Science Special News

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Bishop insists 'Jesus is not an alien'

Noting that every generation poses questions on Christ's identity, Venezuelan Bishop Mario Moronta insists that Jesus was neither a revolutionary, nor a socialist, nor a hippie, nor an alien. "In our Latin American continent, there have always been attempts to answer the troubling question about Him," Bishop Moronta of San Cristobal said, according a Catholic News Agency report."He has been identified as a 'revolutionary,' a 'guerrilla', to the point that he has been depicted in paintings crucified on a cross of rifles. In our own national debate, he has been presented as a 'Socialist'.""The person of Jesus, with his actions and teachings, has always inspired amazement and admiration in many, as well as questioning and even rejection in others," the bishop said in an article for a local church paper."In modern times as well," Bishop Moronta said, "the question about Jesus remains. The answer given is in accord with those who do the asking: Some have claimed he is an alien who has come from who knows what planet or galaxy in order to carry out a mission."Some have claimed he is a kind of 'guru' who, after his death in Israel, supposedly traveled to the Far East to achieve complete wisdom. Some claim he is a great teacher of wisdom. There is even no lack of those who would say he is a myth or an invention of the first Christians," the bishop wrote.

"In every age," Bishop Moronta said, "to not see Jesus in his true dimension produces in many a reaction against the Church, who is Mother and Teacher.""Therefore," he recommended, "more than confronting those who do not understand the Church's reasons, what we must do is show where the source of our answers is: in the Gospel, which is the Word of God," where we find Peter's profession of faith: 'You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God'." "Here is the authentic answer to the question about Jesus. It is the recognition of his divine mission, of his divinity, of his final objective - the salvation of humanity," the bishop stressed.

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Farmer wants to sell mammoth skeleton

76-year-old Kenosha County man in whose cornfield the skeleton of a mammoth believed to be about 12,500 years old was dug up in 1994 is interested in selling it, and officials of the Milwaukee Public Museum are interested in it. "I'm just looking for some funds for my grandkids' college," John Hebior said the possible sale of the skeleton now in 15 large wooden crates and four plastic tubs in the basement of his farmhouse five miles west of Somers.Milwaukee Public Museum president Dan Finley said the Hebior mammoth would look great standing in the atrium of the natural history museum.If all works well, a fiberglass replica of the skeleton would be on display while the actual skeleton would be kept off display for further research. "I want something jaw-dropping" to greet visitors, Finley said. "We very much would like to acquire the actual bones."Experts have suggested the bones could be worth from between $100,000 to $500,000.Museum officials are seeking a corporate sponsor for the Hebior purchase, Finley said."I'd like to see it go there," Hebior said of the Milwaukee museum. "It's got a lot of history" in the area.Hebior said an effort to sell the bones several years ago failed because the bids that came in were too low.

A number of Siberian mammoth skeletons sold after the fall of the Soviet Union might have suppressed the market, said Dan Joyce, senior curator of the Kenosha Public Museum.Marquette University archaeologist David Overstreet said the Hebior skeleton, which is nearly 90 percent complete, still might have great value.

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The Da Vinci victim

A painter fascinated with best-selling conspiracy thriller The Da Vinci Code committed suicide after becoming convinced she was the subject of a real-life murder plot. Caroline Eldridge, 38, moved to Italy to pursue her interest in Leonardo Da Vinci, but her mind became "muddled" by the mysteries surrounding his work, her father said.Caroline Eldridge, a Da Vinci scholar and artist, who killed herself after becoming obsessed with the mysteries surrounding the artist and the best-selling novel The Da Vinci CodeShe suffered paranoid delusions that she and her family were in danger "because of the knowledge that she had" of Leonardo after working on an exhibition about his paintings.After repeatedly telling her family, "I'm not going to let them take me alive," she took an overdose of paracetamol.The Da Vinci Code, which has sold more than 60 million copies, centres on a sinister plot by Catholic organisation Opus Dei to kill the book's hero Robert Langdon before he discovers, via clues in Da Vinci's paintings, that Christ was married to Mary Magdalene and had a son.Her parents believe her mind became muddledOn Friday Caroline's father, retired headmaster Roger Eldridge, said: "She was particularly interested in Da Vinci's interpretation of perspective, and because of that interest she had read The Da Vinci Code.

