Pandas Get Porn

A young male panda in a Thai zoo has been put on an "intensive mating course."

Stop laughing, it gets better.

The "course" includes daily viewings of pornographic and a low-carb diet. But it's not working. Six year old Chuang Chuang isn't all that interested in his five year old partner Lin Hui.

There's a couple of obvious problems with this "intensive mating course".

Firstly, even a male panda could be expected to feel uncomfortable watching porn with a bunch of zookeepers and researchers standing around waiting to see how he reacts.

Secondly, this story doesn't specify what kind of 'porn' the panda is being shown.

You are left to presume that it is footage of pandas mating, but does that qualify as porn? Isn't that more like nature footage?

Or did they go out and specifically create 'panda porn' for the pro-mating program? Did it have a slap-bass heavy soundtrack? Were pandas dressed as cheerleaders and football players?

No details.

The final obvious problem comes with this admission from one of the zoo's veterinarians. "We sought expert opinions from China and have been closely monitoring their behaviour."

Maybe the pandas are shy? And just who are these Chinese experts providing opinion on panda porn?

The veterinarian, Kannikar Nimtragul, revealed the panda porn videos were only 15 minutes long.

Fifteen minutes? So they're just straight hardcore then? No lead in? No build up? Maybe Chuang Chuang would like to see some examples of panda seduction, or pawplay (sorry) before he gets aroused enough for some real-life action :

The panda's keepers hope to warm him up before next week, when his partner will be fertile and could be impregnated.

That sounds suspiciously like that poor panda is about to get molested.

"We had to educate Chuang Chuang about how to mate," Ms Kannikar said.

"He showed some interest in the sounds of the video, but not really the footage."

Giant pandas, notorious for their low sex drive, are among the world's most endangered animals.

It's been said before, but it's worth saying again : If pandas don't want to reproduce, maybe it's time to let them die out. Maybe Nature is telling these pandas their time on Planet Earth is over.

Perhaps it's not the porn, or the low-carb diet, or the fact the zookeepers decided to keep the two young pandas isolated from each other in a bizarre attempt to build up desire.

Or maybe the pandas are too freaked out to mate, because they're surrounded by people who can't stop staring at them, who show them porno and do things like this :

Chiang Mai held an elaborate, traditional Chinese wedding for the couple in 2005 in the hope of encouraging them to procreate, and is considering bringing in a snow machine to help recreate a mountainous habitat.

The panda's keepers hope to warm (Chaung Chuang) up before next week, when his partner will be fertile and could be impregnated.

That sounds suspiciously like that poor panda is about to get molested.

$10 Million Damages Awarded In Lawsuit To Kill Of Rumours That Corporate Profits Are Funnelled To Satan

It's now confirmed, at least in the United States and the UK : Satan is not getting rich off Pampers nappies or Pringles chips.

A court in Salt Lake City has ordered four men to cough up more than $12 million in damages to corporate bohemoth Proctor & Gamble for spreading the conspiracy theory that P & G were funnelling profits to The Very Devil Himself.

P & G has been pursuing legal action to kill off the rumours for more than a decade and have lost, acccording to them, hundreds of millions of dollars in sales.

How does such stupidity get started? An agent for a corporate rival has been blamed for starting the rumours in 1994, but P & G first attracted the attention of Satan-hating, Anti-Christ anticipation American Christians in the 1960s when they :

began to take exception to a company logo showing a bearded and horned man surrounded by 13 stars. This was said to be a perversion of the passage in the Book of Revelations that describes "a woman clothed with the sun, and with the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of 12 stars." The stars in the company logo supposedly spelled out 666, the number of the beast.

Despite denying it all, P&G dropped the logo in 1985.

Makes you wonder how many other product boycotts and corporate conspiracy theories began with "agents" from rival companies.

Meet The 'Shuman'

Genetically Modified Sheep Is 15% Human

In ancient Greek mythology they were called 'chimera', animals made up of parts of other animals, and sometimes humans, that occasionally helped great warriors and heros on their quests, but more often featured as monsters, and visions of a nightmare world.

But chimera are mythology no more.

From the UK Daily Mail :

Scientists have created the world's first human-sheep chimera - which has the body of a sheep and half-human organs.

The sheep have 15 per cent human cells and 85 per cent animal cells - and their evolution brings the prospect of animal organs being transplanted into humans one step closer.

Professor Esmail Zanjani, of the University of Nevada, has spent seven years and £5million perfecting the technique, which involves injecting adult human cells into a sheep's foetus.

He has already created a sheep liver which has a large proportion of human cells and eventually hopes to precisely match a sheep to a transplant patient, using their own stem cells to create their own flock of sheep.

The process would involve extracting stem cells from the donor's bone marrow and injecting them into the peritoneum of a sheep's foetus. When the lamb is born, two months later, it would have a liver, heart, lungs and brain that are partly human and available for transplant.

There is certainly a massive worldwide market for such organs. In the UK, thousands die each year for want of replacement organs when their own have become too damaged or old to continue functioning efficiently :

At present 7,168 patients are waiting for an organ transplant in Britain alone, and two thirds of them are expected to die before an organ becomes available.

Scientists know full well the controversy they face trying to move the creation of chimera to grow organs into full production.

...the development is likely to revive criticisms about scientists playing God, with the possibility of silent viruses, which are harmless in animals, being introduced into the human race.

Dr Patrick Dixon, an international lecturer on biological trends, warned: "Many silent viruses could create a biological nightmare in humans. Mutant animal viruses are a real threat, as we have seen with HIV."

The full-blown nightmare scenario? Animal rights activists are afraid of 'cellular fusion' where a human-animal hybrid would be born combining the features man and sheep.

Chilling.

One day, human rights groups and animal rights groups may need to combine their resources to fight for the rights of 'shuman'.

'Chaos' In Natural World As Global Warming Brings An Early Spring

Warmest Recorded Autumn And Winter In Parts Of Europe For 300 Years

Bears are waking up early, flowers are blooming weeks before they did last year and birds are migrating well ahead of time.

These are just some of the examples cited in this Reuters story (excerpted below) about the 'chaotic' changes in the natural world as spring arrives early in the Northern Hemisphere.

And Global Warming, claims the story, is to blame :

Spring officially starts on Wednesday at 0007 GMT when the sun passes north over the celestial equator but scientists say the biological clocks of animals and plants are running ahead of time, perhaps upset by global warming.

Orange trees, olives and peaches are blooming weeks ahead of schedule in Greece, geese are cutting down on migrations in Canada and the United States and bears have been unable to hibernate in Bulgaria.

Red Admiral butterflies and swallows -- usually a sign of summer after the birds spend the winter in Africa -- have been spotted early in the Netherlands after the warmest Dutch autumn and winter since records starting in 1706.

