Mother and Child, 2004

Harma Heikens

Martyrdom for a Modern Machiavellian

47 minutes ago

By Sadaqat Jan And Zarar Khan, The Associated Press

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan - Moments after a euphoric crowd stretched its arms toward Benazir Bhutto, moments after the charismatic former prime minister made herself vulnerable by saluting her followers through a car's sunroof, the street was awash with blood.

And in that chaotic instant, a dangerous world became even more dangerous.

Efforts to restore democracy in Pakistan suffered a crushing blow with Thursday's assassination of the 54-year-old Bhutto after a rally. A country that has nuclear weapons was even more destabilized, and hopes among western countries that Pakistan would be a bulwark against terrorism were shaken.

On whose behalf did the suicidal assassin kill Bhutto, 20 others and himself? No one knew for certain. But clearly, this was a victory for extremists.

President Pervez Musharraf blamed terrorists. "Today, after this tragic incident, I want to express my firm resolve ... we will not rest until we eliminate these terrorists and root them out," he told a national television audience.

Musharraf debated whether to postpone Jan. 8 elections - a bitter irony, because Bhutto had returned from exile to run in that election against Musharraf, leader of a military government since a 1999 coup. Another opposition politician, Nawaz Sharif, announced he would boycott any vote in the wake of Bhutto's murder.

Across Pakistan, the shock of Thursday's bloodshed turned into violence as Bhutto's enraged supporters burned vehicles and attacked shops. At least nine people died in the mayhem that followed. As news of her death spread, supporters gathered at the hospital where she had been taken, smashed glass doors, stoned cars.

Rightly or wrongly, they knew whom to blame: they chanted, "Killer, Killer, Musharraf."

Hours before, addressing more than 5,000 supporters in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, Bhutto scoffed at reports that foreign troops would be sent here to help fight resurgent militants linked to the Taliban and al-Qaida in the area bordering Afghanistan.

"Why should foreign troops come in? We can take care of this, I can take care of this, you can take care of this," she said.

Then, as Bhutto left the rally in a white sports utility vehicle, the attacker struck.

Sardar Qamar Hayyat, an official from Bhutto's party, was about 10 metres away. A smiling Bhutto stuck her head out of the sunroof and responded to the chants of her supporters, he said.

"Then I saw a thin, young man jumping toward her vehicle from the back and opening fire. Moments later, I saw her speeding vehicle going away. That was the time when I heard a blast and fell down," Hayyat said.

The blast was a suicide bomb the young man was apparently carrying. The carnage was immediate.

Bhutto was rushed into emergency surgery. A doctor on the surgical team said a bullet in the back of her neck damaged her spinal cord before exiting from the side of her head. Another bullet pierced the back of her shoulder and came out through her chest, he said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. She was given an open heart massage, but the spinal cord damage was too great, he said.

"At 6:16 p.m. she expired," said Wasif Ali Khan, a member of Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party who was at Rawalpindi General Hospital.

Bhutto's supporters questioned why the government had not provided her better security in the wake of death threats and previous attempts on her life - including a bombing that killed more than 140 people when she returned from exile in October.

On Thursday, hundreds of riot police manned security checkpoints at the park for Bhutto's first public meeting in the city since her return. In November, Musharraf forced her to cancel a planned rally here, citing security fears. In recent weeks, suicide bombers have repeatedly targeted security forces in Rawalpindi, a city near the capital where Musharraf stays and the Pakistan army has its headquarters.

Makhdoom Amin Fahim, chairman of Bhutto's party, called for a thorough investigation. "The Bhutto family and the party should know who is behind the attack," he said.

The government announced three days of mourning for Bhutto, including the closing of schools, commercial centres and banks.

The killing could strengthen the increasingly unpopular Musharraf by eliminating a strong rival, or weaken him by sparking uncontrollable riots across the country.

The UN Security Council vigorously denounced the killing and urged "all Pakistanis to exercise restraint and maintain stability in the country."

Sharif, another former prime minister and leader of a rival opposition party, demanded Musharraf resign immediately. "Musharraf is the cause of all the problems," he said. "The federation of Pakistan cannot remain intact in the presence of President Musharraf."

In the United States, President George W. Bush condemned the attack "by murderous extremists who are trying to undermine Pakistan's democracy." Bush spoke briefly by phone with Musharraf; the Bush administration had banked on a plan to stabilize Pakistan with a rapprochement between Bhutto and Musharraf.

In Canada, Prime Minister Stephen Harper called the assassination a threat to democracy. He urged Musharraf to let the Jan. 8 election go ahead.

"This cannot be allowed to permit any delay in the return of Pakistan to full democracy," Harper said in Calgary, adding democracy is "something the people of Pakistan have been waiting for, for far too long."

Harper also expressed concern about increased instability in the region. Canadian troops are deployed in neighbouring Afghanistan as part of a NATO force supporting the Afghan government.

Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier condemned "in the strongest terms this attack ... Today's violence is especially heinous in view of the upcoming elections on Jan. 8, 2008. The anti-democratic intent of the perpetrators could not be more obvious,"

No one claimed responsibility for the assassination.

But suspicion was likely to fall on Islamic militants linked to al-Qaida and the Taliban, who hated Bhutto for her close ties to the Americans and support for the war on terrorism. A local Taliban leader reportedly threatened to greet Bhutto's return to the country from exile in October with suicide bombings.

Hours after she was rushed to surgery, Bhutto's body was carried out of the hospital in a plain wooden coffin by a crowd of supporters. Her body was expected to be transferred to an air base and brought to her family hometown of Larkana.

Next to Musharraf, Bhutto was the best known political figure in the country. She had served two terms as prime minister between 1988 and 1996. She was respected in the West for her liberal outlook and determination to combat the spread of Islamic extremism, a theme she returned to often in her campaign speeches.

Her death will leave a void at the top of her Pakistan People's party, the largest political group in the country.

As news of her death spread, shop owners quickly closed their businesses as riots broke out in Karachi. Fayyaz Leghri, a local police official, said gunmen shot and wounded two police officers.

One man was killed in a shootout between police and protesters in Tando Allahyar, a town 190 kilometres north of Karachi, said Mayor Kanwar Naveed. Four others were killed in Karachi, two were killed elsewhere in the southern Sindh province and two others in Lahore, police said.

In the town of Tando Jam, protesters forced passengers to get out of a train and then set it on fire.

Violence also broke out in Lahore, Multan, Peshawar and many other parts of Pakistan, where Bhutto's supporters burned banks, state-run grocery stores and private shops. Some set fire to election offices for the ruling party, according to Pakistani media.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who met with Bhutto just hours before her death, called her a brave woman with a clear vision "for her own country, for Afghanistan and for the region - a vision of democracy and prosperity and peace."

