- Signs of the Times Archive for Wed, 18 Apr 2007 -



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SOTT Focus

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Best of the Web
War on Terror looks like a fraud

John Gleeson
The Winnipeg Sun
2007-04-18 11:29:00

Contrary to the "patriots" who try to use the deaths of our soldiers in Afghanistan to stifle debate on Canada's involvement in the War on Terror, I would say that as new evidence presents itself, we would indeed be cowards to ignore it simply because we've lost troops in the field and are therefore blindly committed to the mission.

And new evidence is piling up around us, arguably strong enough to declare the whole War on Terror an undeniable fraud.

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War of the Words

Michael Carmichael
Global Research
2007-04-18 12:18:00

The American people have become the unwitting victims of their own information warriors.

With clockwork military precision, the American people have become the unwitting victims of their own information warriors. The dazzling effects of this war's weaponry leave US citizens bewildered by wilful misrepresentations of facts. While US propaganda surges are ostensibly designed to deceive America's enemies, far too frequently they boomerang back, plunging their deadly roots deep down into the American psyche.






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The Great American Catalyzing Event

Manuel Valenzuela
Valenzuela's Veritas
2007-04-18 11:55:00



System Embedded

Somewhere inside the halls of governance, where power and control and greed unleash their fiery cocktail of wickedness, where corrupt men and criminal cabals strategize over master plans of delusion and domination, there lies an unnerving fear of a movement, still in its infancy, of a mass tectonic shift in human energy. This movement, while barely growing legs, gaining experience and slowly learning the massive power within its grasp, is the tremor being felt underneath the putrid and rotting nest of corruption and criminality called Washington.

This movement, while still learning to fly, while still small compared to what it will invariably become, is the harbinger of a revolution to end all revolutions, the inevitable, and end result, of a system that through its principles begets greed, injustice, criminality, exploitation and inequality. It is this system, which controls the present state of human affairs, which by its implementation and maturation, indeed by its very nature, has overextended itself to the point of eventual decline and fall.

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U.S. News
FBI Searched Calif. Congressman's Home


AP
2007-04-18 17:45:00

FBI Searched Home of California Congressman Linked to Jack Abramoff Case

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SF honors 101st anniversary of quake

Carl Nolte
San Francisco Chronicle
2007-04-18 14:55:00

San Francisco celebrated one of its oldest traditions Wednesday morning with two small but poignant ceremonies to commemorate the 101st anniversary of the earthquake and fire that nearly destroyed the city in 1906.

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Columbine Dad: Government not always honest

Duncan Adams
The Roanoke Times
2007-04-18 11:41:00

Brian Rohrbough, father of Columbine High School victim Daniel Rohrbough, spoke passionately Tuesday about the duty of law enforcement and university officials to share, as soon as investigative circumstances allow, honest and complete information about what preceded or transpired during Monday's tragedy.


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Another Scare Rattles Va. Tech Campus

By ADAM GELLER
Associated Press
2007-04-18 10:52:00

©AP Photo/Steve Helber
Heavily armed Virginia State Police officers patrol outside Burruss Hall on the campus of Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va.,


BLACKSBURG, Va. - Virginia Tech students still on edge after the deadliest shooting in modern U.S. history got another scare Wednesday morning as police in SWAT gear with weapons drawn swarmed Burruss Hall, which houses the president's office.

Comment: Why???



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Threats rattle US schools in 10 states


Associated Press
2007-04-18 10:18:00

AUSTIN, Texas - Campus threats forced lock-downs and evacuations at universities, high schools and middle schools in at least 10 states on Tuesday, a day after a Virginia Tech student's shooting rampage killed 33 people.

Threats in Louisiana, Montana and Washington state directly mentioned the massacre in Virginia, while others were reports of suspicious activity in Texas, Arizona, Oklahoma, Tennessee, North Dakota, South Dakota and Michigan.

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Signs of ritual abuse mind control programming in Virginia Tech killer

NED POTTER, DAVID SCHOETZ, RICHARD ESPOSITO, PIERRE THOMAS and the staff of ABC News
ABC News
2007-04-18 09:15:00

Seung-Hui Cho, 23-Year-Old Shooter, Wrote 'Disturbing' Note and Violent Plays

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UK & Euro-Asian News
China to Raise Oil Imports by 14%, Sinopec Group Says

Winnie Zhu
Bloomberg
2007-04-18 12:03:00

China, the world's largest energy user after the U.S., may increase crude oil imports by as much as 14 percent this year to meet surging domestic demand, said an official with the nation's largest oil refiner.


