaaloniki, police said.

Local media have labeled the raiders "Robin Hoods" following previous raids.

They take only packets of pasta, rice and cartons of milk which they drop in the middle of the street for people to collect, a police official said.

"They have never stolen money or hurt anyone. They ask people to remain calm but use ambush tactics, jumping over cash desks," he said.

"When they attack without hoods, people are surprised to see that they are mostly women."

The rising cost of living has replaced unemployment as Greeks' main concern. Inflation is officially running at a 10-year high of 4.9 percent although many items have risen in price more sharply.

(Reporting by Renee Maltezou; Editing by Daniel Flynn and Angus MacSwan)

Elephant 'kicks heroin habit in rehab'

2008-09-04T06:43:00.000-07:00

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/world/elephant-kicks-heroin-habit-in-rehab/2008/09/04/1220121424727.html

An elephant has kicked his heroin habit after a three-year stint on an island rehab in southern China where he was treated with methadone.

The four-year-old Asian elephant, called Xiguang, has now being transported to a wildlife reserve in southwest China after being cured of his addiction with some clean living on Hainan island, Xinhua said.

Xiguang became hooked on the narcotic after animal smugglers captured him and other elephants by luring them with bananas laced with heroin in 2005, the official news agency said.

"The four elephants are arriving here from Hainan tomorrow," wildlife park official Mr Xu, who refused to give his full name, told AFP.

Police caught the smugglers in May 2005 on the border between China and Burma, and noticed that Xiguang was acting strangely, the Beijing News website reported.

His eyes kept streaming, he made continuous trumpeting noises, and was finally diagnosed with withdrawal symptoms from the drug, the report said.

Xiguang was sent to a wild animal protection centre in Hainan, where rehabilitation experts and vets gave him injections of methadone - five times the dose needed for a human being - for a year, Xinhua said.

After a year, he had started to recover, and the dose of medicine was progressively reduced.

The animal is now being transported 1,500km across southern China to Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province.

The Asian elephant is an endangered species, with only 25,600 to 32,750 left in the wild, according to the World Wildlife Fund.

The animals are victims of conflict with humans, as they destroy plantations and fields in their quest for food, leading to retaliatory killings. They also fall prey to poachers for their ivory, the fund says.

Nudist vows to hike on after jail

2008-09-04T06:41:00.000-07:00

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/4681001a4560.html

A naked German hiker has vowed to carry on rambling in the nude despite spending 10 days in jail for breaking public nudity laws.

Thomas Kranig, a spokesman for the administrative court in Ansbach, said Siegfried Grawert went to jail because he "refused to pay a fine of 500 euros assessed for violating the public nudity code".

Grawert, a janitor, told a local German newspaper he planned to continue campaigning for the right to partake in organised all-natural hikes despite his troubles with the law.

Naked hiking has gained a following since the German Society of Nudists joined the German Sports Association.

Nude bathing is accepted and allowed in parts of Germany, especially on designated beaches on the Baltic Sea coast.

But naked joggers have been fined in the past for running through forests wearing nothing but socks and shoes.

Film about key U.S./French wine tasting causes sour grapes

2008-09-04T06:37:00.000-07:00

Reuters

By Maggie Rosen

NEW YORK (Reuters) - "Bottle Shock," a film based on a real wine tasting in Paris in 1976 where Californian wines beat French rivals, has left some of those involved in the original event with a sour taste.

The Paris Wine Tasting of 1976, which is also known as the "Judgment of Paris," has emerged as one of the most important tastings in the history of wine that is often re-enacted as it helped put California on the world fine wine map.

The film is one of two inspired by the 2005 book "The Judgment of Paris" by George Taber, the only journalist to cover the landmark blind tasting at which a mainly French panel of experts rated then-unknown California wines higher than the best Bordeaux had to offer.

While Taber's two-paragraph article appeared on page 58 of the June 7, 1976 issue of Time magazine, the results were astounding, not least to the jurors themselves, by challenging France's claim to be the world's superior wine-making nation.

"Bottle Shock" is the first of the "judgment" films to be released, but it isn't the official version.

According to both the tasting's organizer, Steven Spurrier (played by Alan Rickman) and Taber, it deviates so far from reality that it should not have the right to be advertised as a true story.

"It's a tissue of lies. I've heard the only good part is Alan Rickman," said Spurrier, now a wine writer and consultant based in London. He has not yet seen "Bottle Shock," but read the script.

"What I really hope will happen is that the true story will come out."

SOUR GRAPES AT BOTH TABLES

"Bottle Shock" takes numerous egregious liberties, claim its detractors, including a broad-stroke mischaracterization of Spurrier as a bumbling British snob with a failing wine shop.

In reality Spurrier joined the wine trade in 1964 and moved to Paris in 1970 where he opened the L'Academie du Vin, France's first private wine school.

"The portrait of Steven Spurrier is an outrage, and not at all what he is really like," said Taber, who has seen the film.

"He comes across as a Colonel Blimp with a glass of Bordeaux in his hand. I guess I'm too naive about Hollywood, but I don't think any artists should destroy someone just to get some cheap laughs."

Even more critical a point of contention is the film's portrayal of the men behind the highest-ranked white wine of the tasting, a Chateau Montelena 1973 Chardonnay from California.

No mention is given in "Bottle Shock" to the estate's wine-maker Mike Grgich but instead to Jim Barrett, the mostly hands-off part-owner of Chateau Montelena, and his son Bo.

"To claim Barrett made that wine was incorrect, Mike Grgich made it," said Taber.

"Aside from drinking it and appreciating it, he didn't know anything about wine. Mike Grgich got the George Orwell treatment and became a non-person."

For his part, Grgich, now 84 and a well-respected winemakers, fell out with Barrett long ago.

While he realizes the importance of the role he played in the original 1976 tasting, he recently told Decanter magazine that he was "pushed aside."

Spurrier and Taber are hoping the truth will out by way of a rival script - as yet unproduced - by screenwriter Robert Kamen.

"These people make believe Barrett made the wine - to deny Mike Grgich his rightful place in history," said Kamen, who also owns Sonoma Valley, California winery Kamen Estate.

"If you look at the wine as an act of creation, you give credit to the person who created it. So the movie is based on a lie - financed and fronted by the Barretts, a 30-year campaign to erase Mike Grgich's name from history. I find that particularly offensive even though it's a crappy film."

Kamen said that unlike "Bottle Shock," his version will be faithful to those involved in the seminal 1976 event.

In the interim, he is raising funds and waiting for "Bottle Shock" to "work its way through the system."

Nobody involved in the production of "Bottle Shock" was available to comment.

'Dead' dad spotted on missing persons TV appeal

2008-09-04T06:33:00.001-07:00

http://www.france24.com/en/20080904-dead-dad-spotted-missing-persons-tv-appeal

A man saw his father on a television show -- five years after thought he had been cremated, police said Thursday.

John Renehan's father John Delaney went missing in 2000, and when the decomposing body of a man with similar clothes and distinguishing wounds was found in January 2003, the man was duly identified and cremated.

But the real Delaney, 71, was in a nearby care home in Oldham in Greater Manchester, having been found in 2000 wandering the streets suffering from amnesia following a brain injury and unable to recall his identity.

Given a new name, "David Harrison" appeared on a missing persons television appeal, seen by a stunned Renehan, 42, who called in.

DNA tests confirmed they were indeed father and son. Greater Manchester Police (GMP) have now launched an inquiry to discover the identity of the man cremated in 2003.

The force said they accepted that the man admitted to the care home "should have been identified as Mr John Delaney and that the inquiries made at the time to establish the unknown man's identity were not sufficient."

GMP now "has advanced systems in place to ensure that mistakes of this nature are not made and robust checks are made to establish the identity of people who cannot immediately confirm who they are.

"Greater Manchester Police accepts that mistakes were made and that Mr Delaney's family has been through a traumatic ordeal."

Angry commuters torch train

2008-09-04T06:30:00.000-07:00

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7599141.stm

Outraged commuters in Argentina have set fire to a train, because they were angry about morning rush hour delays.

Images of the charred train at Merlo station, in the west of the capital, Buenos Aires, have appeared on Argentine television.

At nearby Castelar, passengers hurled stones at the ticket office and blocked the rails.

Argentina's dilapidated rail services are plagued by delays and many passengers said this latest round, caused by a broken down train, had cost them a day's work.

Quarks in the Hood: Particle physics rap is a Youtube hit

2008-09-03T06:23:00.000-07:00

http://www.france24.com/en/20080903-quarks-hood-particle-physics-rap-youtube-hit

Particle physicists fall into the stereotype of geek scientists -- serious, distracted and prone to wearing ties that look like socks -- but a rap hit on the video website Youtube has shed unexpected light on their fun side.

"Large Hadron Rap" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j50ZssEojtM) has notched up more than 836,000 hits in the countdown to next week's startup of the world's greatest atom-smasher.

Grooving to a down-with-the-kids beat, and using the multi-billion-dollar collider as a backdrop, rapping scientists in lab coats and hard hats make it easier for people who don't know the difference between a proton and a crouton.

Here's an example of the lyrics:

"Antimatter is sort of like matter's evil twin

Because except for charge and handedness of spin

They're the same for a particle and its anti-self --

But you can't store an antiparticle on any shelf

Cuz when it meets its normal twin, they both annihilate,

Matter turns to energy and then it dissipates."

The rap is the brainchild of Kate McAlpine, a graduate student of Michigan State University who is on assignment to CERN, as the European Organisation for Nuclear Research is called.

Next Wednesday, CERN will switch on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a massive underground laboratory that will smash protons together and analyse the sub-atomic debris that results.

The project, housed in a 27-kilometre (16.9-mile) circular tunnel near Geneva, aims at resolving some of the greatest mysteries in physics.

One of the biggest quests will be to find a theorised particle called the Higgs Boson, which could explain nagging anomalies about mass.

The Higgs has been dubbed the "God particle," because it is believed to be everywhere but is so elusive.

McAlpine told AFP that the rap had been received enthusiastically by her colleagues for explaining physics in an accurate, simple and fun way -- although the reactions also included a due touch of caution.

"I haven't had a complaint about the science, except that I imply that the Higgs Boson is going to be found too quickly," she said.

Scientists use particle accelerator to date wine

2008-09-03T06:21:00.000-07:00

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=scientists-use-particle-a

PARIS (Reuters) - French scientists have devised a way of using particle accelerators to authenticate vintage wines, one of France's top research bodies said this week.

The new method tests the age of the glass in wine bottles by analyzing X-rays emitted when the bottles are placed under ion beams produced by a particle accelerator, the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) said in a statement.

"This enables the age of bottles and their origin to be verified and thus a vintage to be authenticated, a bit like the signature of a painter on a masterpiece, all without opening the bottle and without affecting in any way the content," it said.

By comparing the results with a database containing detailed information on 80 bottles from the Bordeaux region from the 19th century to the present day, the tests can help indicate the vintage of many wines.

"Authentication is possible due to the complexity of the processes of glass manufacture which have evolved over time and to the variety of production centers which give each object a characteristic 'signature' made up of many elements," the CNRS said.

Particle accelerators take a particle, such as an electron, speed it up to near the speed of light and smash it into an atom to discover its internal workings.

The new test extends existing radioactivity tests on the actual wine itself, which are currently incapable of identifying vintages prior to 1950.

The test was developed in cooperation with London-based wine dealer The Antique Wine Company.

(Reporting by Claude Canellas; Writing by James Mackenzie; Editing by Crispian Balmer)

Police hunt high-speed skateboard outlaw

2008-09-03T06:18:00.000-07:00

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-skateboarder4-2008sep04,0,1723719.story

BERLIN -- Police are trying to track down a man filmed riding a skateboard down a steep stretch of south German motorway at 100 km an hour (62 mph), far above the speed limit.

