Thursday, March 27, 2008

Crimes :::

French ’serial killer’ couple ‘hunted virgins’

Sitting side by side in court, Michel Fourniret and his wife Monique Olivier will hear charges that he killed seven young women or girls and that she helped carry out one murder and was complicit in four other crimes.

Fourniret, 65, dubbed the “Ogre of the Ardennes” by European media, has shown no remorse for his alleged crimes, say prosecutors, while one girl who escaped his clutches said he boasted he was “far better” than the notorious Belgian paedophile serial killer Marc Dutroux.

Click Here To Read More »

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Science & Tech :::

MIT tackles urban gridlock with foldable car idea

05.jpg CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts (Reuters) - Wouldn’t it be nice to drive a car into town without worrying about finding a parking space?

Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have devised just such a vehicle, a futuristic “City Car” that could even drive itself.

Once at your destination, the vehicle’s computers would, at the press of a button, look for a parking spot behind others like itself, then fold roughly in half so you could stack it there as you would a shopping cart. Click Here To Read More »

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Europe’s Quaero Project Aims to Challenge Google

Some Europeans are concerned about US hegemony in the worldwide information market. Now France — and maybe Germany — aims to develop a Eurocentric alternative to the dominant Internet search engine, Google.

Checking a fact? Planning a vacation? Want information on an illness, a restaurant, a historical event, pet care? Forget all those dusty reference books and do what nearly everyone with an Internet connection does: Google it. Read More »

TiVo to bring YouTube videos to TV screens

tivo.jpgYouTube and TiVo get together ..
TiVo customers will be able to watch YouTube clips on their television sets later this year.

Alviso’s TiVo said Wednesday it had worked out an agreement with YouTube to access its clips through its broadband-connected digital video recorders, that is, the TiVo Series3 and the new HD TiVo.

It didn’t disclose when the new service would launch.

Customers will be able to search and watch YouTube videos, as well as log into their YouTube account and access their favorite clips. Read More »

Camera can See under your Clothes !

t5000.jpg A British company has developed a camera that can detect weapons, drugs or explosives hidden under people’s clothes from up to 25 meters away in what could be a breakthrough for the security industry.

The T5000 camera, created by a company called ThruVision, uses what it calls “passive imaging technology” to identify objects by the natural electromagnetic rays — known as Terahertz or T-rays — that they emit. Read More »

Plan to teach baby robot to talk !

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A university in Devon is preparing to find out if a baby robot can be taught to talk. Staff at the University of Plymouth will work with a 1m-high (3ft) humanoid baby robot called iCub.

Over the next four years robotics experts will work with language development specialists who research how parents teach children to speak. Their findings could lead to the development of humanoid robots which learn, think and talk. Read More »

Dinosaurs exterminated by…insects !

ss1.JPGInsect Attack May Have Finished Off Dinosaurs
ScienceDaily (Jan. 4, 2008) — Asteroid impacts or massive volcanic flows might have occurred around the time dinosaurs became extinct, but a new arguemet is that the mightiest creatures the world has ever known may have been brought down by a tiny, much less dramatic force — biting, disease-carrying insects.

An important contributor to the demise of the dinosaurs, experts say, could have been the rise and evolution of insects, especially the slow-but-overwhelming threat posed by new disease carriers. And the evidence for this emerging threat has been captured in almost lifelike-detail — many types of insects preserved in amber that date to the time when dinosaurs disappeared. Read More »

Test shows possibility to see what others do

ss.JPGWASHINGTON (Reuters) - Brain imaging may make it possible to someday see what others are seeing, U.S. researchers reported on Wednesday.

Such a device would make it possible to decode brain signals and track attention. It may even be possible to “see” someone else’s dream, the team at the University of California Berkeley said. Read More »

Health :::

Hair sample may provide breast cancer diagnosis

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Hair from women with breast cancer can be distinguished from hair obtained from women without the disease, researchers in Australia report.

Click Here To Read More »

Blood pressure jab ‘could save thousands’

Tens of thousands of lives could be saved each year thanks to a new injection to control high blood pressure.Early human trials have found the vaccine cuts hypertension - high blood pressure - with few side effects.

If further trials go well the jab, developed by the Swiss firm Cytos Biotechnology, could be on the market within five years. Click Here To Read More »

Suicide attempts hold extra risks for anorexics

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TORONTO (Reuters) - Anorexics are at a higher risk of death by suicide than the average person because they are more likely to choose deadlier methods like hanging and jumping in front of trains, a study suggested.

The findings, which will be published in the Journal of Affective Disorders this spring, provides insight into identifying patients at risk of carrying out lethal acts that would kill any person, regardless of their health, said lead author Jill Holm-Denoma, an assistant professor at the University of Vermont. Click Here To Read More »

Miscellaneous :::

Pregnant man says it feels “incredible”

Thomas Beatie, a married man who used to be a woman, is pregnant with a baby girl

A married man who used to be a woman says that he is pregnant and will give birth to a baby girl in July.

