CIA agent alleged to have met Bin Laden in July

French report claims terrorist leader stayed in Dubai hospital

Anthony Sampson
Thursday November 1, 2001
The Guardian

Two months before September 11 Osama bin Laden flew to Dubai for 10 days for treatment at the American hospital, where he was visited by the local CIA agent, according to the French newspaper Le Figaro.

The disclosures are known to come from French intelligence which is keen to reveal the ambiguous role of the CIA, and to restrain Washington from extending the war to Iraq and elsewhere.

Bin Laden is reported to have arrived in Dubai on July 4 from Quetta in Pakistan with his own personal doctor, nurse and four bodyguards, to be treated in the urology department. While there he was visited by several members of his family and Saudi personalities, and the CIA.

The CIA chief was seen in the lift, on his way to see Bin Laden, and later, it is alleged, boasted to friends about his contact. He was recalled to Washington soon afterwards.

Intelligence sources say that another CIA agent was also present; and that Bin Laden was also visited by Prince Turki al Faisal, then head of Saudi intelligence, who had long had links with the Taliban, and Bin Laden. Soon afterwards Turki resigned, and more recently he has publicly attacked him in an open letter: "You are a rotten seed, like the son of Noah".

The American hospital in Dubai emphatically denied that Bin Laden was a patient there.

Washington last night also denied the story.

Private planes owned by rich princes in the Gulf fly frequently between Quetta and the Emirates, often on luxurious "hunting trips" in territories sympathetic to Bin Laden. Other sources confirm that these hunting trips have provided opportunities for Saudi contacts with the Taliban and terrorists, since they first began in 1994.

Bin Laden has often been reported to be in poor health. Some accounts claim that he is suffering from Hepatitis C, and can expect to live for only two more years.

According to Le Figaro, last year he ordered a mobile dialysis machine to be delivered to his base at Kandahar in Afghanistan.

Whether the allegations about the Dubai meeting are confirmed or not, the wider leaks from the French secret service throw a worrying light on the rivalries and lack of coordination between intelligence agencies, both within the US and between western allies.

A familiar complaint of French intelligence is that collaboration with the Americans has been essentially one-way, with them happy to receive information while giving little in return.

Intelligence deputy to America: Rethink privacy

WASHINGTON (AP) -- As Congress debates new rules for government eavesdropping, a top intelligence official says it is time that people in the United States change their definition of privacy.

Privacy no longer can mean anonymity, says Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence. Instead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguard people's private communications and financial information.

Kerr's comments come as Congress is taking a second look at the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Lawmakers hastily changed the 1978 law last summer to allow the government to eavesdrop inside the United States without court permission, so long as one end of the conversation was reasonably believed to be located outside the U.S.

The original law required a court order for any surveillance conducted on U.S. soil in order to protect Americans' privacy. The White House argued that the law was obstructing intelligence gathering because, as technology has changed, a growing amount of foreign communications passes through U.S.-based channels.

The most contentious issue in the new legislation is whether to shield telecommunications companies from civil lawsuits for allegedly giving the government access to people's private e-mails and phone calls without a FISA court order between 2001 and 2007.

Some lawmakers, including members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, appear reluctant to grant immunity. Suits might be the only way to determine how far the government has burrowed into people's privacy without court permission.

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The committee is expected to decide this week whether its version of the bill will protect telecommunications companies. About 40 wiretapping suits are pending.

The central witness in a California lawsuit against AT&T says the government is vacuuming up billions of e-mails and phone calls as they pass through an AT&T switching station in San Francisco, California.

Mark Klein, a retired AT&T technician, helped connect a device in 2003 that he says diverted and copied onto a government supercomputer every call, e-mail, and Internet site access on AT&T lines.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which filed the class-action suit, claims there are as many as 20 such sites in the U.S.

The White House has promised to veto any bill that does not grant immunity from suits such as this one.

Congressional leaders hope to finish the bill by Thanksgiving. It would replace the FISA update enacted in August that privacy groups and civil libertarians say allows the government to read Americans' e-mails and listen to their phone calls without court oversight.

Kerr said at an October intelligence conference in San Antonio, Texas, that he finds it odd that some would be concerned that the government may be listening in when people are "perfectly willing for a green-card holder at an [Internet service provider] who may or may have not have been an illegal entrant to the United States to handle their data."

He noted that government employees face up to five years in prison and $100,000 in fines if convicted of misusing private information.

Millions of people in this country -- particularly young people -- already have surrendered anonymity to social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook, and to Internet commerce. These sites reveal to the public, government and corporations what was once closely guarded information, like personal statistics and credit card numbers.

"Those two generations younger than we are have a very different idea of what is essential privacy, what they would wish to protect about their lives and affairs. And so, it's not for us to inflict one size fits all," said Kerr, 68. "Protecting anonymity isn't a fight that can be won. Anyone that's typed in their name on Google understands that."

"Our job now is to engage in a productive debate, which focuses on privacy as a component of appropriate levels of security and public safety," Kerr said. "I think all of us have to really take stock of what we already are willing to give up, in terms of anonymity, but [also] what safeguards we want in place to be sure that giving that doesn't empty our bank account or do something equally bad elsewhere."

Kurt Opsahl, a senior staff lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an advocacy group that defends online free speech, privacy and intellectual property rights, said Kerr's argument ignores both privacy laws and American history.

"Anonymity has been important since the Federalist Papers were written under pseudonyms," Opsahl said. "The government has tremendous power: the police power, the ability to arrest, to detain, to take away rights. Tying together that someone has spoken out on an issue with their identity is a far more dangerous thing if it is the government that is trying to tie it together."

Opsahl also said Kerr ignores the distinction between sacrificing protection from an intrusive government and voluntarily disclosing information in exchange for a service.

"There is something fundamentally different from the government having information about you than private parties," he said. "We shouldn't have to give people the choice between taking advantage of modern communication tools and sacrificing their privacy."

"It's just another 'trust us, we're the government,"' he said.

Malaria moves in behind the loggers

Deforestation and climate change are returning the mosquito-borne disease to parts of Peru after 40 years

Map: Where malaria occurs in South America (pdf)

Andrés Schipani in Mazán and John Vidal
Tuesday October 30, 2007
The Guardian

The afternoon is hot and sticky on the banks of the Napo river, an arm of the Amazon, but Claudio, a logger, is shivering in his creaky wooden bed.

"I feel bad, very bad, pain all over my body, fever, high fever, shudders," he says. "I have malaria; this is the 17th time so far. I don't know what to do any more."

The mosquito-borne illness has returned to the many villages only accessible by boat in the Peruvian Amazon, inflicting on the inhabitants days of fever, permanent anaemia and - in the worst cases - death.

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In Peru, malaria was almost eradicated 40 years ago, but this year 64,000 cases have been registered in the country, half in the Amazon region. It is thought there are many more unregistered cases deep within the massive and humid rainforest, where health authorities find it almost impossible to gain access.

"Malaria is present. There have been 32,000 cases this year in this area alone - that says malaria is very much present," said Hugo Rodríguez, a doctor at the Andean Health Organisation, which is fighting malaria in border areas of Peru, Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela.

His organisation distributes mosquito nets to some villagers, spreading the message through the area that the illness is dangerous and - where they can identify the cases - helping in post-infection treatment.

"Now we are not talking about eradicating malaria any more, as that is impossible and unsustainable; we are doing our best to try and control it," he added.

Climate change and deforestation are behind the return of malaria in the Peruvian Amazon.

Off-season rain is altering the pattern of mosquito development, leaving puddles containing the lethal larvae in areas where malaria had been nonexistent.

"The actual malaria problem of the Peruvian Amazon is caused by constant climate changes," said biologist Carlos Pacheco, head of the mosquito control unit in Iquitos, the regional capital south of Mazán.