Winter in the northern hemisphere was the warmest since global records began in the late 19th century, spurred by a warming trend of recent decades and an El Nino warming of the Pacific, according to the U.S. government's weather agency.

And some experts predict that 2007 could eclipse 1998 and 2005 as the warmest on record.

Scientists say that weather is always chaotic but U.N. reports project that extreme events such as droughts, heatwaves and floods are likely to become more frequent because of a warming widely blamed on use of fossil fuels.

All 20 bears in a Bulgarian conservation park are awake after most skipped a hibernation normally lasting until April.

"The bears did not even try to sleep this winter. For the first time it happened to almost all of them," said Anton Paunkov, spokesman of the "Four Paws" foundation.

In Kew Gardens west of London, daffodils, crocuses and snowdrops have been opening early. In Britain, some birds such as chiffchaffs and blackcaps no longer bother to migrate.

Some farmers may benefit from longer growing seasons but many worry that early flowering exposes crops to late frosts or pests. Normal insect pollinators such as bees may not be around when the flowers bloom.

Among benefits, high winter temperatures may have helped keep winter heating bills down, helping limit high oil prices at about $60 a barrel.

Killer, Meat-Eating Frogs Invade San Francisco



"It's like something out of a...horror movie," begins this story from SF Gate.

They ain't kidding. Here's the short version :

....killer frogs take over peaceful pond, then after terrorizing and eating everything alive, start eating each other.

But it's not a horror movie, this is actually happening in Lily Pond, in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park.

The amphibians in question are called 'African clawed frogs' and they can grow five inches long. As their name implies, they have sharp claws curving out of their huge back feet.

It's a mystery how these vicious little brutes got into the pond in the first place. But they've wreaked terrible damage on the native frogs, turtles and fish. The fear is the frogs will get out of the pond and into the waterways of San Francisco. It hasn't happened yet. But some believe it will be only a matter of time, unless the killer frogs are wiped out.

"They've eaten everything they can get their mouths around, and now they're eating each other," said Eric Mills of the animal rights group Action for Animals.

There was a plan in 2003 by the California Department of Fish and Game to drain the pond, but this plan was abandoned after community anger over a pike-poisoning incident by the department shortly before the pond draining was supposed to begin.

....park workers have used nets and traps baited with chicken to yank about 2,500 adult frogs out of the pond. The frogs are then sent up to Fish and Game in Yountville, where they are euthanized by a special nerve poison.

But the Terminator toads just keep coming back.

"They are cute, but tough," Mills said. "I saw a heron swoop down and grab one. He had it in his bill for a while, tried to eat it, then just gave up and spit it out."

In fact, about the only thing known to eat the frogs are crocodiles -- but that solution is probably out.

For now, anyway.

Dog 'Adopts' Orphaned Squirrel



I've come across literally hundreds of stories over the years of orphaned or abandoned 'baby' animals being adopted and raised by adults of another species. For all the violence and cruelty of the natural world, there are also many wonderfully 'humane' and kind examples of empathy and compassion.

But this story is something special. A baby squirrel has been adopted by a Maltese terrier named Pitty Pat in Arkansas.

The orphaned squirrel was found by the Wootton family, who fed the squirrel with a bottle for a few days. They left the squirrel alone in a room with the mother dog and her puppies. The next thing they knew Pitty Pat was nursing the squirrel :

....the squirrel has settled in, just like one of Pitty Pat's puppies.

....there's even some sibling rivalry.

The family said they're thinking about what to name the little squirrel, and hope to one day release it back into the wild.

Spiders Get Cuddly

Not all spiders eat other after sex. In fact, new research shows that at least two species of 'whip spider' are downright affectionate towards each other and their siblings. They cuddle, they caress, they nurture their young. Life for 'teenage' whip spiders is, however, more dangerous, and more aggressive.

This report from Live Science explores the touchy-feely side of arachnids :

Social behavior is extremely rare in arachnids, a group of critters typically defined by their aggression, clever hunting methods and even predatory cannibalism.

"This was the best example I had ever seen of friendly behavior in an arachnid," said lead study author Linda Rayor, a Cornell University entomologist.

"I was amazed at how incredibly interactive the groups are," Rayor said. "They are in constant tactile contact with one another. They are constantly exploring one another and interacting with their siblings."

Rayor and her colleagues studied two whip-spider species, dime-sized spiders common in Florida, called Phrynus marginemaculatus, and a much larger species found in forests and caves in Tanzania and Kenya, Damon diadema.

Observed in glass houses, the two arachnid families were often seen engaging in sibling-sibling and mother-baby interactions. In one experiment, the siblings were removed from a familiar cage and placed randomly into a large unfamiliar cage. Within minutes, they gathered back together.

Mothers of both species nurtured their young. Often, the mama whip spider would sit in the middle of her offspring and slowly stroke their bodies and whips with her own feelers.

Whereas amicable behavior continued into adulthood for P. marginemaculatus, teen life was rougher for D. diadema. After these arachnids reached sexual maturity, the scientists found evidence they had outgrown their cuddly behavior: adolescent spiders had missing or injured legs attributable to fighting.

Past studies have focused on the more visible features, such as the adult's courtship displays and fighting behaviors, so scientists had assumed the creatures were solitary and cannibalistic predators.

Snow 'Doughnuts'




It looks like something man-made, but Mike Stanford, the man who spotted, and photographed, this oddity claims it is a natural occurence, though only under the rarest of conditions.

From the Seattle Times :

..snow rollers (as they're also called) form when there is a hard layer on the snow, covered by several more inches of dense snow.

"Then you add a steep slope and a trigger such as a clump of snow falling out of a tree or off of a rock face."

As gravity pulls a clump down, it usually rolls down the hill and collapses, creating (what is also called) a pinwheel. Or it will not roll at all, and come down in an avalanche of snow. But if the snow is the perfect density and temperature, it rolls down leaving a hole in the center...Strong, gusty winds also can be a factor...

Followers Of 'Jesus 2' Get Mark Of The Beast To Show Their Devotion

He claims to be both the Second Coming of Jesus and the Anti-Christ.

Confused?

Not as confused as some of his followers are. They are lining up to get 666 tattoos to show both their devotion, and faith in the man they believe is the new Messiah :

A few weeks ago, in a tattoo parlor in the hip art deco district of Miami Beach, people were lining up to get "666" tattooed on their bodies, and then smiling through their pain. But these are not devil worshipers. They see themselves as devout followers of Jesus Christ.

But the major difference that separates them from other Christians around the world is that the Jesus Christ they worship is alive and well -- and living in the suburbs of Houston.

