Pirate war could revive US-China military ties: US admiral

Thu Dec 18, 6:07 PM

WASHINGTON (AFP) - China's plans to join the fight against piracy off the coast of Somalia could lead to a renewal of military exchanges between Beijing and Washington, a top US military official said Thursday.

Admiral Timothy Keating, head of the Pacific Command, held out hopes for a revival in military relations after China said it was preparing to send warships to the Gulf of Aden in response to a pirate attack on a Chinese vessel.

"I hope the Chinese do (send ships to the Gulf of Aden) and we'll work closely with them," Keating told reporters.

"I think this could be a springboard for a resumption of dialogue between PLA forces and US Pacific Command forces," he said.

China suspended military contacts with the United States in October in protest over US arms sales to Taiwan valued at 6.5 billion dollars.

Relations between Taipei and Beijing, which regards Taiwan as a renegade province, nevertheless have warmed since President Ma Ying-jeou assumed office in Taiwan in May.

Keating said his command has been in touch with other agencies and military commands to provide information to the Peoples Liberation Army should it decide to deploy warships in Gulf of Aden.

The United States wants "to make sure they are aware of the lines of communications that are available to them... should they desire to send ships to the area of piracy most prevalent which is of course the Gulf of Aden and off the coast of Somalia."

Since the start of the year, about 100 ships have been attacked by Somali pirates who are holding 240 sailors for ransom.

Man dies after retirement party hijinks

Tue Dec 16, 12:24 PM

TOKYO (Reuters) - A 60-year-old man who was thrown into the air in celebration at his retirement party died after his colleagues failed to catch him and he fell to the floor, a Japanese newspaper reported on Tuesday.

The case came to light after the man's wife filed a police complaint against colleagues who threw the man up into the air, accusing them of gross negligence, the Mainichi paper reported on its website.

The man died in September, 10 months after the party attended by around 40 people at an unnamed transport company at an inn in Ritto, near the ancient capital of Kyoto in central Japan.

The fall damaged his neck and backbone, leaving him paralyzed, and he eventually died of blood poisoning, the paper said.

"He worked until the retirement age. We had been looking forward to going to various places as a couple and were excited that we would be able to spend a relaxing time together," the paper quoted the man's wife as saying.

"No matter what I say he won't come back, but I want to find out why this happened."

(Reporting by Rodney Joyce; Editing by Jerry Norton)

Shoe attack on Bush mars farewell Iraq visit

Sun Dec 14, 5:51 PM

BAGHDAD (AFP) - A journalist hurled two shoes at President George W. Bush on his farewell visit to Iraq on Sunday, highlighting hostility still felt toward the outgoing US leader who acknowledged that the war is still not won.

Muntazer al-Zaidi jumped up as Bush held a press conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, shouted "It is the farewell kiss, you dog" and threw his footwear.

The president lowered his head and the first shoe hit the American and Iraqi flags behind the two leaders. The second was off target.

Zaidi, a reporter with the Al-Baghdadia channel which broadcasts from Cairo, was immediately wrestled to the ground by security guards and frogmarched from the room.

Soles of shoes are considered the ultimate insult in Arab culture. After Saddam Hussein's statue was toppled in Baghdad in April 2003, many onlookers beat the statue's face with their soles.

Bush laughed off the incident, saying: "It doesn't bother me. If you want the facts, it was a size 10 shoe that he threw".

He later played down the incident. "I don't know what the guy's cause is... I didn't feel the least bit threatened by it."

Bush, on his fourth and final official trip to Iraq since he ordered the March 2003 invasion that toppled Saddam, admitted: "There is still more work to be done."

As he and Maliki signed a security pact setting out new guidelines for US troops in Iraq, the president said: "The war is not over, but with the conclusion of these agreements... it is decisively on its way to being won."

Earlier, Bush ventured out in a motorcade through Baghdad streets, the first time he has gone somewhere other than a military base or the heavily protected Green Zone.

Pool reports said the unmarked motorcade passed through darkened streets that appeared heavily guarded, before arriving at Maliki's residence.

Bush hands over the delicate task of overseeing the US withdrawal from Iraq in five weeks to Barack Obama, who has pledged to turn the page on the deeply unpopular war.

"I'm so grateful that I've had a chance to come back to Iraq before my presidency ends," he said at a meeting with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani.

In the evening, the president flew by helicopter from the Green Zone to Camp Victory near Bahgdad airport, where he greeted hundreds of US troops under a huge US flag and a gigantic crystal chandelier in the Al Faw palace, formerly used by Saddam.

Bush has staunchly defended the invasion that triggered years of deadly insurgency and sectarian violence that has killed tens of thousands of Iraqis and more than 4,200 American troops.

Modest inventor shies from sex, hopes his lady robot will be used for good

Thu Dec 11, 9:17 PM

By Tamsyn Burgmann, The Canadian Press

BRAMPTON, Ont. - To the casual observer, she's the very embodiment of a lady.

Dressed demurely in a blushing pink blouse, hands sheathed in dainty white gloves, Aiko - quite possibly Canada's first android - sits patiently, ready to engage in polite conversation using her 13,000-word vocabulary. She'll recognize your face, shake how-do-you-do, read you a story, add sums and deliver the current weather.

But underneath her wispy auburn hair and peaches and cream complexion is an anatomically correct silicone fembot, easily modified for any number of uses.

Of course peddling her to the sex industry would be lucrative, her creator agrees, but he insists he has far more noble aspirations for Aiko - which means "love child" in Japanese.

"To be honest with you, sex sells," said Trung Le, 33, after cradling the five-foot tall, 27-kilogram life-like doll on his lap for photographs in his parents' Brampton, Ont., home where he lives.

"It sells, but it's not like (she's) one of those $99 (dolls), right? It would be very expensive (to use that way). It would be cheaper just to spend money on my own, real girlfriend."

Le doesn't have a girlfriend right now, though, because he's been much too busy over the past year and a half developing the uber feminine robot. (To those who contend Aiko is his girlfriend, he has these words: "I don't care what they say.")

Costing him $25,000 so far in parts - including a sex doll from Japan for a body, sensors on her head, arms, face and breasts, oodles of bone-structure mechanics, a camera in her neck and computer processors - the project has moved from hobby to full-fledged passion.

His hopes for the humanoid's use are wide, varied and all in the name of helping humanity.

Le sees possible applications within homes for the elderly, inside hospitals or the military, working reception or providing airport security.

He also sees her as a research tool for developing fully-sensing limb replacements for people who've had an amputation.

In fact, she's so sensitive to touch if someone gets a little too rough, she cries out indignantly. If they're really pushing the boundaries, she moves in for a slap.

Le's older brother Quang, 35, doesn't entirely share his brother's modest views. Having been financially supporting his brother since Trung Le left his job about three months ago, he's trying to convince him to think big. And if that means moving towards the erotic, so be it.

"I don't see why not," Quang Le said. "I see a big application for this in any industry, you just have to tailor her to that industry."

With Trung Le's skills, it wouldn't even be that hard to do, the trouble is finding the financial backing.

So far, though, no one has been willing to pony up the estimated $12,000 in parts for his next goal: to give Aiko the ability to walk.

"Most people ... say it's fake," he said, explaining that when people watch his You Tube demonstrations, they think it's CGI or that she's pre-programmed.

Le, a former software engineer, graduated with a chemistry degree from York University. He built his first robot for a school science fair around the age of 8, shortly after his family moved to Canada from Japan, where they were living after leaving his birth country of Vietnam.

Every time he submitted an entry to the fair, however, he was somehow disqualified. So he backed away from his hi-tech dreams. Then more recently, he found the desire to create stirring within him again.

"I just want to see how far I can go, basically," he said. "It's one guy versus the corporation. (It's) like 50 engineers and million-dollar budgets against one guy, from his home, with his credit cards."