And deforestation is having a similar effect, forcing the mosquito to move to new areas and spreading the disease to places where people are not aware of the disease, where villagers lack the means to get hold of mosquito nets and preventive medicines, and where health authorities have no presence.

"Every time we fight the mosquito, we feel we are fighting against a much more evolved and adaptable one, one that can easily migrate to areas that were clean of malaria before and that are very hard to access," said Mr Pacheco.

Two scientific reports last year linked malaria with deforestation. Peruvian researchers found that frontier areas cleared of trees for logging, settlements, roads, farming or mining were far more likely to harbour malaria-carrying mosquitoes.

In one Peruvian study, researchers said the biting rate of mosquitoes in deforested areas was nearly 300 times greater than in virgin forests. Increases in human population density had no impact on biting rates.

The insects lay their eggs and thrive in open, sunlit pools of water. Roadbuilders dig channels and culverts which become blocked, silt washes off farmland blocking streams, and opencast mines and new settlements create ideal breeding grounds.

Anyone who catches malaria in the Amazon region has few opportunities for treatment. Even in the most densely populated areas, there are few health centres.

Loggers are the mosquitoes' main victim.

"The districts with the higher logging activity are the critical ones, making the disease there to be almost impossible to control," said Dr Rodríguez.

"It is very hard to access the areas where the clearing of the rainforest occurs and these people are not conscious of the risks and once infected - and sometimes because of the illegality of this activity - loggers are very reluctant to get treated by health authorities."

Alongside the Amazon river and its many tributaries, poverty-stricken loggers like Claudio move deep into the rainforest, in areas where malaria is prevalent, without taking any precautions and for meagre wages.

Pointing at his neighbour's one-year-old son who is recovering from the disease, Arquímedes of the village of Manacamiri near Iquitos said: "Here most people suffer from this disease, from malaria.

"There are no other diseases like this, no other problems like this here ... We have now become the malaria zone."

Behind him, the bank of the low Nanay river seems nothing more than a mud puddle with mosquitoes buzzing around.

"Children, elderly, how many deaths we already had," said Arquímedes.

"At the beginning we had no idea what it was, and it was malaria ... there is not a single day without a malaria patient."

Mukasey Won’t Say Waterboarding Is Torture But in 1947 the U.S. Called It a War Crime, Sentenced Enemy Officer to 15 Years Hard Labor

Posted by Jon Ponder | Oct. 29, 2007, 12:30 pm

Immoral Relativism: George Bush’s nomination of Michael Mukasey for U.S. attorney general — once thought to be smooth sailing — is experiencing a bit of turbulence. The problem is, Mukasey can’t bring himself to say whether or not waterboarding is torture:

During his confirmation hearings earlier this month, Mukasey said he believes torture violates the Constitution, but he refused to be pinned down on whether he believes specific interrogation techniques, such as waterboarding, are constitutional.

“I don’t know what’s involved in the techniques. If waterboarding is torture, torture is not constitutional,” he said.

But after World War II, the United States government was quite clear about the fact that waterboarding was torture, at least when it was done to U.S. citizens:

[In] 1947, the United States charged a Japanese officer, Yukio Asano, with war crimes for carrying out another form of waterboarding on a U.S. civilian. The subject was strapped on a stretcher that was tilted so that his feet were in the air and head near the floor, and small amounts of water were poured over his face, leaving him gasping for air until he agreed to talk.

“Asano was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor,” Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) told his colleagues last Thursday during the debate on military commissions legislation. “We punished people with 15 years of hard labor when waterboarding was used against Americans in World War II,” he sai

Mukasey’s non-answer has raised doubts among Democrats, and even some Republicans, on the Senate Judiciary Committee:

[The] Democrats on the committee signed a joint letter to Mukasey, making sure that he knew what’s involved, and demanded an answer to the question as to whether waterboarding is torture.

Then two days later, the doubts grew louder. Two key Democrats, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT ) and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) both said publicly that their votes depended on Mukasey’s answer to the waterboarding question.

Then it was Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) who saw an opening after Rudy Giuliani refused to call waterboarding torture (”It depends on who does it.”). Most certainly it’s torture, McCain said. When pressed, he stopped short of saying that he would oppose Mukasey’s nomination if he didn’t say the same, but he added to the chorus of those who professed to be interested in what Mukasey’s answer to follow-up questions will be.

Yesterday, Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) said that if Mukasey “does not believe that waterboarding is illegal, then that would really put doubts in my own mind.”

Rep. Arlen Specter (R-PA) has also thrown in his lot of doubts and concerns.

Of course, if the past is a guide, Mukasey will easily win nomination, and nearly all these senators who have expressed concern will vote for him.

Waterboarding has become an isssue because the Bush White House signed off on it as an interrogation technique — and thus moved the United States into the company of pariah states that permit torture — after the 9/11 attacks.

Pervical Chapter Four

Percival watched as Clarrisa closed the door and listened to her high-heels clip-clop down the steps. He ruffled his hands through his hair, and paced on the linoleum floor of the kitchen, thinking to himself that he should have said something, anything, like ‘I love you’, but did he love her? How could he tell? All he knew was that he liked spending time with her. She made him feel good, and he wanted her. Was it lust or could it be just that it was some form of forbidden fruit. What he needed was to find a nice girl with AIDS and settle down. He felt wrapped in Saran Wrap because he couldn’t get physically intimate.

He could still feel the heat from her lips. It wasn’t like he had never touched her, but he couldn’t put a finger on why letting someone enter the inside of a body was so important. He had fought the impulse for so long but the welling of sex overwhelmed his senses and he couldn’t think straight.

He laid on the bed and stared at the fake wood wall and tried to calm down. In the middle of one of the wooden panes were two distinct eyes, formed from two large round knots in the wood, and they looked ominously at him. The eyes pierced him.

“Alright. I love her,” he told the eyes. So be it, he was in love.

He needed to make reservations for Saturday, so he slid a few quarters off the nightstand and headed to the main office where several payphones were. The young receptionist sat behind her desk, gossiping on the phone as he entered. She chomped on her gum with the phone nestled on her shoulder and she stared blankly at a game show on a small black and white television.

Four payphones lined the right side wall. He put his change into one of them, which was titled, For a Good Time Call Sarah at 555-6784. He had an itching to call the number but instead uncrumpled a ripped corner of the phonebook, where he had written the number to the restaurant.

“Hello. My name is Larry, may I help you?” answered the man on the other end.

“Hi, my name is Percival Watkins and I would like to place a reservation for two for this Saturday,” he said.

“We have an open spot at seven.”

“That sounds perfect.”

“I will need your telephone number, sir.”

“555-2901,” he said and gave him the number to the main office. “Just ask for the Penthouse.”

“Oh, thank you very much, and we’ll be happy to see you.”

“Thank you.” He hung the phone up. The receptionist looked at him out of the corner of her eye. He turned and was almost near the door when she called out.

“You the person renting out #?”

“Yea that’s me.”

“Well you had got a phone call about an hour ago but I couldn’t get you. It’s from a…” She looked down at a sheet of paper. “a Philip.” She picked up a small note and handed it to him.
“He didn’t say if it was important, so I wasn’t to persistent.”
“Thanks,” he said and left.

It was to late to get in touch with Philip now, he would be in the middle of his shift, so he would have to get in touch with him when he got home from the hospital. He was glad that Philip had called because he needed to talk to him about Clarrisa. What he needed right now was some sound advice that he could trust. Since he didn’t have to work at the hospital today, the rest of the day was free for him to play around with.

Once inside his room, he headed straight for the toilet, leaving the door wide open and scoured a pile of old magazines near the plunger beside the toilet. Nothing there was worth reading, so he held his pants up with one arm and waddled to his book bag near his bed, where he had a magazine, which he had grabbed from the hospital waiting room. When he sat back down on the commode, he flipped through what appeared to be a liberal news magazine called The Ritchous Defactos. He scanned through the table of contents when he came across: Pharmaceutical Company Tests New Drug On African Children page forty three .

