Amphibious Human Creature spotted By Fishermen

Fishermen claim to have spotted an amphibious creature resembling a human in the Caspian sea. Gafar Gasanof, the captain of the Baku, an Azeri trawler, told Iranian newspaper Zindagi: "The creature was swimming a parallel course near the boat for a long time. "At the beginning we thought it was a big fish, but then we spotted hair on the head of the monster and his fins looked pretty strange, the front part of his body was equipped with arms." According to the paper the 'man of the sea' has been spotted with increasing regularity since off-shore oil production began in the Caspian. Eyewitness say the marine humanoid is about 5ft 6ins, of strong build with a protruding stomach, webbed hands and black-green hair. His lower lip is said to join smoothly to his neck above the gills.

Mars Rover Opportunity Stuck in Sand

Fresh after discovering a pair of tiny craters dotting the open terrain of Meridiani Plunum, the Mars rover Opportunity drove into a ripple of sand and was stopped dead in its tracks, unable to free its six wheels. "Get used to the current scenery, because we're going to be here a while," Mars rover lead scientist Steve Squyres with Cornell University in New York, wrote in his rover Weblog. "The first rule in a situation like this is 'do no harm,' which means that you don't rush anything," Squyres said. "We are very optimistic that we'll be able to get out of here, but we're really going to take our time doing it." Mars rover Opportunity looks at its own wheels stuck in the Martian soil. Experts say the rover will be there for some time as engineers figure out how to get it unstuck.

Sasquatch Footage Sold to U.S. TV?

Relatives say a ferry operator has sold a U.S. television show his video footage of a large, dark figure that some are describing as a sasquatch. Langford Saunders, the uncle of videographer Bobby Clarke, said yesterday there were multiple offers for the two-minute, 49-second tape, but Mr. Clarke and his family chose to deal with people who were sincere and would not embarrass the community. On April 16, Mr. Clarke was operating an automobile ferry on the Nelson River, about 40 kilometres outside of Nelson House, when he claimed to have seen a dark figure walking upright on the riverbank. Mr. Clarke said he grabbed his camcorder and recorded the figure looking directly at him, then turning around and heading back into the bush. Relatives said the creature was at least 2½ metres tall.

WOMAN CLAIMING TO BE VAMPIRE SENTENCED FOR CHILD ABUSE

A Salinas woman who claimed she was a vampire was sentenced Wednesday to six months in county jail for molesting a family friend, according to Monterey County Deputy District Attorney Gary Thelander. Erin Shatraw, 18, was convicted on March 5 of one misdemeanor count of child molestation. A jury found she was not guilty of felony sexual assault. Shatraw apparently claimed to be a vampire, telling the 14-year-old female victim that she would cast a spell on the girl and her family if she didn't engage in sexual activity. Thelander said the victim had testified that she noticed Shatraw dressing more and more in black, adding to her beliefs that the woman was a vampire. The girl also testified that she did believe Shatraw could cast spells when the molestations occurred in July. Shatraw was a friend of the girl's mother and had known the victim for more than a decade, according to Thelander. Shatraw must now register as a sex offender.

Deep Impact Photographs Comet Tempel 1

NASA's Deep Impact probe has photographed the comet it will soon slam into. The image was released Wednesday. It was taken April 25, when the spacecraft was 39.7 million miles from comet Tempel 1. The comet appears as little more than a smudge against the vast black of space. But officials said it was the first of many portraits Deep Impact will make of the frozen chunk of water, rock and other materials. On July 4, a probe released from the Deep Impact mothership will hit the comet, carving a crater and kicking up enough dust that researchers say the event should be visible to backyard stargazers with binoculars or small telescopes. Seasoned skywatchers might even spot the comet with the naked eye as it brightens temporarily. Deep Impact is designed to give researchers their first glimpse of the inner workings of a comet. By crashing the impactor into Tempel 1, thought to be a rather typical example of comets, researchers hope to glimpse pristine material that have not changed since the formation of the solar system.
Deep Impact's first image of comet Tempel 1, taken on April 25, 2005

Supergirl Baffles Scientists With Her X-Ray Vision

Scientists say Russia’s x-ray vision girl, who can see inside the human body, can also spot internal injuries just by looking at a photograph. The ability was discovered while she was in Japan undergoing a new battery of tests and correctly used her x-ray vision to see inside animals and people. The experts then asked her if her talents would work on photographs, and found that she was able to use her x-ray ability as if the subject was standing in front of her. Even if the picture was a small passport photo, the ability still worked, identifying a man with terminal liver cancer and another with arthritis. Reports about 17-year-old Natalia Demkina’s x-ray vision had been treated with disbelief by scientists around the world. So far, tests in her homeland as well as in the UK and America, and now Japan, have been unable to explain her abilities. ananova

Organic Material Found Titan

A close flyby of Saturn's big moon Titan by the international Cassini spacecraft revealed an upper atmosphere brimming with complex organic material, a finding that could hold clues to how life arose on Earth, scientists said. Cassini flew within 638 miles of Titan's frozen surface on April 16 and discovered a hydrocarbon-laced upper atmosphere. Titan's atmosphere is mainly made up of nitrogen and methane, the simplest type of hydrocarbon. But scientists were surprised to find complex organic material in the latest flyby. Because Titan is extremely cold - about minus 290 degrees - scientists expected the organic material to condense and rain down to the surface. "We are beginning to appreciate the role of the upper atmosphere in the complex carbon cycle that occurs on Titan," Hunter Waite, a professor at the University of Michigan, said Monday. Scientists believe Titan's atmosphere may be similar to that of the primordial Earth and studying it could provide clues to how life began. The $3.3 billion Cassini mission, funded by NASA and the European and Italian space agencies, was launched in 1997 and took seven years to reach Saturn. The European Huygens probe carried aboard Cassini was released on Dec. 24 and plunged to the surface of Titan in January.This is an image of Saturn's moon Titan taken by the Cassini spacecraft