These people belong to a new movement devoted to a man who calls himself the Second Coming of Jesus, and also claims the title of Antichrist, which to him is the next incarnation of Jesus on earth, not an evil being.

One follower said, "I just want to make sure (the 666 tattoo is) visible, that everyone knows my life belongs to the man."

Another said, "I want everyone to know I'm one of the antichrists."

The man they follow makes life easy for his true believers. He doesn't see much as being sinful, is big on the entertainment and fun side of being a good Christian and doesn't mind a glass of fine scotch :

"Jesus drank wine because he didn't have Dewar's."

If his ministry ever loses its popularity, he could always go into writing advertising copy.

Stink Of Rotting Fish Kills Five

The stench of dead fish from the hold of a Thai fishing boat was enough to kill five men.

They weren't killed by the smell, however. But it was strong enough to knock them unconscious and into the water where they drowned :

Five Thai fishermen died and two were taken to hospital after inhaling gas released by rotting fish in the hold of a trawler, police said on Tuesday.

They fainted at the smell of the decomposing fish kept in the bottom of the trawler along the Andaman coast of southern Thailand....

Scrubbing Your Toilet To Bring Good Luck

A bathroom cleaning frenzy has broken out across Japan after media hype goes huge over a new book that links an ultra-clean loo to life-changing good luck and fortune :

Don't just wipe the floor, polish it," (a new book) instructs. "It's important to maintain a positive mood while cleaning."

The books are inspired by Buddhist teachings and feng shui, a traditional Chinese belief that people's fortunes are determined by their surroundings.

The idea that a clean toilet can bring good fortune, or even make you more beautiful, has existed in Japan for many years, according to Yuka Soma of Makino Publishing in Tokyo, editor of one of the toilet books.

Baby Tigers, Orangutans Best Mates, For Now



They're two of the world's most endangered species, and in the wild one would be hunting the other, but for one month in an Indonesian zoo nursery, there were no closer friends than two infant Sumatran tigers and two orangutans :

The friendship between 5-month-old female baby primates Nia and Irma, and cubs Dema and Manis, has blossomed at the Taman Safari (Indonesia).

After being abandoned by their mothers shortly after birth, the four play fight, nipping and teasing each other, and cuddling up for a shared nap when they are worn out.

"This is unusual and would never happen in the wild," said zoo keeper Sri Suwarni, bottle-feeding a baby chimp on Wednesday. "Like human babies, they only want to play."

"When the time comes, they will have to be separated. It's sad, but we cant' change their natural behavior...Tigers start eating meat when they are three months old."

Not a lot of faith there in the power of friendships.

Belief In Bigfoots And Alien Visitations Drops Off In The US

But More Look To The Mystical Than Science To Explain Life's Mysteries

Oversized hairy men-creatures wandering the wilderness and visits from extraterrestrial life forms just don't excite the masses like they once did. At least in the United States. Some figure this is because more Americans have a basic understanding of science than they did 20 or 30 years ago. Or perhaps there are just less BigFoots and UFOs around these days.

But a widespread knowledge of basic science doesn't mean people are turning in huge numbers to rational explanations for the answers to the great mysteries of life, the universe and everything in between.

For those kinds of answers, more and more Americans are turning to the 'psuedo-sciences', including horoscopes and creationism.

Good story on all this from the Associated Press, but here's some highlights :

"What does astrology speak to? Love relationships," Losh said, noting that belief in horoscopes is much higher among women than men.

Belief in abduction by space aliens is also on the rise, Losh said.

"It's not surprising that the generation that grew up on `Twilight Zone' and early `Star Trek' television endorsed a link between UFOs and alien spacecraft," she said.

Pseudoscience discussion is often absent from the classroom, Losh said, so "we have basically left it up to the media."

Raymond Eve of the University of Texas at Arlington had mixed news in surveys of students at an unnamed Midwestern university.

The share that believed aliens had visited Earth fell from 25 percent in 1983 to 15 percent in 2006. There was also a decline in belief in "Bigfoot" and in whether psychics can predict the future.

But there also has been a drop in the number of people who believe evolution correctly explains the development of life on Earth and an increase in those who believe mankind was created about 10,000 years ago.

Miller said a second major negative factor to scientific literacy was religious fundamentalism and aging.

Crowds Flock To See 'The Jesus Tree'



The likeness of Jesus has shown up on walls, in clouds, in sandwiches, and most infamously, in a taco.

But lots of people believe they can see Jesus in trees. Not only in the knotted texture of bark, but sometimes, as above, in the main trunk and limbs of the tree itself.

I went Googling after reading about the latest 'Jesus Tree', and a lot of the ones I found...well, let's say you needed plenty of faith to find any likeness of Jesus at all.

But viewing the above photo, the Crucifixion image leaped out at me straight away. As it has done for literally thousands of people in and around San Antonio, Texas, since the story hit the local and then state news on February 12 to 14.

Apparently most of those who've visited the pruned tree in Crystal City, Texas, see the visage right away. But some still can't make it out.

Regardless, the 'Jesus Tree' has quickly become a place of pilgrimage.

People are lighting and leaving candles, handwritten messages, photos, they kneel and pray in front of the tree, and everyone takes a photo.

From Express News :

...the image of Jesus was first spotted in the gnarled limbs by Betty Jo Hernandez.

Hernandez, 31, took a photo of the tree and shared it with co-workers at an elementary school where she works. Many agreed they could see the image of Jesus on the cross, and from there, it spread across town and beyond...

Hundreds have since visited the site, leaving behind mementos and flowers, mostly roses. A row of candles sits on the ground.

...the faithful continued to come, sometimes in droves, lining the short residential street with vehicles.

"It's weird, right? It has been here forever and not until now has someone seen it."

Another 'Jesus Tree'

And Another One

And Just One More 'Jesus Tree'

The Duck That Won't Die

'Lazarus' Returns From The Dead, Again

It's important to keep in mind when reading the emotion-charged qoutes from vets below that they are all talking about a duck, not a human being.

But it is, now, a very famous duck, so perhaps that played into their reactions as well.

The duck in question was blasted out of the sky by a hunter last week. His wife packed it into the freezer, where it remained for two days until the hunter's wife opened the freezer to find one very alive duck staring back out at her.

But the story doesn't end there. The duck became an instant celebrity and was therefore entitled to top-shelf veterinary care by a team of surgeons and assistants, who battled to 'pluck' the gun shot lead from the duck's wounds in a dramatic life-or-death struggle.

From the BBC :

The ring-neck duck entered surgery with vets confident that she would survive the procedure despite serious injuries to her wing, leg and beak.

