Tuesday, September 4. 2007
'George Orwell, the author who coined the phrase "Big Brother Is Watching You", was himself the subject of intense surveillance by the secret services, documents released on Tuesday disclose.
'The creator of Nineteen Eighty-Four, which envisages a day when every person's movements are scrutinised by a totalitarian state, was closely monitored amid concerns that he was a prominent member of the communist movement.
'Every aspect of his life came under the microscope during the 1930s and 40s. The scrutiny even extended to his wife Eileen, who had to be vetted before she was allowed to take up a post with the Ministry of Food.' (Telegraph article). media-underground.net
Saturday, August 25. 2007
'Imagine taking a short vacation from yourself.
'A neuroscientist working in Britain has found a way to induce an out-of-body experience, a technique that makes people feel as if they are standing behind themselves, watching their own backs.
'The work could lead to a new generation of virtual-reality video games that would create the sensation that players really are somewhere else.
'It may also help scientists understand what happens in the brains of patients who have reported feeling as if they were floating above their bodies during a stroke, seizure or migraine.
'Surveys suggest as many as one in 10 people have a similar experience, often after a traumatic event such as a car accident, or after using hallucinogenic drugs. People who feel they've been outside their bodies sometimes say that paranormal or supernatural forces have been at work.' (Globe & Mail article). media-underground.net
Wednesday, August 8. 2007
'Relatives of a Russian officer who looted Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler's Berlin bunker in 1945 have unearthed the Führer's personal record collection among his belongings.
'What they found does not make sweet music to those who still worship the racial quackery of mankind's greatest tormentor. For amid the Wagner and the Beethoven, were works by Jewish and Russian composers - Hitler's greatest enemies - including Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky and Borodin.
'Throughout the 12-year lifespan of the Third Reich, Hitler forbade his followers to listen to anything other than German composers. Even jazz was banned as "negro swamp music" and orchestras such as the Berlin Philharmonic were forbidden from playing anything other than Teutonic classics. The rest Hitler labelled "sub-human music".
'Now the pillaged recordings, taken by a Red Army officer, Besymenski, after Berlin fell in May 1945, show that Hitler was a hypocrite as well as a monster.' (Independent article). media-underground.net
Monday, July 30. 2007
'Instead of Spiderman or Bratz dolls, children in the US could soon be clutching a talking Jesus toy, a bearded Moses or a muscle-bound figure of Goliath.
'From the middle of August, Wal-Mart, the biggest toy retailer in the US, will for the first time stock a full line of faith-based toys.
'The Bible-based action figures will initially be given two feet of shelf space in 425 of the company's 3,300 stores nationwide.' (BBC News article). media-underground.net
Saturday, July 28. 2007
'The US is mulling arms sales worth $20 billion to Saudi Arabia as part of a controversial deal that could run into opposition from legislators, The New York Times reported on Saturday.
'The package would include advance weaponry such as satellite-guided bombs and upgrades to the country's air force and navy, the daily said.
'The deal, to be formally presented to Congress during the fall, comes as administration officials voiced concerns on Friday that Saudi Arabia was playing an unproductive role in Iraq. Assurance that the Saudi government would lend greater support to US efforts in Iraq was reportedly not part of the arms deal.
'The increase in arms sales is part of a plan to bolster the militaries of US allies in the Gulf in the face of Iran's growing strength in the region, officials told the Times. Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates could also receive increased military aid as part of the deal.' (Hindustan Times article). media-underground.net
Thursday, July 12. 2007
'Water has been found on a planet outside our solar system for the first time - giving scientists a tantalising hint of life beyond Earth.
'The planet, known as HD189733b, is a Jupiter like gas giant which is about 60 light years away in the constellation of Vulpeca the Fox.
'Using NASA's infrared Spitzer space telescope, astronomers discovered that as the planet orbits its sun it absorbs starlight in a way that can only be explained by the presence of water vapour, or steam, in its atmosphere.' (Life Style Extra article). media-underground.net
Monday, July 2. 2007
'Not all physicists think time started with the Big Bang - it could have just been a transition from a collapsing to an expanding universe. But now Martin Bojowald of Pennsylvania State University in the US has studied a model of "loop quantum gravity" to show that even if such a pre-Big Bang universe did exist, it would be impossible to grasp certain aspects of it.
