Iraq : A resurgence of interest in fortune tellers

Iraqis Turn to Fortune Tellers for Guidance
As the war in Iraq grinds on and the Iraqi government reels from crisis to crisis, ordinary Iraqis are looking for certainty. That has sparked a resurgence of interest in self-proclaimed psychics, fortune tellers and healers... [more]


Source : NPR

Is Oxytocin the Key to Understanding?

The Hormone That Helps You Read Minds
We've long accepted that hormones can make you amorous, aggressive, or erratic. But lately neuroscience has been abuzz with evidence that the hormone oxytocin -- which also acts as a neuromodulator -- can enhance at least one cognitive power: the ability to understand the gist of what others are thinking... [more]

Source : Scientific American

Mother's high sugar levels during pregnancy could help childhood obesity

High Sugar Levels In Pregnancy Linked To Childhood Obesity
In the largest study of its kind, US researchers have found that the risk of a child being obese goes up in line with increase in the mother's sugar levels during pregnancy. Scientists are hopeful that treating more women for diabetes during pregnancy could help to reduce the incidence of childhood obesity... [more]
Source : Medical News Today

Next Ice Age delayed by rising CO2 levels

Global Warming 'Could Prevent Next Ice Age'
The fossil fuels we burn today may leave an atmospheric "hangover" lasting hundreds of thousands of years, new research shows. Up to one tenth of the CO2 we are emitting now will linger in the air for at least 100,000 years and perhaps much longer... [more]

Source : Life Style Extra

Suit helps you climb like Spider-Man

Spider-Man suit could be a reality
Spider-Man suits that make it possible for people to climb up the outside of skyscrapers will be a reality within a decade, researchers forecast. Nanotubes – tiny “hooks” that grip minute imperfections in solid surfaces – could be built into gloves and shoes, giving them enough adhesive force to hold a man’s weight... [more]


Source : Timesonline

World's Oldest Bacteria of half million years old found living in permafrost

A research team has for the first time ever discovered DNA from living bacteria that are more than half a million years old. Never before has traces of still living organisms that old been found... [more]


Source : Science Daily

Bad luck black cats killed by thousands in Italy

Superstition blamed for killing thousands of black cats in Italy. A leading animal rights group has estimated that 60,000 black cats are killed every year by Italians who believe that they bring bad luck... [more]


Source : Telegraph

Cadbury bring back Wispa

Online sweet talk revives Wispa
The power of the internet appears to have spurred the relaunch of one of the nation's favourite - and much-missed - chocolate bars. Online campaigning by die-hard chocolate fans has resulted in Cadbury bringing back a cult favourite, the Wispa. It is the first time the confectionery giant has responded to public pressure by relaunching a deleted brand... [more]

Source : Scotsman

Limited Edition Pisco 7.9 Quake Thank You Considered Inappropriate

A Peruvian initiative to thank countries and international agencies for aid it received in last week's devastating earthquake has turned sour.
One thousand specially produced bottles of Peru's famous alcoholic drink, Pisco, have had to be withdrawn amid claims of bad taste.
The bottles were labelled "Pisco 7.9", the magnitude of the earthquake which killed about 500 people... [more]


Source : BBC

Men, even dads pushing strollers, are "high-risk? Are We Teaching Our Kids To Be Fearful of Men?

When children get lost in a mall, they're supposed to find a "low-risk adult" to help them. Guidelines issued by police departments and child-safety groups often encourage them to look for "a pregnant woman," "a mother pushing a stroller" or "a grandmother." The implied message: Men, even dads pushing strollers, are "high-risk."... [more]

Source : WSJ

Rival missions to the moon blast off for space race between Japan and China

The countdown to an Asian space race began yesterday as Japan and China prepared for rival missions to the Moon. Japan's space agency claims its £135million Selene lunar satellite is on track for a September 13 launch, following years of delay. And China is said to be planning blast-off next month for its £90million Chang'e 1 satellite... [more]

