Fresh Bigfoot mystery as police admit they are baffled by giant decomposed foot found in Massachusetts wood

 

Two young boys stumble across a giant, decomposing foot in the woods, leaving local police to wonder whether the grisly find is evidence of the fabled Bigfoot.

But that's exactly what has happened in Massachusetts, U.S., where tests are being carried out on the mysterious remains amid speculation over exactly what kind of creature it belonged to.


Big foot? The giant decomposing foot was discovered by two young boys in woodland in Massachusetts, U.S.

According to a report on Discovery.com, the boys found the decomposing foot in woods in Quincy last month.

Baffled officers at the Lakeville Police Department sent the foot to medical examiners to see if they can shed any more light on its origin.

'On March 29, Sgt Steven Leanues picked up what appears to be a decomposed foot that the boys found in the woods off Pantheon Road,' it said, citing the Patriot Ledger newspaper.

'Police Chief Frank Alvihiera sent it to the medical examiner, who determined it is not human, although it appears to have five toes.'
Sasquatch: Roger Patterson claimed to have caught Bigfoot on camera in California in 1967
The legendary creature was immortalised in the film Bigfoot and the Hendersons

 

Fact or fiction: There have been countless reported sightings - such as this footage captured in California in 1967 - of the mysterious creature, which was immortalised in the film Bigfoot and the Hendersons

 
Scene of the find: The woodland where the rotting foot was found

Also known as Sasquatch, Bigfoot is the name given to the hairy, ape-like creature that some believe live in forests in North America.

Sightings of the beast have been reported over decades by people who have pointed variously to mysterious sightings, inexplicably huge footprints, and giant nest-like structures as evidence that the elusive creature does in fact exist.

Believers who claim to have spotted the legendary creature - which was immortalised in the 1987 film Bigfoot and the Hendersons - say it stands between 6ft and 10ft tall, is covered in reddish brown fur, and has a distinctive, unpleasant odour.

While fans are likely to seize upon the find as further proof of the beast's existence, sceptics might predict the tests will reveal the foot belonged not to Bigfoot, but to a big bear.

 

A disappearing island..?



Last year, a group of Australian researchers "undiscovered" an island the size of Manhattan in the South Pacific.

A mysterious place called Sandy Island had popped up on maps, northwest of New Caledonia. It even showed up as a black polygon on Google Earth. But when scientists sailed there last November, they found open water instead of solid ground.

In an obituary for the island published this month, the researchers explained why the phantom landmass had been included on some maps for more than a century, pointing to some human errors and a possible pumice raft.

Sandy Island was first recorded by the whaling ship Velocity in 1876 and first mentioned on a British Admiralty chart in 1908. But future expeditions failed to find the island, and it was removed from some official hydrographic charts by the 1970s.

However, the errant island stuck on some maps and then crept into digital databases like the widely used World Vector Shoreline Database, which was developed by the U.S. military.

"During the conversion from hard-copy charts to digital formats the 'Sandy Island' error was entrenched," said Maria Seton, of the University of Sydney. (Seton was chief scientist on an expedition to study plate tectonics on the RV Southern Surveyor when the "undiscovery" was made.)

"We all had a good giggle at Google as we sailed through the island," Steven Micklethwaite, a scientist at the University of Western Australia who was on the voyage, told the Sydney Morning Herald at the time of the undiscovery. "Then we started compiling information about the seafloor, which we will send to the relevant authorities so that we can change the world map."
Floating pumice in the South Pacific.

 Taken in the afternoon on July 19, 2012, this NASA MODIS image reveals the Havre Seamount eruption, including the gray pumice, ash-stained water and the volcanic plume.

Captured the moment of the birth of a black hole


 

Lost neutrinos may help set off weak flashes of light that signal a black hole's birth.

It's thought that very massive stars explode when they die, and the stuff left behind collapses into either a neutron star or a black hole. But models of dying giant stars don't reliably produce supernova explosions, says Elizabeth Lovegrove of the University of California, Santa Cruz. "Some stars are harder to blow up than others," she says.

Previous work suggested that most of the stars that form black holes implode instead, making them hard to spot. "Is it possible for a star to just disappear inside a black hole without a trace?" wondered Stan Woosley, also at UCSC.
Neutrino exodus

Lovegrove and Woosley realised the key to seeing an imploding star may lie in the large number of neutrinos released from a dying star's core. Without the neutrinos, the core suddenly becomes lighter. According to their model, this change sends a shock wave through the star's outer layers, which then fly off, glowing brightly as they do.

In a separate study, Anthony Piro of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena calculated what would happen to the released gas in the first few days after the star's collapse. He found that the flash of light from a dying supergiant star would be weaker than a supernova, but bright enough for us to see and identify with current and future telescopes.

Christopher Kochanek, an astronomer at Ohio State University who was not involved with the current research, is excited at the prospect: "What would beat seeing a black hole form? How much cooler can you get?"

Cat circus reopens in Moscow

Cat fanciers, take note: the world's only cat circus has reopened in Moscow.

The acrocats cross tightropes, scamper atop rocking horses, and even deign to get their paws dirty with a little comedy at the Moscow Cat Theater.

The theater, founded by Yuri Kuklachev and his son Dmitri in 1990, boasts 120 feline stars (and a few human assistants). Some of the marquee acts include Catnappers, Cat Clowns and Cats from the Universe, the Daily Mail reported.

The theater's director, Dmitri Kuklachev, says the cats participate willingly. "The animals feel good and each of them has found its place. That's great because it shows that the atmosphere here is favorable for them," Kuklachev told New Tang Dynasty Television.

The theater had been closed for renovations.

April, the month of violence ..?



 After Monday's bombing at the Boston Marathon, many people casting around for an explanation have focused on the date: April 15, a holiday in Massachusetts and the middle of a month with a history of violence.

It's not yet known whether the perpetrator or perpetrators of the bombing, which killed three, chose April 15 for its associations with tax day or with Massachusetts' Patriots' Day, a commemoration of the first battles of the Revolutionary War. The month could simply be a coincidence, given that the Boston Marathon, always held on the third Monday of April, was a convenient target.

Nevertheless, some have speculated about the symbolism. On NBC, reporter Tom Llamas told Matt Lauer that "over the last 20 years in this country several terrorist attacks and school shootings have taken place around this time of the year." He cited the Virginia Tech shooting, which took place April 16, 2007; the Columbine school shooting, which occurred April 20, 1999, and the Oklahoma City bombing, which took place on April 19, 1995. [History of Human Aggression: 10 Ways Combat Has Evolved]

April violence?

It's true that some dates in April have special significance to right-wing extremist fringes — and these dates can feed on one another. Timothy McVeigh chose to carry out the Oklahoma City bombing on April 19 because it was the anniversary of the end of the 1993 Waco siege. That siege occurred when Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms officials attempted to execute a search warrant on a compound of Branch Davidians in Texas. The siege lasted 50 days and ended with a deadly fire that killed 76 on April 19.

Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the Columbine shooters, left journals behind indicating they were inspired by McVeigh (bombs the pair set to go off in the school's cafeteria and kitchen failed to explode). The pair may have initially planned to carry out the massacre on April 19, only to be delayed a day. There is also speculation that Harris and Klebold chose April 20 deliberately, because it is Adolf Hitler's birthday.

There is no evidence that Seung-Hui Cho, the perpetrator of the Virginia Tech mass shooting, planned the date symbolically. In his suicide manifesto, Cho did mention "martyrs like Eric and Dylan," indicating that he felt a link to the Columbine killers.

Not-so-special month

While April does have a history, it's hardly a statistical outlier. The National Counterterrorim Center, which tracks both international and domestic terrorism, reveals a worldwide history of attacks on almost every day of the year.

 


In the United States, terrorist attacks or attempted attacks occur year-round as well. Eric Robert Rudolph bombed Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta in July 1996. An Austin man angry over federal taxes flew a small airplane into the IRS building in Austin, Texas, in February 2010, killing himself and one other person. "Shoe bomber" Richard Reid attempted to bring down an American Airlines flight in December 2001. "Underwear bomber" Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab made his attempt to bring down an airplane on Christmas day in 2009. And the worst terrorist attacks on U.S. soil took place, of course, on September 11.

Mass shootings, which are not typically classified as terrorism, are similarly scattered. Columbine and Virginia Tech may have happened in April, but the shooting in Tucson, Ariz., that wounded then-congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords occurred in January. The Newtown school shooting in Connecticut was a mid-December disaster.

A list of mass shootings since 1980 compiled by Mother Jones magazine reveals that six occurred in April, comparable to other months: eight in December, five in November, four in July, and six in March, to name a few examples.

 

Do earthquakes threaten Iran's nuclear facilities?



A magnitude 7.8 earthquake has rocked Iran, a week after another major quake struck the country.

How bad was today's earthquake?

According to the US Geological Survey (USGS), the quake struck at 15:14 local time in Sistan and Baluchestan Province in the south-east of the country. A magnitude of 7.8 marks it as a major quake. Tremors were felt as far away as India.

"The earthquake was probably a result of normal faulting within the Arabian plate as it is subducted under the Eurasian plate along the Makran coast of Iran and Pakistan," says Brian Baptie of the British Geological Survey.

So far it is unclear how many people have been killed; the BBC suggests at least 40. The USGS says the focus of the quake was 82 kilometres below the surface. Such deep quakes are less damaging than shallower ones.

 

Sistan and Baluchestan Province is a particularly poor and desolate part of Iran. It is sparsely populated, with many people living in vulnerable mud-brick houses. Many of these buildings have apparently collapsed. The remoteness of the area means it could take days or weeks to find out how many have died.

Is this linked to last week's earthquake?

Today's quake comes a week after a magnitude 6.3 quake that struck Bushehr Province in the south-west of Iran on 9 April. Although it was a smaller quake, at least 37 people were killed.

The two quakes were 1000 kilometres apart, says seismologist Jana Pursley of the USGS. "I wouldn't call them related right now," she says. Iran is a tectonically active country, and earthquakes are common.

Is there a danger to Iran's nuclear facilities?

As far as we know, today's quake was far from Iran's nuclear facilities. Many of these are in the centre of country, particularly near the capital Tehran, or in the west.

Last week's south-western quake occurred close to Iran's only nuclear power station, in Bushehr. Iranian officials said that the plant was undamaged and no radioactive material escaped.

Nuclear power stations generally cope quite well with earthquakes, says Michael Bluck of Imperial College London. They are built on thick slabs of concrete that cushion them, and backup generators are used to keep the reactors cool in the event of an accident.

Iran does have other nuclear facilities but little is known about them.

Didn't the Fukushima disaster show that earthquakes are a risk to nuclear power stations?

Fukushima rode out the earthquake safely but the Japanese disaster was a reminder that nuclear power stations are vulnerable to tsunamis.

When the Tohoku earthquake struck Japan in 2011, the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactors automatically shut down. The real problems started when a massive tsunami swept over the sea wall. This knocked out the backup generators, leaving the reactors without their cooling systems. The reactors then overheated, there were explosions, and radioactive material escaped.

Further hints of dark matter detected



Hints of dark matter, the mysterious stuff that makes up perhaps 85 percent of the matter in the universe, may have been observed by scientists.

But researchers are far from saying they've discovered the source of dark matter.

"We're not claiming anything," warned Blas Cabrera, a Stanford University physicist speaking here yesterday(April 15) at a meeting of the American Physical Society.

The new results come from the Super Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (SuperCDMS), which takes place deep underground in the Soudan mine in northern Minnesota.

In this subterranean laboratory, researchers chill germanium and silicon to incredibly cold temperatures (near absolute zero, which is minus 459.67 degrees Fahrenheit, or minus 273.15 degrees Celsius). The chilled environment is ideal for directly detecting dark matter particles. If one passes through, hitting a frigid atom nucleus, it releases charge and heat that the scientists can detect with supersensitive instruments.

The experiment detected three events that might suggest a weakly interacting massive particle, or WIMP, passing through. WIMPs are one possible candidate that explain dark matter, which emits no light but interacts with the universe through its gravity.

However, the signals detected could also be statistical hiccups. Scientists would expect to see three or more of these WIMP-like events 5.4 percent of the time simply due to random fluctuations in the experiment. But the fluctuations detected by the experiment are in a similar energy range, which is less likely to be a random accident. In fact, the signal is 99.81 percent more likely to be WIMP than simply background fluctuations, Cabrera said.

But physicists are precise and standards for claiming a discovery are even higher than these probabilities.

The finding "does not rise anywhere near the level of discovery, nor does it rise anywhere near what we would call 'evidence for,'" Cabrera said. It is, however, a "region of interest" for future study.

 


A prereview version of the paper reporting this region of interest is available on the physics preprint website arXiv.

If the signals turn out to be evidence of WIMPs as dark matter, they suggest a particle with a mass of about 8 giga-electronvolts, or GeVs (one GeV equals 1 billion electron volts).

That mass is consistent with earlier CDMS results as well as another dark-matter-hunting experiment called CoGeNT at the U.S. Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Cabrera said, but it contradicts preliminary results seen at the international XENON Dark Matter Project, a major experiment located in Italy.

Researchers are zeroing in on dark matter from multiple angles. Earlier this month, NASA scientists announced that they'd seen hints of dark matter from indirect measurements taken on the International Space Station. The detector, the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, detected 400,000 positrons, which are the antimatter "twins" of electrons. These particles may have been created when dark matter particles collided and annihilated each other. 

Use rozmarinen to strengthen memory

      This is the finding of a study conducted by Jemma McCready and Dr Mark Moss from the University of Northumbria. The findings presented today, Tuesday 9 April, at the Annual Conference of the British Psychological Society in Harrogate, suggest that this essential oil may enhance the ability to remember events and to remember to complete tasks at particular times in the future.

Dr Mark Moss said: "We wanted to build on our previous research that indicated rosemary aroma improved long-term memory and mental arithmetic. In this study we focused on prospective memory, which involves the ability to remember events that will occur in the future and to remember to complete tasks at particular times this is critical for everyday functioning. For example when someone needs to remember to post a birthday card or to take medication at a particular time."

