Baby Born In Bay Area With 12 Functioning Fingers, 12 Toes

A Daly City couple is beaming after becoming the proud parents of a healthy but incredibly rare baby boy this month.

Baby Kamani Hubbard has six-fully formed and functional fingers and toes on his hands and feet. It’s called “polydactyly” — extra digits — not an uncommon genetic trait, but Bay Area doctors say they’ve never seen a case so remarkable.

Born at San Francisco’s Saint Luke’s Hospital three weeks ago, Hubbarb seemed so perfect at birth no one noticed.

“Nurses and doctors, looked so normal they couldn’t tell, they told me he was six pounds in good health, that was all they said,” said Miryoki Gross, Hubbard’s mother. But his dad Kris Hubbard noticed this spectacularly rare case of polydactyly: 6-perfect fingers on each hand and 6-perfect toes on each foot, which went well beyond a general trait that runs in his family.

“Some family member have had six fingers, not completely developed. But not the toes,” said Kris Hubbard, 34 and a postal worker.

In fact Kris Hubbard himself had nubs of sixth fingers removed as a child as these non-functional digits routinely are. But Hubbards case is so vanishingly rare according to doctors, and because the extra digits are functional, it’s not a deformity to be discarded.

“It’s merely an interesting and beautiful variation rather than a worrisome thing,” said Dr. Michael Treece and St. Luke’s Hospital Pediatrician. “I would be tempted to leave those fingers in place. I realize children would tease each other over the slightest things, and having extra digits on each hand is more than slight. But imagine what sort of a pianist a 12-fingered person would be imagine what sort of a flamenco guitarist, if nothing else think of their typing skills.” …

via Baby Born In Bay Area With 12 Functioning Fingers, 12 Toes – News Story – KTVU San Francisco.

Ten new species of amphibian discovered in Colombia

The creatures thought to be new to science also include three types of “glass frog”, which get their names from the fact that their skin is so thin that internal organs can show through it.

A new harlequin frog, another species of rain frog and a salamander have also all been found.

The discoveries were made during a three-week expedition to Colombia’s mountainous Tacarcuna area of the Darien, close to the border with Panama, led by scientists from Conservation International and the Ecotropico Foundation.

The survey, under Conservation International’s rapid assessment programme, turned up around 60 species of amphibian, 20 reptiles and almost 120 species of bird – many of which are thought to be found nowhere else.

In addition, some Central American species including a rain frog, a small lizard, a salamander and an as-yet unidentified snake, were recorded for the first time in this northern area of South America, the scientists said.

Other species such as the endangered Baird’s tapir, the Geoffroy’s spider monkey and the white-lipped peccary were also recorded.

Conservation International said the high incidence of new species of amphibian – which are important indicators of environmental problems because they are vulnerable to pollution such as acid rain and pesticides, and to climate change – was cause for hope.

Jose Vicente Rodriguez-Mahecha, scientific director of Conservation International Colombia, said: “Without a doubt, this region is a true Noah’s Ark.

“The high number of new amphibian species is a sign of hope, even with the serious threat of extinction that this animal group faces in many other regions of the country and the world.”

Colombia has one of the most diverse collection of amphibians in the world, with 754 species currently recorded.

Worldwide a third of amphibian species, which include frogs, toads, newts and salamanders, are threatened with extinction as a result of disease, habitat destruction and climate change.

via Ten new species of amphibian discovered in Colombia – Telegraph.

Tools found in Malaysia turn out to be 1.8 million years old

Malaysian archaeologists have announced the discovery of stone tools they believe are more than 1.8 million years old and the earliest evidence of human ancestors in Southeast Asia. The stone hand-axes were discovered last year in the historical site of Lenggong in northern Perak state, embedded in a type of rock formed by meteorites which was sent to a Japanese lab to be dated.

“We received news from Japan two weeks ago which said it is 1.83 million years old, so this find shows the existence of human beings there 1.83 million years ago,” said team leader Mokhtar Saidin from Malaysia’s University of Science. “This is the earliest evidence of Paleolithic culture in the Southeast Asian region,” added Mokhtar, who said he believed the hand-axes were used by homo erectus, an extinct early human.