Italy to prop up iconic Parmesan industry by buying and giving cheese to the poor

Thu Dec 11, 3:04 PM

By Colleen Barry, The Associated Press

MILAN, Italy - Some might see it as a cheesy way to solve the problem of poverty.

The Italian government says it plans to gave cheese away to the underprivileged as a way to combat poverty while propping up one of the country's iconic industries.

Agriculture Minister Luca Zaia says he is committed to buying 100,000, 30-kilogram wheels each of Parmigiano Reggiano and the very similar Grana Padano cheese to donate to the needy.

Producers have sought government help in the face of prices that have fallen some 25 per cent over the past five years.

The government said it will buy three per cent of the annual production at market prices.

The Parmigiano Reggiano and Grana Padano consortia put the value of the purchase at about US-$66 million.

"It's a help. It doesn't resolve the problem, but it is a help," said Giorgio Apostoli, who represents dairy farmers for the Coldiretti agriculture lobby.

"This is a crisis of pricing, not of consumption," added Apostoli, who notes that while consumption of the more expensive Parmigiano Padano has fallen slightly in the last year, that of Grana Padano has risen slightly.

Apostoli said the measure doubles the usual government acquisition of Parmigiano and Gran Padano under an EU program to provide food for the poor.

The government also plans to convene a round table with distributors to negotiate sales promotions that will be fairer to producers, as well as launch campaigns to promote Italian Parmesan abroad, where it can command higher prices.

An overwhelming 85 per cent of the Parmigiano Reggiano and Grana Padano produced is consumed in Italy; Coldiretti estimates that some 60 per cent of that is sold at discounted prices.

Parmigiano Reggiano and Grana Padano cheeses are produced according to very strict traditions tied to their geographic origins - primarily the Po River Valley of northern Italy - specifying everything from the aging process to the origin of the milk used.

Italy is jealous even of the name Parmesan, having gone to the EU seeking to ban its use by copycats cashing in on the culinary tradition.

RNPS IMAGES OF THE YEAR 2008 Shreeya Bajracharya adjusts her 'third eye' while posing for the photographer as the newly appointed Goddess Kumari at Bhaktapur in Kathmandu September 29, 2008. Nepal's new Maoist-led government has appointed the 6-year-old girl as a 'living goddess' in a town near Kathmandu, for the first time snapping the link between the ancient ritual and the ousted monarchy.

REUTERS/Gopal Chitrakar (NEPAL)

Surging shoppers kill New York Wal-Mart employee

1 hour, 28 minutes ago

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A Wal-Mart employee in New York state's Long Island died on Friday when a throng of shoppers surged into the store and physically broke down the doors, a police spokesman said.

The 34-year-old man was at the entrance of the Valley Stream Walmart store when it opened at 5 a.m. local time and was knocked to the ground, the police report said.

The exact cause of death was still to be determined by a medical examiner.

Four shoppers, including a 28-year-old pregnant woman, were also taken to local hospitals for injuries sustained in the incident, police said.

The Friday after America's Thanksgiving holiday is known as Black Friday and marks what is traditionally the busiest retail day of the year, kicking off the Christmas shopping season.

U.S. stores across the country opened in the early hours of Friday to offer discounts to consumers hit by a contracting economy. Hundreds of shoppers waited on line before dawn at some locations to secure deals on holiday gifts.

Representatives at Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, were not immediately available for comment.

(Reporting by Michele Gershberg; Editing by Daniel Trotta and Sandra Maler)

The Internet is the new Book Burning

Tue Nov 25, 8:20 PM

By The Associated Press

NEW YORK - It's billed as the world's most expensive, most beautiful new book.

Valued at well over US$100,000, a 28-kilogram handmade tome depicting the life and work of Michelangelo has arrived at the New York Public Library, fresh from publication in Italy.

The velvet-and marble-bound book will go on public display next Tuesday.

It takes six months to make each book, using Italian artisan skills dating to the Renaissance. The copy on display was donated to the library but more than 20 books have been sold.

"I love books," Marilena Ferrari, the Italian publisher who produced the extravagance, said in a telephone interview from Bologna, Italy, where she's president of a company called FMR, which publishes fine books about art.

"Books are being destroyed by the Internet, they're losing their identity - it's the modern, Internet version of burning books," she said. "Today, things last so little before they disappear. "

The book, titled "Una Dotta Mano" or "the learned hand," has a front cover made of white marble from Michelangelo's favourite quarry, in Carrara. The binding is covered with a red silk velvet handmade by the same Italian shop that made the main stage curtains at The Metropolitan Opera and Milan's Teatro Alla Scala.

The book is filled with photographs of Michelangelo's drawings and sculptures. The text is by Michelangelo biographer Giorgio Vasari, with essays by the director of the Vatican Museums, Antonio Paolucci.

Japanese man releases hundreds of worms in train

Tue Nov 25, 10:01 AM

TOKYO (AFP) - A Japanese man was arrested for releasing hundreds of beetle larvae inside a moving express train to try to scare female passengers, police said Tuesday.

"I wanted to see women get scared and shake their legs," police quoted 35-year-old Manabu Mizuta as saying.

He was arrested on the spot by a patrolling police officer after releasing the creatures on the Keihan line in Osaka prefecture.

"He would go close to women on the train, any woman, and pour out the worms from containers," said a police spokesman.

Local police had been on alert after 18 similar cases of released worms had been reported this month by the same train operator.

"When the arrest was made, the man had nearly emptied a container, which is believed to have held 200 worms," he said. "You cannot count them because there are so many."

Mizuta had 10 containers in his backpack estimated to contain a total of 3,600 worms, police said.

"We have the worms sitting inside the police station right now," the spokesman said.

"You see them wriggling inside their clear cases. It's really disgusting."

Adventures in Italian Politics

Italian transvestite ex-MP triumphs as reality TV star

2 hours, 21 minutes ago

ROME (AFP) - The first transvestite elected to the Italian parliament, Vladimir Luxuria, garnered the votes of most TV viewers Monday night as the winner of the reality TV show "Celebrity Island."

The 43-year-old served in parliament for two years as a member of the Refoundation Communist Party before losing his bid for re-election in April.

Over the past six weeks Luxuria, whose real name is Wladimiro Guadagno, has been a star on reality TV, trying to survive living on the beaches of Honduras with other celebrity "survivors". In the end viewers picked Luxuria as their favourite.

"I admired his capacity to defy the prejudices of his companions," said Giorgio Gori, the show's producer.

Gori added that in the beginning his communist party members and voters "no doubt did not appreciate seeing their former deputy in a bikini, but the public rewarded his choice."

Luxuria plans to give half of the 100,000 euros (128,000 dollars) prize money to the UN children's agency UNICEF.

Born a man who dresses as a woman, Luxuria, also an actor, has become an icon of the Italian gay movement and easily won his seat in parliament in 2006 representing a district in Rome.

and

Italian far-right party offers money for babies named after Mussolini

2 hours, 49 minutes ago

By The Associated Press

ROME - What's in a name? A little extra cash, if the name is that of Italy's wartime Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini or his wife.

A far-right party is offering the equivalent of $2,400 Cdn to parents in southern Italian villages who name their children Benito or Rachele after the Mussolinis.

An official with the neo-Fascist Fiamma Tricolore party, Vincenzo Mancusi, says "they are nice names."

He says the initiative is a way to pay homage to his party's roots and keep alive names that are rarely used.

Mancusi said Tuesday the bonus applies to five villages in the Basilicata region where birth rates are especially low.

Designed as an incentive, it applies to babies who are born in 2009.

