Hells Angels boss killed in shootout

Hells Angels boss killed in shootout

Hells Angels boss killed in shootout, The city canceled its part in an annual multi-city motorcycle festival on Saturday and neighboring Reno increased police patrol amid fears of retaliation over the shooting death of a prominent Hells Angels boss by a rival gang.

Tourist flight crash Nepal

Tourist flight crash Nepal

Tourist flight crash Nepal, Nepal tourist plane crashes near Kathmandu killing 19, A small plane has crashed in Nepal killing all 19 people on board, officials say.The Buddha Air plane was carrying 16 tourists to view Mount Everest and other peaks and was returning to the Nepalese capital.

No Child Left behind

No Child Left behind

No Child Left behind, President Obama is poised to broaden federal influence in local schools by scrapping key elements of No Child Left Behind, the Bush administration’s signature education law, and substituting his own brand of school reform.The move will bypass Congress, drawing fire from Republicans on Capitol Hill and some in the educational establishment but winning applause from governors across the country struggling to meet the demands of the nine-year-old law.
On Friday, Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan are scheduled to detail plans to waive some of the law’s toughest requirements, including that schools ensure that every student be proficient in math and reading by 2014 or risk escalating sanctions.

In exchange for relief, the administration will require a quid pro quo: States must adopt changes that could include the expansion of charter schools, linking teacher evaluation to student performance and upgrading academic standards. As many as 45 states are expected to seek waivers.

For many students, the most tangible impact could be what won’t happen. They won’t see half their teachers fired, their principal removed or school shut down because some students failed to test at grade level — all potential consequences under the law.

“It’s a momentous development,” said Jack Jennings, president of the nonpartisan Center on Education Policy. The White House is essentially rewriting the law, he said.

Duncan said the administration has no other choice, driven by mounting pressures on schools caused by the law and no clear sign that Congress will fix its flaws. Lawmakers have been trying for four years.

“I feel compelled to do this,” Duncan said as he rode a bus two weeks ago to tour schools in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Ohio, among other states. “My absolute preference is for Congress to fix it for the entire country. But there’s a level of dysfunction in Congress that’s paralyzing. And we’re getting to the point that this law is holding back innovation, holding back progress. We need to unleash that. We need to get out of the way.”

For Duncan, one of the most visible members of Obama’s Cabinet, the move is likely to cement his reputation as arguably the most powerful education secretary in the department’s history.

Duncan already has propelled school systems across the country to make far-reaching changes by awarding a record $8 billion, provided by the economic stimulus package, to states and districts that embraced Obama’s agenda.

Even states that didn’t win money through the best-known of those programs, called Race to the Top, changed policies and laws to compete for the funds.

Duncan “walked into office and was handed a big pot of money and very few congressional restrictions,” Jennings said. “Congress went off and got into health reform, the budget, all these other issues that sucked up their attention. He was left alone with his money and took advantage of the opportunity. Now he’s got another opportunity.”

Some say the administration is reaching too far.

Source: washingtonpost

Spontaneous combustion kills man?

Spontaneous combustion kills man?

Spontaneous combustion kills man? A man who burned to death in his home died as a result of spontaneous combustion, an Irish coroner has ruled. West Galway coroner Dr Ciaran McLoughlin said it was the first time in 25 years of investigating deaths that he had recorded such a verdict.Michael Faherty, 76, died at his home at Clareview Park, Ballybane, Galway on 22 December 2010. Such incidents are extremely rare.

Deaths attributed by some to "spontaneous combustion" occur when a living human body is burned without an apparent external source of ignition.

Typically police or fire investigators find burned corpses but no burned furniture.

An inquest in Galway on Thursday heard how investigators had been baffled as to the cause of Mr Faherty's death.

Forensic experts found that a fire in the fireplace of the sitting room where the badly burnt body was found, had not been the cause of the blaze that killed Mr Faherty.

The court was told that no trace of an accelerant had been found and there had been nothing to suggest foul play.

The court heard Mr Faherty had been found lying on his back with his head closest to an open fireplace.

The fire had been confined to the sitting room. The only damage was to the body, which was totally burnt, the ceiling above him and the floor underneath him.