Bhutto had returned to Pakistan from an eight-year exile on Oct. 18. Her homecoming parade in Karachi was also targeted by a suicide attacker, killing more than 140 people. On that occasion she narrowly escaped injury.

Maleficent Digits

2 hours, 11 minutes ago

By The Canadian Press

TORONTO - Police in Toronto have identified a man believed to have six fingers on one or both hands who is suspected of trying to abduct an eight-year-old girl.

Police say they are looking for Bheesham Dhanpaul, 27, and have issued a warrant for his arrest. The suspect is described as having a sixth finger between his thumb and index finger on one or both hands.

He is described as having a dark complexion, stands about five-foot-nine, with a medium build and was wearing a red tuque with a pom-pom on top, ear flaps and a chin strap.

The girl was approached Monday afternoon by a man who grabbed her arm.

She broke free and was chased by the man, but the girl made it safely to a neighbour's house.

The Face of Patriarchy

By WENN world entertainment news - Monday, December 24 01:50 pm
Michael Jackson reportedly underwent emergency surgery after his young son accidentally punched him in the face.

The Thriller hitmaker - who has undergone multiple cosmetic surgeries on his face in the past - was recently photographed in a Los Angeles bookstore wearing numerous bandages around his mouth.

But sources tell Finditt.com the singer's son, Prince Michael II, caused the injury: "He was whacked in the face accidentally by his younger son Prince Michael II while playing around and part of Jackson's upper lip collapsed.
"That mishap led a hysterical Jacko to make a beeline for the plastic surgeon for a bit of quickie repair work."

Internet Helps Fuel the Return of Syphilis

Syphilis makes comeback in Europe amid spread of risky sex, online dating sites

2 hours, 12 minutes ago

By Maria Cheng, The Associated Press

LONDON - Syphilis is back: The sexually transmitted disease long associated with 19th Century bohemian life is making an alarming resurgence in Europe.

"Syphilis used to be a very rare disease," said Dr. Marita van de Laar, an expert in sexually transmitted diseases at the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. "I'm not sure we can say that anymore."

Most cases of syphilis are in men, and experts point to more risky sex among gay men as the chief cause for the resurgence. But more cases are being seen among heterosexuals, both men and women, too.

Syphilis was the sexual scourge of the 19th Century, and is believed to have killed artists like poet Charles Baudelaire, composer Robert Schumann, and painter Paul Gauguin. But the widespread use of penicillin in the 1950s all but wiped it out in the western world.

In the last decade, however, syphilis has unexpectedly returned, driven by risky sexual behaviour and outbreaks in major cities across Europe, including London, Amsterdam, Paris and Berlin.

-In Britain, syphilis cases have leapt more than tenfold for men and women in the past decade to 3,702 in 2006, according to the Health Protection Agency. Among men in England, the syphilis rate jumped from one per 100,000 in 1997 to nine per 100,000 last year.

-In Germany, the rate among men was fewer than two per 100,000 in 1991; by 2003, it was six per 100,000.

-In France, there were 428 cases in 2003, almost 16 times the number just three years earlier.

-In the Netherlands, cases doubled from 2000 to 2004. In Amsterdam, up to 31 men per 100,000 were infected, while the rate was much lower in other regions.

Similar trends have been seen in the United States.

In 2000, syphilis infection rates were so low that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention embarked on a plan to eliminate the disease. But about 9,800 cases were reported in 2006.

In Europe, Van de Laar said syphilis' reappearance was so surprising that many doctors initially had trouble diagnosing it.

Though these days it mainly affects urban gay men, experts worry that the disease could also rebound in the general population if stronger efforts to fight it are not taken soon.

In 2005, British authorities reported that syphilis was spreading across the entire country, and that more heterosexual men and women were being infected.

"These increases may lead to increases in diagnoses of congenital syphilis over the coming years," said Kate Swan, a spokeswoman for the Health Protection Agency.

Pregnant women with syphilis can pass it on to their babies. Nearly half of all babies infected with syphilis while they are in the womb die shortly before or after birth.

Syphilis is a bacterial disease causing symptoms that include ulcers, sores and rashes. In extreme cases, it can result in dementia or fatally damage the heart, respiratory and central nervous systems. Syphilis is treatable with antibiotics if caught early.

Once there are more than just a few isolated cases, containing the disease is difficult.

Advances made in treating AIDS may have inadvertently boosted syphilis' spread.

"The evidence points to an increase in unsafe sexual behaviour since anti-retrovirals for AIDS came along in 1996," said van de Laar.

After decades of being instructed to use condoms and to limit the number of sexual partners, some people are probably suffering from "safe sex fatigue," van de Laar said.

The Internet has also allowed people to find sexual partners more easily than before, and some experts link the rise of dating websites to the jump in syphilis cases.

For some men, the Internet connections can be especially dangerous.

"Networks of HIV-positive men to find other positive men have sprung up on the Internet," said Jonathan Elford, an AIDS epidemiologist at London's City University.

Some men who have the AIDS virus are seeking condom-free sex with other men who are also HIV-infected. However, they aren't protected against syphilis and other sexually spread diseases. Among gay men who have syphilis in Britain, nearly half have HIV, Elford said.

Amid this resurgence, some officials are now attacking the epidemic online.

Every day, health workers at the Terrence Higgins Trust, Europe's largest AIDS charity, log into chatrooms on a popular British gay dating website to spread safe sex messages and answer questions.

"We know that men are arranging hook-ups for sex online," said Mark Thompson, the charity's deputy head of health promotion. "So we decided to tap into cyberspace to try reaching them before unsafe sex might happen."

Fraudulent Ashes

Funeral director charged with ashes fraud

Thu Dec 20, 12:20 PM

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (Reuters) - A former funeral home owner has been charged with fraud for allegedly giving families cremated ashes that were not the remains of their loved ones, Canadian police said on Wednesday.

Police began investigating a defunct funeral home in Princeton, British Columbia, in 2006 after receiving complaints from families in the small town, who said they believed they had received -- and in some cases buried -- the wrong cremated remains.

The families discovered the problem when contacted by another funeral home that had received 56 urns of cremated human remains from the Princeton-Similkameen Funeral Services after it shut down in 2005 for operating without a license.

The urns were labeled as being unclaimed by the families who had paid for cremations and thought they already had the ashes. Police spent 19 months investigating the case and determining which remains went to which family.

The former funeral home's owner has been charged with 34 counts of fraud, and two counts each of neglect of duty and "offering an indignity" to human remains, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said.

Most of the 56 urns have been reunited with the proper families, but some still remain unclaimed.

