Sunday, June 1. 2008
'A few minutes of grainy, black and white video show a shadowy creature with big eyes peeping over a windowsill. But does it show a puppet or an alien from outer space?
'The video, purportedly capturing proof of alien life, was released this morning during a press conference at the Tivoli Student Union on the Auraria campus in downtown Denver.
'Over the course of three minutes or so, the footage shows a white creature with a balloon-shaped head that keeps popping up and down in a windowsill that was 8 feet above ground. The face was white, with large black eyes that seemed to blink.' (Denver Post article). media-underground.net
Monday, May 26. 2008
'Deep beneath the Atlantic Ocean, forgotten for the best part of a century, lies a tunnel linking London and New York.
'It was built on the whim of a Victorian inventor with the aim of linking two great cities and developing the kind of friendship that still exists today. But bad fortune befell the venture - and the tunnel lay idle ever after. Until today, that is, when the project was rekindled with a modern twist.
'Using a giant "electronic telescope" and state-of-the-art technology, England and America were joined once again when the tunnel entrances were reopened beside Tower Bridge in London and Brooklyn Bridge in New York.' (Daily Mail article). media-underground.net
Saturday, April 26. 2008
I must admit, it was the initial sentence that caught me rather than the scientific discovery. Wonder where this will lead the research now?
A female fish which hasn't had full sex for at least 70,000 years is baffling scientists.
The Amazon Molly fish defies evolutionary rules by reproducing without the help of a male Molly. (Telegraph article). media-underground.net
Sunday, April 20. 2008
'She is two parts Kelly Brook, one part Jennifer Lopez and one part Angelina Jolie.
'Angelle was created from a survey of British women’s views about seduction
Meet Angelle L Brook, a computer-generated composite representing British women’s idea of the "most seductive woman of all time".
'Angelle combines Brook’s hair and body, Lopez’s nose and Jolie’s lips, wrapped up in "the most seductive dress of all time": Marilyn Monroe’s white halter dress from The Seven Year Itch.
'She was created from a survey of British women’s views about seduction, commissioned by fabric conditioner firm Lenor.' (Telegraph article). media-underground.net
Sunday, April 6. 2008
'UK telco BT has admitted that it used business customers’ data in a trial run for market research software without having asked for permission to do so. Affected customers are considering legal action against the company, saying that BT’s actions compromised data security.
'In 2007, a BT Business customer alerted the media after noticing that business transactions he conducted online using BT’s services were being redirected to an unknown URL. When quizzed, the company denied that any such redirects were occurring.' (Information Age article). media-underground.net
Thursday, April 3. 2008
'If you only have sex for one brief period of your life, and when you do there are sixteen legs to negotiate, courtship is always likely to be a messy business. With the release of a study into the love life of an Indonesian octopus, scientists have been surprised by just how kinky cephalopod copulation can get.
'Octopuses, notoriously shy, have previously resisted attempts to document their amorous behaviour - observations in captivity led researchers to conclude that they were un-romantic loners. Work by marine biologists at the University of California, however, has overturned those assumptions, uncovering a range of mating behaviour that includes flirtation, strangulation and obsessive stalking, as well as the occasional instance of cross-dressing. For females, the researchers discovered, the process is an uncomplicated affair. Observations of Abdopus aculeatus, an octopus the size of an orange that lives in shallow reefs off Sulawesi, found the females to be free with their affections.' (Times Online article). media-underground.net
Thursday, March 20. 2008
'Arthur C. Clarke, the pioneering science fiction author and technological visionary best known for the novel and film 2001: A Space Odyssey, has died at his home in Sri Lanka, aged 90.
'Clarke, who wrote more than 100 books in a career spanning seven decades, died of heart failure linked to the post-polio syndrome that had kept him wheelchair-bound for years.
'His forecasts often earned him derision from peers and social commentators.' (Guardian article). media-underground.net
Wednesday, March 5. 2008
'He claimed to be descended from Hungarian nobility, was fond of vivid silk dressing gowns and spoke to the spirits while flourishing a large cigar. But during the Second World War, the outlandish figure of Louis de Wohl was taken seriously by the British secret service, who believed he could cast light on what German astrologers were saying to Hitler.
'Now new evidence unearthed by MI5 historian Professor Christopher Andrew shows the British also used de Wohl as a weapon in the propaganda war to persuade the US to enter the war.
'Professor Andrew said de Wohl, who claimed to have inside knowledge of Hitler's astrological advisers, was consulted in 1940 about the most likely date for an invasion of Britain.' (Scotsman article). media-underground.net
Saturday, February 16. 2008
'A promising but labour-intensive technique to find alien worlds has netted its first multiple-planet system, a new study reveals. The technique, called microlensing, can find smaller planets than rival methods, and one day might be able to find distant counterparts to Earth.