Dr McLoughlin said he had consulted medical textbooks and carried out other research in an attempt to find an explanation.

He said Professor Bernard Knight, in his book on forensic pathology, had written about spontaneous combustion and noted that such reported cases were almost always near an open fireplace or chimney.

"This fire was thoroughly investigated and I'm left with the conclusion that this fits into the category of spontaneous human combustion, for which there is no adequate explanation," he said.

Read more: bbc

Match abandoned in Uruguay after linesman is hit with a roll of paper

Match abandoned in Uruguay after linesman is hit with a roll of paper, Linesman Hit On The Head By Roll Of Paper During Nacional vs Universidad de Chile Copa Sudamericana Match. Nacional’s match at home to Universidad de Chile in the Copa Sudamericana was abandoned after a linesman was struck by an object thrown from the crowd.
Universidad de Chile were dominating the game at the Parque Central stadium on Wednesday, leading 2-0, when one of the linesmen was hit in the 47th minute by a roll of paper, which Uruguayan media suggested came from a cash register.

The official was knocked to the ground and received treatment for several minutes before the referee called the match off.

The South American Football Confederation (CSF) said that it would meet later in the week to decide on the outcome. Universidad won the first leg 1-0.

Baby born on Philippine Airlines flight has no nationality

Baby born on Philippine Airlines flight has no nationality 

Baby born on Philippine Airlines flight has no nationality, Officials were trying Tuesday to ascertain the nationality of a baby born mid-flight, apparently while over international waters, in a passenger jet heading from the Philippines to the U.S.Pregnant Philippines woman Aida Alamillo, 41, was on Philippine Airlines Flight 104 from Manila on Monday when she began to feel nauseous and realized she was in labor, earlier than expected.

A short time later, about four hours out of San Francisco and at 30,000 feet, she gave birth to a healthy, six-pound boy.

Flight attendants had taken her to a private spot in the business class cabin and summoned for help from passengers -- resulting in three nurses volunteering to help, NBC Bay Area reported. The rest of the travelers burst into applause on hearing the baby had been born.

"I didn't expect I would have a baby there ... it just happened," she said, according to NBC Bay Area, explaining that she had been given permission by her doctor to fly despite being due on Sept. 28.

Alamillo was on her way to Massachusetts at the time, with a visa for travel to the U.S.

Her sister Leoni Bauermeister, who lives in Beverly, Mass., told MyFoxBoston.com Alamillo was immigrating to the state with her three other children -- and hoped to have her fourth child there so it would automatically become a U.S. citizen.

According to Jennifer Vaughn, from the Center for Immigration Studies, if a child is born over open ocean it is generally considered a citizen of the country where the parent has legal citizenship in. If a baby is born in American airspace it is a U.S. citizen.

Alamillo and her son were Tuesday at a hospital in San Francisco but could be leaving by Thursday to head to Massachusetts. NBC Bay Area said she named the child Kevin Raymar Francis Domingo -- with "Francis" a salute to his surprise arrival on the way to San Francisco.

Source: foxnews

Nasa Satellite Falling

Nasa Satellite Falling

Nasa Satellite Falling, NASA space junk experts have refined the forecast for the anticipated death plunge of a giant satellite, with the U.S. space agency now predicting the 6 1/2-ton climate probe will plummet to Earth around Sept. 23, a day earlier than previously reported.The defunct bus-size spacecraft is NASA's Upper Atmospheric Research Satellite (UARS), which launched in 1991 and was shut down in 2005 after completing its mission. The satellite was expected to fall to Earth sometime this year, with experts initially pegging a weeks-long window between late September and early October, then narrowing it to the last week of this month.

That window, NASA now says, has been trimmed to just three days.

"Re-entry is expected Sept. 23, plus or minus a day. The re-entry of UARS is advancing because of a sharp increase in solar activity since the beginning of this week," NASA officials wrote in a status update today (Sept. 16). The projection is a day earlier than a previous forecast released by NASA yesterday.