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Europeans critical of CIA terror tactics

Desmond Butler
Associated Press
2007-04-18 10:29:00

WASHINGTON - Members of the European Parliament who were behind a critical report on CIA anti-terrorism tactics have been challenging Bush administration and congressional officials with their findings.

The delegation told a congressional panel Tuesday that a CIA practice of spiriting away terrorism suspects was illegal and scheduled a news conference Wednesday to discuss their findings.

The delegation, which includes members of a European Parliament civil liberties panel, briefed members of two House Foreign Affairs subcommittees during a hearing on renditions - the practice of grabbing suspected terrorists in one country and delivering them to another.

The parliamentarians also responded to complaints by CIA Director Michael Hayden that their report had exaggerated greatly the extent of CIA renditions.

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Lack of trust wipes smile from Greeks


eKathimerini
2007-04-18 09:15:00

Greeks are among the unhappiest people in the European Union largely because they do not trust their government, laws or each other, according to research by Cambridge University in Britain.

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Zionists' slaves: EU aims to criminalise Holocaust denial

Tobias Buck
Financial News
2007-04-18 07:59:00

Laws that make denying or trivialising the Holocaust a criminal offence punishable by jail sentences will be introduced across the European Union, according to a proposal expecting to win backing from ministers Thursday.


Offenders will face up to three years in jail under the proposed legislation, which will also apply to inciting violence against ethnic, religious or national groups.


Diplomats in Brussels voiced confidence on Tuesday that the controversial plan, which has been the subject of heated debate for six years, will be endorsed by member states. However, the Baltic countries and Poland are still holding out for an inclusion of "Stalinist crimes" alongside the Holocaust in the text - a move that is being resisted by the majority of other EU countries.


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Russia, CIS had highest airline accident rate in 2006 - IATA


RIA Novosti
2007-04-18 02:59:00

Russia and members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) had the highest rate of airplane accidents in the world in 2006, a report from an international air transport body said Tuesday.


The 2006 Safety Report prepared by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) revealed that Russia and CIS countries had a rate of 8.6 Western-built hull losses per million flights, which is 13 times higher than the global average.


The second-highest accident rate for air transport after Russia and the CIS was registered in Africa, at 4.31 accidents per million flights.


On the whole, the report said that 2006 was the safest year for flying on record.


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140 sick in China from chemical pollution


Agence France Presse
2007-04-17 23:23:00

©AFP
A cyclist passing through thick pollution from a fatory in Yutian, east of Beijing, China.


About 140 children and teachers were hospitalised in southwest China after a fertilizer plant discharged a "huge amount" of sulfur dioxide, state media reported late Tuesday.


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Around the World
British Journalists Pledge Support for Venezuela


Prensa Latina
2007-04-18 12:01:00

The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) pledged support for Venezuela´s Bolivarian Revolution and criticized the mainstream media´s coverage of events in that country during its annual conference held here.

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Propaganda Alert! Oil Production Could Peak Next Year

Melinda Wenner
Livescience
2007-04-18 02:09:00

Global oil production will peak sometime between next year and 2018 and then decline, according to a controversial new model developed by a Swedish physicist.

Comment: The peak oil theory appears to be a scam to justify aggressive wars and restricting policies. For more on this see exposing the con




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Flashback: Peak oil theories wrong, says ExxonMobil boss


News.com.au
2006-09-12 12:00:00

THE world has an abundant supply of oil, and high petrol prices are just the reality of a globally traded commodity, ExxonMobil Australia chairman Mark Nolan said today.

Mr Nolan used his speech to the Asia Pacific oil and gas conference in Adelaide today to debunk the theory of peak oil, which suggests oil supplies have peaked and will dwindle over the next 20 years.

Such predictions, he said, had been around since the 1920s, particularly at times of high oil prices.

"The fact is that the world has an abundance of oil and there is little question, scientifically, that abundant energy resources exist," Mr Nolan said.