To some psychiatric patients, life seems like TV

By JENNIFER PELTZ, Associated Press Writer Jennifer Peltz, Associated Press Writer Mon Nov 24, 6:36 pm ET

NEW YORK – One man showed up at a federal building, asking for release from the reality show he was sure was being made of his life.

Another was convinced his every move was secretly being filmed for a TV contest. A third believed everything — the news, his psychiatrists, the drugs they prescribed — was part of a phony, stage-set world with him as the involuntary star, like the 1998 movie "The Truman Show."

Researchers have begun documenting what they dub the "Truman syndrome," a delusion afflicting people who are convinced that their lives are secretly playing out on a reality TV show. Scientists say the disorder underscores the influence pop culture can have on mental conditions.

"The question is really: Is this just a new twist on an old paranoid or grandiose delusion ... or is there sort of a perfect storm of the culture we're in, in which fame holds such high value?" said Dr. Joel Gold, a psychiatrist affiliated with New York's Bellevue Hospital.

Within a two-year period, Gold said he encountered five patients with delusions related to reality TV. Several of them specifically mentioned "The Truman Show."

Gold and his brother, a psychologist, started presenting their observations at medical schools in 2006. After word spread beyond medical circles this summer, they learned of about 50 more people with similar symptoms. The brothers are now working on a scholarly paper.

Meanwhile, researchers in London described a "Truman syndrome" patient in the British Journal of Psychiatry in August. The 26-year-old postman "had a sense the world was slightly unreal, as if he was the eponymous hero in the film," the researchers wrote.

The Oscar-nominated movie stars Jim Carrey as Truman Burbank. He leads a merrily uneventful life until he realizes his friends and family are actors, his seaside town is a TV soundstage and every moment of his life has been broadcast.

His struggle to sort out reality and illusion is heartwarming, but researchers say it's often horrifying for "Truman syndrome" patients.

A few take pride in their imagined celebrity, but many are deeply upset at what feels like an Orwellian invasion of privacy. The man profiled in the British journal was diagnosed with schizophrenia and is unable to work. One of Gold's patients planned to commit suicide if he couldn't leave his supposed reality show.

Delusions can be a symptom of various psychiatric illnesses, as well as neurological conditions such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases. Some drugs also can make people delusional.

It's not unusual for psychiatrists to see delusional patients who believe their relatives have been replaced by impostors or who think figures in their lives are taking on multiple disguises.

But "Truman" delusions are more sweeping, involving not just some associates but society at large, Gold said.

Delusions tend to be classified by broad categories, such as the belief that one is being persecuted, but research has shown culture and technology can also affect them. Several recent studies have chronicled delusions entwined with the Internet such as a patient in Austria who believed she had become a walking webcam.

Reality television may help such patients convince themselves their experiences are plausible, according to the Austrian woman's psychiatrists, writing in the journal Psychopathology in 2004.

Ian Gold, a philosophy and psychology professor at McGill University in Montreal who has researched the matter with his brother, suggests reality TV and the Web, with their ability to make strangers into intimates, may compound psychological pressure on people who have underlying problems dealing with others.

That's not to say reality shows make healthy people delusional, "but, at the very least, it seems possible to me that people who would become ill are becoming ill quicker or in a different way," Ian Gold said.

Other researchers aren't convinced, but still find the "Truman syndrome" an interesting example of the connection between culture and mental health.

Vaughan Bell, a psychologist who has researched Internet-related delusions, said one of his own former patients believed he was in the virtual-reality universe portrayed in the 1999 blockbuster "The Matrix."

"I don't think that popular culture causes delusions," said Bell, who is affiliated with King's College London and the Universidad de Antioquia in Medellin, Colombia. "But I do think that it is only possible to fully understand delusions and psychosis in light of our wider culture."

U.S. teen lives 118 days without heart

Wed Nov 19, 3:35 PM

By Jim Loney

MIAMI (Reuters) - An American teen-ager survived for nearly four months without a heart, kept alive by a custom-built artificial blood-pumping device, until she was able to have a heart transplant, doctors in Miami said on Wednesday.

The doctors said they knew of another case in which an adult had been kept alive in Germany for nine months without a heart but said they believed this was the first time a child had survived in this manner for so long.

The patient, D'Zhana Simmons of South Carolina, said the experience of living for so long with a machine pumping her blood was "scary."

"You never knew when it would malfunction," she said, her voice barely above a whisper, at a news conference at the University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Medical Center.

"It was like I was a fake person, like I didn't really exist. I was just here," she said of living without a heart.

Simmons, 14, suffered from dilated cardiomyopathy, a condition in which the patient's heart becomes weakened and enlarged and does not pump blood efficiently.

She had a heart transplant on July 2 at Miami's Holtz Children's Hospital but the new heart failed to function properly and was quickly removed.

Two heart pumps made by Thoratec Corp of Pleasanton, California, were implanted to keep her blood flowing while she fought a host of ailments and recovered her strength. Doctors implanted another heart on October 29.

"She essentially lived for 118 days without a heart, with her circulation supported only by the two blood pumps," said Dr. Marco Ricci, the hospital's director of pediatric cardiac surgery. During that time, Simmons was mobile but remained hospitalized.

When an artificial heart is used to sustain a patient, the patient's own heart is usually left in the body, doctors said.

In some cases, adult patients have been kept alive that way for more than a year, they said.

"This, we believe, is the first pediatric patient who has received such a device in this configuration without the heart, and possibly one of the youngest that has ... been bridged to transplantation without her native heart," Ricci said.

Simmons also suffered renal failure and had a kidney transplant the day after the second heart transplant.

Ricci said her prognosis was good. But doctors said there is a 50 percent chance that a heart transplant patient will need a new heart 12 or 13 years after the first surgery.

(Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

Austria up in arms over school kissing ban

Thu Nov 20, 2:31 PM

VIENNA (AFP) - The decision by a headmaster in Austria to ban kissing from his school made front-page news Thursday as outraged pupils and politicians slammed the move as medieval and excessive.

Siegfried Biermair, the head of a school in Gunskirchen, Upper Austria, sent a letter to parents on Monday informing them of the kissing ban after teachers complained that the kissing rituals of some girls were getting out of hand.

Instead of simply greeting each other with a light peck on the cheeks between lessons, some 14-year-olds had taken to "theatrically falling into each other's arms and kissing each other on the mouth, sometimes very intimately and for many minutes," Biermair complained.

Such behaviour "could lead to undesirable developments" and boys could also start demanding kisses, he argued.

So, at a meeting, teachers and a number of parents had voted unanimously in favour of a kissing ban.

However, the move was immediately slammed as "ridiculous" and "excessive", not only by pupils, but by politicians as well.

"The ban is not only totally disproportionate, it's also completely counterproductive," said Matthias Hansy, head of Austria's Pupil's Union in a statement.

"There are much more pressing problems at our schools, such as the increasing trend towards violence," Hansy said.

Another pupils' group, "Aktion Kritischer Schueler" or AKS, said the ban reflected an "outdated, medieval world-view".

"We won't allow the dignity and rights of pupils to be downtrodden in this way," said AKS head Vanessa Gaigg.

"School directors are not monarchs who can impose their ridiculous values on pupils."

AKS urged Upper Austria's schools minister, Fritz Enzenhofer, to overturn the ban immediately and the group said it would organise a "kiss-in" protest in Enzenhofer's office next week if he refused.

A politician from the far-right populist BZOe party, Rainer Widmann, saw the ban as an "undue interference in pupils' privacy."

The education expert of the regional branch of the environmental Green party, Gottfried Hirz, agreed.

"We should be happy that at a time when violent videos and increasing violence in schools, pupils are once again displaying behaviour of mutual affection," Hirz said.

"Don't we have more pressing pedagogical problems in our schools at the moment?"