But they struggled to fully sedate Perky, who briefly lost consciousness, said Susan May, treasurer of the Goose Creek Animal Sanctuary in Tallahassee.

"The first time she stopped breathing a quick thump on the chest brought her back," Ms May told the BBC News website.

"But once the surgeon started sewing her back up she stopped breathing again, this time for 15 seconds."

When a second thump failed to bring Perky round, veterinary surgeon David Hale tried manipulating the duck's beak, before using a needle to shock her into consciousness.

At one point the duck was given pure oxygen through a face mask, Ms May said.

"At that point the vet turned and said: 'I'm sorry, she's gone.'"

The room fell into shocked silence as those present took in the news, but then Perky raised her head and began flapping her wings.

The relief reduced everyone to tears, Ms May said, describing one of her colleagues as "extremely emotional" as she left the room.

"For the duck to have gone through all of this and then to die at that time was a real shock," Ms May said.

"This duck has taken us all on an emotional rollercoaster," she said, adding that Perky has since recovered well and is staying out of trouble.

Apparently the duck's slow metabolism kept her alive in the freezer for those 48 hours, with the sudden change in temperature, when the freezer door was opened, acting like a wake-up alarm.

The thrice-dead duck now has "volunteers" selling t-shirts in her honour. They hope to raise enough money to "provide long-term care for the bird".

No concern, however, is expressed anywhere in the story for the hunter who is now one duck dinner down.

Blind Child Learns To See By Using Sound

A Mother Who Refused To Believe Her Child Was Handicapped Gave Him The Power To Defy 'Reality'

One of the most inspiring stories you're likely to read for a while.

It is the story of a modern day miracle.

And it is the story of a mother who gave her son the power, belief and commitment to make this miracle into an almost everyday reality. At least for himself, and his family, and now the millions learning about what he has done, and how his mother helped him to achieve the supposedly impossible.

A three year old child had his eyes surgically removed, rendering him blind. But his mother refused to tell her son that he was blind. So he never believed he was.

Then, he learned how to see again.

He defied the limits of the reality he was supposed to live within, and created a new one.

Read on.

From the UK Guardian :

There have been a lot of tough moments in Aquanetta Gordon's life, but none comes close to the moment when her three-year-old son, Ben, came round from the operation to remove both his eyes.

"He was my baby," she says. "And he was lying there with no eyes crying, 'I can't see you any more, Mama - I can't see you any more ... '"

In that moment, Aquanetta admits, she felt the cancer that had robbed her child of his eyes had destroyed both their lives

"Part of me just wanted to keel over and weep," she says. But she didn't. Instead, Aquanetta found a strength she'd never have believed she possessed. "I realised that if I gave in, he would too," she says. "I pledged I'd be strong for him.

"So I took his tiny hand and I held it to my face and I said, Ben, you can still see me, baby. You can see me with your hands: you can touch me. And I put my face close to his and I said you can still see me, Ben, with your nose: you can smell me. And with your ears too, Ben, I said: you can see me with your ears. You can hear me."

What she resolved at that moment, Aquanetta says, was that she was never going to tell Ben that he was blind: that she was never going to let him believe his life would be a lesser experience.

"From then on I treated him exactly the same way I treat my other four kids," she says. "I use the same language and I treat him exactly like a sighted child. When we see something interesting I say, look at this, Ben. Do you see this? I sometimes describe things for him, and his brothers and sister do the same, but basically we treat him exactly as though he could see."

...when Ben was about five years old, something amazing - almost miraculous - happened.

"We were driving along a road in Sacramento in California where we live when Ben said, 'Mom, do you see those big tall buildings over there?' And I said, 'Well, Ben, I see those buildings well enough: do you see those buildings too?"

What Ben had done was to use the sound that echoed off the buildings around him to tell what was outside the car: as they travelled along the road, he could tell by the sounds he was hearing what they were passing.

Aquanetta and her other children had also noticed that as Ben moved around he often made a little clicking noise with his tongue. "I didn't know exactly what he was doing, but I could tell that making this noise helped him to know where things were and helped him get about," remembers Aquanetta. "So when we were out I'd remind him, 'Make your noise, Ben. Make your noise, then you'll see where you're going.'"

What Ben had managed to do was teach himself to use a system called echolocation: the same system that bats and dolphins use to "see" with their ears.

Astonishingly, the little boy with no eyes whose mum had always told him he could see had worked out a way to see all on his own: and in the months and years that followed, he has refined his system so that today...all who meet him, as if he was sighted.

When I arrive at the family home, Ben, now 15, opens the door, looks straight into my face with his prosthetic eyes, and shakes my hand before leading me down the corridor to the sitting room. It's a Saturday morning and Ben is playing a computer game. He doesn't see the characters on the screen, of course, but he uses the sounds they make to locate where they are and zaps them with an extraordinary sharpness.

Ben says he has vague memories of vision - he remembers grass and the sky. But he doesn't consider himself handicapped - no, not at all - and he can't recall when he first realised he could tell where things were by listening. "I've been doing it for as long as I can remember," he says, his face lighting up into a huge grin. "I guess when my mom told me I could see I believed her, and I found a way of seeing and this was it. It's second nature to me now."

An eye specialist, experienced in dealing with children who have lost their vision due to cancer believes :

...the most significant thing about Ben isn't the way he gets around, it's the way his mother brought him up.

"I honestly believe that the really interesting thing here is Aquanetta's approach," he says. "I think Ben has done something extraordinary because of her attitude. I think every handicapped child should have a mother like Aquanetta. Every week I have parents in my consulting room whose kid has some minor eye problem and they want me to make excuses for their child so they get more time to do their exams or their homework, and here's Aquanetta, with a child who has a really serious disability, and instead of trying to get help for him she's raising him to think of himself as completely normal. And look at him: he's a happy kid, having a happy and normal life.

"The hardest part of my job is when I have to talk to parents who've just found out their child is blind ... their whole world has just caved in. Now I can say, your child can have a normal life: look at this boy, Ben. Look at how his mum treated him, and learn from it."

The power of the human mind to define and create reality is something truly awesome.

And it is fascinating that this boy's ability to see came from using a sensory technique essential to the survival of bats and dolphins. One that humans, we are told, are not supposed to have.

But one that we can clearly learn to use, if the practice-to-perfection trial and error process begins early enough.

7 Metre Long Python Eats 11 Guard Dogs

Huge Snakes Seen Wrestling Alligators In The Everglades


Photo from the New Straits Times website


The New Straits Times reports from Segamat that local villagers have solved the mystery of why guard dogs around a farmer's orchard have been disappearing.

A seven metre long python has been eating them.

In three months, the monster 70kg python is believed to have consumed 11 dogs.