On that page a huge black and white photograph of a dieing African child that wore a Pepsi tee-shirt and mud encrusted shorts, clutching a rag doll, and he sat with a look of helplessness on his face. The scene behind him was of a back alley, where garbage piled high in numerous trashcans and on top of one of the cans was the South African flag. He began to read the article, which talked about several large pharmaceutical companies that used experimental drugs on the children there. Over eighty percent of the children developed malformities or died because of it and the companies weren’t taking responsibility. When they named Keiser, anger welled inside him, he was affiliated with them and possibly helped produce some of those hideous drugs. It was more important then ever to talk to Philip.

Continent-size toxic stew of plastic trash fouling swath of Pacific Ocean

Justin Berton, Chronicle Staff Writer

Friday, October 19, 2007

At the start of the Academy Award-winning movie "American Beauty," a character videotapes a plastic grocery bag as it drifts into the air, an event he casts as a symbol of life's unpredictable currents, and declares the romantic moment as a "most beautiful thing."

To the eyes of an oceanographer, the image is pure catastrophe.

In reality, the rogue bag would float into a sewer, follow the storm drain to the ocean, then make its way to the so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch - a heap of debris floating in the Pacific that's twice the size of Texas, according to marine biologists.

The enormous stew of trash - which consists of 80 percent plastics and weighs some 3.5 million tons, say oceanographers - floats where few people ever travel, in a no-man's land between San Francisco and Hawaii.

Marcus Eriksen, director of research and education at the Algalita Marine Research Foundation in Long Beach, said his group has been monitoring the Garbage Patch for 10 years.

"With the winds blowing in and the currents in the gyre going circular, it's the perfect environment for trapping," Eriksen said. "There's nothing we can do about it now, except do no more harm."

The patch has been growing, along with ocean debris worldwide, tenfold every decade since the 1950s, said Chris Parry, public education program manager with the California Coastal Commission in San Francisco.

Ocean current patterns may keep the flotsam stashed in a part of the world few will ever see, but the majority of its content is generated onshore, according to a report from Greenpeace last year titled "Plastic Debris in the World's Oceans."

The report found that 80 percent of the oceans' litter originated on land. While ships drop the occasional load of shoes or hockey gloves into the waters (sometimes on purpose and illegally), the vast majority of sea garbage begins its journey as onshore trash.

That's what makes a potentially toxic swamp like the Garbage Patch entirely preventable, Parry said.

"At this point, cleaning it up isn't an option," Parry said. "It's just going to get bigger as our reliance on plastics continues. ... The long-term solution is to stop producing as much plastic products at home and change our consumption habits."

Parry said using canvas bags to cart groceries instead of using plastic bags is a good first step; buying foods that aren't wrapped in plastics is another.

After the San Francisco Board of Supervisors banned the use of plastic grocery bags earlier this year with the problem of ocean debris in mind, a slew of state bills were written to limit bag production, said Sarah Christie, a legislative director with the California Coastal Commission.

But many of the bills failed after meeting strong opposition from plastics industry lobbyists, she said.

Meanwhile, the stew in the ocean continues to grow.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is particularly dangerous for birds and marine life, said Warner Chabot, vice president of the Ocean Conservancy, an environmental group.

Sea turtles mistake clear plastic bags for jellyfish. Birds swoop down and swallow indigestible shards of plastic. The petroleum-based plastics take decades to break down, and as long as they float on the ocean's surface, they can appear as feeding grounds.

"These animals die because the plastic eventually fills their stomachs," Chabot said. "It doesn't pass, and they literally starve to death."

The Greenpeace report found that at least 267 marine species had suffered from some kind of ingestion or entanglement with marine debris.

Chabot said if environmentalists wanted to remove the ocean dump site, it would take a massive international effort that would cost billions.

But that is unlikely, he added, because no one country is likely to step forward and claim the issue as its own responsibility.

Instead, cleaning up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is left to the landlubbers.

"What we can do is ban plastic fast food packaging," Chabot said, "or require the substitution of biodegradable materials, increase recycling programs and improve enforcement of litter laws.

"Otherwise, this ever-growing floating continent of trash will be with us for the foreseeable future."

Monkey attack kills Delhi leader

by BBC News

The deputy mayor of the Indian capital Delhi has died a day after being attacked by a horde of wild monkeys.

SS Bajwa suffered serious head injuries when he fell from the first-floor terrace of his home on Saturday morning trying to fight off the monkeys.

The city has long struggled to counter its plague of monkeys, which invade government complexes and temples, snatch food and scare passers-by.

The High Court ordered the city to find an answer to the problem last year.

Solution elusive

One approach has been to train bands of larger, more ferocious langur monkeys to go after the smaller groups of Rhesus macaques.

The city has also employed monkey catchers to round them up so they can be moved to forests.

But the problem has persisted.

Culling is seen as unacceptable to devout Hindus, who revere the monkeys as a manifestation of the monkey god Hanuman, and often feed them bananas and peanuts.

Urban development around the city has also been blamed for destroying the monkeys' natural habitat.

Mr Bajwa, a member of the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), is survived by his wife and a son, according to the Press Trust of India news agency.

Top 10 Most Unusual College Degrees

By ScholarPoint Connect

We talk to a lot college students here at ScholarPoint and have seen a very wide range of different college majors. We’re often blown away by some of the weird degrees we hear about. Here’s a list of some of the more unusual ones that we’ve come across.

1. Master Ranching – Showing up to college wearing spurs and riding a horse probably isn’t the best idea, unless you go to Texas A&M-Kingsville’s Institute for Ranch Management. The university is offering the first ever master degree program for ranchers. What was once a profession passed on from generation to generation is now getting sophisticated enough that it may actually require an MBA. Go figure. Graduates can expect salaries in the $50,000-$75,000 range.

2. Astrobiology – ET phone home. The University of Glamorgan in the UK offers a degree in Astrobiology, which is the search for life beyond earth. So if hunting for alien life is your thing consider a career in Astrobiology.

3. Retail Floristry – I bet you never thought working at your local flower shop required a college degree. Well, it probably doesn’t, but that doesn’t mean you can’t major in Retail Floristry anyway. Career opportunities are a step above working the cash register and include wholesaling, special event designing, and display gardening. This program is offered through Mississippi State University and graduates can expect a 90% job placement rate.

4. Professional Nanny – Sullivan University in Louisville Kentucky offers a professional nanny program, which prepares graduates to work in private residences, day care centers, children’s hospitals, and country clubs. This is a perfect career for those girls who grew up babysitting all the neighborhood kids that now want to make more than $2 per hour.

5. Sports Ministry – Graduates from this program are prepared for positions in non-profit organizations seeking to use sports as an avenue for teaching religion. This program is offered through Campbellsville University in Campbellsville Kentucky.

6. Adventure Recreation – Do you like snowboarding, scuba diving, ice climbing, or whitewater rafting? If you answered yes, perhaps you should consider doing what you love for a job and start by making it your college major. Green Mountain College in Vermont is offering major and minor programs in Adventure Recreation, which aims to place graduates in a variety of outdoor recreation careers such as those listed above.

7. Golf & Sports Turf Management – Just because you were never good at football doesn’t mean you can’t make it your job. Only you’ll be repairing the grass they tear apart every week. The course curriculum offered by Mississippi Sate University will prepare you for a career as a golf superintendent or a sports turf manager at city, school, and professional sports arenas. Graduates in this field also enjoy a 90% job placement rate.

8. Comedy: Writing and Performance – Here’s a degree program that actually requires “ a great sense of humor” as an admission requirement. Humber College in Canada offers this program to help naturally talented students hone their craft and learn the commercial side of the business. Students learn stand-up, improv, scriptwriting, and sketch comedy.