'More than 250 planets have been discovered orbiting other stars. Most were found using the so-called radial velocity technique, which searches for telltale wobbles in a star caused by the gravitational tugs of an orbiting planet.' (News Scientist Space article). media-underground.net
Tuesday, February 12. 2008
'The members of the Campaign for an English Parliament will resist with might and main the attempt being made by the Scottish Nationalist Party to grab Berwick on Tweed which has been part of England since the 13th century - over 700 years- and make it part of Scotland.
'Scottish Nationalist Member of the Scottish Parliament Christine Grahame supported by fellow SNP members is lodging a vote in the Scottish Parliament in support of this land-grab.' (Politics article). media-underground.net
Thursday, February 7. 2008
'The Royal Navy used goats to test whether it was safe for sailors to escape from stricken submarines because their skulls are a similar shape to those of humans, the MoD revealed yesterday.
'The little-known experiments to avoid submariners getting the bends were revealed in a written Commons statement by the defence minister, Derek Twigg, which also announced that the practice was to be abandoned.
'Live goats have been used for decades at the navy's base in Gosport, near Portsmouth, as part of research into the effects of different degrees of decompression. The animals were placed into hyperbaric pressure chambers to induce sickness.' (Guardian article). media-underground.net
Monday, February 4. 2008
'The future of Scottish bank-notes could be in doubt following proposed new measures to protect customers from failing financial institutions, it was claimed last night.
'Clydesdale Bank, one of three banks allowed to print Scottish banknotes, has admitted it would have to consider whether to continue issuing notes north of the Border if the Treasury proposals get the go-ahead.
'Alex Salmond, the First Minister, has also voiced fears over the move, claiming the changes posed the "biggest threat" to Scottish notes in more than 160 years. Under current laws, Clydesdale Bank, Royal Bank of Scotland and Bank of Scotland have to lodge funds with the Bank of England to cover the value of their notes, but only for three days of the week – the other four days they can be invested elsewhere, gaining millions of pounds in interest.
'However, the new proposals, announced last week by Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, would require funds to be lodged with the Bank of England for the entire week.' (Scotsman article). media-underground.net
Saturday, February 2. 2008
'Scientists performing experimental brain surgery on a man aged 50 have stumbled across a mechanism that could unlock how memory works.
'The accidental breakthrough came during an experiment originally intended to suppress the obese man's appetite, using the increasingly successful technique of deep-brain stimulation. Electrodes were pushed into the man's brain and stimulated with an electric current. Instead of losing appetite, the patient instead had an intense experience of déjà vu. He recalled, in intricate detail, a scene from 30 years earlier. More tests showed his ability to learn was dramatically improved when the current was switched on and his brain stimulated.' (Independent article). media-underground.net
Friday, February 1. 2008
'A young man, a student of journalism, is sentenced to death by an Islamic court for downloading a report from the internet. The sentence is then upheld by the country's rulers. This is Afghanistan - not in Taliban times but six years after "liberation" and under the democratic rule of the West's ally Hamid Karzai.
'The fate of Sayed Pervez Kambaksh has led to domestic and international protests, and deepening concern about erosion of civil liberties in Afghanistan. He was accused of blasphemy after he downloaded a report from a Farsi website which stated that Muslim fundamentalists who claimed the Koran justified the oppression of women had misrepresented the views of the prophet Mohamed.' (Independent article). media-underground.net
Thursday, January 31. 2008
'Everyone with blue eyes alive today - from Angelina Jolie to Wayne Rooney - can trace their ancestry back to one person who probably lived about 10,000 years ago in the Black Sea region, a study has found.
'Scientists studying the genetics of eye colour have discovered that more than 99.5 per cent of blue-eyed people who volunteered to have their DNA analysed have the same tiny mutation in the gene that determines the colour of the iris.' (Independent article). media-underground.net
Monday, January 28. 2008
'By a strange twist of fate McDonald’s, the company that brought the world McJobs, is to become England’s first high street employer with the authority to award nationally recognised qualifications.
'The fast food company has been attacked by critics in Britain’s post-industrial era for pioneering so-called “McJobs” - low-paid, low-skilled service employment that largely replaced high-skilled work in old manufacturing industries' (Financial Times article). media-underground.net
Wednesday, January 23. 2008
'More people care about the harm done by car exhaust than whether the couple living next door are married or living in sin, according to British Social Attitudes, the annual report about our quirks and prejudices.