The name was so huge it took six men some three hours to catch it. They tied it to a tree until Wildlife and National Parks Department officers came to collect it.


As well as eating dogs, some monster pythons like to wrestle alligators :

In February, a group of tourists at the Pa-hay-okee Overlook in Florida's Everglades National Park stumbled upon a battle between an alligator and a python. The stunned onlookers watched as the snake wrapped itself around the alligator, only to see its opponent counter by rolling over and grabbing the snake in its mouth and swimming off with the snake in its jaw.

It was not the first such battle. In January of last year, a horde of tourists watched another epic contest between an alligator and a python at the park's Anhinga Trail. After more than 24 hours in the jaws of the alligator, that snake broke free and moved off into the marsh.

For now, the alligators in the Florida Everglades are holding their ground against the invading snakes. But the odds may be changing. The park is being overrun with Burmese pythons, one of the world's largest snakes. These pythons can grow to be more than 20 feet (6 meters) long in their natural habitat in Southeast Asia.

The Burmese python is just one of thousands of non-native animal and plant species that have invaded the United States in the last decades.

6 Metre Long Python Strangles Circus Employee

Pig With Two Faces, Four Eyes Born



The past twelve months has seen a truly bizarre assortment of two-faced animals coming into this world. Dogs, cats, sheep, deer, rats.

Now there's a two-faced pig.

The pig was born in China's Quanhouz prvoince.

2007 is the Chinese Year Of The Pig, coincidentally, which begins on February 18, and pigs are regarded as symbols of fertility.

If you can't make sense of the photo above, just hold your hand or a bit paper to one side of the pig's head, so only half is revealed. It is a mirror-image, and quite an interesting effect when you take your hand away again. Almost like an optical illusion.

Jungle Girl Found, Reunited With Father After 19 Years In The Wilds Of Cambodia

But Now She Wants To Go Back To The Jungle


Ro : She came out of the jungle after 19 years. Now she wants to go back.


A remarkable story of human survival in the wilds we mostly abandoned when we chose to live together in communities, and tore down jungles for farmlands.

There's been dozens of these kinds of stories over the decades. From the World War 2 Japanese soldier who hid out on a Pacific Island until the late 1960s, to tales as recent as a few years ago, of lost children being adopted and raised by apes or other animals.

This woman, back in the civilised world, doesn't speak the local language, so nobody yet knows how she managed to survive in the jungle for almost two decades.

But she clearly doesn't like 'our world'.

From the UK Independent :

A woman who disappeared in the jungles of north-eastern Cambodia as a child has apparently been found after living in the wild for 19 years.

The woman - believed to be Rochom P'ngieng, who would now be 27 years old - was described as "half-human and half-animal" by a local police chief.

But Sal Lou, a 45-year-old villager in the Oyadao district in Rattanakiri province, where the woman was found last Saturday, said he was her father.

"When I saw her, she was naked and walking in a bending-forward position like a monkey... She was bare-bones skinny. She was shaking and picking up grains of rice from the ground to eat. Her eyes were red like tigers' eyes," he said.

Rochom P'ngieng, then eight years old, disappeared in 1988 when she was herding buffalo in a remote jungle area...

The woman was discovered after a villager noticed that food disappeared from a lunch box he left at a site near his farm, Chea Bunthoeun said. "He decided to stake out the area and then spotted a naked human being, who looked like a jungle person, sneaking in to steal his rice," he added.

The villager finally caught the woman on 13 January.

"If she is not sleeping, she just sits and glances left and right, left and right..."

UPDATE : This story is now getting some heavy worldwide media attention. I just can't shake this terrible feeling that this is going to end very badly for this woman.

If she wants to go back to the jungle, then let her go.

To deny her this choice, is to deny her the most basic freedom of humanity. The right to exercise her free will.


From the UK Daily Mail :

She speaks in grunts, crawls instead of walking — and now she wants to go back to live in the jungle.

Filthy and naked when she was discovered, with long matted hair and a furtive, hunted expression, she was caught stealing food left under a tree by a villager.

Yet despite the fact that she is only able to speak three words — father, mother and stomach ache — she has been identified as Ro Cham H’pnhieng, 27.

Ro Cham is finding it hard to adjust to life with other humans. “She prefers to crawl rather than walk like a human,” said Mao Sun, a district police chief in the north-eastern province of Rattanakiri, where the girl’s family live.

“Unfortunately, she keeps crying and wants to go back to the jungle,” he said. “She is not used to living with humans. We had to clothe her. When she is thirsty or hungry she points at her mouth.”

Since they found her, villagers have clothed and fed her. But the woman — uncomfortable in her new surroundings — rebuffs their advances, refusing to use chopsticks and fighting off anyone who approaches.

Nebraskans Witnessed A Flaming Flying Machine Crashing Down Out Of The Sky...

In 1887

"Fragments Of Cog Wheels...Glowing As To Scorch The Grass.."

I can't verify that the article is real, as I don't have access to the original newspaper files from this period, and they are not digitally archived online. But certainly the style of writing fits the era.

Whatever. It's an amazing tale, and all the more interesting as a possible newspaper hoax story in that it preceded a flood of alien spacecraft science fiction stories (or scientific romances as they were then known) in the US and England by more than a decade.

The follow-up article is even more bizarre. Metal that melts in the rain? Fantastically bizarre.

Read on and enjoy :

The Nebraska State Journal, July 7-9, 1884.

                   A CELESTIAL VISITOR.
                   --------------------

           A Startling and Curious Story from the
                  Ranges of Dundy County.
                   --------------------

            It is Evidently a Machine of Human
                     Manufacture.
                   -----------------

          All Particulars that are Yet Learned.
          -------------------------------------

Special to The State Journal.

  BENKELMAN, June 7. -- A most remarkable phenomenon occurred about
1 o'clock yesterday afternoon at a point thirty-five miles northwest
of this place. John W. Ellis, a well known ranchman, was going out
to his herd in company with three of his herders and several other
cowboys engaged in the annual roundup. While riding along a draw
they heard a terrific rushing, roaring sound overhead, and looking
up, saw what appeared to be a blazing meteor of immense size falling
at an angle to the earth. A moment later it struck the ground out of
sight over the bank. Scrambling up the steep hill they saw the
object bounding along half a mile away and disappear in another
draw.

Galloping towards it with all their speed, they were astounded to
see several fragments of cog-wheels and other pieces of machinery
lying on the ground, scattered in the path made by the aerial
visitor, glowing with heat so intense as to scorch the grass for a
long distance around each fragment and make it impossible for one to
approach it. Coming to the edge of the deep ravine into which the
strange object had fallen, they undertook to see what it was. But
the heat was so great that the air about it was fairly ablaze and it
emitted a light so dazzling that the eye could not rest on it for
more than a moment.