The archaeologist said that the oldest homo erectus fossil discovered in the region is from Java in Indonesia, and dated at 1.7 million years old. Internationally, the two oldest fossils are from Georgia (1.8 million years old) and China (between 1.7 and 1.8 million years), he said.

“This new find in Malaysia is actually older than those in Georgia and China, but the difference is that what we found was the tool, and we have to continue to look for the human bones,” he said.

The oldest human skeleton ever found in Malaysia is the 11,000-year old “Perak man,” discovered in 1991.

via The Daily Star – Arts & Culture – Tools found in Malaysia turn out to be 1.8 million years old.

Contest: Be the first to name this animal.

Is it real? If so and if you can name it, you’ll win $10. I’m a big spender. Post your answer as a comment. Yo.

Equanion?

Obama and 9/11, What I Don’t Expect.

Are you expecting any 9/11 truth breakthroughs under Obama? Not me.  I predict more of the same. I am accepting that now. I still hope for social and economic change, but in the area of human rights, our UAV attacks will continue to kill foreign kids under Obama as under Bush. Gitmo will remain open a full year after his election… Illegal spying will continue … Rendition to secret prisons in countries that torture continue… and …

I predict that “9/11 Truthers” will find that the meetings on 9/11 between our Senate and House Intelligence heads and  Paymaster General Mushroom from Pak-nuk-istan will continue to be suppressed. Vreeland will continue to be a crazy conman pedophile who tricked someone into sending an email while he was locked up in jail which somehow got him a real office and phone number in the Pentagon where he claimed to work for Naval Intelligence. His note, held by Canadian police, which predicted 9/11 a month before it happened, which named the WTC and the Sears Tower (which Giuliani also inexplicably named on 9/11), will continue to be some kind of con which fooled Ruppert.

The plane into building exercise on 9/11 by the NRO will continue to be a bizarre coincidence. The wings of the jet that hit the Pentagon will continue to defy the laws of physics by folding up and following the body of the jet into a small hole. The Pentagon’s surface to air automated missile defenses will continue to not exist.  Cheney’s war games  on 9/11 and false blips on the radar screens which Air Traffic Controllers would go to jail for talking about, will continue to be ignored. The video evidence from numerous cameras on and around the Pentagon will remain vanished.  WTC7 will continue to have fallen without being hit by a jet, not because it’s owner who said “we decided to Pull It” choose to have it demolished by pre-placed explosives which take weeks to prepare,  but because it was damaged by falling debris and heat in the basement. The plans to invade Afghanistan on Rice’s desk the day before 9/11 will remain an odd coincidence.  The PDB before 9/11 titled Bin Laden Determined to Strike will not be evidence that Bush knew. Nor will the pre-warnings of intelligence agencies around the world. Nor will the insider trading “put options” on 9/6 and 9/7 for UAL stock and on 9/10 for American Airlines.

The Anthrax Attacks which originated from a US bioweapons base, from a person on the 9/11 investigation team who received the highest civilian honor possible from Bush, will continue to be seen as the work of one guy who committed suicide before he could face a trial. There will continue to be no mention of how the White House knew to start taking Cipro, the anthrax antidote the day after 9/11, well before the anthrax letters were even mailed. All of this, all of these details and many more will remain the crazed ramblings of moobat conspiracy theorists under this new president. Once you accept that, you can put all of these things in a box for later, and get to work fixing the most immediate problems: the economy, the economy, and the economy.

Passport RFIDs cloned wholesale by $250 eBay auction spree

Ethical hacker Chris Paget demonstrates a low-cost mobile device that surreptitiously reads and clones RFID tags embedded in United States passport cards and enhanced drivers’ licenses. … – yt

Using inexpensive off-the-shelf components, an information security expert has built a mobile platform that can clone large numbers of the unique electronic identifiers used in US passport cards and next generation drivers licenses.

The $250 proof-of-concept device – which researcher Chris Paget built in his spare time – operates out of his vehicle and contains everything needed to sniff and then clone RFID, or radio frequency identification, tags. During a recent 20-minute drive in downtown San Francisco, it successfully copied the RFID tags of two passport cards without the knowledge of their owners.

