Science Special News

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www.elchupacabra.com Webmaster and science-fiction buff Dave Pettis. "I just believe there can be something out there like that," said Pettis, who lives in Northern California. "I don't think every animal in the world has been classified." Pettis said he gets lots of e-mails from people. Some are curious about the creature, while others want to submit their own sightings. "Some people think it's some [lab] experiment that escaped, but other people think it's some animal that's been around for a long time, like in South America. The clearing of the rain forests has made it come out," he said.

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Authors claim Brown stole Da Vinci Code plot

Some might say it is a court case worthy of its subject matter: impenetrable, verging on the farcical and wrapped up in the minutiae of Christian theology. Amid the appropriately neo-gothic setting of the High Court in London, two British-based writers yesterday claimed that The Da Vinci Code, the loosely historical murder mystery, plagiarises a book they published more than 20 years earlier.The two, who specialise in historical conjecture, claim that its author, Dan Brown, cannibalised their text, The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, to give his book plausibility and to save himself "time and effort" in independent research.Michael Baigent, 52, and Richard Leigh, 62, also said that it was not just random facts that were "lifted" but the whole "architecture" and "theme" of their book.At the heart of the case is their theory that Christ did not die on the cross but married Mary Magdalene and had a child, starting a bloodline that was protected by the Knights Templar and hushed up by the Catholic Church.Brown's thriller is also based on the notion that Jesus married Mary, starting a family in France where their descendants continue to live.



While the arguments in the case will hardly trouble historians, millions of pounds of publishing profits are at stake, as is the proposed release of the film version of The Da Vinci Code.With sales of 40 million and counting since it was published in 2003, the book has become an international phenomenon, generating millions of pounds of publishing and tourism spin-offs.The film, starring Tom Hanks, Sir Ian McKellen and Audrey Tautou, is due to be released in May.Brown, a devout Christian who attended the case, emphatically denies stealing from Baigent and Leigh's work and is particularly adamant that he would never suggest that Jesus was not crucified on the cross.

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The Edinburgh ghost festival

Overnight vigils in one of the Capital's creepiest places are to be held as part of the city's annual ghost festival. Mary King's Close, the 17th century labyrinth below the City Chambers, is to be opened up from midnight to 6am to play host to private adult-only investigations. Other underground vaults and closes in the historic heart of Edinburgh will also play host to various paranormal and supernatural probes. Leading psychics, ghost-finders and paranormal experts are inviting members of the public to join them on after-dark events during the festival, which is expected to attract visitors from all over the UK. The second Edinburgh Ghost Fest will also see attempts to capture ghostly voices, the opportunity to meet some of the UK's best known psychics, and a chance for festival-goers to experience a night in the city's underground vaults. Other events in the fledgling festival, which is being held over ten days in May, include a look back at the history of witchcraft and witch-hunting in the Lothians, clairvoyant gatherings, storytelling sessions, tarot nights, a psychic fair, tastings of whisky from Scotland's most haunted distilleries and a spooky bus tour of Midlothian. Among the highlights of the festival is expected to be the overnight stays in Mary King's Close, which was closed off due to a plague from the Christmas of 1644 to the autumn of 1646. It opened its doors to guided tours in 1995 and has been a fully-fledged visitor attraction for almost three years. The close takes its name from the daughter of Alexander King, a wealthy Edinburgh advocate, who owned several properties in the area. Mary lived at the head of the close and died shortly before the plague outbreak. Over the years, visions of an eight-year-old girl, believed to have died in the plague, and a mysterious demurely dressed lady, have turned the close into a shrine for ghost hunters. The festival will see both leading psychic Carol Stirling and paranormal investigator Phil Whyman host overnight events in the close.



Another festival highlight is expected to be a series of electronic voice phenomenon workshops, which will see cutting-edge technology deployed in a bid to record spirit voices. A team of experts will record in various areas of Mary King's Close and analyse any ghostly noises that emerge. The underground vaults below Niddry Street and Blair Street will play host to the events offering the chance to conduct group investigations. The vaults will also see the Scottish Paranormal Group conduct a series of scientifically-controlled experiments. A spokeswoman for the Edinburgh Ghost Fest said: "Edinburgh's dark tales and strange paranormal activity will once again be highlighted during the festival. "In its second year, the Ghost Fest is bigger and better, featuring new events and investigations taking place around this extremely haunted city. "Visitors will be given a unique opportunity to explore the supernatural side of many 'haunted sites', take part in experiments, overnight vigils, workshops, talks and demonstrations on this fascinating subject."

