How not to park a car (LOL) ...

UFOs 'Prefer Water' For Close Encounters ...

Sky News 28 July 2009

Declassified files on the Russian Navy's encounters with UFOs have suggested the objects are big fans of water.

A number of incidents were reported at Lake Baikal, the deepest lake in the world, including powerful lights and objects coming out from the water, Russia Today said.

In one case in 1982, military divers training at the lake said they spotted a group of humanoid creatures dressed in silver suits at a depth of 50 metres.

They tried to catch the visitors but three of the seven men died in the process, while four others were severely injured in the incident, according to the records.

On another occasion, a nuclear submarine on a combat mission in the Pacific Ocean detected six unknown objects.

The captain of the vessel ordered the crew to bring it to the surface after failing to shake off the pursuers.

The objects followed them up before flying away into the sky, the newly published files claimed.

Further mysterious events happened in the Bermuda Triangle area, including instruments on ships and submarines breaking down for no apparent reason.

Former navy officer Rear Admiral Yury Beketov said deliberate disruption from UFOs, which were detected "moving at incredible speed", could have been to blame.

He said: "It was like the objects defied the laws of physics. There's only one explanation: the creatures who built them far surpass us in development."

The records, which date back to Soviet times, were compiled by a special navy group tasked with collecting reports of unexplained incidents from submarines and military ships.

New Batman film in 2011...

Actor Gary Oldman, who starred in the recent blockbuster Batman movies, let it slip on Friday that a new film about the crime-fighting superhero is set to start filming next year.

"We start filming the next 'Batman' next year, which means it won't come out for another two years," he said, before adding in a sly tone, "but you didn't hear that from me." [LOL]

First there were 'Blood Diamonds'; now there are also 'Blood Computers' ...

An ant holding a microchip

ELIZABETH DIAS for TIME

When the film Blood Diamond with Leonardo DiCaprio came out in 2006, people were startled at the alleged origins of the precious stones from areas of bloody conflict and began asking whether the jewels on their fingers cost a human life. Will consumers soon find themselves asking similar questions about their cell phones and computers?

In a report released earlier this week, Global Witness claims that multinational companies are furthering a trade in minerals at the heart of the hi-tech industry that feeds the horrendous civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). (Global Witness is the same nongovernmental organization that helped expose the violence that plagues many of the sources of diamonds.) However, the accused companies, with varying degrees of hostility, deny any culpability, saying Global Witness oversimplifies a complex economic process in a chaotic geopolitial setting.

The provinces of North and South Kivu in the eastern DRC are filled with mines of cassiterite, wolframite, coltan and gold - minerals needed to manufacture everything from lightbulbs to laptops, from MP3 players to Playstations. Over the past 12 years of armed conflict in the region, control of these valuable natural resources has allegedly become a lucrative way for warring parties to purchase munitions and fund their fighting. The Global Witness report claims to have followed the supply chain of these minerals from warring parties to middlemen to international buyers.

Read the full article here

Huge telescope opens in Spain's Canary Islands ...

CARLOS MORENO, Associated Press Writer (edited by Paul)

One of the world's most powerful telescopes opened its shutters for the first time on Friday to begin exploring faint light from distant parts of the universe. The Gran Telescopio Canarias, a 130 million euro ($185 million) telescope featuring a 34-foot (10.4-meter) reflecting mirror, sits on top of an extinct volcano. Its location above cloud cover takes advantage of the pristine skies in the Atlantic Ocean.

Planning for the telescope began in 1987 and has involved more than 1,000 people from 100 companies. It was inaugurated on Friday by King Juan Carlos.

The observatory is located at 2,400 meters (7,870 feet) above sea-level where prevailing winds keep the atmosphere stable and transparent, the Canary Islands Astrophysics Institute said.

The institute, which runs the telescope, said it will capture the birth of stars, study characteristics of black holes and decipher some of the chemical components of the Big Bang.

The telescope is composed of 36 separate mirrors that began slowly focusing in July 2007 to eventually act as a single large reflecting surface that directs light onto a central camera point.