9. Organic Agriculture – Organic foods make up more than 2.5% of all food and drink sales nationwide and have been increasing by 20% per year since 1990. This makes organic farming an attractive career opportunity. This is the first organic agriculture major in the nation and is offered through Washington State University.

10. Fishing Sciences and Management – This masters program is offered by Colorado State University and focuses on fish populations for recreational and commercial fishing purposes to ensure adequate conservation and utilization. If nothing else the courses on fish psychology should at the very least help you catch more fish.

'Second Earth' found, 20 light years away

• Ian Sample, science correspondent

Scientists have discovered a warm and rocky "second Earth" circling a star, a find they believe dramatically boosts the prospects that we are not alone.The planet is the most Earth-like ever spotted and is thought to have perfect conditions for water, an essential ingredient for life. Researchers detected the planet orbiting one of Earth's nearest stars, a cool red dwarf called Gliese 581, 20 light years away in the constellation of Libra.

Measurements of the planet's celestial path suggest it is 1½ times the size of our home planet, and orbits close to its sun, with a year of just 13 days. The planet's orbit brings it 14 times closer to its star than Earth is to the sun. But Gliese 581 burns at only 3,000C, half the temperature of our own sun, making conditions on the planet comfortable for life, with average ground temperatures estimated at 0 to 40C. Researchers claim the planet is likely to have an atmosphere. The discovery follows a three-year search for habitable planets by the European Southern Observatory at La Silla in Chile.

"We wouldn't be surprised if there is life on this planet," said Stephane Udry, an astronomer on the project at the Geneva Observatory in Switzerland.

Two years ago, the same team discovered a giant Neptune-sized planet orbiting Gliese 581. A closer look revealed the latest planetary discovery, along with a third, larger planet that orbits the star every 84 days. The planets have been named after their star, with the most earthlike called Gliese 581c. The team spotted the planet by searching the "habitable zone".

Percival Chapter Three

Clarrisa paid no attention to the hungry eyes of men sitting in front of her, clutching their one dollar bills. Cigarette smoke swirled into the ceiling fans as she danced to a rap song blaring through the loudspeakers at the Playas Gentlemen’s Club. Her buzz from the hard liquor had kicked in a half hour ago but she still pivoted gracefully on her high heals. She worked her way around the stage, placing their dollars in her garter. When the song stopped she moved to one of the three brass poles on stage.

The pounding bass of the next song reverberated the dark club and vibrated the pole in her arms. She threw her legs around the pole and flipped upside down. The faces of the men looked more interesting while upside down and in this position she could look into their eyes. They shined with lust, carnal. She removed her bra while upside down and threw it behind her, the men clapped. Slipping to the earth, she let her hands touch the ground and her feet came touched the stage.

Once again she made her rounds. A man folded a dollar in his ear, another folded his in the shape of a teepee, and a man in his late fifties waved his in the air. The song ended and she snatched her outfit and headed backstage.

“Give it up for Candi Cane,” shouted Freaky-Nick from behind a glass window.

Clarrisa emerged backstage in the dressing room with five other strippers working the lunch shift, Rosie, Penelope, Sam, Katie, and Hilda from Sweden. Katie, a short brunette and a small round face, waited behind the curtain to make her way on stage before introductions.

“Next on the stage is Blossom. Give it up for Blossom,” shouted Freaky-Nick.

“Nice spin,” said Katie and she rushed onstage.

Clarrisa stepped down into the changing room where the girls were chatting and drinking. No one went on stage sober, maybe some of the new girls, it’s one of the first things a stripper learns. Sam, the oldest one there and Clarrisa’s roommate, waved as she leaned against the empty seat next to her.

“I’m going to head out for awhile, Sam. I’ll be back at five for my next shift.”

“You’re going to see that guy again aren’t you? What’s his name?” asked Sam, as she tapped a rolled dollar bill against her chin.

“Percival. And yes, I’m going over.”

Sam smiled, turned around and faced the mirror. Clarrisa picked up her duffle bag which contained her clothes, spilled the contents on the floor and riffled through it, picking out a pair a blue jeans and a Mighty Ducks tee-shirt. As she put her leg through a pants pocket, the door on the opposite side of the dressing room opened and Santiago lumbered in with two men trailing him. Santiago wore his favorate fur coat, while his companions looked like they came out of Foot Locker, wearing bright basketball jerseys and baggy jeans where the crotch came down to their knees.

“Hey, ladies,” said Santiago. “I want you to meet Cash Roll and D-Dub. These cats are the newest artist signed to my Gratuatuous label.”

“What’s up,” said D-dub, the one to his right, as he puffed on a joint. The kid couldn’t be older then eighteen.

“We’re having a party this weekend at my house. You are all going. The girls from Utopia too, so no complaining.” Santiago turned to Clarissa as she pulled her tee-shirt over her head. “Where are you going?”

“I’m hungry. I’ll be back for the nightshift.”

He moved to her, put his hand under her chin and tilted her head up towards his.

“Alright sugar, but don’t you be late.”

Santiago opened the door and left the way he came in and Cash looked over at Hilda pointed and said, “I’ll see you later.”

As soon as they left, Clarrisa stuffed all her clothes back into the bag and waved goodbye to Sam. All she could think about was leaving and didn’t look back as she hurried out the door and over to the bus stop

While she sat on the bench, Percival popped into her head. He’s a nice kid but they’re kidding themselves about their relationship, though it felt good to have someone take care of you. He saw past all her idiocyncracies and to the person underneath all the shit, where a little girl resides that never had a chance to grow up.

The bus squeeled to a stop and she climbed the stairs, finding an empty seat in the back. For years now she couldn’t sleep because of horrible nightmares but they have subsisted since meeting Percival. The only time she slept soundly before him was when she shot up. It was a liberating feeling.

The bus bounced down the busy streets until her stop. She dodged the other passengers, minding not to step on anyone’s feet as she got off. Once outside, she hiked the mile to the motel. The sun blazed down and not a cloud mired the sky. Being cooped up in that lousy bar all day made her body crave the outside.

She remembered when she was young and her mom moved from the city to the suburb that she got to explore the woods in the enormous backyard. Clarrisa wandered for hours until hearing her mother yell for her, then she would run back. The concrete walls of the buildings surrounding her felt like an enclosed room with the sky as the only window.

The motel popped into view around the bend of the road. When there, she climbed the stairs. Percival kept his door unlocked for her, so she entered.

“Percival,” she called but no reply came. She threw her pocket book onto the floor and went over to the fridge to see if one of the several takeout containers were still good. She gave one a sniff before finding a clean fork and chomped down on some raviolis.

Percival mentioned to her the other day that he had to go to his other job, something to do with helping out in a science lab but he should’ve been home by now. She turned on the television and watched her soup opera.

Her favorite character, Herzel loyde, had become entangled in an illicit love affair with a man that was in love with another. Her lover had just died but she just found out that she is pregnant with his child. She didn’t know why this made her think about Percival and their own relationship; they hadn’t kissed yet. When she finished eating, she tossed the container in the overflowing garbage can.

The door sprang open and Clarrisa jumped. Percival rushed in with a bright smile on his face. He carried a large shopping bag, but when he saw her, he hid the bag behind his back.

“I got you a gift but I don’t want you to see it yet, so turn around.”

She got excited and turned around. She loved gifts. Her fondest memories of her childhood were of Christmas morning.

“What is it?” She bounced with excitement.

He took out the dress and hid it under a pile of dirty clothes and placed a pair of jeans inside the bag.

“I don’t want you to sneak a look at it so I’m putting it under the sink. When he passed her, she looked over her shoulder trying to catch a glimpse at the contents inside, but his shoulders shielded the bag, as he bent to put it under the sink. He got up and kissed her on the cheek.

“You’ve got to tell me what it is?” she begged.

“Only if you promise me something.”

“Anything.”

“That you will go to dinner with me this Saturday.”

“Of course. Now tell me what it is?”