They believe the man who raced down the Ulm-Stuttgart motorway for three km (two miles) before he stopped and fled was a professional stuntman, Goeppingen police spokesman Uli Stoeckle said.

A video of the skateboarder, broadcast on German television networks today, showed a helmeted figure wearing a red and white protective suit building up speed by holding onto the back of a motorcycle before letting go and freewheeling.

"We put out an all-points bulletin and have received information that gives us useful clues to who the man may be," Stoeckle said. "We are particularly concerned about copycats who may imitate the stunt, putting their lives at risk."

The film clips show several cars escorting the skateboarder, enabling his collaborators to record the event. The clips have since surfaced on Internet websites.

The German magazine Stern said the mystery man is known in skateboarding circles as a professional stuntman and takes part in international downhill skateboarding competitions.

Stoeckle said the man faces charges for interfering with traffic safety and endangering motorists, and would lose his driver's licence and face a "substantial fine." He denied media reports the skateboarder would face a one-year jail sentence.

There are no speed limits on German motorways but there are restrictions on many sections, especially steep and dangerous stretches. The section the skateboarder was using has an 80 km an hour (50 mph) speed limit.

Fed-up neighborhood passes one-dog rule

2008-09-02T06:15:00.000-07:00

http://www.focus-fen.net/index.php?id=n151325

Lima. Dog lovers beware. A neighborhood in Peru's capital, Lima, has passed a law prohibiting families living in apartments from having more than one dog, Reuters reported. People living in houses are allowed two dogs, while those found with more will be subject to hefty fines. According to an order published in the country's official gazette on Thursday, residents of Jesus Maria, a middle-class area in Lima, have said there are just too many dogs -- and too much barking. "Neighbors have complained they cannot live in peace, harmony, or good physical and mental health because ... noisy dogs disturb the peace," the order read. Families with more than the permitted number of dogs will face fines of up to USD 237, and could have their furry friends removed.But Maria Solano, 70, said she would never let that happen to her two dogs, Boni and Fiama, adopted off the street 5 years ago. "My dogs are my children," said Solano, who lives in an apartment in Jesus Maria. "They aren't hurting anyone. I'd move to another neighborhood before giving them up." The order says nothing about cats, or animals besides the dog.

Putin saves TV crew from Siberian tiger

2008-08-31T06:12:00.000-07:00

http://www.iht.com/articles/reuters/2008/08/31/europe/OUKWD-UK-RUSSIA-PUTIN-TIGER.php

MOSCOW: Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was feted by Russian media on Sunday for saving a television crew from an attack by a Siberian tiger in the wilds of the Far East.

Putin, taking a break from lambasting the West over Georgia, apparently saved the crew while on a trip to a national park to see how researchers monitor the tigers in the wild.

Just as Putin was arriving with a group of wildlife specialists to see a trapped Amur tiger, it escaped and ran towards a nearby camera crew, the country's main television station said. Putin quickly shot the beast and sedated it with a tranquilizer gun.

"Vladimir Putin not only managed to see the giant predator up close but also saved our television crew too," a presenter on Rossiya television said at the start of the main evening news.

The 55-year-old former KGB spy, who cultivated a macho image during his eight years as the Kremlin chief, was shown striding through the taiga in camouflage and desert boots before grappling with the feline foe.

He helped measure the Amur tiger's incisors before placing a satellite transmitter around the neck of the beast, which can weigh up to 450 kg (1,000 lb) and measure around ten feet (three metres) from nose to the tip of the tail.

The Amur tiger, the world's biggest wild cat, has recently pounced back from the brink of extinction to hit its highest population level for at least 100 years, the WWF said last year.

Putin thanked Western researchers for being involved in programmes to save the Amur tigers.

"First of all, we must thank our colleagues, Americans, European colleagues for being involved with this during a difficult time for Russia when no-one was paying any attention to this," Putin said.

Putin last year made it into glossy magazines across the world by donning combat trousers and baring his muscular torso for photographers while on a fishing trip in the Yenisei river.

Sensitive to a growing environmental movement in Russia, Putin as president redrew a planned oil pipeline route to avoid Lake Baikal and scrapped plans for an Olympic village near Sochi that could have damaged local flora and fauna.

(editing by Sami Aboudi)

Police to shame jaywalkers on TV

2008-08-29T06:10:00.000-07:00

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4673431a4560.html

Shanghai police will post photos and videos of jaywalkers in newspapers and on TV in a bid to shame them out of breaking traffic rules, local media has reported.

Offending pedestrians, moped riders and cyclists would be snapped at selected intersections and their images put in regular columns and on special television programmes set up by police, the Shanghai Daily said.

The scheme had come under fire from lawyers who said public humiliation was too steep a punishment for jaywalking and warned of defamation lawsuits against police.

"It's a principle of law that a penalty should match the seriousness of the crime," Liu Chunquan, a local lawyer, told the paper.

Jaywalking is a way of life in major Chinese cities, where crossing roads legally can be a hair-raising battle of nerves with oncoming cars disinclined to give way to pedestrians.

Traffic police recorded 7.78 million jaywalking violations at Shanghai intersections in the first eight months of 2008, the paper said.

Why it's so hard to swat a fly

2008-08-28T06:05:00.000-07:00

http://www.physorg.com/news139142949.html

Over the past two decades, Michael Dickinson has been interviewed by reporters hundreds of times about his research on the biomechanics of insect flight. One question from the press has always dogged him: Why are flies so hard to swat?

"Now I can finally answer," says Dickinson, the Esther M. and Abe M. Zarem Professor of Bioengineering at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).

Using high-resolution, high-speed digital imaging of fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster) faced with a looming swatter, Dickinson and graduate student Gwyneth Card have determined the secret to a fly's evasive maneuvering. Long before the fly leaps, its tiny brain calculates the location of the impending threat, comes up with an escape plan, and places its legs in an optimal position to hop out of the way in the opposite direction. All of this action takes place within about 100 milliseconds after the fly first spots the swatter.

"This illustrates how rapidly the fly's brain can process sensory information into an appropriate motor response," Dickinson says.

For example, the videos showed that if the descending swatter--actually, a 14-centimeter-diameter black disk, dropping at a 50-degree angle toward a fly standing at the center of a small platform--comes from in front of the fly, the fly moves its middle legs forward and leans back, then raises and extends its legs to push off backward. When the threat comes from the back, however, the fly (which has a nearly 360-degree field of view and can see behind itself) moves its middle legs a tiny bit backwards. With a threat from the side, the fly keeps its middle legs stationary, but leans its whole body in the opposite direction before it jumps.

"We also found that when the fly makes planning movements prior to take-off, it takes into account its body position at the time it first sees the threat," Dickinson says. "When it first notices an approaching threat, a fly's body might be in any sort of posture depending on what it was doing at the time, like grooming, feeding, walking, or courting. Our experiments showed that the fly somehow 'knows' whether it needs to make large or small postural changes to reach the correct preflight posture. This means that the fly must integrate visual information from its eyes, which tell it where the threat is approaching from, with mechanosensory information from its legs, which tells it how to move to reach the proper preflight pose."

The results offer new insight into the fly nervous system, and suggest that within the fly brain there is a map in which the position of the looming threat "is transformed into an appropriate pattern of leg and body motion prior to take off," Dickinson says. "This is a rather sophisticated sensory-to-motor transformation and the search is on to find the place in the brain where this happens," he says.

Dickinson's research also suggests an optimal method for actually swatting a fly. "It is best not to swat at the fly's starting position, but rather to aim a bit forward of that to anticipate where the fly is going to jump when it first sees your swatter," he says.

The paper, "Visually Mediated Motor Planning in the Escape Response of Drosophila," will be published August 28 in the journal Current Biology.

Museum defies pope anger over crucified frog

2008-08-28T06:02:00.000-07:00

http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2008Aug28/0,4670,ItalyCrucifiedFrog,00.html

ROME — An art museum in northern Italy said Thursday it will continue displaying a sculpture portraying a green frog nailed to a cross that has angered Pope Benedict XVI and local officials.

The board of the foundation of the Museion in the city of Bolzano voted to keep the work by the late German artist Martin Kippenberger, the museum said in a statement.

Earlier in August the pope had written a letter to Franz Pahl, the president of the Trentino-Alto Adige region that includes Bolzano, denouncing the sculpture.

It "has offended the religious feelings of many people who consider the cross a symbol of God's love and of our redemption," Pahl quoted the pope as writing in the letter.

Pahl himself has long opposed the display of "Zuerst die Fuesse" ("First the Feet" in German), even staging a hunger strike this summer and saying he would not seek re-election unless it was removed.

In a telephone interview with The Associated Press on Thursday, Pahl said he was outraged by the museum's decision to keep the work, which he claims "pokes fun at the Catholic population and offends religion and the pope."

The 1990 wooden sculpture shows the crucified frog nailed through the feet and hands like Jesus Christ. The frog, eyes popping and tongue sticking out, wears a loincloth and holds a mug of beer and an egg in its hands.

The museum said the 3-foot (1-meter) -tall sculpture has nothing to do with religion, but is an ironic self-portrait of the artist and an expression of his angst.

"With humor and a tragicomic sense, which belongs to art since the times of Greek tragedy, Kippenberger ... faces his condition of suffering, which he expresses in many works, also, for example, in a video in which he crucifies himself," the museum said in a statement.

Born in Dortmund, Kippenberger moved from painting and sculpture to work in all mediums, often combining elements of Neo-expressionism, Pop and Dadaism. His art has been displayed across the world, including Zurich, Paris, Jerusalem, London and New York.

He died in 1997, aged 43.

Rat meat in demand in as inflation bites

2008-08-27T19:13:00.000-07:00

http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/storypage.aspx?StoryId=129446

PHNOM PENH - The price of rat meat has quadrupled in Cambodia this year as inflation has put other meat beyond the reach of poor people, officials said on Wednesday.

With consumer price inflation at 37 percent according to the latest central bank estimate, demand has pushed a kilogram of rat meat up to around 5,000 riel ($1.28) from 1,200 riel last year.

Spicy field rat dishes with garlic thrown in have become particularly popular at a time when beef costs 20,000 riel a kg.

Officials said rats were fleeing to higher ground from flooded areas of the lower Mekong Delta, making it easier for villagers to catch them.

"Many children are happy making some money from selling the animals to the markets, but they keep some for their family," Ly Marong, an agriculture official, said by telephone from the Koh Thom district on the border with Vietnam.

"Not only are our poor eating it, but there is also demand from Vietnamese living on the border with us."

He estimated that Cambodia supplied more than a tonne of live rats a day to Vietnam.

Rats are also eaten widely in Thailand, while a state government in eastern India this month encouraged its people to eat rats in an effort to battle soaring food prices and save grain stocks.

($1 = 3,900 riel)

Chefs protest with free pizzas

2008-08-27T19:11:00.000-07:00

http://www.news.com.au/mercury/story/0,22884,24248850-5007063,00.html

PIZZA chefs in Naples will tomorrow give away more than 5,000 free pizzas to protest against restaurants that have "unfairly" hiked up the cost of a pizza amid rising global food prices.

"Pizza is one of the most widely eaten dishes in the world and it should never cost more than 3.50 ($5.99) ," Sergio Miccu, president of the association of Neapolitan pizza chefs (ANP) said today.

He accused restaurants and pizza chefs of increasing pizza prices to a level that is not justified by the cost of the basic ingredients.

"We launched this initiative because pizza has become more and more expensive vis-a-vis the general surge in food prices and we want to help consumers and their families make ends meet each month," Mr Miccu said.

The association will hand out more than 5000 pizzas to tourists and locals at Piazza Dante, one of Naples' main squares.

"Pizza is a poor man's dish and a passing fancy for the rich," said Emilio Borrelli, the head of the agriculture sector in Naples province.

"Tomorrow (Thursday), we will give them away free to protest against those who are trying to trade (on their price increase)."