NASA spokeswoman Beth Dickey confirmed with SPACE.com earlier today that the reason UARS is expected to fall early in its re-entry window is because of the sharp uptick in solar activity. Solar effects from the sun can create an extra drag on satellites in space because they can heat the Earth's atmosphere, causing it to expand, agency officials have said. [Photos: Space Debris & Cleanup Concepts]

Where will UARS fall?
But exactly where the UARS spacecraft will fall is still unknown.

NASA expects at least 26 large pieces of the massive satellite to survive the scorching temperatures of re-entry and reach Earth's surface. Titanium pieces and onboard tanks could be among that debris, but the UARS satellite carries no toxic propellant (NASA used up all the fuel in 2005).

The debris is expected to fall over a swath of Earth about 500 miles (804 kilometers) long, NASA officials said.

There is a 1-in-3,200 chance of satellite debris hitting a person on the ground, odds that NASA says are extremely remote. Outside experts agree.

"Look at how much of Earth is covered with water," Victoria Samson, the Washington Office Director of the Secure World Foundation, an organization dedicated to the peaceful use of outer space, told SPACE.com this week. "There's a really good chance it's going to go straight into the ocean."

Constant satellite watch
NASA officials expect the UARS satellite to fall over a region somewhere between the latitudes of northern Canada and southern South America, which leaves a vast swath of the world open as a possible re-entry point. About 75 percent of the Earth's surface is covered in water, which makes an ocean splashdown likely, NASA and experts have said.

NASA and the Joint Space Operations Center of U.S. Strategic Command at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., are keeping a close watch on the falling satellite, but will only be able to pinpoint its actual crash zone to within about 6,000 miles (10,000 km) about two hours before re-entry.

As of Thursday, the UARS satellite was flying in an orbit of between 143 and 158 miles (230 to 255 km) above Earth. That orbit is dropping lower each day, NASA officials said. [Infographic: NASA's Falling UARS Satellite Explained]

NASA has advised the public not to touch any debris that may reach the surface, should it be discovered. Instead, the space agency says that anyone who finds satellite debris should contact their local law enforcement agency.

The $750 million UARS mission was designed to measure ozone and other chemical compounds found in Earth's ozone layer in order to better understand how the upper atmosphere affects our planet. It also recorded wind speeds and temperatures in the stratosphere, as well as the energy Earth received from the sun.

Source: yahoo

Starbucks sued over bathroom camera

Starbucks sued over bathroom camera, A U.S. man is suing Starbucks Coffee Co after his 5-year-old daughter allegedly found a video camera pointed at the toilet in a bathroom in one of their cafes.
William Yockey, of Virginia, is asking for $1 million in the civil suit on four counts, including breach of privacy, his lawyer, Hank Schlosberg, told Reuters on Tuesday.Yockey and his daughter went into a Starbucks in downtown Washington to use the restroom during an April sightseeing trip, he said.

After using the unisex toilet, the girl discovered a digital video camera hidden in the U-shaped drain pipe under the sink. The camera was aimed at the toilet and recording, Schlosberg said.

"The little girl was very upset and the father was irate," he said.

Yockey contacted the manager, who called police.

The incident is at least the third involving a camera in a Starbucks bathroom this year.

A man was arrested in May for placing a camera in a California Starbucks and recording at least 40 women. A man was arrested in June for putting a camera in a Florida Starbucks.

Starbucks spokesman Alan Hilowitz said: "We take our obligation to provide a safe environment for our customers and our employees very, very seriously."

Such incidents as the alleged camera placement were "extremely, extremely rare" given that the company has 17,000 stores in the United States, he said.

Source: yahoo

Man dies after dumpling-eating win

Man dies after dumpling-eating win

Man dies after dumpling-eating win, Ivan Mendel got through ten dumplings in 30 seconds to claim first place and the prize of a jar of sour cream before he was taken ill at the contest in Tokmak, in the south-east of the country, at the weekend.



‘The old man got sick and fell to the ground,’ a witness told Interfax news agency. ‘The ambulance arrived when he was already dead. The doctor said that he probably choked on vomit.’

Dumplings, or vareniki, are a versatile staple of Ukrainian cuisine and are served stuffed with a range of fillings, from mushrooms to cherries.

