News

A couple in Italy have been arrested for using a World War II bomb as a garden ornament. The bomb, dropped by the RAF during a raid over Arezzo in northern Italy, still contained high explosive but had never gone off.

The couple said they were convinced it was harmless.

The bomb had been transformed by the couple into a garden fountain to decorate the grounds of their new home, and had 60kgs of TNT in it.

Police said if someone had smoked a cigarette near the bomb, it could well have blown up the house.

Incredibly, it had been moved several times.

The businessman, who runs a construction company, had found it eight years ago while digging at a work site near Arezzo.

He had contacted police but the find was never followed up.

Convinced it was empty, he dragged it to his warehouse where it remained.

Then two years ago, he decided to install the bomb in his new garden feature.

This week, while chatting to a policeman over a beer, he casually asked whether he needed a licence to keep it. The next morning a squad of military policeman arrived at the house, and the man and his wife were arrested.

Under Italian law, all unexploded ordnance must be reported.

The couple have since been bailed and the bomb successfully defused.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/5038368.stm

Students are outsourcing coursework in a phenomenon dubbed "contract cheating", academics have found. Researchers at Birmingham's University of Central England found coursework being put out to tender on the internet and suppliers bidding to finish it.

The students used legitimate websites normally used by businesses offering freelance project work.

The researchers found one in 10 of all bid requests submitted to one website were from students.

It appears to be a twist on the well-established practice of buying essays via websites which are advertising for such business.

Lecturer Thomas Lancaster carried out the research with his colleague Robert Clarke.

'Middle men'

In a two-month period they identified 236 unique individuals outsourcing coursework - 102 of whom were from the UK, from 46 separate institutions.

They also found individuals who were advertising dozens of assignments from more than one institution.

Dr Lancaster said this suggested agencies were acting as "middle men" and offering to do coursework before outsourcing it themselves.

Dr Lancaster first became alerted to the practice when he found a piece of work he had assigned was being put out to tender on one of the websites.

He said: "What we've identified is a new type of cheating where students put their coursework out to tender and suppliers bid to complete it.

"This type of cheating is cost effective for students, because many of the suppliers are internationally based and can complete the set assignments for a few dollars a time."

'Serious concern'

Dr Lancaster said the majority of cheats identified through the website had previously requested between two and seven pieces of work.

He said: "We believe this shows that this form of cheating is becoming habitual.

"As an academic community, we need to take stock of this situation.

"More automated detection techniques are needed to monitor these sites and assessments and academic policies need to be reconsidered to remove the potential for contract cheating to be committed.

"There is a serious concern that, unlike plagiarism, academic institutions are not yet fully aware of the potential prevalence of contract cheating and the measures that can be taken to avoid it."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/5071886.stm

That's really sad. Do they have any idea how much trouble they could save by doing it themselves?

The former Lakeland home of the author of Peter Rabbit has been recreated brick-for-brick in Japan. Beatrix Potter used the money earned from the sale of her children's classic, to buy Hill Top Farm in Sawrey, Cumbria in 1903.

A full-size replica has now been built at a children's zoo near Tokyo.

Despite the popularity of Potter's books in Japan, less is known about the author and it is hoped the recreation of the farm will redress the balance.

'Earthquake proof'

George Wallace, a university professor teaching English literature in Tokyo, has seen both the original and the copy.

He said: "It is an almost exact replica, although it does not have the aged look of the original.

"And buildings in Japan have to be earthquake-proof, so there are one or two small changes."

Richard Foster, who runs The World of Beatrix Potter in Bowness on Windermere, and is chairman of Cumbria's Japan Forum, said it was a good link to the area.

"It's a little bastion of the Lake District out in Japan.

"A nice, light-hearted place for people to go and sample Britain, and in particular, the Lake District."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cumbria/5070620.stm

It's goodbye to Baa Baa Black Sheep and Humpty Dumpty for children in primary schools in a central Indian state. The Madhya Pradesh government has banned the teaching of English nursery rhymes in primary schools to "reduce Western influence" on children.

Indian rhymes will now replace their popular English counterparts.

"There is no need for English rhymes when there are Indian rhymes to infuse patriotism in children," says state education minister Narrotam Mishra.

He has asked government primary schools from now on to teach Indian rhymes and tales from the life of Ahilya Bai, the legendary ruler credited with building a number of leading temples in India.

"We want our children to have value education in local colour," Mr Mishra was quoted as saying by the Hindustan Times newspaper.

'Churlish'

Many teachers and parents say they are unhappy with the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-run state government's move.

"They were melodious rhymes and children love to recite them as much as they love to recite Indian rhymes," Renu, a school teacher, told the BBC.
"Seeing everything in the light of native and foreign, ours and theirs, is not always good," added a parent.

The BBC's Faisal Mohammad Ali in Bhopal says the decision to drop English rhymes is being seen as part of the BJP's efforts to "nationalise" education and press for Hindu thoughts and values in the syllabus.

Leading academician Zamiruddin told the Hindustan Times that the decision was "churlish and thoughtless" unless the government replaced the rhymes with equally popular and easy-to-learn Indian ones.

Private schools are unaffected by the move - and of course nobody can stop the children reciting English rhymes away from state school classrooms, our correspondent says.

'Controversial'

English nursery rhymes have been the subject of many controversies around the world in recent years.

In 2000, education chiefs at Birmingham City Council in the UK published guidelines warning that the rhyme Baa Baa Black Sheep should not be taught in schools because it was "racially offensive".

The guidelines were dropped after black parents condemned the advice as ridiculous.

Three years ago, tongue-in-cheek Canadian researchers found that some nursery rhymes send dangerously inaccurate messages to young listeners.
They were concerned that characters in popular rhymes suffer major injuries without receiving proper treatment.

The characters include Humpty Dumpty, who had a great fall, and Jack and Jill, who tumbled down a hill.

A similar study by British doctors found nursery rhymes expose children to far more violent incidents than an average evening watching TV.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/5079002.stm

Physicist Stephen Hawking and his daughter are to write a science book for children which will be "a bit like Harry Potter", but without the magic.

They aim to explain theoretical physics in an accessible way to youngsters.

Professor Hawking became famous for his bestseller A Brief History of Time, which attempted to simplify cosmology, the Big Bang and black holes.

His daughter Lucy said their forthcoming project would be aimed at people like her own eight-year-old son.

"It is a story for children, which explains the wonders of the universe," she said.

She did not provide any further details, nor a likely publication date.

Professor Hawking - a professor of mathematics at the University of Cambridge - has sold more than 10 million copies of A Brief History of Time since it was first published in 1988.

source

When a little girl wrote to CS Lewis asking him for an explanation of the Chronicles of Narnia, she never expected to get a reply. But the letter Anne Jenkins from Hertfordshire received when she was just 10-years-old is to be displayed in Queen's University's new CS Lewis Reading Room.

Anne wrote to the Belfast born author in 1961 after being intrigued by a particular passage in The Silver Chair.

Recalling that time, Anne said she was fascinated by the books and the mystical world of Narnia.

"I just used to scrutinise them quite carefully and it was a little bit at the end of The Silver Chair, that I just didn't understand what he was saying," she said.

"It was where the dead king Caspian is brought back to life by Aslan the lion's blood and Eustace says 'hasn't he died' and the lion says 'yes he has died, most people have you know, even I have, there are very few people who haven't'.