Turn Me On, Dead Man

In September 1969, A rumor circulated that the Beatles' Paul McCartney was dead, killed in a 1966 automobile accident and replaced by a look-alike. The clues were there in the albums, if you knew where to look. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band's "A Day in the Life," for one, recounts the accident: He blew his mind out in a car / He didn't notice that the lights had changed / A crowd of people stood and stared / They'd seen his face before / Nobody was really sure if he was from the House of Lords. The cover of the Abbey Road album shows the Fab Four walking across a street in what looks like a funeral procession, with John in white as the preacher, Ringo in black as the pallbearer, a barefoot and out-of-step Paul as the corpse, and George in work clothes as the gravedigger. In the background is a Volkswagen Beetle (!) whose license plate reads "28IF"--Paul's supposed age "if" he had not died. Spookiest of all were the clues embedded in songs played backward. On a cheap turntable, I moved the speed switch midway between 331/3 and 45 to disengage the motor drive, then manually turned the record backward and listened in wide-eared wonder. The eeriest is "Revolution 9" from the White Album, in which an ominously deep voice endlessly repeats: number nine ... number nine ... number nine.... Played backward you hear: turn me on, dead man ... turn me on, dead man ... turn me on, dead man.... In time, thousands of clues emerged as the rumor mill cranked up (type "Paul is dead" into Google for examples), despite John Lennon's 1970 statement to Rolling Stone that "the whole thing was made up." But made up by whom? Not the Beatles. Instead this was a fine example of the brain as a pattern-recognition machine that all too often finds nonexistent signals in the background noise of life.Anecdotal thinking comes naturally; science requires training. What we have here is a signal-to-noise problem. Humans evolved brains that are pattern-recognition machines, adept at detecting signals that enhance or threaten survival amid a very noisy world. This capability is association learning--associating the causal connections between A and B--as when our ancestors associated the seasons with the migration of game animals. We are skilled enough at it to have survived and passed on the genes for the capacity of association learning. Unfortunately, the system has flaws. Superstitions are false associations--A appears to be connected to B, but it is not (the baseball player who doesn't shave and hits a home run). Las Vegas was built on false association learning. Consider a few cases of false pattern recognition (Google key words for visuals): the face of the Virgin Mary on a grilled cheese sandwich; the face of Jesus on an oyster shell (resembles Charles Manson, I think); the hit NBC television series Medium, in which Patricia Arquette plays psychic Allison Dubois, whose occasional thoughts and dreams seem connected to real-world crimes; the film White Noise, in which Michael Keaton's character believes he is receiving messages from his dead wife through tape recorders and other electronic devices in what is called EVP, or Electronic Voice Phenomenon. EVP is another version of what I call TMODMP, the Turn Me On, Dead Man Phenomenon--if you scan enough noise, you will eventually find a signal, whether it is there or not. Anecdotes fuel pattern-seeking thought. Aunt Mildred's cancer went into remission after she imbibed extract of seaweed--maybe it works. But there is only one surefire method of proper pattern recognition, and that is science. Only when a group of cancer patients taking seaweed extract is compared with a control group can we draw a valid conclusion. We evolved as a social primate species whose language ability facilitated the exchange of such association anecdotes. The problem is that although true pattern recognition helps us survive, false pattern recognition does not necessarily get us killed, and so the overall phenomenon has endured the winnowing process of natural selection. The Darwin Awards (honoring those who remove themselves from the gene pool), like this column, will never want for examples. Anecdotal thinking comes naturally; science requires training.

Benedict XVI, Fulfilling Prophecy?

Some people are relating a prophecy from a 12th century archbishop named St. Malachy to Pope Benedict XVI. Some scholars believe it, but others say it's a hoax. The prophecy was lost in the Vatican archives until 500 years ago. Legend has it St. Malachi of Armagh, an Irish saint, foretold the last 110 popes. And to each of these popes he ascribed a prophecy, or prediction, a kind of epigram. The epigram for a new pope earlier this century was "Religion laid waste." He reigned during the Bolshevik Revolution whose leaders dismissed religion as "the opiate of the masses." Pope John XXIII was foretold to be a "pastor and sailor." Before his election he was the patriarch of Venice. And John Paul II, Malachi predicted, would do "the work of the sun." He circled the globe, bringing light wherever he went, some say. He was born during a solar eclipse, and died during another. The prediction for Benedict 16th is "Gloria Olivae," or "The glory of the olive." The new pope says he will be a peacemaker. “He's going to try to ask people to take up the olive branch instead of the sword. So from that point of view, this could be a moment when peace will triumph and not war,” said Monsignor Charles Burns. In other words, The Glory of the Olive Branch. Now many do not believe all this. Some say Malachi's prophecy could have been a forgery. Or that people have shoehorned the facts to fit the prophecy. But here's the troubling thing. According to Malachi, we have just begun in the last true papacy. After this pope, he predicted, comes Armageddon. Pope Benedict XVI