"The nature of the illness that she had would create fear, and the Code itself, I think it did create a muddle in her mind in terms of fears."She was very fearful for her own safety and she felt that because of the work she had been doing and because of the knowledge that she had, she had put us in danger."She had put herself under tremendous pressure with work and I think that pressure and stress was to blame for the paranoia."Ms Elridge, a graduate of the Wimbledon College of Art, worked for years as a costume designer for the English National Opera on productions including The Magic Flute and Medea, and later went freelance.But her passion in life was painting, and during a trip to Venice to stay with a friend in 2004 she got a job working on a six-month exhibition about Leonardo. One of the visitors was Professor Rocco Sinisgalli, a Renaissance art specialist from the University of Rome, who struck up a conversation with Caroline and asked her if she could help him translate a book he was writing about the artist Leone Battista Alberti.

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Beagle 2 'could go to the Moon'

The scientists behind the Beagle 2 mission, which was lost on Mars in 2003, want to send a nearly identical spacecraft to the Moon. They say Beagle 2's science instruments are ideal for assessing whether humans could exploit lunar resources when Nasa returns to Earth's satellite in 2020. It could determine whether deposits of hydrogen, water-ice and hydrocarbons are trapped in the Moon's cold regions. A Beagle could be sent to the Moon on its own, or attached to a lunar rover. Scientists envisage several opportunities for lunar robotic missions in preparation for the US space agency's (Nasa) manned mission to the Moon in just over a decade. Dr Everett Gibson, a geochemist at Nasa's Johnson Space Center, who participated on the original Beagle 2 mission, told BBC News: "[The Americans] don't want to take Beagle 2; we want to keep it for the British."

Indeed, many of the UK scientists behind the Martian mission in 2003 have also backed this venture, including the original mission's lead scientist, Professor Colin Pillinger, of the Open University. Dr Gibson added that Beagle was one of the best scientific packages ever put together for exploring space and should be revived for another mission.

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Nebraska's own Roswell of 1884

Very few people have heard of Max, Neb. A cursory look at the Google Map of the town shows just how small it is - under 20 blocks, a blip in southwest Nebraska. It's just eight miles from the seat of Dundy County: Benkelman, population 914.But Max, the blip it may be, is the closest town to an incident in that occurred 1884.The Nebraska Nugget reported, "About 35 miles northwest of Benkelman, Dundy County, on the 6th of June (1884) a very startling phenomenon occurred. It seems that John W. Ellis and three of his herdsmen and a number of other cowboys were out engaged in a roundup. They were startled by a terrific whirring noise over their heads, and turning their eyes saw a blazing body falling like a shot to Earth. It struck beyond them, being hidden from view by a bank."One of the herdsmen, Alf Williamson, was burned as he approached the craft, which had created a split in the ground as it dragged to a stop. He was taken back to Ellis' home and treated for his burns.E.W. Rawlins, the brand inspector for the district, came to inspect it.The Nebraska State Journal reported on the event in 1887, saying, "One piece that looked like the blade of a propeller screw, of a metal of an appearance like brass, about 16 inches wide, three inches thick and three-and-a-half feet long, was picked up by a spade. It would not weigh more than five pounds, but appeared as strong and compact as any known metal. A fragment of a wheel with a milled rim, apparently having had a diameter of seven or eight feet, was also picked up.

It seemed to be of the same material and had the same remarkable lightness."The lack of physical evidence means there's nothing much left today, and John Buder, a field researcher with the Mutual UFO Network of Nebraska, said that the people of Dundy County shy away from talking about the event.Most of his investigation into it has been research. He first stumbled across the story in a tourist's guide to Nebraska. From there, he's found it in multiple books on the subject. "There has been a lot of studies made on UFO crashes," Buder said. "The people who I would claim know the most have not identified it as a hoax."It was the second UFO crash Buder knows of, and the first to be recorded in newspapers of the time. But once the story came out, it started a worldwide wave of similar stories - some more reputable than others.