“How does it feel to be a pregnant man? Incredible,” wrote Thomas Beatie, 34, from the Pacific North West of the United States, in the latest issue of the gay magazine The Advocate. Click Here To Read More »

Gay Palestinian Gets OK to Live With Israeli Lover


Israel has granted a Palestinian a rare residency permit after the man, who is gay, said his sexuality put his life in danger in the West Bank, a Defense Ministry official said on Tuesday.

The 33-year-old Palestinian from Jenin was issued a temporary permit to live with his Israeli partner in Tel Aviv after arguing he faced death threats from fellow Palestinians who disapproved of him being gay, the official said. Click Here To Read More »

I’ve got a hang-up over you, baby!

Alleged lovestruck teen graffiti artists caught swinging from Tenn. bridge

ATHENS, Tenn. - Two teenagers, one dangling from a rope tied to an interstate bridge and holding a can of spray paint, did not see Sheriff’s Deputy Melissa Myers when she drove up. They never got a chance to express their love with graffiti.

“I don’t know what they were thinking,” said Myers, a deputy in McMinn County between Knoxville and Chattanooga. Click Here To Read More »

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Chinese hubby burned alive for unwashed feet

chinese_wed.jpgUnhappy newlyweds in drunken brawl

A Chinese bride burned her new husband to death after he got into bed after a drunken argument without washing his feet, state media reported.

“Wang and his wife, Luo, were married on February 2. The couple, however, frequently fought over trivial things while still on their honeymoon,” the official Xinhua news agency quoted a local newspaper as saying. Click Here To Read More »

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100-year-old Saudi gets 26-year-old wife

saudi_100.jpg Guest list included 120 of his offspring
A 100-year-old Saudi widower has married a third time – taking a 26-year-old woman as his new bride, press reports said on Saturday.

Ahmed Ateeq Al-Hariri Al-Zahrani, who lives in Taif, near Mecca, faced no opposition from his bride-to-be or his family, despite the 80-year age gap, English-language daily, the Saudi Gazette, reported. Read More »

Rich US dog hiding after threats

rich_dog.jpgA dog that inherited $12m (£5.8m) from late New York hotelier Leona Helmsley is in hiding after it was targeted by death threats, US media say.

Trouble, a white Maltese that belonged to the billionaire until her death in August, was flown by private jet to Florida, the New York Post reported.

It says the tiny bitch was whisked away under an assumed name after receiving about 20 threats. Click Here To Read More »

Near-naked Princess Mary portrait wins Bald Archy

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A satirical portrait of the Danish royal family has won this year’s Bald Archy Prize.

Newcastle railway worker James Brennan was awarded the $5,000 prize in Canberra this morning.

His painting shows Princess Mary and her husband, Crown Prince Frederik, in their underwear. Read More »

Vampire lesbians killed British teenager

stacey2611_468x397.jpgTwo lesbian lovers, one of whom who drank blood as part of a vampire cult, battered a 16-year-old British girl with a concrete block and then celebrated with a kiss as she lay dying.

They also made a mobile phone video of the murder and were heard laughing and mocking the accent of their victim, Stacey Mitchell. Click Here To Read More »

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Women dash for cash in stiletto heels

up2.jpgFashionable Amsterdam race features a $15,000 prize

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - Like a herd of antelope, jockeying and shoving for position, 150 young women raced down Amsterdam’s most famed fashion street in stiletto heels Thursday, racing for a $15,000 prize. Read More »

One-legged chicken fights cancer

Eve the chicken

A Worcestershire couple are paying more than £1,000 on cancer treatment to save the life of their one-legged chicken. Elaine Denney said the chicken, named Eve, was “a pet just as much as any of my other animals” and therefore she wanted to do what she could to save it.

Eve had her left leg amputated 18 months ago as a result of cancer. Now a tumour has been removed from her right leg and she will have more treatment. Read More »

ss2.JPGAn Indian man who believed he had been cursed for stoning to death two dogs has atoned for his sin by marrying another dog in a traditional Hindu wedding ceremony.

P. Selvakumar, a 33-year-old farm labourer from the southern state of Tamil Nadu, married the four-year-old stray bitch after it was bathed and processed to his village temple dressed in an orange sari and garlanded with flowers. Read More »


Celebrities :::

Now Danielle Lloyd is caught up in nightclub ‘catfight’ over ex Jermain Defoe

Big Brother contestant and serial Wag Danielle Lloyd was unceremoniously chucked out of a Mayfair nightclub last night for scrapping with a fellow reveller.