"We don't know if that's because there aren't any family members around any more to claim them or what," said RCMP Constable Julie Rattee. "It's a tragic case."

(Reporting by Allan Dowd; Editing by Peter Galloway)

Scatological Crimes

Wed Dec 19, 9:40 AM

KAMPALA (Reuters) - Local authorities have arrested at least 100 Ugandans for failing to build toilets in their homes in the midst of a cholera epidemic that has killed 8 people and infected 164, state media reported Wednesday.

"We cannot watch as people die (of cholera)," northwestern Bulisa district administrator Norbert Turyahikayo told the New Vision daily, justifying the arrest of Ugandans found to have huts with no pit latrines Tuesday.

Police spokesman Hassan Kasinje told Reuters the building of homes without proper toilets was forbidden in Uganda, though he did not know of the arrests.

"It is illegal ... but it is not an arrestable offence. Whoever arrested them is wrong," he said. "A health officer is supposed to instruct them to build or they can be cautioned."

In September, 70 Ugandans in the east were seized for the same offence. Many in remote villages lack latrines.

Cholera epidemics spread by poor sanitation are common.

(Reporting by Tim Cocks; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Hobbesian Politics in SA

Saudi king pardons teenage rape victim

38 minutes ago

RIYADH (AFP) - King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia pardoned a teenage girl sentenced to six months in jail and 200 lashes after being gang raped in a decision swiftly welcomed by Washington on Monday.

There was no immediate official announcement of the king's decision to overturn the sentence against the 19-year-old girl which had drawn criticism of the ultra-conservative Muslim kingdom from key ally President George W. Bush.

The king's decision was instead reported by the Riyadh daily Al-Jazirah but, like the rest of the Saudi press, the newspaper faithfully reflects the official line on all sensitive issues.

The daily quoted Justice Minister Abdullah bin Mohammad bin Ibrahim al-Sheikh as explaining that the king had the "right to overrule court judgements if he considered it benefiting the greater good."

The minister added that the king, who is viewed by many as a cautious reformer, was concerned with "the needs of the people and the court judgements that are made against them."

The girl, who was 18 at the time she was raped, was attacked at knifepoint by seven men after she was found in a car with a male companion who was not a relative, in breach of strict Saudi law.

Her identity has not been revealed but she has become known as "Qatif girl," after the Shiite-populated area of Al-Qatif in the Eastern Province from which she comes.

In October 2006, a judge sentenced her to 90 lashes for being with the man -- a taboo in the conservative Muslim kingdom which imposes segregation of the sexes.

She appealed against the sentence but despite her ordeal the court ruled that her punishment should be increased to 200 lashes and a six-month jail term.

The judges decided to punish the girl further for "her attempt to aggravate and influence the judiciary through the media," a court source told the English-language daily Arab News.

The rapists were initially sentenced to one to five years in jail, but those terms were also toughened in November to between two and nine years.

A rape conviction carries the death penalty in Saudi Arabia, but the court did not impose it due to the "lack of witnesses" and the "absence of confessions," the justice ministry said last month

.

Marketing Mythology

Mi'kmaq eggs on a Kinder apology

Sat Dec 15, 7:55 AM

A native activist on P.E.I. who was dismayed by the cultural stereotyping of a toy in a Kinder Surprise says the company was quick to respond to his complaint.

The Kinder Surprise is a chocolate egg with a small toy inside, but when Julie Pellissier-Lush's three-year-old son Shawn opened a Kinder Surprise she bought him last week the surprise was not a pleasant one.

"As soon as I saw what it was, I just took it and said, 'No, this is not something you're going to be playing with,' and put it away," Pellissier-Lush told CBC News Thursday.

The tiny plastic toy is a figure of a native man brandishing a tomahawk. It comes with a frowning, war-painted face in the form of a tee pee.

Pellissier-Lush works at the Mi'kmaq Friendship Centre and grew up on P.E.I.'s Lennox Island Reserve. She said the toy is extremely offensive.

"The more I thought about it the more I thought, 20 years growing up, things haven't changed too much," she said.

She showed the toy to her uncle, native activist John Joe Sark. He immediately e-mailed the Kinder Surprise company to complain.

"The toy is going to be played with by kids from four years on," Sark commented, "and what you do is you perpetuate a stereotype at that age."

Although upset by the toy, Sark was pleased by the reply

"We are very sorry that a toy from our Kinder Surprise collection has been found to be offensive to individuals in the Canadian aboriginal community," the company responded in an e-mail.

"In response to your concerns, we will pull this particular toy from future production plans immediately."

Sark said the incident was a great opportunity to create a cultural awareness. The company also asked for material to help improve the representation of the aboriginal community. Sark is sending some more positive images from Mi'kmaq mythology.

Umblicus Urbanus

Tue Dec 11, 5:59 AM

HONG KONG (Reuters) - A new-born baby with its umbilical cord attached was thrown to its death from a high-rise flat in Hong Kong on Tuesday, and police have arrested a 14-year-old girl in connection with the crime.

The child's body was found early on Tuesday at the foot of a low-cost public housing block in northern Hong Kong.

"We believe it was a new-born baby, and it had an umbilical cord attached to its body," a police officer surnamed Chow told Hong Kong's Cable Television. He said that the baby had probably just been born in one of the flats in the building.

A police spokeswoman said a 14-year old girl had been arrested in connection with the crime.

Cable Television reported that the baby had been thrown from a height of more than 20 storeys.

(Reporting by James Pomfret; editing by Roger Crabb)

From Ancestral Society to Gerontocracy

Japanese film discredits Nanjing massacre

37 minutes ago

TOKYO (AFP) - As China tries to keep memories alive of the Nanjing Massacre, which started 70 years ago this week, a Japanese film-maker is doing his part to convince the world it never happened.

Several films have come out to mark the anniversary of the massacre, which started on December 13, 1937 after Japanese troops stormed the then Chinese capital also known as Nanking.

"Nanking," a Chinese production with Hollywood backing, has hit cinemas in Asia and the West, inspired by late US writer Iris Chang's book "The Rape of Nanking" documenting the horrors.

In Japan, director Satoru Mizushima is working on "The Truth of Nanking," the first of a three-part series alleging the massacre did not happen.

"I absolutely believe it did not happen. The allegation suddenly popped up at the Tokyo tribunal," which tried Japanese war criminals after World War II, Mizushima told AFP.

China, which has likened the bloodshed to the Holocaust perpetrated by Nazi Germany, says about 300,000 civilians were massacred, and earlier this month published a list of 13,000 victims.

Allied trials of Japanese war criminals mentioned 140,000 victims.

While Japan has apologised for wartime atrocities in Nanjing and elsewhere, it has never officially put a figure on the number of dead.

