‘It’s a squid, it’s an octopus, it’s … a mystery from the deep.
What appears to be a half-squid, half-octopus specimen found off Keahole Point on the Big Island remains unidentified today and could possibly be a new species, said local biologists.
The specimen was found caught in a filter in one of Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority’s deep-sea water pipelines last week. The pipeline, which runs 3,000 feet deep, sucks up cold, deep-sea water for the tenants of the natural energy lab.
“When we first saw it, I was really delighted because it was new and alive,” said Jan War, operations manager at NELHA. “I’ve never seen anything like that.”‘
‘Envelopes containing 10,000 yen ($82) bills and well-wishing notes have been discovered in municipal toilets across Japan, media reports said, baffling civil servants and triggering a nationwide hunt.
Local media have estimated that over two million yen ($16,400) worth of bills were found at men’s rooms in city halls in at least 15 prefectures (states) in recent weeks.
Each package of 10,000-yen bills, some wrapped in traditional Japanese washi paper, was accompanied by handwritten letters that read “Please make use of this money for your self-enrichment,” and “One per person,” according to reports.’
‘Jennings Police Department employee, Eleanor Beal was just crossing the street to go to work when something dropped from the sky.
The sky wasn’t falling. She says it was worms, large tangled clumps of them.
Beal says, “When I saw that they were crawling, I said, ‘It’s worms! Get out of the way!'” [..]
Where they came from is a mystery, but some believe that a water spout spotted less than five miles away at that same time near Lacassine Bayou could have something to do with it.’
‘Crews aboard the space shuttle Atlantis and the International Space Station revived the third and final part of the station’s prime computer network on Saturday and scoured the complex for the cause of the crash.
The computers, which control the station’s position in orbit, were restored after station commander Fyodor Yurchikin and flight engineer Oleg Kotov hot-wired the systems to bypass suspect power sources. [..]
So far, the best explanation for the crash is a subtle change in the space environment now that the station’s size has grown, Suffredini said.
As the station flies 220 miles above Earth, it plows through streams of charged particles which create friction and build up a static voltage charge on the outside.
“As the station gets bigger, this potential continues to grow,” Suffredini said. “I think we’re going to find system sensitivities as we change the space station.”‘
‘Decatur police are trying to determine how a one-ton municipal dump truck wound up at the bottom of the Point Mallard Park’s wave pool.
Police said they suspect a maintenance worker could have been responsible for submerging the vehicle in the 8-foot-deep pool at the J. Gilmer Blackburn Aquatic Center. A wrecker service was called in to haul it out of the water.
Officers noticed several garbage bags floating in the water about 5 a.m. Sunday and had to move close to make out the shadowy object at the bottom. They said a gate was open and there were two sets of tire tracks, one leading up a ramp to the wave pool, the other appearing to match a white pickup parked nearby.
Police said an empty beer can, an unidentified vial and a pair of blue swim trunks also were found. The truck could have been driven into the pool as early as 10:30 p.m. Saturday, according to police.’
‘US President George W Bush put his wristwatch in his pocket while greeting a crowd during his visit to Albania, the White House said Tuesday in an effort to end a two-day long mystery over the disappearance of the timepiece.
Bush was mingling with a very enthusiastic crowd – to put it mildly – in the small Albanian town of Fushe Kruja on Sunday when the saga began. Cameras captured the watch on his arm, but moments later images showed the leader of the free world’s wrist was bare.
Since, various media in Albania and other countries have speculated that someone might have snatched the First Watch, or the president may have lost it. The White House, however, offered a rather boring conclusion to the tale.
“The president put it in his pocket and it returned safely home,” spokesman Tony Snow said.’
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see it here »
‘China said Monday it was investigating the sale of fake blood protein, a potentially dangerous and widespread practice that underscores the country’s problems with product safety.
State media reported one death from use of the counterfeits, but authorities have not said whether anyone has fallen ill.
A shortage of albumin, a blood protein that chronically ill people often lack, triggered a countrywide investigation in March into whether fakes were being sold, China Central Television said.
The report centred on an inquiry in the northeastern province of Jilin, where 59 hospitals and pharmacies were sold more than 2,000 bottles of counterfeit blood protein. It did not say what the products were made of, but said they could “make a patient’s condition worsen and could cause death.”‘
‘Marine scientists in Canada and abroad are puzzled by bizarre photographs that appear to show the skeleton of a large mammal jutting out of an iceberg that recently drifted past Newfoundland’s east coast.