No nuns on catwalk as priest stops 'beauty contest'

2008-08-27T19:10:00.000-07:00

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/4670746a4560.html

An Italian priest who had planned an online "pageant" for nuns has suspended the project, saying he was misinterpreted and had no intention of putting sisters on a beauty catwalk.

"My superiors were not happy. The local bishop was not happy, but they did not understand me either," Father Antonio Rungi said by telephone from his convent in southern Italy on Tuesday.

"It was not at all my intention to put nuns on the catwalk," said Rungi, a priest of the Passionists religious order, speaking from his convent in the town of Mondragone.

Rungi's idea appeared in newspapers around the world after he wrote of a contest for nuns on his blog, called by some "Sister Italy 2008".

"It was interpreted as more of a physical thing. Now, no-one is saying that nuns can't be beautiful, but I was thinking about something more complete," he said.

He said his concept for the contest, in which nuns would vote for themselves on his blog, would include attributes such as their spirituality, social awareness, charity and other qualities.

Rungi wrote in his blog that his intention was to show "the interior beauty" of a nun and the work she does for the Church and for society, mostly in education and health care.

"We have to draw more attention to the world of nuns, who are often not sufficiently appreciated by society," he wrote, adding that he had hoped his initiative would help boost sagging vocations to religious lie.

"Many monasteries in Italy are dying because of a lack of religious vocations," he wrote.

Rungi said he received a lot of calls of support but also many sharp emails by people who attacked him for wanting to create a Miss Italy-style event.

"Some of them were really nasty," he said.

Woman goes down baggage chute at airport

2008-08-27T19:08:00.000-07:00

http://www.france24.com/en/20080827-woman-goes-down-baggage-chute-swedish-airport

An elderly woman misunderstood instructions while checking in at Sweden's main airport and was whisked down a baggage shoot after she placed herself instead of her luggage on the belt, media reported Wednesday.

The 78-year-old woman, who was not named, was preparing to fly from Stockholm's Arlanda airport to Germany on Tuesday when she lay down on an unmanned baggage belt in the belief she was following check-in instructions, the Upsala Nya Tidning local daily reported on its website.

She was quickly swept off to the baggage handling centre, where staff members helped get her back on her feet.

The woman suffered no serious injury and caught her flight as planned.

Cat survives being walled in under bath for 7 weeks

2008-08-27T19:06:00.000-07:00

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/08/27/2347664.htm?section=world

A four-year-old cat called Bonny has survived after being walled in beneath a bathtub in Germany for seven weeks, its owner said.

"It's a miracle," 60-year-old widow Monika Hoppert said. "I'm a strong believer, I think she must have had a guardian angel. I'm so happy."

Bonny disappeared on June 19 while workmen were replacing pipes in the block of flats where Ms Hoppert lives.

The black cat was last seen in a neighbouring apartment, where the cladding around a bathtub had been removed.

Just before the tub was sealed up again, Bonny had probably crept underneath, Ms Hoppert said.

By the time the neighbour heard Bonny's plaintive miaowing from behind the tiles on August 8, the cat's weight had dropped from six kilograms to two kilograms.

"I couldn't believe it. But when I got down there, I knew it was my cat because they all have their own voice," Ms Hoppert said.

Bonny was so weak the vet recommended she be put down.

But Ms Hoppert nursed her back to health with watered down kitten food.

"She's almost back to normal now. This morning was the first time she'd jumped onto my bed again," she said.

British 'greasers' reach Athens in cooking oil cars

2008-08-27T19:04:00.000-07:00

http://www.france24.com/en/20080827-british-greasers-reach-athens-cooking-oil-cars

A group of Britons on Wednesday completed a 3,750-kilometre (2,330-mile) 'Grease to Greece' expedition in cars powered by vegetable oil in a bid to raise awareness about conserving fuel, organisers said.

Some of the nine cars were converted to run on purified vegetable oil while others had standard engines using biodiesel that was brewed overnight in a 'fuel pod' stored in a lorry accompanying the expedition.

Instead of filling up at petrol stations, the expedition's 'frybrid' cars ran on used frying oil donated by restaurants and cafés along the route.

"A lot of people don't realise that biodiesel, when made properly, will run in any diesel engine," noted expedition leader Andy Pag, 34, a webcasting specialist and trained engineer, who says he got the idea in a road trip from London to Capetown with his wife three years ago.

"We wanted to see if it's possible to do something with biofuels," he said.

"We had a lot of breakdowns (en route) but we managed to fix everything."

Setting off from London on August 16, the expedition crossed France, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Italy, Croatia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Albania and arrived in Athens on August 27.

On one occasion when the team was pulled over by German traffic police, their press cuttings proved more valuable than passports, noted Peg, who last year led an expedition to Timbuktu on a truck powered by chocolate soya oil.

His next project involves circumnavigating the globe with cars running on cooking oil and a small aircraft using an aviation fuel made from plastic bags.

"It's quite geeky, essentially it's like taking the molecules apart and building a new jigsaw with them to create fuel molecules," he told AFP.

Town blushes with annual tomato fight

2008-08-27T19:03:00.000-07:00

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/08/27/europe/EU-Spain-Food-Fight.php

BUNOL, Spain: Spanish revelers have pelted each with 113 tons of ripe tomatoes in an annual food fight.

Town hall says an estimated 40,000 people took part in the hour of messy fun in the village of Bunol near Valencia.

The ritual dates back to the 1940s.

Some warriors in Wednesday's battle wore swimming goggles to protect themselves from the acid sting of projectiles in the form of pear-shaped tomatoes. Others swatted them away with tennis rackets.

Afterward, many washed off in a nearby river while crews hosed down a town painted red.

Woman wearing veil told to leave museum

2008-08-27T19:01:00.000-07:00

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle08.asp?xfile=data/theworld/2008/August/theworld_August1650.xml§ion=theworld

ROME - The head of one of Venice's most prestigious museums apologised on Wednesday to a Muslim woman asked to leave the building by a guard because she was wearing a veil over her face.

The episode, which has kindled controversy in the Italian media and arguments between centre-left and centre-right politicians, occurred on Sunday in Venice's Ca' Rezzonico museum, which houses 18th-century Venetian art.

"I'm sorry for what happened and if she ever wants to return to our museum, she will be more than welcome," director Filippo Pedrocco told Reuters by telephone from Venice.

The woman, visiting the museum with her husband and children, had cleared security when she entered the building.

When she reached the second floor, a room guard told her she must remove her "niqab", which leaves only the eyes visible, or leave.

"The room guard was over-zealous. He should not have done it. She already passed security and his only duty was to guarantee the safety of the artwork in his room," Pedrocco said.

The woman was believed to have been a member of a well-off family visiting Venice from Saudi Arabia or a Gulf state.

She refused to take off the veil and left the building, which faces Venice's Grand Canal and houses works by such 18th century Venetian masters as Giandomenico Tiepolo.

Italian anti-terrorism laws dating from the 1970s ban the wearing of face coverings in public but they are rarely enforced in cases of Islamic veils.

Italian media reported that the guard, who Pedrocco said worked part-time and was employed by an outside security firm, would be disciplined and risked being fired.

However, the guard, whose name was not disclosed, was hailed as a hero by some in the Veneto region, where there has been tension between long-time residents and Islamic immigrants.

Senator Roberto Castelli, a member of the anti-immigrant Northern League, asked the justice minister to make sure the guard was not disciplined or sacked "for doing his duty and making sure the law was respected".

Giancarlo Gentilini, deputy mayor of the city of Treviso north of Venice, said the guard should be "given an award and not punished".

British councils allowed to adopt red phone boxes

2008-08-27T18:57:00.000-07:00

http://www.france24.com/en/20080827-british-councils-allowed-adopt-red-phone-boxes

British towns and villages that want to keep the country's famous red phone boxes will be able to do so, even if the phones are removed because they are no longer used enough, BT announced Wednesday.

Telecoms operator British Telecom (BT) said it had reviewed an earlier decision to remove the public pay phones -- known the world over as icons of Britain -- because increased use of mobile phones had made them increasingly obsolete.

Local councils that want to maintain the phone boxes, with or without a working telephone, "for aesthetic or heritage reasons will be able to do so," the company said.

They will have to pay BT 250 pounds (310 euros, 460 dollars) for a red phone box without a functioning phone, or 500 pounds for one with a working connection.

Councils have until October 1 to decide whether they want to maintain kiosks.

In 2002, BT maintained around 95,000 pay phones across Britain, but 31,000 have since been removed as mobile phone usage has become commonplace.

Nebraska city council votes to evict aging horse

2008-08-27T18:48:00.000-07:00

http://www.elpasotimes.com/ci_10314287

HICKMAN, Neb.—This one-horse town is looking like becoming a no-horse town.

The owner of a 32-year-old horse named Peter Rabbit wasn't able Tuesday to buck a local ban on livestock within city limits.

After widespread publicity of the ban that threatened to kick Peter Rabbit off the pasture where he was born, the Hickman City Council considered an ordinance Tuesday night that would allow horses inside city limits. But council members ultimately voted 4-2 against adopting it, leaving the ban intact.

Councilwoman Kim Hoesing has long supported allowing horses. After Tuesday's vote, she said she hoped the issue would die down because "I can't get anyone to agree with me."

For a bedroom community where people live to get away from the hustle and bustle of nearby Lincoln, Hickman and its population of 1,085 have had a lot of racket lately. After publicity of Peter Rabbit's fight with City Hall, people around the country did some of the lobbying the horse couldn't.

Hickman City Administrator Bret Baker hasn't been amused by all the publicity. Given some of the phone calls he's received, it's tough to blame him.

He said staff had to turn off the voicemail because of all the phone calls, and the flood of e-mails "actually bombed our e-mail server three times."

The horse's owner, 76-year-old Harley Scott, said he has raised Peter Rabbit since the brown Morgan-quarter horse crossbreed was born in his pasture in the spring of 1976.

Scott said there have been horses on the land since his father bought 40 acres in 1935.

Only about 4 acres remain in the family. The rest has been sold to developers. His land was annexed in 2006, but Scott said no one said anything to him at the time about having to give up the horse.

Scott has said he has no intention of complying with the Sept. 15 deadline. He faces the prospect of being fined up to $100 a day if he's convicted of violating the ordinance.

Ants bite, phones fly in Finnish summer bonanza

2008-08-26T18:40:00.000-07:00

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/feedarticle/7751824

By Agnieszka Flak

HELSINKI, Aug 26 (Reuters) - They carry their wives, sit on ants, throw milking stools, boots and mobile phones -- here in the home of weird world championships, participants will do just about anything to win their offbeat crowns.

Normally reserved Finns say there is no better way to celebrate the short summer months than with contests that add a jolt of adrenaline and silliness to bright summer nights.

"Maybe we are a little bit crazy ... maybe we are just bored," said Toni Hautamakix, a sauna-championship spectator from Oulu.

With foreign visitors growing by about six percent in 2007 and many oddball competitions taking place in distant rural areas, Finland's funny business is also a spur for tourism.

Most of the 50 or so competitions that take place over the three summer months -- many billed grandly as world championships -- started at summer fairs or as village affairs.

But today the top competitions can each attract about 10,000 people to the Nordic country annually to watch or join in, staggering across hurdles with their spouses clinging to their backs or diving headlong into ponds of mud after a soccer ball.

Some events are so popular -- swamp soccer, wife-carrying and air guitar -- they have prompted other nations to hold their own contests to select who will compete in Finland.

Portuguese Olympic cross-country skier Danny Silva said these events bring out the best in the usually sombre Finns, letting them goof off, dress up, and poke fun at themselves.

Silva, who was taking his first stab at swamp soccer in July, said it would have taken a great marketing effort to make such a competition succeed in his home town.