An idea of the heat may be gained from the fact that one of the
party, a cowboy named Alf Williamson, stood with his head
incautiously exposed over the bank, and in less than half a minute
he fell senseless. His face was desperately blistered and his hair
singed to a crisp. His condition is said to be dangerous. The
distance to the aerolite, or whatever it is, was nearly 200 feet.
The burned man was taken to Mr. Ellis' house, cared for as well as
circumstances would allow and a doctor sent for. His brother, who
lives in Denver has just been telegraphed for.

  Finding it impossible to approach the mysterious visitor, the
party turned back on it's trail. Where it first touched the earth
the ground was sandy and bare of grass. The sand was fused to an
unknown depth over a space about twenty feet wide by eighty feet
long, and the melted stuff was still bubbling and hissing. Between
this and the final resting place there were several like spots where
it had come in contact with the ground, but none so well marked.

Finding it impossible to do any investigating, Mr. Ellis returned to
his house and sent out messengers to neighboring ranches. When night
came the light from the wonderful object beamed almost like the sun,
and the visitors who went out to see it were entirely powerless to
bear the glow.

This morning another visit was made to the spot. In the party was E.
W. Rawlins, brand inspector for this district, who came into
Benkleman tonight, and from whom a full verification of particulars
is obtained. The smaller portions of the scattered machinery had
cooled so that they could be approached, but not handled. One piece
that looked like the blade of a propeller screw of a metal of an
appearance like brass, about sixteen inches wide, three inches thick
and three and a half feet long, was picked up by a spade. It would
not weigh more than five pounds, but appeared as strong and compact
as any known metal. A fragment of a wheel with a milled rim,
apparently having had a diameter of seven or eight feet, was also
picked up. It seemed to be of the same material and had the same
remarkable lightness.

The aerolite, or whatever it is, seems to be about fifty or sixty
feet long, cylindrical, and about ten or twelve feet in diameter.
Great excitement exists in the vicinity and the round-up is
suspended while the cowboys wait for the wonderful find to cool off
so they can examine it.

Mr. Ellis is here and will take the first train to the land office
with the intention of securing the land on which the strange thing
lies, so that his claim to it cannot be disputed.

A party left here for the scene an hour ago and will travel all
night. The country in the vicinity is rather wild and rough, and the
roads hardly more than trails. Will telegraph all particulars as
fast as obtained.


Here's the follow-up story from the Nebraska State Journal, June 10, 1884.




                  THE MAGICAL METEOR.
                  -------------------

          It Dissolves Like a Drop of Dew Before
                   the Morning Sun.

          The Most Mysterious Element of the
                Strange Phenomenon.
                ------------------

Special to The State Journal.

BENKELMAN, June 9, 1884.  Your correspondent has just returned from
the spot where the aerial visitor fell last Friday. It is gone,
disolved into the air. A tremendous rain storm fell yesterday
afternoon beginning around 2 o'clock. As it approached, in regular
blizzard style, most of those assembled to watch the mysterious
visitor fled to shelter. a dozen or more, among them your
correspondent, waited to see the effect of rain upon the glowing
mass of metal. The storm came down from the north, on it's crest a
sheet of flying spray and a torrent of rain. It was impossible to
see more than a rod through the driving, blinding mass. It lasted
for half and hour, and when it slackened so that the aerolite should
have been visible it was no longer there. The draw was running three
feet deep in water and supposing it had floated off the strange
vessel the party crossed over at the risk of their lives.

They were astounded to see that the queer object had melted,
dissolved by the water like a spoonful of salt. Scarcely a vestige
of it remained. Small, jelly-like pools stood here and there on the
ground, but under the eyes of the observers these grew thinner and
thinner till they were but muddy water joining the rills that led to
the current a few feet away. The air was filled with a faint,
sweetish smell.

The whole affair is bewildering to the highest degree, and will no
doubt forever be a mystery.

Alf Williamson, the injured cowboy, left yesterday for Denver,
accompanied by his brother. It is feared he will never recover his
eyesight, but otherwise he does not appear to be seriously injured.

There has been a continued stream of investigators here for the past
two days, among them a number of members of the press. 

There's something really beautiful about the writing style from the late 1800s. This was before journalism developed a clipped, clinical style. It's chatty, loose and colourful. Curiously, it reminds me a lot of the first person reports that made up the HG Wells 'War Of The Worlds'. Still one of the greatest science fictions stories of all time.

Fantastic stuff.

I've e-mailed two libraries in Nebraska to see if they have these two issues of their newspaper in their archives. Hopefully it won't take too long to hear back from them. While I don't doubt this is an actual article from the late 1800s, it would be nice to get a scan of the original stories.

I'll let you know what I found out.

This is the online source for the articles.


AND THIS

Iran has reportedly had a year long wave of objects falling from the sky over its territory and crashing in fiery heaps.

Here's a few paragraphs from a Fars Agency report :

Eye-witnesses assure that the explosion has been caused as a result of the crash of a radiant unidentified flying object onto the ground.

Meantime, an informed source told FNA that the object has been on fire and there has been thick smoke coming out of it prior to the crash, concluding that the object couldn't have been a meteor as meteors do not smoke.

The source also said that the crash has been witnessed by people in several cities, and mentioned that the rendezvous point is located 100 kilometers from the provincial capital city of Kerman.

He said that people in the city of Rafsanjan also reported to have witnessed a similar incident several days ago.

Similar crash incidents have been witnessed frequently during the last year all across Iran, and officials believe that the objects could be spy planes or a hi-tech espionage device.

How Does A Whale Say It's Sorry?

Man Gets "Good Vibes" Off Whale That Smashed Up His Boat

A man is out on the water in his new catamaran. He ducks beneath deck for a nap (?) and when he wakes up his catamaran has been smashed the tail of a massive whale. It gets weirder :

(Mr Wright) rushed up on deck to find himself staring at a whale's head about a foot away.

"I got good vibes off him. I thought he was trying to say sorry mate, I didn't mean to,"

"When I first saw him I thought he had come back for the coup de grace..."

The whale nicked off after giving him the "sorry mate" vibe. Mr Wright was picked up by a rescue helicopter five hours later.

Clearly if the whale was sorry, he would have given Mr Wright a ride back in to shore.

What exactly is he going to write down on his insurance claim?

Go Here To Read The Whole Story

THE CALF WITH TWO FACES




An amazing image. I'm always fascinated by the mirror-like quality of double/split faced animals, like the calf above.

The calf was created via artificial insemination, and is perfectly healthy, according to the farmer who owns it, Kirk Heldreth. He had hoped the calf born from the process would be of a higher genetic quality than his other stock. The farmer is not complaining, however.