The six pictures show what looks like a brown rib cage and spinal column, slightly bent, sticking out of a crust of ice.
But researchers throughout Canada, Greenland and Norway are unable to determine the origin of the skeleton, said Garry Stenson, a marine mammal scientist with the federal Fisheries Department.
“It’s definitely unusual,” Stenson said Monday. “It’s not something that I’ve encountered before.”‘
‘Hampton Police are trying to unravel a huge mystery. Was there really a gunman at the East Pembroke McDonald’s around 2:30 Monday afternoon?
Around 2:30, police got the call that an armed gunman was inside the fast food restaurant.
Police say a SWAT team freed 12 employees and two customers believed to be held hostage for nearly three hours inside a Hampton McDonald’s by an armed man but never found a gunman.
No one was injured, and police are trying to figure out whether the man somehow got away or perhaps someone had perpetrated a hoax.’
‘A 26-year-old woman from Johnstown stands to face several charges for a spree Thursday involving a hammer, several broken windows and a small poodle.
Kathie Mercado started out her afternoon at her sister’s mother-in-law’s house in the 200 block of Tartan Drive in Johnstown.
She is said to have hurled the mother-in-law’s poodle at the window twice in an attempt to break the window, according to Johnstown Police Chief Reggie Mayes.
Mercado was unsuccessful, so she moved on to a hammer and began breaking several of the windows at the ground level and the basement. In the process, she suffered cuts to her arms and hands.
After breaking those windows, Mercado moved to a home across the street, where she broke out several of the windows there. No one was home at the time and Mayes said he doesn’t think Mercado knew the people who lived there.
“We are still not sure why she did it,” Mayes said. “She was very unstable.”‘
‘[..] Peter William Eaves contacted Last Word to tell us that, while the surface of a long-established sand/gravel drive (laid in the 1920s or 30s) was being improved, a very strange phenomenon was discovered.
Beneath the drive, at a depth of 25 centimetres, were least 13 live crabs (all being around 7 cm in width). See a video of the crustaceans, courtesy of Mark Leitch. One had a barnacle its back, so it seems that it must have at one time lived near the sea. The nearest sea water is an estuary around 4km, and the sea itself considerably further.
Peter has owned the land next to the drive for around 40 years and reports there have been no repairs or excavations there during that period. We’re hoping that there’s some one out there than can tell us what on earth is going on here.’
(984kB Flash video)
see it here »
‘The Loch Ness monster is back — and there’s video. A man has captured what Nessie watchers say is possible footage of the supposed mythical creature beneath Scotland’s most mysterious lake.
“I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw this jet black thing, about 45 feet long, moving fairly fast in the water,” said Gordon Holmes, the 55-year-old a lab technician from Shipley, Yorkshire, who took the video Saturday.
Nessie watcher and marine biologist Adrian Shine viewed the video and hoped to properly analyze it in the coming months.’
I’ll post a copy of the video as soon as it surfaces, so to speak. 🙂 Update: here it is..
see it here »
‘A glittering bathtub made of gold worth nearly $1 million has been stolen from a resort hotel, an official said Wednesday. A worker at Kominato Hotel Mikazuki in Kamogawa, south of Tokyo, notified police that the fancy tub was missing from the hotel’s guest bathroom on the 10th floor, according to a local police official who only gave his surname, Ogawa.
The round tub, worth $987,000, is made of 18-karat gold and weighs 176 pounds. [..]
Someone apparently cut the chain attached to the door of a small section of the bathroom where the bathtub was placed, but not riveted, and made off with the tub, Ogawa said.
“We have no witness information and there are no video cameras,” he said. “We have no idea who took it,” the official said.’
‘A duck found with a pocket knife in her back in Huntington Beach was recovering Monday, and authorities announced a $1,000 reward for anyone with information about whoever stabbed the mallard.
The female duck was brought to the Wetlands & Wildlife Care Center Sunday at 10 a.m. by a member of the public who spotted it with the knife in its back at the Breakfast in the Park restaurant at 6622 Lakeview Drive, said Lisa Birkle, the center’s assistant wildlife director. The restaurant has views of a lake where many ducks swim, Birkle said.’
‘Police in Ontario are looking for a man who allegedly approached women and asked them to kick him in the groin.
Three women reported similar incidents to police over the past two months, and two of the women reported the suspect was on a bicycle. None of the women reported injuries.