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Paranormal TV shows are taking over

Phil Hogan: Everybody believes in ghosts these days. Well, everybody who owns a TV production company anyway. The digital and cable channels are so full of bumps in the night and psychics putting the willies up each other that they barely have room for bid-up shopping and unwinnable premium-line quizzes. Take Ghost Towns, in which 'acclaimed spirit medium' Derek Acorah (a man possessed if ever you saw one) explores Britain's most 'paranormally active' hot spots, or Ghost Homes (people jumping out of their skins in the comfort of their own living rooms). Or how about 6ixth Sense, in which Colin Fry stalks around the studio audience ('I'm getting a strong impression of the letter N ...') sniffing out messages from their dead relatives? Paranormal TV is coming out of the walls. The one to beat though is Most Haunted, now into its ninth series on Living TV and still pulling in healthy (if that's the right word) audiences for a little channel - about 380,000 this series, though it did once get 3 million for a Most Haunted Live over the Halloween weekend of 2004. The format has been a winner, with its demented gothic titles and rattling dungeons and Blair Witch-style images of people recoiling from sudden instances of jiggery-pokery.

Every week, presenter (and Eighties Blue Peter girl) Yvette Fielding and the team turn up at some creepy location to explain the unexplained - or, more often, not to explain it. I've come to watch them filming in Matlock Bath, Derbyshire, in a big old building that incorporates a nightclub (the Pav - closed for the night) and a lead-mining museum below. There have been sightings and unusual shadows and noises, Yvette says.

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Strange DNA results for 'alien' hybrid

Milagros Garcia is an alleged Alien and Human inter-species hybrid. The blood DNA from this Puerto Rican woman has yielded analyses so unusual and interesting that the physician involved is now interested in meeting the subject for further study. The DNA is possible in humans but is very rare. Ms. Garcia claims that she is the offspring of an alien encounter. The Doctor is not interested in the UFO/ alien phenomena he wants answers as to why her DNA has such rare qualities. A Case similar to this is being investigated in New Paris Ohio. A woman there has exceptional skills and get by on two hours of sleep a night. Omnec Onec alleges that she is a female extraterrestrial who originally came to Earth in 1955, who was born 246 Earth years ago. Omnec Onec says she was raised on the planet Venus in a town called Teutonia (a city whose name reflects earlier Venus-Earth contacts that included a trip to Venus by a German scientist). She alleges that she lived on an astral plane -- without a physical body -- until she was instructed by her leaders to travel to Earth with a message of peace and brotherhood. After landing in Earth, she said she was substituted for a seven-year-old girl who had just been killed in a bus wreck accident. She was raised in Chattanooga, Tennessee, by the grandmother of Sheila, the girl whom she had replaced.

She grew up in what was to all outward appearances a normal life, never speaking of Venus, and endured the struggles that allowed her to deal with her own karmic past. She grew up, married and moved to Chicago, where she raised three children. worked as a bar maid, a clothes designer and a cashier. As a young adult, however, she began to manifest her second mission, to offer humanity an increased awareness of their relation to spirit. Omnec says she was trained to live as a human in an ancient monastery in Tibet.

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Florida girl starts hiccuping again

A 15-year-old girl who hiccuped her way through part of January and all of February is hiccuping once again. Jennifer Mee, who hiccuped close to 50 times each waking minute for more than five weeks starting Jan. 23, began hiccuping again Thursday morning after a nose bleed, said her mother, Rachel Robidoux.It occured during Mee's second day back at school since her first bout of hiccups stopped Feb. 28, said Robidoux."I'm at my wit's end," Robidoux said.Mee was taken to the emergency room earlier this month when her hiccups returned. They stopped, though, and Mee felt it was safe to go back to school.During her first bout of hiccups, Mee saw an infectious disease specialist, a neurologist, a chiropractor, a hypnotist and an acupuncturist. She tried a patented device that is designed to stop hiccups, plus all the old remedies. According to the National Institutes of Health, hiccups can be triggered by anything from spicy foods to stress, and they can start for no reason at all. They're caused by involuntary contractions of the diaphragm, which causes the vocal cords to close briefly, making that distinctive sound.