Actor Ving Rhames Encounters Underwater Creature While SnorkelingcinemablendMovie tough guy Ving Rhames has been put off snorkeling for good after a close encounter with an unknown underwater creature.
The Mission: Impossible star, who appears in new ocean horror Piranha 3D, reveals one trip to explore life under the waves in Queensland, Australia left him freaked out - because he could not identify what the "prehistoric"-looking monster was. He tells WENN, "Snorkeling the Great Barrier Reef I saw something I don't know what it was to this day. My mind couldn't relate to what it was... If I saw it and knew it was a shark I wouldn't be as afraid but I saw something that looked prehistoric and I haven't been snorkeling since. It was a combination of a catfish and something with a large oblongish-type head. It came towards me and I froze and it just went away. I haven't done any scuba diving since either."
And Rhames is convinced there are plenty of other species scientists have yet to discover - so he now avoids wading far out into the water. He adds, "I really feel that there are things in the ocean that we have no idea about. I think there's so much we don't know and the unknown in the ocean; every 10 years or so we find some fossil that's been there before mankind. But I do fish and as a matter of fact I used to do a lot of deep sea fishing but as far as going into the water, I don't go out deep into the water."
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Artificial Meat Needed in the Future
Artificial meat grown in vats may be needed if the 9 billion people expected to be alive in 2050 are to be adequately fed without destroying the earth, some of the world's leading scientists report today.
But a major academic assessment of future global food supplies, led by John Beddington, the UK government chief scientist, suggests that even with new technologies such as genetic modification and nanotechnology, hundreds of millions of people may still go hungry owing to a combination of climate change, water shortages and increasing food consumption.
In a set of 21 papers published by the Royal Society, the scientists from many disciplines and countries say that little more land is available for food production, but add that the challenge of increasing global food supplies by as much as 70% in the next 40 years is not insurmountable.
Although more than one in seven people do not have enough protein and energy in their diet today, many of the papers are optimistic. Continue reading at guardian
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Malawi Man Claims He is Becoming a Woman
themorningstarr - A distressed man in Malawi claims he has developed female genitals and his testicles keep disappearing.
25-year-old Jali Mateyu says his wife confirmed that female genitalia had grown out of his anus.
“Two years ago I developed strange human flesh on my anus and my wife confirmed to me that they were female genitals but they disappeared.” Mateyu explained.
“But in June this year they reappeared just between the anus and the genitals. My member shrunk and later disappeared. There were only female genitals,” he continued.
Mateyu immediately sought the assistance of a traditional healer who cut the alleged female genitals with a knife and sprinkled herbs on them.
“They were cut and herbs were applied. Now male genitals have resurfaced but they are too weak; I can’t perform in bed,” Mateyu told the Malawi National newspaper.
Mateyu blames his suffering on black magic, and has accused both his mother-in-law and his second wife’s ex-husband for bewitching him and turning him into a woman. Mateyu’s first wife ran away after he stole his second wife from another man, he believes that this is the motive for his first wife’s mother and his second wife’s ex-partner for using black magic against him.
The young man, who now has three wives explained how his second wife had been with her husband for many years but had not been able to produce children. Believing it was the husband who was seedless the couple looked for a suitable donor to sire a child. At first the husband brought home an old man to impregnate his wife, but she wasn’t happy with this choice and subsequently began paying Mateyu regular visits for hanky-panky.
After a short while the woman decided not to return to her barren husband and stayed with Mateyu instead, that is when his first wife left and the alleged female genitals arrived.
Mateyu also revealed that his new female parts itch a lot and sometimes bleed after they are scratched. His wife told him he is most likely menstruating.
Dr Vincent Moyo from the Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital gave a statement saying it was not possible for a man to develop female sexual organs.
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Rare 2,200-Year-Old Gold Coin Found in Israel
CNN - A rare gold coin dating back 2,200 years was discovered by a combined university research team in Israel, a top Israeli antiquities official said Thursday.
Dr. Donald T. Ariel, head of the Coin Department of the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), said the coin ranked in the top five of the rarest finds in that country's history.
"Intrinsically, for coin research, it's a very exciting find," Ariel told CNN. "This is an amazing numismatic find. The coin is beautiful and in excellent preservation. It is the heaviest gold coin with the highest contemporary value of any coin ever found in an excavation in Israel."
Ariel said the coin weighs almost one ounce (27.71 grams), while most ancient gold coins weighed about 4.5 grams. It was minted in Alexandria, Egypt, by Ptolemy V and dates to 191 BCE. It is only the second gold Ptolemaic coin ever found in Israel.
The obverse, or 'head' of the coin, portrays Queen Arsinoe II Philadelphus.
The reverse, or 'tail,' illustrates two "overlapping cornucopias decorated with fillets," according to the IAA.
In the parlance of antiquities experts, the coin's denomination is referred to as a "mnaieion," meaning a one-mina coin, and is equivalent to 100 silver drachms, or a mina of silver.
The meaning of the word Philadelphus is "brotherly love" and in this context relates to the fact that Queen Arsinoe II Philadelphus was married to her brother, Ptolemy II, who was her second husband. She was first married at age 15 to Lysimachus, king of Thrace, who was one of Alexander the Great's generals.
Ariel said it was not uncommon in that period of history for siblings to intermarry.
The coin was found by U.S. researchers working for the University of Michigan and the University of Minnesota on June 26. It was embedded in a stone wall "separating the northwest storeroom of the Hellenistic administrative building from a room currently identified as a kitchen," according to Ariel.
Ariel speculated it was possible the coin had been secretly hidden and the owner, or the person who possessed the coin at the time, may not have been able to retrieve it for unknown reasons.
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Build Your Own Stargate!
Find building instructions at Build Your Own Stargate!
Fortean / Oddball News - 8/18/2010
