Found: Natural Bridges on the Moon
newscientist - Natural bridges have been found on the moon for the first time in images taken by a high-resolution camera aboard NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Students scrutinising the camera's images have spotted two natural bridges on the moon's far side. The larger bridge measures 20 metres long and 7 metres wide, while its smaller neighbour is about half that size.
Unlike natural bridges on Earth, which form largely by erosion from wind and water, these lunar bridges probably formed as a result of an impact in the last billion years, says Mark Robinson, a planetary geologist at Arizona State University in Tempe and principal investigator for LRO's camera.
The impact melted the surface that it hit and gouged out a 77-kilometre-wide basin known as King crater. Some of the melted rock splashed over the crater's rim, forming a fiery pool of liquid 17 kilometres across just outside the crater's northwest rim.
Like the skin that forms on top of cooked pudding, the surface of this "melt pond" formed a crust as it cooled, while the interior remained molten for longer. As the ground shifted after the impact, the molten interior likely flowed downhill, leaving behind unsupported crust that collapsed in two places, creating a natural bridge.
The rocky arches are probably strong enough to support an astronaut, Robinson says, but since the US no longer aims to return people to the moon, it may be a while before we know for sure. "If you can arrange for me to go, I would be delighted to go test its strength out," he says. "I would walk out and jump on it."
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Malaysia Opens 'Hatch' For Abandoned BabiesBBC - The cries of an abandoned baby boy echo in the nursery at Orphancare, a Malaysian charity that helps orphans find adoptive parents.
He is the only child here and does not have a name. But in many ways he is seen as one of the lucky ones.
He was left in a baby "hatch" - the first in the country - designed to allow mothers to leave their babies anonymously.
The charity hopes it will rescue more unwanted newborns, as the authorities seek to stem the rising number of abandoned babies.
Close to 500 babies have been found abandoned since 2005. Some were left in Muslim prayer halls, on doorsteps and even in rubbish bins. Many are found dead.
It is thought these children are mainly abandoned by single mothers. Having a child out of wedlock is still seen as deeply shameful in this Muslim-majority country, where sex education is mainly focused on abstinence.
'The only solution'
The Orphancare office is located in a quiet suburb outside Kuala Lumpur.
Next to the front entrance is a small door that opens to a tiny cot. Once the baby is placed in the cot, an alarm is triggered and the air conditioner turns on. When the door closes, the baby is safely locked inside and a caretaker fetches the child.
This way, the baby is kept safe, and the mother's identity will never be known.
Critics say the programme will make it too easy for mothers to abandon their babies, encouraging extra-marital sex.
But Noraini Hashim of Orphancare says anonymity is the only way to ensure parents will use the hatch rather than toss their babies in a bin.
"We're not out to prosecute the mother or the couple who brings the baby in," she says.
It is illegal for Muslims to have sex outside marriage in Malaysia.
The country has a dual track legal system where Islamic law applies to Muslims. Non-Muslims are covered under civil law.
But the stigma of having a child out of wedlock is what drives single mothers to desperate acts, says Ms Noraini.
She says the pressure is greater for young girls when their boyfriends leave them and they feel unable to confide in family or friends.
"In that state of depression I suppose the only solution they have is to abandon the baby," Ms Noraini says.
The government, concerned by the rising number of abandoned babies, has asked police to start investigating these cases as attempted murder or murder, which carry the death sentence.
Close to the busy centre of Kuala Lumpur is a shelter for unmarried, pregnant women.
The Kewaja refuge is one of the few places they can turn to since abortion is not readily available.
It is made up of a row of single-storey houses at the end of a dirt road, partly hidden by banana trees.
The women all wear headscarves and oversized T-shirts to hide their swollen bellies.
They will stay at the shelter until their babies are born.
Three women agreed to tell me their stories under condition of anonymity.
One 19-year-old girl, who calls herself Su, says she went to the shelter when she was five months pregnant so she wouldn't shame the family in front of the neighbours.