Among those who have done research at La Palma is Brian May, lead guitarist of rock group Queen, who studied there for part of his doctorate in astrophysics at the institute.

May, who published "BANG! The Complete History of the Universe" with astronomers Patrick Moore and Chris Lintott, composed a musical score for the telescope's inauguration.

Large reflecting telescopes began making major contributions to astronomical research when Edwin Hubble perfected the technique of capturing photographic exposures of space with the then-massive 200-inch mirror at Mount Palomar Observatory in north San Diego County, California in January 1949.

Germany: Horror As Homes Collapse Into Mine ...

SKY NEWS

Three people are feared dead after two homes were swallowed up by a giant open cast mine.

The houses in Germany plummetted hundreds of feet into the mine after heavy rain caused a landslide.

Amazing pictures show remains of the homes at the bottom of the mine, part of which had been converted into a lake.

The alarm was raised early on Saturday at Nachterstedt, a town in central Germany, police said.

One house was completely swept away in the landslide while the other was torn in half.

The remaining part of the house was left perched on the edge of a precipice.

Both homes stood close to the edge of the former open-cast coal mine.

The three missing residents are a couple and a man, all believed to be in their 50s.

Around seven other homes, now just a few feet from the drop, had a narrow escape.

The area into which the homes fell contained no water.

The stretch of land which collapsed into the lake was around 350m long and 120m wide.

Giant squid terrorise Californian coast ...

Associated Press

Jumbo flying squid have invaded the shallow waters off San Diego, California, spooking scuba divers and beachgoers after washing up dead on the beaches.

The carnivorous cephalopods, which weigh up to 45kg (100lb), came up from the depths last week, with swarms of them roughing up unsuspecting divers. Some reported tentacles enveloping their masks and yanking at their cameras and gear.

Stories of close encounters with the squid have chased many divers out of the water and created a whirlwind of excitement among those torn between their personal safety and the once-in-a-lifetime chance to swim with the deep-sea giants.

The so-called Humboldt squid, named after the current in the eastern Pacific, have been known to attack humans and are nicknamed "red devils" for their rust-red colouring and mean streak. Divers wanting to observe the creatures often bait the water, use a metal viewing cage or wear chainmail to avoid being lashed by the creature's tentacles.

The squid, which is most commonly found in deep water from California to the bottom of south America, hunts in schools of up to 1,200 individuals, can swim up to 15 mph and can skim over the water to escape predators.

"I wouldn't go into the water with them for the same reason I wouldn't walk into a pride of lions on the Serengeti," said Mike Bear, a local diver. "For all I know, I'm missing the experience of a lifetime."

The squid are too deep to bother swimmers and surfers, but many experienced divers say they are staying out of the surf until the sea creatures move on.

Roger Uzun, a veteran scuba diver and amateur underwater videographer, swam with a swarm of the creatures for about 20 minutes and said they appeared more curious than aggressive. The animals taste with their tentacles, he said, and seemed to be touching him and his wet suit to determine if he was edible.

A sad day: Henry Allingham, the world's oldest man, dies ...

ITN

Henry Allingham, the oldest surviving serviceman from the First World War, has died at the age of 113.

Less than a month ago, Mr Allingham was declared the world's oldest man by Guinness World Records.

Mr Allingham celebrated his 113th birthday on June 6. His life spanned three centuries and six monarchs.

Hitler-salute garden gnomes cause trouble for artist ...

German prosecutors have launched an enquiry into whether a garden gnome with its right arm raised in a Hitler salute in a Nuremberg art gallery is against the law.

Hitler salutes and Nazi symbols have been illegal in Germany since World War II, but some claim that the garden gnome is actually ridiculing the Third Reich.

The artist in question is Ottmar Hoerl, who has designed numerous exhibitions and projects in public spaces and has been president of the Academy for Fine Arts in Nuremberg since 2005.

NASA lost moon footage, but Hollywood restores it ...

SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer [edited by Paul]

NASA was able to put a man on the moon but didn't have the sense to keep the original video of the live TV transmission.

In an embarrassing acknowledgment, the space agency said Thursday that it must have erased the Apollo 11 moon footage years ago so that it could reuse the videotape.