“It’s an outfit for you to wear.”

“Really. Can I look at it?” She moved to the sink without his answer. When he didn’t answer, she opened the cabinet and pulled out the bag. Her heart sank as she pulled out a dirty pair of jeans with one leg inside out. “What is this?”

He didn’t want to disappoint her but he also wanted to see her try it on for the first time on Saturday.

“I’m going to give it to you on Saturday. So you’re going to have to wait, but I promise that you’re going to love it.”

She smiled and kissed him on the lips. Never in a million years did she think she would find love. He had a way of making her feel special.

“Oh shit. What time is it?” she asked and realized that she had to be at the club for the next shift.

He looked at his watch and said, “Three forty-five. Why?”

“I’ve got to work tonight. I’ll be here around three.” She felt bad leaving as soon as he got home but she didn’t want to piss off Santiago. She grabbed her purse and kissed Percival again on the lips.

“Bye. I love you.” She felt relieved to say it but was scared how he would take it but it just came out.

“Bye. I…’ll see you at three then.”

As she closed the door, she hoped she didn’t push it too far that he was going to run. During the walk to the bus stop, she thought about if he was going to break up with her. Maybe he wouldn’t be there when she got back. She would walk into an empty motel room with a simple note that said: Not ready for this. Have a nice life.

The bus’s brakes squealed to a stop and she waited for everyone else to get on first before she got on. She dreaded going back to her job. Maybe she could get a job as a waitress, something more respectable. She’d been doing this for three years now, and was considered a veteran. But she knew that another job wouldn’t pay her the same and she got her heroine cheap from Santiago. If she left she’d have to pay for it at normal price and wouldn’t be able to pay her rent. She felt trapped. She tried to quit once, but she relapsed a week later. She pleaded her roommate to take her to a rehab but Sam wouldn’t.

The bus came to a stop near the strip joint and she followed several men out the door. A few of the women eyed her as she got off. It was almost five and she hurried inside, she didn’t want to piss Santiago off.

She entered the back door and D-Dub leaned against the hallway and looked at the closed office door, which meant Santiago was inside doing business. He bobbed his head and acknowledged her, and she scooted around him and hurried into the changing room. There were twice as many women here then earlier in the day. The constant chatter of women sounded like a flock of swarming geese. Clarrisa went over to her duffle bag and started getting changed. The concoction of thumping of rap music and twenty screaming drunk strippers filled the room. Bottles of alcohol passed from hand to hand and when a bottle of Jack Daniels reached her, she took a big gulp and felt the comforting burn in her chest.

“Clarrisa, you’re starting out at the bar, then working the side stage,” said Sam, as she handed her a rolled dollar bill.

“Alright, you’re working the same shift as me?” she said and bent down to look at the mirror.

“As always. I’ll meet you out at the bar.”

Clarrisa was ready to go, as she slid her feet into her high heels. Sam followed her to the bar. Their job was to talk to the men, try to turn them on and get them to have a lap dance. She’d sit at the bar and talk to some old construction worker, who just got out of work, coax him to buy her a drink and then talk to him. It was interesting to listen to how they talked, coming up with huge tales to impress her like how much money they had or that they knew the next big thing that’s going to make them a millionaire. Then there’s the locals, who knew all the strippers by name. Old Harry Zubanks, who gets so drunk that he’d pass out during a lap dance. Then there’s the rowdy Terry Schapel, who would pick fights with other patrons who he thought were hitting on his stripper for the night. There’s also the upstanding Leon Dubieruck, who always came dressed in his lawyers outfit. He’d sit around, sip on his hard liquor and spend his money on only one stripper for the night.

They were as comfortable here as if they were at there own homes. A wave of the hand and there usual drink got placed right in front of them. Sam walked over to two men playing pool and grabbed the pole away from the man standing there waiting for his turn. When his companion missed his shot, she bent over, wiggling her butt in the air and took the shot for him.

Clarrisa was now in her Candi persona. She leaned close to Leon’s ear and whispered, “Can I bum a cigarette from you, love?”

“Why sure, sweet cakes,” he said, and knocked the pack against his palm and a single cigarette popped out. “Here you go, my dear.”

“Why, thank you.” She placed it between her lips and bent down to light it with a match he just lit. Giving the pool stick back. “How long have you been here?”

He swiveled his barstool around and faced her. “Since four. I closed shop early tonight. Can I get you something?”

She squeezed between him and another gentleman that stared somberly into his draft beer. He looked like a truck driver to her. As she rubbed up against him, he turned around, glancing at her body rather than into her eyes. She was used to that, especially since she had on such a revealing outfit. But he turned back towards his beer.

“I’ll have a long island iced tea,” she said to Hilda, who ran the bar tonight. Leon slid a twenty across the bar.

She puffed on her cigarette and leaned over the bar, trying to catch the attention of the truck driver, but he didn’t pay her any mind and continued to look downcast into his now empty glass. She noticed that he twisted his wedding ring around, not taking it off, but rotated it.

“Why don’t I take your mind off your wife for awhile?” she said to the man. He looked taken aback.

“Is it that clear?”

“Yes. You look like a someone shot your dog. Why don’t I take you into the V.I.P. room? Maybe that will cheer you up.”

“I don’t think so,” he said and leaned closer to her and put his hand out. “My names Chris.”

“Candi. Well than, maybe you can watch me when I’m on stage?” she said and shook his hand.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Santiago enter from the side door, followed by an entourage of eight men. One of the men was Santiago’s drug dealer. He wore a purple suit and twirled a white cane. Several of Santiago’s bodyguards loomed around him and eyed the crowd. They herded into the V.I.P. section, and Erckel, a scrawny boy, used by Santiago as an errand boy, ran up to the bar and ordered four bottles of crystal. His real name’s Eric but Santiago named him Erckel because it fit the kid’s dorky demeanor.

Hilda produced the four bottles from a special refrigerated lockbox underneath the bar. The kid bear hugged the bottles and slalomed through the crowd and back into the V.I.P. room.

Clarrisa watched Erckel so much that she didn’t even see D-dub behind her, until he tapped her on the shoulder. She twirled around with her drink in hand.
“You were here earlier? What’s your name?”

“Candi,” She said and sipped on her drink through the straw.

“Yea that’s right. Well your coming with me,” he said and tossed a hundred dollar bill and let it bounce off of her breasts and drift to the ground. “That should make you mine for an hour.”

“Where to sweetheart?” She picked up the bill.

He took her hand and led her into the V.I.P. room. Black lights filled the room with a purple glow. The walls were lined with leather sofas, built right onto the walls, and mirrors filled every space other then the door on the other side of the room that led into what the strippers called the black hole, where what happens in that room doesn’t leave that room. Several women gyrated their bodies over patrons sitting on the sofas.

They walked across the room and knocked on the door to the black hole. One of the large bodyguards opened the door and let them in. The black hole was just as big as the V.I.P room but had a big screen television, lounge area, a large pool table and a personal stage for private strippers. Santiago sat on a recliner and yelled at the basketball players on television. D-dub led her to a plush couch and pulled out a huge roll of twenties held together by a blue rubber band. Clarrisa started dancing to the music being pumped in through huge speakers in all four corners.

Yale scientists make 2 giant steps in advancement of quantum computing

Over the past several years, the research team of Professors Robert Schoelkopf in applied physics and Steven Girvin in physics has explored the use of solid-state devices resembling microchips as the basic building blocks in the design of a quantum computer. Now, for the first time, they report that superconducting qubits, or artificial atoms, have been able to communicate information not only to their nearest neighbor, but also to a distant qubit on the chip.

This research now moves quantum computing from “having information” to “communicating information.” In the past information had only been transferred directly from qubit to qubit in a superconducting system. Schoelkopf and Girvin’s team has engineered a superconducting communication ‘bus’ to store and transfer information between distant quantum bits, or qubits, on a chip. This work, according to Schoelkopf, is the first step to making the fundamentals of quantum computing useful.