Locals have been flocking to Heldreth's Virginia, USA, farm to see this miraculous creature. Sounds like he intends to keep it alive.

From ABCNews.com :

The animal is normal from its tail until its unusually large head. The calf breathes out of two noses and has two tongues, which move independently, according to Heldreth. There appears to be a single socket containing two eyes where the heads split.

"It's the craziest thing I've ever seen," the dairyman said.

According to MedicineNet.com, the condition is called diprosopus. It happens when twins start to form and don't completely separate. In most cases, the twins are completely fused with one set of limbs, but part or all the face is duplicated.

TEN OF THE WORLD'S WEIRDEST PEOPLE

This story from OddPeak brings together the 10 most bizarre, downright weirdest people in the world.

* Thai Ngoc has not slept for three decades.

* Sanju Bhagat stomach swelled so big that he couldn't breathe properly. When surgeons cut him open, they found his twin brother inside his stomach, with fully formed arms, legs, teeth and hair.

* Shoichi Yokoi was a Japanese soldier sent to Guam in 1941. He was discovered hiding out in a cave, still believing he was at war, 28 years later.

* Mehran Nasseri is an Iranian refugee who has lived at a French airport since 1988.

* Matayoshi Mitsuo claims that he is Jesus Christ. The Japanese Jesus that is. He's a politician who has urged those running against him to commit suicide. He expects to one day be named Secretary General of the United Nations.

* Lal Bihari was officially dead from 1976 to 1994. It took him eighteen years of fighting Indian bureacracy to finally be recognised as...a living person.

* David Icke used to play professional football in the UK. Now he is world famous for his theorising that the human race was once ruled by reptillian humanoids. He claims the Queen of England, President George W. Bush and, uh, Kris Kristofferson are direct descendents of the lizard people.

* David Bawden is an American who claims he was elected Pope in 1990.

* Yoshiro Nakamatsu has analysed and photographed every single meal he has eaten for the past 34 years. He believes he will live to 140 years old. He also invented the computer floppy disk.

* Michel Lotito is a French entertainer whose claim to fame is that he can eat just about anything, including cars, bicycles and televisions. He has an extraordinary stomach, obviously, and is able to consume toxic materials that would kille most normal people.

To this list I would also add this Russian man who manages to remain alive even though his heart no longer pumps blood through his body.

Go Here For The Full Story

THE LUCKIEST MAN IN IRAQ

Iraqi Omar Satar Hussein has survived 30 bombings, 37 shootings and 11 mortar strikes.

He just happens to work with the US Army as a translator.

He is known as "Lucky". No surprises there.

Working for the US Army is about the most dangerous profession an Iraqi can have today. 'Lucky's' a association with the Americans, and the Iraq War, have cost him dearly. His fiancee, family, friends.

Hussein mastered the English language with the help of Abba, Lionel Richie and Bryan Adams cassettes.

His favourite, most inspiring song? "Stayin' Alive' by The Bee Gees.


From the AFP :

"...I'm lucky with my job. I've survived many attacks, but I'm very unlucky with my private life."

The life of an interpreter for the US army in Iraq is not an easy one. From social ostracism to death at the hands of insurgents, the job is fraught with risk.

"Everybody in Baquba knows my job -- I work for the Americans," said Lucky, who, alone among his translator colleagues, does not wear a mask to conceal his identity.

"I have no family anymore. My grandfather told me that I didn't belong anymore, so America is all I have."

Hussein himself has become pretty familiar with the inside of a US military operating room and he likes nothing better than showing off his collection of scars that stretch from his head to his toes, including a nasty cut on his leg from shrapnel that came from a rocket launched by an Apache attack helicopter.

"If I hadn't been lucky I would probably be dead," he said.

A bit of a show-off, Hussein is one of the rare interpreters who actually speaks English like a native, having particularly mastered American slang and profanity...

ELITE SCOTTISH SOLDIERS FACE KILT SHORTAGE

It is what it is. A shortage of kilts :

Soldiers in Scotland's new "super regiment" have to share kilts because of a shortage of the ceremonial dress.

The Royal Regiment of Scotland has 5,000 soldiers but just 320 kilts, just one for every 15 men.

An MoD spokesman said: "A planned deployment will be agreed with the Royal Regiment of Scotland on a roll-out basis with two battalions of kilts made by May 2007 and the full programme completed by January 2008.

Kilts deployed.

THE MAFIA NOW TARGETING....CHEESE

Over the decades, the criminal entity commonly known as the 'Italian Mafia' have turned a buck (or ten million) from bootlegging booze, smuggling heroin and cocaine, exorting shopkeepers and presidents, performing assassinations by contract - you name, and they've found a way to make money out of it.

But times are getting tough, even for the Mafia. There used to be a lot of money to made from olive oil, but now the Mafia has found something even more profitable.

Hijacking cheese trucks, particularly the ones carrying wheels of Parmasen.

From the UK Observer :

Gangs lie in wait at service stations on the Milan-Bologna motorway to ambush drivers when they stop for coffee. In one instance, a driver was threatened by four armed men, tied up and gagged, and his van carrying 300 wheels of cheese was driven away. The wheels were taken to an industrial estate, cut up and then sold in stores.

Article continues

---

---

According to Giorgio Ciroldi of Ferrarini in Reggio Emilia, one of the biggest producers of the sharp and granular cheese, the stolen Parmesan usually ends up in the south of Italy, on sale in corner shops where no questions are asked about its provenance.

To counter the thefts, producers and the Italian farmers' union, Coldiretti, are experimenting with microchips hidden in the crusts of the cheese, which means they are more easily identifiable. Markings burnt on to the crust can also help police track the stolen cheese.

Although similar hard cheese is made all around the world, the authentic Parmesan comes from a specific area around Parma and Reggio Emilia and is made from cows' milk.

The average Italian family is said to eat half a kilo of Parmesan a week, mostly by sprinkling it on pasta.

MORE BIZARRE DEEP SEA OCEAN LIFE

METHANE VENTS LIKE UNDERWATER ZOOS FOR EXOTIC CREATURES


From New Scientist :

The deep-sea communities live around methane seeps off New Zealand’s eastern coast, up to 1 kilometre beneath the sea surface. The team of 21 researchers from the US and New Zealand, who spent two weeks exploring the area, have just returned to shore.

Cold seeps are areas of the seabed where methane or hydrogen sulphide gas escape from stores deep underneath. Like hydrothermal vents, the gases support unique life forms that can convert the energy-rich chemicals into living matter in the absence of any sunlight.

(Researchers) used sonar to map the seafloor and to detect plumes of water rich in methane, then lowered a video and stills camera system over each site.