"For some reason this stuck in my brain , so I asked my parents what does he mean by saying that most people have died?

"They didn't know, so they said that I should write and ask him."

Christian theme

And as far as Anne is aware, her letter is the only known document from the author which supports the argument that Alsan represented Jesus Christ.

Anne said she has often thought about what exactly was in the author's mind at the time he wrote to her.

"I think it must have been the mood he was in at the time, his wife had died a couple of years before, maybe he was just thinking about it a lot at the time," she said.

"I see it as a coincidence, but maybe not."

In the letter Lewis simply states that the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe tells the story of the "Crucifixion of Christ and the resurrection".

He also explains that the story of Prince Caspian "tells the restoration of the true religion after the corruption".

"If you read the letter he wrote to other children, none of them are like this at all," Anne said.

Anne believes the letter is just too important a piece of historical literature not to be shared with the world.

"The letter could easily have got lost it is just lucky I have kept it safe all of these years, she said.

"The letter is so valuable and really needs to go into the public domain now rather than where I've kept it in a wardrobe, which is quite appropriate."

The letter will be displayed in Queen's University's new £44m library, which is due to open in 2009.

Until then it will be kept in the university library's special collection.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/5078462.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl...9274/img/1.jpg

Heart Association Urges Trans Fats Limits

The American Heart Association has become the first big health group to urge a specific limit on trans fats in the diet — less than 1 percent of total calories — in new guidelines released Monday.

Also for the first time, the organization's dietary guidelines include lifestyle recommendations, including an emphasis on getting exercise and not smoking.

A panel of specialists in nutrition and heart disease reviewed more than 90 studies to update the dietary advice the association released in 2000. The guidelines are for healthy Americans ages 2 and older.

Rather than slavishly counting calories and grams of fat, people should try something simpler: getting in the habit of cooking with healthier oils, and balancing calories consumed with calories burned through exercise, said Alice Lichtenstein, a Tufts University nutrition expert who chaired the guidelines panel.

Trans fats, or trans fatty acids such as partially hydrogenated oils, are in many cookies, crackers, breads, cakes, French fries and other fried foods. They contribute to heart disease risk by raising LDL, or the bad cholesterol.

Avoiding them and keeping a healthy diet is challenging while eating out as much as Americans do, panel members noted.

Last week, a consumer group sued KFC to try to get the company to stop frying its chicken in trans fats, and other fast-food chains have been pressured to lower such fats as well.

"Total fat reduction alone is not the only answer. It is important what kind of fat you eat," said Linda Van Horn, a Northwestern University dietitian who helped draft the guidelines.

Among the panel's other recommendations:

_Limiting saturated fats to no more than 7 percent of daily calories, down from the 10 percent formerly recommended and the 11 percent most Americans consume. Saturated fats are in meat and dairy products, and in coconut and palm oil.

_Getting at least half an hour of exercise a day.

_Eating fruits and vegetables (not fruit juices) that are deep in color, such as spinach, carrots, peaches and berries.

_Choosing whole-grain, high-fiber foods.

_Eating fish, especially oily fish like salmon and trout, at least twice a week. (Children and pregnant women should follow federal guidelines for avoiding mercury in fish.)

_Choosing lean meats and trying vegetable alternatives.

_Consuming fat-free and 1 percent fat milk and other dairy products.

_Minimizing calories from beverages and avoiding ones with added sugars.

_Adding little or no salt to foods.

_Drinking alcohol in moderation.

The guidelines were published in the association's journal Circulation. For a free brochure, visit http://www.americanheart.org or call 1-800-AHA-USA1.

source

Life mirrored art - or at least a nursery tale - when a West Vancouver woman came home to find a bear munching oatmeal in her kitchen. The bear was said to have entered the house through an open sliding door, the Vancouver Province newspaper reported.

"It sounds like a nursery rhyme," Sgt Paul Skelton told the paper.

But unlike Goldilocks - caught stealing food in the Three Bears' house in the popular children's story - this bear did not flee when found.

"It appeared to be a one to two-year-old bear - a juvenile - within the kitchen enjoying some oatmeal it had obtained by breaking a ceramic food container," Sgt Skelton said.

"When she saw it, she did the right thing. She vacated the area and called us."

Not aggressive

But the bear paid scant attention as police arrived on the scene, and continued tucking in with little sign of fear or remorse.

"The bear didn't appear to be aggressive and wasn't destroying the house, so they just let it do what it was doing.

"Eventually the bear decided to make its way out of the residence and down toward a forested gully," Sgt Skelton said.

Intrusions are common in the area as bears come out of hibernation, the paper reported, and are happening later than usual this year because of heavy winter snows, according to police.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/5097124.stm

Dressed in chic black attire and face covered with a trendy mask, he runs like the wind, leaps over treetops and skyscrapers and fights evil forces with the help of his supernatural powers.

He is Bollywood's very own superhero, in the film Krrish which will hit Indian screens a week before Hollywood's Superman Returns makes its debut.

Well known film director Rakesh Roshan's latest offering has his son and popular actor Hrithik Roshan starring in the film.

Krrish is a sequel to his previous 2003 blockbuster, Koi Mil Gaya (I Found Someone).

Inspired by Steven Spielberg's 1982 feature E.T. The Extra Terrestrial, Koi Mil Gaya was about a mentally-challenged young man who meets an alien and is granted supernatural powers by the extra-terrestrial.

Krrish takes the story forward and revolves around the man's son, who is born with similar extraordinary powers and uses them to fight an evil scientist.

New genre

Set in Singapore, the film has the trademark Bollywood song and dance sequences.

Director Rakesh Roshan told the BBC News website that he decided to explore the new genre of an Indian superhero because "nobody else seems to be trying out anything unusual".

"Most of the films revolve around family subjects, dramas and love themes and no one seemed to move away from it," he said.

"I decided I had to take these steps, try something different and raise the bar, increase the standard of films being made here."

Roshan also said a film around a larger-than-life character was possible now because Hrithik fits the bill perfectly.

"Before Hrithik, there was no one I could think of who could play a superhero. His personality and physique made it possible for me to conceptualise such a being," he said.

Eagerly awaited

Indian films have traditionally starred heroes who are capable of extraordinary feats such as fighting any number of men at any given time to emerge victorious. They are also seen jumping out of fast moving trains with as much alacrity as getting atop a galloping horse.

But this is possibly the first time an indigenous hero styled after Spiderman and Superman is being introduced to Indian audiences.

Roshan hired foreign technicians and signed on well-known Hong Kong-based action director Tony Ching Siu-tung, to choreograph all the action sequences.

Siu-tung has already gained recognition for his work in films such as The House Of Flying Daggers, The Hero and Shaolin Soccer.

Krrish was made on a budget of 450 million rupees ($10m) a big-budget film by Bollywood standards.

Trade analyst Vinod Mirani says it is one of the most awaited films of the year because of its novelty and the successful track record of the director.

"We've never had anything like this before.

"Our version of a superhero was Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan, who was constantly portrayed as the saviour of the people. Now film audiences have grown and I think we are ready for something new," he says.