Rosemary essential oil was diffused in to a testing room by placing four drops on an aroma stream fan diffuser and switching this on five minutes before the participants entered the room. Sixty-six people took part in the study and were randomly allocated to either the rosemary-scented room or another room with no scent.

 In each room participants completed a test designed to assess their prospective memory functions. This included tasks such as hiding objects and asking participants to find them at the end of the test and instructing them to pass a specified object to the researcher at a particular time. All the tasks had to be done with no prompting. If the task was not performed then different degrees of prompting were used. The more prompting that was used the lower the score. Participants also completed questionnaires assessing their mood.

Participants' blood was also analysed to see if performance levels and changes in mood following exposure to the rosemary aroma were related to concentrations of a compound (1,8-cineole) present in the blood. The compound is also found in the essential oil of rosemary and has previously been shown to act on the biochemical systems that underpin memory.

The results showed that participants in the rosemary-scented room performed better on the prospective memory tasks than the participants in the room with no scent. This was the case for remembering events and remembering to complete tasks at particular times.

Jemma McCready explained: "There was no link between the participants' mood and memory. This suggests performance is not influenced as a consequence of changes in alertness or arousal."

The results from the blood analysis found that significantly greater amounts of 1,8-cineole were present in the plasma of those in the rosemary scented room, suggesting that the influence of aroma was mediated pharmacologically.

Jemma McCready said: "These findings may have implications for treating individuals with memory impairments. It supports our previous research indicating that the aroma of rosemary essential oil can enhance cognitive functioning in healthy adults, here extending to the ability to remember events and to complete tasks in the future.

Remembering when and where to go and for what reasons underpins everything we do, and we all suffer minor failings that can be frustrating and sometimes dangerous. Further research is needed to investigate if this treatment is useful for older adults who have experienced memory decline."

Secret societies


What secret hidden meanings to the dollar ..?




When it comes to secret societies and any nefarious plots to control the world, numbers play an important role, as does wealth, power and currency. The dollar bill is already a well-known monetary unit that displays the illuminating eye above a pyramid and is linked to other interesting conspiracy theories. The half-dollar (or 50-cent piece) featuring John F. Kennedy is also accused of displaying hidden meaning within the design of the coin.

Let's start with the head of the coin.

The first thing you notice is the side portrait of the 35th President of the United States – John F. Kennedy. Some say that his side profile gives ways to the one-eye symbolism known as the Eye of Providence. There are some people who believe that the unfinished pyramid found on the Great Seal of the United States indicates the influence of the Illuminati in regards to the founding of the U.S.

Kennedy is said to have been a descendent of the 13 Illuminati Bloodlines. Even his wife had supposed ties as she was tied to the Auchinclosses when her sister married into the family. It is reported that the Auchinclosses are Scottish bloodline of the Illuminati. There is a theory that his assassination took place because he started to go against the family leaders, as well as made attempts to reorganize the CIA and the Federal Reserve. There is an audio recording of Kennedy, where he warns the press that the real power in global affairs was held by secret societies.

If you want to go deeper into conspiracy theories regarding features of the half-dollar, some point out to an anagram of LIBERTY – Lib TYRE. Hiram was King of Tyre and was an ally of King Solomon. He assisted King David in building the first temple in Jerusalem, which some have identified as the start of the Zionist NOW (New World Order).

Next, we'll take a look at the backside of the half-dollar.

The Presidential Seal decorates the back side of the Kennedy half dollar. The current seal has connections to 34th President Dwight D Eisenhower, who allegedly had a reputation as being the highest ranking leader in the Illuminati related to the military. Some believe that when Eisenhower's ancestors immigrated to the United States, they changed their names to conceal their link to the Illuminati.

The number 13 is special to the Illuminati, and the digit is found in various forms on the back of the half-dollar. There are 13 arrows, 13 moons, 13 stars (above the eagle), and 13 stripes on the shield.

The phases of the moon are important to ancient pagan rituals, and appear on the backside of the half-dollar. The rays of the sun are also seen on the half-dollar backside. Some take this to mean an ode to the ancient Egyptian god of Sky and War, Horus, who was the oldest and most significant out of all the dieties in Egypt.

Boston Marathon Explosions Leave 12 Dead






Twin blasts kill 12 and injure over 140 as Barack Obama declares those responsible "will feel the full weight of justice".

At least three people have been killed and more than 140 others hurt after two bombs exploded during the Boston Marathon.

The blasts ripped through the crowd near the finish line of what is the world's oldest marathon.

They took place almost simultaneously about 100m apart, knocking spectators and at least one runner off their feet.

As the second bomb erupted, spectators' cheers turned to screams and a pool of blood formed on the ground.

US Marathon 4 An injured runner is helped away from the blast site

Windows were shattered and dense plumes of smoke rose over the street, as national flags lining the course fluttered.

More than 25,000 people were registered as taking part in the race, 374 of whom were British. There were also 108 Irish athletes.

The Associated Press reported that an eight-year-old boy was among the dead. Of the 144 reported injured, 17 are critical.

Barack Obama vowed to find and punish those responsible, as a senior White House official said the attacks were being treated as an act of terrorism.

Mr Obama pointedly avoided using the words "terror" or "terrorism", saying officials "still do not know who did this or why".

But he vowed: "We will find out who did this. We'll find out why they did this. Any responsible individuals, any responsible groups, will feel the full weight of justice."
US Marathon 8 The blasts struck close to the finish line in central Boston

The explosions happened about two hours after the men's winner had crossed the line, as amateur runners were reaching the finish.

More than 17,000 competitors had completed the race by the time the blasts struck but thousands of others were still taking part.

TV helicopter footage showed blood on the pavement in the popular shopping and tourist area known as the Back Bay.

Runners in the medical tent being treated for dehydration or other race-related problems were pushed out to make room for bombing victims.

A woman near the second bomb, Brighid Wall, 35, said runners and spectators had frozen, unsure of what to do.

Her husband threw their children to the ground, lay on top of them and another man lay on top of them and said, "Don't get up, don't get up."
Bomb disposal experts at scene of blast at Boston Marathon Windows in buildings nearby shattered into the streets

She said she saw six to eight people bleeding profusely, including one man who was kneeling, dazed, with blood coming down his head. Another person was on the ground covered in blood and not moving.

"My ears are zinging. Their ears are zinging. It was so forceful. It knocked us to the ground," she said.

Runner Tim Davey, from Virginia, was with wife Lisa and their children in a medical tent set up for exhausted runners. "They just started bringing people in with no limbs," he said.

Roupen Bastajian, 35, a state police officer from Rhode Island, had just finished the race and been handed a heat blanket when he heard the blasts.

"I started running toward the blast. And there were people all over the floor," he said. "We started grabbing tourniquets and started tying legs.

"A lot of people amputated. ... At least 25 to 30 people have at least one leg missing, or an ankle missing, or two legs missing."
Boston Marathon Blasts A bomb squad officer inspects a bag along the route

There were reports of a third blast at the JFK library a few miles away but that was later confirmed as a fire that was believed to be unrelated to the blasts.