But now Hollywood is coming to the rescue.

The studio wizards who restored "Casablanca" are digitally sharpening and cleaning up the ghostly, grainy footage of the moon landing, making it even better than what TV viewers saw on July 20, 1969. They are doing it by working from four copies that NASA scrounged from around the world.

"There's nothing being created; there's nothing being manufactured," said NASA senior engineer Dick Nafzger, who is in charge of the project. "You can now see the detail that's coming out."

The first batch of restored footage was released just in time for the 40th anniversary of the "one giant leap for mankind," and some of the details seem new because of their sharpness. Originally, astronaut Neil Armstrong's face visor was too fuzzy to be seen clearly. The upgraded video of Earth's first moonwalker shows the visor and a reflection in it.

The $230,000 refurbishing effort is only three weeks into a months-long project, and only 40 percent of the work has been done. But it does show improvements in four snippets: Armstrong walking down the ladder; Buzz Aldrin following him; the two astronauts reading a plaque they left on the moon; and the planting of the flag on the lunar surface.

Nafzger said a huge search that began three years ago for the old moon tapes led to the "inescapable conclusion" that 45 tapes of Apollo 11 video were erased and reused. His report on that will come out in a few weeks.

The original videos beamed to Earth were stored on giant reels of tape that each contained 15 minutes of video, along with other data from the moon. In the 1970s and '80s, NASA had a shortage of the tapes, so it erased about 200,000 of them and reused them.

Nafzger, who was in charge of the live TV recordings back in the Apollo years, said they were mostly thought of as data tapes. It wasn't his job to preserve history, he said, just to make sure the footage worked. In retrospect, he said he wished NASA hadn't reused the tapes.

Historians were aghast.

"It's surprising to me that NASA didn't have the common sense to save perhaps the most important historical footage of the 20th century," said Rice University historian and author Douglas Brinkley. He noted that NASA saved all sorts of data and artifacts from Apollo 11, and it is "mind-boggling that the tapes just disappeared."

The remastered copies may look good, but "when dealing with historical film footage, you always want the original to study," Brinkley said.

Smithsonian Institution space curator Roger Launius, a former NASA chief historian, said the loss of the original video "doesn't surprise me that much."

"It was a mistake, no doubt about that," Launius said. "This is a problem inside the entire federal government. ... They don't think that preservation is all that important."

Launius said that federal warehouses where historical artifacts are saved are "kind of like the last scene of `Raiders of the Lost Ark.' It just goes away in this place with other big boxes."

The company that restored all the Indiana Jones movies, including "Raiders," is the one bailing out NASA.

Lowry Digital of Burbank, Calif., noted that "Casablanca" had a pixel count 10 times higher than the moon video, meaning that the Apollo 11 footage was fuzzier than a vintage movie and more of a challenge in one sense.

Of all the video the company has dealt with, "this is by far the lowest quality," said Lowry president Mike Inchalik.

Nafzger praised Lowry for restoring "crispness" to the Apollo video. Historian Launius wasn't as blown away.

"It's certainly a little better than the original," Launius said. "But it's not a lot better."

The Apollo 11 video remains in black and white. Inchalik said he would never consider colorizing it, as has been done to black-and-white classic films. And the moon is mostly gray anyway.

The restoration used four video sources: CBS News originals; kinescopes from the National Archives; a video from Australia that received the transmission of the original moon video; and camera shots of a TV monitor.

Both Nafzger and Inchalik acknowledged that digitally remastering the video could further encourage conspiracy theorists who believe NASA faked the entire moon landing on a Hollywood set. But they said they enhanced the video as conservatively as possible.

Besides, Inchalik said that if there had been a conspiracy to fake a moon landing, NASA surely would have created higher-quality film.

Back in 1969, nearly 40 percent of the picture quality was lost converting from one video format used on the moon — called slow scan — to something that could be played on TVs on Earth, Nafzger said.

NASA did not lose other Apollo missions' videos because they weren't stored on the type of tape that needed to be reused, Nafzger said.