Martian Dust Devils

One of the US space agency's robot rovers on the Red Planet has captured a whirlwind, or "dust devil", churning its way across a Martian plain. Spirit captured images of the dust devils on 15 April and 18 April, which have now been turned into an animation. They give mission scientists their best look yet at these mysterious planetary phenomena as they swirl across the surface of the Red Planet. The Spirit rover has been exploring Gusev Crater since January 2004. It has been using its navigation camera to routinely check for dust devils and began seeing the whirlwinds last month in individual frames captured with the camera. Mission scientist Dr Mark Lemmon, a rover team member from Texas A&M University in College Station, said: "We're hoping to learn about how dust is kicked up into the atmosphere and how the wind is interacting with the surface. "It's exciting that we now have a systematic way of capturing dust devils in movies rather than isolated still images." Similar phenomena - also called dust devils - occur on Earth. The Martian whirlwinds also resemble the tornadoes and waterspouts seen on our own planet. The ultimate cause of the Martian phenomena remains unknown, but may be related to rising air heated by sun-warmed rocks and soil. Intriguingly, rover engineers have noticed unexplained increases in the power available to Spirit. One possibility is that dust devils passing nearby or above the rover have been cleaning its solar panels.
The images give scientists their best look yet at the "dust devils"

World's First Portable Ghost Radar

Dose the rattling of chains keep you awake at night? Do the wraiths of long-dead relatives join you for family gatherings? If so, a Japanese gadget company has designed the very thing for you: the world's first portable ghost radar. The pocket-sized device promises to alert its owner to the presence of eight different types of spectre, from "lost souls" to "evil spirits". Using a variety of carefully calibrated sensors - one of which claims to detect human fear - the machine informs users whether the ghost is malevolent or benign. The ghost radar hits Japanese stores next week, just in time for the Japanese ghost-spotting season, and no summer campfire gathering will be complete without it. "Ghosts are something deeply ingrained in Japanese culture," says the device's inventor Kenji Koshida. "People talk about them all the time - especially engineers and other people you'd expect to live in the world of logic. I believe in them."

Exploding Toads Baffle Experts

Hundreds of toads have met an unexplained, explosive demise in Germany in recent days, it was reported on Saturday. According to reports from animal welfare workers and veterinarians as many as a thousand of the amphibians have perished after their bodies swelled to bursting point and their entrails were propelled for up to a metre. It is like "a science fiction film", according to Werner Smolnik of a nature protection society in the northern city of Hamburg, where the phenomenon of the exploding toad has been observed. "You see the animals crawling on the ground, swelling and then exploding," he said. He said the bodies of the toads expanded to three-and-a-half times their normal size. "I have never seen such a thing," said veterinarian Otto Horst. So bad has the death toll been that the lake in the Altona district of Hamburg has been dubbed "the pond of death". Access to it has been sealed off and every night a biologist visits it between 2:00am and 3:00am, which appears to be peak time for batrachians to go bang. Explanations include an unknown virus, a fungus that has infected the water, or crows, which in an echo of the Alfred Hitchcock movie The Birds, attack the toads, literally scaring them to death.

Cannibal Faces Retrial On Murder Charge

A top German court ordered a cannibal to be retried Friday, saying his manslaughter conviction for killing and eating a willing victim was too lenient. "The conviction only for manslaughter and not for murder does not stand up to legal review," the Federal Court of Justice said in a statement, upholding an appeal by prosecutors. Armin Meiwes, 43, was sentenced to eight and a half years in January 2004 after a gory case that both fascinated and repulsed Germany and the world. Meiwes admitted to killing a Berlin computer specialist, Bernd-Juergen B, he met via the Internet, but was spared a murder conviction as the victim had asked to be eaten in a startling case of sexual fetishism. Prosecutors believed Meiwes should have been convicted of murder as he had killed to satisfy perverted desires. Meiwes' lawyer urged the lesser "killing on request," a form of illegal euthanasia that carries a maximum five year sentence.

Bigfoot, Alive & Well And Living In Canada

While people in Norway House have been flocking to see a video shot by a local man last weekend that may show a Sasquatch walking in the Nelson River, the million-dollar question remains unanswered: Are there Bigfoots in Manitoba? Bill Borody, whose home near Anola is known as the Manitoba Sasquatch Research Centre, said he's heard of more than 300 sasquatch sightings in Manitoba in the past 30 years. Borody said he doesn't want to pass judgment on the Norway House video because he hasn't seen it, but added he understands it was shot from about 1,000 feet away -- which he thinks is too far to identify anything positively. CBC-TV videojournalist Mychaylo Prystupa saw the tape on Tuesday and doesn't believe it proves anything. "What I saw was a dark, shadowy figure in the distance," said Prystupa, who was shown at least 30 seconds of the clip. "It appears to be humanoid and it's tall, but the video itself is very shaky ... I think if the video could be slowed down and enhanced, then it could be interesting." Regardless of whether this viewing is legitimate, Borody is sure sasquatches roam Manitoba. "There's no doubt in my mind these things exist," he said. Borody said one reason proof continues to elude science is native lore claims they are shape-shifters, capable of changing into almost any animal. "I think this thing goes well beyond our logic," he said. Bill Watkins, a zoologist with Manitoba's biodiversity conservation unit, can't imagine what the creature might be. "Other than a black bear standing on it hind legs, there's nothing (in Manitoba) someone experienced in the woods could mistake for a sasquatch," he said. "There's always the possibility it's a deliberate fabrication, but I wouldn't suggest that until I saw the film." Watkins said he hopes the tape will be provided to his department for analysis, but is skeptical sasquatches exist. If they did, he said, there would need to be a large enough population to reproduce without inbreeding. If a population that size existed, someone would likely have found a dead or roadkilled sasquatch or even some bones by now, said Watkins.

