Science Special News

[Rasputin]

The Johor Bigfoot - A hoax ?

Submitted by Pendekar Timur: The Johor Bigfoot is a hoax. This is the view of the Natural Resources and Environment Ministry, which said there was no concrete evidence to back up the creature’s existence. However, the ministry’s stand has not gone down well with the Johor state government which is keeping an open mind on the matter.The ministry’s parliamentary secretary, Datuk Sazmi Miah, said no droppings or hair of the creature had ever been found.He said the state Wildlife Department had been monitoring the jungles of Johor for the past 40 years and there was no firm evidence to prove the creature’s existence.Remote-sensing cameras were also set up in the jungles a few years ago to capture animals’ movements and, so far, the only sightings were of known animals."If there’s truly a Bigfoot, there would have been firm evidence of its existence or the cameras would have captured its image or movements," he told the New Straits Times.He believed the hoax was perpetrated by certain quarters to generate interest among foreign scientists who were interested in obtaining the jungle’s lush flora and fauna.To a question, Sazmi said eyewitnesses, who claimed to have seen the creature, could have mistaken an ape (mawas) or sun bear for a Bigfoot."

To date, the evidence has been a so-called footprint."Don’t tell me that the creature walked on one leg? That’s not possible," he scoffed. Meanwhile, Johor’s Tourism and Environment Committee chairman Freddie Long said the state government was keeping an open mind over the creature’s existence."No one can simply dismiss its existence. "Our jungles are 248 million years old with numerous species yet to be discovered.

[Rasputin]

UFO photographed over Czêstochowa

Submitted by Sam Willey: Czêstochowa (250,000 inhabitants) is located in south – western part of Poland, in northern part of the Silesian Voiovodship. The city is known from Jasna Góra monastery preserving a miraculous image of Black Madonna. Czêstochowa is also a hot spot for many UFO sightings. On 8th December 2006, at 11:45 Mr. Zbigniew K. [34] from Czêstochowa – an amateur photographer, took a chance photo of a disc-shaped object over "Pó³noc" [North] district of the city. Due to good weather conditions the witness decided to take some photos with his new Nikon D50 camera. On a photo taken at 11:45 he captured an object invisible for him.“The photo was taken by chance with Nikon D50 camera. Watching it, I noticed that object in the sky. When we magnified the photo it turned out that it was something resembling a flying saucer” – he said. The witness is an amateur photographer and began analyzing the photo along with his colleague.

“Along with my colleague we began to analyze the photo applying a special program. It pointed out that it is a saucer” – said Mr. Zbigniew pointing also at some brighter aura surrounding the object. Mr. Zbigniew wanted to compare his photo with other shots of chance UFOs. As he stated, the “saucer” isn’t present on other photos taken on that day.

[Rasputin]

Deciphering DNA’s deep secrets

Thirty years ago, Nick Patterson worked in the secret halls of the Government Communications Headquarters, the code-breaking British agency that unscrambles intercepted messages and encrypts clandestine communications. He applied his brain to “the hardest problems the British had,” said Dr. Patterson, a mathematician.Today, at 59, he is tackling perhaps the toughest code of all — the human genome. Five years ago, Dr. Patterson joined the Broad Institute, a joint research center of Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His dexterity with numbers has already helped uncover startling information about ancient human origins.In a study released in May, scientists at the Broad Institute scanned 20 million “letters” of genetic sequence from each of the human, chimpanzee, gorilla and macaque monkey genomes. Based on DNA differences, the researchers speculated that millions of years after an initial evolutionary split between human ancestors and chimp ancestors, the two lineages might have interbred again before diverging for good.

The controversial theory was built on the strength of rigorous statistical and mathematical modeling calculations on computers running complex algorithms. That is where Dr. Patterson contributed, working with the study’s leader, David Reich, who is a population geneticist, and others. Their findings were published in Nature.