Surveys show a majority of Japanese concede their country committed wrongs during the war, but some Japanese nationalists, who have been wielding growing influence since the late 1990s, insist the massacre is Chinese propaganda.

"For example, Chiang Kai-shek held 300 press conferences in the 11 months following the fall of Nanjing," Mizushima said, referring to the leader of the anti-communist Republic of China which was once based in the city.

"He told the international media, 'Japan did this, and Japan did that.' But there was absolutely no mention of Nanjing. Not a single word."

"This and many other things provide solid evidence the so-called massacre did not happen," Mizushima said.

While his opinions are not in the mainstream, a number of leading Japanese politicians have questioned wartime history.

Former premier Shinzo Abe, who stepped down in September, drew controversy for hedging on whether he accepted the legitimacy of the US-led Tokyo trials. His grandfather was arrested but not tried as a war criminal.

A group of conservative lawmakers, headed by a former education minister, also issued a report in June dismissing the Nanjing massacre as a fabrication, angering the Chinese government.

Mizushima, who runs a small broadcasting company, said he had collected 1.8 million dollars in donations from 5,000 supporters to produce the trilogy.

He said it would portray the seven Japanese who were hanged for war crimes, including wartime premier Hideki Tojo, as "martyrs" who took the blame to save the motherland.

"If you see the film, you will know Hitler and Tojo were absolutely different," said Mizushima.

"I have high respect for the Chinese culture. But I firmly believe the Chinese government needs to be condemned for its propaganda and teaching children lies under its anti-Japan education policy," he said.

According to Mizushima, the massacre is an excuse for the United States to place the blame on Japan while ignoring its own wartime deeds, including the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Mizushima lamented the materialism of post-war Japan, now the world's second largest economy and one of Washington's closest allies.

"After the war, Japan has come to look like a carbon copy of the West," said Mizushima.

"People are consumed by their immediate desires, want more things and want them now. They lost the sense that our ancestors live with us to this day," he said. "Japan became a very sad nation after the war."

Rueff, Jacob (1554) De conceptu et generatione hominis.

Incidentally, the triumvirate of monsters seen above are symbolic illustrations of abnormalities that occurred in actual births in the 16th century. I believe these are the originals woodcuts - I've posted copied versions from later books before. 'De Conceptu..' has a number of illustrations of the more realistic birth defects too, if that is your thing.

via BibliOdyssey
The full digitized text is available here

Mystery of Life
Uploaded by donaldtheduckie

Eugenics in America
via Paleo-Future

Gerontocractic Panic in India

Neglect of parents a criminal offence

1 hour, 0 minute ago

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Indians who neglect their ageing parents face possible prison under a new law passed by worried politicians.

The law, passed late on Thursday, reflects concerns that rapid modernization and a growth in nuclear families is undermining a centuries-old social fabric of extended families.

"At least now the elderly can have a roof to live under and food to eat in their old age," Gyan Prakash Pilania, a Hindu nationalist MP, was quoted as saying in local news reports.

Under the law, Indians can face up to a month in jail if found guilty of parental neglect.

The law also allows authorities to order children or relatives to pay a monthly maintenance allowance to the aged.

(Reporting by Alistair Scrutton; Editing by Y.P. Rajesh and Alex Richardson)

The Third Man

Historically False Memories

It is said that the camera never lies, but according to new research published in the journal Applied Cognitive Psychology, the camera not only lies, but those lies can lead to the creation of false memories.

In the study, which was led by Dario Sacchi of the University of Pagua and designed by veteran memory researcher Elizabeth Loftus, participants viewed photographs of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protest in Beijing or the protest against the Iraq war which took place in Rome in 2003.

Some of the participants were presented with digitally altered photographs, while others were shown the unaltered, original images. It was found that manipulation of the photographs influenced the participants' memories of the events very strongly.

For example, those participants shown the doctored photograph of the protest in Rome (top right), in which figures placed in the foreground give the impression of violence, rated the event as being significantly more violent and negative than it actually was. In their comments, they also provided false details, such as conflicts, damages, injuries and casualties that did not appear in the photos and were not documented at the event.

If misleading information can so easily distort previously encoded memories about past events, then memories of public events, and attitudes towards them, could be distorted even more drastically if doctored images are presented when the event is taking place (i.e. when memories of the event are being encoded).

The findings have important practical implications. They demonstrate clearly the power that the mass media has over how we perceive and remember public events, and the ease with which misinformation and propaganda can be used to manipulate public opinion. Finally, as the authors note, sophisticated software for altering images - and, therefore, for creating misinformation - is now readily available.

Reference:

Sacchi, D. L. M., et al (2007). Changing history: doctored photographs affect memory for past public events. Appl. Cognit. Psychol. 21: 1005-1022.
http://scienceblogs.com/neurophilosophy/2007/11/the_camera_does_lie.php

I Think I am a Missing Person

57 minutes ago

LONDON (AFP) - A canoeist who disappeared more than five years ago and was presumed dead turned up at a police station in London at the weekend, very much alive and in good health, police said Monday.

The remains of John Darwin's canoe was found washed up on a beach at Seaton Carew, northeast England, in March 2002.

A widespread search for the then-51-year-old prison officer was mounted but yielded nothing. His wife, Anne, said six months after his disappearance that she could not move on without his body being found.

She has since moved abroad, according to media reports.

But on Saturday, father-of-two Darwin appeared at a police station in the heart of London's theatre district. His family have been informed but police are baffled as to where he had been.

"The guy can't remember anything about what's happened or why he's come forward," inspector Helen Eustace at West End Central police station was quoted as saying by the Evening Standard newspaper.

"He has no memory at all. He has obviously been somewhere for the last five years and a lot of questions need answering... We have no account of what's happened in the last five years.

"He walked into a police station and said, 'I think I am a missing person'."

Darwin's brother David told the Daily Mail newspaper: "All the family is so relieved that John is alive.

"It is the best Christmas present any family could wish for."

Darwin's 90-year-old father Ronald told the Evening Standard: "I always said to the police that there might be more to this than it appeared at first.

"When his canoe was found but he wasn't, it didn't seem right."

Thomas Dolby: Dissidents

Blocking Change to Reverse Aging

Old skin made young again by blocking a single gene: study

Thu Nov 29, 6:16 PM

CHICAGO (AFP) - Scientists have managed to make old skin in mice young again after just two weeks of treatment by blocking a single gene, according to a study released Thursday.

They did this by creating genetically-modified mice with a defective gene that can be switched off so that their cells ceased to age when a cream was applied to the skin.

While still years from being determined safe for use in humans, the discovery offers hope of one day reversing many age-related illnesses and injuries as the technique may work on any kind of organ or tissue.

