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.