Whale Died From Collision With Ship

A 54-foot fin whale that washed ashore at Sandbridge on Easter weekend died from injuries sustained in a collision with a ship, according to results of a preliminary necropsy. The necropsy, released Monday, also revealed that the animal was pregnant at some point during its life, making it a mature adult. The whale had fractured vertebrae and a severed spinal column and probably died soon after the strike, according to Mark Swingle, director of research and conservation at the Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center. Broken bones and blood clotting beneath suspicious markings on the whale's skin suggested a "pretty massive hit," Swingle said. "It probably didn't live very long after this." The adult female also had a belly full of menhaden, a schooling fish common along the Atlantic coast. "So, more than likely, this animal was going about its business and got in the way of a ship," Swingle said. Swingle guessed that the 40- to 50-ton animal was a young adult. Full-grown adults can reach nearly 80 feet long and 70 tons. Whales generally can live more than 50 years, and some as many as 90 years. Fin whales are known as "the greyhounds of the sea," knifing through the water at 10 to 12 mph -- about four times faster than other species. Lab results from tissue samples could still be months away, but they are expected to confirm findings from the field necropsy, Swingle said.

Concrete Vision of Virgin Mary?

People are flocking to the concrete wall to see for themselves. Some stared and others pulled out their cameras. Believers say it shows the Virgin Mary with her hands folded in prayer. Some of the visitors pray themselves. "To me I think it's a vision of the Virgin Mary. For me I can actually feel it in my body," said Genny Ronan, believes image is Virgin Mary. "I saw a reflection of the Virgin Mary. Yes, it is real," said Nicky Bell, believes image is Virgin Mary. To others it's something caused by road salt or maybe just a water stain. "I don't know about water stain. I really couldn't say," said Jean Osilich, non-believer. Over night, in different lighting, the image was a bit easier to see. For those who believe it's as clear as a photograph, faith fills in the empty spaces. "I had to pull over because the Virgin Mary is on the wall. She's on the wall and I was curious and at the same time kind of scared, wondering why she's there and what's her reason for being there," said Annette Byrd, believer. To some people this is a shrine but to the Illinois Department of Transportation it's a problem. The mysterious image is located at an accident investigation site for crashes on the Kennedy. At first it was thought the image would have to be removed so the people would leave. But not now, now the image stays and so do the believers. "I am drawn to the crucifix which is hanging from her hands and it's coming down the middle there. And I'm seeing a rosary which is a powerful prayer in our church," said Frank DePaul, believes he sees a rosary. Police have blocked off the area to vehicles but getting in and out is still dangerous for pedestrians.

Holographic Memory Has Arrived

It's been two decades coming but finally the first prototype of commercial holographic data storage has arrived. InPhase Technologies and Maxell will demonstrate the device, named Tapestry, at the National Association of Broadcasters Convention in Las Vegas later today. The prototype is a 300GB drive that can store over 35 hours of broadcast-quality high-definition video on a single removable 12cm disk. It uses a SCSI interface and a Windows device driver from Pegasus to connect to the OS' file system. It is also the child of the Tapestry family, with the company planning a range of holographic drives with capacities up to 1.6TB. "Holographic storage is coming to market, and it will provide video professionals with an enterprise storage solution that will change the way they acquire, edit, and archive high-resolution video assets," said Nelson Diaz, CEO of InPhase. The first public demonstration of the drive used video material to show off its main feature (and something that goes well beyond the capabilities of current optical and magnetic formats) - its data transfer rate. Holographic storage disks are particularly well suited to applications like broadcasting and video editing because of the fact that data is read and recorded in parallel, a million bits at a time. The prototype has a data transfer rate of 27Mbit/s. High capacity is achieved by recording data throughout the volume of the recording material, and not just on the surface. A data page of approximately one million bits is therefore recorded in just one exposure of the laser. Each data page is located at a unique address within the material and several hundred pages of data, each with their own unique address, are recorded in the same location of the medium. A collection of data pages is referred to as a book. This polytopic recording technique enables more holograms to be stored in the same volume of material by overlapping not only pages, but also books of data. This dramatically increases the storage density to around 200 gigabits per square inch, significantly higher than any other optical format. The main applications for holographic disk drives are initially expected to be in archive and media management, and at the same time as the demo, InPhase also announced support from the Masstech Group's MassStore archive and media management system, both embedded or as a standalone device. "The InPhase Tapestry system is a major achievement," said Sudy Shen, CEO of Masstech. "We look forward to InPhase developing this innovative storage solution for the professional video industry that takes advantage of this revolutionary holographic technology." MassStore is a Web-based app that provides desktop accessibility to a full range of management and tracking tools through an open XML interface. InPhase itself was spun-off from Lucent in 2000 and boasts some of the storage industry’s leading scientists and engineers. Together with Maxell (also a major shareholder in InPhase) they have turned the media and recording technology developed by InPhase into a commercial product that should be delivered to OEM customers early next year, although it has yet to announce prices. And then, despite over 20 years of scientists and engineers discarded efforts, the concept of holographic memory will become a commercial reality.

Now Thats A Good Idea

Elwood "Woody" Norris has been named the 2005 winner of the $500,000 Lemelson-MIT Prize for his remarkable inventions including HyperSonic Sound, which targets sound to individual listeners His sound-focusing invention, known as HyperSonic Sound, starts by generating ultrasonic — above the range of human hearing — sound waves, which can be focused in a tight beam rather than spreading out in all directions. As these high-frequency sound waves pass through the air, they generate lower-frequency sounds that people can hear. By stepping into the "beam," a person can hear sound that someone standing a foot or more away can't detect. "It's going to quiet everything down," Norris said. "If you don't want to be bothered by it, you step to one side and you don't hear it." San Diego-based American Technology Corp., which Norris founded in 1980, is working on commercial applications with automobile companies, supermarket chains, museums, airports and the Department of Defense. In cars, the technology could allow parents to listen to their favorite music in the front seats while kids in back choose their own. An airport terminal message could be beamed only to travelers in a specific area while not disturbing everyone else. A supermarket promoting a sale on cereal could project a sales pitch to shoppers in the cereal aisle.