The first breakthrough reported is the ability to produce on demand — and control — single, discrete microwave photons as the carriers of encoded quantum information. While microwave energy is used in cell phones and ovens, their sources do not produce just one photon. This new system creates a certainty of producing individual photons.

“It is not very difficult to generate signals with one photon on average, but, it is quite difficult to generate exactly one photon each time. To encode quantum information on photons, you want there to be exactly one,” according to postdoctoral associates Andrew Houck and David Schuster who are lead co-authors on the first paper.

“We are reporting the first such source for producing discrete microwave photons, and the first source to generate and guide photons entirely within an electrical circuit,” said Schoelkopf.

In order to successfully perform these experiments, the researchers had to control electrical signals corresponding to one single photon. In comparison, a cell phone emits about 1023 (100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) photons per second. Further, the extremely low energy of microwave photons mandates the use of highly sensitive detectors and experiment temperatures just above absolute zero.

“In this work we demonstrate only the first half of quantum communication on a chip — quantum information efficiently transferred from a stationary quantum bit to a photon or ‘flying qubit,’” says Schoelkopf. “However, for on-chip quantum communication to become a reality, we need to be able to transfer information from the photon back to a qubit.”

This is exactly what the researchers go on to report in the second breakthrough. Postdoctoral associate Johannes Majer and graduate student Jerry Chow, lead co-authors of the second paper, added a second qubit and used the photon to transfer a quantum state from one qubit to another. This was possible because the microwave photon could be guided on wires — similarly to the way fiber optics can guide visible light — and carried directly to the target qubit. “A novel feature of this experiment is that the photon used is only virtual,” said Majer and Chow, “winking into existence for only the briefest instant before disappearing.”

To allow the crucial communication between the many elements of a conventional computer, engineers wire them all together to form a data “bus,” which is a key element of any computing scheme. Together the new Yale research constitutes the first demonstration of a “quantum bus” for a solid-state electronic system. This approach can in principle be extended to multiple qubits, and to connecting the parts of a future, more complex quantum computer.

However, Schoelkopf likened the current stage of development of quantum computing to conventional computing in the 1950’s, when individual transistors were first being built. Standard computer microprocessors are now made up of a billion transistors, but first it took decades for physicists and engineers to develop integrated circuits with transistors that could be mass produced.

Parallel universes exist

Parallel universes really do exist, according to a mathematical discovery by Oxford scientists described by one expert as "one of the most important developments in the history of science".

The parallel universe theory, first proposed in 1950 by the US physicist Hugh Everett, helps explain mysteries of quantum mechanics that have baffled scientists for decades, it is claimed.

In Everett's "many worlds" universe, every time a new physical possibility is explored, the universe splits. Given a number of possible alternative outcomes, each one is played out - in its own universe.

A motorist who has a near miss, for instance, might feel relieved at his lucky escape. But in a parallel universe, another version of the same driver will have been killed. Yet another universe will see the motorist recover after treatment in hospital. The number of alternative scenarios is endless.

It is a bizarre idea which has been dismissed as fanciful by many experts. But the new research from Oxford shows that it offers a mathematical answer to quantum conundrums that cannot be dismissed lightly - and suggests that Dr Everett, who was a Phd student at Princeton University when he came up with the theory, was on the right track.

Commenting in New Scientist magazine, Dr Andy Albrecht, a physicist at the University of California at Davis, said: "This work will go down as one of the most important developments in the history of science."

According to quantum mechanics, nothing at the subatomic scale can really be said to exist until it is observed. Until then, particles occupy nebulous "superposition" states, in which they can have simultaneous "up" and "down" spins, or appear to be in different places at the same time.

Observation appears to "nail down" a particular state of reality, in the same way as a spinning coin can only be said to be in a "heads" or "tails" state once it is caught.

According to quantum mechanics, unobserved particles are described by "wave functions" representing a set of multiple "probable" states. When an observer makes a measurement, the particle then settles down into one of these multiple options.

The Oxford team, led by Dr David Deutsch, showed mathematically that the bush-like branching structure created by the universe splitting into parallel versions of itself can explain the probabilistic nature of quantum outcomes.
© Copyright Press Association Ltd 2007, All Rights Reserved.

How To Write To Congress

BY CAREY GREENBERG-BERGER

Writing to Congress is the single best way to express your view on public policy. The average consumer has a surprising ability to influence legislation by crafting a well written missive and avoiding several common mistakes.

Why Personal Letters Beat Form Letters
Don't get suckered in by the quick and easy "Write to Congress!" form letters littering the internet. Form letters are not an expression of values; they are a show of organizational strength. If the NRA convinces five million people to send letters opposing gun control, it shows that the NRA can muster five million people to action, not that five million people necessarily care about gun laws. Congressional offices know this and generally disregard form letters.

So what happens when you send a letter?

Every office has its own procedures for tabulating constituent correspondence, but most will produce a report at the end of week breaking down how many letters were received by issue area, separating out form letters from letters sent by individual constituents.

Members treat each type of letter differently, but most look for individual letters as a barometer of their district's concerns. These are the letters that have the most influence, the ones we will show you how to write.

What Should Your Letter Say?
We adhere to the three paragraph rule: introduce yourself, introduce your issue, request action. Congressional offices have staffers whose days are spent solely on the mail, so make their lives easier by keeping letter succinct and to the point.

Introduce Yourself: There is a two-prong test for determining your worth: 1) Are you a constituent? 2) Are you an important constituent? Feel free to puff up your chest. Are you a lifelong member of the district? Are you associated with community groups? Say so! Convince the reader that yours is a voice of experience and wisdom.

Be specific: Don't just ask a Member to oppose mandatory binding arbitration agreements. Ask them to rush to the floor to support S.1782, The Arbitration Fairness Act of 2007.

Marshall Facts: Your argument - and you are making an argument - must be supported by facts. Feel free to use facts gleaned from us or other sources, but don't copy and paste paragraphs of pre-written text from form letters. Personal experiences are particularly effective, and often moving. Share them!

Be Exceedingly Polite, Please: Congress attracts haughty personalities. Staffers don't appreciate being spoken down to or insulted. You are trying to rally them to your cause, so be nice!

Clearly State Your Request: Plainly tell your representative that you want them to support or oppose a certain bill. If you want a response, explicitly (but politely!) ask for one.

It should go without saying that your letter should follow all formal style guidelines, such as a return name and address, and should be free of spelling and grammatical errors.

Send Your Letter To The Right Place
Only write to your representatives. You have three: one Representative in the House, and two Senators. Do not send more than three letters. Some citizens try to get their voice heard by writing to all 435 members of the House. Congressional courtesy compels the 434 Members who do not represent the zealot to forward his letter to the one lucky Member who does. This angers the Member's staff greatly at the expense of any point you are trying to make.

The addresses for your Representatives and Senators are available online, but don't waste your time with an email. Letters carry significantly more weight. Send your letter to the Capitol, where the legislative staff is based, though it will take a while to arrive since all incoming Congressional mail is irradiated thanks to those still-unidentified Anthrax mailers.

For an even greater impact, send your letter care of the staffer covering the issue. These staffers - called Legislative Assistants - are the Member's eyes and ears on their assigned issue areas. Finding the staffer destined to read your letter is easy: call the Capitol switchboard (open 24 hours a day!) at (202) 224-3121, ask for your Member's office, and ask the person who answers for the name of the staffer handling the issue area or bill number. Once you get that name, address your letter like this:

Member Of Congress
c/o Staffer
Office Building/Number
Washington, DC 20515

What Should You Expect In Return?
Depends. There are 535 Congressional offices and each handles constituent correspondence differently. The vast majority respond to letters with either a form letter pre-written by a Legislative Assistant, or with a more personal response written by a Legislative Correspondent. Controversial issues that attract many letters normally receive a form letter response, while smaller issues or specific questions often receive the attention of a personalized response.

