Alien Landing
The red rain which fell over Kerala in the summer of 2001 may have been caused by extraterrestrial cells (story)
Astrophysics abstract pdf

Update: Ram Bomjon makes an appearance Dec 26- see more below
Thousands of pilgrims are pouring into the dense jungle of southern Nepal to worship a 15-year-old boy who has been hailed as a new Buddha. Devotees claim that Ram Bomjon, who is silently meditating beneath a tree, has not eaten or drunk anything since he sat down at his chosen spot six months ago.
watch video at Buddha boy blog
UPDATE: Spontaneous combustion filmed... (story)

March 10: Ram has disappeared See article below..

The Wild Horses of Newbury
A great oak is felled, two wild horses emerge from the mist to witness- a must see short documentary, online here now.

And now: Meatrix 2

Mars Express captures images of 'geologically recent' Martian ice floes (story)

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is arriving in Mars orbit today; it's cameras will map the Martian surface to a much higher resolution than ever before, capable of imaging "a kitchen table", and it's ground-penetration will reach down 1 kilometer. In fact, MRO deploys an enormous 3-meter antennae, to send back a torrent of data, more than all gathered from Mars to date.

Tele-Exploration by Swarm
We could now build this data into a navigable representation of the Martian surface, allowing accurate fly-throughs for exploration.
A user on Earth could "drive" his virtual explorer module over the virtual Martian surface, exploring detail to several meters resolution. Such massive data streaming would need a big data pipe and parallel processing, but probably quite feasible nowadays. In fact with a robust setup, numerous locations could be fed from the same servers.
The 3-D visual flythrough would allow users to "bookmark" locations for later reviewing, communicate these to others for meetings, report interesting findings, examine data in detail at sites, etc.
Imagine what a boost it would be to US science education and NASA if a student or member of the public found artifacts or an important site?
Maybe more importantly, tele-swarm would permit widescale exploration of the Martian surface (and sub-surface) with no risk of contamination or site spoilage.
(story) / MRO mission site

H5N1 has spread rapidly among bird populations out of Asia, into India, Africa, and now Europe, arriving in France and Switzerland via migrating swans.
H5N1 is still generally confined to bird species, however the more widespread it becomes, the more likely a mutation to a human form will occur. A cat became infected in Germany and died, a first case in the west of a mammalian victim.
It's presence in India and Africa, with their spotty-at-best public health systems, represents a new level of danger. This is especially true in Niger and Nigeria, where the high percentage of immuno-compromised HIV sufferers provides ideal opportunities to the virus for rapid mutation and adaptation to the human genome.
Latest versions of H5N1 are reported killing 80% of infected bird populations in 48 hours or less. Migratory birds have been known to drop dead out of the sky. In the comparatively rare human infections to date, H5N1 has proved more than 50% lethal.
H5N1 is expected to arrive in the US by this summer.
Latest: Dead birds found in the Bahamas... awaiting test results..

Bali: Season of the Witch
Anyone who has visited Bali since the late nineties knows the problems- pollution of the air, land, and sea, lethal traffic, grotesque over-growth in the Kuta area, replete with streets of seedy bars adorned with pimps and transvestites, innumerable workers from the other islands, rowdy drunken tourists...
But the many wonderful sides of life in Bali were resilient... even after the terrible bombing of September 2002. Following the second wave of bombings however, in Kuta and Jimbaran Beach in 2005, tourism has declined by 50%, with disastrous effect on the island's economy. A convergence of this and other factors is bringing a cloud of troubles to this one-time secret paradise.
With a drug crackdown begun in 2004, arrests in Bali have grown more frequent: some pocket pot, or a tab of E in your purse are enough to get you in jail. Now and then, someone is caught at the airport with larger amounts. Shapelle Corby, a cause célèbre in Australia because of her pleas of innocence and the murky details of her pot-smuggling case, was sentenced to 20 years. Another young Australian woman, Michelle Leslie, converted to Islam while in the Bali prison, appeared in court in a hijab, and was given a relatively lenient sentence. A Brazilian kite-surfer is now facing a possible death penalty, having brought several kilos of cocaine into Bali in his surfing gear. Two of the Australian "Bali Nine"- the leaders of a heroin smuggling ring- will be executed by firing squad soon; the seven mules arrested with them got life sentences.
These days in Bali, a walk on a deserted stretch of beach at dawn might just bring you to a firing squad, taking aim at a 22 year-old Australian attached to a pole, hooded, with a red cross on a white cloth pinned to his chest. The squad's volley may not kill him; 10 of the guns shoot blanks; the officer will deliver the coup de grace with his pistol, at close range.
Some Australians are urging compatriots to choose another destination and boycott Bali. Many stories are circulating alleging widespread corruption in the police force. A young Italian businesswoman was murdered. The top Bali cop was recently replaced. Most recently, a Californian, James Kling, was arrested and jailed on charges of possession of some pot and hash, following "a tip-off from the community".