According to organisers of last weekend’s contest, the dumplings used were filled with potatoes and had been bought from a local supermarket.

They have refuted suggestions the contest killed Mr Mendel.

Source: metro

Starbucks hidden toilet camera

Starbucks hidden toilet camera

 Starbucks hidden toilet camera, $3 million lawsuit instituted against Seattle-based global coffee chain. Starbucks is being sued for $3 million after a man claimed his five-year-old daughter found a video camera hidden in the toilets of one of its outlets.
William Yockey, 28, accuses the Seattle-based global coffee chain of invasion of privacy, negligence, "intentional infliction of emotional distress" and negligent hiring, training and supervision of staff.

Mr Yockey, who visited the US capital in April, "immediately reported this humiliating and disgusting matter" to the manager of the outlet, a few blocks from the White House, said a copy of his lawsuit.

Police roped off the toilets and dusted the camera - tucked inside the U-shaped drain beneath the wash basin, according to the plaintiff - for fingerprints before confiscating it as evidence, according to the lawsuit.

"It's embarrassing, humiliating, even today," Mr Yockey told ABC News, adding that any video of his daughter in the TOILET "could have been all over the internet. She could have been violated".

Mr Yockey's lawyer Hank Schlosberg is asking the District of Columbia Superior Court for a jury trial, $US1 million in compensatory damages and $US2 million in punitive damages just on the invasion of privacy count.

A spokesmen for Starbucks could not be reached for comment, but local weekly City Paper said the company had tried but failed to get the lawsuit thrown out on grounds that Mr Yockey had not proven any wrongdoing by its employees.

Last May, police arrested a man on suspicion of recording at least 40 women with a hidden camera in a Starbucks in California, while another man was arrested in June for placing a camera inside another Starbucks in Florida.

Source: emirates247

Rick Perry Israel

Rick Perry Israel, In the latest GOP effort to convince voters they love Israel more than any Democrat does, Rick Perry is preparing to attack President Obama's Middle East policies in a speech in New York at 10 a.m. The Texas governor plans to attack Obama for demanding concessions from Israel in its dealing with the Palestinian Authority, such as demanding it halt the construction of settlements in the West Bank. The leading GOP presidential candidate will also attack Obama's "policy of appeasement" in the Middle East for emboldening the Palestinians' bid for statehood at the U.N. this week. Excerpts of the speech were leaked to the Associated Press:

"We are indignant that certain Middle Eastern leaders have discarded the principle of direct negotiations between the sovereign nation of Israel and the Palestinian leadership. And we are equally indignant that the Obama administration's Middle East policy of appeasement has encouraged such an ominous act of bad faith.

It's vitally important for America to preserve alliances with leaders who seek to preserve peace and stability in the region. But today, neither adversaries nor allies know where America stands. Our muddle of a foreign policy has created great uncertainty in the midst of the Arab Spring."

Hockey Mom Arrested

Hockey Mom Arrested, The California mother of a teenage hockey player has been accused of having sex with at least two of her son's teammates at booze-fueled sleepovers she allegedly threw for the team, according to the Orange County Sheriff's Department.

Katia Marie Davis, 44, is suspected of having sex and engaging in lewd acts with boys who were younger than 16 years when the alleged relationships began, police said. The boys were her son's teammates on the Beach City Lightning hockey team in upper-middle-class Laguna Niguel, Calif.

Davis threw sleepover parties for her son's team and allegedly provided alcohol to the boys, making a move on them when they went off to bed, Orange County Sheriff's spokesman Jim Amormino said.

A relationship between Davis and one boy, who was younger than 16 when the alleged sex began, lasted a year and a half, according to police. The boy told his mother about the alleged relationship, who reported it to Davis' ex-husband, who then notified police.

Davis is accused of having had a previous sexual relationship with a boy who was either younger than 14 or younger than 16 when the alleged acts began. That alleged victim is now an adult, and could not remember exactly when the relationship between the two first started, Amormino said.

Investigators believe there is a third victim who will be interviewed today, and are looking into possible additional victims.