"Human Teeth" from the Internet Encyclopedia

Skull with built-in sauna turns heads in Vienna

Mon Nov 17, 1:19 PM

By The Associated Press

VIENNA, Austria - An oversize skull with a built-in sauna is turning heads in the Austrian capital.

The white walk-in structure - situated near a busy Vienna intersection - is known as the "Wellness Skull" and also boasts a bathtub and shower. On either side of the neck, that is.

The eye-catching installation, which stands 4.5 metres tall and is made of wood and synthetic material, is the brainchild of Dutch artist Joep van Lieshout.

Van Lieshout said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press that his 2007 creation was part of a series of pieces linked to body parts.

"It's really a piece that has many different interpretations," van Lieshout said when asked about the skull's deeper meaning. "Like a painter uses paint, I use design."

Tourists and locals alike appeared astounded by the skull Monday, two days before it officially goes on display as part of an effort by Public Art Vienna to revitalize and enhance urban space around the capital.

"It's the most random thing I've seen in Vienna," said 27-year-old Nick Abrahams from London as he walked it Monday afternoon.

"It's really strange," echoed Nick Trute, 29, from Sydney, Australia.

Although the skull was built to be fully functional, visitors won't be able to try it out or witness steam emanating from its eye sockets - something that only happens when the sauna, which fits eight people, is in use.

Visitors will be able to go inside every first Saturday of the month or by appointment through March 15.

Americans Desire Less Tolerance

Hollywood out of step with American morals: poll

Mon Nov 17, 12:48 AM

By Gregg Kilday

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - A majority of Americans say Hollywood doesn't share their moral values, according to a poll commissioned by the Anti-Defamation League, a group that fights anti-Semitism.

Sixty-one percent of those surveyed said that religious values in America are "under attack," and 59% agreed that "the people who run the TV networks and the major movie studios do not share the religious and moral values of most Americans."

The poll, titled "American Attitudes on Religion, Moral Values and Hollywood," was conducted by the Marttila Communications Group, which surveyed 1,000 adults nationwide. It was released Friday at the ADL's annual meeting in Los Angeles.

"These findings point to the challenges that we face in dealing with issues of religion in society," said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL national director. "The belief that religion is under attack underlies the drive to incorporate more religion into American public life. Disturbingly, 43% of Americans believe there is an organized campaign by Hollywood and the national media to weaken the influence of religious values in this country."

Among the survey's findings:

-- 61% of respondents agree that "religious values are under attack in this country," while 36% disagree with that statement.

-- 43% said that Hollywood and the national media are waging an organized campaign to "weaken the influence of religious values in this country."

-- 63% disagree with the statement that "the movie and television industries are pretty much run by Jews," while only 22% agree with that point. When ADL conducted its first survey on anti-Semitic attitudes, in 1964, nearly half of the respondents believed that the television and film industries were run by Jews.

-- Nearly 40% support the notion that "dangerous ideas should be banned from public school libraries," and nearly the same number disagree with the statement that "censoring books is an old-fashioned idea."

-- Nearly half of those surveyed -- 49% -- believe that the United States is becoming "too tolerant in its acceptance of different ideas and lifestyles; 47% disagree with that statement.

The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percent.

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter

Call to action: Dallas pastor issuing 7-day sex challenge to congregants

Wed Nov 12, 4:33 PM

By The Associated Press

DALLAS - The pastor of a megachurch says he will challenge married congregants during his sermon Sunday to have sex for seven straight days - and he plans to practise what he preaches.

"We're going to give it a try," said Rev. Ed Young, who has four children with his wife of 26 years.

Young, 47, said he believes society promotes promiscuity and he wants to reclaim sex for married couples. Sex should be a nurturing, spiritual act that strengthens marriages, he said.

"God says sex should be between a married man and a woman," Young said. "I think it's one of the greatest things you can do for your kids because so goes the marriage, so goes the family."

Young said he will deliver his seven-day sex challenge while sitting on a bed in front of his Dallas-area church campus.

He is founder of the nondenominational Fellowship Church, which draws about 20,000 people each Sunday and also has campuses in Fort Worth, Plano and Miami.

Earlier this year, a southwest Florida pastor, perhaps having more faith in his congregants' stamina, issued a 30-day sex challenge.

New program in Brazil offers Botox for low-income beauty-seekers

Mon Nov 10, 3:26 PM

By The Associated Press

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - Want Botox but don't have the bucks?

Not a problem in beauty-obsessed Rio de Janeiro - at least if you don't mind a trainee doing the work.

The Brazilian Society of Esthetic Medicine is offering free Botox injections and several other beauty treatments to those earning less than $250 a month.

Spokeswoman Isabel Alvarez says the program lets student doctors get experience and gives the poor a chance for luxury treatments they couldn't normally afford.

Also offered are laser hair or acne removal, chemical skin peels, treatment of varicose veins and nutritional counselling.

Alvarez says the program has operated sporadically since 1998 and has treated some 10,000 people.

This year's 10-day program started Monday.

Woman dies after being hit by husband's coffin on the way to cemetery

By The Associated Press
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SAO PAULO, Brazil - Police say a woman has died on the way to a cemetery when a traffic accident hurled her husband's coffin against the back of her neck.

Police say 67-year old Marciana Barcelos was in the front passenger seat of the hearse when the accident occurred Monday in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul.

Barcelos died instantly.

Her 76-year-old husband Josi Coimbra died Sunday of a heart attack while dancing at a party.

The driver of hearse and Barcelos' son suffered minor injuries.

Obese man convicted of crushing wife to death wins new trial

Thu Nov 6, 3:03 PM

OTTAWA (AFP) - A Canadian man who weighs 380 pounds (172 kilograms) will face a new trial for crushing his wife to death, local media said Thursday.

The Ontario Court of Appeal overturned Peter Mathisen's 2005 murder conviction and ordered a new trial, saying the trial judge failed to properly instruct the jury about whether the death may have been accidental.

According the daily Toronto Star, Mathisen and his wife got into a brawl after he confronted her about an affair and accused her of poisoning him.

The prosecution alleged she died of strangulation, while a defense expert testified she was likely crushed to death. Mathisen said in court he did not realize his knee was pressed against her chest.

Justice John Laskin wrote in the original decision the victim died because Mathisen either "put his knee on his wife's chest and kept it there" or "continually sat on his wife's chest."

"The pivotal question is whether ... he did so unintentionally," the judge concluded.

Women lead in bacteria, hands down, according to study of 51 college students

Mon Nov 3, 6:59 PM

By Randolph E. Schmid, The Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Wash your hands, folks, especially you ladies.

A new study found that women have a greater variety of bacteria on their hands than men do. And everybody has more types of bacteria than the researchers expected to find.

"One thing that really is astonishing is the variability between individuals, and also between hands on the same individual," said University of Colorado biochemistry assistant professor Rob Knight, a co-author of the paper.

"The sheer number of bacteria species detected on the hands of the study participants was a big surprise, and so was the greater diversity of bacteria we found on the hands of women," added lead researcher Noah Fierer, an assistant professor in Colorado's department of ecology and evolutionary biology.

The researchers aren't sure why women harboured a greater variety of bacteria than men, but Fierer suggested it may have to do with the acidity of the skin. Knight said men generally have more acidic skin than women.

Other possibilities are differences in sweat and oil gland production between men and women, the frequency of moisturizer or cosmetics applications, skin thickness or hormone production, he said.

Women also may have more bacteria living under the surface of the skin where they are not accessible to washing, Knight added.

Asked if guys should worry about holding hands with girls, Knight said: "I guess it depends on which girl."

He stressed that "the vast majority of the bacteria we have on our body are either harmless or beneficial ... the pathogens are a small minority."

The researchers took samples from the palms of 51 college students - that's 102 hands - and tested the samples using a new, highly detailed system for detecting bacteria DNA.