'As a nation, we have become more liberal in our attitudes to sex and more caring about the environment. At least, we think we have, though when it comes to matching words and deeds, we fall down on the high standards we expect of ourselves.
'Despite our best intentions, we can be selfish, sexist, prejudiced and uncaring about the poor. In fact, when it comes to blaming the poor for being poor, attitudes are harder now than they were in the 1980s, when Margaret Thatcher was at the peak of her influence.' (Independent article). media-underground.net
Tuesday, January 22. 2008
'They stare blankly into the lens, their lips tellingly pursed. All are the Norwegian subjects of a terrifying Nazi experiment. All were involved in one of the most shocking trials of eugenics the world has ever known. All are Lebensborn - the "spring of life". And all are here to tell their stories for the first time.
'The Lebensborn Society was born on 12 December 1935, the brainchild of Heinrich Himmler, Hitler's right-hand man and head of the SS. He had designed a project to promote an "Aryan future" for the Third Reich and turn around a declining birth rate in Germany. People were given incentives to have more children in the Fatherland as well as in occupied countries, most importantly in Scandinavia, where the Nordic gene - and its blond-haired, blue-eyed progeny - was considered classically Aryan.' (Independent article). media-underground.net
Saturday, January 19. 2008
'The CIA on Friday admitted that cyberattacks have caused at least one power outage affecting multiple cities outside the United States.
'Alan Paller, director of research at the SANS Institute, said that CIA senior analyst Tom Donahue confirmed that online attackers had caused at least one blackout. The disclosure was made at a New Orleans security conference Friday attended by international government officials, engineers, and security managers from North American energy companies and utilities.
'Paller said that Donahue presented him with a written statement that read, "We have information, from multiple regions outside the United States, of cyber intrusions into utilities, followed by extortion demands. We suspect, but cannot confirm, that some of these attackers had the benefit of inside knowledge. We have information that cyberattacks have been used to disrupt power equipment in several regions outside the United States. In at least one case, the disruption caused a power outage affecting multiple cities. We do not know who executed these attacks or why, but all involved intrusions through the Internet."' (Information Week article). media-underground.net
Thursday, January 17. 2008
'Bay Area researchers are beginning the first major U.S. study into a mystery disease known for its frightening symptoms - among them, open sores and unidentifiable objects poking out of the skin - that doctors have long suspected is all in patients' heads.
'The study into Morgellons will start immediately, as Kaiser Permanente contacts Northern California patients who have reported symptoms of the mystery disease in the past 18 months. The research will be funded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
'Researchers are hoping to come up with a more specific definition of Morgellons and how prevalent it is in the Bay Area, which has one of the largest concentrations of self-reported cases of the disease in the country.' (San Francisco Chronicle article). media-underground.net
Wednesday, January 16. 2008
'A one tonne rodent has been discovered by scientists in Uruguay. But there is no need to worry, Josephoartigasia monesi is around two million years old and fossilised.
'J. monesi's skull, a whopping 53 centimetres long, was discovered in a broken boulder on the coast of Uruguay by Andrés Rinderknecht of the National Museum of Natural History and Anthropology, and Ernesto Blanco of the Institute of Physics, both in Montevideo.' (New Scientist article). media-underground.net
Tuesday, January 15. 2008
'UK police are in talks with the FBI about an international biometric database to track down the world's most wanted criminals and terrorists.
'The so-called "server in the sky" database would share biometric data, such as fingerprints and iris scans, of criminals internationally.' (Silicon article). media-underground.net
Thursday, December 20. 2007
'A group of researchers says that the closest known evolutionary cousin of whales, dolphins and porpoises is not the hippopotamus, as conventional wisdom has it, but an extinct deer-like animal roughly the size of a raccoon. In a new study, the team finds that a fossilized specimen of the extinct, 48-million-year-old mammal Indohyus bears several telling similarities to whales, including dense limb bones for ballast and a middle ear structure found only in the cetaceans, or sea-dwelling mammals, which is thought to help them hear underwater.
'"What we think happened is that the ancestors of both Indohyus and whales were animals that looked like a tiny deer," says Hans Thewissen, professor of anatomy at Northeastern Ohio Universities Colleges of Medicine and Pharmacy, who led the study, published in Nature. The modern creature that most resembles Indohyus, however, is the African mousedeer (or chevrotain), which lives on the forest floor but scurries into the water to take cover from predators [see video of eagle pursuing chevrotain]. Similarly, Thewissen says, the common ancestor of whales and Indohyus may have been a herbivore (plant-eaters) that took to water to hide out, but eventually switched to a swimming, meat-eating lifestyle, which it passed down to modern cetaceans.' (Scientific American article). media-underground.net
Tuesday, November 20. 2007
'The fossilised remains of a giant claw that once belonged to a sea scorpion roughly 2.5 metres long have been found in Germany.