"Portuguese players like all the glamour, perfume, look all nice -- and here people just get down and get dirty," he said. "This is bizarre, but when you think about it, it makes training so much more fun."

Many of the events allow top athletes to add extra oomph -- and fun -- to their workouts. They also let them show off their "sisu" -- the Finnish version of perseverance and guts.

Finnish cross-country skiers use swamp soccer to train in the snowless summer months. Both work the same muscles, but slogging through a mud-soaked field adds an element of fun.

Self-mockery is core to the mix.

Writer Risto Etelamaki said mobile-phone throwing -- which originated from Finland's national strength in the sport of javelin throwing -- combines recycling philosophy with play.

"The sport is also a symbolical mental liberation from the restraining yoke of being constantly within reach," he wrote in his book "Funny Finnish Pursuits".

Finland, home of mobile phone giant Nokia, boasts one of the most mature mobile phone markets in the world, where people pay for pizzas, parking and tram tickets using cellphones.

KILLING MOSQUITOES

With tongue in cheek, some events purport to have roots further back in history.

Organisers say the wife-carrying contest is rooted in the legend of Ronkainen the Robber, who in the 19th century tested aspiring gang members by forcing them to lug sacks of grain or live swine over a similar course.

Another notion is that it stems from an even earlier tribal practice of wife-stealing, in honour of which many contestants now take up the challenge with someone else's wife.

Those hundreds of Finns who vie each year to keep their behinds longest in nests occupied by some 40,000 ants are, it is claimed, actually following an ancient health ritual -- one which keeps all their senses alive.

Boasting few disciplines in which its athletes excel on the global stage -- Finland ranked 44th in Olympic medals with four -- Finns find victory in finger-wrestling, mosquito-killing or ice golf equally rewarding.

"The tradition started as a big joke," said Arto Murto, manager of the swamp soccer championships. "It's our nature to create fun happenings, probably because our summers are so short."

Large parts of Finland are blanketed in near darkness for much of the winter and the weather in spring and fall is often cold and rainy, prompting locals to joke that the country has only two seasons -- winter and summer.

Finland's tourism board paid little attention when the first contests began 10 years back, but says the events are becoming a major draw.

"At first it was difficult to promote them as they were small local events where people did not speak any foreign language," said Liisa Renfors, a product specialist at the Finnish Tourist Board.

"(But now) they are raising the interest of foreign press and visitors -- probably because they are so different from anything else going in their own countries."

Finland's success has prompted rivalry and imitation from other countries in the region. Neighbouring Estonia will host the world air guitar championships while Denmark has launched a championship in kicking a litre of vanilla ice cream.

But Finland's championships are still growing.

The annual beer float, which began with a few friends sitting in an inflatable boat sipping beer, attracted 1,400 participants this year in rubber boats, inflatable sofas and water scooters -- so many it forced local police to close down the Web site advertising the event, citing security concerns.

(Additional reporting by Attila Cser in Helsinki and Kim McLaughlin in Copenhagen; Editing by Sarah Edmonds and Sara Ledwith)

Deer, cattle have true animal magnetism

2008-08-26T18:37:00.000-07:00

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/darticlen.asp?xfile=data/theworld/2008/August/theworld_August1536.xml§ion=theworld&col=

CHICAGO - Grazing cattle and sleeping deer tend to align their bodies along the North-South axis of the Earth's magnetic field, European researchers said on Monday, giving new meaning to the phrase animal magnetism.

Herdsmen and hunters have long known that cattle and sheep tend to face the same direction when grazing, but had believed they were simply positioning themselves according to prevailing winds or the sun's rays.

Sabine Begall of the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany and colleagues had a different idea. The researchers studied 8,510 satellite images of cattle and deer herds derived from Google Earth from around the globe, including 308 pastures and plains.

They also looked at deer beds -- impressions left in the snow by resting deer -- from nearly 3,000 deer in more than 225 locations in the Czech Republic.

They found that whether grazing or resting, these animals face either magnetic North or South. And since the direction of the wind and sun varied widely where the images were taken, the researchers believe the Earth's magnetic field to be the polarizing factor.

Although not seen before in large mammals, birds, turtles and salmon are known to use the Earth's magnetic field to guide their migrations, while rodents and one bat species have been found to possess an internal magnetic compass.

The researchers noted that humans and even whales are suspected of having an innate magnetic compass.

Some studies suggest humans who sleep in an East-West position have far shorter rapid eye movement or REM sleep cycles, in which dreams occur, compared with North-South sleepers who got more REM sleep.

‘Our results call for an in-depth study of this phenomenon and challenge neuroscientists, biochemists and physicists to study the proximate mechanisms and biological significance of magnetic alignment,’ Begall and colleagues wrote in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Tunnels show Hitler's megalomaniac vision

2008-08-25T18:35:00.000-07:00

http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/news/international/Tunnels_show_Hitler_s_megalomaniac_vision.html?siteSect=143&sid=9611301&cKey=1219674140000&ty=ti

By Madeline Chambers

BERLIN (Reuters) - Three vast tunnels were opened under central Berlin this month, giving a glimpse of Adolf Hitler's megalomaniac vision of a new architectural centre for the capital of Nazi Germany.

The 16-metre (50-foot) deep tunnels were constructed in 1938 as part of an underground transport network beneath a series of bombastic buildings designed by Nazi architect Albert Speer, including the biggest domed hall the world had ever seen.

The overground plans, never completed because of World War Two, included boulevards, squares and huge buildings, such as an arch dwarfing the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, and the 290-metre high Great Hall, with room for 180,000 people.

Hitler called the concept, a symbol of the power of the Third Reich, "Berlin -- the capital of the world" but in recent times it has come to be known as "Germania".

The tunnels, between 90 and 220 metres long lying beneath the Tiergarten park, would have accommodated roads and a railway line.

"The tunnels -- which are in surprisingly good condition -- were part of Speer's grand plans, what we now call 'Germania'," historian Dietmar Arnold, head of the Berlin Underground Association and bunker tour guide, told Reuters.

Last week, Arnold -- who runs an exhibition of Hitler's plans -- took journalists on a rare visit into the dank tunnels.

They are closed to the public most of the time because of safety concerns, but visits can be arranged.

"The acoustics are incredible," said Arnold, who likes singing a note and hearing it reverberate around him.

After the war, British forces in divided Berlin closed the tunnels. They were rediscovered in 1969 but have remained shut. In 1990, a year after the fall of the Berlin Wall, they were handed to the city of Berlin.

The Berlin Underground Association, set up in 1997, has seen a surge in interest in tours of Berlin's remaining bunkers.

Although most were destroyed, some of the maze of 1,000 World War Two bunkers are intact and serve as a reminder of the city's violent history.

Propaganda posters and escape instructions on the walls convey a sense of the past. In one bunker, suitcases, helmets, and uniforms from various sites are on show.

"Interest is constantly growing -- we have about 150,000 visitors a year to the bunkers," said Arnold. "That is partly why we want the bunkers to be protected -- they are an important part of the history of Berlin."

By the end of the war, Germany's most heavily bombed city could protect up to 800,000 people in its bunkers.

(Editing by Andrew Dobbie)

Wag A Tail - Dogs Get Their Own Beach

2008-08-25T18:31:00.000-07:00

http://www.postchronicle.com/news/strange/article_212167396.shtml

Cyprus's popular holiday resort of Ayia Napa has introduced the island's first legal beach exclusively for animals after complaints it was becoming a dog's life for man's best friend.

Better known for all-night partying by Western tourists, the southeastern resort is now catering for dogs amid growing discontent that pooches had no place to cool off from the sweltering summer heat.

"We have seen lots of people taking their dogs for a walk since the establishment of the designated area, and we have been inundated by phone calls from happy pet owners thanking and congratulating us for this initiative," said Antonis Tsokkos, mayor of Ayia Napa.

Walking dogs on beaches has always been a cause for debate in Cyprus. It is prohibited in most areas, and people caught walking their dogs brave open disapproval or even hostility from other beachgoers.

Tsokkos said the designated area just west of the resort was a temporary one since the area has been earmarked as a yachting marina in future.

"It is not a problem because there is plenty of space. It will be moved a couple of hundred meters (yards) further down," Tsokkos told Reuters.

The stretch of beach called 'Louma' has from archaic times being recorded as a place where shepherds would take their flocks to bathe in the sea, Tsokkos said. Louma means bathing in the Cypriot dialect.

"In older times shepherds used to take sheep and goats there and dunk them in," said Tsokkos.

Local authorities across the island have been searching for suitable locations where dogs and their owners can enjoy the sun and sea without upsetting other beachgoers.

The need for designated animal beaches hit the headlines in June when a 50-year-old man and his dog were killed in an incident believed to have been triggered by the animal's presence on a beach. A man was arrested after the two were run over.

"This initiative has been a long time coming," said Greens party spokeswoman Ioanna Panayiotou. "The fact that no such beach existed had caused problems between dog owners and people who did not want dogs in the area.

"We believe that there should be a beach for dogs in each district," she said.

(Additional reporting by Nassos Stylianou)

State ordered to pay for man's suicide

2008-08-25T18:29:00.000-07:00

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24240527-23109,00.html

A JAPANESE court today ordered the state to pay compensation to the family of a young naval officer who hanged himself after being bullied by his supervisor.

The 21-year-old sailor killed himself in 1999 aboard his escort ship, where a supervisor had told him he was stupid and unwanted and demanded that he fetch expensive alcohol, according to his parents.

The parents sued the state, arguing that his suicide was caused by unrelenting bullying on the ship and that there was no appropriate supervision by higher-ranking officers.

The Fukuoka High Court, overturning an earlier ruling, agreed that insults by the superior caused the officer's depression and eventual suicide.

The supervisor's actions "violated the law as they crossed the line of giving instructions, putting an excessive psychological burden on him,'' Judge Koji Maki said.

Maki ordered the state to pay 3.5 million yen ($A36,947) in compensation. The officer's parents had sought 20 million yen.

The defence had argued that the officer did not suffer bullying but faced problems due to his own immaturity.

In 2005, a lower court had acknowledged that the officer suffered depression and was subjected to "inappropriate'' words, but said that such treatment by supervisors was unavoidable.

Japan has one of the world's highest suicide rates. The country has seen growing concern about suicides caused by bullying, particularly in schools.

"More officers of the Self-Defence Forces are committing suicide,'' the officer's mother told a meeting of supporters after the verdict, as quoted by Jiji Press.

"If the Self-Defence Forces had given consideration to what the problem was without trying to cover things up, this lawsuit would have ended sooner,'' she said.

Japan, officially pacifist since its World War II defeat in 1945, calls its armed forces the Self-Defence Forces.

A total of 785 military officers committed suicide during the 10 years through March 2008, according to the defence ministry.

Typo fixers get probation for damaging rare sign

2008-08-23T06:21:00.000-07:00

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/08/22/america/ODD-Sign-Vandals.php

PHOENIX: When it comes to marking up historic signs, good grammar is a bad defense.

Two self-styled vigilantes against typos who defaced a more than 60-year-old, hand-painted sign at Grand Canyon National Park were sentenced to probation and banned from national parks for a year.

Jeff Deck and Benjamin Herson pleaded guilty Aug. 11 for the damage done March 28 at the park's Desert View Watchtower. The sign was made by Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter, the architect who designed the rustic 1930s watchtower and other Grand Canyon-area landmarks.

Deck and Herson, both 28, toured the United States this spring, wiping out errors on government and private signs. They were interviewed by NPR and the Chicago Tribune, which called them "a pair of Kerouacs armed with Sharpies and erasers and righteous indignation."

An affidavit by National Park Service agent Christopher A. Smith said investigators learned of the vandalism from an Internet site operated by Deck on behalf of the Typo Eradication Advancement League, or TEAL.

Authorities said a diary written by Deck reported that while visiting the watchtower, he and Herson "discovered a hand-rendered sign inside that, I regret to report, contained a few errors."

