But 10 weeks into the trial, they discovered brain tumours had begun to grow in every animal treated.

The tumors found in the rats may have formed from stem cells that hadn't become neurons, Goldman said. Neurons don't normally divide.

The tumors may have been the result of the age of the stem-cell line used in the experiment, Goldman said. Labs funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services can use only certain stem cells, which come from embryos obtained years ago.

While newer cells might create fewer tumors, "We don't know it and can't know it" under the current policy, he said.

Various types of cell transplants are being tried to treat Parkinson's disease, caused when dopamine-releasing cells die in the brain.

This key neurotransmitter, or message-carrying chemical, is involved in movement and Parkinson's patients suffer muscle dysfunction that can often lead to paralysis. Drugs can slow the process for a while but there is no cure.

The idea behind brain cell transplants is to replace the dead cells. Stem cells are considered particularly promising as they can be directed to form the precise desired tissue and do not trigger an immune response.

Parkinson's disease, with tremors and impaired balance, afflicts at least 500,000 Americans.

The Gazette is edited by Jean-Luc Rivera, who is well known in the UFO community, but who also has an abiding interest in cryptozoology, parapsychology, and all things fortean. As is often the case in such ventures, the Gazette exists almost solely thanks to Jean-Luc's extensive knowledge, worldwide connections, and total devotion to, and passion for, the subjects at hand, though Philippe Marlin, the publisher of L'Oeil Du Sphinx, deserves recognition as well for his unqualified support of the Gazette.

I mention this as preamble to an event that took place in Paris on October 14, 2006, the First French Fortean Congress, held to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the publication of La Gazette Fortéenne. Jean-Luc's well organized conference drew 50 or so people from across France--including two from Switzerland and one from the U.S. (me)--to its prestigious location at L'Atelier Z, Centre Culturel Christiane Peugeot (yes, that Peugeot). The day-long event featured a half dozen speakers who gave their presentations in a room adorned with bright and bold modern art.

First up was Francois de Sarre, a German zoologist whose specialty is fish and the evolution of vertebrates. De Sarre spoke about the place of unknown hominids within the highly unorthodox theory of initial bipedalism, which turns the common view that humans are the result of some rapid evolutionary changes from a rather recent quadrupedal ape-like ancestor on its head. Within this theoretical framework of initial bipedalism, de Sarre views the relic non-sapiens hominids as having descended from homo sapiens! De Sarre presented evidence that suggests that these unknown hominids are representatives of collateral lineages that have survived concurrently with Homo sapiens.

Next was Bertrand Méheust, a professor of philosophy, sociology and ethnology. Though Méheust 's initial fortean interest focused on UFOs and their relation to science fiction and folklore (a subject he plans to revisit), for the past couple of decades his interest has centered on the phenomenon of mesmerism. His major work on the subject is a book entitled Un Voyant Prodigieux: Alexis Didier 1826-1886 (An Extraordinary Seer). Méheust gave a brief history of parapsychology in France and noted that the subject is now for all intents and purposes banned from this country since the end of World War II, thanks to the domination of the Marxist and communist ideas in the post-war French intelligentsia; this is still true today, as the present objections to parapsychology are the reflection of the criticism forged in the 1950s and '60s.

After a lunch break, Fabrice Bonvin, the Swiss author of Ovni: Les agents du changement (UFOs: Agents of Change) outlined the many similarities between modern UFO abduction accounts and fairy lore and incubus and succubus accounts from the Middle Ages.

At Jean-Luc's insistence, I then gave a brief overview of the state of affairs for UFOlogy, cryptozoology, parapsychology and forteanism in the U.S. I noted the lack of financial support for these endeavors, the decline of the professional organizations in these areas, and the rise of the internet as the primary source of information on these subjects for the general public.

Unfortunately, the next scheduled speaker, Marie-Jeanne Koffmann, the 86-year-old doctor and expert on the Almas, was back in her old stomping grounds in the Caucasus Mountains of Asia, so Benoit Grison, a biologist and sociologist, gave a cryptozoological presentation in her stead. Grison spoke about the successes of the field, including the recent discovery in Vietnam of the species of wild steer the locals called linh duong. He argued for a narrow definition of cryptozoological discovery, one that involves not only an animal new to science that is known to locals, but that it must be controversial as well. These he called the "Big Cases"--such as the Bigfoot and Nessie accounts -- that define the field.

