Sleepwalking into disaster, the human race appears to have crossed the point of no return in more than one area:
- The American people are playing with fire by supporting religious extremist and political dunce Sarah Palin - and they will get burned.
- In the process they may also burn a considerable portion of the rest of the world.
- Synchronously, the financial system gets the last, gentle push over the abyss; hungry and poor people will provide lots of excuses for fascism - some will even ask for it.
- The climate is acting up, as it usually does during this time of the year, but the Sun is not behaving according to expected cycles, and together with a few clues here and there, we wonder if something in the cosmic/geophysical system has not changed for good.
Two former sailors who were aboard the USS Liberty when it was attacked by Israeli jets and submarines in 1967 told their stories of the event Thursday night at Greenwich Library.
Ernie Gallo and Rocky Sturman, spoke to a crowd of nearly 50 people who gathered at Cole Auditorium to hear about the day 34 members of their crew were killed and many more injured. The occurrence has been surrounded by controversy for decades, as many believe the attack was intentional and others believe it was a terrible mistake by Israeli forces who thought the ship was an enemy vessel.
Gallo, who is president of the USS Liberty Veterans Association, told the crowd he was frustrated by the way the U.S. government handled the incident. "All we want is the simple truth told by our government," said Gallo. "If they don't know the truth, they need to support a hearing."
Sturman said he believed the attack was an accident for many years, until he got hold of declassified documents. "Do your own independent research. Don't just listen to us," said Sturman, who urged the audience to write to Congress and request a public hearing on the matter.
Tom Leonard The Daily Telegraph 2008-09-30 21:32:00
The US Department of Justice has appointed a prosecutor to investigate potential criminal charges against Alberto Gonzales, the former attorney general, and other ex-Bush administration officials and Republicans in Congress.
The move by Michael Mukasey, the current attorney general, to examine the controversial firing of nine federal prosecutors in 2006 was accompanied by a department report that found Mr Gonzales "abdicated" his responsibility in the dismissals.
The report concluded that, despite White House denials, political considerations played a part in the sacking of at least four of the US attorneys.
A Los Angeles commuter train engineer sent a text message from his mobile phone 22 seconds before last month's fatal head-on collision with a Union Pacific Corp. freight train in the deadliest U.S. passenger crash in 15 years.
Mammoth Lakes - A hiker in rugged eastern California found an ID and other items possibly belonging to Steve Fossett, the adventurer missing more than a year since going on a pleasure flight in a borrowed plane, authorities said Wednesday.
The items were found in the area of the town of Mammoth Lakes, Inyo National Forest spokeswoman Nancy Upham said.
"We have some ID that has the name Steve Fossett," Mammoth Lakes police Investigator Crystal Schafer said. "They were turned in to us and are in our possession."
A hiker who found the ID and some cash came to the police department office Tuesday, Police Chief Randy Schienle told CNN.
"The ID is well weathered," Schienle said. "We have heavy winters up here."
A sweatshirt was also found in the area, but no wreckage was located, he said.
Fossett disappeared Sept. 3, 2007, after taking off in a single-engine plane borrowed from a Nevada ranch owned by hotel magnate Barron Hilton. A judge declared Fossett legally dead in February.
On Friday, September 26, the end of a week in which thousands of copies of Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West -- the fear-mongering, anti-Muslim documentary being distributed by the millions in swing states via DVDs inserted in major newspapers and through the U.S. mail -- were distributed by mail in Ohio, a "chemical irritant" was sprayed through a window of the Islamic Society of Greater Dayton, where 300 people were gathered for a Ramadan prayer service. The room that the chemical was sprayed into was the room where babies and children were being kept while their mothers were engaged in prayers. This, apparently, is what the scare tactic political campaigning of John McCain's supporters has led to -- Americans perpetrating a terrorist attack against innocent children on American soil.