The fiberboard sign has yellow lettering with a black background. Deck wrote that they used a marker to cover an erroneous apostrophe, put the apostrophe in its proper place with white-out and added a comma.

The misspelled word "emense" was not fixed, Deck wrote, because "I was reluctant to disfigure the sign any further. ... Still, I think I shall be haunted by that perversity, emense, in my train-whistle-blighted dreams tonight."

Deck, of Somerville, Mass., and Herson, of Virginia Beach, Va., pleaded guilty to conspiracy to vandalize government property.

They were sentenced to a year's probation, during which they cannot enter any national park or modify any public signs. They were also ordered to pay $3,035 to repair the watchtower sign.

The TEAL Web site now has only this message — "Statement on the signage of our National Parks and public lands to come" — without a period.

Blind man fined for drunk driving

2008-08-23T06:17:00.000-07:00

http://www.france24.com/en/20080822-blind-frenchman-fined-drunk-driving

A blind journalist was given a month's suspended jail sentence and fined 500 euros (750 dollars) by a French court Friday for driving while drunk and without a license.

The owner of the car, who was also drunk as he sat next to the blind man when he drove the vehicle, was given the same sentence and had his license suspended for five months by the court in the northeastern town of Nancy.

The pair were arrested on a country road in the early hours of July 25 by police who spotted their car zig-zagging suspiciously and moving at a very low speed.

The police were astounded when the 29-year-old driver informed them that he was blind, and when they breathalysed him and his passenger, a 52-year-old photographer, they found they had drunk twice the permitted level of alcohol.

"I really wanted to do it (drive the car)," the blind man told the court. "I expressed this wish. He (the owner of the car) agreed."

The owner said he saw "a lot of happiness emanating from him" as he drove, adding that he had "one hand on the handbrake and one hand on the steering wheel" as the blind journalist drove.

"I was very concentrated on the road," he said.

The judge retorted that, as he was well over the legal alcohol limit, "that didn't make you a vey reliable monitor."

The blind journalist had previously driven on a closed circuit, an experience which he had recounted in a regional newspaper in an article which was accompanied by his photographer friend who was in court with him Friday.

Click here for more interesting stories like this

Turks turn to diet patches to ease Ramadan fasting

2008-08-23T06:14:00.000-07:00

http://www.france24.com/en/20080822-turks-turn-diet-patches-ease-ramadan-fasting

Turkish Muslims plan to resort to appetite suppressing diet patches to help them get through the daily fast during the Ramadan holy month, Anatolia news agency reported on Friday.

One of the most popular questions asked on a helpline run by Turkey's religious affairs directorate is "whether diet patches are suitable for fasting" and "whether the use of diet patches will amount to foul play," the report said.

Theologists have reassured them they have nothing to worry about.

"Fasting is a way of disciplining the body. Those who use diet patches try to achieve the same. That's why diet patches are not objectionable," said Mehmet Baris, the muftu, or highest Muslim authority, in the southern province of Adana.

The patches, which release appetite-supressing ingredients to the body through the skin, cannot be considered as corrupting the fast because their effect amounts to "showering or applying a pomade on the skin" rather than eating, theology professor Kerim Yavuz said.

During Ramadan, which starts on September 1, observant Muslims eat a light pre-dawn meal and fast until sunset, a practice aimed at fostering self-discipline, sacrifice and empathy for the poor.

Abandoned baby found safe with dog

2008-08-22T18:27:00.000-07:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/22/AR2008082201121.html

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - A newborn baby abandoned outdoors in winter by her 14-year-old mother was found safe in a dog pen with a mother dog and her brood of puppies near the city of La Plata, Argentine media reported on Friday.

Farmer Fabio Anze found the naked baby girl on Thursday, being kept warm among his dog China's puppies, La Nacion newspaper said. Anze called the police and the baby was taken to a hospital.

Egidio Melia, director of the Melchor Romero hospital, told television and newspaper reporters that the baby was just a few hours old when she was found, and was in good health although she had some bruises.

Nighttime temperatures are chilly but not freezing in the Southern Hemisphere winter in the rural area around La Plata, 40 miles south of Buenos Aires.

Police said they had located the 14-year-old girl who gave birth to the baby outdoors during the night.

It was not clear whether the mother left her baby in the dog's pen or whether the dog found the baby outdoors and carried it in to join her puppies.

(Editing by Bill Trott)

Sheriff goes to jail for an education

2008-08-22T01:01:00.000-07:00

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/4665219a4560.html

Sheriff Mark Curran of Lake County, Illinois, walked into his own jail to spend a week as a prisoner, saying he was divinely inspired to learn what it was like to be confined and to sample jail programs designed to reduce recidivism.

"The biblical adage that we reap what we sow is very true in criminal justice," said Curran, 45, before exchanging his business suit for a prison jumpsuit at the Waukegan, Illinois, facility near Chicago.

Illinois "has historically had one of the worst-run prison systems in the nation ... treating inmates like caged animals only to see them released back into their communities angrier and more bitter than they originally were," he said.

Curran will spend time in the general population of some 600 inmates who are awaiting trial on charges of murder, rape and lesser crimes, though at times he will have his own cell.

He will sit in on high school equivalency classes, and spend a night in the high-security unit and in the medical unit.

Pigeon in custody for drug smuggling

2008-08-21T18:30:00.000-07:00

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/2597880/Pigeon-in-custody-for-drug-smuggling.html

Prison guards grew suspicious when they saw "four prisoners visibly intoxicated shortly after the pigeon landed on a prison window," said Josip Pojavnik, deputy warden of Zenica prison.

The pigeon was a pet of one of the inmates. When he and three other prisoners in jail tested positive for heroin, disciplinary proceedings were launched.

It is thought that the drugs were stuffed into tiny bags and attached to the pigeon's legs.

"We suspect that the pigeon carried the drugs from Tuzla", a town around 70 kilometres more than 40 miles northeast of Zenica in central Bosnia, added Pojavnik.

The pigeon is now in custody while police investigate who might have loaded it with drugs.

"We do not know what to do with the pigeon, but for the time being it will remain behind bars," Pojavnik said.

The incident had prompted the prison administration to consider closing down a prisoner pigeon-breeding project established in a ward of the jail as part of a rehabilitation programme, he added.

Pojavnik insisted those birds had not been involved in the incident.

A similar case of carrier pigeons being used by prisoners was reportedly uncovered earlier this year at a jail in Brazil, where the birds were being used to deliver drugs and even mobile telephones.

Prisoners in Zenica serve sentences for serious crimes such as murder, drug dealing, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Amnesty International has complained in the past about conditions at the prison.

Woman arrested, booked over library fines

2008-08-21T18:28:00.000-07:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/21/AR2008082102168.html

GRAFTON, Wis. -- A Grafton woman has been arrested and booked for failing to pay her library fines. Heidi Dalibor, 20, told the News Graphic in Cedarburg she ignored the library's calls and letters as well as a notice to appear in court.

Still, she was surprised when officers with a warrant knocked on her door, cuffed her and took her to the police station to be fingerprinted and photographed.

Police Capt. Joe Gabrish saied officers follow the same procedure with every warrant.

Library director John Hanson said a couple of dozen people are cited each year for failure to return materials or pay fines.

The incident cost Dalibor about $30 for the overdue paperbacks "White Oleander" and "Angels and Demons" and her mother nearly $172 to get her out of custody.

Man uses Barbie fishing rod to make record catch

2008-08-21T18:26:00.000-07:00

http://www.newsweek.com/id/154618

(ELKIN, N.C.) David Hayes' granddaughter just ask him to hold her Barbie rod and reel while she went to the bathroom. He did. And seconds later he landed the state record channel catfish at 21 pounds, 1 ounce.

Alyssa's father had bought the pink Barbie fishing rod for Christmas and she had caught a few bluegill before her grandfather hauled in the catfish.

The Winston-Salem Journal reported the catch Aug. 5 in eastern Wilkes County has been certified as a record by the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission.

Hayes and his granddaughter have been fishing in the pond behind his house since she was big enough to hold a pole.

Hayes said his granddaughter worried he would break her rod. He landed the 21-pound fish on a 6-pound test line. It was 32 inches long, 2 inches longer than the rod.

Woman, 55, has quadruplets

2008-08-21T18:25:00.000-07:00

http://news.smh.com.au/world/woman-55-has-quadruplets-in-italy-20080821-3zjn.html

A 55-year-old Indian woman has given birth to quadruplets in the northern Italian city of Mantua, according to a local newspaper.

The woman, who has lived in nearby Suzzara for 15 years, had gone home to India to be artificially inseminated after trying unsuccessfully in Italy, La Gazzetta di Mantova said.

"We have been waiting for this moment for 15 years," the babies' 38-year-old father Pabla Maghar Singh said.

"We are really very happy."

The four boys, born a week ago, were named Manav, Manmeet, Roshan and Radveer.

They were born two months premature, weighing between 750 and 980 grams and are in incubators at the hospital, but are doing well, the report said.

The mother works for a cleaning business, while the father is a metal worker.

Italy has the greyest population in the European Union, and a slight increase in birthrate from 1.19 child per woman in 1995 to 1.32 in 2005 is attributed mainly to births among immigrants.

Man arrested just 12 hours after release from jail

2008-08-21T18:24:00.000-07:00

http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2008Aug21/0,4670,ODDBackInJail,00.html

CLOVERDALE, Ind. — A 22-year-old man was back behind bars about 12 hours after he was released from jail, accused of stealing a car and beer and leading police on a high-speed chase.

Darren E. Roberts was released from the Sullivan County Jail Tuesday afternoon after competing his sentence for auto theft.

But Indiana State Police say that early Wednesday morning, Roberts stole a 2004 red Ford Mustang in Linton, then drove to a gas station in Cloverdale where he allegedly stole some beer and fled.

Police chased the red Mustang at speeds of up to 105 mph on Interstate 70, until the car spun out and Roberts surrendered.

He's now being held in the Putnam County Jail without bond on a variety of charges. It's not immediately known if he has an attorney.

Graveyard ash snatcher on the loose in Japan

2008-08-21T18:22:00.000-07:00

http://news.asiaone.com/News/Latest%2BNews/Asia/Story/A1Story20080821-83558.html

TOKYO, Aug 21, 2008 (AFP) - Police in central Japan said Thursday that they were trying to find out who has been snatching human ashes from graves, mostly those of women.

Police in Toyama prefecture said they have received dozens of reports in July and August in which urns containing the ashes vanished from family graveyards and were replaced with written notes - some promising to take care of the remains.

"I hear that many of the stolen urns had ashes of women," said a local police spokesman. "We are investigating the cases but don't have a clue yet on who did it and for what purpose."

The Japanese cremate their dead and keep the ashes in ceramic urns, which are placed in a slot inside the gravestone.

Many people visit and clean family graveyards during the summer holiday season known as Obon, when the Japanese traditionally believe that the souls of the dead will come back to the present world.

"Many people found out that the ashes were stolen when cleaning graves," the spokesman said.

Jiji Press reported that at least 24 urns had been stolen from graves, mostly those of women.

Some of the people who opened the family graves instead found a piece of paper saying, "I got your ashes," Jiji said.

Another person had a note reading, "I will take care of it. Don't worry."

Satellites track Mexico kidnap victims with chips

2008-08-21T18:17:00.000-07:00

http://www.iht.com/articles/reuters/2008/08/21/news/OUKWD-UK-MEXICO-CRIME-CHIPS.php

QUERETARO, Mexico: Wealthy Mexicans, terrified of soaring kidnapping rates, are spending thousands of dollars to implant tiny transmitters under their skin so satellites can help find them tied up in a safe house or stuffed in the trunk of a car.

Kidnapping jumped almost 40 percent between 2004 and 2007 in Mexico according to official statistics. Mexico ranks with conflict zones like Iraq and Colombia as among the worst countries for abductions.

