Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Mid Day International News

Mid Day International News

Guide to spot an alien

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With alien sightings becoming frequent, here's a guide to spotting a visitor from another planet:

1. Scan the airspace above your local nuclear site or defence base, especially if you live in the US, Russia or Britain, reports The Telegraph.

2. Keep an eye out for red glowing UFOs hovering above the ground, with special attention to forested areas.

3. Don't ignore the signs at ground level. Sometimes the crafts will land, leaving telltale signs in the earth.

4. You've hit the jackpot if you spot a cigar-shaped or disk-like object, firing beams of light at the ground.

5. If you are not having any luck tracking down a UFO, don't worry. They usually leave no traces, or if they do the security agencies quickly send round the men in black to erase them.

Man drops ring off Brooklyn Bridge while proposing to girlfriend

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Popping the question had almost cost Florida man Trey Turner a rock, literally -- he fumbled his proposal to his girlfriend, accidentally letting the .6-carat diamond engagement ring slip out of his hands and off the Brooklyn Bridge.

Fortunately for Turner and his fiancee, Kelsey Kramer, instead of plopping into the East River, the ring landed on scaffolding below.

Two days later, city transportation workers fetched the bauble from the construction site and allowed the couple''s betrothal to go forward.

And Turner is lucky that Kramer still said yes.

The pair had set out from Kramer''s Brooklyn Heights apartment last Wednesday for a walk across the bridge.

As they strolled the walkway, Turner imagined how awful it would be if he lost his grip.

He dropped down on one knee, and then -- just as he feared -- he dropped the ring.

"I was pulling the ring to propose, and it flipped out of my pocket. It flew in the air, hit the ground and started to roll. I was leaning down to grab it when it fell," the New York Post quoted him as telling the Brooklyn Paper.

He heard the ring strike a metal platform below.

"It was all enclosed. So I knew it was down there and not in the river," he said.

City officials contacted the couple Friday to say they had recovered it. It had been spotted by eagle-eyed bridge worker Doug Reese.


Search engine statistics can predict human behaviour

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Web search statistics can be used to predict human behaviour - from record sales to the spread of influenza, found a new study.

But the researchers also found ''traditional'' information sources are just as effective, and in cases more useful, at spotting trends, reports ABC Science.

Sharad Goel and colleagues from Yahoo! Research in the United States wanted to see if web search query logs could be used to predict how well something is going to do in the future.

For the study, they looked at box office movie revenues, video game sales, and Billboard Hot 100 songs over various periods in 2009 to see if Internet search counts could accurately predict what will succeed and what won''t.

The researchers found search-based predictions did provide a good indicator of real outcomes for both movies and video games sales.

But they were only moderately correlated with outcomes for music.

They then compared the data with predictions based on traditional information, such as production budgets, critics' ratings and prequel revenues.

They found these traditional predictors did manage to outperform search-based predictions for movies, music, and sequel video games.

But, search query data did better than traditional methods in predicting the success of non-sequel video game revenues.

Goel said sudden changes in search volume might help to identify "turning points".

He said this type of information might prove useful for applications such as financial analysis, where a minimal performance edge can be valuable.

Matthew Sheppard, research and development manager of Canberra-based IT company Funnelback said the study also demonstrated search queries are better at predicting how music would perform on the charts.

According to Sheppard another area of interest is using web searches to track flu trends.

Sheppard says overall the paper shows normal methods work fine except when there are sudden changes in trends.

The study has been published in this week's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Unlucky bride hospitalised twice on her wedding day

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A 37-year-old bride has been dubbed Britain's unluckiest bride after she was rushed to hospital twice on her wedding day, had to abandon her dream honeymoon and had her wedding and engagement rings stolen.

Yvonne Wilson, a beauty therapist, began feeling ill during the ceremony as she married groom Dennis, at a luxury hotel.

After the wedding party moved to a local park for official photographs to be taken Wilson, was struck down by agonising pains.

She cut short the photo shoot and returned to the hotel in Rotherham hoping to shake off the pain.

But as the bride and groom were preparing to welcome guests to an evening reception at the town's Holiday Inn she was struck down again.