Paget’s contraption builds off the work of researchers at RSA and the University of Washington, which last year found weaknesses in US passport cards and so-called EDLs, or enhanced drivers’ licenses. So far, about 750,000 people have applied for the passport cards, which are credit card-sized alternatives to passports for travel between the US and Mexico, Canada, the Caribbean, and Bermuda. EDLs are currently offered by Washington and New York states.

“It’s one thing to say that something can be done, it’s another thing completely to actually do it,” Paget said in explaining why he built the device. “It’s mainly to defeat the argument that you can’t do it in the real world, that there’s no real-world attack here, that it’s all theoretical.” …

Use of the cards is expected to rise as US officials continue to encourage their adoption. Civil liberties groups have criticized the cards and a travel industry association has called on the federal government to suspend their use until the risks can be better understood.

The cards make use of the RFID equivalent of optical barcodes known as electronic product code tags, which are widely used to track cattle and merchandise as it’s shipped and then stored in warehouses. Because the technology employs no encryption and can be read from distances of more than a mile, the tags are highly susceptible (PDF) to cloning and tracking, researchers have concluded.

Paget’s device consists of a Symbol XR400 RFID reader (now manufactured by Motorola), a Motorola AN400 patch antenna mounted to the side of his Volvo XC90, and a Dell 710m that’s connected to the RFID reader by ethernet cable. The laptop runs a Windows application Paget developed that continuously prompts the RFID reader to look for tags and logs the serial number each time one is detected. He bought most of the gear via auctions listed on eBay.

And if you read on, we’ll show you video proof that the thing actually works.

… Caught on Video

Paget’s device has a range of about 30 feet, making it ideal for discretely skimming the EDL and passport card tags of people who pass by his vehicle. With modifications, Paget says his device could read RFID identifiers that are more than a mile away. The antenna was concealed by the vehicle’s tinted window, and the PC and RFID reader fit well below the eye line, making it virtually undetectable by passersby….

via Passport RFIDs cloned wholesale by $250 eBay auction spree • The Register.

Obama set to allow Bush-era ‘torture flights’

Despite promises that torture would be history in the new administration with pulling the shutters on Guantanamo Bay detention centre, US

President Barack Obama has left intact a programme that gives the CIA authority to carry out rendition flights, media reports said on Monday.

In his first few days in office, Obama was lauded for rejecting policies of the Bush era, but it has emerged the CIA still has the authority to carry out renditions in which suspects are picked up and often sent to a third country for questioning, reports the Telegraph.

The practice caused outrage at the EU, after it was revealed the CIA had used secret prisons in Romania and Poland and airports such as Prestwick in Scotland to conduct up to 1,200 rendition flights. The European Parliament called renditions “an illegal instrument used by the United States”.

According to a detailed reading of the executive orders signed by Obama on January 22, renditions have not been outlawed, with the new administration deciding it needs to retain some devices in Bush’s anti-terror arsenal amid continued threats to US national security.

In the executive orders Obama merely promised a review of rendition policy, with the intention of ensuring that suspects were not sent to other countries “to face torture”.

“Obviously you need to preserve some tools — you still have to go after the bad guys,” an administration official told the Los Angeles Times.

“The legal advisers working on this looked at rendition. It is controversial in some circles and kicked up a big storm in Europe. But if done within certain parameters, it is an acceptable practice.”

Khaled Masri, a German citizen, was arrested in Macedonia in 2003 and taken to Afghanistan for five months before the CIA realised it had made a mistake. The Italians sought to prosecute CIA operatives who had arrested Abu Omar, an Egyptian cleric, and flew him to Egypt where he claimed he was tortured.

via Obama set to allow Bush-era ‘torture flights’-US-World-The Times of India.

Render the legal advisers who consider it acceptable.

Update:  There is a claim that rendition to countries that torture will actually be stopped, after all. The CIA will still play body snatcher, but New York attorney Scott Horton writing below for Harper’s says torture and long detentions are not involved in such ordinary renditions. ( I wonder if, when they snatch people, the are ever tempted to dress up in alien costumes?) Nevermind.