The recent kidnap and murder of Fernando Marti, 14, the son of a well-known businessman, sparked an outcry in a country already hardened to crime.

More middle-class people also are also seeking out the tiny chip designed by Xega, a Mexican security firm whose sales jumped 13 percent this year.

The company injects the crystal-encased chip, the size and shape of a grain of rice, into clients' bodies with a syringe. A transmitter then sends signals via satellite to pinpoint the location of a person in distress.

Cristina, 28, who did not want to give her last name, was implanted along with seven other members of her family last year as a "preventive measure."

"It's not like we are wealthy people, but they'll kidnap you for a watch ... Everyone is living in fear," she said.

The chips cost $4,000 plus an annual fee of $2,200.

Most kidnappings in Mexico go unreported but independent analysts say there were 6,500 abductions last year, many of them "express kidnapping" where the victim is grabbed and forced to withdraw money from automatic cash machines.

GROWTH INDUSTRY

Official statistics show 751 kidnappings in Mexico last year but most abductions go unreported and the crime research institute ICESI says the number could have been as high as over 7,000 in 2007.

Xega, based in the central Mexican city of Quererato, designed global positioning systems to track stolen vehicles until a company owner was kidnapped in broad daylight in 2001. Frustrated by his powerlessness to call for help, the company adapted the technology to track stolen people.

Most people get the chips injected into their arms between the skin and muscle where they cannot be seen. Customers who fear they are being kidnapped press a panic button on an external device to alert Xega which then calls the police.

"Before, they only kidnapped key, well-known economically successful people like industrialists and landowners. Now they are kidnapping people from the middle class," said Sergio Galvan, Xega's commercial director.

President Felipe Calderon has come under heavy pressure in recent weeks to stamp out violent crime. He is to host a high-level meeting on Thursday of security chiefs and state governors.

Outside of Mexico, U.S. company VeriChip Corp uses similar radio-wave technology to identify patients in critical condition at hospitals or find elderly people who wander away from their homes.

But Xega sees kidnapping as a growth industry and is planning to expand its services next year to Brazil, Colombia and Venezuela.

(Editing by Vicki Allen)

Don't laugh at Dear Leader, SKorean athletes warned

2008-08-20T18:16:00.000-07:00

http://www.france24.com/en/20080820-dont-laugh-dear-leader-skorean-athletes-warned

South Korean Olympic athletes have been given detailed guidelines to avoid friction with their North Korean counterparts in Beijing, officials said Wednesday.

Contestants should not point or laugh at badges or portraits depicting North Korea's "Dear Leader" Kim Jong-Il or his late father Kim Il-Sung, the (South) Korean Olympic Committee (KOC) says in a handbook.

"Refrain from pointing, touching or laughing at badges, portraits and remarks idolising the father and son," the booklet advises.

Athletes should also avoid using names like "South Korea" and "North Korea" or even the countries' official titles, the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea" and "the Republic of Korea."

They should "maintain an attitude that is resolute and dignified while avoiding political issues in dialogue" when they meet North Korean counterparts, says the 150-page handbook which also covers a variety of other topics.

"Words like North and South Korea can trigger an argument. So, refer to ourselves as 'our side' and the North Korean athletes as 'North side' or 'your side'," it says.

A KOC spokesman in Seoul confirmed the book's contents to AFP.

Relations between the two governments are at their worst in years. The two sides could not agree on holding a joint march at the Games opening ceremony, even though they marched together at the previous two Olympics.

Relations worsened after conservative President Lee Myung-Bak took office in February and promised a firmer line with the North.

The two nations have remained technically at war since their 1950-53 conflict ended only in an armistice. Theoretically, neither country recognises the other's existence.

The communist North's state media refers in all its articles only to south (lower case) Korea or "the south side."

South Korean official Lee Elisa told Yonhap news agency in Beijing that South and North Korean competitors greeted each other warmly when they encountered each other earlier in the Games.

The mood has turned tense in recent days, another official who declined to be named told Yonhap.

North Korea sent 63 athletes to the Olympics and has won two gold medals. South Korea sent 267, with eight golds as of Wednesday afternoon.

Baby pronounced dead lives after hours in cooler

2008-08-20T18:14:00.000-07:00

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/4662690a4560.html

A stillborn Israeli baby who was pronounced dead by doctors "came back to life" after spending hours in a hospital refrigerator.

The baby, weighing only 600 grams at birth, spent at least five hours inside one of the hospital's refrigerated storage units, before her parents, who had taken her to be buried, began noticing some movement.

"We unwrapped her and felt she was moving. We didn't believe it at first. Then she began holding my mother's hand, and then we saw her open her mouth," said 26-year-old Faiza Magdoub, the baby's mother.

The baby was pronounced dead several hours earlier, after doctors at Western Galilee hospital in northern Israel were forced to abort her mother's pregnancy because of internal bleeding. Magdoub was 23 weeks into her pregnancy.

"We don't know how to explain this, so when we don't know how to explain things in the medical world we call it a miracle, and this is probably what happened," hospital deputy director Moshe Daniel said.

The baby was then taken to the hospital's neonatal intensive care unit for further treatment, but doctors were not sure how long she will live.

Motti Ravid, a professor of internal medicine, told Israel's Channel 10 that the low temperature inside the cooler had slowed down the baby's metabolism and likely helped her survive.

Couple survives plane crash into power cable

2008-08-19T18:12:00.000-07:00

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-on-plane20-2008aug20,0,239164.story

A German couple had a lucky escape after their light aircraft hit a 380,000 volt power line and then hung upside down from a wheel for nearly three hours.

"They had a very, very lucky accident," said police officer Edmund Martin at the scene in Durach, southern Germany.

Emergency services freed the pair suspended 20 meters (65 feet) from the ground late on Sunday with a hydraulic lift after a helicopter rescue was ruled out as too dangerous.

The couple suffered only minor injuries.

Court gives green light to "boobs on bikes"

2008-08-19T18:10:00.000-07:00

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/latest/2008/08/19/nz-court-gives-green-light-to-boobs-on-bikes-parade-115875-20703257/

A New Zealand court has allowed a parade of topless porn stars on motor bikes to proceed on the main street of the country's biggest city, local media said on Tuesday.

Auckland City Council had sought a court injunction to stop the "Boobs on Bikes" parade, scheduled for Wednesday, saying it breached a bylaw banning offensive public events.

But Judge Nicola Mathers said while opponents may find the parade offensive or tasteless, the fact that 80,000 people had gathered for a similar event last year meant a significant number of people did not agree with the critics, New Zealand Press Association said.

The parade on Queens St., featuring leather-clad local and international porn stars, is part of an "Erotica Expo" organised by self-styled "porn king" Steve Crow.

(Reporting by Kazunori Takada; Editing by David Fox)

Deft teen fingers claim SMS text crown

2008-08-17T09:07:00.000-07:00

http://www.thelocal.se/13746/20080816/

The deft fingers of 17-year-old My Svensson were enough to claim the title of Sweden's fastest SMS text-messager in Stockholm on Friday.

The second SMS Swedish Championship was held on Norrmalmstorg in Stockholm in Friday. 17-year-old My Svensson from Växjö claimed the prestigious title and the 25,000 kronor ($3,924) first prize.

News agency TT was in the thick of the action and asked My how it felt to be the Swedish champ.

"Great, but I was very nervous in the final. Everyone was talking about how much money was at stake."

My's winning text was as follows: "OK, write fast now. Faster! D1a is going too slowly. Do you spell slowly like that? :-S no time to look, have to get finished. Soon, only 1 more word. :P Ready!" ("Ok, skriv fort nu. Fortare! D1a går för långsamt. Stavas långsamt så? :-S Hinner inte titta, måste bli klar. Snart, bara 1 ord till. :P Klar!") in the record time of 50 seconds in the semi-final. In the final it took her 61 seconds which was enough to hold off the chasing pack.

To add to the arduous challenge the competitors were told to write their texts without the help of the T9 word prompt function.

The training schedule of an Olympian is the secret behind My Svensson's success - she sends 40-50 texts per day, mostly to her three best friends.

TT: What do you write about?

"Nothing of any importance really. A little about what's going on," My Svensson said.

The money will be used for a trip to France next year after My graduates from high school.

The SMS Swedish Championship is organized by Parlino, a firm selling pre-paid cash cards.

Kiwi medal power too much for Games security official

2008-08-17T09:06:00.000-07:00

http://www.france24.com/en/20080817-kiwi-medal-power-much-games-security-official

A slight security guard at the Olympic athletics stadium has learned a valuable lesson - never try to stop a powerful New Zealander who has just won a gold medal.

Valerie Vili, listed at 110kg (242 pound) and 1.93 metres (6ft 3in) knew she had won the women's shot put gold without needing her final throw late Saturday.

The ecstatic Vili began to race off to see her coach and get a New Zealand flag to celebrate - but they were on the opposite side of the track near the front row of a packed stadium.

An over-enthusiastic but smaller security guard thought she had better stop Vili running off, but there was never any doubt the big New Zealander would reach her target.

"They wouldn't let me get to the New Zealand flag," she told New Zealand Press Association.

"To try and manhandle me was probably not a good idea. She tried but I was eventually able to get the flag."

30 men lift bus to save baby

2008-08-16T19:28:00.000-07:00

http://www.france24.com/en/20080816-30-men-lift-bus-save-baby-new-york

About 30 men lifted a schoolbus to save a pregnant woman struck by the bus, enabling the baby to be born before the woman died of her injuries, the New York Post said Friday.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg paid tribute to the victim, Donnette Sanz, 33, a traffic cop who was off duty when she was hit Thursday by the bus in the city's Bronx section.

"It is a terrible poignancy that Donnette's son's birthday will now coincide with the day his mother died. She gave her life in service to our city," the mayor said.

"A superhuman effort by 30 strangers who lifted the vehicle off her body miraculously saved her baby before she died," the New York Post said.

"We did not really communicate, we all just started lifting. We lifted it up and someone pulled her out," Madalina Diaz, 42, told the paper.

The woman, six months pregnant, was rushed to the hospital, where the baby was born by caesarian section a few minutes before she died.

Woman gives birth to septuplets

2008-08-16T19:27:00.000-07:00

http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/08/16/egypt.septuplets.birth.ap/

ALEXANDRIA, Egypt (AP) -- A 27-year-old Egyptian woman gave birth to septuplets early Saturday in the coastal city of Alexandria, family members and the hospital director said.

Ghazala Khamis was in good condition after having a blood transfusion during her Caesarean section because of bleeding, said Emad Darwish, director of the El-Shatbi Hospital where she gave birth.

The newborns, four boys and three girls, weigh between 3.2 pounds and 6.17 pounds and are in stable condition, Darwish said. They have been placed in incubators in four hospitals that have special premature baby units, he said.

"This is a very rare pregnancy, something I have never witnessed over my past 33 years in this profession," Darwish said.

Darwish decided to carry out the Caesarean section at the end of Khamis' eighth month of pregnancy due to the pressure on her kidneys. He said Khamis, who already has three daughters, took fertility drugs in an effort to have a son.

Khamis, the wife of a farmer in the northern Egyptian province of Beheira, was admitted to the hospital two months earlier, Darwish said.

"From the initial checkup, I say that none of the babies have any sort of deformities or incomplete organs," Darwish said.

The woman's brother, Khamis Khamis, said that even though his sister was trying to conceive more children so she could have a son, the family was astonished when they found out she would give birth to multiple babies.

"We thought about an abortion, but then we felt it's religiously forbidden. So we said, 'Let God's will prevail,' " he said.

Egypt's health minister announced that the seven babies will receive free milk and diapers for two years, the brother added.