Leaving her husband, 51, to meet the arriving guests, Wilson was rushed to nearby Rotherham District Hospital by bridesmaid Sue Vickers.

After being examined by doctors in the Accident and Emergency department, Wilson was given painkillers and released.

She returned to her wedding reception but was hit by more pain as the party was ending at 1 am and had to return to the hospital.

The following day she had further examinations and after a scan two weeks later doctors discovered she had a fibroid - a benign tumour on her womb that would require surgery to remove.

But when doctors revealed there was a six-month waiting list for the operation, the couple decided to cancel their 3,000 pounds Caribbean holiday in Barbados and instead use the cash for a private operation.

Then in a final cruel twist, Wilson's wedding and engagement rings were stolen from a house where she was working as a mobile beautician.

She had removed the rings to carry out the treatment but forgot them when she left.

The property was burgled the following night and the jewellery was stolen.

''I know what we have been through has been horrible but at the end of the day we have got each other so we'll be okay,' the Daily Mail quoted Wilson as saying.

''I think everything that could go wrong did go wrong but we have managed to get through it,'' he husband added.

Smokers puff away more than a year of their working lives on breaks

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People who smoke puff away more than a year of their working lives on breaks, says a new UK study.

The average nicotine addict takes four 15-minute breaks every day, costing their employers 240 working hours a year in lost productivity, which is equivalent to 10,680 hours during the average smoker's working lifetime of 44.5 years.

The study of 2,500 adults by market research website OnePoll.com found four out of five smokers did not cut down on their breaks during the economic downturn.

It also emerged that women spend longer outside having a natter with colleagues over a cigarette than men.

"The average smoker is taking their colleagues and bosses for a ride," the Daily Express quoted a OnePoll spokesman as saying.

"Working an hour less than everyone else these days is shocking. Every office in the country has people standing outside smoking. These statistics are bound to annoy employers who are paying people to puff away.

"They will also irritate non-smokers, who wouldn't get away with taking four 15-minute coffee breaks a day," he added.

The study also found one in 10 smokers will regularly nip outside just for a chat without even lighting up.


Gypsy gangs stole 200 kids to use as beggars, pick-pockets

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A gang of Romanian gypsies stole nearly 200 poor children, took them to Britain and forced them to work as pick-pockets and beggars. Some of the children were disfigured to improve their earning potential, it was reported here.

Daily Telegraph on Tuesday reported that 181 children were beaten and abused. Some of them were even deliberately disfigured since disabled beggars were considered to generate more income.

The children who did not beg were forced to become pick-pockets, wash car windscreens or shoplift. The children's earnings had to be handed over to the men who were controlling them, a court was told.

Twenty-six men went on trial at Harghita criminal court. They were accused of trafficking offences.

The men who are from Tandarei in Ialomita county, southern Romania, are also charged with money laundering, firearms offences and membership of local mafia clans.

The gang came to the notice of authorities in Romania after they began building huge homes at Tandarei. Over 300 officers carried out raids at addresses across Slough in Berkshire and in Romania.

The gang used to arrange the transport and bogus documents so that the children could be taken to Britain and then held hostage in a series of safe houses, said prosecutors from Romania's Directorate for Investigating Organised Crime and Terrorism.

Court documents show that some of the children were taught to steal money from shops and restaurants while others were imparted skills to carry out burglary.

"The children were told their families would be at risk if they tried to flee, and families were told the children would be harmed if they made a complaint to authorities," a police spokesman was quoted as saying.

Spurned lover sparks bomb scare on Pakistan plane

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A woman angry about her separation from her boyfriend triggered a bomb scare on a Pakistan International Airlines plane, forcing the aircraft to make an emergency landing in Sweden, a media report said.

The woman called Canadian police to tell them that a flight from Toronto to Karachi had a bomb on board. The plane made an emergency landing in Stockholm on Saturday, where Swedish police evacuated 273 passengers and arrested the woman's ex-boyfriend.

The 28-year-old Canadian man was later released without charge after no explosives were found on the plane.