He adds: "Rakesh Roshan has delivered some great hits because he understands the audience and makes even the most unlikely scripts plausible to the people. If he succeeds in doing so with this film as well, then this one will also be as big a hit as his last release."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/5098600.stm

Worker flicks wrong switch, costs Nova $11 mln

CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) - A worker accidentally tripping a shut-off switch at a major Ontario plastics plant will cost Nova Chemicals Corp. $11 million in lost profit, the company said on Wednesday, because it won't be able to fulfill some contracts because of the blunder.

A contractor's employee installing a structural steel platform at an ethylene plant in Corunna, Ontario, mistakenly activated a process shutdown switch on Monday afternoon, halting production and forcing two weeks of repairs at the facility.

"The switch is a safety thing so if anyone sees something going wrong they have the opportunity to shut down the plant," said Nova spokesman Greg Wilkinson. "But that's not what happened here. It was not a safety issue. It was simply inadvertent."

Because of the unexpected shutdown, Nova declared force majeure on shipments of propylene and some other products. Force majeure is a legal term that means a company can't fulfill contracts because of circumstances beyond its control. It will be lifted when the plant returns to normal operating rates and inventory levels.

The company said the outage and lost sales will shave profits by about $8 million in the second quarter and $3 million in the third. According to Reuters Knowledge, analysts, on average, had expected the company to earn $68.2 million in the second quarter.

Nova has launched an investigation into just how the worker hit the button, but the company said its priority is repairing the facility.

Nova's spokesman said later on Wednesday that the company has decided to await the results of its inquiry before making any decision on potential penalties. However Wilkinson said he has some sympathy for the worker.

"I can't imagine how that feels, but it has got to be very distressing," he said.

The Corunna plant is one of Canada's largest plastics facilities, capable of supplying up to 40 percent of the country's primary petrochemical market.

The plant processes crude oil, natural gas condensates and liquids into products like ethylene, propylene, benzene and toluene. Those are in turn used to make plastic resins for the manufacture of small appliances, plastic bottles, carpets, cosmetics and other items.

The facility, located near Sarnia, Ontario, 180 miles (290 kilometers) southwest of Toronto, employees about 1,000.

Shares of Nova, which is based in Calgary, Alberta, but maintains executive offices in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, fell 26 Canadian cents, or 0.85 percent, to C$30.30 on the Toronto Stock Exchange on Wednesday.

($1=$1.11 Canadian)

source

The regimental goat of the 1st Battalion Royal Welch has been demoted - after refusing to keep in step at a parade to mark the Queen's birthday.
Six-year-old William Windsor, otherwise known as Billy, got a dressing down because of his "lack of decorum" at the event at the Episkopi base in Cyprus.

Fusiliers will no longer have to stand to attention when Billy - demoted from Lance Corporal to Fusilier - passes by.

Monarchs since Queen Victoria have presented the regiment with a goat.

Billy, a Kashmir goat given to the 1st Battalion Royal Welch by the Queen in 2001, was on his first overseas posting.

Goat major

The parade on 16 June was held in the presence of a number of invited dignitaries including the ambassadors of Spain, Netherlands and Sweden and the Argentine commander of UN forces on Cyprus.

His handler Lance Corporal Dai Davies, 22, from Neath, South Wales, dubbed the goat major, found he was unable to keep him in line.

"Billy can be badly behaved at times but I didn't think there was anything wrong myself at the time," said the regiment's Captain Crispin Coates.

"However, after the parade he was reported through the chain of command and accused of disobeying a direct order."

But the loss of prestige could be temporary.

According to Captain Coates, Billy is "extremely well known" on Cyprus and highly liked.

"His situation is currently being reviewed and he could regain his rank," he said.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5113188.stm

...one finds it difficult to know how to respond to this.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by RobinHood3000

...one finds it difficult to know how to respond to this.

---

By saying one finds it difficult to know how to respond to it?

:D

Extra security had to be drafted in to an historic royal palace after people said their food was being stolen. Concert-goers who were at Hampton Court Palace, south-west London, to see the likes of Eric Clapton, complained of cakes and sandwiches going missing.

Eventually a duck was identified as the culprit after being caught on camera taking the food for her ducklings.

Organisers are now urging people to bring secure hampers and cool bags to "be on the safe side".

Hampton Court Palace east front manager Mark Howarth said: "Robin the Duck, as we've nicknamed her, lives in the East Front gardens.

"As soon as everyone has gone into the show and the music starts she appears by the picnics to see what she can raid."

One guest added: "I thought I was losing my marbles when I couldn't find the rest of our sandwiches.

"I was amazed that anyone here would steal food. It's such a relief to discover that it was only the palace duck.

"She obviously has very expensive tastes because she took all my smoked salmon sandwiches. I suppose it also explains why the duck pate was left!"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/5114720.stm

Moscow has overtaken Tokyo to become the most expensive city in the world, according to a new study. According to Mercer Human Resource Consulting's annual report, an expat's money stretches three times further in Asuncion, Paraguay - the cheapest city. Mercer said it ranked 144 cities on transport, food, clothing, household goods and entertainment costs.

After Moscow the world's next most expensive cities are Seoul, Tokyo, Hong Kong and London.

The main cause of Moscow's ascent was a surge in property values, Mercer said in its annual report.

"Steep accommodation costs have contributed to Moscow's high ranking, as the recent property boom has driven up rental prices for expatriates," Mercer said in its report.

'Significant shifts'

Rising prices are also a problem in Russia, where high oil prices helped drive the inflation rate to 5% during the first three months of 2006. The International Monetary Fund has warned that Russia now has little chance of meeting its 2006 inflation target of between 8.5% and 9%.

THE 10 MOST EXPENSIVE CITIES
Moscow, Russia
Seoul, South Korea
Hong Kong, China
London, UK
Osaka, Japan
Geneva, Switzerland
Copenhagen, Denmark
Zurich, Switzerland
Oslo, Norway
New York, US
Source: Mercer Human Resource Consulting

"We have seen significant shifts in the cost-of-living rankings over the past few years, reflecting a changing global market," Mercer explained.

Over the past 12 months, London has dropped two places in the rankings, mainly as a result of a decline in the value of the UK pound against the US dollar.

Currency movements have also seen Ukraine move up from 54th to 21st as its hryvnia strengthened against the dollar.

Mercer said its report was often used by companies that sent their workers abroad as foreign, or expatriate, workers.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/5117480.stm

:lol:
Rush Limbaugh under new investigation

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - Rush Limbaugh could see a deal with prosecutors in a long-running prescription fraud case collapse after authorities found a bottle of Viagra in his bag at Palm Beach International Airport. The prescription was not in his name.

Limbaugh was detained for more than three hours Monday at the airport after returning from a vacation in the Dominican Republic. Customs officials found the Viagra in his luggage but his name was not on the prescription, said
Paul Miller, a spokesman for the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office.

Miller said the alleged violation could be a second-degree misdemeanor. The sheriff's office was investigating and will soon turn the case over to the state attorney's office, which had no immediate comment Tuesday.

Under the deal reached last month with prosecutors, Limbaugh was not to be arrested for any infraction for 18 months in exchange for authorities deferring a charge of "doctor shopping." Prosecutors had alleged the conservative talk-show host illegally deceived multiple physicians to receive overlapping painkiller prescriptions.

Limbaugh also must submit to random drug tests and continue treatment for his admitted addiction to painkillers.

Limbaugh's doctor had prescribed the Viagra, but it was "labeled as being issued to the physician rather than Mr. Limbaugh for privacy purposes," Roy Black, Limbaugh's attorney, said in a statement.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection examined the 55-year-old radio commentator's luggage after his private plane landed at the airport, Miller said.