Conclusion
Members of Congress work for you. Without your votes, they won't stay in office. They go to great lengths to cultivate a positive relationship with you, their boss. Very few people take the time to write to a Member of Congress, so the few that do carry a disproportionate influence.

Fifteen minutes is well worth the time to influence a $2 trillion enterprise.

R.O.D.E.N.T

Just a short piece I wrote in the middle of the night.-DavidG

“I’m a rodent from a different world,” said a tiny mouse standing upright on my kitchen counter. I nearly dropped the gallon of milk onto the floor. The little white animal tapped a toothpick shaped death ray at me.

“What do you want?” I asked in disbelief. My back hit the kitchen table and I splashed milk onto my shirt.

It took out a small cigarette and lit it. A tendril of smoke rose in the air and it took a big puff. “Your Mr. Wendle right?”

I nodded and held my breath.

“Well Mr. Wendle, we’re going to take a walk out back.” The ray gun was aimed at me while it climbed down the counter. “And don’t bring the milk.”

He motioned to the garage door. I put the milk down and preceded to head out.

“Bring your coat?” It said behind me. I picked up the coat off the rack and open the door. I scanned the darkness of the garage nervously and felt a stinging on my left leg. “Get in the car and roll down all the windows.”

The keys were in the coat pocket and I did what it said. As soon as the windows were down, several other mice scurried in through the back windows and the original mouse climbed through the passenger’s side . It looked up at me, pointing his black ray gun at me and said, “Now let’s get to your work.”

Throughout the ride, the mouse stood on the arm rest on the passenger side door. I parked in my usual spot and turned the car off.

“Good. Now you listen well. We’re going in there with you and your going to head straight to your office.” Mice started climbing into my jacket’s pockets. “Any funny stuff and your gone. Do we understand each other.”

I nodded, as it tossed the cigarette out the window and climbed into my left breast pocket. I got out and made my way inside and up to the guard shack.

“Hello Mr. Wendle,” said Derron, the burly security guard. “Early today.”

“Lot’s of work to do,” I croaked and waddled to the elevators. His eyebrows rose but soon flipped up his newspaper.

It took forever for the doors to open and when they did I hurried inside and pushed the seven button. Luckily no one was here this early and I had the elevator to myself. The doors opened and I rushed to my office. Once inside the mouse in my breast pocket crawled out onto my shoulder and pointed to the lock box on my wall.

“Get the keys to the lab and let’s go for a walk down the hall.”

“Wh…why do you need to get to the lab?” I asked.

He shot me with his laser in the neck sending my vision blurry. It soon cleared but my head ached.

“Just do what I say and get those keys.”

In a few minutes I fumbled the keys in the locked lab door. It opened on a few attempts and I turned on the lights. The mice jumped out of my pockets.

“Miller you in here?” yelled one of them.

“He’s over here,” said another.

“He better be alright,” said the one pointing the gun at my head.

They returned carrying another mouse and tossed him into my pockets. They followed him in and the one on my shoulder said, “Back to your house.”

I walked out of the elevator and past Derron. He looked up over his newspaper at me.

“Forgot my paperwork,” I said and left.

I drove home and parked the car in the garage. They carried the mouse from my pocket and out the window. Laboring, they worked their way into the already open door. The mouse in my breast pocket darted out and onto my shoulder.

“We can go inside now,” It said. Once inside it put the gun to my head. I stiffened. “I should blow you away. I should but I’m going to let you live.”

I watched as the mice took the escapee out the kitchen window and into my backyard. I walked over to the window and noticed a triangular ship in my magnolias, mist rising from its metallic sheen.

“You ever hurt a mouse again and you’re a goner.” and then it shot me.

It knocked me down and as I looked up from the kitchen floor, I saw the mouse jump from the window sill. Moments later the ship lifted into the air and took off. Motionless, I looked under the refrigerator at a small mouse nibbling a stiff ravioli.

Mirror particles form new matter

By Jonathan Fildes
Science and technology reporter, BBC News

Fragile particles rarely seen in our Universe have been merged with ordinary electrons to make a new form of matter.

Di-positronium, as the new molecule is known, was predicted to exist in 1946 but has remained elusive to science.

Now, a US team has created thousands of the molecules by merging electrons with their antimatter equivalent: positrons.

The discovery, reported in the journal Nature, is a key step in the creation of ultra-powerful lasers known as gamma-ray annihilation lasers.

"The difference in the power available from a gamma-ray laser compared to a normal laser is the same as the difference between a nuclear explosion and a chemical explosion," said Dr David Cassidy of the University of California, Riverside, and one of the authors of the paper.

"It would have an incredibly high power density."

As a result, there is a huge interest in the technology from the military as well as energy researchers who believe the lasers could be used to kick-start nuclear fusion in a reactor.

Bin Laden More Popular Than Musharraf

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf -- a key U.S. ally -- is less popular in his own country than al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, according to a poll of Pakistanis conducted last month by an anti-terrorism organization.

Additionally, nearly three-fourths of poll respondents said they oppose U.S. military action against al Qaeda and the Taliban inside Pakistan, according to results from the poll conducted by the independent polling organization Terror Free Tomorrow.

"We have conducted 23 polls all over the Muslim world, and this is the most disturbing one we have conducted," said Ken Ballen, the group's head. "Pakistan is the one Muslim nation that has nuclear weapons, and the people who want to use them against us -- like the Taliban and al Qaeda -- are more popular there than our allies like Musharraf."

The poll was conducted for Terror Free Tomorrow by D3 Systems of Vienna, Virginia., and the Pakistan Institute for Public Opinion. Interviews were conducted August 18-29, face-to-face with 1,044 Pakistanis across 105 urban and rural sampling points in all four provinces across the nation. Households were randomly selected.

According to poll results, bin Laden has a 46 percent approval rating. Musharraf's support is 38 percent. U.S. President George W. Bush's approval: 9 percent.

Asked their opinion on the real purpose of the U.S.-led war on terror, 66 percent of poll respondents said they believe the United States is acting against Islam or has anti-Muslim motivation. Others refused to answer the question or said they did not know.

"We failed in winning hearts and minds in Pakistan," Ballen told CNN. "In fact, only 4 percent said we had a good motivation in the war on terrorism."

Seventy-four percent said they oppose U.S. military action against al Qaeda and the Taliban inside Pakistan.

After American relief efforts following the October 2005 earthquake in Pakistan's Kashmir region, 46 percent of Pakistanis had a positive opinion of the United States, according to the poll. But as of last month, only 19 percent reported a favorable opinion.

Meanwhile, al Qaeda has a 43 percent approval rate; the Taliban has a 38 percent approval rate; and local radical extremist groups had an approval rating between 37 percent to 49 percent.

The weak gravitational wave in our 3D universe confirms super string theory and higher dimensions

India Daily Technology Team
Aug. 22, 2007

According to many contemporary physicists, two particles of identical mass attract and repel each other even when there exist no classical external forces and their average relative momentum vanishes. This quantum force depends crucially on the number of dimensions of space.

The fact that the gravitational wave is so weak in our 3D universe is another confirmation that higher dimensions exist. The extraterrestrial phenomena clearly show the existence of much stronger gravitational waves beyond the realm of the outer edge of the universe.

Black Hole singularity is a case where we can go close to higher dimension piercing through the pseudo conduit of our 3D universe. The intensity of the gravitational wave in the black hole is immense.

Hyperspace consists of at least ten or more dimensions. The gravitational wave is thousand times stronger in the quantum vacuum based Hyperspace of much higher dimensions.

One Species' Genome Discovered Inside Another's

Bacterial to Animal Gene Transfers Now Shown to be Widespread, with Implications for Evolution and Control of Diseases and Pests

MEDIA CONTACT: Jonathan Sherwood (585) 273-4726

Scientists at the University of Rochester and the J. Craig Venter Institute have discovered a copy of the genome of a bacterial parasite residing inside the genome of its host species.