Source : Daily Mail

Wheat Prices Jump to Record High Bad Weather Reduces World Wheat Crop As Demand, Prices Soar

Wheat prices jumped to an all-time high on,raising fears of a global food inflation spike. Canada, the world’s second largest wheat exporter, warned output might be almost 20 per cent below last year as adverse weather damaged the crop as it had done in Europe and Australia... [more]


Source : The Financial Times

Iran shuts down 20 western barber shops crackdown against 'immodest' behavior

In continued crackdown against 'immodest' behavior, Iranian police close barber shops offering make up, eyebrow plucking to men, claiming they gave haircuts that were "too western". The authorities explained their decision saying that these shops encouraged un-Islamic behavior... [more]

Source : Ynet

Scientists find massive hole in universe

Astronomers have stumbled upon a tremendous hole in the universe. That's got them scratching their heads about what's just not there. The cosmic blank spot has no stray stars, no galaxies, no sucking black holes, not even mysterious dark matter. It is 1 billion light years across of nothing. That's an expanse of nearly 6 billion trillion miles of emptiness... [more]

Source : Washington Post

Mining the moon Russian aims for permanent moon base by 2015

At the 21st century's start, few would have predicted that by 2007, a second race for the moon would be under way. Yet the signs are that this is now the case. Furthermore, in today's moon race, unlike the one that took place between the United States and the U.S.S.R. in the 1960s, a full roster of 21st-century global powers, including China and India, are competing. Even more surprising is that one reason for much of the interest appears to be plans to mine helium-3--purportedly an ideal fuel for fusion reactors but almost unavailable on Earth--from the moon's surface... [more]
Source : Technology Review

Genes Linked to Increased Asthma Risk

Children who carry variations in specific genes that metabolize vehicle emissions are more susceptible to developing asthma, particularly if they live near major roadways, suggests a study led by USC researchers... [more]


Source : University of Southern California

Gene triggers obsessive compulsive disorder-like syndrome in mice

Using genetic engineering, researchers have created an obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) - like set of behaviors in mice and reversed them with antidepressants and genetic targeting of a key brain circuit. The study, by National Institutes of Health (NIH) -funded researchers, suggests new strategies for treating the disorder... [more]


Source : Eurekalert

USA The prospect of foreign government interference acquiring companies

For years, the Bush administration has shrugged off concerns about the trillions of dollars that the United States owes to China, Japan and oil-producing countries in the Middle East, arguing that these debts give no undue leverage to foreign governments. But at a time of global financial instability, the administration has started to worry that foreign governments are increasingly converting their dollar holdings into investment funds to acquire companies, real estate, banks and other assets in the United States and elsewhere. The fear is that these so-called sovereign wealth funds could destabilize markets or provoke a political backlash... [more]
Source : NewYork Times

Cement prices have doubled in Panama

Is the party in Panama over?
Panama's developers hoped to lure U.S. retirees with cheap prices. Then came speculators, 380 tower projects representing more than 40,000 condos, rising prices and the possibility of a bust... [more]
Source : The Miami Herald

Resveratrol a chemical found in red wine can extend life

Biologist claims he can extend life span and treat diseases of aging
Resveratrol, a chemical found in red wine, extends life span in mice by up to 24 percent and in other animals, including flies and worms, by as much as 59 percent. Sinclair hopes that resveratrol will bump up the life span of people, too. "The system at work in the mice and other organisms is evolutionarily very old... [more]
Source : Technology Review

Study: Blue-Eyed People 'Smarter' than Brown-Eyed

Blue-eyed people better off, say scientists
People with blue eyes are likely to achieve more in life than those with brown, say US scientists. Scientists who conducted the tests said brown-eyed people performed better at reaction time, but those with lighter eyes appeared to be better strategic thinkers... [more]
Source : Herald and Weekly Times

Cold virus behind some obesity cases

Is fat catching? Scientists discover the cold virus that makes you obese
Forget crash diets and expensive gym memberships, the key to keeping trim could be simple as washing your hands.Scientists have shown that obesity may be caused by a virus that causes colds and sore throats - and is spread through dirty hands... [more]
Source : Daily Mail