Investigators confiscated the drugs, which treat erectile dysfunction. Limbaugh was released without being charged.

source

A German entrepreneur plans to launch the world's first smokers' airline next year, promising a return to the times before planes became smoke-free zones. Alexander Schoppmann, a former stockbroker, is seeking the start-up cash for Smintair - Smoker's International Airways.

On its website Smintair promises to "bring back the exclusivity in flying encountered in the 1960s".

The plan is to fly two leased Boeing 747s on the Duesseldorf-Tokyo route.

Old-fashioned luxuries

The airline will not offer economy-class tickets, but will target business people who enjoy smoking - and who are willing to pay for some extra pampering.

Smoking will be allowed in all 138 seats on board - and there will be extra leg room, because jumbo jets normally accommodate more passengers.

"The upper deck will be the passengers' lounge and not be jammed with seats, as you can sadly find everywhere, nowadays," the website says.

"Allergics against tobacco smoke or militant anti-smokers are asked to not apply," Smintair says on its jobs page.

On the website Mr Schoppmann writes nostalgically about the old times when Lufthansa offered its passengers a vast selection of Montecristo cigars.

He says airline smoking bans were prompted by a desire to economise on air conditioning systems. He promises to restore the old-fashioned system of pumping fresh air through the cabin.

Before it can launch, Smintair needs to find at least 40 million euros (£27.6m) for an operating licence from the German federal aviation authority.

Mr Schoppmann is optimistic his airline will take off next summer.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/5121786.stm

Tropical Stonehenge may have been found

SAO PAULO, Brazil - A grouping of granite blocks along a grassy Amazon hilltop may be the vestiges of a centuries-old astronomical observatory — a find archaeologists say indicates early rainforest inhabitants were more sophisticated than previously believed.

The 127 blocks, some as high as 9 feet tall, are spaced at regular intervals around the hill, like a crown 100 feet in diameter.

On the shortest day of the year — Dec. 21 — the shadow of one of the blocks, which is set at an angle, disappears.

"It is this block's alignment with the winter solstice that leads us to believe the site was once an astronomical observatory," said Mariana Petry Cabral, an archaeologist at the Amapa State Scientific and Technical Research Institute. "We may be also looking at the remnants of a sophisticated culture."

Anthropologists have long known that local indigenous populations were acute observers of the stars and sun. But the discovery of a physical structure that appears to incorporate this knowledge suggests pre-Columbian Indians in the Amazon rainforest may have been more sophisticated than previously suspected.

"Transforming this kind of knowledge into a monument; the transformation of something ephemeral into something concrete, could indicate the existence of a larger population and of a more complex social organization," Cabral said.

Cabral has been studying the site, near the village of Calcoene, just north of the equator in Amapa state in far northern Brazil, since last year. She believes it was once inhabited by the ancestors of the Palikur Indians, and while the blocks have not yet been submitted to carbon dating, she says pottery shards near the site indicate they are pre-Columbian and maybe older — as much as 2,000 years old.

Last month, archaeologists working on a hillside north of Lima, Peru, announced the discovery of the oldest astronomical observatory in the Western Hemisphere — giant stone carvings, apparently 4,200 years old, that align with sunrise and sunset on Dec. 21.

While the Incas, Mayans and Aztecs built large cities and huge rock structures, pre-Columbian Amazon societies built smaller settlements of wood and clay that quickly deteriorated in the hot, humid Amazon climate, disappearing centuries ago, archaeologists say.

Farmers and fishermen in the region around the Amazon site have long known about it, and the local press has dubbed it the "tropical Stonehenge." Archeologists got involved last year after geographers and geologists did a socio-economic survey of the area, by foot and helicopter, and noticed "the unique circular structure on top of the hill," Cabral said.

Scientists not involved in the discovery said it could prove valuable to understanding pre-Columbian societies in the Amazon.

"No one has ever described something like this before. This is an extremely novel find — a one of a kind type of thing," said Michael Heckenberger of the University of Florida's Department of Anthropology.

He said that while carbon dating and further excavation must be carried out, the find adds to a growing body of thought among archaeologists that prehistory in the Amazon region was more varied than had been believed.

"Given that astronomical objects, stars, constellations etc., have a major importance in much of Amazonian mythology and cosmology, it does not in any way surprise me that such an observatory exists," said Richard Callaghan, a professor of geography, anthropology and archaeology at the University of Calgary.

Brazilian archaeologists will return in August, when the rainy season ends, to carry out carbon dating and further excavations.

"The traditional image is that some time thousands of years ago small groups of tropical forest horticulturists arrived in the area and they never changed — (that) what we see today is just like it was 3,000 years ago," Heckenberger said. "This is one more thing that suggests that through the past thousands of years, societies have changed quite a lot."

source

Campaigners in India's Tamil Nadu state say the law is literally an *** after a judge ordered the arrest of a donkey. The animal was kept overnight in a police station after being seized at a rally in which it was used to highlight alleged failings of local officials.

Police said the donkey was evidence from the "scene of a crime". They have been accused of animal cruelty.

The donkey's owners, meanwhile, say they are grateful to get it back after its period of incarceration.

They say that while it is good to have it home again, it is even more stubborn and bad-tempered than normal.

'Unmotivated and mulish'

The story began when two groups working in the district of Kancheepuram asked the animal's owners if they could borrow it as part of their campaign to promote land rights for Irula tribes people.

The Kancheepuram District People's Forum and the Sons of the Soil groups rented the donkey for use in a demonstration against what they say is the lethargy of the authorities in dealing with the issue.

A poster was hung from the donkey's neck during the protest earlier this week in which the district administration was caricatured as "slow to act, unmotivated and mulish".

This gesture angered members of the administration, who filed a complaint with police against the two groups.

They complained that they had been "derided" in the demonstration.

Police then arrested the demonstrators and materials used by them including a tent, a loudspeaker and an amplifier, as well as the donkey.

Detention order

By the time they took the case before Magistrate IG Uthamaraj, it was late in the day. So he remanded the detainees - and the donkey - overnight in custody.

Bewildered police say they did not expect this development, because the usual practice is for animals at crime scenes to be returned to their owners.

But because the animal's owners could not be traced, the magistrate said he had not option but to order its detention.

Officers were heard to complain that their four-legged prisoner was not the easiest of detainees, and was upset about everything from food and drink to the standard of accommodation.

Fortunately for police, the donkey's owners were traced the next day.

They said that they were unaware that the animal had been used for a demonstration when they agreed to hire it out.

Now police have filed a case against the two campaigning groups for animal cruelty. They in turn have accused the police of cruelty.

Owners of the donkey, meanwhile, joke that it is now consulting its lawyers with a view to suing both parties.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/5128250.stm

Luciano Pavarotti recovering from surgery

Tenor Luciano Pavarotti underwent surgery for pancreatic cancer and is "recovering well," his manager said Friday.

The 70-year-old singer was preparing to leave New York last week to resume his farewell world concert tour in Britain when doctors discovered a malignant pancreatic mass, Terri Robson said from her London office.

"Fortunately, the mass was able to be completely removed at surgery," she said in a statement. "Mr. Pavarotti is recovering well and his physicians are encouraged by the physical and emotional resilience of their patient."