"Previous work has shown you can reverse aging by really drastic measures" such as a near-starvation diet or "connecting the circulation of a young animal to an old animal," said lead researcher Howard Chang of the Stanford University School of Medicine in California.

"Here we show that aging in mouse skin can be reversed by blocking a single gene," he said.

"These findings suggest that aging is not just a result of wear and tear, but is also the consequence of a continually active genetic program that might be blocked for improving human health."

Chang's team use a complex computer analysis to discover that a single protein is the "shared driving force for the genetic changing associated with aging in lots of different tissues," he said in a telephone interview.

They then designed a genetically-modified mouse in which this gene would switch off only when the animal was quite old.

"We even engineered it in such a way that we can actually turn off that defective version in some parts of the animal and not the rest," he explained.

"We made this animal in such a way that it would respond to a cream that contained a specific chemical and we put the cream only on one half of the animal ... so the rest of the animal was still old."

Two weeks later, both the gene expression profile and the tissue characteristics of the treated skin had reverted to that of a young mouse.

While the idea of taking a full-body dip in the fountain of youth might sound like a fantastic idea, there are good reasons to target only specific areas of the body for treatment.

The same gene that stimulates aging, NF-eB, is also involved in the immune system and other cell functions so if it was blocked in the entire body it could cause death, Chang warned.

The next step is to see if blocking the gene will also reverse aging in other tissues such as the heart and lungs.

There is also the question of whether the effect will last if the treatment is continued or if the tissues will rapidly revert back to their previous aged state if the treatment is stopped.

Other researchers are already looking at ways to block the gene in humans using drugs because of its role in the immune system, Chang said.

Further experiments will show if one of those drugs can effectively be used to block the gene in targeted ways for anti-aging purposes.

"What I hope won't happen is a lot of people calling me up to make an appointment to have their face rejuvenated," Chang added.

Even if researchers are able to develop a safe way to use the treatment on humans, there will always be serious risks involved in genetic intervention.

"A lot of people in the field shy away from the fountain of youth and rejuvenation and focus on extracting quality of life," he said.

The study will be the cover story of the December 15 edition of the journal Genes and Development.

The Angolan government (CNIDAH) and the European Union present this year's Miss Landmine Angola. To find out more, please visit the official website.

Maid Without Tears
via http://paleo-future.blogspot.com/

Robots for Dentists

Robots laugh, solve puzzles and get dental treatment at Japanese exhibit

Wed Nov 28, 8:46 AM

By Hiroko Tabuchi, The Associated Press

TOKYO - A robot math whiz breezes through a Rubik's Cube, using metal hands to twist and turn the colourful toy. A panda robot uses sensors to detect when people are laughing, and joins in. A dentistry student peers into the mouth of a new patient - a humanoid practise robot with a complete set of pearly white teeth.

Japan showed off its cutting-edge robots Wednesday at the country's largest robotics convention, a dazzling display of the technologies that make it a world leader in both service and industrial robotics.

The dental training robot, dubbed Simroid for "simulator humanoid," has realistic skin, eyes, and a mouth fitted with replica teeth that trainees practise drilling on. A sensor fitted where the nerve endings would be raises the alert when dental students drill too close - triggering a yelp from the robot.

"Ow, that hurt!" a female robot squeaked, narrowing her eyes as a young dentist drilled on her replica teeth. "Now, I'm OK," she said as the dentist eased off.

"Our aim is to train dentists to worry about whether patients are comfortable, and not just focus on technical expertise," said Dr. Naotake Shibui of the Nippon Dental University in Tokyo, who collaborated with technicians at Kokoro Co. to develop the robot.

Researchers are still ironing out a few kinks - including perfecting a function that lets novices inject anesthetic into robot gums - before working on commercialization plans, Shibui said. He said a prototype has been used at the university since September.

Across the hall, Kawasaki Heavy Industries' Mr. Cube robot used built-in colour sensors and a pair of dexterous hands to solve a Rubik's Cube, then raised the completed puzzle in glee to show off to spectators.

Mr. Cube is no match for his human counterparts, taking up to five minutes to solve a typical puzzle while the human world record is 9.77 seconds.

Still, the sensors' ability to quickly detect and differentiate between colours is a breakthrough in industrial robotics, said Kawasaki engineer Masafumi Wada.

"We hope to employ this technology to robots working in factories, so they can distinguish parts by colour, as well as size and shape," Wada said. "That would make production lines much more versatile," he said.

The main focus of the 2007 International Robot Exhibition, which kicked off Wednesday in Tokyo, is on industrial robots like Mr. Cube.

Japan is an industrial robot powerhouse, with over 370,000 in use in 2005 - about 40 per cent of the global total, according to a recent report by Macquarie Bank.

There are 32 robots for every 1,000 Japanese manufacturing employees, the report said.

Japan has also led the way in personal robots, with big players like Honda Corp. and Sony Corp. to little-known startups launching robotic companions for the home.

Waseda University's furry, panda-shaped Tocco-chan robot, for example, is designed to relieve stress by helping people laugh.

A web camera connects to software that scans a person's face for smiles - and when it detects one, the robot joins in by giggling and wiggling its arms and legs.

"We all know laughing is good for your health. This robot helps you laugh, by laughing together with you," said Waseda research student Saiko Hirano, who developed Tocco-chan.

"I wanted to design a robot that helps people," she said. "But mostly, this robot is the product of a wild imagination."

I've already auctioned off the 27 hours of love...

SANTIAGO (Reuters) - A Chilean prostitute has auctioned 27 hours of sex to raise money for the country's largest charity during an annual fund-raising campaign.
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Maria Carolina became an overnight celebrity in the conservative Roman Catholic country, making news headlines and appearing on talk shows since she made her unusual donation to the televised charity event, which runs for 27 hours starting on Friday evening.

"I've already auctioned off the 27 hours of love," Maria Carolina told Reuters on Wednesday, saying she had raised about $4,000. "One of my clients already paid. It seemed like a good deed to him."

Adult prostitution is legal in Chile. Chile's two-day Teleton fundraiser is endorsed by television stars and aims to raise funds for poor, disabled children.

Speaking about Maria Carolina's unusual donation, campaign organizer Mario Kreutzberger said he would not encourage "immoral" activities, but said he would accept her pledge.

"Everyone can do what they want, but if someone tells me that they'll do something immoral ... I'm not going to encourage it," Kreutzberger, who as "Don Francisco" hosts the long-running "Sabado Gigante" program on the U.S. Spanish-language Univision network, told local media.

But Maria Carolina, who advertises her services on the Internet, defended her money-raising scheme.