Indians 'Marry' Sacred Trees To Ward Off Evil Eye

Residents in the Indian city of Calcutta have "married" two colorfully decorated trees in an elaborate ceremony to ward off an evil spell. The marriage between the sacred trees -- whose trunks were decorated with red cloth, streaks of vermilion and marigold garlands -- was followed by a banquet attended by nearly 1,000 people. "There is an evil eye that has been cast on us. So we decided to take recourse to spiritual means to ward it off," Gouri Shankar Sengupta, one of the organizers of the wedding between a banyan tree and a peepul, a kind of fig tree, said on Monday. A spate of burglaries had hit the area recently, as well as a murder and two suicides, which many residents felt came from an evil spell. The "marriage" took place Saturday but wedding celebrations will end late Monday. During the ceremony, a Hindu priest chanted hymns and lit a holy fire near the trees, which stand side by side.

Distant Planets Could Be Made Of Diamond

Planets orbiting other suns could be made partly of pure diamond, US researchers have claimed. They think that some 'extrasolar' planets - of which more than 100 have now been discovered - may have condensed from gas and dust that is rich in carbon. This could produce worlds made largely of hard carbon compounds such as silicon carbide, otherwise known as the industrial abrasive carborundum. These planets might have thick crusts of almost pure carbon. Their uppermost crust would consist of graphite, calculate Marc Kuchner of Princeton University in New Jersey and Sara Seager of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. But deeper down, high pressure would transform graphite into the other more glamorous form of carbon: diamond. What's more, carbon on the surfaces of these planets could form hydrocarbons, giving them soft, tarry coatings, or even lakes and seas of liquid hydrocarbons such as methane. The recent images of the surface of Saturn's moon Titan, taken by the European Space Agency's Huygens spacecraft, suggest that this world may have such 'petroleum' rivers and lakes, although the moon's solid fabric is thought to be ice, rock and iron. Jupiter's methane-rich atmosphere is evidence that this giant planet condensed around an initial nucleus of carbon-based material. It is generally thought that the planets in our Solar System have cores of metal (iron and nickel) and rock (silicates, like the rocks on Earth). These would be the first materials to condense out as the gas and dust cloud, or nebula, that surrounded the Sun when it first formed, began to cool down. But Lodders proposed that carbon-rich material could have accumulated in a ring called the 'tar line' around the Sun, where carbon gases diffused outwards and then condensed. Carbon-rich dust grains from the outer nebula would also spiral inwards and add to this tar line. There was plenty of carbonaceous material in the early solar nebula, and some of it still roams the Solar System as rocky lumps called carbonaceous chondrites, which occasionally fall to Earth as meteorites. In contrast to gas-giant planets with carbon-rich cores surrounded by huge amounts of gas, some carbon planets might be more like Earth: solid, smaller than Jupiter, and perhaps with a thin layer of atmospheric gases such as methane or carbon monoxide1. 'Rain' from these atmospheres would create oceans of tar on the planetary surface. The centres of these planets would probably consist of silicon carbide or titanium carbide. But the researchers argue that a thick layer of graphite could form on top of this. And at depths of a few kilometres, this would be transformed into diamond. As carbon is the key element in terrestrial life, it is possible that life - perhaps even intelligent life - might exist on an Earth-sized carbon planet.

It's A Girl For Only Whale-Dolphin Mix in Captivity

The only whale-dolphin mix in captivity has given birth to a playful female calf, officials at Sea Life Park Hawaii said Thursday. The calf was born on Dec. 23 to Kekaimalu, a mix of a false killer whale and an Atlantic bottlenose dolphin. Park officials said they waited to announce the birth until now because of recent changes in ownership and operations at the park. The young as-yet unnamed wholphin is one-fourth false killer whale and three-fourths Atlantic bottlenose dolphin. Her slick skin is an even blend of a dolphin's light gray and the black coloring of a false killer whale. The calf still depends fully on her mother's milk, but sometimes snatches frozen capelin from the hands of trainers, then toys with the sardine-like fish. She is jumbo-sized compared to purebred dolphins, and is already the size of a one-year-old bottlenose. "Mother and calf are doing very well," said Dr. Renato Lenzi, general manager of Sea Life Park by Dolphin Discovery. "We are monitoring them very closely to ensure the best care for them." Although false killer whales and Atlantic bottlenose dolphins are different species, they are classified within the same family by scientists. "They are not that far apart in terms of taxonomy," said Louis Herman, a leading expert in the study of marine mammals. There have been reports of wholphins in the wild, he said. Kekaimalu, whose name means "from the peaceful ocean," was born 19 years ago after a surprise coupling between a 14-foot, 2,000-pound false killer whale and a 6-foot, 400-pound dolphin. The animals were the leads in the park's popular tourist water show, featured in the Adam Sandler movie "50 First Dates." Kekaimalu has given birth to two other calves. One lived for nine years and the other, born when Kekaimalu was very young, died a few days after birth. Park researchers suspect the wholphin's father is a 15-foot long Atlantic bottlenose dolphin named Mikioi. "He seems to be totally oblivious to this happening," Lenzi said. False killer whales do not closely resemble killer whales. They grow to 20 feet, weigh up to two tons and have a tapering, rounded snout that overhangs their toothed jaw. Atlantic bottlenose dolphins reach a maximum size of 12 feet and can weigh up to 700 pounds. Sea Life Park officials said they hope to decide on a name for the baby wholphin soon and move her to a large display tank in a few months.
Kekaimalu, right, a 19-year-old wholphin, swims with her unnamed calf in a training tank at Sealife Park in Honolulu