'Many think of the Big Bang as the "fireball" that triggered the immensely hot, dense state roughly 14 billion years ago to expand into the vast cosmos we see today. But in classical physics there's a problem: as we extrapolate our models further into the past, they predict the Big Bang as a moment of infinite energy and temperature, called a singularity. Classical models can get to within a hundred-billionths of a second of this singularity, but their equations lose all meaning much before.' (PhysicsWeb article). media-underground.net
Wednesday, May 23. 2007
'Female sharks can fertilise their own eggs and give birth without any sperm from a male shark, according to a new study into the asexual reproduction of a hammerhead in a Nebraska zoo.
'The joint Northern Ireland-US research, being published on Wednesday in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters, analysed the DNA of a shark born in 2001 in the Henry Doorly Zoo - in a tank with three potential mothers, none of whom had contact with a male hammerhead for at least three years.' (News 24 article). media-underground.net
Friday, May 11. 2007
'One of the most exotic planets known around another star just got a little more bizarre, thanks to new data from the Spitzer Space Telescope. The latest observations make it the blackest and hottest planet ever discovered.
'"What we found is that it was not just a hot planet, which we expected, but that it was really hot," says team leader Joseph Harrington, an astronomer at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, US.' (New Scientist article). media-underground.net
Wednesday, May 9. 2007
'An Israeli archaeologist said on Tuesday that the tomb of King Herod, famed for expanding the Jewish second temple during his reign in the first century B.C., had been discovered in the occupied West Bank.
'Pieces of an elaborate sarcophagus believed to contain Herod's remains were found three weeks ago, Ehud Netzer, professor of archaeology at Hebrew University, told a news conference.' (Discovery article). media-underground.net
Tuesday, May 8. 2007
'NASA released an image Monday of the death of an enormous star with a mass 150 times larger than the sun. They say it is the brightest, most powerful supernova ever observed. The SN 2006gy supernova occurred 240 million light-years away. It was studied using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, which was launched into orbit in 1999, as well as earthbound optical telescopes.' (CNET News article). media-underground.net
Friday, April 27. 2007
'For the first time, the oldest and most precious surviving texts of the Jewish, Christian and Islamic faiths have gone on display side by side at the British Library. They include a tattered scrap of a Dead Sea Scroll and a Qur'an commissioned for a 14th-century Mongol ruler of modern Iran who was born a shaman, baptised a Christian, and converted first to Buddhism, then Sunni and finally Shia Islam.
'The exhibition also has some exotic private loans, including an embroidered 19th-century curtain which once covered the door of the Ka'bah, the shrine which is at the core of the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, a hand embroidered Jewish bridal canopy - and a gold shalwar kameez worn by Jemima Goldsmith in 1995, when she married the former Pakistan cricket captain Imran Khan.' (Guardian article). media-underground.net
Wednesday, April 25. 2007
'Superman’s nemesis, kryptonite, is no longer the stuff of fiction. A new mineral matching its unique chemistry - as described in the film Superman Returns - has been identified by scientists at the Natural History Museum and Canada’s National Research Council.
'Kryptonite’s devastating power is the bane of Superman stories, where exposure to its large green crystals causes the superhero to weaken dramatically. Unlike its famous counterpart however, the new mineral is white, powdery and not radioactive. And, rather than coming from outer space, the real kryptonite was found in Serbia.' (Science Daily article). media-underground.net
Monday, April 23. 2007
'Former President Boris Yeltsin, who engineered the final collapse of the Soviet Union and pushed Russia to embrace democracy and a market economy, has died, a Kremlin official said today. He was 76.
'Kremlin spokesman Alexander Smirnov confirmed Yeltsin's death, but gave no cause or further information. The Interfax news agency cited an unidentified medical source as saying he had died of heart failure.
'Although Yeltsin pushed Russia to embrace democracy and a market economy, many of its citizens will remember him mostly for presiding over the country's steep decline.' (Mercury News article). media-underground.net
Friday, April 20. 2007
'Star Trek's fantasy technology is proving to be an important inspiration for real-world scientists, as researchers in the UK start work on a magnetic deflector shield that could potentially protect astronauts from space radiation.
