Science Special News

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"Da Vinci Code" banned in Egypt

On May 19 The Da Vinci Code, with all its controversy, was released to theaters worldwide. Middle Eastern countries, however, have been quick to pull the plug on the film. In Egypt, the film based on Dan Brown's international bestseller did not make it to its planned release on May 23, as censors did not give the go ahead. Many in the country speculate that the reason behind this decision is that the government does not want to upset the Coptic population following incidents of sectarian strife and violence over the past year. "It isn't going to be shown here because they are afraid the Christians will get upset and say it is the conspiracy by the Muslims and the government," says Joseph Fahim, a Cairo film critic. "But, according to the reviews from Cannes, the film isn't very good anyway, so we shouldn't be too upset." Coptic Christians, the remnants of the first Christian church in history, make up approximately 10 percent of the population in Egypt.

According to a statement released by Jordan, Egypt's neighbor, which has also banned the film, the film "tarnishes the memory of Christian and Islamic figures and contradicts the truth as written in the Bible and the Koran about Jesus". The film is a fictional portrayal that speculates that Jesus did not die on the cross, but instead married Mary Magdalene and that their descendants exist in secret up to this day. Following a murder in the Louvre, the story takes the viewer on a whirlwind tour through ancient secrets that unfold to reveal that Christ's heirs still survive. It is a fictitious account of what could have been.

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Woman marries snake in India

A woman who fell in love with a snake has reportedly married the reptile at a traditional Hindu wedding celebrated by 2,000 guests in India's Orissa state. Bimbala Das wore a silk saree for the ceremony Wednesday at Atala village near the Orissa state capital Bhubaneswar. Priests chanted mantras to seal the union, but the snake failed to come out of a nearby ant hill where it lives, the Press Trust of India (PTI) said. A brass replica snake stood in for the hesitant groom. "Though snakes cannot speak nor understand, we communicate in a peculiar way," Das, 30, told the agency. "Whenever I put milk near the ant hill where the cobra lives, it always comes out to drink. "I always get to see it every time I go near the ant hill. It has never harmed me," she added. Villagers welcomed the wedding in the belief it would bring good fortune and laid on a feast for the big day. Snakes and particularly the King Cobra are venerated in India as religious symbols worn by Lord Shiva, the god of destruction.

Das, from a lower caste, converted to the animal-loving vegetarian Vaishnav sect whose local elders gave her permission to marry the cobra, the world's largest venomous snake that can grow up to five metres. "I am happy," said her mother Dyuti Bhoi, who has two other daughters and two sons to marry off. "Bimbala was ill," Bhoi told local OTV channel. "We had no money to treat her. Then she started offering milk to the snake ... she was cured. That made her fall in love." Das has moved into a hut built close to the ant hill since the wedding. Earlier this year, a tribal girl was married off to a dog on the outs***ts of Bhubaneswar.

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Clarence 'Bigfoot' pictures spark interest

Hans Mobius of Clarence says he was clearing brush on his large horse farm Saturday, and was taking pictures of some trees he plans to have cut down, when something very strange happened. Mobius claims that about 200 feet away, he saw what appeared to be a large ape. He started snapping pictures, then the creature, or person, took off into the woods."He had sort of a loping gait," Mobius said. He said he has lived on his horse farm for five years and has never seen any evidence that an animal other than the horses lives there.Shown the pictures, Jerry Aquilina, Buffalo Zoo General Curator, said, "Gut reaction is it looks like something in a costume."Aquilina was skeptical about the shape of the heads, hands, the coat color, even the posture. He was even reluctant to comment on the mystery."Zoologists in general, especially taxonomists and anthropologists, are usually reluctant to believe anything like that exists unless they have a specimen in hand," Aquilina said.

He did say that a large primate could adapt to and survive in the climate of Western New York, but that such a large animal would need to forage for a lot of food, and so is highly unlikely to go undetected for long.