They identified 4,742 species of bacteria overall, only five of which were on every hand, they report on Monday's online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The average hand harboured 150 species of bacteria.

Not only did individuals have few types of bacteria in common, the left and right hands of the same individual shared only about 17 per cent of the same bacteria types, the researchers found.

The differences between dominant and non-dominant hands were probably due to environmental conditions like oil production, salinity, moisture or variable environmental surfaces touched by either hand of an individual, Fierer said.

Knight said the researchers hope to repeat the experiment in other countries where different hands are assigned specific tasks.

While the researchers stressed the importance of regular hand washing, they also noted that washing did not eliminate bacteria.

"Either the bacterial colonies rapidly re-establish after hand washing, or washing (as practised by the students included in this study) does not remove the majority of bacteria taxa found on the skin surface," the researchers said in their report.

While the tests could determine how many different types of bacteria were present, they could not count the total amount of bacteria on each hand.

The research was funded primarily by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.

-

On the Net:

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: http://www.pnas.org

As people take tourist photos, other tourists are inevitably included in the background. Each person who enters the space being photographed ends up in numerous personal collections around the world.

Belgian conceptual artists Jan Fabre causing another stink in the art world

Mon Nov 3, 11:40 AM

By The Associated Press

ANTWERP, Belgium - Belgian conceptual artist Jan Fabre is creating another big stink in the art world.

And more than a few museum-goers are expressing their distaste after touring Fabre's "Spring is on its way" exhibit at Antwerp's MuHKA museum of contemporary art.

It consists of onions and potatoes hung from the ceiling in condoms and the vegetables are, well, spoiling.

Museum spokeswoman Kathleen Weyts defends the exhibit, saying that like many of his works, Fabre's latest effort is "about transformation and metamorphosis."

But the local media reports that many visitors, not to mention museum guards, are protesting the smelly display, which has now become the talk of the town.

It's not the first time people have turned up their noses at Fabre's work. Eight years ago he got the same reaction in Ghent, Belgium, after covering some university pillars in ham.

"Protest Against Fabre's Stink Art," headlined the Het Nieuwsblad newspaper in response to the Antwerp exhibit.

"Fabre's stinking work raises tempers," added the VRT television network on its website.

Some shoots have broken through the condoms and other condoms have crashed to the floor from the weight of the vegetables.

The Antwerp museum has no plans to remove Fabre's installation, which runs until the start of spring 2009, but it is removing any vegetables that fall.

"It smells of onions, but I would not call it a stink," MuHKA director Bart De Baere said in defending the exhibit to VRT.

"Fabre always says that art must be a bit smelly," added Weyts.

The Sex Lives of Hockey Players

Frost's alleged victims deny three-way sex, but say it's common in hockey

Thu Oct 30, 7:33 PM

By Allison Jones, The Canadian Press

NAPANEE, Ont. - The two men David Frost is alleged to have sexually exploited as teens candidly acknowledged Thursday that group sex is an accepted "bonding" practice in the hockey world but emphatically denied that their former coach took part in threesomes or manipulated their sexual behaviour.

The men were called as defence witnesses - unusual for alleged victims - and the prosecutor suggested that sex acts involving the players, their girlfriends and Frost did in fact happen, and that as two former members of Frost's "cult," they are now trying to protect him.

The last day of testimony at Frost's trial saw both alleged victims refute much of this week's testimony from their former girlfriends. The women, now 28, told court Frost held such sway over his players, holding the key to their hockey careers, that he could compel them to engage in various sex acts in the 1990s.

Frost, the ex-coach of the junior A Quinte Hawks, has pleaded not guilty to four counts of sexual exploitation relating to two of his former players who cannot be named.

The Canadian Press is also not identifying the two women who have testified this week about having sex with players and Frost during the period of the alleged offences, when they were juveniles, though the women are not part of the same publication ban.

The first man to testify Thursday told the court that group sex is common among hockey players and that he has had sexual encounters involving one girl and as many as five or six other males.

"It's like a bonding thing with your friends or teammates," he said.

The man said during cross-examination that it would be unusual for a coach to be involved.

The second man to testify said he never had a threesome with Frost and never had any threesomes at all while playing with the Hawks for one season, contradicting earlier testimony from the two women and a former teammate.

He also played down his on-off, six-year relationship with the woman, which started when they were 16, in which he funded her education, paid for her rent, car and cellphone.

"Are you playing down this relationship because you feel guilty about the way she was used?" Crown attorney Sandy Tse asked.

The man portrayed his ex-girlfriend as promiscuous among hockey players, clingy and not very attractive.

"I was 16. It worked... Beggars can't be choosers," he said.

His ex-girlfriend had testified that Frost insisted the three engage in sex throughout the relationship, even when the player lived in the U.S. and she was visiting. The man initially said Frost had never been to his condo there. During cross-examination, he mentioned a time Frost was at the condo over Christmas.

The man became more and more defensive as his cross-examination progressed, resulting in an outburst in which he denied he was protecting Frost.

"Listen, there's nobody in this courtroom that has more to resent that guy about than me," he said, referring to being associated with Frost and the allegations.

"You can make me look like this guy who was controlled... (but) I'm not controlled by anybody. I'm (me). I'm my own person."

Tse suggested the man was covering for Frost out of a sense of loyalty. When allegations involving Frost and inappropriate behaviour were investigated years ago, the man stopped speaking to his parents for 1 1/2 years, believing they were responsible for the allegations, Tse said.

"That's the loyalty you were showing Mr. Frost."

Frost's inner circle started to form when the two alleged victims were about 11, Tse said. They first played at his hockey camp, then were coached by him in Brampton, Ont. When the five players Frost mentored tried out for the Quinte Hawks and two or three didn't make it, all five returned to Brampton as a unit, the men said.

The bond between the players and Frost was strong, Tse said, suggesting it was so powerful that many people referred to the group as a "cult."

The first witness didn't agree they were like a cult, but acknowledged "that's what was perceived of us."

He also denied two threesomes his ex-girlfriend testified occurred between the young couple and Frost. He said they did have two threesomes - just with Mike Danton, who went on to play in the NHL.

Danton, who played for the Hawks during Frost's tenure, later played for the St. Louis Blues and is currently in prison in the U.S. for a failed murder-for-hire plot that allegedly targeted Frost.

Tse introduced a letter, which he said Frost had written to the group, giving advice such as remembering that sacrifices lead to success and to read more books. It also emphasized the need to stay close and support each other.

"Isn't that what you're doing today?" Tse asked the witness. "Standing together, keeping the bond and protecting Mr. Frost?"

Closing arguments in the trial are scheduled for Monday, and the judge will deliver his decision Nov. 28.

Chemical Anomie

Japanese officials alarmed over growing number of suicides from toxic fumes

1 hour, 33 minutes ago

By The Associated Press

TOKYO - Officials in Japan are raising the alarm over what they say its the soaring number of people killing themselves by inhaling toxic fumes from household chemicals.

Japan has long battled a high suicide rate.

But officials say the country is now in the grip of a wave of deaths by people who take their own lives by mixing commonly available household products to form poisonous hydrogen sulphide gas.

The gas can form noxious clouds that also affect those who happen to be nearby, often triggering mass evacuations.

Japanese officials say the number of toxic fume suicides jumped to 876 from January to September, 30 times more than in the same period last year.

Alarmed by the surge, police have launched a crackdown on popular Internet sites that give instructions on how to commit suicide using the method.

Toxic fume suicides are the latest in a string of suicide fads in Japan. Until this year, many suicide cases involved people who found each other on the Internet and committed suicide together, often by sealing themselves in a car and lighting a charcoal-burning brazier.

The number of suicides hit 33,093 in 2007, a 2.9 per cent increase from the previous year and the second-highest annual tally on record, according to the National Police Agency.