He was on his way to Pakistan to get married and his ex-lover called police because she was angry about their separation, Britain's Daily Mail reported citing Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet.

"An ex came forward with the claim in connection with their separation. It was surely not a happy one," Stockholm police officer Haakan Westing told the Swedish paper.

"She had an evil eye on him," he added.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said they were investigating whether the incident was a "terrorism hoax".

Spokesman Sergeant Marc LaPorte said an anonymous caller rang twice claiming a man on the flight had explosives.

"We take any call of this nature very seriously," he said.

"We have to ascertain the credibility and reliability of the call and try to determine whether there was a deliberate intent on behalf of the caller to mislead the police or if it falls into the definition of a terrorism hoax," he said.

The jet flew to Manchester Sunday, where a new crew was due to board the aircraft for the rest of its journey to Karachi. The plane reached its final destination Monday.

The latest cosmetic craze: Bum lift!

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Constantino Mendieta is the inventor of the Miami Thong Lift, the latest way to a shapelier rear view. According to Mendieta, a Harvard-educated surgeon, there's been a steady rise in numbers of women seeking a curvier bottom, like that of Miami's famous resident J-Lo.

However, top-notch plastic surgeon Rajiv Grover explained that these operations could be risky.

Previously, the standard way to create a rounder, higher bottom was with silicone implants, similar to those used for breast enlargement.

"Implants have a tendency to move and, if they get infected, they have to be surgically removed," The Daily Mail quoted Grover as saying.

So, Mendieta uses grafts of fat liposuctioned from the thighs or stomach, purified and then painstakingly injected " using a large needle " into the layers of muscle of the buttocks, changing their shape from flat to super-curvy and high. Because the fat belongs to the patient, there is no risk of rejection.

The scars left by the incisions needed to inject the fat are hidden, said Mendieta, 'in the grand canyon where the thong goes', hence the name of the procedure.

However, he warns that the procedure isn't entirely risk-free.

"It needs to be done by a very experienced surgeon, in a hospital, in sterile conditions with good aftercare " if you get an infection it could cause a very large abscess," said Mendieta.

Also, fat transfer is never 100 per cent predictable. If the fat dies and is re-absorbed by the body unevenly, you could end up with one buttock larger than the other. To say nothing of the bruising and swelling that can last for months.

Added to the risk, the cost is quite high too - 8,850 pounds.

Now, a robot to wash and dry your hair!

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Japanese scientists have developed a hair-washing robot that uses 16 robotic fingers and two motorised arms to do the job.

Created at Panasonic Corporation, the robot has been created to replicate the hands of a human hair stylist, and is designed to help with the care of the country's 'silver generation'.

The arms can scan the head three-dimensionally, measure and record the shape in order to determine the precise amount of pressure in the correct locations.

Eight 'fingers' and three motors on every arm independently control the motion and pressure of the massage movements.

"The hair-washing robot was developed to fill the needs of workers at hospitals and health care facilities," The Telegraph quoted a Panasonic spokesman as saying.

"Studies among them revealed their dilemma that they cannot attend to each and every request of the patients, such as shampooing, as it will add another task to the workers who are already burdened with many tasks."

Man leaves behind 1905-page suicide note

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A 35-year-old man, who shot himself near Harvard University here a week ago, has left behind a 1905-page suicide note, an online document he had been working on for the last five years.

Mitchell Heisman shot himself at Harvard Yard on September 18. His family and about 400 friends received the 1,905-page suicide note in a posthumous e-mail. In the note Heisman wrote that he took his life as part of a philosophical exploration he called "an experiment in nihilism." The lengthy document included 1,433 footnotes, a 20-page bibliography, over 1,700 references to God and 200 references to the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.

Heisman wrote, "Every word, every thought and every emotion come back to one core problem: life is meaningless... The experiment in nihilism is to seek out and expose every illusion and every myth, wherever it may lead, no matter what, even if it kills us."

"If life is truly meaningless and there is no rational basis for choosing among fundamental alternatives, then all choices are equal and there is no fundamental ground for choosing life over death," he wrote. He quoted former US President Thomas Jefferson and Albert Einstein in the lengthy document.