Robert Verkaik The Independent 2008-09-30 18:36:00
Claims by hundreds of asylum-seekers that they have been beaten or abused by British guards during their detention and removal from this country are to be independently investigated for the first time, The Independent has learnt.
A woman who tricked some of Europe's top auction houses and boutiques out of £2m worth of paintings, jewellery and antiques is facing jail. Shahra Marsh, 52, lived the high life for seven years at expensive flats in London's Docklands, Isle of Dogs, Bayswater and Mayfair.
Auctioneers Bonhams, Christie's and Sotheby's and boutiques in Paris were given cheques that later bounced. Marsh pleaded guilty at Southwark Crown Court to fraud and concealing goods. She admitted 20 offences committed between May 2005 and July 2007.
Beijing - A Chinese company at the centre of a scare over tainted milk powder had asked for government help to cover up the extent of the problem, state media said on Wednesday in the newest development in a widening scandal.
China's latest food safety problem, involving the addition of the industrial chemical melamine in milk to cheat in quality tests, has caused public outrage and put the spotlight back on deficiencies in industry oversight and weak regulatory bodies.
China has already said the city government in Shijiazhuang, home to the Sanlu Group whose contaminated milk sparked a recall now spread worldwide, sat on a report from the company about the tainting for more than one month.
In Communist Party newspaper the People's Daily, Shijiazhuang city government spokesman Wang Jianguo said they had been asked by Sanlu for help in "managing" the media response to the case when first told of the issue on Aug. 2.
A Russian nuclear submarine completed a month-long mission under the Arctic ice as Russia reasserts its military power in the region.
The submarine Ryazan of Russia's Northern Fleet arrived today at the Vilyuchinsk base on the Kamchatka peninsula after sailing for more than 30 days without surfacing, the navy said today in a faxed statement.
''Russia's submariners haven't lost the skill of making long sub-ice voyages, and they gave a worthy confirmation of the quality of our national school of fulfilling complex missions in Arctic waters,'' Admiral Vladimir Vysotsky, head of the navy, said in the statement.
In the last year, Russia has conducted large-scale war games in the Arctic, including long-range bombers, beefing up its military presence as it tries to claim the region's vast resources. On Sept. 17, President Dmitry Medvedev said Russia's ''main task'' is to turn the Arctic into a ''resource base.'
The U.S. Navy has stepped up its force of warships off the coast of Somalia closely monitoring pirates holding a hijacked Ukrainian-operated vessel with crew members, arms and tanks aboard.
Andrew Mwangura of the East Africa's Seafarers Assistance Program said on Monday three warships have surrounded the MV Faina that was seized on Thursday, with its 21 Ukrainian, Russian and Lithuanian crew members and an arms cargo that included 33 T-72 tanks.
"The American destroyer USS Howard is still waiting for reinforcement from Russia but has surrounded the Somali pirates," Mwangura told Xinhua by telephone.
Eric Talmadge Associated Press 2008-09-24 21:27:00
Hundreds of protesters gathered outside a U.S. naval base Wednesday to oppose the arrival of the USS George Washington, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier that is to make its home port just outside of Tokyo.
About 500 protesters rallied near Yokosuka Naval Base, just south of Tokyo, shouting slogans and waving banners ahead of the ship's scheduled arrival early Thursday.
The George Washington, which can carry a crew of up to 5,600 and 70 aircraft, will replace the USS Kitty Hawk as the U.S. Navy's only carrier with a home port outside of the United States.
Charles Bremner and Richard Beeston The Times 2008-10-01 21:40:00
The official version of the US-led campaign in Afghanistan received a blow today with a leaked report that the British Ambassador in Kabul believes that US strategy is wrong and the war is as good as lost.
The potentially explosive views were published by Le Canard Enchaîné, a respected French weekly, which said that they were direct quotations from a diplomatic cable written by François Fitou, the French Deputy Ambassador in Kabul.
