The End of the World is Not in the Stars
irishtimes - Despite what you might have heard, the world is not set to end on December 21st, 2012. There are no asteroids to worry about, nor astronomical alignments nor changes in the Sun that will destroy Earth, according to one of Ireland’s top astrophysicists.
Dame Jocelyn Bell-Burnell was in Dublin yesterday to deliver a talk for the Royal Irish Academy as part of Science Week, which comes to a close this weekend.
“Will the World End in 2012 - the astronomical evidence” was the title she chose to discuss the issue, which she says was unfortunately frightening some people despite being complete nonsense.
Apparently we have the Mayan civilisation from 2,000 years ago to thank for the scare story, Dame Jocelyn said in advance of her talk. “This is based on the Mayan calendar, which comes to an end on that date and that probably started it.”
Our calendar ends after 12 months, but the Mayans got better value with theirs, which lasted thousands of years. They did not claim, however, that the world would end on that date, Dame Jocelyn said.
Aside from the calendar, there is no other evidence suggesting that 21/12/2012 will go down as the ultimate bad luck day. Dame Jocelyn listed a number of astronomical claims made by supporters of the end of the world, but dismissed them out of hand.
One claim is that on that date we will be dragged into a massive Black Hole and face complete destruction. “We can’t fall into the Black Hole at the centre of the galaxy. Travelling at light speed it would take us 26,000 years to get there, so we would be very late for 2012,” she said.
Another claim says there will be a grand alignment of Earth with the Sun and the rest of the galaxy and that will see us off, but Dame Jocelyn says no. “There are definitely no alignments of the planets in 2012, but if one did happen, and there have been many, it would have zilch effect on Earth.”
She quickly ruled out an asteroid with Earth’s name on it. “We are watching for asteroids and none are due to impact on 2012.” In fact the next really close asteroid fly-by isn’t due until the 2080s, she added. They only positive thing coming from these kinds of claims was they offered a useful way to teach astronomy, she said.
The claims also provided some with a way to make money and some of the sites promoting the 2012 prediction were selling survival equipment such as gas masks, water purification tablets and survival manuals.
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A Science First: Stem Cells Injected into Woman's Brain
livescience - A brain cancer patient has become the first person to receive a direct brain injection of stem cells as part of a radical new treatment. That's 10 million neural stem cells, to be exact.
Those millions of injected stem cells should ideally attach themselves to the patient's brain tumors. The patient will then take a non-toxic drug that ends up in her brain, where the drug interacts with a special enzyme contained in the neural stem cells. That mix creates a lethal chemotherapy cocktail for killing the tumors with precision -- at least in theory.
About 23,000 Americans get diagnosed with brain cancer each year, and more than half that number die, according to CBS Evening News. This procedure has been successfully tested in mice, but now physicians must wait months to see whether the first human case pulls through.
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Giant Pterosaur, the size of a giraffe, could fly across continents
telegraph - Dr Mark Witton, a palaeontologist from the University of Portsmouth and Dr Michael Habib from Chatham University USA, have studied how the giant pterosaur, which was as big as a giraffe, could get off the ground.
They found that the reptiles took off by using the powerful muscles of their legs and arms to push off from the ground, effectively pole-vaulting over their wings.
Once airborne they could fly huge distances and even cross continents, the scientists claim.
Dr Witton said: ''Most birds take off either by running to pick up speed and jumping into the air before flapping wildly, or if they're small enough, they may simply launch themselves into the air from a standstill.
''Previous theories suggested that giant pterosaurs were too big and heavy to perform either of these manoeuvres and therefore they would have remained on the ground.
''But when examining pterosaurs the bird analogy can be stretched too far.
''These creatures were not birds, they were flying reptiles with a distinctly different skeletal structure, wing proportions and muscle mass.
''They would have achieved flight in a completely different way to birds and would have had a lower angle of take off and initial flight trajectory.
''The anatomy of these creatures is unique.''
Their research, published today in the international Public Library of Science journal, PLoS ONE, follows claims that pterosaurs were too heavy to take off like birds.