Davis was arrested, charged and released on $25,000 bail after the first arrest, but police believe that bail will be raised today as the investigation continues, Amormino said.

Other hockey moms on the team had their suspicions about Davis, police said.

"Some mothers on the team did state they had a funny feeling about her, woman's intuition or whatever," Amormino said. "There was a lot of talking about her on the team, but the suspicions turned out to be true."

Amormino said the alleged acts had been going on for three to five years.

The Beach City Lightning hockey club said Davis and her son had not been involved with the team since 2007.

Davis did not immediately return calls for comment.

Source: abcnews

Nasa Space Taxi

Nasa Space Taxi, NASA To Invest $1.6 Billion For Private Companies To Bring Astronauts To Space, NASA astronauts won't always have to rely on Russian vehicles to ferry them to and from space. Instead, the U.S. Space Agency will invest $1.61 billion in a space taxi program for private companies to supply the services, reports Reuters.


Dubbed the Integrated Design Project (IDC), everything from launchers, spaceships, mission operations and ground support will be required, according to the new plan unveiled Monday.

Since the U.S. put to bed its space shuttle fleet over the summer, Russia's space agency now charges $50 million per NASA astronaut, notes PC Mag.

Just last week AP reported that Russia's Roscosmos space agency experienced a breakdown in communication for several minutes after the Soyuz capsule had de-orbited. Though contact was re-established between the crew and support aircraft before safely landing, a NASA astronaut was one of three crew on board.

NASA explained in a press statement that the aim of IDC is "to outsource our space station transportation so NASA can focus its energy and resources on deep space exploration."

Source: huffingtonpost

EastEnders B&B fire

EastEnders B&B fire, EastEnders Pat Evans is reportedly set to die in a fire. It was announced earlier this year that Pam St Clement, 63, is leaving the BBC soap after 25 years, and now the Daily Mirror reports a replica of her Albert Square B&B is being built on the show's stunt set at Elstree Studios in Hertfordshire.

A source said: "The last time EastEnders built something on this set was when they set fire to the Queen Vic last year. It is only used when they need to film fires and explosions.
"They want Pam's character to go out with a bang. The script is so top secret even she doesn't know how Pat is going to go yet. But she will be killed off."

The dramatic scenes are set to air at Christmas and it has already been reported that Pat's exit will coincide with the return of her granddaughter Bianca (Patsy Palmer) and stepson Ricky (Sid Owen).

It has also been rumoured that Pat's bad boy sons David and Simon Wicks, played by Michael French and Nick Berry, are set to return to Albert Square. A funeral could be what brings them back.

An EastEnders spokeswoman said: "Although there has been much speculation around Pat's departure, we're not going to comment so as not to spoil the storyline for viewers as this stage."

Teen reels in 800-pound gator

Teen reels in 800-pound gator, Florida Man Catches 800-Pound Gator with Fishing Pole, A Florida man with a mere fishing pole reeled in a big one that didn't get away: a 12-foot, 800-pound alligator.Tim Stroh, 19, whose parents run Southern Life Taxidermy and Guide Service in Hobe Sound, caught the monster with what his father described as a "puny bass rod." Father, son, mom and a pal were out on their gator boat on the St. Lucie River, pursuing a rumor of a giant alligator that hung out by the locks. Within an hour, they spotted it.

"I thought it was just a 9-footer," Tim Stroh told TCPalm.com. "Then I saw how big it was."

The 12-foot, 3-inch alligator took the bait, according to WPTV. And as Stroh battled it boatside, he realized its immense size. Its tail alone was as thick as his waist, according to TCPalm.com. Once it was at the gunwale, Stroh hit the alligator with a "bang stick," a .44-caliber gun shell on a stick.

"I had adrenaline pumping through me and I was just like, 'Oh my God,'" Stroh told WESH.com. The alligator "came up and he was popping his jaw and stuff."

Once on land, four more friends joined to help carry the alligator, which was missing one of its back legs, into the family's truck.

"We have a big box cooler we normally would put a gator into, but he wouldn't fit. We had to keep him in the truck overnight and throw in ice to keep him cool," Tim said.