Environmental lobby group Earthlife Africa say it will oppose the docking of the USS Theodore Roosevelt - one of the world's most powerful nuclear vessels - in South African waters in October.
The massive nuclear-powered US aircraft carrier is expected to arrive in Table Bay on a courtesy visit between October 1 and 10 on invitation from the SA Navy.
The 332 metre US aircraft carrier, nicknamed "the Big Stick" or TR, has 5,700 people on board, carries 90 aircraft and saw her first action in the 1991 Gulf War.
The exact date of arrival of the super-carrier and its mission destination cannot be released for security reasons.
An Indian woman was among 16 people killed in a two suicide car bombings and a gun-battle at the main gate of the US embassy in the Yemeni capital Sanaa on Wednesday.
Rani Krishnan Nair (26), a trainee nurse at a private hospital in Sanaa, died in the attack along with six Yemeni soldiers and three other civilians. Six attackers were also killed.
"She was hit by a bullet and died on the spot," an Indian embassy official in Sanaa told PTI over phone.
Bruno Waterfield The Daily Telegraph 2008-10-01 21:09:00
Digital body scanners which leave little to the imagination will be used by airport security on passengers travelling across the European Union within two years.
According to a draft European Commission regulation, seen by The Daily Telegraph, the new millimetre wave imaging scanners are to be used "individually or in combination, as a primary or secondary means and under defined conditions" to provide a "virtual strip search" of travellers.
The words "Jewish" and "terrorist" are not easily uttered together by Israelis. But just occasionally, such as last week when one of the country's leading intellectuals was injured by a pipe bomb placed at the front door of his home, they find themselves with little choice.
The target of the attack was 73-year-old Zeev Sternhell, a politics professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem specialising in European fascism and a prominent supporter of the left-wing group Peace Now.
Shortly after the explosion, police found pamphlets nearby offering 1.1 million shekels ($300,000) to anyone assassinating a Peace Now leader. The movement's most visible activity has been tracking and criticising the growth of the settlements in the West Bank.
Eva Bartlett Palestine Chronicle 2008-10-01 18:41:00
"His father died this morning," a hotel guest explained, gesturing to Raed, slumped and silent in his chair, face long.
It was Wednesday, August 20 in Sinai's al-Arish, a town about 50 kilometers west of the Gaza-Egypt border. Two days earlier, the approximately 450 Palestinians who had been waiting to enter Gaza were finally supposed to be permitted entry. Days before, the announcement had been made that the Rafah Crossing between Egypt and Gaza would open to allow passage into and out of Gaza. Many of the Palestinians at al-Arish had been waiting since the beginning of June for the border to open. Others had been exiled for over a year, outside of Gaza when Egypt sealed the border shut following Hamas' taking control of Gaza in June 2007.
Nahr Al-Bared - They look like cargo crates: long lines of prefabricated steel units, stacked two high, set on the edge of the ruined Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon.
Inside each airless 18 square meter unit there is a toilet, gas burner and tatty mattresses on the bare wooden floor. This is the bedroom, bathroom and kitchen for Palestinian families like Hayat Jundi's, whose home in Nahr al-Bared was destroyed in last summer's battle between the army and Islamist militants.
"All I do all day is fight with the neighbors above about the water that spills down into our room," said Jundi, 55, as some of her four young children bustle around. "I'm irritable because I have backache from sleeping on the floor."
The daughter of an ex-Mossad deputy has refused to do military service because of Israel's killing of Palestinian civilians.
Omer Goldman, daughter of Natalin Granot, former deputy to the head of Mossad, was imprisoned on Tuesday after she, along with two other Israeli women, Miya Tamarin and Tamar Katz, refused to enter the army.
"I feel obligated morally, to refuse," Goldman said.
"I often traveled to the occupied territories, and saw with my own eyes, what the Israeli army is [doing] there are things [with] which I can not cooperate."