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Police find 17 bodies across Mexico

By E. Eduardo Castillo
Associated Press
2007-04-17 23:19:00

Police found 17 bodies stuffed in cars or dumped on streets in garbage bags across Mexico on Monday in the latest wave of violence apparently triggered by warring drug gangs.


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Korea Fears Prejudice With Shooting Link

By KWANG-TAE KIM
Associated Press
2007-04-17 23:01:00

SEOUL, South Korea - South Korea's Foreign Ministry said Tuesday the government hoped the Virginia Tech shootings, allegedly carried out by a 23-year-old South Korean native, would not "stir up racial prejudice or confrontation."


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Nagasaki mayor dies after shooting


AFP
2007-04-17 21:08:00

The mayor of the Japanese city of Nagasaki died early Wednesday after being shot by a man who police said was a member of a gang with links to the country's largest crime syndicate.

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Big Brother

No new articles.


Axis of Evil
Former Mossad chief: Kill Ahmadinejad

JPost Staff and AP
Jerusalem Post
2007-04-18 23:28:00

Western countries must unite in an effort to assassinate Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, former head of Mossad Meir Amit said on Wednesday night.

"Even though in the past I have been opposed to assassinating Arab leaders, this case is different because it alone is the center of the nuclear issue," Amit told the weekly Kfar Chabad magazine set be published on Thursday.

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Cheney Still Pressing for Iran War, If Not Removed

Jeffrey Steinberg
The People's Voice / Executive Intelligence Review
2007-04-18 15:14:00

If there was any doubt that Vice President Dick Cheney still presides over a powerful war party faction inside the Bush White House that is committed to engineering a military confrontation with Iran, Tuesday's meeting of the President's key foreign and national security advisors proved the point. Going into the meeting, the State Department was strongly advising that the United States release the five Iranian Revolutionary Guard officials seized in Irbil in January. According to a report in the April 14, 2007 Washington Post, Vice President Dick Cheney put his foot down, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice caved in and joined the "consensus." The five Iranian officials, who were detained while on an official visit with the Kurdish regional government-at an Iranian diplomatic mission-will remain in U.S. custody in Iraq, pending a review in July.

By the time that review comes up, if Vice President Cheney has his way, the United States will be in a shooting war with Iran-a war that the U.S. military and intelligence establishment strongly oppose, and that powerful voices within the British Establishment are also now attacking as dangerous folly.

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The Ongoing Trials of Mordechai Vanunu

Eileen Fleming
The Peoples Voice
2007-04-16 02:32:00

On Friday the 13th of April, 2007, Mordechai Vanunu was informed that the Israeli government has renewed all the restrictions against him, for the fourth time.

Although 'freed' from 18 years in jail on April 21, 2004 for telling the world Israel had gone nuclear, Vanunu has been forbidden to leave Israel, forbidden to speak to media and to foreigners under the draconian restrictions of the Emergency Defense Regulations which were implemented first by Britain against Palestinians and Jews after World War II.

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Middle East Madness
Syria: A Lot of Uninvited Guests

Dahr Jamail
Inter Press Service
2007-04-18 17:11:00

The massive influx of Iraqi refugees into Syria has brought rising prices and overcrowding, but most Syrians seem to have accepted more than a million of the refugees happily enough.

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Iraq called 'university of terror'


Reuters
2007-04-18 15:36:00

The head of an al-Qaeda-linked group in Iraq said the country had become a "university of terrorism", producing highly qualified warriors, since the 2003 US-led invasion.


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Update! 4 bombs kill 178 people in Baghdad

By Sinan Salaheddin
Yahoo! News / AP
2007-04-18 11:09:00

BAGHDAD - Four large bombs exploded in mostly Shiite areas of Baghdad on Wednesday, killing at least 178 people and wounding scores - the deadliest day in the city since the start of the U.S.-Iraqi campaign to pacify the capital two months ago.


©AP Photo/Ali Abed
Residents run away from the scene following an explosion in Sadr City district of Baghdad, Iraq, Wednesday, April 18, 2007. A suicide car bomber crashed into an Iraqi checkpoint at an entrance to Sadr City, killing at least 30 and wounding 45 in the capital's largest Shiite Muslim area, police said.


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Ahmadinejad: Iran will 'cut off the hand' of attackers

Staff and agencies
The Guardian
2007-04-18 11:30:00

Iran's army will "cut off the hand" of any attacker, the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said during an annual military parade today.