This allowed them to record images of tube worms between 30 cm and 40 cm in length as they emerged from beneath limestone boulders. They also recorded corals, sponges and shell beds covered with various types of clam and mussel.

Go Here For The Full Story

FOR FIVE YEARS, MYSTERY MOURNER HAS LEFT ROSES ON THE GRAVE OF MURDER VICTIM

Is the mystery stranger who has left more than more 170 roses on the grave of an unsolved murder victim the person responsible for the murder?

This is exactly the question that the family of Frances Lunsford are asking.

One month after Frances was murdered, five years ago, a single, long-stemmed fake rose appeared on her grave. The roses still appear on her grave, but nobody knows who is leaving them there.

From the Associated Press :

When I first found them, I started to throw them away," said Lunsford's siter, Rhonda Shaw, who first found the roses at the Ty Ty Baptist Church cemetery.

"But then I thought, 'No, these must be from someone who truly cared about Frances.'"

Lunsford's murder remains unsolved and no arrests have ever been made in the case.

Family members asked relatives and just about anyone who they could think of who might be visiting the grave. No one knew anything.

Shaw decided the roses were from someone devoted to her sister. But the problem was that her family didn't know anyone in Lunsford's life who was devoted to her.

Lunsford's sister decided that maybe the roses didn't come from someone who loved her sister, maybe they came from someone who had a guilty conscience. Maybe they came from the person who had killed her sister.

MEET FATHEAD - THE FISH OF NIGHTMARES



Is this absolutely repulsive or just kinda cute?

Apparently, this fish is actually called a 'fathead', being of the genus Psychrolutes.

It was trawled up from the ocean floor below 1000 metres, north-west of New Zealand in 2003.

ELEPHANTS IN SEARCH OF RICE BEER KILL VILLAGERS

One of the most amazing segments from a nature doco I remember seeing as a kid showed a group of African elephants congregating around piles of fermenting fruit and berries, and tucking in, with obvious delight.

The elephants got pissed, then partied...which for these elephants meant charging around in circles, trying to trip each other over and falling in a heap harumphing in delight. The elephants were shown the next morning, looking hungover, moving slow, squinting at the sun, trying to sleep off the damage.

The narrator explained that this group of elephants returned to the same area each year, just in time for their fermented fruit piss-up.

This story from the London Times claims that elephants tearing apart villages, and villagers, in India in search of rice beer are only doing so because they smell the beer as a food source. Perhaps. Or maybe they want to party, like their ancient African relatives :

A herd of elephants drunk on rice beer has trampled three people to death, including a four-year-old boy, on a rampage through a village in the northeastern Indian state of Assam.

Residents of Teok Kathoni tried to scare them off using drums and firecrackers, but the elephants consumed the remote village’s stocks of rice beer, then charged through huts, killing the boy and injuring his eight-year-old brother.

...as those forests have shrunk, the elephants have strayed into villages, destroying crops, raiding granaries and attacking humans. They also appear to have developed a taste for the potent rice beer that villagers brew and store in their homes.

It's a war. The villagers of Assam have killed some 265 elephants in the past five years. The elelphants have killed 239 people. The villagers are winning, for now.

“The elephants don’t have a home and their food supplies have dropped, so they go into the paddies and villages in search of food,” said Ravi Singh, of WWF India.

“They have a sharp sense of smell, so they are attracted by the pungency of the rice beer. It’s not the alcohol, it’s the smell from the fermentation process that attracts them.”

Go Here For The Full Story

ENGLISH VILLAGES REPLICATED IN CHINA

BRITISH FISH AND CHIP SHOP OWNERS "PEEVED"

All across China, replica English villages are popping up on the outskirts of major cities. British Town, Thames Town, it's a remarkable housing phenomenon, and is proving extremely popular with the cashed-up Chinese middle class.

Reproducing English villages and architecture in China is not necessarily a new thing, however. When I was living in Somerset in the late 1990s, a local village church was bought by a Chinese developer, who then dismantled the church brick by brick and sent it back to China, where it was rebuilt for English-themed weddings and baptisms.

From YahooNews.com :

An hour's drive from Shanghai's skyscrapers in the suburb of Songjiang lies Thames Town, complete with pub, fish-and-chip shop and even a bronze statue of Winston Churchill.

"I wanted the properties to look exactly the same as those in the United Kingdom," James Ho, the director of privately owned Shanghai Henghe Real Estate Co. Ltd., one of the town's five developers.

"I think English properties are very special. When we decide to learn from others, we should not make any improvements or changes. I emphasised this policy to my staff," he told Reuters.

The development, which cost about 5 billion yuan (334 million pounds), is expected to house 10,000 people.

Yet that copycat feeling has irked some people, not least Gail Caddy from Lyme Regis in Dorset, southwest England.

She said her pub and fish-and-chip shop have been replicated in Thames Town. Her establishments, the Rock Point Inn and Cob Gate Fish Bar, have both been reproduced almost exactly, though Caddy's fish-and-chip shop is spelt "Cobb".

"I feel cheated considering that they have copied the whole unique experience of my two businesses here," she said.

Almost all the houses have been sold for prices starting at three million yuan (about 200,000 pounds). Most buyers are from Shanghai.

British architecture is not the only inspiration for town planners in China. An Italian and German town are also planned.

SUPERCOWS AND GLOW IN THE DARK PIGS

Some cloned meat products have already been cleared by the US Food And Drug Administration for retail sale, and scientists have talked about likelihood of something close to a 'meat tree' becoming a reality.

In the meantime, we have the bizarre reality of genetically altered animals.

Super cows, pigs that glow in the dark and goats that produce spider's silk. Not fantasy, but already a reality.

Genetically altering, or tinkering, with the building blocks of animal life is now a booming industry. Curiously, those furiously opposed to stem cell research, claiming a religious pre-requisite, have little to say about the human alteration of some of God's other creatures.

From the UK Daily Mail :

Channel 4 is to unveil a shocking menagerie of genetically modified animals in a new show revealing the frightening leaps technology has taken.

Among the bizarre engineered creatures from around the world is a giant cow, three times the size of ordinary cattle, reared without fat to produce gallons of milk.

But the so-called Belgian Blue - pictured here - is perhaps the least disturbing of the creatures to be shown in the three-part series Channel 4 Farm this winter. There are also glow-inthedark pigs and goats which produce spider's silk.

TV scientist Olivia Judson and journalist Giles Coren travel the world to visit the places where these animals are now being reared.

There is even a genuine "allotment" of growing human noses.

If a human gene or two is added to the DNA of a cow to produce leaner meat, and you eat it in steak form, does that count as cannibalism?