Giant Octopus Eggs Hatching

Aurora held tight to her dream. Even when most any other would-be mother _ even one with eight arms _ would likely have become discouraged, not Aurora. The aging Giant Pacific octopus at the Alaska SeaLife Center in Seward embraced her maternal instinct and was rewarded this week. Her eggs finally began hatching. The first of thousands of eggs have burst out into pearly white, tear-shaped babies with huge eyes and sprouting arms that look like Statue of Liberty foam hats. "She held on," said SeaLife Center spokesman Jason Wettstein. "Every so often, not at great speed, they've been hatching." As of Wednesday, there were nine baby octopus in a rearing tank. Every hour, food was being dispensed via an electronic, automatic feeder. Three other tanks with thousands of yet-to-hatch eggs were set up in different locations around the center. "The octopuses are on a diet of two types of copepods and ground-up krill," said aquarist Ed DeCastro, who noticed the first baby on Sunday. "Initially we thought maybe it was a fluke," he said. "But it turned out there were more to follow." The Giant Pacific octopus began her long journey toward motherhood last May when she was introduced to the aging bachelor J-1. To the delight of aquarists, the two hit it off, flashing colors and retreating to a dark corner of the center's "Denizens of the Deep" display. Aurora laid tens of thousands of eggs in June. Her maternal instinct was strong, despite the fact that her eggs didn't appear to develop and aquarists eventually believed they were sterile. Aurora, a giant Pacific octopus, watches her eggs, the white spots at bottom left.
Day in and day out, she sucked in water through her mantle and sent waves of cleansing water over the eggs. She defended them against hungry sea cucumbers and starfish. She continued to tend her eggs even after J-1, who had been removed from her tank for crankiness, died of old age in September. She didn't give up even when aquarists last December _ convinced the eggs weren't fertile _ began draining her 3,600-gallon tank. As the water went down and she was going down with it, she sprayed her eggs with water, now exposed and drying on a rock. Sharp-eyed intern Meghan Kokal saved the day. Some eggs were placed in her palm and she gave them a close look, asking about the two red dots. The dots turned out to be developing eyes. Aquarium curator Richard Hocking said the longer than usual wait _ it takes between 6-8 months in the Lower 48 for Giant Pacific octopus eggs to hatch _ likely has to do with Alaska's colder water. The aquarium gets its water straight from Resurrection Bay. It was 41 degrees coming into the center Wednesday. Hocking said the baby octopus are vulnerable. Survival is uncertain. "If we can get one I would be pretty happy with that, and we may be lucky and have more than that," he said. While the future of the babies is unknown, Aurora's fate is sealed. Giant Pacific octopus females usually die about the same time as their eggs hatch, mostly because they stop eating for months and spend their waning energy defending their eggs. Aurora, who is probably about 4 years old, was about the size of a grapefruit when she was found living inside an old tire in front of the SeaLife Center. "This kind of means the end of her life," DeCastro said. Aurora, who now is much smaller than 37 pounds when she was involved with J-1, may last a bit longer. Aquarists have been hand-feeding her crab, squid, herring and fish. If anything, she appears energized, DeCastro said. "She is still tending the eggs," he said.Octopus Baby

Whale Spotted In River

A whale has been spotted in the Delaware River near Trenton. A New Jersey State Police marine unit has been ordered to investigate and the Marine Mammal Stranding Center in Brigantine has been notified, officials said today. "The water level is still very high from the flooding, so it is possible that it got confused and made a wrong turn," said Sgt. Stephen Jones, a state police spokesman. The whale - a 12- to- 15-foot-long Beluga - is heading south, apparently back to the Atlantic Ocean. The whale was last seen near Duck Island, south of Trenton. Officials urged boaters to stay away from the whale and warned that it is a federal offense to interfere with a whale. This is not the first time a whale has been seen in the Delaware. In 1995, one stray visitor that was nicknamed Waldo the Wrong Way Right Whale spent 10 days in the river, beaching himself briefly at on oil terminal in Pennsauken and apparently suffering cuts from tug boat propellers. Waldo was spotted two years later, doing well in Bay of Fundy, which is bound by Maine and the Canadian provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

Fear Envelopes Philippines Jail

Fear continues to grip some 50 prisoners of the City Reformatory Center with the death of an inmate due to "cardiac arrest" on Wednesday, the fourth in less than a month. Medical findings showed they died of heart failure but prison officials expressed doubts after tales of horror by inmates, who claimed to have witnessed and experienced the presence, in various occasions, of ghosts, a white lady, children playing, a giant creature and other eerie sights, cropped up, said city jail warden Panga Arab. Arab said Rikki Mohammad Talilisan, 25, died while being rushed to the Cotabato Regional Medical Center. Arab earlier sought the intervention of Islam and Catholic clerics following the death of the first three inmates prior to the observance of Holy Week. Confirmed dead due to the so-called "cardiac pulmonary arrest" were Moki Sinsuat (March 14), Sherwin Tanghal (March 16), and Jaime Cardines (March 19), all in their early 20s. "Before their death, they've been talking about seeing supernatural beings. Could it be that these inmates had been victims of witchcraft?" Arab asked. Despite religious rituals aimed at driving out evil spirits, the reformatory center accounted for another puzzling death of a young inmate, jail guards commented. Arab and the guards said they believed the presence of a huge balete tree at the jail compound could be the source of the horror stories.