"There are people who are going to be donating money that's a lot more questionable than mine," she said. "The only thing I did was publicize it."

(Reporting by Antonio de la Jara; writing by Lisa Yulkowski; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

Twenty-first Century Wendy

Robot with soft hands chats, serves meal

Tue Nov 27, 9:39 AM

TOKYO (Reuters) - A pearly white robot that looks a little like E.T. boosted a man out of bed, chatted and helped prepare his breakfast with its deft hands in Tokyo Tuesday, in a further sign robots are becoming more like their human inventors.

Twendy-One, named as a 21st century edition of a previous robot, Wendy, has soft hands and fingers that gently grip, enough strength to support humans as they sit up and stand, and supple movements that respond to human touch.

It can pick up a loaf of bread without crushing it, serve toast and help lift people out of bed.

"It's the first robot in the world with this much system integration," said Shigeki Sugano, professor of mechanical engineering at Waseda University, who led the Twendy-One project (http://twendyone.com) and demonstrated the result on Tuesday.

"It's difficult to balance strength with flexibility."

The robot is a little shorter than an average Japanese woman at 1.5 m (5 ft), but heavy-set at 111 kg (245 lb). Its long arms and a face shaped like a giant squashed bean mean it resembles the alien movie character E.T.

Twendy-One has taken nearly seven years and a budget of several million dollars to pull together all the high-tech features, including the ability to speak and 241 pressure-sensors in each silicon-wrapped hand, into the soft and flexible robot.

The robot put toast on a plate and fetched ketchup from a fridge when asked, after greeting its patient for the demonstration with a robotic "good morning" and "bon appetit."

Sugano said he hoped to develop a commercially viable robot that could help the elderly and maybe work in offices by 2015 with a price tag of around $200,000.

But for now, it is still a work in progress. Twendy-One has just 15 minutes of battery life and its computer-laden back has a tendency to overheat after each use.

"The robot is so complicated that even for us, it's difficult to get it to move," Sugano said.

(Reporting by Yoko Kubota; Editing by Jerry Norton)

The Future of the Family

Sex and marriage with robots? It could happen
Robots soon will become more human-like in appearance, researcher says
By Charles Q. Choi
Special to LiveScience
LiveScience
updated 6:05 p.m. ET, Fri., Oct. 12, 2007

Humans could marry robots within the century. And consummate those vows.

"My forecast is that around 2050, the state of Massachusetts will be the first jurisdiction to legalize marriages with robots," artificial intelligence researcher David Levy at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands told LiveScience. Levy recently completed his Ph.D. work on the subject of human-robot relationships, covering many of the privileges and practices that generally come with marriage as well as outside of it.

At first, sex with robots might be considered geeky, "but once you have a story like 'I had sex with a robot, and it was great!' appear someplace like Cosmo magazine, I'd expect many people to jump on the bandwagon," Levy said.

The idea of romance between humanity and our artistic and/or mechanical creations dates back to ancient times, with the Greek myth of the sculptor Pygmalion falling in love with the ivory statue he made named Galatea, to which the goddess Venus eventually granted life.

This notion persists in modern times. Not only has science fiction explored this idea, but 40 years ago, scientists noticed that students at times became unusually attracted to ELIZA, a computer program designed to ask questions and mimic a psychotherapist.

"There's a trend of robots becoming more human-like in appearance and coming more in contact with humans," Levy said. "At first robots were used impersonally, in factories where they helped build automobiles, for instance. Then they were used in offices to deliver mail, or to show visitors around museums, or in homes as vacuum cleaners, such as with the Roomba. Now you have robot toys, like Sony's Aibo robot dog, or Tickle Me Elmos, or digital pets like Tamagotchis."

In his thesis, "Intimate Relationships with Artificial Partners," Levy conjectures that robots will become so human-like in appearance, function and personality that many people will fall in love with them, have sex with them and even marry them.

"It may sound a little weird, but it isn't," Levy said. "Love and sex with robots are inevitable."

Sex with robots in 5 years
Levy argues that psychologists have identified roughly a dozen basic reasons why people fall in love, "and almost all of them could apply to human-robot relationships. For instance, one thing that prompts people to fall in love are similarities in personality and knowledge, and all of this is programmable. Another reason people are more likely to fall in love is if they know the other person likes them, and that's programmable too."

In 2006, Henrik Christensen, founder of the European Robotics Research Network, predicted that people will be having sex with robots within five years, and Levy thinks that's quite likely. There are companies that already sell realistic sex dolls, "and it's just a matter of adding some electronics to them to add some vibration," he said, or endowing the robots with a few audio responses. "That's fairly primitive in terms of robotics, but the technology is already there."

As software becomes more advanced and the relationship between humans and robots becomes more personal, marriage could result. "One hundred years ago, interracial marriage and same-sex marriages were illegal in the United States. Interracial marriage has been legal now for 50 years, and same-sex marriage is legal in some parts of the states," Levy said. "There has been this trend in marriage where each partner gets to make their own choice of who they want to be with."

"The question is not if this will happen, but when," Levy said. "I am convinced the answer is much earlier than you think."

When and where it'll happen
Levy predicts Massachusetts will be the first jurisdiction to legalize human-robot marriage. "Massachusetts is more liberal than most other jurisdictions in the United States and has been at the forefront of same-sex marriage," Levy said. "There's also a lot of high-tech research there at places like MIT."

Although roboticist Ronald Arkin at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta does not think human-robot marriages will be legal anywhere by 2050, "anything's possible. And just because it's not legal doesn't mean people won't try it," he told LiveScience.

"Humans are very unusual creatures," Arkin said. "If you ask me if every human will want to marry a robot, my answer is probably not. But will there be a subset of people? There are people ready right now to marry sex toys."

The main benefit of human-robot marriage could be to make people who otherwise could not get married happier, "people who find it hard to form relationships, because they are extremely shy, or have psychological problems, or are just plain ugly or have unpleasant personalities," Levy said. "Of course, such people who completely give up the idea of forming relationships with other people are going to be few and far between, but they will be out there."

Ethical questions
The possibility of sex with robots could prove a mixed bag for humanity. For instance, robot sex could provide an outlet for criminal sexual urges. "If you have pedophiles and you let them use a robotic child, will that reduce the incidence of them abusing real children, or will it increase it?" Arkin asked. "I don't think anyone has the answers for that yet — that's where future research needs to be done."