But Drs Witton and Habib suggest that the creatures, with up to 50kg of forelimb muscle, could easily have launched themselves into the air despite their massive size and weight.
Previous theories have asserted that giant pterosaurs could have been six metres tall with a wingspan of up to 12 metres but the researchers argue that five metres high with a 10 meter wingspan would have been more realistic.
Dr Witton said: ''The size of the flight muscles in a giant pterosaur would be incredible: they alone would be up to 50kg (110lbs) and account for 20% of the animal's total mass providing tremendous power and lift.''
Dr Habib added: ''Scientists have struggled for decades to figure out how giant pterosaurs could become airborne and some recent proposals have simply assumed it must have been impossible.
''But they may have approached the problem from the wrong end, instead of taking off with their legs alone, like birds, pterosaurs probably took off using all four of their limbs.
''By using their arms as the main engines for launching instead of their legs, they use the flight muscles, the strongest in their bodies, to take off and that gives them potential to launch much greater weight into the air.
''This may explain how pterosaurs became so much larger than any other flying animals known.''
The researchers examined every possible anatomical aspect of the prehistoric flying reptiles, which died out 65 million years ago along with the dinosaurs.
Using fossilised remains they estimated size and weight and calculated bone strength and mechanics and potential ''flap gliding'' performance.
They concluded that not only could pterosaurs fly, they could do so extremely well and could have travelled huge distances and even crossed continents.
They found that it was unlikely that they would need to flap continuously to remain aloft but would flap powerfully in short bursts with their large size allowing them to achieve rapid cruising speeds.
Dr Witton said: ''Pterosaurs had incredibly strong skeletons, for their weight, they're probably amongst the strongest ever evolved.
''And, unlike birds, where the wings become relatively weak as they grow in size, those of pterosaurs do the opposite: they become stronger.
''As pterosaurs became larger, they reinforced their wings and expanded their flight muscles to ensure they could keep flying.''
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Sri Lankan maid allegedly forced to swallow nails by employer in Jordan
AFP - Sri Lanka is probing allegations that one of its nationals employed in Jordan was forced to swallow nails, in the third case involving alleged torture in three months, an official said Sunday.
A housemaid identified as D. M. Chandima has told the Sri Lankan diplomatic mission in Amman that her employer forced her to swallow six nails, an official at the Foreign Employment Bureau of Sri Lanka said.
"We are awaiting a full report from doctors," the head of the bureau, Kingsley Ranawaka, said adding that the authorities would decide on the next steps after looking at the medical evidence.
The report came as another Sri Lankan housemaid who had been working in Kuwait accused her employer of driving 14 wire nails into her body as punishment for failing in her work.
The woman, identified only as Lechchami, 38, underwent surgery to have the nails removed after returning home to Sri Lanka, the director of the hospital in the northwestern town of Kurunegala said on Saturday.
The doctor said the woman had told surgeons that her Kuwaiti employers drove the nails into her hands and left leg -- some as long as 3.5 centimetres (1.5 inches) -- when she asked for her salary after working for six months.
Police said the case was under investigation.
In August, another housemaid complained her Saudi employer drove 24 nails into her arms, legs and forehead as punishment. Most of them were removed by surgeons in Sri Lanka.
The Saudi government and private sector officials in Riyadh have questioned the credibility of the woman's allegations.
Some 1.8 million Sri Lankans are employed abroad, of whom 70 percent are women. Most work as housemaids in the Middle East while smaller numbers work in Singapore and Hong Kong, seeking higher salaries than they would get at home.
Non-governmental organisations report frequent cases of employer abuse of maids who work abroad.
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Giant Craft Sighting Over Fresno, CA
Click for video
I received this from Jeffrey Gonzalez of the Sanger Paranormal Society: My family saw this and I got several calls on my 24 hr UFO hotline. This object was followed by a single strobe craft and it flew below the clouds. It wasn't a satellite or a plane or a helicopter....This thing was HUGE!
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