'Researchers say the monstrous creature is the largest arthropod ever known - over 30 centimetres bigger than the previous largest specimen of the same specimen.
'Simon Braddy at the University of Bristol, UK, and colleagues examined the 46-centimetre-long claw, found in a quarry in western Germany, and believe it belonged to a sea scorpion species called Jaekelopterus rhenaniae that roamed the ocean floors some 390 million years ago.
'Some palaeontologists believe that J. rhenaniae used its claws to reach out and grab passing animals, such as fish, to eat. "They were the top predators at the time," says Paul Selden at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas, US.' (New Scientist article). media-underground.net
Wednesday, November 14. 2007
'An international panel of retired pilots and aviation officials has risked ridicule by sharing their personal stories of close encounters with unidentified flying objects, and urging the US government to reopen its investigation into extra-terrestrial spacecraft.
'Among the UFO incidents discussed by the gathering in Washington DC this week was an alleged sighting of a triangular-shaped flying machine with unfamiliar markings near the former US air base at RAF Woodbridge in Suffolk in 1980.
'"Nothing in my training prepared me for what we were witnessing," James Penniston, a retired US Air Force pilot, told the panel. He said the UFO, with "blue and yellow lights swirling around the exterior", was "warm to the touch and felt like metal". Finally, "it shot off at an unbelievable speed" in front of 80 witnesses. "In my log book, I wrote 'speed: impossible'," Mr Penniston added. At the time, the case was labelled the "English Roswell" - referring to the furore caused by the alleged discovery of UFO parts in New Mexico in 1948.' (Independent article). media-underground.net
Tuesday, October 23. 2007
'Following a two-year investigation and a series of dawn raids coordinated by Interpol and involving British and Dutch police, the members-only website OiNK has been shut down.
'The site allegedly gave members the chance to download and share pirated music before it was released. One address in the North East of England and several addresses in Amsterdam were raided this morning. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) and the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) were both involved in the investigation into the site, which had some 180,000 members.' (Webuser article). media-underground.net
Thursday, October 11. 2007
'Take a bunch of lap dancers, some lustful men and a fistful of dollars, and you have the best evidence yet for the controversial idea that women send out signals which reveal their fertile periods.
'Last month, biologist Randy Thornhill challenged the orthodoxy that women do not undergo regular bouts of hormone-induced oestrus, or "heat", when they are at their most fertile - something most female mammals experience (New Scientist, 15 September, p 18). Now a study of the tips men give to lap dancers, conducted by a colleague of Thornhill's, lends further support to the argument for oestrus.' (New Scientist article). media-underground.net
Tuesday, October 9. 2007
'Plans to ban the creation of "human-animal" embryos by mixing sperm and eggs from different species have been dropped by ministers in a rethink of fertility laws.
'Under new proposals, scientists will be able to create any type of hybrid embryo for research, provided it is approved by the fertility regulator, the government's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority.' (Guardian article). media-underground.net
Wednesday, October 3. 2007
'Kenny Richey, the Scot who has spent the last 20 years on death row in the United States, was back behind bars last night after a judge set his bail at $10 million (£5 million), effectively thwarting his latest bid for freedom.
'Watched by relatives of the two-year-old girl he is accused of killing 21 years ago, who wore T-shirts and badges bearing pictures of the child, the 43-year-old Scot appeared in the same Ohio court where he was sentenced to death in 1987, as his lawyer called for him to be granted bail while awaiting a retrial. But Gary Lammers, the prosecutor for Putnam County in Ohio, successfully urged the judge to set bail high, pricing out the penniless Richey.' (Scotsman article). media-underground.net
Friday, September 21. 2007
'The civil rights movement was marching once more yesterday, filling the streets of a little town in the Deep South that has become a symbol of the racial injustice supposed to have been buried by the protests of previous generations.
'Thousands arrived in Jena, Louisiana, wearing black in mock mourning for the segregation laws against which, 50 years ago this month in Little Rock, Arkansas, their forebears had fought so hard.
'But yesterday the protests were not about being denied access to white-only schools or the ballot box. Instead, they were against the unequal application of justice in America that leaves black children with a grossly disproportionate chance of ending up in jail.
'So they marched in support of the “Jena Six”, a group of black teenagers who were initially charged with attempted murder for a high-school fight during which a white boy was knocked unconscious.' (Times Online article). media-underground.net
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