USA Texas, imaginary line for red light cameras

How Do You Know When You've Run A Red Light?
There's a new rule in town. When it comes to red light cameras there's a special line that drivers can't cross. Where is it? Here's a hint: it's imaginary. For red light cameras, the violation line is an imaginary one � so imaginary that it's missing from the Texas driver's handbook. The book states that the stop line is before the crosswalk. Normally to avoid a ticket, if a driver has any part of the vehicle over the stop line before the light turns red � there's no violation... [more]
Source : CBS 11

Frozen smoke to clean up rivers, run cell phones or power spaceships

Frozen smoke a material that will change the world
A solid that's up to 99 percent gas, it is rigid to a light touch, soft to a stronger one, and shatters like glass if it's put under too much pressure too quickly; it's one of the most enigmatic of materials, as well as one of the most versatile. It can withstand the heat of a direct flame; engineers use it for insulation on oil rigs and for warmth in the insoles of hiking boots worn in the coldest temperatures on Earth. NASA uses it to trap comet dust blowing through the universe at six kilometers per second. It even works as casual, sporty jewelry... [more]
Source : Newsweek

Cuba not cashing US Guantanamo rent checks

Castro doesn't cash cheques for US Guantanamo base
The United States pays Cuba $US4085 a month in rent for the controversial Guantanamo naval base, but Cuba has only once cashed a cheque in almost half a century and then only by mistake, Fidel Castro wrote in an essay published on Friday... [more]
Source : The New Zealand Herald

Albania, the lowest house prices in Europe

Europe's last frontier
It may have a serious image problem, but Albania has a coastline and a climate to die for. So, how intrepid do you have to be to invest there?... [more]
Source : Timesonline

The Chinese Discover Africa

Chinese flocking in numbers to a new frontier: Africa
Africa over the last five years or so, as hundreds of thousands of Chinese have discovered the continent, setting off to do business in a part of the world that had been terra incognita for their compatriots. The Xinhua press agency recently estimated there were at least 750,000 Chinese working or living for extended periods on the continent, a reflection of burgeoning economic ties between China and Africa that reached $55 billion in trade in 2006, compared with less than $10 million a year a generation earlier... [more]

Chinese cash hurts some Africans...

Source : IHT

Very young children can think about their thinking

Toddlers are capable of introspection
Preschoolers are more introspective than we give them credit for, scientists have demonstrated that dolphins, monkeys and even rats can engage in some form of "metacognition," or an awareness of their own thought processes. But developmental psychologists have assumed that human children do not develop this capability before about age 5... [more]
Source : University of California Davis

Israelis develop drug erasing long term memory

Researchers find way to erase long-term memory
Israeli and American researchers have found a way to erase long-term memory in rats without damaging their brains in a study that could lead to targeted drugs for people suffering from dementia. The findings show long-term memories are not as secure as thought and challenge the idea they stabilize after maturing from short-term memories... [more]
Source : Ynet

How to make time slow down

Turn back the clock, slowing down time
Healthy eating, exercise, security - these are just some of the means to living a longer life, we are often told. But what about our perceptions of time itself?
A new book argues that by "slowing down" time we can extend our lives further... [more]
Source : BBC

Pentagon Paid $20.5 million over six years for fraudulent shipping costs

Pentagon Paid $998,798 to Ship Two 19-Cent Washers
A small South Carolina parts supplier collected about $20.5 million over six years from the Pentagon for fraudulent shipping costs, including $998,798 for sending two 19-cent washers to an Army base in Texas, U.S. officials said. The company also billed and was paid $455,009 to ship three machine screws costing $1.31 each to Marines in Habbaniyah, Iraq, and $293,451 to ship an 89-cent split washer to Patrick Air Force Base in Cape Canaveral, Florida, Pentagon records show. The owners of C&D Distributors in Lexington, South Carolina -- twin sisters -- exploited a flaw in an automated Defense Department purchasing system: bills for shipping to combat areas or U.S. bases that were labeled ``priority'' were usually paid automatically, said Cynthia Stroot, a Pentagon investigator... [more]
Source : Bloomberg

Allergic reactions to wasp venom tainted wine

Wine tainted with venom triggers allergic reactions
Wasp venom in wine and grape juice appears to have caused several cases of severe allergic reactions in people, according to a group of Spanish doctors. They suspect that the venom came from wasps accidentally crushed along with the grapes at the first stage of winemaking... [more]
Source : New Scientist

Biofuel production a great competitor to food production.