As part of the moon landing's 40th anniversary, the space agency has been releasing archival material. NASA has a Web site with audio from private conversations in the lunar module and command capsule. The agency is also webcasting radio from Apollo 11 as if the mission were taking place today.

The video restoration project did not involve improving the sound. Inchalik said he listened to Armstrong's famous first words from the surface of the moon, trying to hear if he said "one small step for man" or "one small step for A man," but couldn't tell.

Through a letter read at a news conference on Thursday, Armstrong had the last word about the video from the moon: "I was just amazed that there was any picture at all."

Democrats seek probe of Bush anti-terror policies ...

President Barack Obama has been reluctant to probe Bush-era torture and anti-terrorism policies, but his Democratic allies aren't likely to let the matters rest [and that's good news].

Read full article here

Man gored to death at Pamplona's running of the bulls ...

ALVARO BARRIENTOS, Associated Press Writer

A charging bull gored a young Spanish man to death Friday at Pamplona's San Fermin festival, the first such fatality since 1995. Nine others were injured in a particularly dangerous and chaotic chapter of the running of the bulls.

Pamplona officials identified the man as Daniel Jimeno Romero, 27, from the Madrid suburbs of Alcala de Henares. He was on vacation with his parents and girlfriend.

The San Fermin festival Web site said Jimeno Romero was gored in the neck and lung during a run in which a rogue bull named Capuchino separated from the pack, which is among the worst things that can happen at Spain's most popular fiesta.

Isolated bulls are more likely to get disoriented and start charging at people.

Three other people were gored and six people suffered bumps, bruises and other lesser injuries, said Fernando Boneta, director of Virgen del Camino Hospital.

Among the injured was a 61-year-old American who was struck in the chest and had internal bleeding in his lungs. Doctors said he was in intensive care but that his condition was not considered life-threatening. The man was identified by his initials, E.P.S., but his full name was not released.

Also injured in the run was a 20-year-old from London and a 24-year-old Argentine. Another American, a 63-year-old identified by the initials K.L., injured an elbow.

The last fatal goring at the running of the bulls was that of 22-year-old American Matthew Tassio in 1995. [I - Paul - witnessed that event first-hand. I was standing only 2 meters from Matthew when he was gored.]

In 2003, a 63-year-old Spanish man, Fermin Etxeberri, was trampled in the head by a bull and died after spending months in a coma.

Friday's death raises to 15 the toll since record-keeping began in 1924.

Fatalities are relatively rare and when one occurs, it serves as a reminder that amid all the street parties and revelry associated with San Fermin, running with fighting bulls weighing 1,300 pounds (600 kilograms) or more on cobblestone streets packed with people is a life-risking exercise.

This run, the fourth of eight held at San Fermin, was by far the most perilous of this year's festival. The previous three runs were comparatively placid affairs, with no serious injuries.

The six bulls covering the half-mile (850-meter) course with six accompanying steers tend to mind their own business and keep running as long as they stay in a pack. A bull that gets separated is more likely to get frightened and aggressive, and that is what happened on Friday.

Capuchino, a brown, 1,130-pound (515-kilogram) specimen, fell early in the run and ended up on its own.

When it reached a stretch right outside the bullring that marks the end of the course, it started charging right and left, and even ran back the wrong way several times. Runners scurried for safety to wooden barriers along the route as the bull attacked. Herders waving sticks tried in vain to guide it into the ring, even yanking on the animal's tail to turn it around.

This went on for a minute and a half, which is a long time at San Fermin.

At one point the bull picked one man up with its horns and flipped him into the air, then kept going after him as he lay curled up on the ground, covering his face. He got up and ran away, and was apparently not seriously hurt.

"It was a light bull. Its charges were not particularly strong but it moved very fast from left to right," one of the herders, Humberto Miguel, told The Associated Press. "Of the whole pack, it was the one that gave us the most trouble."

The bulls used in Friday's run, from a ranch called Jandilla, have a reputation for being fierce at San Fermin. They hold the record for the most gorings in a single run — eight, one day in 2004.

The bulls used in the runs face matadors and almost certain death the same afternoon in the Pamplona bullring.