In a typically defiant speech to mark national army day, Mr Ahmadinjad played down the effect of UN sanctions over the country's nuclear programme, and said its military was self-sufficient.

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Mass murderer released! US drops charges against Haditha marine


The Guardian
2007-04-18 11:32:00

"What I did that day, the decision that I made ... I would make those decisions again today,"







Comment: Do you see the mental disconnect between the reactions to yesterdays Virginia Tech massacre and this story?

If not, then why?





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3 bombs kill 33, wound dozens in Baghdad

Sinan Salaheddin
Yahoo! News / AP
2007-04-18 13:20:00

BAGHDAD - Three separate explosions rocked Baghdad on Wednesday, killing at least 33 people and wounding dozens as violence climbed toward levels seen before a U.S.-led surge to pacify the capital.

Meanwhile, U.S. troops killed five suspected insurgents and captured 30 others in a raid in Iraq's western Anbar province, a day after police uncovered 17 decomposing corpses beneath two school yards in the provincial capital.

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The Loan Gunmen
U.S. Supreme Court ruling limits state control over big banks

Linda Greenhouse
International Herald Tribune
2007-04-18 12:06:00

The mortgage-lending subsidiaries of national banks are immune from state regulation, the Supreme Court has ruled in a decision that upheld a controversial regulation issued six years ago by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the chief federal bank regulator.


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California Foreclosures up 800%

David Streitfeld
LA Times
2007-04-18 11:57:00

Nearly 900 Californians a week are losing their homes because they can't afford to pay the mortgage - up from about 100 a week a year ago - providing fresh evidence that the housing market's troubles are nowhere near over.


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Euro, sterling hit landmark highs against dollar


AFP
2007-04-18 10:13:00

LONDON - The European single currency raced past 1.36 dollars for the first time since December 2004 on Wednesday and sterling hit its highest level against the US currency for almost 26 years.

The weakened dollar "reflects a combination both of concerns about the US economy... and at the same time the contrasting strength of the European economy which is growing much more rapidly," Capital Economics analyst Jonathan Loynes said in London.

"Those concerns have been reflected in expectations for interest rates," he added.

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Japan to deregulate banks and brokers: New bubble to be created

Michiyo Nakamoto
Financial Times
2007-04-17 23:46:00

Prime minister Shinzo Abe on Tuesday asked Japan's financial regulator to draw up measures to relax the rules that separate banking and broking businesses.

The move is expected to boost foreign investment in the country's financial sector and ease business for its major banks, which at present can own securities businesses only as independent subsidiaries and face limits on how they operate. It is part of a drive by Mr Abe's government to raise Tokyo's competitiveness as a global financial centre.


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U.S. banks' results weak amid mortage losses

Jonathan Stempel
Reuters
2007-04-17 23:12:00

NEW YORK - Several U.S. regional banks reported weak earnings on Tuesday amid struggles with interest-rate pressures and rising loan losses, including those from mortgages.


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UK pound goes through $2 barrier


BBC
2007-04-17 21:37:00

The pound has moved through the $2 mark for the first time since 1992, as investors bet interest rates would have to rise to slow inflation.

Consumer prices rose by 3.1% in March, the Office for National Statistics said. The ONS also said that its retail price inflation rate rose to 4.8%.

Many economists consider an interest rate rise in May to be a certainty.

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The Living Planet
Northeast storm leaves remarkable wake


The Weather Channel
2007-04-18 11:21:00

The storm that walloped the Northeast on Monday, April 16, was the culmination of a five-day weather event and left behind significant conditions.

©The Weather Channel


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4.8 quake hits Northern California

Terre Logsdon
Lake County News
2007-04-18 15:15:00

On the 101 anniversary of the San Francisco Earthquake, a 4.8 quake shook the Lake Pillsbury area in northern California, about 150 miles north of San Francisco.

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China makes artificial snow fall in Tibet


XinHua
2007-04-18 13:49:00

LHASA - China has succeeded in creating artificial snow in the northern part of the Tibet Autonomous Region for the first time, according to the local meteorological department.

Taking advantage of suitable weather conditions, the Tibet meteorological station carried out an artificial snowfall operation in Nagqu County in northern Tibet on April 10 at an altitude of about 4.500 meters.

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Is spring the new summer?