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Electric fish on verge of evolutionary split

Electric fish emit weak signals from an organ in their tails that serves as a battery. Different emissions signal aggression, fear or courtship. While the fish can apparently understand each others' warning signals, "They seem to only choose to mate with other fish having the same signature waveform as their own," explains neurobiologist Matt Arnegard of Cornell University.But in the Ivindo River in Gabon, Arnegard and colleagues have found fish with the same DNA emitting distinctly different signals. The fish are likely on the verge of splitting into two species, the researchers announced today."We think we are seeing evolution in action," Arnegard said. Because electricity is easily transmitted in water, many species of amphibians and fish have adapted to detect weak electric signals. Some, like sharks, use it to find prey. Others, like the electric eel, generate deadly voltages for defense or to kill prey. Others emit and detect electrical signals primarily as a means to communicate with their own kind.Electric fish are called mormyrids.

The roughly 20 distinct species that have been identified in the river, by their varying DNA, each emit distinct signals, which is the basis for Arnegard's new conclusion.The process of splitting one species into two is called speciation. Scientists figure there are two ways it can happen. Groups can become geographically separated and take on new traits as their genes mutate. Or, animals can stay together but for some reason mate selectively to form distinct groups. The latter method, called sympatric speciation, is seen to be less likely and somewhat controversial."Many scientists claim it's not feasible," Arnegard said. "But it could be a detection problem because speciation occurs over so many generations."

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06.06.06 - A date with the devil

In case you haven't noticed, today is 6 June, 2006. Or, put another way, 06.06.06. Or, put another way again, 666, or the mark of the Beast, the Devil's home address and a sure sign of eternal torment for all of us. In short, it's a pretty unusual, once-in-a-century event. Although, of course, if you haven't noticed it's 06.06.06, that already suggests that the date is far less important than some evangelical Christians have been hoping. Indeed, if you're still reading this article, you've already proved quite a few people wrong. Because, according to the conspiracy theorists, we should already have been visited by some quite nasty plagues by now. What's more, all copies of The Scotsman should have been consumed by fire, thanks to the giant comet that's due to strike the Earth. And, just supposing that the paper did survive all that, your attention would have been grabbed by the blinding sight of the Lamb of God transporting 144,000 Christian virgins up to heaven - leaving the rest of us to tidy up the mess.

The number 666 has taken on such cosmic significance because of a bizarre verse in the Bible's psychedelic Book of Revelation: "Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is six hundred three score and six." No-one has been able to give a straight answer about the precise meaning of these words since they were first transcribed in the fourth century AD. Their significance is anyone's guess.

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ISIS investigates: Houghton mansion

ISIS Investigations: The ISIS team set out on May 28, 2006 to conduct an investigation at a private residence in Chester, Vermont after receiving numerous complaints from the current occupants of the home. Upon receiving in-depth communication from one of the occupants living at the location, our team decided further investigation was warranted and preceded to the location with a team of eight individuals: five females and three male investigators were present. The team was privileged enough to have a client that kept a journal about all of the unusual happenings that occurred since they had moved their family into the quiet town of Chester and such information was conveyed to the team upon initial contact with the client.After receiving our website information from a family member, the owners of the home decided to contact us for further investigation when the activity that was occurring at the location reached a level of extreme upset to all of the members in the household. The family had moved into the home in Chester about a year ago, having moved from Florida. They purchased a run down house and began completely renovating the location. Once the renovations were complete enough for the family to move in, the 35 year-old female and her 40 year-old spouse moved in with their two young daughters, ages 5 and 3.According to the client, the house is rich with history and it is listed in the National Historic Registry. The house has also been rumored to have had a part in the Underground Railroad and one of the former owners of the home was the first Baptist minister in the State of Vermont. According to the client and her own research, the minister was viewed as progressive and asked to step down from his position because he married a white woman to a black man.