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Pulse reveals beating heart of a supervolcano

"I don't think visitors appreciate that they're standing directly on top of the largest, most dynamic magmatic system on the planet," says geologist Daniel Dzurisin. While the supervolcano that is Yellowstone National Park won't be erupting any time soon, he and his colleagues have uncovered a surprising source of volcanic activity beneath tourists' feet, which was probably the reason trails had to be closed in 2003.The Yellowstone caldera formed 640,000 years ago in an explosion of magma more than 1000 times greater than the Mount St Helens eruption in 1980. While it is common knowledge that the caldera floor rises and falls, the source of the motion remains uncertain. According to a previous popular theory, the accumulation and release of fluid not far beneath the surface is driving the cycles, but Dzurisin, of the David A. Johnston Cascades Volcano Observatory in Vancouver, Washington, and his colleagues say a deeper source best explains their latest findings.

The team, led by Charles Wicks of the US Geological Survey in Menlo Park, California, used a series of satellite measurements to determine the fluctuations in elevation - up to 120 millimetres - over a seven-year period.Although the floor of the caldera began subsiding in 1997, the researchers uncovered a new region of activity beneath the north rim of the caldera that continued to swell from 1995 until 2002. Models incorporating the measurements indicate that the source of the upward push was 10 to 16 kilometres beneath the surface in the basaltic magma layer, well below the level of the fluid suggested as the source of the motion (Nature, vol 440, p 72).

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Pentagon recruits 'stealth sharks'

It is a fascinating and chilling example of deep sea life imitating art. That is, if a dire B-movie about mutant sharks trained by military scientists to become killing machines can be termed "art". That scenario was described in 2003 American film Dark Waters. Now it emerges the Pentagon is funding research with the ultimate hope of turning real sharks into "stealth spies" capable of gliding undetected through the ocean. It involves placing neural implants in the fish, to transmit their controllers' bidding. The research, to be reported in the UK's New Scientist this week, builds on experimental work to control animals by implanting tiny electrodes in their brain, which are stimulated to induce a behavioural response. "The Pentagon hopes to exploit sharks' natural ability to glide quietly through the water, sense delicate electrical gradients and follow chemical trails," says the report. "By remotely guiding the sharks' movements they hope to transform them into stealth spies, perhaps capable of following vessels without being spotted." The project is being funded by the Pentagon's Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency, which pioneered the internet as a platform for robust communications. Scientists involved in the scheme presented their work last week at a meeting on ocean sciences in Hawaii.

A team at Boston University have implanted electrodes into the brain of a spiny dogfish in a shallow tank. The implants stimulate either the right or left side of a brain area dedicated to smell, causing the fish to flick around in that direction in response to the signal. The next step will be to take this device outside the laboratory. Blue sharks implanted with the gadget are to be released off Florida. Communications with the fish will be made through US Navy acoustic towers capable of sending sonar signals to a shark up to 300km away. Other DARPA-funded researchers are working on using implants to record brain activity in sharks in order to understand which neurons are fired by scents, electrical or magnetic fields.

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Cosmonauts to attempt golf record

Russian cosmonauts are hoping to hit a golf ball into Earth's orbit from the International Space Station, setting a record for the longest drive ever made. If Nasa gives the go-ahead, the attempt will take place during one of three spacewalks planned for 2006. The ball will be hit with a gold-plated golf club, made of the same scandium alloy used to build the station, and is expected to orbit Earth for four years. Some experts warn a mishap could cause "catastrophic" damage to the station. The ball is expected to travel millions of miles - its progress tracked using global positioning transmitters as it gradually loses altitude through atmospheric drag. "It will come back through the atmosphere, heat up, melt away and never be seen again," said Bill Alior, director of the Center for Orbital and Re-entry Debris Studies in the US. Nasa is currently studying the risks of the commercial deal, brokered by Russia with the Canadian golf company, Element 21. The stunt depends on the ball being hit out of the space station's orbital plane. Mr Alior said there was a "small risk" the ball could fall back onto the station or collide with it during a subsequent orbit. The extent of the damage would depend on factors such as the impact angle and the speed of collision. "The drive will have to be made in a certain direction to minimise that possibility. "But the trick will be hitting the ball wearing a spacesuit.

It's probably not going to be too easy," he said. In a worst-case scenario, the ball would remain at the same altitude long enough for its orbital plane to shift so it could hit the station side-on. An orbital debris expert at Nasa's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, told New Scientist magazine that it would be like a head-on collision with an impact speed of about 9.4km (5.8 miles) per second - equivalent to a 6.5-tonne truck moving at nearly 100km (62 miles) per hour. If the astro-golf attempt is approved, Element 21 plans to donate the gold-plated golf club to a charity back on Earth.