Water for biofuels or for food: it's one or the other
Biofuels, hailed by many as the green solution to offset a coming oil shortage and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, are not a cure-all solution, experts at a water conference in Stockholm warned, biofuels, which are made from crops, require huge amounts of water, a resource that is already in short supply in many parts of the world. Bioenergy could thus end up diverting water resources desperately needed for food crops...[more]
Source : TerraDaily

Net Cafe Refugees of Japan

Japan investigating 'net cafe refugees'
Japan is launching its first study into so-called "Net cafe refugees," young people who live in all-night lounges and are feared to become a new class of working poor.
Japan has been alarmed by growing reports of young day labourers who are staying in round-the-clock cafes rather than renting and living in apartments... [more]
Source : Breitbart

Metals Linked To Alzheimer's And Other Neurodegenerative Diseases

Study Links Metals to Alzheimer's and Other Neurodegenerative Diseases
Team of researchers led by Emory University has defined for the first time how metal ions bind to amyloid fibrils in the brain in a way that appears toxic to neurons. Amyloid fibrils are linked to the development of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Creutzfeldt-Jakob... [more]
Source : Emory University

Scientists find origin of gender behavior

Nose Jobs Turn Female Mice Into Sex Machines
Female mice apparently become as randy as males after their senses of smell are tampered with, ending up aggressively trying to mount any mouse that moves, research now reveals. These findings open the question as to whether circuits for male behavior exist in a dormant state in females, and vice versa, in other species — including in humans... [more]
Source : Fox News

Study: Indians outpace Newton by 250 years

Indians Predated Newton 'Discovery' By 250 Years, Scholars Say
A little known school of scholars in southwest India discovered one of the founding principles of modern mathematics hundreds of years before Newton, the 'infinite series '- one of the basic components of calculus - in about 1350. The team from the Universities of Manchester and Exeter reveal the Kerala School also discovered what amounted to the Pi series and used it to calculate Pi correct to 9, 10 and later 17 decimal places... [more]
Source : Science Daily

France, Cécilia Sarkozy skips dinner with Bush family

The vanishing first lady raises frowns in France
After accepting a rare, personal invitation to dine with President George W. Bush and his family in Kennebunkport, Maine, on Saturday, Cécilia Sarkozy stayed behind with her children at a luxury rental house in New Hampshire. She left it to President Nicolas Sarkozy to meet the Bush clan and offer public regrets for the glamorous 49-year-old former model. The French daily Le Parisien pointed out that Cécilia Sarkozy had been spotted in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, the day after the lunch shopping with two friends. With the help of a medical expert, the newspaper calculated how long it would take for a severe sore throat to develop. The conclusion: her malady was not serious... [more]
Source : IHT

Evolution driven by gene regulation

Gene Regulation, Not Just Genes, Sets Humans Apart
The striking differences between humans and chimps aren’t so much in the genes we have, which are 99 percent the same, but in the way those genes are used, according to new research from a Duke University team... [more]
Source : Duke University

Bacteriophage therapy as a substitute to antibiotics

'Red Army' virus to combat MRSA
An old-fashioned treatment for bacterial infections which was once found in every Red Army soldier's kit bag is being touted as a new weapon against hospital superbug MRSA, the word bacteriophage literally means "to eat bacteria". Once the phage has entered the body, it attaches itself to the bacteria causing the infection, and shoots in its own DNA to make the bacteria start producing bacteriophages... [more]
Source : BBC

