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Asian astrologers warn of stormy Year of Snake


Agence France-Presse
Fri, 08 Feb 2013 13:00 UTC
Year of the Snake_1
© France24A man walks past Chinese New Year's calligraphy in Hong Kong on February 5, 2013. A stock market slide, possible conflict between Japan and China and more Gangnam-styled success for South Korean singer Psy will shape the incoming Year of the Snake, say Asian soothsayers.
A stock market slide, escalated conflict between Japan and China and more Gangnam-styled success for South Korean singer Psy will shape the incoming Year of the Snake, say Asian soothsayers.

Those who make predictions according to the study of feng shui -- or literally "wind-water" -- are influential in many parts of Asia, where people adjust their lives or renovate houses and offices based on the advice.

As they bid farewell to the Year of the Dragon, the fortune tellers warn that the "black water snake" that emerges to replace it on February 10 -- the first day of the Lunar New Year -- could be a venomous one that brings disaster.

Previous Snake years have been marked by the September 11, 2001 terror strikes that killed nearly 3,000 people, the crushing of the 1989 Tiananmen pro-democracy protests and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.

The 1929 stock market plunge that heralded the Great Depression also occurred in a snake year.
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Arrow Down

These 3-D portraits were created using only a person's DNA

Zak Stone
Co.Exist
Fri, 08 Feb 2013 12:45 UTC
Sample DNA
© Co.Exist
Stranger Visions is an art project which tries to determine what we look like based on a single strand of hair.

How much information about ourselves do we leave behind in public, as we shed saliva, hair, and sweat throughout the day? It's a question that drives the artwork of Heather Dewey-Hagborg, whose project Stranger Visions reconstructs the faces of the anonymous as 3-D printed sculptures, using genetic detritus found in chewing gum, cigarette butts, and wads of hair around New York City.

"I started fixating on this idea of hair and what can I know about someone from a hair," explains Dewey-Hagborg, a Brooklyn-based information artist. Her faces were determined based on looking at just three traits--gender, eye color, and maternal ethnicity--an admittedly simplified look (but still more advanced than police forensics labs which use a kit to determine hair and eye color from a sample). Plugging that information into software she wrote herself, she could spin up different 3-D versions of a face--eventually settling on the ones she finds most interesting aesthetically--and bring them to life with a 3-D printer.

The resulting busts may bear, at most, a "family resemblance" to the original person, Dewey-Hagborg says. "Part of that is that I need to do more experiments," to incorporate more traits. "Part of that is that it's just impossible."
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Info

Real-life vampire addicted to blood, doctors claim

Megan Gannon
LiveScience
Fri, 08 Feb 2013 09:11 UTC
Vampire
© Margaaret M. Stewart | shutterstock
In a chilling case report, doctors in Turkey have described what they claim to be a real-life vampire with multiple personalities and an addiction to drinking blood.

The 23-year-old married man apparently started out slicing his own arms, chest and belly with razor blades, letting the blood drip into a cup so he could drink it. But when he experienced compulsions to drink blood "as urgent as breathing," he started turning to other sources, the doctors said.

The man, whose name and hometown were not revealed in the report, was arrested several times after stabbing and biting others to collect and drink their blood. He apparently even got his father to get him bags of the ghastly drink from blood banks, according to the report announced today (Feb. 8) by the Journal of Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics. The case study was published last fall.

The doctors said they found traumatic events in the man's life leading up to his two-year bloodsucking phase. His four-month-old daughter became ill and died, he witnessed the murder of his uncle, and he saw another violent killing in which "one of his friends cut off the victim's head and penis," the report said.
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Magnify

Hong Kong customs discover 2,600 live snakes in boxes marked as fruit


Raw Story
Fri, 08 Feb 2013 09:01 UTC
Image
© AFP Photo
Hong Kong customs authorities investigating a shipment from Thailand marked as fruit were shocked to discover the consignment instead contained 2,600 live snakes, officials said Friday.

Customs intercepted the air cargo shipment of 2,400 common rat snakes and 200 cobras on Tuesday and returned them on Thursday, a government spokeswoman said, just days before the start of the Year of the Snake in the Chinese horoscope.
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Bad Guys

Malaysian jailed over major seizure of tiger parts


Raw Story
Fri, 08 Feb 2013 08:58 UTC
Image
© AFP Photo
Activists Friday slammed a two-year jail term handed to a Malaysian man over the country's biggest seizure of illegally trafficked tiger parts as too short and a "demoralising finale" to the case.

Eight tiger skins, and 22 tiger skulls and bones were discovered at the home of Nor Shahrizam Nasir in northern Malaysia in February last year, as well as nine pieces of African elephant ivory.