'Space, even the bits in between the planets in our little solar system, is awash with dangerous radiation. Some of these highly charged particles can be traced back to solar storms, the normal solar wind, and distant supernovae. Others come from as yet unidentified sources, further out in space.
'All this radiation poses a threat to astronauts of long missions outside of Earth's protective magnetic field, such as a trip to Mars, or Moon colonists.' (The Register article). media-underground.net
Saturday, April 14. 2007
'Scientists have at last uncovered the closest living relative of the mighty Tyrannosaurus rex, the most feared and famous of all the dinosaurs. For the first time, researchers have managed to sequence proteins from the long-extinct creature, leading them to the discovery that many of the molecules show a remarkable similarity to those of the humble chicken.
'The research provides the first molecular evidence for the notion that birds are the modern-day descendants of dinosaurs, as well as overturning the long-held palaeontological assumption that delicate organic molecules such as DNA and proteins are completely destroyed during the process of fossilisation over hundreds of thousands of years. It also hints at the tantalising prospect that scientists may one day be able to emulate Jurassic Park by cloning a dinosaur.' (Hindu article). media-underground.net
Tuesday, April 3. 2007
'A Briton lost an appeal here on Tuesday against extradition to the United States for allegedly hacking into US defence computers in what has been dubbed the 'biggest military hack of all time.'
'Gary McKinnon, an unemployed computer expert who lost his appeal in the High Court, said he was searching for evidence of Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) when he hacked into US computers and was not intending to disrupt security.' (DNA India article). media-underground.net
Friday, March 23. 2007
'The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Thursday welcomed a decision by a federal judge to overturn a 1998 law that made it a crime for Web sites to offer sexually explicit material that could be accessed by minors.
'"We think the court's decision reiterates that the government should not be in the business of censoring the Internet," said Aden Fine, senior staff attorney at the ACLU. "In the name of protecting children from harmful material, [the law] would have stopped adults from receiving a great deal of speech that is constitutionally protected. The court once again made it clear that Congress cannot do that."
'U.S. District Judge Lowell Reed Jr. of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania yesterday threw out the Child Online Protection Act, (COPA) on the grounds that it was "impermissibly vague and overbroad." In issuing a permanent injunction against the law's enforcement, Reed said that - despite the compelling interest by Congress in protecting children from sexually explicit material on the Web - COPA violates an person's First and Fifth Amendment rights.' (Webwereld article). media-underground.net
Tuesday, March 20. 2007
'Saddam Hussein’s former vice-president has been hanged for crimes against humanity. Ramadan was the third of Saddam's high-ranking aides to be hanged.
'Taha Yassin Ramadan was convicted of issuing orders for the detention, torture and killing of 148 Shias from the town of Dujail after an attempt on Saddam’s life there in 1982.
'He was originally sentenced to life in prison for his role in the killings of the men, women and children, for which the former Iraqi leader was executed in December, but an appeals court recommended he receive the death penalty. In the early hours of this morning the 69-year-old became the third high-ranking aide of Saddam to go to the gallows.' (Telegraph article). media-underground.net
Sunday, March 18. 2007
'Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's dramatic confessions before a US military hearing are beginning to backfire on the Bush administration. Legal experts are casting serious doubt about their validity as evidence, and human rights activists say they only illuminate a "sham process" of justice in the US war on terror, including the apparent use of torture on Mohammed and potentially dozens of other al-Qa'ida suspects.' (Independent article). media-underground.net
Saturday, March 17. 2007
'The Iraqi judge who sentenced former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to death was reported on Saturday to have sought asylum in London but another senior judge in Baghdad said he was expected back in Iraq in April.
'The Times said Raouf Abdel Rahman, 65, was living in Britain and had applied for permission to stay, fearing for his life in Iraq.' (Reuters article). media-underground.net
Friday, March 16. 2007
'The September 11 attacks, the Bali bombing and plots against British targets were among the confessions of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed during a military hearing at Guantanamo Bay.
'According to a transcript released by the Pentagon, Mohammed said in a statement read during the session: "I was responsible for the 9/11 operation from A to Z."