[Rasputin]

Venus Express views hell-hot surface

Thanks to ESA’s Venus Express data, scientists obtained the first large-area temperature maps of the southern hemisphere of the inhospitable, lead-melting surface of Venus. The new data may help with searching and identifying ‘hot spots’ on the surface, considered to be possible signs of active volcanism on the planet. The results, presented today at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) assembly in San Francisco, USA, were obtained thanks to VIRTIS, the Visible and Infrared Thermal Imaging Spectrometer on board Venus Express. To obtain this fundamental information about the surface temperature, VIRTIS made use of the so-called infrared spectral 'windows’ present in the Venusian atmosphere. Through these ‘windows’ thermal radiation at specific wavelengths can leak from the deepest atmospheric layers, pass through the dense cloud curtain situated at about 60 kilometres altitude, and then escape to space, where it can be detected by instruments like VIRTIS. In this way VIRTIS succeeded in looking through the thick carbon dioxide curtain surrounding Venus and detected the heat directly emitted by the hot rocks on the ground. "We are very excited about these results, as they represent a very important item in the list of Venus Express' and VIRTIS' scientific objectives at Venus", says Giuseppe Piccioni, one of the Principal Investigators of the VIRTIS experiment, from the Istituto di Astrofisica Spaziale e Fisica Cosmica in Rome, Italy.

The measurements, made in August 2006 over the Themis and Phoebe Regions in the southern hemisphere of Venus, reveal temperature variations of 30 degrees between lowlands and mountain tops, correlating well with existing topographical radar data from previous missions. The Themis Region is a highland plateau located at 270º East longitude and at about 37º South latitude. It is a region that has experienced strong volcanic activity, at least in the geologic past.

[Rasputin]

Displaying Egypt's sunken treasures

The great port of Alexandria was a bustling trade hub, a transit point for merchandise from throughout the ancient world — until much of it vanished into the Mediterranean Sea. Treasure hunters have long scoured the Egyptian coast for vestiges of the port, thought to have disappeared about 13 centuries ago. Now an exhibit at Paris' Grand Palais brings together 500 ancient artifacts recovered from the area by underwater archeologists using sophisticated nuclear technology."Egypt's Sunken Treasures" features colossuses of pink granite, a 17.6-ton slab inscribed with hieroglyphics, a phalanx of crouching sphinx, pottery, amulets and gold coins and jewelry — all painstakingly fished out of the Mediterranean. Some of the oldest artifacts are estimated to have spent 2,000 years underwater.The show, which runs through mid-March, spans more than 1,500 years of Egyptian history and traces the decline of the Pharaohs and occupations by Greeks, Romans and Byzantines."This is not your usual Ancient Egypt exhibit," said archaeologist Franck Goddio, who led the expedition for the European Institute of Submarine Archaeology.

"The artifacts have been living together under the sea for millennia — not gathering dust on a museum shelf."Goddio's team began its search in 1996, using such technology as sonar, depth-finders and sounding equipment. They worked with France's Atomic Energy Commission to develop a device that measures objects' nuclear resonance to pinpoint the exact locations of the port and two other sites, the lost cities of Herakleion and Canopus.Television screens projecting videos of the excavations dot the exhibit, in the newly restored Grand Palais, a turn-of-the-century building with a vast glass cupola.

[Rasputin]

Comet born of our own Sun

When scientists first analysed comet dust collected by the Stardust spacecraft earlier this year, they were surprised that the grains seemed to have all originated in very hot environments - the heart of a star. Astronomers were confused at the idea that the star in question could be our own Sun. How was this material transported from the hot interior of our early Solar System to the cold, outer reaches where the comet actually coalesced? Their models of the Solar System, they feared, might have to be rethought.An isotopic analysis of the grains has made that fear come true. A large chunk of comet Wild 2 does indeed come from the beginnings of our own Sun. But how it got there remains a mystery.The samples, collected from a comet in 2004 and returned to Earth in January of this year, have revealed a mixed bag of material.

"We have seen materials that predate the Solar System and were formed around other stars or in interstellar space," says Don Brownlee of the University of Washington in Seattle, who co-authored a raft of seven papers outlining the main results from Stardust to date in Science this week. "But the surprising thing is that we also find large components that formed in the inner regions of the solar nebula."

[Rasputin]

When exactly was Jesus born ?

Now is as good a time as any to revisit the question that has vexed historians and Biblical scholars for over 2,000 years: when was Jesus Christ born? They agree that it was not in 1 AD. Whether it was in December is a matter of lively conjecture. The calendar that we use today is based on the one that Julius Caesar decreed on January 1, 45 BC that starts from the founding of Rome in the 1st century BC. In the sixth century, Dio*nysius Exiguus, a monk, proposed that the Christian era be made to commence on a date of unquestioned religious significance, the supposed date of the birth of Jesus Christ. With this system, the BC and AD sequences began. Recently, however, BC or Before Christ, was changed to BCE, or Before the Christian Era, and AD (Anno Domini, in the year of the Lord) became CE, or Christian Era. I shall be using the new markers in this column. The exact date of Jesus’s birth could have been established if we knew for certain how old he was when he was crucified because on that day there was a lunar eclipse that the British historian, Colin Humphreys, dated Friday, April 3, 33 CE. Sadly we don’t know how old Jesus was when he was crucified. Some say that he was “about thirty” and another that he “was not yet fifty.”