The New Jersey native, who had studied psychology in college, had told his family and friends he was working on "a history of the Norman conquest of England." The chapters in the document are titled 'Philosophy, Cosmology, Singularity, New Jersey' and 'How to Breed a God.'

Heisman's friends said he bought the gun, a .38-caliber pistol, three years ago. They described him as being "cordial, considerate and quiet." Heisman, a Jew, committed suicide in Harvard yard in front of a group of tourists, on the day of Yom Kippur, considered one of the holiest days in Jewish faith.

Leonardo Dicaprio boosts Indian tiger campaign

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Hollywood actor Leonardo DiCaprio will put his fame to work to raise global awareness about India's dwindling number of tigers, an official said.

DiCaprio and India's Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh met at a reception in New York organised by the Coalition of Rainforest Nations, an inter-governmental organisation.

"The actor met the minister and has expressed his interest to play a crucial role in sensitising the global community to the cause of the Indian tiger," a senior environment ministry said.

"DiCaprio plans to come to India to be a part of the conservation efforts," the official said, asking not to be named.

India's endangered tiger population has plummeted to 1,350 -- just over a third of the 3,700 estimated to be alive in 2002.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, alarmed by the dwindling number of tigers, set up two years ago a national wildlife crime prevention bureau, drawing experts from the police, environmental agencies and customs to end poaching.

But despite the new measures, poachers killed 32 tigers in 2009 and three this year, according to the Wildlife Protection Society of India.

Tiger hunting is illegal worldwide and the trade in tiger parts is banned under a treaty binding 167 countries, including India.


UFOs 'tampered with nukes'

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Retired US air officer gives testimony about encounters with the other kind near UK nuclear base, demands government to come clean

An ex-US air force chief has given an astonishing account of an encounter with a UFO at an air force base in Suffolk.

Charles Halt is one of a number of senior former airmen who went public yesterday over claims that UFOs had tampered with nuclear missiles in the US and the UK.

Halt, who retired in 1991, told a press conference that he was working at RAF Bentwater near Rendelsham in Suffolk in 1980 when he had the terrifying encounter.

He said that early one morning in December 1980 several of his base's security forces saw lights in the forest near Woodbridge.

Two patrolman were sent out to approach the craft which they described as 'triangular, dark metallic in appearance', Halt said. It quickly and silently 'vanished at high speed'.

At the site, he saw indentations of around six to eight feet wide and increased levels of radiation as well as broken branches on the trees.

Halt said, "Milling around, one of the individuals saw a bright glowing object like an eye. It would appear to be winking and was shedding molten metal and silently moving through the trees and at one point it actually approached us."

He said that the object then exploded into five white objects, which became visible in the sky.

"They were brightly coloured changing from elliptical to round as if they were moving at very high speed."

The entire incident was categorised as a British affair because it had happened off base, Halt said.

"I have no idea what we saw that night but I do know it was under intelligent control. My theory is that it was from another dimension or extra-terrestrial," he said.

Truth is out there
The six former US Air Force officers and one former enlisted man, all presented declassified information, which they claim backs up their findings.

They want US and British authorities to release 60 years worth of X-Files they claim that proves the existence of extra-terrestrials.

And the men said that the UFOs deactivation of nuclear weapons was a message to the human race to move away from arms race.

As the press conference came to a close the officers made a call to the US government to come clean about visits by UFOs in the past.

Salas, another officer, said, "The UFO phenomenon is real, not imaginary and there is excessive secrecy in the government about this issue. The tampering of nuclear weapons is a national security concern."

They have witness testimony from 120 former or retired military personnel which points to alien intervention at nuclear sites in the US as recently as 2003.

They urged the authorities to confirm that alien beings have long been visiting Earth.

Alien Fascination
From the very beginning, humans have been fascinated about aliens and UFOs. Pop culture has been flooded with various Alien movies, books and serials. X files, the serial was a popular culture touchstones in the 1990s.
ET -- the movie by Steven Spielberg was a blockbuster surpassing Star Wars to become the most financially successful film released


Posted by Harshad at 7:48 AM

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