Hilary Osborne
Guardian Unlimited
2007-04-18 12:43:00

Following the second warmest winter on record two natural events suggest we have leapfrogged spring and moved straight to summer, a conservation charity said today.

Following a weekend where some parts of the UK basked in temperatures 10C above the seasonal average, the Woodland Trust said flowering hawthorn and the return of migrating swifts indicated that summer had arrived a month earlier than usual this year.

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Flashback: Yellowstone Volcano Grows as Geysers Reawaken

By Bjorn Carey
By Bjorn Carey
2006-03-04 12:00:00

Forces brewing deep beneath Yellowstone National Park could be making one of the largest volcanoes on Earth even bigger, a new study reveals.

In the past decade, part of the volcano has risen nearly five inches, most likely due to a backup of flowing molten rock miles below the planet's crust.

While the rise may not be noticeable to the casual hiker, the activity may have cracked the crust in the park's famous Norris Geyser Basin (NGB), leading to the formation of new fumaroles-holes that vent smoke and gas-and the reawakening of some of the area's geysers, including Steamboat, the largest geyser in the world.

Yellowstone last erupted about 640,000 years ago, spewing 240 cubic miles of material. Despite the newly discovered activity, researchers don't expect it to erupt any time soon. Eventually, however, it could explode again as a super-volcano that would destroy life for hundreds of miles around and coat the entire country in ash.

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USGS Releases Report on Yellowstone Hazard; Don't worry. You'll be hit by a car before the volcano erupts.

Mike Stark
Billings Gazette
2007-04-18 09:30:00

Life is a risk, but Yellowstone National Park's tumultuous geology offers a bit more for worrywarts.

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Health & Wellness
Shock!!! US Supreme Court upholds law banning some abortions


Reuters
2007-04-18 14:05:00

A closely divided U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld the first nationwide ban on a specific abortion procedure, restricting abortion rights in a ruling on one of the nation's most divisive and politically charged issues.


By a 5-4 vote, the high court rejected two challenges to the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act that President George W. Bush signed into law in 2003 after its approval by the Republican-led U.S. Congress.


The decision marked the first time the nation's high court has upheld a federal law banning a specific abortion procedure since its landmark Roe v. Wade ruling in 1973 that women have a basic constitutional right to abortion.


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U.S. approves first bird flu vaccine


XinHua
2007-04-18 13:43:00

BEIJING - U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday approved a bird flu vaccine, the first of its kind with U.S. approval.

The Sanofi-Aventis vaccine could be used to prevent people from becoming infected with the H5N1 bird flu virus. It would be used if the strain mutated into a form that spreads easily from person to person, sparking a pandemic, according to media reports.

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The Age of Autism: Mercury link to Case 2

Dan Olmsted
UPI
2007-04-18 13:21:00

In 1943, a child known only as Frederick W. became part of the first medical report of a strange new disorder. Frederick was Case 2 of 11 children whose behavior differed "markedly and uniquely from anything reported so far," wrote Dr. Leo Kanner, the psychiatrist at Johns Hopkins University who introduced the syndrome to the world and named it "autism."


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Argentine cow clones to produce insulin in milk


Reuters
2007-04-18 07:45:00

Argentine scientists said on Tuesday they had created four cloned and genetically modified calves capable of producing human insulin in their milk, a step they said could cut the cost of treating diabetes.


The newborn Jersey heifers -- who the scientists have named Patagonia 1, 2, 3 and 4 -- will start producing the human hormone when they reach adulthood, said the biotechnology company behind the project, Bio Sidus.


"This model of a genetically modified cow is a model that allows us to produce large quantities of products at very low cost," said managing director Marcelo Criscuolo, adding that insulin produced by cows would be at least 30 percent cheaper.


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What's In The Water? Estrogen-like Chemicals Found In Fish Caught In Pittsburgh's Rivers, USA


Science Daily
2007-04-18 03:19:00

A new study from the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute's Center for Environmental Oncology suggests that fish caught in Pittsburgh rivers contain substances that mimic the actions of estrogen, the female hormone. Since fish are sentinels of the environment, and can concentrate chemicals from their habitat within their bodies, these results suggest that feminizing chemicals may be making their way into the region's waterways.