She told The Associated Press he underwent surgery within the past week at a hospital in New York that she declined to identify.

She said he remained hospitalized Friday.

As a result of Pavarotti's treatment, all remaining 2006 concerts have been canceled, she said. It is anticipated that tour plans will resume in early 2007.

Concerts had been scheduled for Finland, Norway, Austria, Switzerland and Portugal in September.

Pavarotti was forced to postpone five June dates because of complications from back surgery. He canceled eight concerts in April, saying he had been advised not to travel or perform while undergoing back treatment.

Because pancreatic cancer is usually diagnosed at an advanced stage, it has one of the worst prognoses of all types of malignancies. Less than 4 percent of patients are still alive five years after diagnosis, and most die within a year. Even in the minority of cases where the tumor can be operated on, only about 23 percent remain cancer free.

Robson didn't say what type of pancreatic cancer Pavarotti had. In 2004, Apple Computer Inc.'s
Steve Jobs said he had a less-lethal form of the disease and that doctors had successfully removed his cancerous tumor.

Pavarotti made his debut as Rodolfo in Puccini's "La Boheme" at Reggio Emilia, Italy, in 1961, and took advantage of the television age to become the world's most widely recognized opera singer.

He made his American debut in Miami in 1965 opposite Joan Sutherland in Donizetti's "Lucia di Lammermoor" and his
Metropolitan Opera debut in New York on Nov. 23, 1968, in "La Boheme." He became a star when he nailed the nine high Cs in "Ah! Mes amis" as Tonio in Donizetti's "La Fille du Regiment" at the Met in 1972.

His Met finale, on March 13, 2004, was his 379th performance with the company. He sang 140 times at Milan's Teatro all La Scala, 100 at London's Royal Opera, 76 each with the Lyric Opera of Chicago and the San Francisco Opera, 48 at the Opera de Paris and 45 at the Vienna State Opera.

He retired from opera two years ago, saying his weight problem and bad knee prevented him from moving comfortably around stages. But he kept up with his concert career.

Pavarotti joined with Placido Domingo and Jose Carreras to form The Three Tenors, who sang 34 concerts from 1990 through 2003. They sang together before four World Cup finals, at Rome (1990), Los Angeles (1994), Paris (1998) and Yokohama, Japan (2002).

Domingo was to be joined Friday night by tenor Rolando Villazon and soprano Anna Netrebko for this year's pre-World Cup final concert in Berlin.

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Spain confirms its first case of bird flu

MADRID, Spain - Spain has recorded its first case of H5N1 bird flu, the Agriculture Ministry said Friday. The deadly strain was found in a water fowl in a marsh area outside the northern city of Vitoria.

A protective area of 2 miles was declared outside the area where the bird — known as a great crested grebe — was found, the ministry statement said.

Spanish officials said late last year, as bird flu spread to several European countries, that it was only a matter of time before the disease made it to this country, which is on the route of northern-bound migratory birds from Africa.

Preventive measures taken so far had included banning outdoor poultry farming within a 6-mile radius of marshlands where migratory birds tend to gather.

Bird flu has killed at least 131 people worldwide since it started ravaging Asian poultry farms in late 2003, according to the WHO. Most human cases have been linked to contact with infected birds, but experts fear the virus could mutate into a form that makes it more easily transmissible among humans.

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People can live long, happy lives without consuming large amounts of the Earth's resources, a survey suggests. The 178-nation "Happy Planet Index" lists the south Pacific island of Vanuatu as the happiest nation on the planet, while the UK is ranked 108th.

The index is based on consumption levels, life expectancy and happiness, rather than national economic wealth measurements such as GDP.

The study was compiled by think-tank the New Economics Foundation (Nef).

Size doesn't matter

One of the authors, Nef's Nic Marks, said the aim of the index was to show that well-being did not have to be linked to high levels of consumption.

'HAPPIEST PLACE ON EARTH'

Population: 209,000
GDP/capita: $2,900 (£1,575)
Climate: tropical
Resources: forests, fish
Economy: agriculture, tourism
Environmental issues: deforestation and clean water
Source: CIA Handbook 2006

"It is clear that no single nation listed in the index has got everything right, but it does reveal patterns that show how we might better achieve long and happy lives for all while living within our environmental means," Mr Marks said.

The small island state of Vanuatu is situated in the middle of the South Pacific Ocean, and has a population of 209,000. Its economy is built around small-scale agriculture and tourism.

Latin American nations dominate the top 10 places in the index, while African and Eastern European nations fill most of the bottom 10.

Among the world's largest economies, Germany is ranked 81st, Japan 95th, while the US comes in at 150th.

Richard Layard, director of the Well-Being Programme at the London School of Economics' Centre for Economic Performance, said that the index was an interesting way to tackle the issue of modern life's environmental impact.

"It reminds us that it is not good enough to be happy today if we are impoverishing future generations through global warming.

"Over the last 50 years, living standards in the West have improved enormously but we have become no happier," Mr Layard told the BBC.

"This shows we should not sacrifice human relationships, which are the main source of happiness, for the sake of economic growth."

Although Vanuatu tops the happiness index, it is ranked 207th out of 233 economies when measured against Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Simon Bullock, economics co-ordinator for Friends of the Earth, which helped compile the data, said the findings showed that happiness did not have to cost the Earth.

"The UK economy hoovers up vast quantities of the world's scarce resources, yet British people are no happier than Colombians, who use far fewer," he said.

"The current crude focus on GDP is outdated, destructive and doesn't deliver a better quality of life."

Nef is calling for the adoption of a "global manifesto for a happier planet" that will list ways nations can live within their environmental limits and increase people's quality of life. The recommendations include:

Eradicating extreme poverty and hunger
Recognising the contribution of individuals and unpaid work
Ensuring economic policies stay within environmental limits

The index builds on a report that Nef published earlier this year that warned if annual global consumption levels matched the UK's, it would take 3.1 Earths to meet the demand.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5169448.stm

China con man proves money doesn't grow on trees

BEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese man who conned dozens of farmers out of 2 million yuan ($250,400) to grow trees he said would be used in the 2008 Olympics has been jailed for 12 years, a Chinese newspaper said Tuesday.

Liu Lutang was barking up the wrong tree when he duped more than 50 farmers into contracts to buy saplings of a maple tree for 20 yuan ($2.50) each, promising them he would buy them back at a higher price after six months, the Beijing News said.

"He told the farmers (they) would be used in the Olympics," the paper said.

Liu, who had set up a bogus forestry company with offices in several Chinese cities, convinced the farmers the trees would sprout six to eight branches in a year and that he would pay them 8 yuan ($1) per branch, the paper said.

Liu's con was perpetrated between December 2001 and March 2002. He was arrested in 2002, but then skipped bail and evaded police for nearly three years, the paper said.

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Shakespeare book sells for more than $5M

LONDON - A rare complete copy of the First Folio of Shakespeare's plays, widely regarded as one of the most important books in the English language, sold for $5.2 million at auction Thursday.

London dealer Simon Finch Rare Books purchased the book — still in its original 17th-century calfskin binding — during a sale at Sotheby's.

The book is one of about 40 complete copies known to exist and one of the few in private hands. Its value was estimated at between $4.6 million and 6.4 million.