To curb the high suicide rate, the government has earmarked $220 million for anti-suicide programs to help those with depression and other mental health problems.

Japan has the eighth-highest suicide rate in the world, according to the World Health Organization.

US scientists perfect targeted memory erasure in mice

Thu Oct 23, 11:11 AM

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US researchers have said they are able to selectively erase memories from mice in a laboratory, raising hopes human memory afflictions like post-traumatic stress syndrome can one day be cured.

"Targeted memory erasure is no longer limited to the realm of science fiction," the research team headed by Joe Tsien, from the Brain and Behavior Discovery Institute at the Medical College of Georgia, said in Thursday's issue of Cell Press magazine.

The new technique, which the team stress is at a very early stage, could be applied one day to the human brain to erase traumatic memories or deep-set fears, and leave all other memories unaffected.

Memory is generally separated into four different stages: acquisition, consolidation, storage, and retrieval. Earlier research identified specific molecules that appear to play a role in the various phases of the memory process.

But Tsien said his team found a way to quickly manipulate the activity of the "memory molecule," the protein CaMKII (calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II) that plays a key role in brain cell communication, and so is linked to many aspects of learning and memory.

Researchers developed a "chemical genetic strategy," which made it possible to manipulate the protein in transgenic mice, which had been bred to overproduce the molecule.

"Using this technique, we examined the manipulation of transgenic CaMKII activity on the retrieval of short-term and long-term fear memories and novel object recognition memory" in transgenic mice, Tsien said.

The team figured out they could manipulate the protein in the mice's brain as the animal was stimulated, and observe the brain's ability to recall memory of the stimulation.

Through the protein manipulation, researchers then found a way to not just block the mice's memory of the stimulation, but erase them without impacting the brain's ability to recall other memories.

Tsien became famous in 1999 for his creation of Doggie, the smart transgenic mouse with enhanced learning and memory abilities.

In the recent findings, Tsien's team found that transient excessive activity of CaMKII at the time of recall impaired retrieval of short- and long-term fear memories, as well as memories formed as recently as one hour.

They also showed that recall deficits linked to excessive CaMKII activity were not caused by a blockade of the recall process but instead seemed to be due to rapid erasure of the stored memories.

In addition, they found that the erased memories were limited to those being retrieved, while others remained intact.

"The results demonstrate a successful genetic method for rapidly and specifically erasing specific memories, such as new and old fear memories, in a controlled and inducible manner without doing harm to the brain cells," the researchers said.

Tsien said the technique might one day be applied to war veterans who "often suffer from reoccurring traumatic memory replays after returning home."

However, he warned that it was premature to expect a such a miracle cure.

"No one should expect to have a pill do the same in humans any time soon, we are barely at the foot of a very tall mountain," he said.

Bee swarm kills 3 dogs, injures 70-year-old woman in Florida

1 hour, 45 minutes ago

By The Associated Press

RIVIERA BEACH, Fla. - A 70-year-old woman is injured and three dogs are dead after a swarm of bees terrorized a neighbourhood in South Florida.

Authorities say crews removed about 25 kilograms of honeycomb from the side of a home in Palm Beach County after Friday's attack. The hive has been contained.

The bees swarmed Nancy Hill and her two dogs.

Hill was treated at a hospital, but the dogs died. The bees also attacked two other dogs in the neighbourhood. One of those died and the other was injured.

Lab tests should determine whether the bees were Africanized bees, also known as killer bees.

Their stings are no more potent than an ordinary bee's, but they are far more aggressive and attack in swarms.

Mail warns financial institutions of "payback"

2 hours, 44 minutes ago

By JoAnne Allen

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Threatening letters containing a suspicious white powder mailed to three U.S. financial institutions warn "it's payback time," according to a text released by the FBI on Thursday.

More than 50 letters, with identical or similar threatening language, were sent to Chase Bank offices, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and the U.S. Office of Thrift Supervision, the FBI said.

"Steal tens of thousands of people's money and not expect repercussions (sic). It's payback time. What you just breathed in will kill you within 10 days. Thank (redacted) and the FDIC for your demise," said the text posted on the FBI Web site.

The agency also released a photograph of the envelope in which the letter was mailed. It was addressed to a Chase Bank branch in Lakewood, Colorado, and bears an Amarillo, Texas, postmark. All the letters were mailed from the city in the Texas panhandle, the FBI said.

Field tests determined that the powdery substance contained in most of the letters appears harmless, the FBI said, adding that other laboratory tests were being conducted.

U.S. authorities have been on alert for such letters since 2001, when envelopes laced with anthrax were sent to media outlets and U.S. lawmakers and killed five people.

The FBI released the photographs on its Web site and appealed for the public's help in identifying the person who mailed the threatening letters. (http://www.fbi.gov/page2/oct08/threatletters_102308.html)

"Please study the images above and see if you recognize the phrasing of the letter, the envelope label, or any other clue that you think might help investigators," the agency said.

The U.S. Postal Inspection Service is offering a reward of up to $100,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of whomever is responsible.

The letters have been sent to at least 11 states, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas, and Virginia.

The New York Times headquarters in Manhattan received envelopes containing a suspicious white powder on Wednesday, but an FBI official said it was not clear whether it was a related incident.

JPMorgan Chase & Co last week surpassed Citigroup Inc to become the largest U.S. bank. It has aggressively acquired other assets as the financial system has weakened, including the banking assets of Washington Mutual Inc.

Chan's Megastick

Britain museum notes discovery of a huge bug, the world's longest

Thu Oct 16, 8:48 PM

By The Associated Press

LONDON - A stick bug from the island of Borneo measuring well over 30 centimetres in length has been identified by researchers as the world's longest insect.

British scientists say the specimen was found by a local villager and handed to Malaysian amateur naturalist Datuk Chan Chew Lun in 1989.

Philip Bragg, who formally identified the insect in this month's issue of peer-reviewed journal Zootaxa, says the insect was named Phobaeticus chani, or "Chan's megastick," in Chan's honour.

Paul Brock, a scientific associate of the Natural History Museum in London unconnected to the insect's discovery, says there's no doubt it was the longest still in existence.

Looking like a pencil-thin shoot of bamboo, the dull-green insect measures about 56 centimetres, if its twig-like legs are counted.

Its body length is 35 centimetres, beating the previous record held by Phobaeticus kirbyi, also from Borneo, by about two centimetres.

Stick bugs have some of the animal kingdom's cleverest camouflage.

Although some use noxious sprays or prickly spines to deter predators, generally the bugs assume the shape of sticks and leaves to avoid drawing attention.

Brock says their main defence is basically just hanging around, looking like a twig. They sometimes just sway in the wind.

Construction workers unearthed Roman city of the dead, archeologists say

1 hour, 42 minutes ago

By Ariel David, The Associated Press

ROME - Workers renovating a rugby stadium have uncovered a vast complex of tombs beneath Rome that mimic the houses, blocks and streets of a real city, officials said Thursday as they unveiled a series of new finds here.

Culture Ministry officials said that medieval pottery shards in the city of the dead, or necropolis, show the area may have been inhabited by the living during the Dark Ages after being used for centuries for burials during the Roman period.

It is not yet clear who was buried in the ancient cemetery, but archeologists at the partially excavated site believe at least some of the dead were freed slaves of Greek origin.

"It's a matter of a few weeks to discover what is down there," said archeologist Marina Piranomonte. "But it's something big; it looks like a neighbourhood."

A separate dig in the north of the city has turned up the tomb of a nobleman who led Rome's legions in the second century AD.

The mausoleum was covered in mud during a flood of the river Tiber, which collapsed most of the monument but helped preserve exquisite decorations, marble columns and inscriptions from plunderers and the ravages of time.