The Bible remains the principal source of clues. Jesus was born during the reign of Augustus Caesar, 44 BCE to 14 CE. Matthew and Luke in their Gospels said that Jesus was born during the regency of Herod the Great who died in the spring of 4 BCE. But there are also records that show that Herod died in 5 BCE, 1 BCE and 1 CE. He was succeeded by Herod Antipas (21 BCE-39 CE). During this period Jesus was active as a preacher and miracle worker.

[Rasputin]

Why are we so hooked on conspiracies?

As Alastair McWhirter, the Chief Constable of Suffolk, was begging his colleagues for help in the largest murder hunt of recent times, Lord Stevens, the former Metropolitan Police Commissioner, delivered a report that looks like the greatest waste of police time ever. Nine years after the deaths of Diana, Princess of Wales and Dodi Fayed, at a cost of £3.7m, his 832-pages concluded by repeating what French detectives had said at the time: a drunk driver killed her. it had just been an investigation into a mysterious death, the Stevens inquiry would have been pointless - there was no mystery, so there was nothing worth investigating. But Stevens served a second purpose which has little to do with providing dry facts for a coroner. He has presided over Britain's first official inquiry into a conspiracy theory. The result is devastating: a relentless line-by-line refutation of Mohamed al-Fayed's elaborate story of how MI6 officers arranged the murder of the mother of their future sovereign because she was planning to marry Fayed's son, Dodi. Nearly every chapter begins with a paragraph headed 'claims in support of conspiracy allegation' and ends with each and every claim lying in pieces. Fayed alleged that the princess and his son planned to marry because she was carrying his child. The royal family 'could not accept that an Egyptian Muslim could eventually be the stepfather of the future King of England' so - QED - they ordered her murder. Well, asks Stevens, was Diana pregnant? Absolutely not, said the forensic scientist who tested a blood sample.

Did anyone see the strobe light that blinded the driver in the seconds before the crash? No, no one saw it, says Stevens, because it wasn't there. What of Henri Paul, Fayed's driver? Was he truly drunk or acting on the orders of the British state? Of course he was drunk, says Stevens, his blood samples proved it. Reading his findings is like watching someone tear down an elaborate folly. Brick by brick, he takes apart the baroque structure of fantasies and half-truths Fayed built to cover the inconvenient fact that the accident was the fault of a reckless driver in his employ.

[Rasputin]

Paws for thought

A psychic Christmas animal story. Around the fireplace each Christmas comes the tale, probably largely apocryphal, of my elderly grandfather in the 1920’s was a great traveller, and was a regular visitor to the African big game safaris, where exotic animals were shot, and then were often sent home to Britain and stuffed as trophies. As a small boy I remember looking in absolute awe at the water buffalo and elephants heads that adorned the walls of his home, the tiger skin rug that lay in front of the fireplace, and the tales he would tell as he put on his large pith helmet, took the huge gun from above the fireplace and pointed it at us children,and through his enormous moustache told us how he stalked through the bush mile after mile the creatures he would shoot.The 1927 African safari was advertised in the magazines as the biggest and best yet where hunters would compete to be the one who could bag a huge lion seen in what is now the Congo, witness reports described this beast as the biggest on record for the whole of the area, and competition was at fever pitch for who could make the kill.My grandfather was recognized a as crack shot and skilled hunter, and with his trackers Big Sam and tribal chief Magulo, set off to find this huge Lion.The omens from the witch doctor were not good and the Chief predicted strangely,that the lion itself would make the kill.It was early morning 3 days into the hunt when Magulo awoke my grandfather in great excitement describing how he had found the largest lion paw prints he had ever seen by a water hole.After an immediate start, they began following the lion over several days, the trackers would give additional information about the beast and how it knew it was being followed by the 3 men as it had doubled back, and crossed over its paw prints with that of other animals, and walked all along the waterhole.