Formally titled "Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories & Tragedies," the First Folio was produced in 1623, seven years after Shakespeare's death. It contains 36 plays, of which 18 — including "Macbeth" and "Twelfth Night" — were published there for the first time. Without the book, scholars say, those plays might have been lost.

Of some 750 copies of the First Folio, about a third have survived, though most of them have lost pages over the years, the auction house said. All but a few copies are in museums, universities or libraries.

"Relatively complete copies of the Folio in contemporary or near-contemporary bindings very rarely come to the market," said Peter Selley, Sotheby's English literature specialist. "There is only one copy recorded as remaining in private hands."

Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen bought a copy of the First Folio for $6,166,000 at Christie's in New York in 2001.

The book auctioned Thursday was sold by the trustees of Dr. Williams' Library, a private London library established in the early 18th century under the will of Daniel Williams, a government minister.

source

Suspected thief robs judge at own trial

BERLIN (Reuters) - A 61-year-old German on trial for theft got himself into more trouble when he stole from the judge during his court hearing, police said Thursday.

Police in the central town of Coburg said that while facing her at the bench, the man pocketed a bunch of keys from the judge, who did not notice until he had left the room.

When confronted by court officials in the toilet, the man, who had a string of convictions for theft, told them he had been shocked to discover the keys in his pocket.

"He told them he realized how suspicious his story would sound and that he had therefore hidden the keys under a toilet brush," said police spokesman Bernhard Schmitt. "He'd been stealing all his life so it was probably just an intuitive act."

While the court officials decided what to do next, the man wrote a written confession to the deed. The theft meant the initial trial had to be temporarily suspended on legal grounds in case the judge showed bias in the case.

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A clinic that offers treatment for people addicted to playing computer games has opened in the Netherlands. The service, run by addiction consultancy Smith and Jones, offers a program lasting up to eight weeks.

The clinic estimates that up to 20% of gamers, many of which are children, could develop a dependency.

Compulsive gamers have similar symptoms to gambling addicts, they say, and risk damage to relationships, health, education and their careers.

"I lived in my room. I have 4 televisions around me, with one X-Box 360, PlayStation 2, X-Box 1 and a Game Cube and a lap-top, where I can play online games," said Tim, a 21 year old who has received treatment at the clinic.

Tim played games for up to 17 hours a day.

Obsessive behaviour

The new eight-bed residential clinic in Amsterdam was set up in response to a growing demand for people with gaming addictions. It is the first of its kind in Europe.

Initially gaming was a secondary issue for many of the patients who came to the clinic to seek help for other addictions.

Eventually the sheer number of addicts forced the clinic to set up a dedicated programme.

"They kept on coming in so we started taking it more and more seriously," said Keith Bakker, an addiction consultant at the centre.

Addicted gamers display many symptoms, including obsessive thinking and health problems. Others may use stimulants to keep awake during gaming marathons.

Some who play online multiplayer games may feel extreme guilt about leaving fellow gamers if they switch their console off.

Last year a man in South Korea died after spending 50 hours playing an online game.

Addicts may also experience "time warps" where all other activities are replaced with gaming. This can take extreme forms.

Tim could not even wrestle himself away from the screen for long enough to go to the toilet.

"I take an empty bottle and I pee into it," he said.

The treatment involves a period of detox when patients are not allowed access to any computer games.

This is followed by group therapy and sessions with psychologists, psychiatrists and therapists.

The clinic also tries to find replacement activities to fill the void left by giving up gaming.

"We help them find other ways to deal with life and they begin to develop true self esteem," says Mr Bakker.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/5191678.stm

It was a strange sight for a wedding reception. The newly married couple lying down in makeshift beds, donating blood.

For the 40-year-old bridegroom, such donations have become routine.

He is popularly known as Blood Kumar.

An employee of the Indian Space Research Organisation, which has its headquarters in Bangalore, Blood Kumar is the doyen of the local blood donor circuit.

'A mission'

He said that it seemed obvious to turn his wedding ceremony into a collective blood donor session.

Guests arriving with presents found themselves cajoled by Blood Kumar and his wife Mangalam to join the blood party, held at a corner of the wedding hall in a busy part of the city.

Most of the 52 invitees ranging from film stars to high-powered businessmen - were supportive of the initiative.

"I don't think he is crazy. It is a mission for him. I thought this was a good opportunity to donate blood and encourage him to do what he is doing," said C Dinesh Kumar, an executive with a leading bank.

"I thought this was the best way to spread the message," said Blood Kumar, who braved opposition from his parents to link the reception with a blood donation session.

"Shedding blood on an occasion like a wedding is considered inauspicious," he explained.

"A lot of people think I am mad but I don't care what they say. I was determined that my wedding - our special day - would also be a blood donor's party."

Children dying

Blood Kumar said that his wife, who was a first-time donor, was initially nervous.

"She is getting to know me and is very supportive," said Blood Kumar with reassuring confidence.

The blood donation at his wedding is the 81st to be completed by him since his mission began when he saw many children dying in a circus fire in the 1980s.

"I went to the hospital and saw the need for blood to save lives. From then on I have not stopped," he said.

Blood Kumar now makes sure that he is rarely more than a telephone call away during emergencies, and has even taken steps to update a blood donor directory that is a godsend to needy friends and strangers.

Local medics are also impressed.

"Blood camps are often considered insignificant events," said Manipal Hospital's Transfusion Services chief C Shivaram.

"But it is only when you link them with functions like weddings or birthdays that people stop and take notice.

"That is why we encourage blood donation camps, so that the message goes out in a big way."

Bangalore - with a population of over six million - needs 500 to 600 bottles of blood a day for emergencies.

Half the requirement is met by voluntary donors.

"But we need more to meet the shortage, because many lives can be saved in this way," said Mr Shivaram.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/5192030.stm

Not really 'news,' but interesting, nonetheless . . . :D

Genghis Khan, Renaissance guy...

BEIJING (Reuters) - Genghis Khan -- notorious as the ruthless, bloodthirsty creator of an empire that spanned Asia and Europe -- also laid the foundations for the Renaissance, China's Xinhua news agency said Thursday.

"Genghis Khan introduced papermaking and printing technologies to Europe and pioneered cultural exchanges between Asia and Europe," it quoted Zhu Yaoting, a specialist on Mongolian history at Beijing Union University, as saying.

"He brought cultural progress that helped liberate the Europeans from the bondage of theology -- in this sense, his expeditions served as a catalyst for the Renaissance," he said.

Genghis Khan's expeditions to Europe also reopened the Silk Road and laid the path for Marco Polo's historic trip to China.

"The expedition revived the ancient trade link and made economic and cultural exchanges possible again between the isolated civilizations," said Chen Yuning, a professor at Ningxia University.

Last month, state media said Genghis Khan could also be considered the founder of globalization for forming the largest contiguous land empire in history. The 800th anniversary of his uniting Mongol tribes, the beginnings of his empire, is being commemorated this year.

History is divided on when the Renaissance started and some historians believe there were a number of Renaissance periods in Europe starting from the 12th century. The Italian Renaissance in the 15th century is perhaps the most famous, during which the arts and sciences, particularly mathematics and astronomy, flourished.

China has also in the past made numerous other unusual historical claims, including the contention the Chinese invented football and golf.