Keeping a robot for sex could reduce human prostitution and the problems that come with it. However, "in a marriage or other relationship, one partner could be jealous or consider it infidelity if the other used a robot," Levy said. "But who knows, maybe some other relationships could welcome a robot. Instead of a woman saying, 'Darling, not tonight, I have a headache,' you could get 'Darling, I have a headache, why not use your robot?' "

Arkin noted that "if we allow robots to become a part of everyday life and bond with them, we'll have to ask questions about what's going to happen to our social fabric. How will they change humanity and civilization? I don't have any answers, but I think it's something we need to study. There's a real potential for intimacy here, where humans become psychologically and emotionally attached to these devices in ways we wouldn't to a vibrator."

Levy is currently writing a paper on the ethical treatment of robots. When it comes to sex and love with robots, "the ethical issues on how to treat them are something we'll have to consider very seriously, and they're very complicated issues," Levy said.

Levy successfully defended his thesis Oct. 11.
© 2007 LiveScience.com. All rights reserved.

Porn for Robots

Robot patrons line up to view the show in Sullivan's installation, currently showing at the Museum of Sex in Manhattan.

The Inorganic Dust of Life

ScienceDaily (Aug. 15, 2007) — Could extraterrestrial life be made of corkscrew-shaped particles of interstellar dust? Intriguing new evidence of life-like structures that form from inorganic substances in space have been revealed in the New Journal of Physics. The findings hint at the possibility that life beyond earth may not necessarily use carbon-based molecules as its building blocks. They also point to a possible new explanation for the origin of life on earth.

Life on earth is organic. It is composed of organic molecules, which are simply the compounds of carbon, excluding carbonates and carbon dioxide. The idea that particles of inorganic dust may take on a life of their own is nothing short of alien, going beyond the silicon-based life forms favoured by some science fiction stories.

Now, an international team has discovered that under the right conditions, particles of inorganic dust can become organised into helical structures. These structures can then interact with each other in ways that are usually associated with organic compounds and life itself.

V.N. Tsytovich of the General Physics Institute, Russian Academy of Science, in Moscow, working with colleagues there and at the Max-Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, Germany and the University of Sydney, Australia, has studied the behaviour of complex mixtures of inorganic materials in a plasma. Plasma is essentially the fourth state of matter beyond solid, liquid and gas, in which electrons are torn from atoms leaving behind a miasma of charged particles.

Until now, physicists assumed that there could be little organisation in such a cloud of particles. However, Tsytovich and his colleagues demonstrated, using a computer model of molecular dynamics, that particles in a plasma can undergo self-organization as electronic charges become separated and the plasma becomes polarized. This effect results in microscopic strands of solid particles that twist into corkscrew shapes, or helical structures. These helical strands are themselves electronically charged and are attracted to each other.

Quite bizarrely, not only do these helical strands interact in a counterintuitive way in which like can attract like, but they also undergo changes that are normally associated with biological molecules, such as DNA and proteins, say the researchers. They can, for instance, divide, or bifurcate, to form two copies of the original structure. These new structures can also interact to induce changes in their neighbours and they can even evolve into yet more structures as less stable ones break down, leaving behind only the fittest structures in the plasma.

So, could helical clusters formed from interstellar dust be somehow alive? "These complex, self-organized plasma structures exhibit all the necessary properties to qualify them as candidates for inorganic living matter," says Tsytovich, "they are autonomous, they reproduce and they evolve."

He adds that the plasma conditions needed to form these helical structures are common in outer space. However, plasmas can also form under more down to earth conditions such as the point of a lightning strike. The researchers hint that perhaps an inorganic form of life emerged on the primordial earth, which then acted as the template for the more familiar organic molecules we know today.

Adapted from materials provided by Institute of Physics.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/
070814150630.htm

The rather dour picture of Vladimir Putin, perhaps the world's most talented major politician (an entirely dubious honour, of course), links to a set of photos of world leaders in their younger years. Though not an entirely original exercise, one is reminded of a recent biography of Hitler which featured a photo of the dictator as a baby on the cover, it is still strangely fascinating.

Evolutionary Questions Before the Court Again

After reading the below article from the Guardian, I looked around and realized that cannibalism has actually become a hot topic among biologists lately.

THE family of a woman, allegedly killed and eaten by her boyfriend in Spain, are finally seeing her suspected murderer come to trial after a three-year wait.

This week Spanish authorities announced that Paul Durant, also wanted in England on armed robbery charges, is going to stand trial for the murder of Karen Durrell on November 3.

The body of the mother-of-two, who lived near Repton Park in Woodford Bridge, has never been found and the 47-year-old former convict allegedly confessed he ate her saying God delivered her to him.

On hearing of the trial, due to go ahead in Alicante, southeast Spain, Ms Durrell's sister Jackie Wood said: "Whilst as a family we are pleased that a trial date has been fixed, we don't see that the court case will bring us any closure.

"The only way we can feel more at peace and move on in our lives is through understanding what happened to Karen and being able to bring her back to this country to rest in peace.

"We remain extremely upset by what has happened to Karen."

Karen Durrell moved to Spain in January 2004 to start a new life but within weeks she was dead, the only trace of her left on bloodstained knives found in her flat in the holiday hotspot of Calpe near Benidorm.

Convicted armed robber and fugitive from justice Durant was arrested by the Spanish authorities in March 2004. He then wrote to a newspaper confessing he was a cannibal who had killed and eaten the 41-year-old from Emsworth Road after God sent her to him.

He wrote: "I believed God had delivered her to me and I was getting messages from the telly. After I killed her, I cut her body into small parts, eating what parts of her I found eatable. I finally disposed of what was left in small rubbish bags."

Investigators spent weeks searching in the rubbish bins around Ms Durrell's Spanish home but failed to find her body, only discovering a blood stained suitcase of hers.

Paul Durant escaped from British police custody while at the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel following his arrest on suspicion of armed robbery in December 2003.

He has never formally confessed to the killing and eating of Karen Durrell.

10:00am Thursday 14th June 2007

By Sara Dixon

The topic was addressed a little more nakedly, and humorously by the Star in their article.
Both however failed to put it into its proper objective context.

It is difficult to see how filial cannibalism, the consumption of one’s own offspring, can be an adaptive evolutionary strategy. It is, however, common in many animals, and surprisingly is often coupled with parental care, according to a report published by Oxford University Zoologist Dr Michael Bonsall, and Hope Klug from the University of Florida, in this month’s American Naturalist.

Funded by the Royal Society and the National Science Foundation, “When to care for, abandon, or eat your offspring: the evolution of parental care and filial cannibalism,” highlights the potential importance of a range of factors in the evolution of filial cannibalism using a mathematical model of analysis. It is potentially affected by the ability to selectively consume lower quality offspring, preferences associated with mate choice, density-mediated survival, and population dynamics.