Bali - and neighboring Java- are also a likely site for the much-feared mutation in H5N1-the bird flu- which will make it transmissible between humans. Given the importance of the shrinking tourism industry, and the devastating effect of the SARS scare in 2002, doubts have been raised about Indonesia's transparency in regard to potential future human outbreaks. For visitors, this raises the risk of being quarantined, as an outbreak might go unseen until sudden measures are imposed.

As if all this wasn't enough, the AAP reports that "[Indonesia's] parliament, which contains a large bloc of religious MPs, wants to amend the criminal code to outlaw anything that could offend decency or "arouse lust" in children in the world's largest Muslim nation. Unmarried couples living together and homosexual sex would be banned, along with any flash of thighs, bums or breasts, punishable by up to five years jail. Also in the firing line - husbands and wives kissing in public and the wildly popular "dangdut" dirty dancing, which is a staple of Indonesian election campaigns, public rallies and just a good night out."


The Balinese, who are Hindu, and have their own more permissive cultural traditions, are very upset. Demonstrations, rallies, even this, reported in the Jakarta Post: "If this bill is passed, we won't hesitate to leave the Republic of Indonesia." - said to applause by I Putu Gede Indriawan Karna, Bali branch head of the Indonesian National Youth Committee.


Left: Michelle Leslie Returns to the Catwalk
Death on the Beach at Dawn
Bali's Bad News
Jakartass Blog

Indonesian centerfold model
fights new morality laws

Bohème-C'est-La-Vie
aka "Vivi", is a whippett, a very fast sort of miniature greyhound. Vivi was raised for shows like a canine JonBenet Ramsey, and on February 15 she won an award of merit at the annual Westminster dog show in Madison Square Garden. She must have figured that was as good as it was gonna get, because she made a run for it on the tarmac at JFK, and I mean a run for it. Police helicopters combed the surrounding marshlands for two days but finally gave up the chase. Vivi is free! (story)

Update Jan 1 2007: Ram Bomjon Reappears
"I have been wandering in the forests since then... I am engaged in devotion which will continue for six years," Ram told a local journalist, Raju Shrestha. (read article at AOL News)
Feb 10: "For the past nine months, the 15-year-old has sat, meditating at the base of a peepal tree in Nepal's Bara District, without food, water, sleep or the need to use the toilet. If that was not remarkable enough, on January 19, he spontaneously combusted, burning off the clothes he has worn for nine months but leaving no scars. Lest there be doubters, his followers caught that combustion on video and plan to present the footage, seen by The Age, at a news conference in Kathmandu, soon." (The Age- story)

March 10: Ram Bomjan has disappeared. He may be deeper in the forest. Searchers have not found him. (story)

Mar 19: Ram Bomjan Reappears, Briefly (story)
NepalEyes reports that according to Bed Thing, Chairman of the Tapoban Preservation Committee (full name 'Bed Bahadur Thing'), "Bomjan said he left the meditating place due to increasing disturbance and asked them not to search for him and worry about him" (ref)
Another source has it thus: "Chairman of ONBTSS Bed Bahadur Lama said the Buddha Boy was seen walking with seven members of the committee in the forest at Gopeni. According to Lama, Bomjon vanished after reappearing for half an hour. 'He said he would reappear after six years. He has asked monks to perform prayers in the meditation spot.' Lama claimed." (ref)
eKantipur reports: " Bomjan reportedly told the team that he had reappeared to take leave of the committee, as he had left without informing them. "I left because there is no peace here," Lama quoted Bomjan as saying. "Tell my parents not to worry about me."
According to Lama, the team offered a khada to Bomjan and conversed with him. "He asked people not to worry about him and said that he is still in Nepal," Lama said. "However, he said that no one could find him. He also said that he has camped in an undisclosed place where he reached after walking for five days and five nights," Lama further said.
Meanwhile, the committee members today screened a video, which they claimed they had filmed during Bomjan's brief reappearance." (ref)

Genographic Project
A project is aiming to map the history of human migration via DNA. The Genographic Project will collect DNA samples from over 100,000 people spanning five continents to help piece together the history of human migration. You can participate- by sending them a cheek swab to be included in the study; you'll be able to view your results online in a month. Participation package includes a DVD about the study, maps, etc. (Genographic Project)

European Space Agency image of a frozen lake on Mars

Monsanto: Terminator Returns
"The genetic-engineering giant Monsanto made a public promise in 1999 not to commercialise 'terminator technology' - plants that are genetically modified to produce sterile seeds. Now Monsanto says it may develop the technology after all - suggesting that it would use Terminator seeds in non-food crops such as cotton, tobacco, pharmaceutical crops and grass, and does not rule out other uses in the future." (story)

Cassini finds water on Enceladus, moon of Saturn. "We think we've got geysers" (story)

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