A district court in northern Kedah state found Nor Shahrizam guilty Thursday of illegal possession of tiger parts and ivory and he was ordered to serve 24 months in jail, said TRAFFIC, a group that monitors wildlife smuggling.

Malaysian court or wildlife officials could not immediately be reached for comment.
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Cell Phone

Sri Lanka phone-smuggling prisoner betrayed by ringing butt


Raw Story
Fri, 08 Feb 2013 08:56 UTC
Image
© AFP Photo
A Sri Lankan prisoner who tried to hide his mobile phone during a search of his cell was caught out when guards heard ring tones from his rear-end, a hospital official said on Friday.

The 58-year-old convict had to be admitted to the national hospital in Colombo where doctors later retrieved the handset from his rectum.
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Eye 1

No psych assessment for accused in Vancouver apartment stabbing, despite "mental breakdown"

Christopher Reynolds
The Vancouver Sun
Thu, 07 Feb 2013 00:00 UTC
Jerome Bonneric
© Facebook/CTV BCJerome Bonneric is pictured in this undated photo.
Vancouver, Canada - Moving slowly and looking dazed with his right arm still in a cast, Jerome Bonneric, accused in last week's West End stabbing spree, made his second appearance in Vancouver Provincial Court this week.

The psychiatric assessment request his lawyer had said he expected from Crown prosecutors Thursday morning did not come, and Judge William Kitchen did not order one.

"It was a terrible mental breakdown," said Bonneric's lawyer Robert Bellows, who was also not seeking a psychiatric assessment for his client. "It was absolutely out of character for him."

Bellows suggested earlier in the week that his client has serious mental health issues, adding that he was at St. Paul's Hospital shortly before the attack.

Bonneric, 33, has spoken by phone with his parents in France, Bellows said, and four friends attended his court appearance, accompanied by the French deputy consul.

"He has lots of friends who care for him and love him," Bellows said. "He's still extremely despondent and extremely sad about what's happened."
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Heart - Black

Bullying attack leaves Pennsylvania boy in coma

Ben Waldron
Yahoo! News
Thu, 07 Feb 2013 00:00 UTC
Image
© Good Morning America/ABC News
A Pennsylvania boy is currently in a medically induced coma after a schoolyard fight with classmates who he and his family claims were bullying him.

Sixth-grader Baily O'Neil, an honors student, of Darby Township, Pa., was involved in a fight four weeks ago at the Darby Township School. He was struck several times in the face by another student; the blow fractured his nose and he fell to the ground.

His parents brought their son, who had a concussion, to the A.I. DuPont hospital in Wilmington, Del., where he was treated and released. But his father saw that something wasn't quite right with their son when they returned home.

"He was sleeping. He was moody. He wasn't himself. He was angry a little bit. He wasn't really eating," Bailey's father Rob told ABC Affiliate WPVI-TV.

Just a few days later, Bailey started having violent seizures and needed to be hospitalized again. The seizures were so bad that doctors at A.I. DuPont were forced to put Bailey in a medically induced coma nearly two weeks ago.
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Black Cat 2

James Cromwell, babe actor, arrested over cat torture protest


BBC News
Fri, 08 Feb 2013 04:52 UTC
Image
Cromwell, 73, was released from jail on Thursday afternoon
Oscar-nominated actor James Cromwell has been arrested at an American university over a cat torture protest.

The Babe actor was held for disorderly behaviour after protesting at the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents meeting on Thursday.

Cromwell, 73, and an animal rights group activist held signs showing a cat with metal implanted in its head at a UW-Madison laboratory.

They were released from jail on Thursday afternoon.

The director of the university's Research Animal Resources Centre said government agriculture officials have found their claims to be false.
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Horse

Findus beef lasagne meals 100% horsemeat


Sky News
Fri, 08 Feb 2013 00:00 UTC
Image
Firms are ordered to test their beef products, as the Food Standards Agency warns criminal activity may be behind contaminations.

Tests on Findus beef lasagne have revealed that some of the ready meals were made entirely from horsemeat.

Findus analysed 18 of its beef lasagne products and found 11 meals contained between 60% and 100% horsemeat, the Food Standards Agency (FSA) said.

There is no evidence to suggest the horsemeat found in the Findus beef lasagne is a food safety risk, the FSA said.

However, the agency has ordered urgent tests on the lasagne for the veterinary drug phenylbutazone. Meat from animals treated with "bute" is not allowed to enter the food chain in Britain as it may pose a risk to human health.

All food companies have been told to test their beef products, with the FSA saying it was "highly likely" that criminal activity was to blame for the contamination.
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