The study, abstract number 3458, being presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research, April 14-18, at the Los Angeles Convention Center, also demonstrated that the chemicals extracted from the local fish can cause growth of estrogen-sensitive breast cancer cells cultured in the laboratory. Extracts of fish caught in areas heavily polluted by industrial and municipal wastes resulted in the greatest amount of cell growth.


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How The Sensory-deprived Brain Compensates


Science Daily
2007-04-18 03:16:00

Whiskers provide a mouse with essential information to negotiate a burrow or detect movement that could signal a predator's presence. These stiff hairs relay sensory input to the brain, which shapes neuronal activity. In a first, studies of this system by Carnegie Mellon scientists show just how well a mouse brain can compensate when limited to sensing the world through one whisker. Published April 4 in the Journal of Neuroscience, the results should help shape future studies of sensory deprivation that results from stroke or traumatic brain injury, say the authors.


"Our findings are the first to show this degree of brain adaptability in a setting with significantly limited sensory input," said Alison Barth, assistant professor of biological sciences and a member of the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition (CNBC). "This finding tells us that brain function is plastic, or reparable, when a sense like touch has been profoundly diminished. Plasticity is an important indicator that the brain is reorganizing to compensate for an injury or deficit."


For a decade, neuroscientists have known that the brain can increase its plasticity, or adapt, in response to injury that limits bodily motion. This latest study is the first to show such an impressive enhancement of brain activity in an animal with sensory loss. Losing sight, hearing, taste, smell or touch are common disabling side effects of traumatic brain injury and stroke.


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Science & Technology
BlackBerry outage felt across N. America

Bruce Meyerson
AP Business Writer
2007-04-18 16:41:00

Most of it happened outside "work" hours, but the nature of mobile e-mail meant plenty of dismay as BlackBerry service went down across North America from Tuesday evening to Wednesday morning.

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Colombia launches first satellite


XinHua
2007-04-18 13:57:00

BOGOTA - A Russian-Ukrainian rocket put Libertad-1, the first Colombian satellite, into orbit Tuesday, the satellite's designers said.



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Ancient child sacrifices found in Mexico

Mark Stevenson
AP
2007-04-18 11:44:00

Remains of two dozen apparent victims date back 1,000 years

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Scientists Unravel Intricate Animal Behaviour Patterns


Science Daily
2007-04-18 03:21:00

There is a scene in the animated blockbuster "Finding Nemo" when a school of fish makes a rapid string of complicated patterns--an arrow, a portrait of young Nemo and other intricate designs. While the detailed shapes might be a bit outlandish for fish to form, the premise isn't far off. But how does a school of fish or a flock of birds know how to move from one configuration to another and then reorganize as a unit, without knowing what the entire group is doing?


New research by University of Alberta scientists shows that one movement started by a single individual ripples through the entire group--a finding that helps unravel the mystery that has plagued scientists for years.


"It is known that there is a connection between the signals animals use to communicate with each other and their behaviour," said Raluca Eftimie, a graduate student in the U of A's Centre for Mathematical Biology. "But until now, the connection between the complex spatial group patterns that we can see in nature and the different ways animals communicate, has not been stated explicitly."


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Dying Sun-like stars leave whirlpools in their wake


Innovations Report
2007-04-18 03:06:00

Astronomers based at Jodrell Bank Observatory have found evidence that giant whirlpools form in the wake of stars as they move through clouds in interstellar space. The discovery will be presented by Dr Chris Wareing at the Royal Astronomical Society's National Astronomy Meeting in Preston on 17th April.


Dr Wareing and his colleagues used the COBRA supercomputer to simulate in three-dimensions the movement of a dying star through surrounding interstellar gas. At the end of their life, Sun-sized stars lose their grip on their outer layers and as much as half of their mass drifts off into space.


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New undersea vent suggests snake-headed mythology


Duke University / EurekAlert
2007-04-18 02:47:00

A new "black smoker" -- an undersea mineral chimney emitting hot, iron-darkened water that attracts unusual marine life -- has been discovered at about 8,500 feet underwater by an expedition currently exploring a section of volcanic ridge along the Pacific Ocean floor off Costa Rica.


Expedition leaders from Duke University; the Universities of New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida; and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in Massachusetts have named their discovery the Medusa hydrothermal vent field. The researchers are working aboard WHOI's research vessel Atlantis, and the expedition is funded by the National Science Foundation.