A senior US intelligence official said another two unexploded bombs were found near the end of the 26.2mile (42km) course but had been safely disarmed.

No-one has yet been arrested, although officers reportedly searched an apartment in the Boston suburb of Revere on Monday night.

Massachusetts State Police confirmed a search warrant related to the investigation had been granted for the suburb but gave no further details.

A no-fly zone was also put in place over the city as security was tightened and flights bound for Boston's Logan International Airport were briefly held up at other airports.
Boston Marathon Blasts A map showing the crimescene perimeter set up by police

At the White House, the Secret Service expanded its security perimeter - although it was not put on complete lockdown.

The Boston marathon is held on Patriots Day, a Massachusetts state holiday which commemorates the first battles of the American Revolution in 1775.

It attracts more than 500,000 spectators and ends in the heart of central Boston.

People were asked to stay indoors or return to their hotels as bomb squads methodically checked parcels and bags left along the route.

Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis said the authorities had received "no specific intelligence that anything was going to happen".

At Massachusetts General Hospital, Alisdair Conn, chief of emergency services, said: "This is something I've never seen in my 25 years here ... this amount of carnage in the civilian population. This is what we expect from war."

Florida hit by outbreak of Giant Land Snails

 

Experts are warning residents about the danger to health and architecture from increasing numbers of plaster-eating molluscs.



A growing infestation of dangerous giant snails is threatening to damage buildings and spread illness through southern Florida, experts fear.

Giant African Land Snails are being caught at a rate of 1,000 a week in the Miami-Dade county area around the city of Miami with numbers said to be increasing.

The animals, which can grow to the size of a rabbit, are eating through plaster in the walls of buildings as they attempt to consume the huge amounts of calcium they need to grow their shells.

They are also a health risk, being known to carry a type of parasite called the rat lungworm which can infect humans through contaminated water or vegetables.

According to experts, the shells of the snails often grow to a length of 15cm (6ins) with a diameter of 9cm (3.5ins) but some have been known to grow up to 30cm by 15cm (12ins by 6ins).

In Caribbean countries, where the snails have become a major problem, they have even been known to pose a hazard to vehicles by causing blowouts of tyres.

Gardeners have also been injured as the animals have been turned into dangerous projectiles by lawnmowers.

Denise Feiber, from the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, said action needed to be taken soon or Florida could end up looking like Barbados which has been overrun by the molluscs.
Florida's Department Of Agriculture Warns Of Arrival Of Giant African Land Snails In U.S. Some Snails can grow to the size of a rat

"It becomes a slick mess," Ms Feiber said. "[The snails attack] over 500 known species of plants ... pretty much anything that's in their path and green."

Ms Feiber said about 117,000 have been officially destroyed so far since the first snail was spotted by a homeowner in September 2011.

She added that the number was expected to grow rapidly because the snails are due to start emerging from underground hibernation at the start of the state's rainy season in just seven weeks.

A typical snail can produce about 1,200 eggs a year and the creatures are a particular pest in homes because of their fondness for stucco, which has a particularly high calcium content.

Rat lungworm can cause illness in humans, including a form of meningitis, Ms Feiber said, although no such cases have yet been identified in the US.

The snail outbreak is just the latest in a series of invasions by foreign species, including the well-known infestation by giant Burmese pythons, which became established in the Everglades in 2000.

In December, the authorities launched a snake hunting competition in an attempt to keep numbers down.

Many non-native species thrive in the state's moist, subtropical climate.

Experts gathered last week in Gainesville, Florida, for a Giant African Land Snail Science Symposium, to seek the best ways to eradicate the molluscs, including use of a stronger bait approved recently by the federal government.

Ms Feiber said investigators were trying to trace the snail infestation source.

One possibility being examined is a Miami Santeria group, a religion with West African and Caribbean roots, which was found in 2010 to be using the large snails in its rituals, she said.

But many exotic species come into the US unintentionally in freight or tourists' baggage.

The last known Florida invasion of the giant molluscs occurred in 1966, when a boy returning to Miami from a vacation in Hawaii brought back three of them, possibly in his jacket pockets.

After his grandmother released the snails into her garden, the state had to spend $1m (£650,000) and 10 years eradicating them.

 The UFO Phenomenon



 Former KGB agent reveals Soviet UFO phenomen





Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev was recently asked an unusual question. A REN TV correspondent asked him, as a former president, if it was true that, together with the nuclear briefcase, the head of state was presented with a classified folder with materials about UFOs.

Dmitry Medvedev said this was true. According to the prime minister, in addition to the folder, the head of state was presented with a report from the secret services, whose task it was to control the aliens on Russian territory. When asked by journalist if there were many aliens living among us, Medvedev refused to elaborate, “so as not to create a panic.”  However, he did suggest that those interested in the subject watch a "documentary chronicle" called "Men in Black."

Of course, this response can be treated as a joke. Seriously speaking, however, both in the Soviet Union and in modern Russia, the topic of UFOs and other paranormal phenomena was and still remains classified – and none of the officials will ever say anything about it publicly.

On the other hand, there are experts who no longer hold any senior posts and therefore have more room to maneuver. Some former, high-ranking Soviet military officials have recently decided to lift the veil of secrecy on the mystery of UFOs.

It happened at end of March, at the Zigel Readings conference named after Felix Zigel – a Soviet astronomer and mathematician who is largely credited with being the founder of ufology in Russia. This biannual event has been held in Moscow for more than 20 years and is devoted to the study of paranormal phenomena.

For many years, reports of UFO sightings were treated in the Soviet Union as non-science, or fiction not worthy of attention from serious scientists. Only a few enthusiasts like Felix Zigel realized that those facts needed to be studied seriously. In the 1960s, Zigel delivered many public lectures on the topic, thus prompting volunteers to join in the task of collecting information on unidentified flying objects.

The watershed moment for the official attitude toward UFOs came in 1978, when hundreds – if not thousands – of people in Petrozavodsk witnessed a strange luminous object in the sky for several hours. The local emergencies services were inundated with letters and calls from frightened members of the public. Even neighboring countries asked the Soviet Union to explain what mysterious military exercise it was holding.

The last straw was a letter from the academic Aleksandrov – the founding father of Soviet nuclear power plants – claiming that it would be a mistake to keep ignoring this issue. According to him, it was necessary to set up special programs to study these phenomena.

The source for this story is a retired FSB major general and researcher with an Academy of Security, Defense and Law and Order Issues, Vasily Yeremenko. At the time, Yeremenko was in charge of the KGB division overseeing the air force and aircraft manufacturing. It was his division that was entrusted with the task of collecting all reports of UFO sightings.

By that time, as Yeremenko told RBTH, there had been an accumulation of reports on numerous paranormal incidents. Missile Troops units were even instructed on how to behave in the event that they spotted a UFO: the main thing was not to act in a way that could create an opportunity for a retaliatory aggression.