The research, reported in today's Science, also shows that lateral gene transfer—the movement of genes between unrelated species—may happen much more frequently between bacteria and multicellular organisms than scientists previously believed, posing dramatic implications for evolution.

Such large-scale heritable gene transfers may allow species to acquire new genes and functions extremely quickly, says Jack Werren, a principle investigator of the study. If such genes provide new abilities in species that cause or transmit disease, they could provide new targets for fighting these diseases.

The results also have serious repercussions for genome-sequencing projects. Bacterial DNA is routinely discarded when scientists are assembling invertebrate genomes, yet these genes may very well be part of the organism's genome, and might even be responsible for functioning traits.

"This study establishes the widespread occurrence and high frequency of a process that we would have dismissed as science fiction until just a few years ago," says W. Ford Doolittle, Canada Research Chair in Comparative Microbial Genomics at Dalhousie University, who is not connected to the study. "This is stunning evidence for increased frequency of gene transfer."

"It didn't seem possible at first," says Werren, professor of biology at the University of Rochester and a world-leading authority on the parasite, called Wolbachia. "This parasite has implanted itself inside the cells of 70 percent of the world's invertebrates, coevolving with them. And now, we've found at least one species where the parasite's entire or nearly entire genome has been absorbed and integrated into the host's. The host's genes actually hold the coding information for a completely separate species."

Wolbachia may be the most prolific parasite in the world—a "pandemic," as Werren calls it. The bacterium invades a member of a species, most often an insect, and eventually makes its way into the host's eggs or sperm. Once there, the Wolbachia is ensured passage to the next generation of its host, and any genetic exchanges between it and the host also are much more likely to be passed on.

Since Wolbachia typically live within the reproductive organs of their hosts, Werren reasoned that gene exchanges between the two would frequently pass on to subsequent generations. Based on this and an earlier discovery of a Wolbachia gene in a beetle by the Fukatsu team at the University of Tokyo, Japan, the researchers in Werren's lab and collaborators at J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) decided to systematically screen invertebrates. Julie Dunning-Hotopp at JCVI found evidence that some of the Wolbachia genes seemed to be fused to the genes of the fruitfly, Drosophila ananassae, as if they were part of the same genome.

Michael Clark, a research associate at Rochester then brought a colony of ananassae into Werren's lab to look into the mystery. To isolate the fly's genome from the parasite's, Clark fed the flies a simple antibiotic, killing the Wolbachia. To confirm the ananassae flies were indeed cured of the wolbachia, Clark tested a few samples of DNA for the presence of several Wolbachia genes.

To his dismay, he found them.

"For several months, I thought I was just failing," says Clark. "I kept administering antibiotics, but every single Wolbachia gene I tested for was still there. I started thinking maybe the strain had grown antibiotic resistance. After months of this I finally went back and looked at the tissue again, and there was no Wolbachia there at all."

Clark had cured the fly of the parasite, but a copy of the parasite's genome was still present in the fly's genome. Clark was able to see that Wolbachia genes were present on the second chromosome of the insect.

Clark confirmed that the Wolbachia genes are inherited like "normal" insect genes in the chromosomes, and Dunning-Hotopp showed that some of the genes are "transcribed" in uninfected flies, meaning that copies of the gene sequence are made in cells that could be used to make Wolbachia proteins.

Werren doesn't believe that the Wolbachia "intentionally" insert their genes into the hosts. Rather, it is a consequence of cells routinely repairing their damaged DNA. As cells go about their regular business, they can accidentally absorb bits of DNA into their nuclei, often sewing those foreign genes into their own DNA. But integrating an entire genome was definitely an unexpected find.

"The question is, are these foreign genes providing new functions for the host? This is something we need to figure out."

Werren and Clark are now looking further into the huge insert found in the fruitfly, and whether it is providing a benefit. "The chance that a chunk of DNA of this magnitude is totally neutral, I think, is pretty small, so the implication is that it has imparted of some selective advantage to the host," says Werren. "The question is, are these foreign genes providing new functions for the host? This is something we need to figure out."

Evolutionary biologists will certainly take note of this discovery, but scientists conducting genome-sequencing projects around the world also may have to readjust their thinking.

Before this study, geneticists knew of examples where genes from a parasite had crossed into the host, but such an event was considered a rare anomaly except in very simple organisms. Bacterial DNA is very conspicuous in its structure, so if scientists sequencing a nematode genome, for example, come across bacterial DNA, they would likely discard it, reasonably assuming that it was merely contamination—perhaps a bit of bacteria in the gut of the animal, or on its skin.

But those genes may not be contamination. They may very well be in the host's own genome. This is exactly what happened with the original sequencing of the genome of the anannassae fruitfly—the huge Wolbachia insert was discarded from the final assembly, despite the fact that it is part of the fly's genome.

In the early days of the Human Genome Project, some studies appeared to show bacterial DNA residing in our own genome, but those were shown indeed to be caused by contamination. Wolbachia is not known to infect any vertebrates such as humans.

"Such transfers have happened before in the distant past" notes Werren. "In our very own cells and those of nearly all plants and animals are mitochondria, special structures responsible for generating most of our cells' supply of chemical energy. These were once bacteria that lived inside cells, much like Wolbachia does today. Mitochondria still retain their own, albeit tiny, DNA, and most of the genes moved into the nucleus in the very distant past. Like wolbachia, they have passively exchanged DNA with their host cells. It's possible wolbachia may follow in the path of mitochondria, eventually becoming a necessary and useful part of a cell.

"In a way, wolbachia could be the next mitochondria," says Werren. "A hundred million years from now, everyone may have a wolbachia organelle."

"Well, not us," he laughs. "We'll be long gone, but wolbachia will still be around."

This research was funded by the National Science Foundation's Frontiers in Integrative Biological Research program, which supports large, integrative projects addressing major questions in biology.

Where have all the dolphins gone?

The alarming drop in numbers of the Bay's three most common species of dolphin -- the striped, bottlenose and common -- can be attributed to one or both of two causes, Clive Martin, senior wildlife officer for the Biscay Dolphin Research Programme, told AFP.

"We know for a fact that by-catch is killing thousands of dolphins every year," he said, referring to commercial fishing operations in the bay, which is formed by the northern coast of Spain and the eastern French seaboard up to the tip of Brittany.

Martin singled out French "pair trawlers" that sweep the ocean with huge nets twice the size of a football pitch strung out between them as being especially lethal to the marine mammals.

"Dolphins are sometimes trapped hundreds at a time, and are asphyxiated" when they cannot come up for air, he said. Most dolphins typically replenish their lungs with fresh air every five minutes or so, he explained.

The second -- and probably more important -- reason that dolphins have disappeared is that there is simply very little left for them to eat.

"Anchovy fishing in the Bay of Biscay has progressively failed, and this year there is a complete ban by Spain, France and the United Kingdom on the fishing of anchovies," a principal food source for dolphins, Clive said.

He speculated that the roving sea mammals -- which swim in pods numbering in the dozens for bottlenose dolphins, and sometimes in the thousands for the common dolphin -- had moved west toward the mid-Atlantic looking for food.

A sharp decrease in the presence of many seabirds that also feed on fish -- such as auks, shearwaters and gannets -- lends support to this explanation.

The Bay of Biscay Research Programme has been systematically recording dolphin sightings along the same route from Bilbao, Spain to Portsmouth, England for 13 years.

Compared to the comparable period in 2004 and 2005, dolphin sightings in 2007 have decreased by 50 percent, he said.

The Bay of Biscay hosts a greater variety of dolphin populations than any other part of the world's oceans. Clive suggested that policy makers should consider transforming the area into a sanctuary for marine life.

© 2007 AFP