During the process of renovation, the clients discovered "hundreds" of Civil War documents, love letters, photographs and the like, placed between the horsehair plaster ceiling and the roof trusses. Approximately 500-700 documents were discovered in the roof rafters (when the family tore off the plaster during renovation). They were stuffed up in the ceiling and when the plaster was removed, they all came tumbling down. There was a mix of documents: lots of poetry, civil war letters, love letters, a marriage license, legal documents, church sermons, nature writing, photos, etc...There were hundreds of names on the documents. They were found in decent condition. The house consisted of an attached apartment and a cape, had been empty for two years prior to the family purchasing it, after the death of the former owner. The former owner died of cancer and it was believed that her children dabbled in occult activities.According to the client, the activity her and her family were experiencing was the first time they had ever experienced anything like it. They are an educated couple, both possessing college degrees, and consider themselves to be extremely logical. As unexplained activity continued, the family grew confused and frightened. According to the client, none of the workers that renovated the home experienced anything unusual.Per the client, the family moved into the home after a period of ten months of renovation. The foundation of the home, and the interior was ready to live in-although there still remained some aesthetic improvements that were to be made while the family lived in the home. The client reports that her family was thrilled about moving into their new home.

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After two days of moving everything into the location, the family spent their first night in the home on March 1, 2006.At the time that the family moved in, the only room that was not ready for occupancy was the daughter's bedroom: the carpet had yet to be installed. That evening, at bedtime, the family shared a room, the parent's room, and the daughters slept on an inflatable bed, and the animals, two dogs, slept on the floor in the same room as well. In the middle of the night, the client reports that she was woken up by the sound of wind chimes ringing inside the house and the sound of two little girls giggling and playing. The client reported hearing the children running around and "having fun." The client also states that she does not own any wind chimes and cannot explain where the sound came from. Thinking that her two daughters were running around and playing, the client got up to check on her daughters. She found the two girls fast asleep, along with the family pets and the unexplained sounds could still be heard. The client continued to listen and after a minute or two, the sounds disappeared. In the morning, the client attributed the strange experience to lucid dreaming and thought nothing more of it.Later on the following morning, the family went out to breakfast and her husband comments about his excitement over moving into the new house.

The client reports that she asked him how he slept the first night in the house and he had no complaints, responding "fine." He does, however, report that something "odd" happened to him and further states that he feels awkward saying anything about it. He then reports that he also experienced a similar phenomenon-waking in the evening and hearing little girls laughing and playing. Like his wife, he believed his children were awake and playing and checks on them. He finds the children asleep and then goes downstairs to see if the television was left on. The television was off. Still hearing the sounds he returns upstairs and when he reaches the bedroom, the sounds cease. Both clients are skeptical and not really sure what to think about their similar experiences. Two days later, the clients discover that the former tenant was known to have over 400 wind chimes, both inside and outside the house. View the full article for the rest of the investigation report.

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'Alien' duck fetches hefty bid at auction

The X-ray of a Solano-based duck bearing an alien-like image sold Sunday for nearly $10,000, and joins a private collection that includes William Shatner's kidney stone, a Cheetos likeness of Baby Jesus and a grilled cheese sandwich likeness of the Virgin Mary. Online casino GoldenPalace.com snagged the oddity with a $9,600 bid placed just moments before the 3 p.m. deadline of an eBay auction, which netted 92 bids and a wealth of blog entries. Officials with the International Bird Rescue Research Center in Cordelia said they were grateful for the funding, which will go toward the feeding of birds now residing at the facility and also the rehabilitation and rescue of oiled, orphaned and injured birds. "The staff is really excited," said Jay Holcomb, the center's director. "We thought we'd make a couple hundred, a couple thousand ... Everything else is icing on the cake." On May 21, an adult male mallard was brought to the IBRRC with what was believed to be a broken wing. After an X-ray, however, detail of an alien-like face was revealed. Some would say the unveiling was otherworldly. For lodged deep in the belly of the sick bird appeared to be the head of a nasty, snarling alien.

"I have to tell you that, when we autopsied, we all backed up because we were afraid it was gonna jump out at us," Holcomb said. Sadly, the duck died. And, the subsequent autopsy on the unfortunate quacker unearthed some grain but no extraterrestrial.

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