Penguin power: Norwegian regiment honours pint-sized chief

2008-08-15T13:22:00.000-07:00

http://www.france24.com/en/20080815-penguin-power-norwegian-regiment-honours-pint-sized-chief

A penguin called Nils waddled into the history books Friday when he was knighted by a visiting royal Norwegian regiment in Scotland.

The king penguin -- full name Nils Olav -- became the first black-and-white pint-sized Norwegian Sir with wings after inspecting the Norwegian King's Guard, which is visiting Edinburgh for the annual Military Tattoo.

"We have a long-standing history with the Norwegian King's Guard and it is something we are extremely proud of," said David Windmill, head of the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, the owners of Edinburgh Zoo where Nils lives.

The bird first became an honorary member of the Norwegian regiment in the 1970s, when a lieutenant called Nils Egelien visited the Scottish Zoo. Norway's head of state was then King Olav V.

The Norwegian guardsmen visit Nils every few years when they come for the Scottish military jamboree, and over the years he has risen through the ranks, finally becoming the regiment's Colonel-in-Chief. The original Nils died about 20 years ago, and the name has been transferred to one of his penguin peers.

On Friday he was granted the highest honour yet, when a guardsman dubbed a sword on each side of his head --- where his shoulders should be -- to confirm his regimental knighthood.

"Nils always recognises the Norwegian Guardsmen when they come to visit him," said Darren McGarry of Edinburgh Zoo. "He loves the attention he receives at the ceremony and takes his time inspecting the troops."

Nils himself was on his best behaviour throughout the ceremony -- apart from shortly before the sword ceremony, when -- perhaps suffering a bout of pre-knighthood nerves -- he deposited a discrete white puddle on the ground.

Drawing a polite veil over that, McGarry said afterwards: "It went extremely well and we are delighted that the Norwegian Guard honoured Nils Olav with a knighthood.

"We all enjoyed the occasion and Nils was a perfect penguin throughout."

Norwegian King's guardsman Captain Rune Wiik added: "We are extremely proud of Nils Olav and pleased that an enduring part of the Royal Guard is resident in Scotland helping to further strengthen ties between our two countries."

Robber locked keys in getaway car

2008-08-15T13:21:00.000-07:00

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/7728348

STANTON, Texas (AP) - Memo to anyone planning a drug store robbery: don't lock your keys in the getaway vehicle. Police said John Wilkinson, 24, of Big Spring, did just that after he allegedly robbed the Stanton Drug Store of Zanax and hydrocodine with what was later found to be a caulking gun.

They said Wilkinson used the caulking gun, wrapped in a dark cloth, to get the drugs Thursday afternoon.

Afterward, he allegedly headed back to his vehicle, which was parked and running in front of the drug store, and discovered he was locked out, the Midland Reporter-Telegram reported in its online edition Thursday.

Stanton Police Chief Mike Adams said Wilkinson then tried to get away on foot. Police, who thought he had a gun, shot him in the top of his shoulder during the short chase.

Wilkinson was treated at the Midland Memorial Hospital and taken to the Martin County Jail on a charge of armed robbery. A jail official said late Thursday he did not know whether Wilkinson had an attorney.

No bond had been set.

Stolen bikes returned to New Zealand athletes

2008-08-15T13:20:00.000-07:00

http://www.france24.com/en/20080815-stolen-bikes-returned-new-zealand-athletes

Thieves stole eight bicycles belonging to the New Zealand Olympic team from the athletes village but returned them anonymously after an appeal from Kiwi officials, it was reported Friday.

The stunned athletes found their bike rack almost empty one morning this week, with eight of the 10 bikes shipped to Beijing to help athletes get around the village missing, the New Zealand Press Association reported.

It said that without the pilfered pushbikes, New Zealand's swimmers complained of tiredness after the taxing 250 metre (270 yard) stroll to the main dining hall.

New Zealand team boss Dave Currie launched an investigation and issued a heartfelt plea for the bikes' return at the daily chefs de mission meeting.

"I said we'd like them back," Currie told NZPA. "I didn't want to know who took them, I just wanted to make sure they came back, no questions asked."

Within two days the bikes had been returned, appearing one morning in the New Zealand's bike rack just as mysteriously as they had disappeared.

Suspicion centred on New Zealand's traditional trans-Tasman rival Australia although Currie denied it.

"I'm not going to speculate on who they were, in the spirit of friendship," he said.

"I can assure you they weren't Australian."

He also said New Zealand was not planning on sending its foot-weary swimmers on dawn patrols to ensure the bicycle bandits don't strike again.

"We haven't stepped up security. If you try to have a fortress mentality in the village, you've lost the plot," Currie said.

Australia has form for Olympic pranks. Swimming legend Dawn Fraser was banned from the sport for 10 years after she sneaked into the grounds of Japan's Imperial Palace during the 1964 Tokyo Olympics and pinched the Olympic flag.

Forgotten bifocals leads to $3 million jackpot

2008-08-15T13:18:00.000-07:00

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2008/08/15/ap5328609.html

ROANOKE, Ind. - A man's forgotten bifocals led to a $3 million lottery jackpot.

Bobby Guffey usually plays the same combination of numbers representing the birthdays of his five children. But he left his glasses at home when he bought the winning ticket Aug. 6, accidentally entering the last number as 48 instead of 46.

The Hoosier Lotto ticket ended up being worth $3 million.

"My wife says it pays to be blind," Guffey said Thursday after he accepted his winnings at the Indiana State Fair in Indianapolis.

Guffey, who's from the northeastern Indiana town of Roanoke, said he didn't realize he'd used the wrong number combination until he had left the Huntington service station where he bought it.

He went back inside to buy a ticket with his usual numbers and that ticket won him $1,000 to go along with the jackpot.

Guffey said he has been playing the Hoosier Lotto since it started in 1989. He said he's won about $5,000 on various tickets over the years.

His wife, Janell, said they are going to pay off their house, take a cruise to Hawaii next year and set up a trust fund for their five children and 10 grandchildren.

"Christmas will be a lot nicer," she said.

Man finds 4.42-carat diamond at state park

2008-08-15T13:15:00.000-07:00

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2008/08/15/ap5328986.html

MURFREESBORO, Ark. - A local diamond hunter found a 4.42-carat stone Friday after about a 30-minute search at the Crater of Diamonds State Park, a park official announced.

Dennis Tyrrell, of Murfreesboro, searches for diamonds about three or four days a week at the state park and has found several others before, Assistant Superintendent Bill Henderson said. The white diamond Tyrrell found Friday was his largest find so far.

"It is a very nice diamond because of its size," Henderson said. "And it has what they call a silver cape on it. It's about the size of a Chiclet gum. It's rectangular in shape."

Henderson said park officials weren't qualified to evaluate the gem's worth, but said Tyrrell's find would have substantial value on the market.

"We're talking several thousand dollars," he said, adding that he guessed Tyrrell would probably sell the precious stone.

The park is the only diamond mine in North America where the public can search for diamonds and other gems and keep them. While the site has been a park, the largest diamond found was 16 carats. Before that, a 40-carat diamond was unearthed.

Man banned from girlfriend's flat after noisy sex

2008-08-14T15:02:00.000-07:00

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/2557194/Man-banned-from-fiancees-flat-after-noisy-sex-sessions.html

Adam Hinton, 32, was handed an injunction preventing him going within 100 metres of the block in Brighton, East Sussex, where his 29-year-old partner Kerry Norris lives.

Council officers applied for the order after Hinton was accused of threatening people who lived in the building amid complaints about Norris's noisy sex life.

Norris was fined £200 and ordered to pay £100 costs last week for breaching a noise abatement order after neighbours complained for two years about her loud shouting during all-night sex sessions.

Norris, who lives in a one bedroom flat, woke up her neighbours and upset children living in the building with the sound of her headboard repeatedly banging against the wall.

One woman told magistrates that her young daughter was left suffering nightmares and bed wetting because of what she had heard.

Other witnesses described having to take time off work because of the sleepless nights caused by their neighbour.

Brighton and Hove City Council was even forced to move some into temporary accommodation.

The injunction against Hinton, of Brighton, was granted at a hearing at the city's Family Court.

Hinton, who was accompanied by Norris, is prevented from going within 100 metres of the building, carrying out threatening or abusive behaviour or causing nuisance or annoyance to residents.

It also prohibits him from approaching any of the witnesses involved in the earlier case against Norris.

The injunction lasts for 21 days until a further hearing at the same court to consider a possible year-long ban.

Hinton, who did not have legal representation in court, accepted the terms of the injunction.

Norris's hearing last week heard that the couple's sex sessions had been known to last until 6am.

She had also been known to sunbathe naked in the garden in full view of workmen, it was claimed.

But she told the court: "I have a normal sex life".

Moustache protector, anyone? Weird inventions at show

2008-08-14T14:51:00.000-07:00

http://www.physorg.com/news137930833.html

A grenade that puts out fires, a self-pouring teapot, periscope spectacles, a peach peeler and a moustache protector are among oddball inventions on show at the British Library.

The Weird and Wonderful Inventions display, which opened Thursday and runs until November 10 at the national library in central London, is showing off a wealth of eccentric contraptions and ingenious gadgets.

The eye-catching devices are from the collection of Maurice Collins, a man with a passion for crazy inventions dating from 1851 to 1951.

"I've got more than 1,200 items and it's anything that I find a bit peculiar rather than something that would have been successful or other people would collect. I don't collect sewing machines or typewriters," he told AFP.

"It's things that perhaps nobody else would be bothered with, but in some way helped normal people with their lives, like the self-pouring teapot or the dynamo torch."

The collection includes a brandy bottle lock from around 1880, to stop the servants helping themselves to a swig, and a 1920s wristwatch with a scrolling maps on it -- an early equivalent of today's sat nav gadgets.

A memorandum clock with slot-in bone memos and bells sounding when time was up were useful for businessmen with meetings and prostitutes alike.

"A lot of the items could still be produced today. Even the self-pouring teapot," Collins said.

"The most bonkers invention here is the coffee cooler," he said of the circa 1920 metal cylinder which would be plunged into a piping hot cup.

"Why would you want to do that? Why not just blow on it? And it displaces half your coffee."

After merrily demonstrating the 1930 dynamo shaver, the self-pouring teapot and the 1920 automatic nose hair cutter, Collins said inventors nowadays needed to be good marketeers to be successful.

"Britain was a phenomenal nation of inventors but things have changed," he explained.

"Nowadays it's got to be manufactured abroad and the system of selling has become quite difficult. I think 1851 to 1951 was the golden age."

Garden shed inventing has seen a surge in popularity in Britain, thanks to television programmes like "Dragon's Den", a successful international format whereby would-be inventors pitch their proposals to wealthy entrepreneurs.

The British Library, which holds domestic patents, now has its own resident inventor in its Business and Intellectual Property Centre, designed to help people start up their own enterprises.

Mark Sheahan, whose Squeezeopen container lids earned him the 2003 Innovator of the Year award, gives advice to help up-and-coming inventors hone their products.

"Inventors are all quite vulnerable and naive at the beginning. We really need advice so it's great to have somewhere to go," he told AFP.

"You have to be pretty determined and it helps if you have some basic skills.

"I'm here to nurture inventors and point them in the right direction. You never know what's coming through the door."

He said the days of wild-haired crazy inventors locked in their garden sheds were all but over.

"We're a different breed from the Victorians; we have to be more commercially viable," Sheahan said.

"You've got to go through a process and its not always easy."

In learning from bad inventions, "there's always a positive on the back of a negative. You have to be optimistic to do what we do."

Sweet Home Alabama...England?

2008-08-14T14:49:00.000-07:00

Reuters

LONDON (Reuters) - Council chiefs in Birmingham were left red-faced when they mistakenly used a picture of their U.S. namesake in Alabama on thousands of official leaflets.

Pamphlets about recycling in the West Midlands bore an image showing the skyline of the city in the Deep South.