'In a list of attacks - some of which were carried out and some not - Mohammed claimed responsibility for planning, financing and training others for plots ranging from the 1993 truck bombing of the World Trade Centre to the attempt by would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid to blow up a transatlantic flight with explosives hidden in his shoes.' (Guardian article). media-underground.net
Thursday, March 15. 2007
'Google Inc. faced with a mountain of data on its users' Web search habits, is taking steps to bolster consumer privacy protections in coming months, the company said late on Wednesday.
'The world's leading provider of Web search said it is taking steps to anonymize, or obscure details, after 18 to 24 months on the surfing habits of tens of millions of Web users that could potentially be used to identify individuals.' (Reuters article). media-underground.net
Tuesday, March 13. 2007
'A Leading US climate scientist is considering legal action after he says he was duped into appearing in a Channel 4 documentary that claimed man-made global warming is a myth. Carl Wunsch, professor of physical oceanography at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said the film, The Great Global Warming Swindle, was "grossly distorted" and "as close to pure propaganda as anything since World War Two."' (Guardian article). media-underground.net
Friday, March 9. 2007
'Every day for more than six years, Minnie Smith greeted her daughter with the same question, and every day it went unanswered. Plunged into a mysterious coma-like vegetative state by a heart attack and stroke, Christa Lilly had slipped into silence in November 2000 and had barely communicated since.
'But on Sunday, Mrs Smith, 73, breezed into her daughter's room to kiss her good morning. "Hey babe, how you doing today?" she asked as usual, stroking the 49-year-old woman's hair.' (Guardian article). media-underground.net
Sunday, March 4. 2007
'Children as young as 11 are to have their fingerprints taken and stored on a secret government database, it was claimed last night.
'The Home Office is understood to be planning to take as many as half-a-million prints from children aged 11 to 16 from 2010 onwards.
'The proposals are part of wider moves to introduce ID cards under which everyone over 16 will have to have their fingerprints, eye and facial details taken down when they apply for a new passport.' (Scotsman article). media-underground.net
Sunday, February 25. 2007
'To Margaret Beckett, it must all have seemed terribly flattering: a cosy call from Gordon Brown, seeking the lowdown on all her Cabinet colleagues. And knowing they spoke in strict confidence, the ever-discreet Foreign Secretary could for once let her real feelings show.
'But while the gruff-sounding Scot put through to her by Downing Street sounded like the Chancellor, Beckett had fallen victim to a remarkable hoax. Unbeknown to her until The Observer broke the news to her yesterday, she had spent 10 minutes chatting about who was up, down and shouldn't be in the cabinet to impressionist Rory Bremner. And his tape recorder was running.' (Guardian article). media-underground.net
'An internet blogger in Egypt has been sent to jail for four years. He was found guilty of insulting Islam and the country's president Hosni Mubarak.
'Abdel Karim Suleiman, a 22-year-old former law student who has been in custody since November, was the first blogger to stand trial in Egypt for his internet writings. He was convicted in connection with eight articles he wrote since 2004.
'Rights groups and opposition bloggers have watched Suleiman's case closely, and said they feared a conviction could set a legal precedent limiting Internet freedom in Egypt, the Arab world's most populous country.' (Channel Four article & video). media-underground.net
'The Israeli-born, Canadian-based filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici is reigniting claims, first made over a decade ago, that a burial cave uncovered 27 years ago in Talpiot, Jerusalem, is the tomb of Jesus of Nazareth and his family.
'At a press conference in New York on Monday, the two-time Emmy winner Jacobovici and his team - including Hollywood director James Cameron - will detail claims that of 10 ossuaries found in the cave when it was discovered in 1980, six bear inscriptions identifying them as those of Jesus, his mother Mary, a second Mary (possibly Mary Magdalene), and relatives Matthew, Josa and Judah (possibly Jesus's son). ' (Jerusalem Post article). media-underground.net
Friday, February 23. 2007
'Broadband is getting faster in the UK but many customers are not reaching anything near the speeds that service providers are advertising.
'According to research from thinkbroadband.com, the average UK broadband download speed is now 2Mbps - up from the 512Kbps available.' (Computer Weekly article). media-underground.net
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