Siti, 18, gave birth to a baby girl at the shelter. Her father thinks she is away studying. She can't return home until her mother calls her back. She's been waiting for over a month.
Mila is 28 and came to the shelter in her final month of pregnancy. Unlike the other two she is engaged and has a steady job but she still feels unable to keep her child because having sex before marriage is forbidden in Islam.
"If the baby knew he was born out of wedlock he will carry the shame for the rest of his life," she says.
All three women told me they knew about contraception but were too ashamed to buy it.
The shelter is run by Yahya Mohamed Yusof and his wife.
He says shelters like his and the baby hatch help to save lives, but it doesn't tackle the problem of unwanted pregnancies.
Mr Yahya says they are seeing an increase every month.
"When we started 14 years ago, we had fewer than 10 girls at the shelter. But now, we have at least 70 pregnant women under our care," he says.
To keep their pregnancy secret, most of the women who stay at the Kewaja shelter will give their babies up for adoption.
In this country, unwed mothers still feel they have little choice.
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More Than 230,000 Japanese Centenarians 'Missing'
BBC - More than 230,000 elderly people in Japan who are listed as being aged 100 or over are unaccounted for, officials said following a nationwide inquiry.
An audit of family registries was launched last month after the remains of the man thought to be Tokyo's oldest were found at his family home.
Relatives are accused of fraudulently receiving his pension for decades.
Officials have found that hundreds of the missing would be at least 150 years old if still alive.
The Justice Ministry said some of those unaccounted for may have died as long ago as World War II, possibly during the post-war turmoil.
Others may have emigrated without reporting their status to local authorities, or relatives simply did not report the deaths.
The inquiry followed the discovery of the mummified remains of Sogen Kato, who was thought to be the oldest man in Tokyo.
However, when officials went to congratulate him on his 111th birthday, they found his 30-year-old remains, raising concerns that the welfare system is being exploited by dishonest relatives.
Reports said he had received about 9.5m yen ($109,000; £70,000) in pension payments since his wife's death six years ago, and some of the money had been withdrawn.
Japan has one of the world's fastest ageing societies, with one in five over the age of 65.
Last year's Health Ministry report said Japan had 40,399 people aged 100 or older with known addresses.
NOTE: ...and I thought our Social Security and Census systems were a mess. Lon
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Belize Animal Sanctuary Burned to Ground...Villagers Believe Missing Children Fed to Crocodiles
CNN - An American couple in Belize struggled Tuesday to figure out their future, their dreams literally up in smoke after a mob of indigenous Mayans burned down their animal sanctuary in the belief the foreigners fed two missing children to crocodiles on their property.
Cherie and Vince Rose moved to the tiny Central American nation in 2004 to form a 36-acre sanctuary for two species of endangered crocodiles found in Belize -- the American and Morelet's crocodiles.
Bit by bit, their hope turned into reality. They built a two-story octagonal house that rested on stilts and reached 30 feet into the air. They constructed two smaller cottages to house researchers and students. They dug out two acres of canals for the crocodiles. They acquired two boats.
They called the place the American Crocodile Education Sanctuary.
Most of it vanished Sunday morning, when a throng of angry villagers from a settlement about 10 miles away torched the buildings on their property. A local psychic had told the villagers that the Americans had fed the two missing children to the 17 crocodiles at the sanctuary, police say.
The Roses were rescuing three crocodiles on a distant island at the time, so were not home to ward off the attack -- or possibly suffer a gruesome fate.
"It was like something out of a Frankenstein movie," Cherie Rose said Tuesday. "If we'd been home, they would have killed us. They said they were going to chop us up and feed us to the crocodiles."
National police confirm that the indigenous Maya villagers were acting on the advice of a psychic who said the Roses had something to do with the August 7 disappearance of 11-year-old Benjamin Rash and his 9-year-old sister Onelia.