Police Sgt. Cate Welsh said Monday the man’s request is not a crime, but they are concerned nonetheless.’
‘They live hundreds of feet below the sea. A formidable predator that can rip its prey to pieces.
The giant Humboldt squid have returned to the waters of Southern California, and they’re bigger and more plentiful than ever.
Fishermen are thankful, but biologists are worried.
“I have nearly a thousand dives with these animals and I have been either tested or full out attacked about 80 percent of the time,” Scott Cassell said. [..]
“I have felt my life was in danger several times with the squid, but knowing that the cable and the armor I was pretty much impervious to the damage,” Cassell said.
But Cassell, like other marine experts, says something is not right.’
‘A driver was killed when a van carrying welding equipment exploded in a County Durham market town.
Windows in shops and homes were left shattered and wreckage was strewn across the centre of Wolsingham, near Bishop Auckland.
The 33-year-old local man, who worked as a welder near Durham, was in the van when the oxy-acetylene cylinders exploded.
Homes near the scene were evacuated after the incident on Saturday.
It is not yet known what caused the blast but Durham Police said there did not appear to be any suspicious circumstances.’
With photos of the scene./a>
‘A mystery emu has been shot dead after a cross-border chase by police in Europe this week.
The Australian native fauna was first spotted in the German town of Grenzach-Wyhlen near the Swiss border.
“We are trying to find out how it got here in the first place,” a German police spokesman said. [..]
The police gave chase in patrol cars for hours but were no match for the agile fugitive, which darted down narrow alleyways and made tight turns.
Vets and staff from local zoos were called in to help, before the German police called upon their Swiss counterparts.
The emu was clocked at speeds up to 50 km/h, with police resorting to roadblocks, while the vets were unsuccessful in their attempts to sedate the bird with tranquiliser darts.’
‘A Chinese grandmother has a five inch horn growing out of her forehead.
The horn curves downward and looks like the stalk of a pumpkin, reports the Yangcheng Evening Post.
Granny Zhao, 95, of Zhanjiang city, Guangdong province, says it first appeared three years ago.
“At first, it was only a mole, but it gradually grew and became like a horn,” she said.
Zhao says the horn causes her little trouble except to affect her vision slightly: “It causes me no discomfort, but blocks part of my view.”
But her family are hoping that medical experts can explain the phenomenon.’
see it here »
‘Ned Kelly, the legendary Australian bushranger who evaded police for two years before being captured and hanged in 1880, has gone missing again. His bones have vanished from a mass prison grave in Melbourne where they were believed to be buried. [..]
Pentridge closed in 1997 and the site is being redeveloped for housing, with the state conservation body, Heritage Victoria, overseeing the work. Archaeological tests were recently carried out at the mass burial site, but no human remains were found.
Archaeologists discovered evidence that the soil had been disturbed about 50 years ago, probably during major drainage works.
Ray Tonkin, the head of Heritage Victoria, said yesterday: “We now believe these remains were probably removed in the 1950s or 1960s, as part of the installation of large service pipes that took place at the prison at the time.” The remains of about 32 criminals are believed to have been lost, possibly dumped in a quarry.’
‘An artificial lake in El Salvador brimming with sewage and industrial waste is mystifying scientists by attracting thousands of migratory and sea birds.
Built in 1974 to drive El Salvador’s biggest hydroelectric project, the 33,360-acre (13,500- hectare) Cerron Grande reservoir collects some 3,800 metric tons of excrement each year from the sewage pipes, as well as factory run-off and traces of heavy metals like chromium and lead, the government estimates.
So scientists are puzzling over the fact that some 150,000 seabirds from more than 130 species have chosen to make the reservoir their home. At least 90 of the species are migratory birds arriving from as far away as Alaska.’
‘According to the caller, the mysteries had actually been solved by Joseph Davidovits, Director of the Geopolymer Institute in St. Quentin, France, more than two decades ago. Davidovits claimed that the stones of the pyramids were actually made of a very early form of concrete created using a mixture of limestone, clay, lime, and water. [..]
A year and a half later, after extensive scanning electron microscope (SEM) observations and other testing, Barsoum and his research group finally began to draw some conclusions about the pyramids. They found that the tiniest structures within the inner and outer casing stones were indeed consistent with a reconstituted limestone. The cement binding the limestone aggregate was either silicon dioxide (the building block of quartz) or a calcium and magnesium-rich silicate mineral.