Nicholas Varchaver and Katie Benner Fortune 2008-09-30 21:42:00
The financial crisis has put a spotlight on the obscure world of credit default swaps - which trade in a vast, unregulated market that most people haven't heard of and even fewer understand. Will this be the next disaster?
As Congress wrestles with another bailout bill to try to contain the financial contagion, there's a potential killer bug out there whose next movement can't be predicted: the Credit Default Swap.
In just over a decade these privately traded derivatives contracts have ballooned from nothing into a $54.6 trillion market. CDS are the fastest-growing major type of financial derivatives. More important, they've played a critical role in the unfolding financial crisis. First, by ostensibly providing "insurance" on risky mortgage bonds, they encouraged and enabled reckless behavior during the housing bubble.
Graeme Wearden and Andrew Clark The Guardian 2008-10-01 21:18:00
The International Monetary Fund has added to the growing pressure on the US Congress to approve the Wall Street bail-out, as stockmarkets rose on optimism that a deal will be hammered out this week.
Dominique Strauss-Kahn, managing director of the IMF, warned last night that the US must take urgent steps to protect its economy from the ongoing financial crisis.
"We're right at the moment where action is needed," warned Strauss-Kahn. "A non-perfect plan is better than no plan at all," he added, in an interview with Reuters in Washington.
Washington, D.C.- Senate leaders announced Tuesday night that they would hold a vote for their own version of legislation on the government's $700 billion financial rescue plan after the Jewish holiday.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) both appealed for bipartisan support when they announced their call for a vote, which is scheduled for Wednesday evening in observance of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year.
Tom Raum and Martin Crutsinger Associated Press 2008-09-30 00:05:00
The Bush administration is searching for a new way to sell its financial rescue plan after acknowledging some blunders and missteps in presenting it the first time around. One big key: Insist it's not a Wall Street "bailout."
Now it's not about financial institutions. The focus has switched to everyday Americans. And it's not an expenditure of taxpayer money, it's an "investment." This was clearly evident in Bush's grim warnings on Tuesday of "economic hardship for millions" if the plan can't be revived. He declared, "For the financial security of every American, Congress must act."
This emphasis was echoed on the presidential campaign trail.
"Let's not call it a bailout. Let's call it a rescue," said Republican John McCain.
Russian stock exchanges suspended trading for several hours Tuesday after shares plummeted soon after markets opened. Both exchanges -- the main RTS index and the MICEX currency exchange -- reopened later in the day, the indices said.
Financial regulators ordered the suspension after the RTS plunged more than 8 percent in the first few minutes of trading. The Federal Financial Markets Service (FFMS) also suspended the MICEX in the first few minutes of trading in anticipation of big losses.
The turmoil in the Russian markets stems from concern over global growth following the recent instability in financial markets around the world.
The RTS is Russia's main index and is dominated by commodities, including oil. Russia's economy is essentially founded on the price of oil, which has been hit hard in recent months. Oil prices have plunged around 35 percent since a high of $147 per barrel in July.
The City was in shock last night after the apparent suicide of a millionaire financier haunted by the pressures of dealing with the credit crunch.
Kirk Stephenson, who was married with an eight-year-old son, died in the path of a 100mph express train at Taplow railway station, Berkshire. Mr Stephenson is believed to have taken his own life after succumbing to mounting personal pressures as the world's financial markets went into meltdown.
The death of the respected 47-year-old City figure evokes memories of the 1929 Wall Street crash in America and comes as:
- Bradford & Bingley teeters on the brink of nationalisation after a dramatic share price slump.
- David Cameron faced embarrassment on the eve of the Tory conference after members of a secretive club of Conservative donors were linked to the 'short-selling' of Bradford & Bingley.
- Gordon Brown was wrongfooted by Shadow Chancellor George Osborne, who announced plans to set up an independent watchdog to police the Treasury and strip it of key powers if the Conservatives win the next Election.
Thousands of feet below the bottom of the sea, off the shores of Santa Barbara, single-celled organisms are busy feasting on oil.