In the early 1980s, an experiment to "summon" a UFO was staged at a military range in Astrakhan Region.  By then, experts had realized that UFOs were frequently sighted in areas of "heightened tension" – for instance, during weapons tests, or when there was a lot of military hardware gathered in one area.

"One could say that, during that experiment, we learned how to summon a UFO. To achieve that, there would be a sharp increase in the number of flights performed by combat aircraft and a lot of movement of hardware. Then UFOs appeared with a probability of nearly 100 percent," Yeremenko said. According to him, most of the objects looked like luminous spheres.

Over time, all the participants in the experiment became so used to these phenomena that they took them for granted. Some even tried to make contact with the objects. "It looked like this: a person on the ground would wave their arms, twice to the right and twice to the left. The ball in the sky would react to it by swinging twice to the right and then twice to the left. We had no idea how to explain that," said Yeremenko.

In the end, the military, together with the scientists who took part in the experiment, came to three main conclusions. First, these may be natural phenomena that modern science is not yet able to explain. Second, these may be U.S. or Japanese reconnaissance equipment. Finally, these may be extraterrestrial objects.

These days, UFOs have been relegated to the pages of sensationalist tabloids. That is why, as Yeremenko believes, serious scientists do not dare make their attitude toward this issue known and remain silent. In private conversations with pilots and cosmonauts, he has more than once heard stories of UFOs – yet they do not want to speak about it publicly. Still, the expert is convinced that this issue should be taken seriously as a matter of security.

    Not Exactly Rocket Science:

The Global Kraken



Earlier this year, the Discovery Channel released the first ever footage of the legendary giant squid in its natural environment. But did the crew manage to film the giant squid, or one of the giant squids?

The giant was first described by the Danish naturalist Japetus Steenstrup in 1857, who named it Architeuthis dux. As Craig McClain writes, the name “translates to ‘most important squid leader’.  That is scientifically an awesome name.” Since then, biologists have slapped the Architeuthis brand on no fewer than 21 potential species. Some of these over-eager taxonomists were just going on fragments of flesh, like beaks or arms that sperm whales had coughed up. Others reasoned that squid remains in far-off corners of the world must belong to different species. After all, giant squids are everywhere—they’ve turned up in all oceans except the waters around Antarctica.

How many of these species are valid? “All of them” seems unlikely as an answer. Some people think that there are just three, which live in the North Atlantic, North Pacific, and Southern Ocean respectively. Others insist that there’s just the single globe-spanning species, caressing the world in its tentacles.

Now, a team of scientists from eight countries, led by Inger Winkelmann from the University of Copenhagen, has tried to settle the debate by looking at the kraken’s genes. Together, they amassed tissue samples from 43 giant squids caught all over the animal’s range, from Florida to South Africa to New Zealand. They sequenced each sample to piece together its mitochondrial genome—a small secondary set of DNA, which sits outside the main genome in tiny bean-shaped batteries.

The team found that the giant squid’s genetic diversity is incredibly low. Even though the individuals hailed from opposite corners of the world, they differed at less than 1 in every 100 DNA letters. For comparison, that’s 44 times less diverse than the Humboldt squid, which only lives in the eastern Pacific. In fact, the giant squid seems to be genetically narrower than any other sea-going species that scientists have tested, with the sole exception of the basking shark.

This strongly suggests that the 21 proposed species of giant squid can indeed be collapsed into one. There’s just the one global kraken—Architeuthis dux, the one-and-only original. What’s more, the population seems to have very little structure—in other words, squids that hail from nearby waters aren’t going to be genetically closer than distant individuals. The mitochondrial DNA of a Japanese squid is basically the same as that of a Floridian squid.

Why? It’s possible that the adults are wandering nomads that swim over large areas, but that seems unlikely. Chemical analyses of their beaks suggest that they stick within a relatively contained patch of ocean.  The alternative is that they go a-wanderin’ as larvae and youngsters. Young marine animals are certainly capable of passively drifting over tens of thousands of kilometres on ocean currents, so it’s entirely possible that the squids do the same. These young nomads would feed on plankton and other small creatures until they became big, whereupon they’d settle down and sink to the nutrient-rich waters of the deep ocean.

“I am not in the least surprised by their findings,” says giant squid expert Steve O’Shea. “They support what has been said many times earlier by some, contradicted by others and debated by a few, to what end I will never know.” O’Shea himself has suggested that larval giants drift over considerable distances and, on another Discovery Channel-sponsored research trip, he has captured 17 of these larvae at the surface of the ocean.

Craig McClain from the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center is more enthusiastic. “This is the research project I dreamed of conducting, and the results are even more interesting than I would have imagined,” he says. “The finding of just one species is not unexpected, but the study finally provides the molecular evidence that was so sorely missing.  What is amazing is the total lack of genetic structure among ocean basins. I know of few animals that have the long range dispersal ability or behavior to ensure genetic exchange over such great distances.”

But why does the squid have such low genetic diversity? Winkelmann couldn’t find any signs that its mitochondrial DNA evolves at a slower pace than that of other animals. Instead, it’s possible that the giant squid—like the basking shark—went through a population bottleneck at some time in its past, and today’s individuals descended from that narrow stock of ancestors. Maybe they used to be restricted to a specific part of the world but were released by some ancient event, like a change in climate, or the death of a competitor.

This is all just guesswork. As Winkelmann writes, “We cannot offer a satisfactory explanation for the low diversity.”

And there’s one last, important caveat—the team’s conclusions are based on the mitochondrial genome alone. That’s useful for looking at things like diversity and ancestry, but the team still need to analyse the giant squid’s nuclear genome, which contains the vast majority of its DNA. Nuclear genomes have a habit of complicating the stories told by mitochondrial ones. Who knows what they will do for the giant squid?


“It is clear that there is much that remains an enigma about these ocean giants,” says McClain.

Kidney breakthrough: complete lab-grown organ works in rats 

                      Video: Bioengineered kidney makes urine
For the first time, complete lab-grown kidneys have been successfully transplanted into rats, filtering and discharging urine as a normal kidney would.

The breakthrough paves the way for human-scale versions, which could potentially provide an inexhaustible supply of organs, eliminating the need for recipients to wait for a matching donor kidney Movie Camera.

Similar techniques have already been applied successfully in people with simpler tissue, such as windpipes. But the kidney is by far the most complex organ successfully recreated.

"If this technology can be scaled to human-size grafts, patients suffering from renal failure, who are currently waiting for donor kidneys, could theoretically receive an organ grown on demand," says Harald Ott, head of the team that developed the rat kidneys at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

"In an ideal world, such grafts could be produced from patient-derived cells, enabling us to overcome both donor organ shortages and the need for long-term immunosuppression drugs," says Ott. Currently in the US alone, 18,000 transplants are carried out each year, but 100,000 Americans remain on waiting lists.
Strip and coat

To make the rat kidneys, Ott and his colleagues took kidneys from healthy "donor" rats and used a chemical solution to wash away the native cells, leaving behind the organ's scaffold. Because this is made of collagen, a biologically inert material, there is no issue of the recipient's body rejecting it.