The 24-year-old was evicted from Funky Buddha with her new boyfriend after getting involved in a catfight with a rival girl over her ex-lover, Portsmouth footballer Jermain Defoe - who was also at the club. Click Here To Read More »

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Sarkozy’s ex-wife marries in NY to Moroccan-born beau

French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s former wife Cecilia Ciganer-Albeniz has remarried at a private ceremony in New York’s Rockefeller Center.

She wed Moroccan-born public relations executive Richard Attias in the New York landmark’s Rainbow Room.

Arriving in a black limousine with tinted windows, the couple avoided photographers by using an underground car park. Click Here To Read More »

Britney Spears reveals her unsightly ‘elephant legs’

Britney Spears has served up a fresh reminder her perfectly perky pop star veneer is history.

The troubled star revealed her bulky cellulite-riddled legs as she stepped out in hot pink cut-off shorts for an outing in LA yesterday. Click Here To Read More »

Heather Mills torn to shreds by judge over Paul McCartney divorce

Heather Mills’ reputation has been torn to shreds after the High Court judge presiding over her divorce from Sir Paul McCartney accused her of “make-belief”, inconsistency and inaccuracy.

Mr Justice Bennett said she was a “less than impressive witness” during the six-day hearing last month who “wholly exaggerated” the extent of her wealth before she met her now ex-husband. Click Here To Read More »


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Lonely wives club: Madonna and Gwyneth out together… without either of their husbands

Amid speculation her marriage is in trouble, Madonna has turned to her best friend Gwyneth Paltrow.

It was strictly a girls’ night only as the two dined together at celebrity haunt Locanda Locatelli restaurant in Marylebone last night.

The pop star’s husband Guy Ritchie was nowhere in sight - the couple, who are said to be leading separate lives, have not been photographed together since 8 January while they were on a trip to India. Click Here To Read More »

What made Kylie dance on the table? How the singer’s proving she can do without her ‘gay husband’ and mentor

kyliem_04.jpgThree hours earlier the applause had been rapturous and her performance immaculate as Kylie Minogue was named Best International Female Artist at the Brit Awards.Even as her delicate frame was swept aloft by Dr Who star David Tennant, who presented her with the Brit, Kylie had kept her composure. Click Here To Read More »


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Retired Kuwaiti pop star joins al-Qaeda in Afghanistan

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A retired Kuwaiti superstar singer has recently the Gulf emirate for Afghanistan to join ranks with al-Qaeda and Taliban in fighting foreign troops there, according to a press report published Saturday.

Hussein al-Ahmad, who was until recently one of the Gulf’s most famous pop stars, decided to join “his brother Mujahideen in Afghanistan to support Islam and fight along his fellow Muslims of al-Qaeda”, reported Kuwaiti daily Al-Rai Saturday. Click Here To Read More »

Pussycat Dolls launch a new clothing line…not that there’s much of it

023.jpgIt should come as no surprise that successful girl troupe the Pussycat Dolls have decided to capitalise on their success by launching a branded clothing line - and that they have opted for as little clothing as possible. Pussycat Dolls founder Robin Antin debuted a lingerie collection as part of Los Angeles Fashion Week, with the main emphasis for her inspiration coming from ’scantily’ and ‘clad’. Click Here To Read More »


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Madonna is at it again in yet another sultry photo shoot

012.jpg Madonna proves she’s still fighting fit as she poses in a boxing ring for the provocative cover of US magazine, Interview. The Material Girl star, 49, was photographed by Steven Klein for the April 2008 issue of the publication, which is on newsstands in the States now. Click Here To Read More »

Patrick Swayze still smoking despite being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer

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Puffing on a cigarette is not the most sensible thing to do when you’re battling cancer.

But if, as reports suggest, Patrick Swayze has only a few weeks to live, he may think it makes little difference.

Read More »

Britney’s tears as Adnan is banned from her home

britneyadnan.jpgAn emotional Britney Spears emerged from a LA restaurant in tears yesterday after discovering her boyfriend Adnan Ghalib had been denied access to her home.

The pair were reunited over the weekend where they were photographed together for the first time since she checked out from hospital earlier this year but it appears her father has stepped in to prevent pair spending any more time together. Click Here To Read More »

Chuck Norris the only WMD in Iraq, say U.S. troops

captured.jpg Hollywood action star Chuck Norris, known for his martial arts prowess and tough-guy image, has become a cult figure among the U.S. military in Iraq and an unlikely hero for some in Iraq’s security forces.

A small cardboard shrine is dedicated to Norris at a U.S. military helicopter hub in Baghdad, and comments lauding the manliness and virility of the actor have been left on toilet walls across Iraq and even in neighboring Kuwait, soldiers say. Click Here To Read More »