The final speaker was Michel Meurger, the French folklorist, whose work has covered alien abductions, lake monsters, dragons and more. Appropriately enough for the occasion, Meurger gave a concise history of forteanism and summarized the current state of the field. Overall, despite some disappointments, he views the situation as one of a glass half full (rather than half empty, as I did in my presentation) and even saw as encouraging the commercialization of forteanism in Great Britain, as illustrated by the newsstand magazine, Fortean Times. And what better example of the continued success of forteanism, he noted, than the very existence of this very first French fortean conference!

I couldn't agree more.

Thank you, Jean-Luc Rivera, and cheers to a conference
(and journal) well done.

"Fragile travellers can lose their bearings. When the idea they have of the country meets the reality of what they discover it can provoke a crisis," psychologist Herve Benhamou told the paper.

The phenomenon, which the newspaper dubbed "Paris Syndrome", was first detailed in the psychiatric journal Nervure in 2004.

Bernard Delage of Jeunes Japon, an association that helps Japanese families settle in France, said:

"In Japanese shops, the customer is king, whereas here assistants hardly look at them ... People using public transport all look stern, and handbag snatchers increase the ill feeling."

A Japanese woman, Aimi, told the paper:

"For us, Paris is a dream city. All the French are beautiful and elegant ... And then, when they arrive, the Japanese find the French character is the complete opposite of their own."

"There are 320 days of sunshine a year in Andalusia," says Professor Valeriano Ruiz, director of the thermodynamic laboratory at the University of Seville, who was aghast to find that heavy rain coincided with a visit last week by European journalists to the Sanlucar complex.

The technology of helio-thermodynamism is more productive than electricity production via the photovoltaic -- or solar panels -- method, according to Ruiz.

He says it is the only means of providing power on the scale of fossil energy reactors as Spain goes big on the idea of concentrated solar power (CSP).

The first section of the site is ready for inauguration, and once up and running in the coming months it will have an 11 megawatt (MW) capacity, slightly more than its 10-megawatts counterpart at Pocking in Germany, which to date is Europe's largest solar energy producer.

Sanlucar La Mayor will ultimately overtake that as Spain plans to build eight reactors with an overall capacity of 302 MW by 2010. When all eight are on stream that would be sufficient electricity to supply 180,000 homes, the equivalent of a city such as Seville itself.

The Abengoa group has invested 35 million euros (45 million dollars) in the first reactor and expects to shell out a total of 1.3 billion euros by the time the site is complete.

The first reactor covers some 70 hectares and comprises 624 moveable mirrors.

Each has a 121-square-metre surface and is stuck on the end of a metal pillar, enabling the sun's rays to be concentrated on a focal point situated at the top of a tower.

There, a boiler is installed to allow a temperature to be reached of between 600 and 1,000 degrees Celsius in order to heat up fluid and produce the vapour that activates a system of turbines and alternators, thereby generating electricity.

There is no need for silicon, a chemical element indispensable for the fabrication of more expensive photovoltaic cells, and there are no CO2 emissions either, those being the key cause of the so-called Greenhouse Effect of global warming.

What is required is space, at least two hectares per MW of production, and sun -- an annual 1,900 KWh per square metre.

But the sun, unlike oil, is an inexhaustible source of energy -- and it is free, Ruiz notes.

The professor says that the technology has also become financially viable since Spain's Socialists took power in 2004 and passed a law imposing a kilowatt-hour purchase price for solar energy that is more costly than that of other methods.

"It's the real reason why things are starting to take off," he says, adding the ecological side of the argument justifies the state's interest in promoting the technology.

According to Ruiz, the technology is easily exportable to any country where there is an abundance of sunshine, meaning that African states such as Algeria, Egypt and Morocco could see it prosper.

Spain's photovoltaic association ASIF recently forecast growth of up to 1,100 MW by 2010, exceeding government forecasts more than twice over.

Spain, which depends heavily on imported supplies of oil and gas, last year unveiled a Renewable Energy Plan.

The plan offers tax incentives for firms that employ clean emission technologies. It foresees 97 percent of a total 23.6-billion euro investment coming from the private sector, notably such firms as Iberdrola and Gamesa, according to the Institute for the Diversification and Saving of Energy (IDAE).

Spain, where the energy market was deregulated in 1998, is also pushing wind power and lies second only to Germany and just ahead of the United States in terms of installed wind power capacity at 8,155 MW in December 2004.

The doorway of the tomb for the chief dentist included the curse to ward off invaders.

Hawass, who unveiled the excavation site to reporters on Sunday, said he believes only 30 per cent of what lies beneath the Saqqara sands has been uncovered.

His team plans to continue digging at the site next week and expects to find more tombs in the area.