The trackers had seen chewed antelope in dung heaps from this lion, and knew the kind of place it would be sleeping off the meal, and they duly found the lion sleeping and where shocked at its sheer size, they felt it was a special lion and did not want it killed, and asked for clemency,My grandfather is reported to have flown into a rage that there was prize money for this lions kill, and he wanted his head mounted above his bed, and how he would be a brave hero down at his gentlemen’s club.The men set of again, and a day into the hunt Magulo the tracker showed by paw prints that the lion was limping with an injured foot, so they would catch up with him soon now, the trackers stopped and said they could go no further, and the last part would have to be my grandfathers alone.He stood with his gun up at his shoulder when from a nearby bush walked the biggest lion imaginable, with a huge golden main about his head he casually walked up to my grandfather and sat at his feet and put up his injured paw, just dumfounded now, and hypnotized by its size he lowered the gun and drew from the lions paw a large splinter with his fingers, the lion walked away, turned gave a huge roar and disappeared back into the bush.Recovering his composure, and shaking with what happened, my grandfather ordered an immediate return to base.He refused to speak of why he was unable to shoot, and seemed upset for weeks.Down at his club the story of the “one that got away” would bring guffaws of laughter from the other old chaps, and sarcasm when he told of taking the thorn from its paw,and he never hunted again.

Many years later as a very old man he took some great grandchildren to a Christmas circus, to see Zobbo the clown, and Colossus the giant lion, it was while sitting in the front row, as the animals paraded round the ring, that it happened, the biggest lion you ever saw, with a huge golden mane was trotting round the ring when it stopped by my grandfather, and as the ring became totally silent, let out a huge roar, stepped over to him and put up his paw,Granddad stood up in front of his seat as the lionJumped on him and ate him, it was you see a different lion.

[Rasputin]

Nazi flying discs: The alternative Roswell

We all know the story about the incident at Roswell New Mexico. A flying "saucer" crashes in a ranchers field, the RAAF(roswell army airforce) are quickly dispatched to the scene, recovering the craft and its contents, and covering it up with a weather balloon story. It is commonly theorised that whatever crashed there that day, was a alien space craft, and bodys recovered. However, certain events in history, seem to suggest otherwise. What if the craft that crashed wasn't extra-terrestrial in nature, what if the crashed suacer was actually German in nature? To describe this we must go backwards in history to when it all started, in Germany.

Germany 1912 two years before the Great War of 1914-18.
A small unknown secret society known as the Thule society (sometimes referred to as the Vril society, and had connections to the bavarian illuminati, among other secret societies.), wandered apon plans to flying disk technology. How they got these plans, i'm still trying to figure out, some suggest that they got them from contact with a adavnaced alien species, others suggest they got them from india (look up on vimanas in the hindu holy book. There were ancient scrolls found with blueprints to flying disk technology, in tibet. These are now in the possession of the chinese space agency). However what i do know however is that junkers (german aircraft manufactures), patented the first flying disk plans in 1912 (If you have the time, look it up its there).

Germany 1917 during the Great War.
The Thule society, funds junkers to make the first flying disk, and is constructed at some point in 1917. This first disk is named Vril 1. After prolonged testing, the craft was a failure, they couldn't control the craft properly, and more research was started on a efficient control system. The way the craft works is by rotating high powered electro magnets, to distort gravity, creating a anti gravity field round the craft. Thereby negitating gravitational forces on earth, helping it stay up.

Germany 1920 post Great War.
Another disk is constructed, Vril 2. This one had a efficient control system, which worked perfectly. It could hold 1 crewmember, and could stay aloft for 2 hours. It was said that the craft had a insufficient power source.

Germany 1925.
A new flying disk is designed and constructed. The craft is called Hannebu 1. This was much larger than Vril 2, it could hold 8 crew, and stay aloft for upto 8 weeks, providing of course that the crew had sufficient supplies. A few of these were made, and put into storage.

Germany 1926-1930.
The Kuegal-Bauells project was started, with over 30 of these single seater craft made. They were small, had no armaments, and were short ranged recon craft.

Germany 1933.
Adolf Hitler a Thule society member, and his Nazi party comes to power in germany. He begins rebuilding his military, but neglects the importance of the flying disks projects. Attention is shifted from electro magnetic propulsion, to rocketry, and jet propulsion.

Germany 1938-1942.
Kuegal Bauells are seen over the skies of German occupied territory. Allied pilots sub these "Foo Fighters", no investigation was launched into what these were, however many photos are taken of them. Hitler begins to realise what potential these disks have. He orders a new project, Hannebu 2. This new craft was bigger than the first hannebu, being able to hold at least 20 people. They tested these craft with numerous armanents, in particular was one made with two Panzer VI turrets, above and below. The flying disks, were reported as not being very good for dogfighting. The control system was different to that of a normal aircraft. It could on fly straight forwards or backwards, it could only do right angled turns. It could not "wheel turn", it had to stop to turn. However it could go side to side. Current weapon systems were deemed useless on the hannebu 2, as the metallic projectiles used by the weapons, were effected by the electro magnetic field.