Next, the team set about regrowing the "flesh" of the organ by coating the inner surfaces of the scaffold with new cells. In the case of humans, these would likely come from the recipient, so all the flesh would be their own.

The kidney was too complex to use the approach applied to the windpipe – in which its scaffold was coated by simply immersing it in a bath of the recipient's cells.

Instead, the team placed the kidney scaffolds in glass chambers containing oxygen and nutrients, and attached tubes to the protruding ends of the renal artery, vein and ureter – through which urine normally exits the kidney.

They recoated the insides of the blood vessels by flowing human stem cells through the tubes attached to the artery and vein. Through the ureter, they fed kidney cells from newborn rats, re-coating the labyrinthine tubules and ducts that make up the kidney's urine filtration system.

It took many attempts to establish the precise pressures at which to feed the cells into the organ, as if it was growing in an embryonic rat. Remarkably, given the complexity of the kidney, the cells differentiated into exactly those required in the different compartments of the organ. "We found the correct cell types homed in to specific regions in the organ matrix," says Ott.

The kidneys, which took about a fortnight to fully recoat, worked both in the lab and when transplanted into rats. They filtered out and discharged urine, although they did not sieve it as well as a natural kidney would. Ott is confident that the function can be improved by refining the technique.
Humans and pigs

The team is now attempting the same procedure using human kidneys, and also pig kidneys, which could be used to make scaffolds if there were a scarcity of human donors. The team has already successfully repopulated pig kidneys with human cells, but Ott says further studies are vital to guarantee that the pig components of the organ do not cause rejection when transplanted into humans.

The fact that heart valves and other "inert" tissues from pigs are already successfully used in humans without rejection suggests that this will not be a big problem.

Other researchers working in the field hailed the team's success at recreating such a complex organ. "The researchers have taken a technique that most in the field thought would be impossible for complex organs such as the kidney, and have painstakingly developed a method to make it work," says Jamie Davies at the University of Edinburgh, UK, who was part of a team that last year made some headway in their attempts to grow kidneys from scratch in the lab.

 "By showing that recellularisation is feasible even for complicated organs, their work will stimulate similar approaches to the engineering of other body systems."

The haunted Oriental Express





The Orient Express is a legendary long distance international passenger train railway service that ran from 1883 to 2009 and was operated by the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits.

Even though it is discontinued, the Venice-Simplon Orient Express train service continues to run to this present day. In 1974, I was in Paris, France and visited the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, Versailles, Napoleon Bonaparte’s Tomb and the Triumphal Arch. I also made sure I rode on the Orient Express, that traveled from Paris, France to Istanbul, Turkey.

 Even though I was on the Orient Express for a short time, it was an honor to be on such a legendary train. The reason why this legendary train service is called the Orient Express is because Turkey is considered as part of the Orient, so therefore the train that went from Paris to Istanbul was given the name the Orient Express.

 Your greatest literature, movies and TV shows talk about famous icons and dignitaries from Dracula to Hercule Poirot to James Bond to Sir Harry Paget Flashman to the 102 Dalmatians have been on the Orient Express.

I received a report from Michael Jayson Hodges. Michael is 72 years old and tells me his experience on the Orient Express.

"Paul, I am not sure if you about the Orient Express, it may be before your time, but during my days in the Army, I rode on the Orient Express, it’s a memory that will be with me for a long time. It was 1967 and I was enjoying a bit of R&R and my German girlfriend Hilda took me on this adventurous train ride.

As we went through Budapest, I was looking out the window. It must have been about 1400 Hours, sometime in mid-August. There were a few Cumulus clouds in the sky. I noticed that one of these fluffy clouds seemed to be tremendous in size and it seemed to rotate. I told Hilda about it. I told her:

"Are my eyes playing tricks on me? Is that cloud rotating?" Hilda looked at it and confirmed that it seemed that the cloud was rotating. We kept our eye on the cloud and then all of a sudden about 15 tiny golden spheres shot out of the cloud and were going in all different directions.

 It happened so fast, when the spheres shot out, they were out of eye shot in a matter of 3 seconds, if you weren’t watching the cloud, you would have never seen this crazy sky show. I have never seen anything like this in my whole life." Michael.

Before I close this article, I remember when I was on this legendary train, a couple told me that the Orient Express was haunted by a little blonde haired girl, nicknamed Strasbourg Gelbes Haar which means: Strasbourg Yellow Hair. Supposingly, a little blonde haired girl in 1903 fell from the moving train in Strasbourg.

 She wanted to feel the wind and instead fell to her death from this moving train. Some passengers reported seeing the little blonde girl ghost in the restrooms and it would scare them to death. ThThe haunted Oriental Express

Boat trip to mark the 80th anniversary of Loch Ness Monster sighting



 


One of the world’s greatest and most enduring mysteries will be celebrated on Sunday when a special boat trip marks the 80th anniversary of the first modern sighting of the Loch Ness Monster.

On April 14, 1933, Mrs Aldie Mackay, manageress of the Drumnadrochit Hotel, spoke of seeing a “whale-like fish” in the loch.

Alex Campbell, a water bailiff and part-time journalist, recorded the sighting in the Inverness Courier, under the headline: “Strange Spectacle in Loch Ness”.

Exactly eight decades on since Mrs Mackay first saw something strange in the loch, a group of monster buffs will head out on to the water to raise a glass of whisky to the woman whose sighting sparked a phenomenon that continues to captivate the world.

Adrian Shine, leader of the Loch Ness Research Project and designer of the five-star Loch Ness Exhibition in Drumnadrochit, will lead the excursion, which also includes Edinburgh Fortean Society President, Gordon Rutter, Loch Ness investigator Dick Raynor and a number of other noted Loch Ness specialists.

Organisers said that although Nessie has not yet confirmed her attendance, she will not be left out of the party as some beer will be poured into the loch.

Adrian Shine, one of VisitScotland’s Meet the Scots ambassadors and Loch Ness expert, said: “Even without Nessie, Loch Ness is a place of great beauty and remarkable intrigue, but the first modern sighting by Mrs Mackay was a key date in history, not only for Loch Ness, but for Scotland as a whole.”

Malcolm Roughhead, chief executive of VisitScotland added: “It would be difficult to overstate the importance of Mrs Mackay’s sighting of the Loch Ness Monster to tourism in Scotland.

"There are few places in the world where people haven’t heard of the phenomenon and the 80th anniversary is sure to spark renewed interest and encourage even more visitors to come here and see if they can spot Nessie for themselves.”

Graeme Ambrose, executive director at Destination Loch Ness, said Mrs MacKay’s sighting had a huge impact on the worldwide perception and tourism potential of Loch Ness.

“The icing on the cake is that there is even more to this fascinating area beyond the monster, and we know that visitors to Loch Ness are intrigued, inspired and impressed by what they do see,” he said.

 Ewwww! Photos of bat-eating spiders






 





 

Spiders are common and apparently creep around every continent, except Antarctica, devouring various bat species. Here, a dead bat (Rhinolophus cornutus orii) caught in the web of a female Nephila pilipes on Amami-Oshima Island, Japan.