Until now, nobody knew how many oily compounds were being devoured by the microscopic creatures, but new research led by David Valentine of UC Santa Barbara and Chris Reddy of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts has shed new light on just how extensive their diet can be.
In a report to be published in the Oct. 1 edition of the journal Environmental Science & Technology, Valentine, Reddy, lead author George Wardlaw of UCSB, and three other co-authors detail how the microbes are dining on thousands of compounds that make up the oil seeping from the sea floor.
"It takes a special organism to live half a mile deep in the Earth and eat oil for a living," said Valentine, an associate professor of earth science at UCSB. "There's this incredibly complex diet for organisms down there eating the oil. It's like a buffet."
The latest findings of a University of Pittsburgh-based project to determine the environmental impact of routine pesticide use suggests that malathion - the most popular insecticide in the United States - can decimate tadpole populations by altering their food chain, according to research published in the Oct. 1 edition of Ecological Applications.
Gradual amounts of malathion that were too small to directly kill developing leopard frog tadpoles instead sparked a biological chain of events that deprived them of their primary food source. As a result, nearly half the tadpoles in the experiment did not reach maturity and would have died in nature.
The results build on a nine-year effort by study author Rick Relyea, an associate professor of biological sciences in Pitt's School of Arts and Sciences, to investigate whether there is a link between pesticides and the global decline in amphibians, which are considered an environmental indicator species because of their sensitivity to pollutants. Their deaths may foreshadow the poisoning of other, less environmentally sensitive species - including humans. Relyea published papers in 2005 in Ecological Applications suggesting that the popular weed-killer Roundup® is "extremely lethal" to amphibians in concentrations found in the environment.
Leading Florida-based scientific researchers released two new studies today, including a Florida State University report finding that climate change will cause significant impacts on Florida's coastlines and economy due to increased sea level rise.
A second study by researchers at Florida Atlantic University recommends that the state of Florida adopt a series of policy programs aimed at adapting to these large coastal and other impacts as a result of climate change. Key findings of the FAU report were included just this week by Florida Gov. Charlie Crist's Climate and Energy Action Team when it adopted the "Adaptation" section of its final report.
"The impacts of climate change on Florida's coasts and on our economy will be substantial, persistent and long-term, even under our conservative estimates," said Julie Harrington, director of the Center for Economic Forecasting and Analysis at FSU. "Should, as many models predict, sea level rise, and hurricane strength and other factors become more extreme, much greater economic impacts will occur along many parts of Florida's coast in this century."
The second new study, by researchers at FAU, focused on state adaptation policies needed as Florida faces the impacts of climate change.
"The goal of our study is to help the state of Florida adapt, in the most effective way possible, to climate change impacts that are now inevitable," said Jim Murley, director of Florida Atlantic University's Center for Urban and Environmental Solutions and leader of the study. "These approaches must be comprehensive and strategic, not piecemeal and episodic. Governor Crist and other leaders have rightly identified adapting to climate change as one of the state's greatest challenges -- we look forward to working with the state to protect our people, natural splendor, and economic livelihood. There is real work to be done."
Gail Ettenger made her last phone call at 10:10 p.m. She was trapped in her Bolivar Peninsula bungalow with her Great Dane, Reba. A drowning cat cried outside. Her Jeep bobbed in the seawater surging around her home.
Black bears that live around urban areas weigh more, get pregnant at a younger age, and are more likely to die violent deaths, according to a study by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS).
The study, published in the Fall 2008 issue of the journal Human-Wildlife Conflicts, tracked 12 bears over a 10-year period living in urban areas around Lake Tahoe, Nevada and compared them to 10 "wildland" bears that lived in outlying wild areas. The authors found that bears in urbanized areas weighed an average of 30 percent more than bears in wild areas due to a diet heavily supplemented by garbage.