Germany 1944.
Things were getting desperate for hitler, as the allies were sweeping through france and denmark. He ordered another two projects, Hannebu 3 and the Andromeda project. Hannebu 3 was the same as the last two but could hold upto 30 people, and stay aloft indefinitely. Andromeda, was a cigar shaped craft, that could fly out of atmosphere. It could hold at least two craft, and could hold over 80 people. Only one was rumored to be made.

Germany 1945.
The allies were in german territory and capturing facilitys. Hitler orders the Kuegal Baull fleet to be destroyed (to stop technology falling into allied hands), and one of them to be sent to japan. Hitler then orders the whole flying disk projects to be sent to Neu Schwabenland Antartica (aka Base 2-11, New Berlin, a not so secret antartic facility made by germany in 1937). All the hannebu craft that were still under construction were dismantled, and shipped to the antartic. All the rest of the craft made their way there under their own power. 7 hours before Berlin falls, hitler escapes to argentina via a ME226 piloted by a female german officer. The Allies march into berlin after tough fighting, nothing remained of hitler, or the flying disk project.

Roswell New Mexico, 1947.
A flying disk crashes in the ranch of one W.W."Mack" Brazel. The US military are over it in days...and covered up. Why? Wouldn't the evidence of extra-terrestrial intelligence be the most important discovery in the history of man? Or was it perhaps that the crash in question, was a German made flying disk. A year and a half from the end of World War Two, in which millions died, a Nazi disk goes down on US Soil. Was this why they were so quick to cover it up? Think of it this way: Millions of American, British, French, Russian, German et al families had all lost someone at some point. The feeling of jubilation that a tyrannical and evil man had been defeated, and would never return. Then all of a sudden the public finds out that indeed we did not win, but a small outpost still remained. The public finds out that the Nazis have superior technology....There would be rioting and panic on the streets. How angry would you feel if you had just lost your only son fighting a war that still hasn't ended, even after victory was declared a year and a half prior?

Antartica 1948.
Admiral Byrd(USN), departs from the USA with a large flotilla of ships, including aircraft carriers, and over 4,000 troops. He is defeated, on the antartic continent, by "the last battalion". He limps back to the USA, the whole incident is covered up as a routine survey mission.......(more about this is another article)

There you have it. Greys weren't recovered at roswell, Blonde haired blue-eyed humans were.....

LoneSoldier (AKA Blood Angel)

[Rasputin]

Germs found trapped in amber

Scientists have discovered a "microworld" of 220-million-year-old life trapped in tiny drops of ancient amber. The fossilized plant resin preserved bacteria, fungi, algae, and microscopic animals known as protozoans some 220 million years ago—the era when the very first dinosaurs began to appear. Surprisingly, these microscopic organisms look quite familiar to today's scientists. Alexander Schmidt and colleagues from the Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany, report that the microbes have undergone few or no physical changes since the Triassic period—from 245 million to 208 million years ago. During Earth's many geological epochs and climatic shifts, countless species have appeared only to vanish or evolve. Yet these microbes appear to be related to present-day organisms. The find was described in this week's edition of the journal Nature. Most fossils of microorganisms have been found in marine sediments, not terrestrial environments. And such marine fossils typically reveal patterns of great change over Earth's many epochs, unlike the new Triassic amber find.

"Many marine microorganisms serve as so-called index fossils [for the dating of rock sediments] because they are so characteristic for a single period of time," Schmidt said. Terrestrial regions changed as much as marine environments did during these shifts, he added, but not all of these changes registered at a microscopic scale.

[Rasputin]

The burning mystery of Joan of Arc

France's favourite saint was martyred by her English foes, who ordered her remains to be cast into the Seine. Now scientists believe they have established the facts surrounding her execution. Catholic saint, national icon and one of the world's most famous military leaders, Joan of Arc has been a subject of fascination for the French for almost six centuries. Now academics believe they are close to proving that controversial relics are actually those of the real-life Maid of Orleans. Much is unknown about the life of the warrior. Facts have often been mixed with myth and theory. But what is generally agreed is that Joan's body was burnt three times by the English and ashes from the foot of the pyre were supposedly discovered in 1867, lurking in the Paris loft of an apothecary .French scientists, who have been studying those ashes, confirmed yesterday that a piece of cloth found among the remains may have been a fragment of Joan of Arc's gown.