Writings at the site led experts to identify the tomb as belonging to Marcus Nonius Macrinus, one of the closest aides and generals of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius during his campaigns against Germanic tribes in Northern Europe.

Other spectacular discoveries were also unveiled at the news conference at the Culture Ministry.

Archeologists restoring the imperial residences on the Palatine Hill, in the heart of ancient Rome, believe they have discovered the underground passageway in which the despotic Emperor Caligula was murdered by his own guards.

The hill, which is honeycombed with ruins of palaces and villas, has also yielded frescoes and black-and-white mosaics in the first century BC home of a patrician, the ministry said in a statement.

Separately, experts working in Castel di Guido on the outskirts of Rome have enlarged their dig at a previously known complex of country villas owned by Rome's rich and powerful, uncovering fountains, baths and a cistern, the statement said.

Archeologists will keep working at the digs to make them accessible to visitors. Officials plan to build a museum next to Macrinus' tomb, which will also offer a virtual reconstruction of the site.

This 1944 photo provided by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum shows Nazi officers and female auxiliaries, Helferinnen, posing on a wooden bridge in Solahutte. a little known SS resort some 30 km. south of Auschwitz on the Sola River in Poland, At center, Karl Hoecker. The photo is one of approximately 116 rare photographs of senior SS officers and Nazi officials at the Auschwitz concentration camp included in Hoecker's photo album, unveiled Wednesday, Sept. 19, 2007, by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Via

Woman changes name to a URL to protest animal dissections

Mon Oct 13, 11:38 PM

By The Associated Press

ASHEVILLE, North Carolina - You can call her CutoutDissection.com, Cutout for short, but just don't call her Jennifer.

The former Jennifer Thornburg - whose driver's license now reads Dissection.com, Cutout - wanted to do something to protest animal dissections in schools.

The 19-year-old's new name is also the web address for an anti-dissection page of the site for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, where she is interning.

"I normally do have to repeat my name several times when I am introducing myself to someone new," she told The Asheville Citizen-Times. "Once they find out what my name is, they want to know more about what the website is about."

The Asheville High School graduate who is working in Virginia said she began opposing dissections in middle school after a class assignment to cut up a chicken wing made her uncomfortable. She helped create a policy at her high school that allows students who object to dissections to complete an alternative assignment.

Despite her legally changing the name, she said most of her family members still call her Jennifer.

"It will take me a while," said her dad, Duane Thornburg, who lives in Daytona Beach, Florida. "She's still Jennifer to me. I understand why she's done it. Believe it or not, I totally respect it."

A CD showing the treatment of animals before they are dissected finally convinced him to support his daughter's cause, he said.

Pooh characters adorn vacant house in Flint, Michigan

Mon Oct 13, 11:14 AM

By The Associated Press

FLINT, Mich. - Characters from the beloved story of Winnie the Pooh are brightening one of the many vacant homes in the struggling industrial city of Flint, Mich.

Twenty-year-old Kristina Pringle has a sketch pad full of cartoon characters.

Since August, she's been applying her hobby to beautifying an unoccupied house near her own home, painting Winnie's friends on the boarded-up windows.

She was recruited by Art Wenzlaff, community relations director of the nearby International Academy of Flint charter school.

Hoping to beautify the neighbourhood, he used donations and grant money to supply Pringle and other volunteers with art supplies. City officials gave their blessing to the project.

Wenzlaff says the project seems to bring "some vibrancy to the community."

Russia's Vladimir Putin gets tiger cub for his birthday

Fri Oct 10, 8:55 AM

By The Associated Press

MOSCOW - There's no doubt what Vladimir Putin's favourite birthday present is this year - a rare Ussuri tiger cub.

State television showed the Russian prime minister tenderly petting the two-month-old female cub on Friday at his residence outside Moscow. The cub, weighing only about 10 kilograms, was curled up in a wicker basket with a tiger-print cushion.

Putin said a good home will be found for the tiger, presumably in a zoo or wildlife preserve. He hasn't decided what to call her, but is leaning toward Mashenka or Milashka.

Putin refused to say who gave him the cub for his 56th birthday, which was Tuesday.

He called Russian journalists to his country home late Thursday without telling them why. Past midnight, after asking them "not to make noise, make a clatter or squeal," Putin ushered the curious journalists into the room where the tiger cub was waiting.

As president and now prime minister, Putin is known for his tough talk and macho image. But children and animals seem to bring out a softer side.

His dog, a Labrador Retriever named Koni, is often with him, even during meetings with world leaders. He told journalists that Koni has not yet met the tiger cub.

In August, Putin had occasion to pet a full-grown female Ussuri tiger after shooting her with a tranquilizer gun. He was visiting a wildlife preserve in Russia's Far East and shot the five-year-old tiger as part of a program to track the rare cats, also known as the Siberian, Amur or Manchurian tiger.

Once the tiger was asleep, Putin placed a collar with a GPS tracking system around her neck. Television footage showed him patting her cheek like a pet.

Fewer than 400 Ussuri tigers are believed to survive in the wild, most of them in Russia and some in China. They are the largest tiger species, weighing up to 270 kilograms.

Sex a 'hassle,' says 105-year-old virgin

Fri Oct 10, 6:42 AM

LONDON (AFP) - A woman who celebrated her 105th birthday this week said the secret to long life was celibacy, adding that she imagined sex was a "lot of hassle."

Clara Meadmore, who marked her birthday with a drop of wine at the Perran Bay nursing home in Cornwall, southwest England, also received a card from Queen Elizabeth II.

"People have asked me whether I am a homosexual and the answer is no," Meadmore said.

"I have just never been interested in sex.

"I imagine there is a lot of hassle involved and I have always been busy doing other things."

Born in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1903, Meadmore lived in Canada and New Zealand as a child before returning to Britain in her 20s to work as a secretary and housekeeper.

She served with the army in Egypt during World War II, and subsequently lived in London and New Zealand before retiring 40 years ago in Cornwall.

NYC National Debt Clock runs out of digits
By The Associated Press

NEW YORK - In a sign of the times, the National Debt Clock in New York City has run out of digits to record the growing figure.

As a short-term fix, the digital dollar sign on the billboard-style clock near Times Square has been switched to a figure - the "1" in $10 trillion. It's marking the federal government's current debt at about $10.2 trillion. The Durst Organization says it plans to update the sign next year by adding two digits. That will make it capable of tracking debt up to a quadrillion dollars.

The late Manhattan real estate developer Seymour Durst put the sign up in 1989 to call attention to what was then a $2.7 trillion debt.

Man nabbed for skinny dipping in moat that rings the Imperial Palace in Tokyo

Tue Oct 7, 11:18 AM

By Mari Yamaguchi, The Associated Press

TOKYO - Police have apprehended a westerner who went skinny dipping in a moat ringing the Imperial Palace in Tokyo.

The naked middle-aged man attracted a huge crowd as he jumped into the moat, then threw rocks and splashed water at two policemen who chased him in a rowboat. Japanese police said they had no information on the man's identity.

But Public broadcaster NHK and Kyodo News agency say the man is believed to be a 40-year-old Briton living in Spain who visited the moat with several Spanish friends.

TV footage showed the man swimming around the moat as police chased him with a long stick, attracting a crowd of onlookers.

He was in the water for about an hour before getting out and climbing a stone wall only to fall into the hands of waiting police. No word on possible charges.

A palace official said Emperor Akihito was in the palace, but that it was unlikely he saw the nude swimmer.

From the Annals of Improbable Research

Spermicide Coke, stale chips research wins Ig Nobels

Fri Oct 3, 7:01 PM

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A researcher who figured out that Coke explodes sperm and scientists who discovered that people will happily eat stale chips if they crunch loudly enough won alternative "Ig Nobel" prizes Thursday.