One of the largest freshwater lakes in the world, Lake Vostok

Raiders of the Lost Lake
In the early 1990s, a Russian drilling rig encountered something peculiar two miles beneath the coldest and most desolate place on Earth.
Unbeknownst to the Russians, their drill had mingled with the uppermost reaches of one of the largest freshwater lakes in the world; a pristine pocket of liquid whose ecosystem was separated from the rest of the Earth millions of years ago.
As for what sort of organisms might lurk in that exotic environment today, no one can really be certain... [more]
Source : Damn Interesting

There will be jade medals on the olympic games

The Olympic Games, a Suckers' Market for the Chinese
For the first time in the history of the Summer Olympic Games, the medals will be made of another material besides the traditional gold, silver and bronze. They will be jade, a stone that, in China, assumes a different value depending upon its color, form and use. Success foretold obviously comes at a price. Who will pay it? The answer is Chinese: the people and the country. These Beijing Games are, in fact, an aspect of the suckers' market for the Chinese. They will be superb and well-organized Olympic Games, as beautiful and well-made as counterfeit Louis Vuitton or Prada handbags. The feeling, in fact, is that we are about to participate in an enormous "counterfeit." The joy of the Chinese comes from a phony idea: that the Games will bring them money... [more]
Source : Rue89

Appetite-Killing Hormone Negates Joy of Eating

Leptin puts a double whammy on hunger by making food less rewarding
Ever wonder how your body knows not to gorge itself to death on food?
The hormone leptin brings about that well-known feeling of fullness, and now a study finds that after we've dined, leptin puts the brake on our taste for food, too... [more]
Source : Scientific American

Want to gain muscle and lose fat, drink milk

Drinking Milk After Exercise Encourages Muscle Gain And Fat Loss, Study Finds
Part of an ongoing study into the impact of drinking milk after heavy weightlifting has found that milk helps exercisers burn more fat, the practical implications of these results are obvious: if you want to gain muscle and lose fat as a result of working out, drink milk."... [more]
Source : Medical News Today

Our genes sway our choice of friends

Prisoners of our genes?
Testosterone levels are well known to affect aggression and assertiveness, but they also help to shape the face: the hormone thickens the jaw and broadens the nose. Although social factors are obviously important to mating, nature also plays a part, a more controversial proposition, that biological influence on behaviour is not limited to sex.
Our genes may also sway our choice of friends... [more]
Source : Timesonline

China, no law banning smoking in public

Stubbing out will be difficult
Getting China's estimated 350 million smokers not to smoke in designated public places would be hard even by law, a health official conceded, currently China has no laws designed specifically to ban smoking in public... [more]
Source : China Daily

Chinese "environment activist" sentenced to 3 years

China Environmental Activist Imprisoned
An environmental activist convicted on charges he blackmailed polluting businesses was sentenced to three years in prison on Friday after a seven-hour trial, his lawyer said.
Wu Lihong, named one of China's top 10 environmentalists in 2005, was arrested in April on what his wife and friends say were charges concocted by local officials who were embarrassed by Wu's whistle-blowing... [more]
Source : Washington Post

Russian arctic images 'from Titanic'

Finnish teen sinks Russian TV's titanic polar ploy
In an apparent attempt to "sex up" a news program, the TV station has been caught passing off footage from the 1997 Hollywood blockbuster Titanic as a real-life report on the Kremlin's recent attempt to stake its claim to the riches of the Arctic Ocean. It took an alert teenager in Finland with a Titanic DVD to spot the sham... [more] & [more]
Source : The Age & Telegraph

Canada : Quebec newlywed furious she can't take her husband’s name

Newlywed wants option to take spouse's name
There are renewed calls for women to be allowed to take their husband's last name upon marriage in Quebec, with one Ontario-born newlywed challenging Premier Jean Charest to change the provincial law. Quebec has prohibited women from taking their spouse's name since 1981, but many young women today want to have the choice to do so, family law experts say... [more]
Source : CTV