The researchers picked that name to highlight the presence of a pink form of the jellyfish order Stauromedusae as well as numerous spiky tubeworm casings that festoon the vent chimney and bring to mind "the serpent-haired Medusa of Greek myth," said expedition leader Emily Klein, a geology professor from Duke's Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences http://www.nicholas.duke.edu/ .


The bell-shaped jellyfish sighted near the vent "are really unusual, and the ones we found may be of a different species because nobody has seen types of this color before," added Karen Von Damm, an earth sciences professor and hydrothermal vent specialist on the expedition from the University of New Hampshire's Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans and Space http://www.eos.sr.unh.edu/.


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Our Haunted Planet
Erebus crash blamed for Antarctica 'ghosts'

By JOHN HENZELL
The Press
2007-04-18 16:29:00

A supernatural experience in Antarctica on Friday the 13th has left a winter worker convinced of the existence of ghosts on the frozen continent.

American Allie Barden was sent to work in a stores building at McMurdo Station, the United States base near New Zealand's Scott Base, and knew it was empty because it was padlocked from outside when she arrived.


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Explanation for 13 cracked airplane windscreens doesn't fly!


Aviation Today
2007-03-05 03:54:00

"We have nothing at the impact sites to say this is definitively what it is." Maybe the NTSB should look again - over and through the Denver dilemma. It may not be as nitty gritty and transparent a solution as flying grit.

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Flashback: More Cracked Windshields: Vietnamese jet makes emergency landing in Azerbaijan


The Associated Press
2007-01-15 06:38:00

A Vietnam Airlines jet with 307 people on board made an emergency landing at the main airport in Azerbaijan's capital, Baku, airport officials said. Nobody was hurt.


An airport official who declined to give his name said the Boeing-777 was en route from Paris to Hanoi when the crew decided to land because of a cracked windshield - the third time in less than two weeks that officials in Azerbaijan have cited a cracked windshield as the reason for an emergency landing at Baku's international airport.


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Flashback: 13 Planes at DIA report cracked windshields within two hour period


CNN.com, Coloradoan.com, CBS4
2007-02-20 14:29:00

Airlines were investigating why windshields on at least 13 planes were reported cracked at Denver International Airport within a two hour period on Friday.

©AP
One of the 13 cracked windshields at DIA on Friday, February 16th. Only the outer layer of the windshields were affected.


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Don't Panic! Lighten Up!
Bin Laden Look-Alike Runs for Election. Human Look-Alike runs US

Jim Gomez
AP
2007-04-18 06:34:00

©AP
In this campaign poster, released by a family member of Lanao Del Sur Board Member candidate Agakhan Mangondato Sharief in Manila, Philippines, shows a big, bold "Bin Laden" print of the 35-year-old candidate in the 1st District of Lanao Del Sur province in southern Philippines Wednesday, April 18, 2007.


MANILA, Philippines (AP) - Philippine elections are largely a battle of name recall, so Agakhan Sharief has chosen a moniker that will surely capture the attention of voters well beyond his backwater southern province - Osama bin Laden.

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Smoke Break Saves S.C. Woman From Tree


Associated Press
2007-04-18 12:34:00

ROCK HILL, S.C. - Smoking just might have saved Brenda Comers' life.


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Russian submarine listing in Providence River after storm


ABC
2007-04-18 07:43:00

A Russian submarine used as a floating museum in the Providence River is listing after yesterday's storm.


Museum President Frank Lennon says the nor'easter caused an extreme high tide and winds that pushed the submarine on a shoal close to shore. It's now leaning to the left.


Lennon says the submarine floats in about a foot of water, so there's little danger. No water has penetrated the boat.


The museum hasn't yet decided how to fix the problem. The boat has been closed to visitors.


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Stuffed Monkey Leads Cops to Drug Arrest


Associated Press
2007-04-17 23:41:00

FORREST CITY, Ark. - An Arkansas State Police trooper suspected monkey business when he spotted a large stuffed animal perched atop the dashboard of a pickup truck on the interstate.

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Young Whale Found in New York Harbor

RICHARD PYLE
AP
2007-04-17 20:48:00

Marine biologists were standing watch on Tuesday over a young whale that lost its way in New York harbor and nearly wandered into a narrow waterway notorious for industrial pollution.



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