Under the headline "Thank You Birmingham!," the picture showed office blocks in the U.S. city, rather than its own distinctive Rotunda tower and the curvy Selfridges store.

The council said it had made a mistake, but had no plans to recall the leaflets.

"We accept that the wrong photo was used but the text and detail contained in the leaflet is wholly correct which is the most important message as we strive to further improve our green credentials," the council said Thursday.

(Reporting by Peter Griffiths; editing by Steve Addison)

Pronounciation woes cost couple 3,870 euros

2008-08-14T14:48:00.000-07:00

http://www.france24.com/en/20080814-pronounciation-woes-cost-spanish-couple-3870-euros

A Spanish couple's language difficulties cost them several thousand euros after they mispronounced their destination giving instructions to a Norwegian taxi driver.

The couple, who were touring Norway's fjords, wanted to travel to Olden on the country's west coast.

Instead their taxi took them to Halden, hundreds of kilometres (miles) away, a trip that cost them 3,870 euros (5,773 dollars).

The pair in their 50s were on a cruise of the fjords when they had to be briefly hospitalised while on a stopover in Stavanger, tabloid Verdens Gang (VG) reported on Thursday.

Once out of hospital the two decided to rejoin the ship in Olden. But their taxi driver misunderstood and took them to Halden, 560 kilometres (348 miles) east of Stavanger.

Oblivious to the mistake, the happy holidaymakers paid the 15,000 kroner taxi bill (1,875 euros, 2,793 dollars) and added a generous 1,000 kroner tip to boot.

But after spending the night in a hotel, they discovered there was no cruiseship in the Halden port.

A quick call to an interpreter and the confusion was discovered, according to VG.

The couple jumped back in a taxi, this time headed for Olden, 610 kilometres away -- and paying another 15,300 kroner.

The couple spent more than 31,000 kroner on their misadventure, or the price of a 10-day cruise in the fjords for two people in a luxury suite.

Top dishonors in writing go to Washington man

2008-08-14T14:47:00.000-07:00

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/08/14/america/ODD-Worst-Writing.php

SAN JOSE, Calif.: A grotesque comparison of a steamy love affair to a New York City street has won a Washington man this year's grand prize in an annual contest of bad writing.

Garrison Spik, a 41-year-old communications director and writer, took top honors in San Jose State University's 26th annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest with this opening sentence to a nonexistent novel:

"Theirs was a New York love, a checkered taxi ride burning rubber, and like the city their passion was open 24/7, steam rising from their bodies like slick streets exhaling warm, moist, white breath through manhole covers stamped 'Forged by DeLaney Bros., Piscataway, N.J.'"

The contest is named after Victorian novelist Edward George Earl Bulwer-Lytton, whose 1830 novel "Paul Clifford" famously begins "It was a dark and stormy night."

Entrants are asked to submit bad opening sentences to imaginary novels. Awards are given for many categories, including awards for "purple prose" and "vile puns." The top winner receives a $250 prize.

Other noteworthy submissions:

"'Toads of glory, slugs of joy,' sang Groin the dwarf as he trotted jovially down the path before a great dragon ate him because the author knew that this story was a train wreck after he typed the first few words."

_ Alex Hall, Greeley, Colo.

"Like a mechanic who forgets to wipe his hands on a shop rag and then goes home, hugs his wife, and gets a grease stain on her favorite sweater — love touches you, and marks you forever."

_ Beth Fand Incollingo, Haddon Heights, N.J.

Minister gets jail for stealing flock's identities

2008-08-14T14:46:00.000-07:00

http://www.centredaily.com/news/weird_news/story/777516.html

WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. — A Baptist minister in central Pennsylvania has been sentenced to one year in jail for stealing the identities of his church members.

Raymond Clayton Sr., 44, was also ordered to pay more than $28,000 in restitution at his sentencing Wednesday. Clayton is the former pastor of Grace Fellowship Church near Mount Carmel.

Federal prosecutors said Clayton used parishioners' personal information to obtain credit cards between November 2006 and April 2007. He pleaded guilty in March to access device fraud.

The church has since disbanded.

'Credit crunch,' squeezes into dictonary

2008-08-14T14:44:00.000-07:00

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/world/credit-crunch-squeezes-into-british-dictonary/2008/08/14/1218307125387.html

Credit crunch, carbon footprint and electrosmog squeezed into Britain's Chambers dictionary, reflecting these belt-tightening and ecologically worried times, its editor said.

More prosaically, "wardrobe malfunction", "comfort food" and "nail bars" were also among a raft of new words and and expressions included in the latest print edition of a lexicographical tome.

The war on terror has brought "blue-on-blue" - "accidental firing on one's allies" - as well as "IED" (improvised explosive device) and "extraordinary rendition" into the Chambers-defined language.

But economic worries and climate change concerns generate a lot of new terms.

The global credit crunch, defined as "a sudden and drastic reduction in the availability of credit," has helped tip long-booming Britain to the brink of recession in barely 12 months.

Homeowners facing falling property prices for the first time in a decade are also all too familiar with "Hips" - Home Information Pacs, a new officially required document blamed with adding red tape and deterring buyers.

Hips in part aim to make houses more environmentally friendly - a trend also reflected in "carbon footprint" and "eco-village" - "a small-scale, environmentally friendly settlement designed for sustainable living."

"Electrosmog" - electro-magnetic fields emitted by computers and mobile phones - also adds growing environmental threats in the modern world.

On the scientific front "Blu-ray" - as in the new DVD technology - and "quantum computer" (one which uses quantum mechanics) joined hundreds of new entries deemed worth of definition.

Meanwhile "Wags" - "a wife or girlfriend of a professional sportsman, especially one of group accompanying a travelling team" - received Chambers' thumbs-up.

The dictionary also accepted "wardrobe malfunction" - "the temporary failure of an item of clothing to do its job in covering a part of the body that it would be advisable to keep covered" - as part of common language.

"The new words we added to this 11th edition of The Chambers Dictionary paint a vivid picture of current interests and concerns," said its editor-in-chief Mary O'Neill.

Pint for Potatoes

2008-08-14T14:41:00.000-07:00

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/norfolk/7560246.stm

Locals at a village pub in Norfolk are beating the credit crunch by bartering home-grown produce for pints.

The Pigs public house, in Edgefield, near Holt, encourages drinkers to contribute to its traditional food menu in return for free alcohol.

A sign placed inside the pub reads: "If you grow, breed, shoot or steal anything that may look at home on our menu, bring it in and let's do a deal."

Fresh fruit, fish, meat and vegetables have been traded for pints.

Meals or vouchers have also been exchanged for produce, depending on its size, quantity and quality.

Manager Cloe Wasey, 24, said the offer has been a success as people have started to feel the credit crunch.

Shot rabbits

Pints have been exchanged for a kilo of potatoes, three whole mackerel and a kilo of fresh fruit.

Locally shot rabbits, pheasants and pigeons have also been exchanged for beer.

Miss Wasey said: "We've been doing it for almost two years now but the success of it has only just recently started to boom with the credit crunch setting in.

Someone will say 'that rabbit tasted great' and we say 'here, meet the person who shot it - Manager Cloe Wasey

"People need to find different ways to go out and this helps.

"It's also great for us because we get produce at a good price, although we have high standards so the food we get in has to meet those.

"We find the home grown stuff is often much better than what we can get from the suppliers.

"When we get the good stuff, and it gets on to the specials board, it's brilliant.

"Someone will say 'that rabbit tasted great' and we say 'here, meet the person who shot it'.

"It's also a challenge for the chef to make the most of the ingredients."

Driver Derek Feast, 64, a regular in the pub, recently swapped some of the free range chicken eggs that he breeds, for a pint.

"I have a job where I earn the national minimum wage so this little bit of extra money helps me get out," he said.

"The odd penny here and there really helps."

Miss Wasey runs the pub with her business partner Tim Abbott, 24, who is head chef.

Opening Ceremony's firework footprints faked

2008-08-12T13:54:00.000-07:00

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/4/story.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=10526607

The stunning footprints which made up the Opening Ceremony in Beijing were fake, not fireworks.

The footprints which erupted into the sky and appeared as fireworks were actually computer graphics, complete with invented smog and camera shake to make it look as though they were shot from a moving helicopter.

Viewers around the world watched as the giant footprints moved from Tiananmen Square to the Birds Nest. But what appeared as fireworks were actually computer graphics.

The digital additions were revealed in the Beijing Times on the weekend.

Head of the ceremony's visual effects team Gao Xiaolong said the 55 second sequence had taken the best part of a year.

The Telegraph reported that the team took great care in making sure that the fake footage and real footage were seamless. The team contacted China's meteorological society to get information on smog and its appearance at night.

The team also added a camera shake to simulate the effect had a helicopter flown over the city to shoot the spectacle.

"Seeing how it worked out, it was still a bit too bright compared to the actual fireworks," Mr Gao said.

He said most of the audience thought the sequence was still filmed live.

An adviser to the Beijing Olympic Committee has defended the use of computer graphics and said it would have been risky for a helicopter pilot to fly over the top of a fireworks display.

Feedback on the internet has been mixed. On Yahoo answers one poster wrote: "My opinion on this is who cares if the fireworks are real or not! China still put up a great opening show to feed the people appetite," and "i agree with you. so what if it's fake? it's not as if it's hurting anybody...".

Meanwhile on newsvine.com one poster wrote: "This isn't the only illusion China is portraying to the world. By the way the display was awesome even if it was fake," and another: "Plus there was no need to do this and it doesn't show China in a good light. It makes them look like they got caught in a lie and now have to admit it."

- NZHERALD STAFF

Olympic girl seen but not heard

2008-08-12T12:36:00.000-07:00

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/08/12/oly.kids/

BEIJING, China (CNN) -- A little girl and her song captivated millions of viewers during the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics. But what they saw was not what they heard.

Games organizers confirm that Lin Miaoke, who performed "Ode to the Motherland" as China's flag was paraded Friday into Beijing's National Stadium, was not singing at all.

Lin was lip-syncing to the sound of another girl, 7-year-old Yang Peiyi, who was heard but not seen, apparently because she was deemed not cute enough.

"The reason was for the national interest," said Chen Qigang, the ceremony's musical director, in a state radio interview. "The child on camera should be flawless in image, internal feeling and expression. ... Lin Miaoke is excellent in those aspects."

The decision was made at the highest levels, Chen said.

"We had to do it," he said. "We'd been through several inspections. They're all very strict. When we rehearsed at the spot, there were several spectators from various divisions, especially leaders from the Politburo, who gave the opinion it must change."

Few who watched the Olympic ceremony realized the deception. "Tiny singer wins heart of nation," read the headline in Tuesday's China Daily newspaper.

"Lin Miaoke might be only 9 years old but she is well on her way to becoming a star, thanks to her heartwarming performance," the article gushed -- without mentioning she never sang a note.

But as word has gotten out on the Internet, some Chinese bloggers are outraged.

"If you're not good-looking, no matter how well you sing, you'll not be onstage. Do you know you're twisting a whole generation?" read one comment.

Another said, "If foreigners found out, they'd think we can't even find a girl who is good at both."

As for Yang Peiyi, she's been quoted as saying she was honored to have had a role in the opening ceremony, even though few realized just how big her part really was.

[Ed - In my opinion, this piece of news should have been called "Olympic girl heard but not seen"]

State Workers Begin 4-Day Work Week

2008-08-12T12:34:00.000-07:00

http://www.kutv.com/content/news/topnews/story.aspx?content_id=97a7b5be-664f-48d4-aaa6-9bfff7c34fd7

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - Workers in most state offices begin a new four-day work week today.

The "Working 4 Utah" plan announced last month by Gov. Jon Huntsman is designed to save the state more than $3 million in energy costs.

About 1,000 of 2,100 state buildings will not be closed on Friday.

Some offices and services, like the courts, will stay on a five-day schedule.