The authors believe that because the bears weigh more they are giving birth at an earlier age - on average when they are between 4-5 years old, as compared to 7-8 years for bears in wild areas. Some urban bears even reproduced as early as 2-3 years of age around Lake Tahoe.
Urban bears also tend to die much younger due mostly to collisions with vehicles, according to the study. All 12 urban bears tracked by the researcher were dead by age 10 due to vehicle collisions, while six of the wildland bears still survived. Bear cubs in urban areas also had dramatically higher mortality rates due mainly to vehicle collisions.
Twenty-two medical groups are trying to boost the public's confidence in vaccines, but some advocates want changes in how vaccines are given.
Confidence about vaccines in Utah is already pretty high. Utah Immunization Program Outreach Coordinator Rebecca Ward said, "We have a fairly high vaccination rate in kindergarten and in child care facilities, anywhere from around the high '70s to the mid-'80s."
Four infants aged between eight and 12 months died on Saturday, a day after they were administered measles vaccine at Waghola village,
about 30km from Aurangadad.
Six other infants in the same age group are battling for their lives at the Government Medical College and Hospital, Aurangabad.
Aurangabad deputy director, health, M I J Qazi, said: "The health department immediately stopped the vaccination drive, which was launched in Aurangabad, Jalna, Beed and Hingoli districts on September 12." About 4,000 vaccine bulbs had been sent to each district, he added.
The police have seized the vaccines and other materials and sent them for forensic examination. Aurangabad rural DSP Prabhakar Shelke said a case has been registered.
Colorado health authorities are doling out rabies shot regimens one at a time and denying preventive vaccines to veterinarians and wildlife workers because of a severe national vaccine shortage.
The strict limitations come as a new strain of rabies found in skunks has emerged on the state's eastern plains.
Rabies is fatal once symptoms show up, but it is avoidable if treated with a five-shot regimen known as rabies post-exposure prophylaxis, or PEP. That leads to situations where people get treated with a series of shots, even if it's possible but unlikely that they have been exposed to rabies.
India's government sent thousands of ineffective vaccines to a northern Indian state, halting a planned immunization drive against a deadly outbreak of Japanese encephalitis that has killed more than 200 children since June, officials said Wednesday.
The mistake - compounding delays in starting the immunizations - raises chances that hundreds more children could die of the disease this year, health officials warned.
North India's impoverished Uttar Pradesh state suffers from recurring annual outbreaks of the mosquito-borne disease, which causes high fevers and vomiting - and sometimes comas and death. It is particularly deadly among children.
Martin Wainwright The Guardian 2008-10-01 18:30:00
The chances of living to be 100 have never been better in Britain, according to the Office for National Statistics' latest data. There are 9,300 centenarians in the country now, compared with 100 a century ago. But at the same time, through one of science's stranger connections, the chances of spotting a famous British insect have sunk by a similar ratio. We trade our longer lives for a decline, which looks terminal, in the melanistic - or dark-coloured variety - of the Peppered Moth.
The relation of older people to creepie-crawlies may sound curious, but it is based on pollution.
Children as young as two experience post-traumatic stress, research shows. A study on 114 younger children who had been exposed to road traffic accidents in the UK found one in 10 suffered continued anxiety after the event.
Although this is similar to the rate seen in adults, most go unrecognised and untreated, say the King's College London experts. Their work is published in the latest edition of the American Journal of Psychiatry.
The weather. It's the one topic of conversation that unites Britain - umbrella or sun cream? Now scientists at the Science and Technology Facilities Council have developed a system that measures the individual layers of cloud above us which will make answering the all-important weather questions much easier in future.
The Cloud Radar will not only allow forecasters to predict the weather more precisely, the information gathered will also enable aircraft pilots to judge more accurately whether it is safe to take off and land in diverse weather conditions, offering a powerful safety capability for civil airports and military air bases.