Animal code: our favorite Genomes

Every part of our bodies and every action of our cells is exquisitely controlled by the billion base pairs that make up our DNA. These nucleotides are the building blocks of genes, the part of the genome that holds the information our cells turn into proteins.

Since the first gene was suggested by Gregor Mendel in the 1860s, scientists have been searching for ways to decode them, to figure out how this code creates the end product: An organism. That organism can be an animal, plant, virus or bacteria that lives, reproduces and spreads its genome. Uncovering the secrets locked in each species' genomes will teach researchers how to harness the power of genes, from the longevity of the naked mole rate and the fat processing abilities of the orangutan.

Dozens of animal, plant and microbe genomes have been sequenced. Here are  favorite 10 genome projects.

1-Culturing cow

 

Itching for a tastier slice of beef? Look no further than the cow's genome. After being sequenced in 2009, analysis of the cow's genes could lead to higher quality milk and better beef and tells an interesting tale of how human domestication has impacted the evolution of the once-wild animal.

The analysis of the cow's 22,000 genes has also shown that while we humans are more closely related to rodents than to cows in terms of the family tree, our genome more closely resembles those of cows because the tiny lifespan of rodents requires them to have many more babies in a much quicker timeframe, accelerating evolution.

The cows also have many additional immune system genes, ones that could defend against pathogens that live in their extra stomachs. Analysis of other breeds also determined that the cows showed specific patterns of genetic changes depending on whether they were breed for meat or milk.

2-First amphibian, the African clawed frog

 

The first amphibian genome to be sequenced belongs to the frog Xenopus tropicalis, a slimy rotund amphibian also known as the African clawed frog. The genome study enables researchers to compare genes in mammals to those of the amphibians to see which genes stay the same and which have changed since mammals and amphibians parted 360 million years ago, which pinpoints the important basic genes that all complex life needs, including genes involved in the heart and lungs.

3-The tasty turkey

 

The turkey genome was published in the journal PLoS One in November of 2010, just in time for the Thanksgiving meal! The turkey clocked in at 1.1 billion base pairs, about a third the size of the human genome, and bears a close resemblance to its relative, the chicken, whose genome was completed in 2004.

This work could lead to meatier, healthier birds, according to the researchers, by providing a better understanding of the turkey's muscles and taste and can help farmers improve disease resistance and treatment.

4-Our cousin the orangutan

 

A study in the journal Nature in 2011 released the genes of the orangutan Susie (and five of her wild brethren) of the Texas Zoo. The genes revealed that orangutans have been evolving much more slowly than chimps and humans; their genes change around much less frequently. This could mean that chimps and humans have accelerated their evolution since separating from the rest of the primates.

The orangutans were evolving in one respect: Their fat breakdown molecules were changing quicker than expected. This is probably why they make better use of the energy they take in.

5-Spiny, spineless sea urchin

 

Humanity's evolutionary cousin, the spiny but spineless sea urchin, received the honor of having its genome sequenced in 2006 and published in the journal Science. Seventy percent of the urchins' 23,300 genes (made from 814 million pairs of genetic bases) are similar to those in humans, more than many other lab organisms like fruit flies.

The urchins' genes also hold details where the urchins get their unique immune system, and the secrets of their 100-year-long lives. The genes of the innate immune system, our body's first line of defense, multiplied in the urchin, giving them a larger toolbox to combat infections.

Though they lack eyes and ears, the researchers discovered that the urchins sport genes associated with vision and hearing as well as taste, smell and even balance.

6-Rhesus monkey

 

The first primate to get rocketed into space and to be cloned, the rhesus monkey, had its genome sequenced in 2007. The rhesus monkey genome has about 93 percent similarity with that of humans, which is important since it is often used in medical testing for human drugs and therapies.

The researchers identified roughly 200 genes that appear to be key players in what defines the differences between our species. These include genes involved in hair formation, sperm-egg fusion, immune response and changes to cell membrane proteins.

The rhesus monkey shows the same mysterious rearrangements that are seen in the human lineage's X chromosome following the branching off of the chimpanzee which gives us new evidence of the unusual role of this sex chromosome in primate evolution.

7-Marsupials versus mammals

 

Marsupials, our mammalian brethren, are found mostly in Australia and New Guinea. They have many weird features that separate them from other mammals, including a very short pregnancy, after which they shelter their very immature offspring in a pouch.

Sequences of the kangaroo and other marsupials have shed light on how these features have developed after the placental mammal-marsupial split 150 million years ago. The genome sequencing of an opossum and a small kangaroo species called the tammar wallaby show that the group may have evolved in South America, not Australia.

Analysis of the tammar wallaby genome indicates that large areas of the marsupial genome are similar to the genome of normal, placental mammals.

8-Nematodes

 

One of the first multi-cellular organisms to have its genome decoded, way back in 1998, the nematode is a staple in many research labs. The nematode and its simple-minded cousins have about 20,000 genes. While similar in number to those of other animals, the nematode's genome contains only 100 million base pairs of DNA; one tenth the size of an average mammalian genome.

This is because more evolved organisms tend to have more non protein coding regions that regulate how, when and how much of a gene is expressed in different types of cells, and not necessarily have more genes. This fine-tuned regulation seems to play an important part in what makes mammals and other organisms unique.

9-Human

 

The first human genome was sequenced in 2001, and currently over 60 complete human genomes have been sequenced. These include the genome of researcher J Craig Venter, James Watson (who helped discover the double helix shape of DNA), a Han Chinese, a Yoruban Nigerian, a female leukemia patient and a Korean individual.

Comparison of these genomes to the genome of the chimpanzee and other organisms and looked at which seem to disappear in humans. These genes are likely to play an important role in what makes us humans, though only one held the code for an actual protein, the rest were involved in regulation or had other functions.

They found differences in the handling of several proteins, including ones in the brain, and ones that respond to male hormones. These changes resulted in bigger brains and changes in penis shape in response to a decrease in polyandry in humans. (Many other species have specially shaped penises, sometimes with spines, to compete with the sperm of other males.)

10-The enigmatic naked mole rat

 

The newly deciphered genome of the hairless, underground-dwelling, long-lived and cancer-resistant naked mole rat could help researchers unravel the creature's secrets, and may help improve human health along the way.

The researchers found that the naked mole rat had turned off several genes related to vision since they live in the dark. They also saw a mutation in the gene dubbed "hairless," previously seen to cause baldness in mice and humans, which could explain how they lost their fur.

While a quick cursory look at the genome sequencing is already shedding light on changes that may lead to the naked mole rat's exquisite uniqueness, the information is also useful for human health. Stroke and heart attack deprive parts of the body from oxygen. Discovering how the mole rats survive in their low-oxygen burrows can help scientists design treatments to improve outcomes.

By comparing this genome with those of other mole rats, including solitary ones, scientists could also tease out how the animal's genes influence their behaviors.

Korean conflict could nuke your next Phone





Chances are that the smartphone tucked away in your purse, the TV in your living room and the laptop sitting on your desk wouldn’t exist without components from South Korea. Mega manufacturers such as Samsung and LG are located in Seoul near the border of North and South Korea, a border that’s primed to explode if recent tensions between the two nations boil over.