They have plans for the whole beast.

"I'm gonna mount the head for him so he can put it in his room," Steve told WPTV.

Rachel Stroh said she will make a lamp from the gator's back leg; the family has plans to make keychains from the gator's bony back; and there is 250 pounds of gator meat in their freezers.

Source: nbcchicago

Student gets court order against principal

Student gets court order against principal, A student in Eastern Washington got a restraining order against his school's principal, alleging the man threatened to use a pocketknife to cut off the rosary the youth wears around his neck.

Roel Corral, a student at Kiona-Benton City High School, got the restraining order Friday, the Tri-City Herald reported.
The principal, Wayne Barrett, was ordered to stay at least 100 feet way from Corral, but on Monday a Benton County judge modified that to 25 feet on school grounds or at school events. Barrett's attorney argued in court that the longer distance would effectively "render him unemployed," and Superintendent Rom Castilleja said it would be impossible for Barrett to obey the original order and do his job, the Herald reported.

Corral alleged that Barrett unfolded a pocketknife at school and threatened to cut off the rosary that Corral was raising, the Herald reported. Rosaries are prohibited because they are associated with gangs, the newspaper said.

Corral said he felt harassed since the incident, according to his petition to the court.

Crack pipe brought to show & tell

Crack pipe brought to show & tell, A Sweet Springs, MO kindergartener brought his mother's crack pipe to show-and-tell on Sept. 6. Sadly, the crack pipe wasn't the only thing the kindergartener brought to school. He also brought some of his mother's crystal meth. Unfortunately, it seems the little tyke was rather proud and fascinated with the items.Superintendent Donna Wright said, "He was very excited when he got to school. But I don't think he knew what he had."

However, the child's teacher realized what he had and didn't allow him to show or talk about it. Instead, the teacher notified authorities. Wright said, "It didn't ever get into the classroom. It was shocking. We're not experienced with dealing with this."

Officers followed up on the incident and arrested the kindergartener's 32-year-old mother, Michelle Cheatham, on drug charges. She was later able to post bail and is now free. Teachers and school authorities weren't the only ones shocked by what happened.

Police Chief Richard Downing said, "That was a first for show-and-tell in this town."

The town of Sweet Springs is very small with only 1,500 residents. There's little doubt this kindergartener will forever be shamed by his mother's drug habit and by the fact he brought her crack pipe and meth to school. That is one mistake that will forever haunt him and her unless they move elsewhere and she gets help with her druggie ways.

via: gather

Video gamers solve AIDS mystery

Video gamers solve AIDS mystery, At last, there is hard evidence that video gamers can help save the real world. A group of scientists, after failing to solve the crystal structure of a protein involved in AIDS, challenged players of the protein-folding game Foldit to try.

The players were able to create what the scientists described as "models of sufficient quality" for the scientists to complete the structure.

The scientists hail from the University of Washington, A. Mickiewicz University in Poland, the Polish Academy of Sciences, and the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. The crowdsourcing effort is described in a research paper, "Crystal Structure of a Monomeric Retroviral Protease Solved By Protein Folding Game Players," published in the current issue of Nature.

Five Out of Ten

The problem in defining this particular molecular structure has puzzled scientists for years. Protein folding is important in a variety of diseases, including Alzheimer's, cystic fibrosis, and mad cow disease. Mis-folded proteins have been related to disease, while properly folded ones could, for instance, block the HIV virus.

Foldit is an online collaborative game developed by researchers as a way to harness distributed computing and crowdsourced resources. Players win or lose points by creating viable structures within the established rules. Red balls with spikes, for instance, appear when sections of a protein are too close together, resulting in a loss of points.

In their Nature paper, Seth Cooper of the University of Washington's Center for Game Science, who was the developer of Foldit, said he and his colleagues knew that "top-ranked Foldit players excel at solving challenging structure refinement problems" relating to protein folding, even though the players are not scientists.

Ten puzzles involving protein-folding were introduced into the game, along with a scoring mechanism that related to how the proteins and their components should work. A player could increase a score by successfully re-twisting a protein, for example.