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Antarctica losing ice to oceans

A new space-based study of Antarctica shows its ice sheet is shrinking. Researchers used satellites to plot changes in the Earth's gravity in the Antarctic during the period 2002-2005. Writing in the journal Science, they conclude that the continent is losing 152 cubic km of ice each year, with most loss in the west. In recent years scientists have found other evidence that West Antarctic ice is melting, which could contribute to sea level rise. In his contribution to a recent report on climate change, the director of the British Antarctic Survey, Chris Rapley, described the West Antarctic ice sheet as "a giant awakened". But gathering comprehensive data on both the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets has not been straightforward, and studies have produced apparently contradictory results, with some indicating a loss of ice and others that sheets are thickening. The new study, conducted by scientists at the University of Colorado at Boulder, uses a technique which has not been tried before: measuring gravity over Antarctica. Data comes from a pair of satellites together known as Grace which orbit the Earth in tandem, measuring changes in its gravitational field.

When they fly over regions where there is lots of material below, such as mountain ranges, or where crustal rocks are more dense, they will register an increase in the Earth's gravity - tiny, but measurable. "Their orbits have a very large inclination, of 89 degrees in fact, so you get very good coverage over the Antarctic," said Isabella Velicogna, one of the Colorado team. "We see the entire ice sheet and measure the mass change of the entire ice sheet; then we look at the east and west separately," she told the BBC News website. Overall, Dr Velicogna's group found an annual decrease in ice sheet mass of 152 cubic km. There is a clear loss in the west, whereas the mass of the East Antarctic sheet appears to be constant.

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2102 asteroid will be closest shave yet

A space rock capable of sub-continent scale devastation has about a one in 1,000 risk of colliding with Earth early next century, the highest of any known asteroid, watchers said on Thursday. The rock, 2004 VD17, is about 500 metres (yards) long and has a mass of nearly a billion tonnes, which -- if it were to impact -- would deliver 10,000 megatonnes of energy, equivalent to all the world's nuclear weapons. Spotted on November 27 2004, VD 17 was swiftly identified as rock that potentially crossed Earth's orbit, with a 1 in 3,000 risk of collision on May 4 2102. Further observations and calculations have prompted the risk on that day to be upgraded to "a bit less than 1 in 1,000," said NASA Near-Earth Object (NEO) expert David Morrison in an emailed circular. "The risk of an impact within the next century (is) higher than that of any other known asteroid," he said, stressing however that the likelihood of a hit was small. "Fortunately, it is nearly a century before the close pass from VD 17. This should provide ample time to refine the orbit and, most probably, determine that the asteroid will miss the Earth." VD 17, which was previously categorised as a grade green ("merits careful watching") on the Torino scale of NEO hazards, has been upgraded to grade yellow, "meriting attention." There are two more grades beyond this, orange ("close encounter") and red ("collision is certain"), involving objects capable of inflicting regional or global devastation. The asteroid's closest proximity to Earth on the 2102 flyby was not given by Morrison or the hazard list maintained by NASA and the US Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).



VD17's place at the top of the list was briefly snatched in December 2004 by a rock called 99942 Apophis. Further observations, however, downgraded Apophis' risk to a one in 5,000 chance of collision, making it a grade green risk. Apophis, measuring 300 metres (1,000 feet) across and with a mass of less than 100 million tonnes, will fly by Earth at a distance of 36,350 km (22,600 miles) from the Earth's surface on April 13, 2029, slightly higher than the altitude of geosynchronous satellites, according to the website of the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center. Collisions by large asteroids or comets are extraordinarily rare, but can be watershed events when they happen. The long reign of the dinosaurs is believed to have ended 65 million years ago by a rock that smashed into the Yucatan peninsula in modern-day Mexico.

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Light as Bone

Bone the Mod's tattoos told the tale of his life, but according to CJ Stone it was the light in his eyes that revealed so much more... CJ Stone: I am writing this column in honour of a friend of mine, Frank Plott, of Renfrew in Scotland, who died on the 23rd of September 2005.I'd been travelling to and from Scotland at the time, as I was working on a new project. I won't go into details here. Suffice it to say that it involved gang warfare, sectarianism, football and God (not necessarily in that order.)Frank just happened to be in the house I was staying in. He was a little skinny guy, as slick as a whippet, with thick, jug-bottom glasses and a nervous leg-twitch, like the piston-shot of a sleek, fast automobile.He suffered from bi-polar disorder: what used to be called manic depression. Every fortnight the nurse came to pick him up to take him to the hospital, where he was given an injection - or "jag" as he called it. He didn't know what was in the jag, though he suspected it might be Valium. Whatever it was, the consequence was that he spent most of his time asleep in his bed.He was his mid-forties at the time of his death, and had had this illness since his late teens. He never worked in his life.So far this might seem a dismal little tale. What has Frank Plott got to teach any of us?Well a lot, actually.