And some Chinese academics say China "discovered" America decades before Christopher Columbus.

source

Doggie hotel opens -- 23 dollars a night, television optional

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Washingtonians can now drop their pooches off at a pet hotel that cares for their friendly canines in a five-star environment -- pet-themed television shows optional.

In the mahogany paneled lobby of the PetSmart PetHotel, which just opened in the Washington suburb of Bethesda, the pets' human "parents" line up to plunk down 23 dollars plus tax for each night their pooch stays.

The doggie hotel is nothing like kennels of yore: in this inn there is lactose-free ice cream, indoor recreation, and for 10 more dollars a night, pooch can stay in a roomier "suite" with a television set showing an "animal related movie all day," said Vince Malanaphy, who manages the Bethesda PetsHotel.

"It helps them to relax and to adjust as they are used to hearing TV at home," Malanaphy says.

In one "suite" a little white poodle named Bijou is lost in the embrace of Morpheus with "Little Nemo" and his cartoon friends swimming by in an eternal loop on the TV set.

A stay at "Doggie Day Camp" without the overnight goes for 20 dollars the day.

Half of the boarders come every day. "It's better than leaving them at home alone," said Cyra, one of the pet "mothers," as she drops off her Labrador and her poodle for Day Camp before running off to the office. Here "they can socialize," she said.

For potty breaks there is a 20 square meter (215 square foot) "relief room" complete with a plastic tree. "For security reasons, no outdoor walking," says Malanaphy.

Meredith, in charge of animal recreation, says that if dogs "are aggressive or play too rough, we give them a time out in a cage" for 15 minutes. "After twice, they get the message," she says.

The Bethesda site has room for 180 dogs and 26 cats. Cats stay in plexiglass cages known as "kitty cottages" for a mere 14 dollars plus tax a night, which includes 15 minutes of TLC -- Tender Loving Care, otherwise known as petting.

The Phoenix, Arizona-based PetSmart Inc. launched the pet hotel concept three years ago and it is "the fastest growing sector" of the pet business, said spokesman Bruce Richardson. "Now we have 32 hotels; we anticipate 240 by 2010," he said.

Gina Martin, a consumer retail analyst at Wachovia Bank, sees only growth in the pet care industry.

"General spending for pets is growing at an extraordinary pace," said Martin. "There is a trend for the treatment of the pet as another human being."

Americans spend nearly 40 billion dollars a year on their household pets -- 30 percent more than five years ago. The figure is close to what Americans spend on toys for children -- 48 billion dollars -- and more than twice the 17 billion spent on cosmetics, Martin said.

source

Increasing numbers of Americans are becoming too fat to fit into X-ray machines, US researchers report. The nation's rising obesity problems mean many citizens are not only too large for scanners but they have too much fat for the rays to penetrate.

Over the past 15 years, the number of failed scans linked to patient obesity has doubled, Radiology journal reports.

The problem is not confined to scanners. UK hospitals have had to make their beds stronger for obese patients.

And airlines are designing aircraft to carry heavier loads because passengers are becoming plumper.

Dr Raul Uppot and colleagues, who work in radiology at Massachusetts General Hospital, had noticed that they were seeing more and more patients whose weight prevented them from having medical scans.

He and his team decided to look back at radiology reports between 1989 and 2003 to see the extent of the problem.

Missed diagnoses

Year on year they saw a small but significant increase in the number of scans that had to be abandoned because the patient was too fat.

Ultrasound images were affected the most because the sound waves need to penetrate the skin and fatty tissue before reaching the organs being examined.

The study authors warned that important diagnoses could be missed if people could not be scanned.

The US government says 64% of the population are overweight.

Dr Colin Wayne of the UK's National Obesity Forum said the UK was showing a similar trend.

"The obesity rates in the US have been going up relentlessly. Sadly, in the UK we are following in their wake.

"The UK is now the fastest growing country in Europe for rising obesity.

"It's worrying if people can't get the necessary investigations. But that is just the tip of the iceberg. It is the epidemic of cardiovascular and metabolic diseases that will follow in the wake of obesity that is even more worrying."

Professor Adrian Dixon of the Royal College of Radiologists said: "It is a real problem and it is getting worse. People are getting fatter."

"One may not be able to offer the obese patient the best possible imaging test because of their weight," he added.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/5219884.stm

Uncensored 'On the Road' to be published

LOWELL, Mass. - Jack Kerouac's "On the Road" will be published in its unedited original scroll version by Viking Press, which published the Beat Generation classic in September 1957.

John Sampas, executor of the writer's literary estate and brother of Stella Sampas, Kerouac's third wife, said he has signed a contract with Viking, an imprint of Penguin Group USA. He hopes the work will be out by the end of next year, the 50th anniversary of the publication.

"Incidents in the original were edited out of the published version because of the censorship of the time," said Sampas, who noted that some of the edited sections refer to drugs and sex. "On the scroll, entire paragraphs are crossed out and not included in the published version."

Sampras said the new version will be in book form, but taken from the original scroll. Any sections Kerouac had crossed out before turning it into the publisher will be excluded in the new edition.

In 1951, Kerouac, hopped up on coffee and Benzedrine, sat at a typewriter and began retelling the tale of an aimless trek he made across America. In a spontaneous, stream-of-consciousness burst, he typed on long sheets of tracing paper, taping each finished page to the previous one to form one continuous, rolling text.

Published six years later, "On the Road" won critical praise and became an icon of the post-World War II subculture of intellectuals, writers, musicians and rebels who identified with the freedom of Kerouac's cross-country odyssey and embraced his disdain for 1950s conformity.

The original, 120-foot, coffee-stained scroll that is yellowing with age was purchased in 2001 by James Irsay, owner of the Indianapolis Colts, for $2.43 million. The scroll is touring U.S. museums and libraries.

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Quote:

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The age-old argument over the best way to cook the perfect boiled egg could be a thing of the past thanks to a new hi-tech ink logo going on shells. After cooking begins, an invisible, temperature-sensitive thermochromic print appears in black to indicate when an egg is soft, medium or hard-boiled.

The eggs, developed by UK assurance scheme Lion Quality, will be sold in three different types of cartons.

The new logos will start to appear on eggs in the next few months.

'Big issue'

"We had a lot of inquiries from people which sparked an interest in the industry," said a spokeswoman for Lion Quality.

"We said OK, this is a big issue - people can't even boil an egg."

The best technique has taxed some of the greatest culinary experts in the past.

In a 2005 survey conducted by the magazine Waitrose Food Illustrated, five leading chefs all came up with different solutions.

And in 1998, a TV series presented by Delia Smith included one show concentrating on the finer points of boiling an egg.

Smith said her How To Cook programme on the BBC intended to re-introduce people to the pleasures of cooking and herald a return to basic skills.

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5226338.stm

Curing culinary incompetence everywhere!

Something known for years, but never put so simply . . .

Slower breathing may lower blood pressure

WASHINGTON - Take a slow deep breath, then exhale just as slowly. Can you take fewer than 10 breaths a minute? Research suggests breathing that slowly for a few minutes a day is enough to help some people nudge down bad blood pressure.

Why would that brief interlude of calm really work? A scientist at the
National Institutes of Health thinks how we breathe may hold a key to how the body regulates blood pressure — and that it has less to do with relaxation than with breaking down all that salt most of us eat.

Now Dr. David Anderson is trying to prove it, with the help of a special gadget that trains volunteers with hypertension to slow-breathe.