Other winners included physicists who found out that anything that can tangle, will tangle and a team of biologists who ascertained that dog fleas jump farther than cat fleas.

The Ig Nobels honor real research, but are meant as a funny alternative to next week's deadly serious Nobel prizes for medicine, chemistry, physics, economics, literature and peace.

Awarded by the editors of the Annals of Improbable Research, a scientific humor magazine, the prizes are based on published research, some intended to be humorous but often not. Usually the "honored" researchers go along with the joke.

Deborah Anderson of Boston University Medical Center and colleagues were awarded the chemistry prize for a 1985 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine that found Coca-Cola kills sperm.

She said she was serious in testing the soft drink because women were using it in a douche as a contraceptive and, later, to try to protect themselves from the AIDS virus.

"It definitely wouldn't work as a contraceptive because sperm swims so fast," Anderson said. But Coke made with sugar quickly kills sperm, she said, probably because sperm soak it up. "The sperm just kind of explode," she said in a telephone interview.

It kills the AIDS virus too, she said.

The Ig Nobel committee made up a "nutrition prize" to go to Massimiliano Zampini of the University of Trento, Italy and Charles Spence of Britain's Oxford University, who tricked people into thinking they were eating fresh potato chips by playing them loud, crunching sounds when they bit one.

The biology prize goes to a French team that found dog fleas can jump higher than cat fleas, while the medicine prize was awarded to a team at Duke University in North Carolina who showed that high-priced placebos work better than cheap fake medicine.

Dorian Raymer of the Scripps Institution in San Diego and a colleague won the physics prize for demonstrating mathematically why hair or a ball of string will inevitably tangle itself in knots.

The peace prize was given to the Swiss Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology for adopting the legal principle that plants have moral standing and dignity. There is a website explaining this: http://www.ekah.admin.ch/en/topics/dignity-of-creation/index.html.

A team at The University of Sao Paulo in Brazil won a special archaeology prize for showing how an armadillo can mess up an archaeological dig.

The economics prize went to researchers at the University of New Mexico who learned that a professional lap dancer earns bigger tips when she is most fertile, while David Sims of Cass Business School in London won the literature prize "for his lovingly written study 'You Bastard: A Narrative Exploration of the Experience of Indignation within Organizations'," the committee said.

Past winners include the creator of the plastic pink flamingo, a researcher who recorded a mallard duck sodomizing a dead drake and a doctor who cured hiccups by applying digital rectal massage.

(Reporting by Maggie Fox, editing by Anthony Boadle)

And

Strippers, armadillos inspire Ig Nobel winners

Thu Oct 2, 8:48 PM

By Mark Pratt, The Associated Press

BOSTON - Deborah Anderson had heard the urban legends about the contraceptive effectiveness of Coca-Cola products for years.

So she and her colleagues decided to put the soft drink to the test. In the lab, that is.

For discovering that, yes indeed, Coke was a spermicide, Anderson and her team are among this year's winners of the Ig Nobel prize, the annual award given by the Annals of Improbable Research magazine to oddball but often surprisingly practical scientific achievements.

The ceremony at Harvard University, in which actual Nobel laureates bestow the awards, also honoured a British psychologist who found foods that sound better taste better; a group of researchers who discovered exotic dancers make more money when they are at peak fertility; and a pair of Brazilian archeologists who determined armadillos can change the course of history.

Anderson, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Boston University's School of Medicine, and her colleagues found that not only was Coca-Cola a spermicide, but that Diet Coke for some reason worked best. Their study appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1985.

"We're thrilled to win an Ig Nobel, because the study was somewhat of a parody in the first place," Anderson said, adding she does not recommend using Coke for birth control purposes.

A group of Taiwanese doctors were honoured for a similar study that found Coca-Cola and other soft drinks were not effective contraceptives. Anderson said the studies used different methodology.

A Coca-Cola spokeswoman refused comment on the Ig Nobel awards.

Duke University behavioural economist Dan Ariely won an Ig Nobel for his study that found more expensive fake medicines work better than cheaper fake medicines.

"When you expect something to happen, your brain makes it happen," Ariely said.

Ariely spent three years in a hospital after suffering third-degree burns over 70 per cent of his body. He noticed some burn patients who woke in the night in extreme pain often went right back to sleep after being given a shot. A nurse confided to him the injections were often just saline solution.

He says his work has implications for the way drugs are marketed. People often think generic medicine is inferior. But gussy it up a bit, change the name, make it appear more expensive, and maybe it will work better, he said.

Charles Spence's award-winning work also has to do with the way the mind functions. Spence, a professor of experimental psychology at Oxford University in England, found that potato chips - "crisps" to the British - that sound crunchier taste better.

His findings have already been put to work at the world-famous Fat Duck Restaurant in England, where diners who purchase one seafood dish also get an iPod that plays ocean sounds as they eat.

Geoffrey Miller's work could affect the earning potential of exotic dancers everywhere.

Miller, an associate professor of psychology at the University of New Mexico, and his colleagues knew of prior studies that found women are more attractive to men when at peak fertility. So they took the work one step further - by studying earnings of exotic dancers.

In the 18 subjects Miller studied, average earnings were $250 for a five-hour shift. That jumped to $350 to $400 per five-hour shift when the women were their most fertile, he said.

"I have heard, anecdotally, that some lap dancers have scheduled shifts based on this research," he said.

Armadillos helped win an Ig Nobel for Astolfo Gomes de Mello Araujo, a professor of archeology at the Universidade De Sao Paulo in Brazil, and a colleague earned.

Pesky armadillos, they found, can move artifacts in archeological dig sites up, down and even laterally by several metres as they dig. Armadillos are burrowing mammals and prolific diggers. Their abodes can range from emergency burrows 50 centimetres deep, to more permanent homes reaching six metres deep, with networks of tunnels and multiple entrances, according to the Humane Society of the United States' website.

Araujo was thrilled to win. "There is no Nobel Prize for archeology, so an Ig Nobel is a good thing," he said in an e-mail.

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On the Web:

Ig Nobels: http://www.improbable.com

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Ig Nobel winners inspired by fleas, Coca-Cola

The 2008 Ig Nobel winners, awarded Thursday at Harvard University by the Annals of Improbable Research magazine:

NUTRITION: Massimiliano Zampini and Charles Spence for demonstrating that food tastes better when it sounds better.

PEACE: The Swiss Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology and the citizens of Switzerland for adopting the legal principle that plants have dignity.

ARCHAEOLOGY: Astolfo Gomes de Mello Araujo and Jose Carlos Marcelino for showing armadillos can scramble the contents of an archeological dig.

BIOLOGY: Marie-Christine Cadiergues, Christel Joubert and Michel Franc for discovering that fleas that live on a dog can jump higher than fleas that live on a cat.

MEDICINE: Dan Ariely for demonstrating that expensive fake medicine is more effective than cheap fake medicine.

COGNITIVE SCIENCE: Toshiyuki Nakagaki, Hiroyasu Yamada, Ryo Kobayashi, Atsushi Tero, Akio Ishiguro and Agota Toth for discovering that slime moulds can solve puzzles.

ECONOMICS: Geoffrey Miller, Joshua Tyber and Brent Jordan for discovering that exotic dancers earn more when at peak fertility.

PHYSICS: Dorian Raymer and Douglas Smith for proving that heaps of string or hair will inevitably tangle.

CHEMISTRY: Sheree Umpierre, Joseph Hill and Deborah Anderson for discovering that Coca-Cola is an effective spermicide, and C.Y. Hong, C.C. Shieh, P. Wu and B.N. Chiang for proving it is not.

LITERATURE: David Sims for his study "You Bastard: A Narrative Exploration of the Experience of Indignation within Organizations."

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Source: Annals of Improbable Research.