Because inside of Frank Plott there lived another character, someone he called "Bone". And Bone was, by his own measure of things, The Greatest Mod In The World.It's all etched in ink in tattoos across his body: along his arms and his chest, and all over his hands. "Bone the Mod," says the tattooed script, "Dec. '82."That's when he took up the faith, in December 1982. He was second-generation Mod, still keeping to the ancient path."St. Mirran," it says, "Mod party, 1983." St. Mirran were his Scottish football team. He also supported Everton. The Mod party was his 22nd birthday."Scooter," it says, "1983." That was his pride-and-joy, a Honda, an essential mark of status. Then, "Dorothy 1985," it says.Dorothy was ten years older than him, a first-generation Mod from the sixties. It was a summer romance. In the end she killed herself, by throwing herself in front of a train.Did he know why that was?"I don't really know why that was," he answered, in his rich, melodic Scottish accent. "Depression. She was in hospital at the time, and they let her out for the day, and she walked to the train station and she flung herself in front of the train."But those were always his girlfriends, the older women who'd seen the first wave go by. And Bone was always there, ten years later, to return them to the source."Mary," continues the tattoed script, "86." Another girlfriend, another original Mod. Then, "Brighton '87."That was December 1987, just before Christmas. He lost all his money in the bookies. So he only had the prospect of a dismal New Year in front of him. No money. No food. Nothing but a half ounce of tobacco for comfort. And, being a Mod, he decided to go out check out the city that blazons like a beacon in the historical mythology. He hitch-hiked all the way there, in the depths of winter, and the journey took 19 frozen hours. He'd never even been out of Scotland before.He ended up in hospital."I thought I was well, but I was nay well. The police picked me up and put me in an English hospital. That's where I met Janet Willers. She looked after me in hospital."And sure enough, there it is on his hand, the record of an accidental meeting and a passing friendship in an English hospital all those years ago. "Janet Willers," it says. Just that, and no more.

After that he was flown back to Scotland, where he spent another two days in hospital, before he was finally discharged.And so it goes, the story of a life told in cryptic notes in pin-pricked ink upon the pages of his skin, like the notes a novelist might make for himself, as a reminder of the plot. And that's exactly what it is. Frank Plott, weaving his own plot, as the story of his life, with a central character called Bone, who is The Greatest Mod In The World.And, well, I'm talking to him in this council flat on a housing scheme in Scotland, listening to the story of his life - asking questions, noting down the details - as he rolls up his sleeves and lifts his shirt to show me his numerous tattoos. "Isabel Blaine," it says, "1990." She was Miss Paisley in 1965, and he's still with her, to this day. Then: "Freddie and the Dreamers 1992," and "The Merseybeats."That's when I see it. It's like a light has come on inside of him. Talking about his life in this way has made him come alive. It beams from his face and from his eyes, like an angelic presence in his life: his own story, told to a new friend, as a narrative of pure meaning.And I think, yes we all have this. However we name it, there is always a presence in our lives: another us, in a story of our own telling, as a light that lights the way. Despite the hardship and the loss and the occasional illness - the tragedy, the poverty, the grinding senselessness of a world that devalues our very existence - we all are creatures of light in the end.How else do we learn but by listening? And how else do we know the value of ourselves but by valuing other people? Frank Plott. RIP.

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Rewriting Dinosaur history

The Age of Dinosaurs ended millions of years ago but paleontologists are still attempting to get a handle on the immense diversity and diverse immensity of these creatures. Take the report last month that Spinosaurus is now officially the biggest carnivorous dinosaur known to science. This two-legged beast actually strode onto the fossil scene in 1915 when a specimen was described by German paleontologist Ernst Stromer. He figured this theropod (defined as a two-legged carnivore) was bigger than Tyrannosaurus rex, but the original Spinosaurus bones were destroyed by Allied bombs in 1944. So the T. rex reigned as the king size, carnivorous land beast for decades. Then along came Giganotosaurus 11 years ago. Now Cristiano Dal Sasso of the Civil Natural History Museum in Milan says Giganotosaurus has been dethroned based on estimates from a new Spinosaurus skull. So just how do all these carnivores match up?For the ultimate in dinosaur length though, a vegetarian diet prevailed.

Herbivorous sauropods dwarfed carnivorous theropod dinosaurs, and most scientists think Argentinasaurus was the longest of all dinosaurs. Paleontologists have only fossils to compare dinosaur sizes, and those fossils are often damaged or incomplete. The same bone from numerous specimens is often lacking, so scientists often must estimate the total size of an animal from a partial skeleton, as with the new Spinosaurus skull fragments.