If he's right, the work could shed new light on the intersection between hypertension, stress and diet.

"If you sit there under-breathing all day and you have a high salt intake, your kidneys may be less effective at getting rid of that salt than if you're out hiking in the woods," said Anderson, who heads research into behavior and hypertension at the NIH's National Institute on Aging.

An estimated 65 million Americans have high blood pressure, putting them at increased risk of heart attacks, strokes, kidney damage, blindness and dementia. Many don't know it. Hypertension is often called the silent killer, because patients may notice no symptoms until it already has done serious damage.

Anyone can get high blood pressure, measured as a level of 140 over 90 or more. But being overweight and inactive, and eating too much salt — Americans eat nearly double the upper limit for good health — all increase the risk. Indeed, losing weight, physical activity and cutting sodium are the most effective lifestyle changes people can make to lower blood pressure. Still, most hypertension patients need medications, too.

While they know risk factors, scientists don't fully understand the root causes of hypertension: What skews the body's usually finely tuned mechanisms for regulating the force of blood pounding against artery walls, until it can't compensate for some extra pounds on a couch potato? Understanding those mechanisms could point to better ways to prevent and treat hypertension.

Enter breathing.

Meditation, yoga and similar relaxation techniques that incorporate slow, deep breathing have long been thought to aid blood pressure, although research to prove an effect has been spotty.

Then in 2002, the
Food and Drug Administration cleared the nonprescription sale of a medical device called RESPeRATE, to help lower blood pressure by pacing breathing. The Internet-sold device counts breaths by sensing chest or abdominal movement, and sounds gradually slowing chimes that signal when to inhale and exhale. Users follow the tone until their breathing slows from the usual 16 to 19 breaths a minute to 10 or fewer.

In clinical trials funded by maker InterCure Inc., people who used the slow-breathing device for 15 minutes a day for two months saw their blood pressure drop 10 to 15 points. It's not supposed to be a substitute for diet, exercise or medication, but an addition to standard treatment.

Why slow-breathing works "is still a bit of a black box," says Dr. William J. Elliott of Chicago's Rush University Medical Center, who headed some of that research and was surprised at the effect.

Slow, deep breathing does relax and dilate blood vessels temporarily, but that's not enough to explain a lasting drop in blood pressure, says NIH's Anderson.

So, in a laboratory at Baltimore's Harbor Hospital, Anderson is using the machine to test his own theory: When under chronic stress, people tend to take shallow breaths and unconsciously hold them, what Anderson calls inhibitory breathing. Holding a breath diverts more blood to the brain to increase alertness — good if the boss is yelling — but it knocks off kilter the blood's chemical balance. More acidic blood in turn makes the kidneys less efficient at pumping out sodium.

In animals, Anderson's experiments have shown that inhibitory breathing delays salt excretion enough to raise blood pressure. Now he's testing if better breathing helps people reverse that effect.

"They may be changing their blood gases and the way their kidneys are regulating salt," he says.

If Anderson's right, it would offer another explanation for why hypertension is what he calls "a disease of civilization and a sedentary lifestyle."

Meanwhile, health authorities recommend that everyone take simple steps to lower blood pressure: by dropping a few pounds, taking a walk or getting physical activity, and eating less sodium — no more than 2,300 milligrams a day — and more fruits and vegetables.

source

A lavish wedding in a French town which saw the happy couple showered in confetti made from shredded euro notes has caused outrage. Residents of the southern town of Sete were up in arms after the bride and groom were covered in confetti made from 5, 10, 20 and 50 euro notes.

They also lodged a formal complaint, as destruction of banknotes is a crime.

But according to reports, the money was worthless - the euros were defective and bound for the incinerator.

'Revolting'

The controversy began after townsfolk had seen the confetti at the 8 July wedding and formed a collective to force local officials to react.

"It's revolting that people have to see their minimum wage turned into confetti lying on the street," one member of the collective said.

The scandal-causing confetti was part of a lavish ceremony attended by more than 200 guests, which included a fireworks display costing more than 40,000 euros ($51,000), according to French newspaper Liberation.

The doomed notes had been procured by a friend of the bride's family.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/5237966.stm

Railway officials in India have come up with a novel way of stopping monkeys intimidating passengers - by training another ape to scare them off.

The langur monkey, which has been trained since the age of three months, has been patrolling stations on a leash.

It comes after a series of complaints about aggressive monkeys boarding trains in New Delhi and upsetting passengers.

In June, a monkey boarded a train at the underground Chawri Bazaar station and reportedly scared passengers by scowling at them for three stops.

It then got off at Civil Lines station.

The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation says it hopes its new special agent will avert a repeat of such episodes.

Metro spokesman Anuj Dayal said: "It started working about a month ago and since then we've not had a single incident."

The langur's keeper - or langurwallah - is being paid 6,900 rupees - about £79 - a month.

Langur monkeys are similarly employed around the grounds of parliament and some government buildings in New Delhi.

http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/...536000,00.html

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Scheherazade

Railway officials in India have come up with a novel way of stopping monkeys intimidating passengers - by training another ape to scare them off.

The langur monkey, which has been trained since the age of three months, has been patrolling stations on a leash.

It comes after a series of complaints about aggressive monkeys boarding trains in New Delhi and upsetting passengers.

In June, a monkey boarded a train at the underground Chawri Bazaar station and reportedly scared passengers by scowling at them for three stops.

It then got off at Civil Lines station.

The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation says it hopes its new special agent will avert a repeat of such episodes.

Metro spokesman Anuj Dayal said: "It started working about a month ago and since then we've not had a single incident."

The langur's keeper - or langurwallah - is being paid 6,900 rupees - about £79 - a month.

Langur monkeys are similarly employed around the grounds of parliament and some government buildings in New Delhi.

http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/...536000,00.html

---

It sounds like the beginning of our road to Planet of the Apes!! :lol:

Teachers should stop calling bright pupils "clever" for fear they might not be considered "cool" by classmates, a union has been told. Instead they should refer to academic high-achievers as "successful", the Professional Association of Teachers' conference in Oxford heard.

Simon Smith, a teacher from Essex, said it was important to avoid a culture which "mocks being clever".

A government spokesman said it was "not the brightest idea we have heard".

'Semantic debates'

He added: "The education system is about ensuring that every child is supported and also challenged to achieve the very best that they can. Semantic debates will not achieve this."

Last year, the union voted to replace the word "failure" with "deferred success".

Mr Smith said: "Change the language we use; change something.

"If we were to use the word 'successful' rather than 'clever' we could all achieve it at our own level and in our own way.

"With a few exceptions, including sport, academic prowess is in many eyes not 'cool'."

Shadow schools minister Nick Gibb said: "In this information age, where an increasing number of jobs are in the creative industries, it is vital that all children aspire to academic excellence, whatever their background or ability."

Last month, an "excellent" student revealed she had had a mark taken away in a mock GCSE exam for giving an answer which a teacher deemed "too sophisticated".

Katie Merchant, 16, of Brighton College, missed a "key word" in a Latin test, although she showed more than enough knowledge for a full mark.

Headmaster Richard Cairns said the OCR exam board's assessment scheme, which the school used, was "too mechanistic".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/5241524.stm

:brickwall :brickwall :brickwall :brickwall :brickwall

WHY???

Behold the collapse of independent thinking...where feelings become more important than emotional stability.