Professor Michael Bonsall, a Royal Society Research Fellow and University Lecturer in Mathematical Biology at Oxford University, said: ‘This sort of behaviour - cannibalising your offspring - is widespread amongst different animal groups. We show that there is not a single benefit to eating your offspring, and it depends on several factors and explanations.’

Caring females such as the bank vole, the house finch, and the wolf spider often consume their young, and both parents of the burying beetle are known to consume some of their offspring. Filial cannibalism has also been well documented in fish species with paternal care during the egg stage.

It was previously thought that energetic need alone is the primary factor leading to filial cannibalism, in that a caring parent gains energy and nutrients from consuming its offspring, which are then reinvested into future reproductive events. However, the researchers found that a reduction in brood size reduces anticipated competition and thus affects survival of the remaining offspring.

The ability to abandon or consume offspring during the course of parental care can actually help the evolution of parent care. An analysis of the evolutionary dynamics of offspring abandonment, filial cannibalism, and parental care illustrates that these behaviours have the potential to coexist.

Source: Oxford University
http://www.physorg.com/

And...

Speaker gives insight on cannibalism
By: Hannah Tomlin
Posted: 10/26/07
Many scientists have been studying cannibalism over the past century.

On Thursday, Oct. 25, the department of biological sciences, Phi Sigma, and The Herman Brockman Fund sponsored Dr. Chad Johnson, behavior ecologist and alumni of Illinois State University, who presented his speech, "The Behavior, Ecology and Evolution of Cannibalism (Sexual and Otherwise): Why can't spiders just get along?"

Scott Sakala, distinguished professor, said that Johnson "obtained his masters working in my lab in 1998."

He explained that Herman Brockman is a "professor emeritus in the department and the first professor in the University to be appointed distinguished professor." Sakala introduced Johnson.

"I couldn't be more pleased or honored to be invited back for a Brockman seminar," Johnson said. During his speech, Johnson explained the work he did to obtain his Ph. D at the University of Kentucky and the research he is performing now.

Johnson explained the concept of precopulatory sexual cannibalism, which he described as an intra-specific, inter-sexual predation of a mate before sperm transfer. "It's a poster child for sexual conflict," said Johnson.

He used North American fishing spiders for an example of a species that takes part in sexual cannibalism.

These large spiders are associated with an aquatic habitat.

The female spiders attack the males during the transfer of sperm.

Johnson said these spiders are, "One of the few species where we have frequent occurrences of sexual cannibalism."

In this type of spider, males can sometimes be 10 times smaller than females.

However, Darwin suggested that male dwarfism is a good thing, according to Johnson.

"If there is a risk that the female will attack you and you are small, she might not attack you, "Johnson said.

He explained that males are food as well as sperm, and if females are going to attack, they need to know which is more important beforehand.

"You can't have a lot of offspring and you can't have a big egg sack unless you feed well," Johnson said.

More recently, Johnson has been studying widow spiders. "Widow spiders are the most infamous spiders out there," Johnson said.

According to Johnson, these spiders populate in areas of vast urban growth and are infamous for the medical concerns that come with their bites.

A study performed by one of his first students, Kathryn Kitchen, called "The Effects of Kin Selection and Family on Juvenile Cannibalism in the Black Widow Spider", won an award.

The study showed that feeding the spiders makes them more likely to cannibalize.

Johnson said the study revealed "Babies eating their brothers and sisters and ones they weren't related to months before they were reproductively mature." © Copyright 2007 The Daily Vidette
http://media.www.dailyvidette.com/media/storage/paper420/news/2007/10/26/News/Speaker.Gives.Insight.On.Cannibalism-3058391.shtml

Oeconomic Unrest Over Failed Aphrodisiacs

Thousands protest over ant aphrodisiac scheme

Wed Nov 21, 10:58 AM

By Chris Buckley

BEIJING (Reuters) - Thousands of people in northeastern China have protested on the streets and surrounded government offices demanding help recovering money from a get-rich-quick scheme to raise ants to make an aphrodisiac tonic.

Hundreds of anti-riot troops and police in Shenyang, capital of Liaoning province, were deployed to stop protesters reaching the provincial government and Communist Party headquarters, residents said on Wednesday.

The irate investors from across Liaoning, a rustbelt province striving to attract investment, have demonstrated in Shenyang since Monday and sporadic clashes with police have broken out, they said.

Several thousand protesters gathered near the provincial government offices on Wednesday, a resident told Reuters by telephone.

The investors -- many of them laid-off workers or farmers -- put their savings into Shenyang's Yilishen Group for a scheme in which they raised ants to provide ingredients for a health tonic promising an aphrodisiac boost.

For every 10,000 yuan ($1,350) they paid the company as "deposit," investors were promised a dividend of 3,250 yuan.

The tonic was promoted on television by Zhao Benshan, the country's best-known comic who specializes in playing innocent bumpkins with a northeastern twang.

But since October, the group has twice delayed payment of dividends, fuelling investor fears that it was on the brink of bankruptcy or that the government might have frozen its funds.

"We strongly demand the government offer a way out for Yilishen!" read a banner held by protesters as they marched along a Shenyang street. A photo of the banner was posted on Internet and blog sites.

China has seen rising protests from farmers and disgruntled workers as inequality and corruption stoke popular resentment

The unusual origin of this latest uproar was a reminder that even as China's economy booms, there are pitfalls that can spark discontent from citizens eager for a share of wealth.

Chinese media have said the scheme collected more than 10 billion yuan from hundreds of thousands of Liaoning residents.

USELESS RUSE?

Some local reports have said the ants were a useless ruse for an illegal scam, but the group has survived several probes in the past eight years and investors had previously received their dividends on time, protesters said.

As they looked for reassurance, panicked investors have turned their ire on the government.

"If Yilishen goes bankrupt, the government will be the chief culprit," said a message that appeared briefly on domestic Chinese Web sites before it was removed. "The government will be drinking our blood."

A Shenyang resident told Reuters that about 1,000 people had collected in front of the company's head office on Wednesday. Repeated calls to the office by Reuters went unanswered.

Investors said the group's good relations with the government and its commercials on state television had convinced them Yilishen was legitimate.

"It has been out there for eight years and the government has given the company and the manager so many honors. We thought there mustn't be any problem," investor Li Dechun told Reuters.

He said he had poured more than 200,000 yuan into the scheme.

A spokesman for the Liaoning provincial government said officials had been talking to the protesters, and the company's failure to pay dividends was not due to any government action.

"Most of the investors are from the lower class of society. Some have threatened to take more radical actions, such as blocking trains at the railway station," a local resident surnamed Cong told Reuters.

Online discussions about the protests and the ant scheme were quickly removed from Web sites, as were recent news reports about Yilishen. The Group's Web site was also shut, announcing "service unavailable."