If North Korea’s heated rhetoric and missile tests evolve into a full-fledged war, there could be major disruptions in the supply chain for products such as LCD televisions, smartphones and tablets, analysts have said.

“Anything that disrupts the work flow of supply is going to be an issue,” said Thomas J. Dinges, Senior Principal Analyst, Outsourced Manufacturing for IHS.

Supplying the World

According to Dinges, more than half of the world’s supply of DRAM and a substantial amount of its flash memory and display panels are manufactured in Korea.

“Let’s ballpark it somewhere between 40 and 50 percent of the world’s supply of these three major components are coming out of Korea,” he said.

During the fourth quarter of 2012 alone, Korea accounted for a monstrous 78.5 percent of the global DRAM market share, with Japan coming in at a distant second with 19 percent, market research firm TrendForce reports. Most desktop computers and laptops use DRAM to store data because its less expensive than RAM alternatives such as SRAM.

Samsung is at the forefront of the semiconductor industry in Korea, with tech industry big shots such as Apple, Qualcomm, and Texas Instruments among its clientele. Theoretically, if warfare in Korea blocked major suppliers like Samsung from exporting product, we could see effects on product availability in the United States in about three months.

“There’s so much that’s already in the pipelines whether it’s in inventory or in transit,” said Gene Tyndall, executive vice president of global supply chain solutions for Tompkins International. “There’s probably about two to three months of safety, but after that [companies] would have to find alternate sources of production.”

Supply chain delays would hit the TV industry specifically hard since Korea plays a major role in LCD screen manufacturing.

“From a display panel supply standpoint, it probably wouldn’t be as disruptive for tablets and handhelds as it possibly could be for television,” Dinges said. “A higher percentage of those [panels] are built in Korea than panels made for smartphones and tablets.”

Samsung’s Vulnerability

Samsung could experience more severe availability issues with its products than other competing brands. Companies such as Apple and HP keep about four to six weeks of inventory handy to prepare for any supply chain disruption, Dinges said, but Samsung operates differently.

“They’ll keep what they consider to be emergency stock, but they don’t like to keep stock that may not be able to be sold,” Tyndall said. “They’re very tight on that.”

Although Samsung does have smaller factories in other regions of the world, it largely relies on Korea to manufacture its own products and components for its clients.

“Samsung doesn’t have a lot of flexibility around the world because they don’t have that many plants outside of Korea,” Tyndall said. “They do have some in Mexico and a few in Europe, but that’s not enough. Because they are primarily a produce-at-home company, [a production slowdown] would indeed impact others in about two to three months, again if the conflict drags a bit.”
 
Potentially Seismic Impact

A supply chain disruption in South Korea could also ignite a surge in component demand from Samsung’s customers, according to Dinges.

“The natural reaction is that things start to look like they’re going to get worse,” he said. “The natural reaction is that [companies] dependent on these types of products are all of a sudden going to say ‘Look, I don’t know what the supply disruption is going to be, just open the checkbook up and buy whatever we can.”

However, the biggest potential obstacle for Samsung customers would be seeking out new suppliers, Tyndall said. Similarly, when Japan was struck by an 8.9 magnitude earthquake in 2011, panel makers were forced to scout out new material suppliers to keep their product lines going. Sony, Toshiba and Texas Instruments halted production at their plants for months following the disaster.

“First of all, the customers of Samsung would have to find alternate suppliers, and that’s not easy,” Tyndall said. “It will take time to even find alternate sources. It doesn’t happen overnight. The risk plans are there and they’re probably being discussed right now, but depending on the length and severity we can see availability problems.”
Wait and See Mode

Unless warfare escalates into more than disturbing threats and mounting tensions, the supply chain isn’t likely to suffer, according to Tyndall.

“I think these days we’re pretty much okay, but again if the conflict goes on for months we could see all sorts of problems,” he said.  “I think we’d have to watch it very carefully and see what can be done.”

Human Genome Project Marks 10th Anniversary




 

This month marks the 10-year anniversary of the Human Genome Project, a 13-year international effort to determine the sequence of the 3 billion "letters" in a human being's DNA.

The $3 billion project, led by the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Institutes of Health, began in 1990 and was completed on April 14, 2003. In the decade since then, scientists have achieved many important milestones in using genomic discoveries to advance medical knowledge.

Sequencing technology has vastly improved in recent years. Sequencing the first human genome cost about $1 billion and took 13 years to complete; today it costs about $3,000 to $5000 and takes just one to two days.

Probing genome function

But just knowing the sequence would be meaningless without a way to interpret it. So researchers found ways to study the genome’s function, by sequencing the genomes of 135 other organisms and surveying the global variation among human genomes. [Unraveling the Human Genome: 6 Molecular Milestones]

Researchers compared the genome sequences of other animals, such as chimpanzees and platypuses, as well as other eurkaryotic organisms (those whose cells have a nucleus), such as yeast and flat worms. From this comparison, scientists could identify stretches of DNA that have remained largely unchanged over the course of evolution. Five to 8 percent of the human genome has been unchanged for thousands of years.

One of the more surprising findings is how little of the human genome (only 1.5 percent) actually encodes proteins, the molecular building blocks that perform most of the critical functions inside cells.

To probe this mystery, more than 400 researchers from 32 labs worldwide created the ENCyclopedia Of DNA Elements (ENCODE) consortium. In 2012, they published many important findings about how the human genome functions. These include locations in the genome that may be genetic "switches" to turn genes on and off, as well as demonstrating that more than 80 percent of the genome that was once called "junk DNA" actually does serve a function.

Other research has focused on measuring the variation among human genomes. Preliminary studies during the Human Genome Project indicated that human genomes differ by just one-tenth of a percent. Investigating the limited variation that does exist is key to understanding human health and disease.

In sickness and in health

The first catalog of human genome variation was the International HapMap Project, which compared the genomes of people from Europe, China, Japan and Africa. Biotech companies have used findings from this project and its follow-on, the 1000 Genomes Project, to study populations with and without diseases, in the hope of identifying genetic variants associated with disease. Such genome-wide association studies have resulted in the identification of thousands of variants that can influence a person's likelihood of developing a disease.

As a result of these studies, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration now requires that the labels of more than 100 drugs include information about certain genetic markers, so doctors can tailor their prescriptions based on a patient's genetic makeup.

In the 10 years since the Human Genome Project was completed, researchers have made big strides in using genomic information in diagnosing and treating cancer. For instance, the breast cancer drug trastuzumab (Herceptin) only works for women with tumors of a certain type known as "HER-2 positive." Similarly, the lung cancer drugs gefitinib (Iressa) and erlotinib (Tarceva) are only effective for patients whose tumors have so-called "EGFR" mutations.

Mutations in only 53 genes were linked to disease when the genome project began, whereas more than 2,900 genes are today.

But scientists have a long way to go in understanding the human genome and how it can be used for improving human health. The rise of personalized genomics and changes in the ways health information is collected and used are prompting a new era in medicine, which brings both challenges and opportunities.