Mother Has Vampire Son Committed

A Brownsville, TX mother said she had to have her son committed after he practiced vampire behavior. The mother said her son is involved in a teenage "vampire cult" that was planning to kill and bathe in their victim's blood. "He was involved with a gothic group that wears black, totally black," said the boy's mother, who wished not to be identified. The 16-year old boy told Brownsville Independent School District (BISD) about his involvement with a group of local students who drink each other's blood and said they were plotting to sacrifice a victim. In his statement, the Rivera High School junior said he had to obey the cult's leader and that the group planned to kill a person and bathe in their blood. BISD police officials said they plan to work along with the Brownsville Police Department to investigate the allegations. The boy's mother said her son told her he and his girlfriend would cut themselves in the teachers' parking lot of school and taste each other's blood. The boy's mother said her son claims the group has members in other local high schools. "They would cut each other and then they would suck on each other's blood," his mother said. Letters addressed to the boy contain details of alleged acts of vampirism as well as logos and symbols from popular punk bands. "Sorry if my blood isn't yummy," one letter states. "I hope you don't feel bad about cutting me. I liked it a lot. It doesn't hurt." The boy's mother said her son is receiving treatment at the San Antonio State Hospital. She said she spoke with him and his caseworker and reported he was "doing better" and taking anti-depressants.
the group planned to kill a person and bathe in their blood

Earth's Oldest Known Object On Display

the University of Wisconsin-Madison showed off a tiny speck of zircon crystal believed to be the oldest known piece of Earth at about 4.4 billion years old. Saturday's daylong celebration was to be capped with "The Rock Concert" by jazz musicians who composed music to try to answer the question: What does 4.4 billion years old sound like? "This is it – the oldest thing ever. One day only," said Joe Skulan, director of the UW-Madison Geology Museum, where the object was displayed under police guard. "The idea of having a big celebration of something that's so tiny – we're playing with the obvious absurdity of it." Jazz Passengers, a six-piece group from New York, was hired to compose music for the event. Composer Roy Nathanson said he mixed humor, jazz music, computer-generated beats and the occasional rocks being banged together to "follow the geological history of how this zircon came about." "It's an amazing story. The whole thing is something that captures your imagination," said Nathanson, 53, a saxophonist who spent a year composing the performance. Though scientists acknowledged there wasn't much to see, spectators used a microscope to check out the tiny grain, which measures less than two human hairs in diameter. Analysis of the object in 2001 by John Valley, a UW-Madison professor of geology and geophysics, startled researchers around the world by concluding that the early Earth, instead of being a roiling ocean of magma, was cool enough to have oceans and continents – key conditions for life. "It's not very much to look at because it's so very small. But to me, the miraculous thing about the crystal is that we've been able to make such wide-ranging inferences about the early Earth," Valley said. "This is our first glimpse into the earliest history of the Earth." Before its discovery, the oldest evidence for liquid water on the planet was from a rock estimated to be much younger – 3.8 billion years old. After the festivities the object will return to its native Australia with Simon Wilde, professor at Curtin University of Technology in Perth, Western Australia, who made its discovery in 1984. The sample will eventually be put on display at a natural history museum in that country. Simon Wilde, a professor at Curtin University of Technology in Perth, Australia, shows off a 4.4 billion-year-old zircon crystal at the University of Wisconsin

Real Life Matrix

The Japanese entertainment giant Sony has patented an idea for transmitting data directly into the brain, with the goal of enabling a person to see movies and play video games in which they smell, taste and perhaps even feel things, it was reported today. The patent - based only on a theory, not on any invention - marks the first step towards a "real-life Matrix". In the sci-fi film of that name, cyber-reality is projected into the brains of people via an electrode feed at the back of their necks. In Sony's patent, the technique would be entirely non-invasive - it would not use brain implants or other surgery to manipulate the brain. The patent has few details, describing only a device that would fire pulses of ultrasound at the head to modify the firing patterns of neurons in targeted parts of the brain. The aim, it says, is to create "sensory experiences" ranging from moving images to tastes and sounds. Reporters have been denied an interview with the inventor, who is based at a Sony office in San Diego, California. Sony Electronics spokeswoman Elizabeth Boukis said the work was a "prophetic invention" and no experiments at all had been done on it. "It was based on an inspiration that this may someday be the direction that technology will take us," she told New Scientist. Independent experts said they did not dismiss the idea out of hand, although they also cautioned about the proposed method's long-term safety. So far, the only non-invasive way for manipulating the brain is crude. A technique called transcranial magnetic stimulation uses magnetic fields to induce currents in brain tissue, thus stimulating brain cells. But magnetic fields cannot be finely focused on small groups of brain cells, whereas ultrasound pulses could be.