"They have their own superstitions," Deputy Police Commissioner James Magdaleno said about the Maya, who make up about 10 percent of Belize's population. "Because of their beliefs, they decided to take the law into their own hands."
No arrests have been made, the deputy commissioner told CNN.
"We don't know who burned the house," he said. "That is still under investigation."
Police also questioned Vince Rose about the missing children, but no connection was established, Magdaleno said Tuesday.
For the Roses, the drama unfolded in excruciating slow motion from far away.
They traveled August 29 to rescue some crocodiles on Ambergris Caye, a Caribbean Sea island off the northeastern coast of Belize. Their sanctuary in Punta Gorda is on the Caribbean coast in southeastern Belize, more than five hours away by land and airplane.
On Friday, September 3, the couple received phone calls from friends saying that truckloads of people from the village of San Marcos were on their way to the sanctuary to burn it down. The Roses sent their caretaker to the compound, but everyone was gone by the time he got there. The area around the two cottages had been trashed, though.
The Roses got more calls from friends Saturday, again telling them that villagers with shotguns and machetes were on their way to the sanctuary. The caretaker was afraid to go there, Cherie Rose said, so they called police that night. The police said they couldn't go on the property because the Roses' two mixed-breed dogs were barking and would not allow them to enter, Cherie Rose recounted.
"By 9 a.m. Sunday, we were receiving frantic calls and texts," Cherie Rose said.
By the time police got there, it was too late.
"They told us, 'Oh, we're sorry. Your place is burning to the ground as we speak,' " Cherie Rose said.
Life has been numbingly painful since.
"We're in shock," she said. "We're totally devastated."
Vince Rose still found it difficult to talk about the sanctuary Tuesday, having to stop several times during a phone interview to compose himself.
"They lost everything," Deputy Commissioner Magdaleno said Tuesday.
Well, maybe not quite everything. Their two dogs -- Rio and Maya -- survived.
So did their spirit. They don't know quite how, but they vow to stay in Belize and start all over.
"We love what we do, and the adventure is just incredible," said Cherie Rose, who is 44 and said she has a biology degree from Slippery Rock University in Pennsylvania. "We do more in one day than some people do in a lifetime.
"We are going to stay in Belize. We are going to fight this. I'm not abandoning those crocodiles down there."
Her 48-year-old husband agrees.
"What we created was absolutely beautiful," Vince Rose said. "No, I'm not going. We're not letting them run us out of this country."
Click for video
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Madam Uses 'Voodoo' to Exploit Prostitutes
thelocal - A 30-year-old woman accused of forcing young Nigerian women into prostitution with “voodoo magic” will face trial for human trafficking, Bonn police said on Thursday.
German authorities were first alerted to the exploitation in the winter of 2009 when they arrested 20-year-old prostitute during a routine check at a Bonn bordello for having false identification.
She told officers that her "madam" had forced her into selling sex, handing over all of her earnings and not informing police using “voodoo magic” from the victim’s native country.
“Should she fail to adhere to this, she was threatened with sickness, madness and even death,” police said in a statement.
The madam reportedly used “voodoo packets,” which contained items such as finger nails, body hair, clothing and photos.
“The victims believe that the person who possesses these packets exercises power over them,” the police statement said.
Based on this report, police in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia began a wider investigation, uncovering a network of smugglers, human traffickers and money launderers. Officers searched apartments in Berlin, Oberhausen, Duisburg, Essen and Hamburg, the statement said.
The voodoo madam was arrested this May in Koblenz and remains imprisoned on remand, while a second woman was arrested in Hamburg on similar charges.
The cases led to further investigations of human trafficking, money laundering, and violations of immigration laws.
Since then the police have concluded their investigation of the madam and the state prosecutor’s office has pressed charges.
“She will answer for herself before a court soon,” the police statement said.
Fortean / Oddball News - 9/10/2010