The scientists compared the Foldit results to their protein-folding prediction application, called Rosetta. The results: The collaborative players beat Rosetta on five of 10 protein-folding challenges. On three of the remaining, both efforts led to similar results, and on the other two, Rosetta was technically better but still "basically incorrect," the scientists said.

Collaboration and Competition

One of the most interesting results was how Foldit's process supported both collaboration and competition, resulting in both greater group and individual efforts. The researchers noted that players shared structures and exchanged solutions with their fellow group members, and helped each other out with strategies and tips via chatting and a wiki. Between groups, there was competitive motivation to play more.

Al Hilwa, program director for application development at IDC, called the Foldit effort and similar ones a "tremendous way to harness the power of the crowd, especially gamers, who are perceived to be doing nothing useful" as they spend countless hours solving game-based problems.

Hilwa said that, "once the software and models mature," he thought it "was absolutely possible" that smaller companies could begin using distributed processing and crowdsourced efforts on some commercial basis that would give them access to massive computing without the huge capitalization that is currently required.

Foldit is only one of several collaborative games intended to tap the crowd-based resources of "citizen science." Others include Galaxy Zoo, which uses more than a quarter-million Net-based users to classify hundreds of thousands of galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey; MoonZoo, designed for users ages 9 to 18 to design and build a virtual lunar rover; and SETI@Home, which uses distributed processing to look for intelligent signals from space.

Titanic neckace stolen

Titanic neckace stolen, A necklace once worn by a passenger on the ill-fated ocean liner, Titanic, has been stolen from a travelling exhibit in Copenhagen.

The necklace was stolen on Saturday during opening hours at the exhibit hall in Tivoli park in the centre of the Danish capital, and the thief or thieves had gotten away without tripping the alarm system, Tivoli spokesman Torben Plank said on Monday.

"We think they were not professionals because there was jewellery that was much more expensive in the exhibition case," he added.

Luis Ferreiro of the Musealia company that owns the travelling exhibit said in a statement: "The precious necklace belonged to the Widener family, who were one of the richest families onboard the Titanic in 1912."

He said the piece of jewellery was worth at least 14,000 euros ($A18,000).

However, he said, "it will not be possible (for the thieves) to sell the necklace as it is known internationally".

Plank explained that the necklace had probably been owned by Eleanor Widener, who survived when the "unsinkable" Titanic went down, but rumour had it the chain was found in the pocket of a butler, whose body was fished out of the Atlantic.

Copenhagen's historic attraction park, Tivoli, has offered a $US1000 ($A975) reward for any information leading to the necklace being found.
The Titanic hit an iceberg in the Atlantic Ocean on her maiden voyage from Southampton, southern England, to New York City in April 1912, and sank in just over two-and-a-half hours, killing around 1500 people.

NASA satellite to fall to Earth on Friday

NASA satellite to fall to Earth on Friday, A dead 5.4-ton Nasa satellite is expected to fall back to Earth on Friday - although officials cannot say exactly where it will hit. The Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) could shower debris anywhere over the six inhabited continents - from as far north as Alaska to the tip of South America.
Nasa has said the odds of a piece of the UARS debris striking a person is about one in 3,200.

It insists most of the 20-year-old probe will burn up in the atmosphere and that the debris will most likely fall into an ocean or land in an uninhabited region of Earth.

Scientists expect up to 26 pieces - with a combined mass of about 540kg - to survive the fiery re-entry.

Launched in 1991, the satellite has been monitoring chemicals in the atmosphere, slowly losing altitude since completing its mission in 2005.

Satellites as large as UARS re-enter Earth's atmosphere about once a year and Nasa said there have been no reports of any deaths or injuries to people from falling debris.

UARS is far smaller than the 123-ton Russian space station Mir, which fell to Earth in 2001 or the 91-ton Skylab that fell in 1979 - both of which hit without harming anyone.

Although re-entry is expected some time on Friday, it could happen as early as Thursday or as late as Saturday.

The odds on a specific individual among the Earth's seven billion inhabitants being struck by the satellite are about one in 21 trillion.

Updates are being posted on Nasa's website at http://www.nasa.gov/uars .