A new series of DNA tests of bones and tissue found among the ashes is expected to confirm that they belong to a female. These initial discoveries suggest recent controversial claims surrounding the death of Joan of Arc are wrong. One theory, put forward by Ukrainian anthropologist Sergey Gorbenko, suggested Joan was not even burnt at the stake but lived to the age of 57. Another theory is that she was a man.

[Rasputin]

Displaying Egypt's sunken treasures

The great port of Alexandria was a bustling trade hub, a transit point for merchandise from throughout the ancient world — until much of it vanished into the Mediterranean Sea. Treasure hunters have long scoured the Egyptian coast for vestiges of the port, thought to have disappeared about 13 centuries ago. Now an exhibit at Paris' Grand Palais brings together 500 ancient artifacts recovered from the area by underwater archeologists using sophisticated nuclear technology."Egypt's Sunken Treasures" features colossuses of pink granite, a 17.6-ton slab inscribed with hieroglyphics, a phalanx of crouching sphinx, pottery, amulets and gold coins and jewelry — all painstakingly fished out of the Mediterranean. Some of the oldest artifacts are estimated to have spent 2,000 years underwater.The show, which runs through mid-March, spans more than 1,500 years of Egyptian history and traces the decline of the Pharaohs and occupations by Greeks, Romans and Byzantines."This is not your usual Ancient Egypt exhibit," said archaeologist Franck Goddio, who led the expedition for the European Institute of Submarine Archaeology.

"The artifacts have been living together under the sea for millennia — not gathering dust on a museum shelf."Goddio's team began its search in 1996, using such technology as sonar, depth-finders and sounding equipment. They worked with France's Atomic Energy Commission to develop a device that measures objects' nuclear resonance to pinpoint the exact locations of the port and two other sites, the lost cities of Herakleion and Canopus.Television screens projecting videos of the excavations dot the exhibit, in the newly restored Grand Palais, a turn-of-the-century building with a vast glass cupola.

[Rasputin]

Hardy bug re-opens Mars debate

Submitted by Waspie Dwarf: Controversial claims have again emerged that Martian microbes could have established themselves here on Earth after hitching rides on meteorites. A handful of bacteria on Earth today have the ability to survive exposure to extremely high levels of radiation that would kill other organisms. Now, a team of scientists argues that the bugs could only have evolved this unusual ability on a planet like Mars. The claims by a Russian-American team appear in the journal Astrobiology. Recent discoveries of water in the permafrost on Mars and signs of subsurface water in mid-latitude regions have raised hopes that the Red Planet might host the right conditions for life. According to one theory, impacts on the surface of the Red Planet could have thrown Martian rocks into space, which wandered the vaccum before tumbling through Earth's atmosphere and crashing down as meteorites. If these Martian meteorites contained any life forms able to survive the journey, they might have been able to gain a foothold on our own planet, scientists speculate.The best-studied radiation-resistant microbe is Deinococcus radiodurans.

It can withstand several thousand times the lethal dose of radiation for humans, and has been nicknamed "Conan the bacterium" by microbiologists. But other scientists say that radiation tolerance is a side effect of the defence mechanism bacteria such as D. radiodurans have developed to protect against dehydration. D. radiodurans and other radiation-resistant bacteria survive because they are very efficient at repairing their DNA. But this is also useful for surviving extreme desiccation in arid environments. The team led by Alexander Pavlov at the University of Arizona, US, rejects this alternative explanation.

[Rasputin]

Robot controlled by brain power alone

A metal skullcap with electrodes sticking out has turned a sci-fi cliché into reality, with the wearer being able to control a robot's movements with thought power alone. University of Washington researcher, Rajesh Rao, has demonstrated that an individual can "order" the robot to move to specific locations and pick up specific objects merely by generating the proper brain wave instructions. "This is really a proof-of-concept demonstration," Rao said, when he presented his results at the Current Trends in Brain-Computer Interfacing meeting. "It suggests that one day we might be able to use semi-autonomous robots for such jobs as helping disabled people or performing routine tasks in a person's home." The controlling individual (a graduate student in the demonstration) wears a cap dotted with 32 electrodes which pick up brain signals from the scalp based on a technique called electroencephalography.

The person watches the robot's movements on a computer screen via two cameras, one mounted on the robot and another above it, and "thinks" which way the robot should move. Currently, the "thought commands" are limited to a few basic instructions; choosing one of two available objects, picking it up, and carrying it to one of two locations. Impressively, preliminary results show 94 percent accuracy in choosing the correct object.