The stones also had a high water content-unusual for the normally dry, natural limestone found on the Giza plateau-and the cementing phases, in both the inner and outer casing stones, were amorphous, in other words, their atoms were not arranged in a regular and periodic array. Sedimentary rocks such as limestone are seldom, if ever, amorphous.
The sample chemistries the researchers found do not exist anywhere in nature. “Therefore,” says Barsoum, “it’s very improbable that the outer and inner casing stones that we examined were chiseled from a natural limestone block.”‘
‘An odd-looking Canadian coin with a bright red flower was the culprit behind the U.S. Defence Department’s false espionage warning earlier this year, The Associated Press has learned.
The odd-looking — but harmless — “poppy coin” was so unfamiliar to suspicious U.S. Army contractors travelling in Canada that they filed confidential espionage accounts about them. The worried contractors described the coins as “anomalous” and “filled with something man-made that looked like nano-technology,” according to once-classified U.S. government reports and e-mails obtained by the AP. [..]
The supposed nano-technology actually was a conventional protective coating the Royal Canadian Mint applied to prevent the poppy’s red colour from rubbing off. The mint produced nearly 30 million such quarters in 2004 commemorating Canada’s 117,000 war dead.’
Followup to Canadian spy coins never existed.
‘Scientists have identified the Godzilla of fungi – a giant, prehistoric fossil that has evaded classification for more than a century.
A chemical analysis has shown that the 6-metre-tall organism with a tree-like trunk was a fungus that became extinct more than 350 million years ago. [..]
“No matter what argument you put forth, people say it’s crazy,” says C. Kevin Boyce, a geophysicist at the University of Chicago in Illinois, US. “A 6-metre-fungus doesn’t make any sense, but here’s the fossil.”‘
‘A Lee County woman wants to find out who broke into her house and dumped thousands of maggots on her floor while she and her family slept.
Mary Jo Uhler says she and her family spent more than a day cleaning their home, and they were still finding maggots. Uhler’s daughter Kristina Smith says someone came through the sliding glass door early Sunday morning and dumped them.’
‘Hundreds of girls at a Mexican boarding school run by Catholic nuns have been struck by a mystery illness that authorities say is psychological, raising questions about conditions inside the academy.
Headmistress Margie Cheong, a nun from South Korea, said on Friday it was unclear what had caused the symptoms, which include difficulty walking and nausea.
“We really don’t know the cause, but the diagnosis by health authorities is of a psychological ailment,” Cheong said.
Some 600 of the 4,000 girls at the Villa de las Ninas school had been affected, she said, and 300 children had left the school, which offers a free secondary education to children from poor families. [..]
Some of the students have complained of overstrict disciplinary measures like being sent to sleep in an enclosure that houses sheep.’
‘It’s the coldest of cold cases, and yet it keeps warming to life. Seventy years after Amelia Earhart disappeared, clues are still turning up. Long-dismissed notes taken of a shortwave distress call beginning, “This is Amelia Earhart…,” are getting another look.
The previously unknown diary of an Associated Press reporter reveals a new perspective.
A team that has already found aircraft parts and pieces of a woman’s shoe on a remote South Pacific atoll hopes to return there this year to search for more evidence, maybe even DNA.
If what’s known now had been conveyed to searchers then, might Earhart and her navigator have been found alive? It’s one of a thousand questions that keep the case from being declared dead, as Earhart herself was a year and a half after she vanished.’
‘A French architect says he has cracked the 4500-year-old mystery surrounding Egypt’s Great Pyramid – it was built from the inside out.
Previous theories have suggested Pharaoh Khufu’s tomb, the last surviving example of the seven great wonders of antiquity, was built using either a vast frontal ramp or a ramp in a corkscrew shape around the exterior to haul up the stonework.
But flouting previous wisdom, Jean-Pierre Houdin said advanced 3-D technology had shown the main ramp which was used to haul the massive stones to the apex was contained 10 to 15 metres beneath the outer skin, tracing a pyramid within a pyramid.’
‘Desperate mothers are being urged to drop their unwanted babies through hatches at hospitals in an effort to halt a spate of infanticides that has shocked Germany.
At least 23 babies have been killed so far this year, many of them beaten to death or strangled by their mothers before being dumped on wasteland and in dustbins.
Police investigating the murders are at a loss to explain the sudden surge in such cases, which have involved mothers of all ages all over the country.’