Octopuses Trick Foes

Octopuses, known for using camouflage to avoid predators, have been observed apparently trying to sneak away by walking on two arms while pretending to be a bunch of algae. Two kinds of octopus were seen to use different ways of walking along the sea floor, researchers were reporting in Friday's issue of the journal Science. The movements were discovered by Christine L. Huffard of the University of California, Berkeley, who was studying underwater video camera tapes of the animals. Berkeley professor Robert J. Full said Huffard was studying octopus movement as part of a robotics project. He said the researchers use examples from nature in designing robots; one project is to build a soft robot. Octopuses trying to avoid being eaten usually hold still to camouflage themselves. But by walking on two arms, these two types were able to move quickly while using their other arms to disguise themselves. Two individuals of O. marginatus from Indonesia wrapped six arms around themselves, looking like a coconut on the sea floor. They ten used the two rear arms to move backward. In Australia, O. aculeatus was seen raising two arms above its head before lifting four more and moving backward on the two remaining arms. The researchers described it as looking like "a clump of algae tiptoeing away." The researchers believe the octopuses were trying to flee from predators, though they cannot be sure until they have seen more examples of the behavior. The research was funded by the American Malacological Society and the National Science Foundation. Octopuses trying to avoid being eaten usually hold still to camouflage themselves. But by walking on two arms, two types were able to move quickly while using their other arms to disguise themselves.

Mars Rovers Sent Into 3rd Overtime

Spirit and Opportunity, the Mars rovers that have already survived well past what they were designed for, have been approved for 18 more months of operations. NASA said that since the machines are still capable, their funding will continue until September 2006 if they remain in good condition. The primary mission was meant to last three months. Jim Erickson, a project manager, said that the team is making long-term plans. He said, however, that a random part failure could take either robot out of commission. "We're going to work them hard to get as much benefit from them as we can, for as long as they are capable of producing worthwhile science results," he said. The rovers have already uncovered physical and chemical evidence that NASA says is proof that water used to flow on the surface of Mars. Opportunity is about to reach an area called "Etched Terrain" that appears to be a site of gentle wind erostion. The craft has now surpassed Spirit in total distance traveled, at more than 3 miles. That's eight times the original goal. Spirit is climbing a rocky slope called "Husband Hill."

Largest Iceberg In World Moving Again

The threat of sea access being blocked to US and New Zealand bases in Antarctica may have receded after the world's largest iceberg broke free from the McMurdo Sound sea bed last month, New Zealand Antarctic officials said. Iceberg B-15A – equivalent in size to Luxembourg – has started moving again into deeper water after becoming stuck in relatively shallow seas in January. The previous position of the iceberg had caused a build up of sea ice in McMurdo Sound, threatening access by US ice-breaking ships to New Zealand's Scott Base and the nearby US McMurdo Sound base. Antarctica New Zealand chief executive Lou Sanson said staff were watching the situation with interest but, after past experiences, were making no predictions about the massive iceberg's likely course. "We know very little about what makes this thing tick. Every time someone has made a prediction about it, they've been proved wrong," Sanson said. He added the renewed drift of the iceberg had loosened the build up of sea ice in McMurdo Sound, hopefully allowing access to the bases by ice-breakers in the next summer season, starting late this year. Before the grounding, the iceberg had been on a course for what scientists called "the collision of the century" with a huge floating glacier, the 70km-long (44 mile) and 20 km-wide Drygalski Ice Tongue, which juts into McMurdo Sound. The iceberg, 120 kilometres long, with an area exceeding 2,500 square kilometres (965 square miles), is so large that scientists have been worried about its effects on sea life and penguin colonies in the region. "This thing is so big it creates its own weather. It's the largest moving thing on Earth," Sanson said. The European Space Agency (ESA), which monitors the iceberg by satellite, said last month that after the iceberg floated free of the seabed, it drifted to within only a few kilometres of the Drygalski Ice Tongue. Mark Drinkwater of ESA's ice/oceans unit said the likelihood of a collision depended on tides and currents and whether the shallowness of the seabed prevented the iceberg swinging around far enough to hit the ice tongue. B-15A is the largest remaining section of the even larger B-15 iceberg, which broke off from the Ross Ice Shelf in March 2000. The B-15 iceberg had an area equivalent to Jamaica. Iceberg B-15A: The Largest Moving Thing On Earth

Dracula Fish In River

A Fish that sucks blood like a vampire has been discovered at the bottom of the Amazon. It was one of FOUR new species found in the South American river by a team led by BBC TV. Scientists and divers went to a depth of 150ft and used a remote-controlled device to search 300ft below for A BBC T.V. series
The 'vampire' fish is about 25mm long and feeds off larger fish by swimming into their gill slits and sucking their blood.

Uranus Blamed For Quakes

Uranus may be responsible for recent devastating Asian sea quakes because the mystery-shrouded "planet of calamity" is unusually close to the Earth, tabloid newspaper readers in Germany were warned on Wednesday. Under the front-page headline "Uncanny Uranus", the report in Bild newspaper cited an array of experts, ranging from Nasa scientists to TV astrologers, saying the seventh planet from the sun possesses a "quadri-polar" magnetic field that acts as "a giant cosmic vacuum cleaner". This heavenly Hoover is literally sucking the Earth's tectonic plates out of their beddings, according to Bild, Europe's largest daily newspaper with more than five million readers. This magnetic pull is strongest along the Earth's equator because the tropics are marginally closer to Uranus than the poles are. The magnetic forces "are strong enough at the equator to suck up electrically charged dust particles" which could, in turn, disturb the Earth's crust and spawn killer sea quakes and resulting tidal waves. The reason these natural phenomena have increased of late is that the distant planet's orbit has brought Uranus uncomfortably close to Earth. Instead of being its usual 3.14 billion kilometres from Earth, Uranus currently is a mere 2.59 billion kilometres away. And it will remain this close through the year 2012, so Bild warns that we could be in for more uncanny Uranian catastrophes well into the next decade until Uranus slowly retreats back into its proper place in the Outer Solar System. With its 11 rings and 18 moons, Uranus is in fact different from everything else in our Solar System