Developed over 10 years by researchers and engineers at the STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, in collaboration with the Met Office, the Cloud Radar can take a complete and accurate profile of cloud or fog up to 5 miles overhead. Operating at 94 GHz, 50 times higher in frequency than most mobile phones, the radar measures the cloud base height, its thickness, density and internal structure as well as providing similar information on cloud layers at higher altitudes.
The unprecedented image quality of the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) carried by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is helping scientists make leaps forward in understanding both the ongoing and ancient processes that shaped the surface of Mars.
Professor Alfred McEwen, HiRISE's Principal Investigator, highlighted some of the most recent results at the European Planetary Science Congress in Münster on September 24th.
A study of the nature and distribution of ancient megabreccia, led by McEwen at the University of Arizona, suggests that this bedrock was formed during the late heavy bombardment period. Megabreccia consists of angular, randomly-orientated blocks that formed suddenly in energetic events such as meteorite impacts. It is thought to contain fragments of the oldest and deepest bedrock exposed on the surface of Mars.
"We think that the megabreccia was formed during a period of heightened meteorite activity about 3.9 billion years ago. This is around the time life appears to have begun on Earth, but we have very little record of that era in our terrestrial geology because ancient rocks are heavily metamorphosed. Mars preserves a much better record of the heavy bombardment and, unlike the dry lunar surface, it shows the environmental effects in a water-rich crust," said McEwen.
Dinosaurs survived two mass extinctions and 50 million years before taking over the world and dominating ecosystems, according to new research published this week.
Reporting in Biology Letters, Steve Brusatte, Professor Michael Benton, and colleagues at the University of Bristol show that dinosaurs did not proliferate immediately after they originated, but that their rise was a slow and complicated event, and driven by two mass extinctions.
"The sheer size of dinosaurs like Tyrannosaurus makes us think there was something special about these animals that preordained them for success right from the beginning," Brusatte said. "However, our research shows that the rise of dinosaurs was a prolonged and complicated process. It isn't clear from the data that they would go on to dominate the world until at least 30 million years after they originated."
Importantly, the new research also shows that dinosaurs evolved into all their classic lifestyles - big predators, long-necked herbivores, etc. - long before they became abundant or diversified into the many different species we know today.
There is a theory that the spark of genius lurks hidden within all of us. Now scientists are developing a 'thinking cap' that could turn that theory into practice and unlock the amazing potential of the human brain. The device uses tiny magnetic pulses to change the way the brain works and has produced remarkable results in tests.
A pillow that doubles as an alarm clock has been invented by a pair of university students. The Glo Pillow has in-built LEDs that brighten gradually over the space of 40 minutes. This pulls you slowly from a deep sleep and leaves you feeling wide awake. It proves an alternative to a traditional alarm clock, which gives the body a sudden shock and can interrupt any stage of the sleep cycle.
We received the following note from Guillermo Gimenez of Planeta UFO this morning:
It is with deep sorrow that we inform you of the passing of Cmdr. Daniel Alberto Perissé on September 27, 2008.
Perissé was one of the most active Argentinean military men involved in the field of ufology since 1965, when he witnessed the maneuvers of a UFO over the Argentinean naval facility at Deception Island in Antarctica.
According to a newspaper article in MILENIO written by Marlene Santos, UFOs were reported in Leon, Guanajuato on Sunday, September 28, 2008.
While the article states that the sighting took place in the vicinity of the Leon Cathedral, it should be noted that on that same date, the traditional parade commemorating the 198th anniversary of the capture of the Alhondiga de Granaditas (a turning point in the Mexican War of Independence - Ed.) took place.
According to the article, the sighting involved three unidentified flying objects looking like white spots in the sky, with the peculiar detail that one of them seemed to change shape and could occasionally be seen as a horseshoe.
Injuries to feet from wearing high heels cost the nation £29m a year to put right, according to figures out today. Operations and medical procedures to correct damaged feet can cost sufferers thousands of pounds a time, the report says.