The Los Angeles Times just got punked. Its description of the European Parliament’s report is not accurate. (Point of disclosure: I served as an expert witness in hearings leading to the report.) But that’s the least of its problems. It misses the difference between the renditions program, which has been around since the Bush 41 Administration at least (and arguably in some form even in the Reagan Administration) and the extraordinary renditions program which was introduced by Bush 43 and clearly shut down under an executive order issued by President Obama in his first week.

… The extraordinary renditions program involved the operation of long-term detention facilities either by the CIA or by a cooperating host government together with the CIA, in which prisoners were held outside of the criminal justice system and otherwise unaccountable under law for extended periods of time. A central feature of this program was rendition to torture, namely that the prisoner was turned over to cooperating foreign governments with the full understanding that those governments would apply techniques that even the Bush Administration considers to be torture. This practice is a felony under current U.S. law, but was made a centerpiece of Bush counterterrorism policy.

The earlier renditions program regularly involved snatching and removing targets for purposes of bringing them to justice by delivering them to a criminal justice system. It did not involve the operation of long-term detention facilities and it did not involve torture. There are legal and policy issues with the renditions program, but they are not in the same league as those surrounding extraordinary rendition. Moreover, Obama committed to shut down the extraordinary renditions program, and continuously made clear that this did not apply to the renditions program. … – harpers

Who is policing the police? You look at something like this and you have to wonder: what are the checks and balances that keep a rogue person or group from torturing prisoners for fun or profit?

Road sign warns of dinosaurs ahead

An electronic road sign in Indiana was apparently hacked Monday morning by pranksters who used the sign to warn of “raptors” in the road.

Motorists said Monday that a sign at a construction zone on Keystone Avenue in Carmel read: “Raptors Ahead Caution,” WRTV, Indianapolis, reported Monday.

“It’s kind of crazy. I’m totally confused,” one motorist said. “I’m kind of expecting … dinosaurs to run down the road, or something.”

Nancy Heck, a spokeswoman for the city of Carmel, said the sign is owned by contractor Highway Technologies, which operates the programmable signs in the construction area.

The apparent prank comes after a road sign near the University of Texas was similarly hacked with the messages “Caution! Zombies Ahead!” and “Nazi Zombies! Run!!!”

via Road sign warns of dinosaurs ahead – UPI.com.

When I read stories I wonder how many people think that this is just a cover up … that the REAL NEWS is that there actually were Nazi zombies near the University of Texas and raptors in Indiana … probably some government experiments…

Ghostly faces and visions of ‘little people’: The eye disorder that leaves thousands of Britons fearing they’ve lost their senses

An estimated 100,000 people in Britain have Charles Bonnet Syndrome (CBS), which leads to hallucinations. These can include visions of miniature people

Following his wife’s death six years ago, David Stannard has become accustomed to spending quiet evenings alone at his home in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey.

So it came as a surprise to the 73-year-old when he looked up from his television one evening to discover he was sharing his living room with two RAF pilots and a schoolboy.

‘The pilots were standing next to the TV, watching it as if they were in the wings of a theatre,’ he says.

‘The little boy was in a grey, Fifties-style school uniform. He just stood there in the hearth looking puzzled. He was 18 inches high at most.’

Mr Stannard’s guests never said a word and vanished after 15 minutes. That night, he says, the walls of his house, which had always been white, looked as though they had been redecorated in patterned wallpaper with a brickwork effect.

The next morning he was caught off-guard again when he found a fair-haired girl standing on his sofa. She also appeared to be from the Fifties, but was life-size, wearing a short skirt and pink cardigan, with chubby knees, white ankle socks and ribbons in her hair.

‘I watched her for a while,’ he says. ‘She didn’t move much. Then she was gone.’

It would be easy to dismiss Mr Stannard’s story as the bizarre imaginings of an elderly mind. Fortunately, he knew he wasn’t losing his mind; neither was his house haunted.

A few weeks earlier he had been registered blind, though he was still able to watch television if he sat at a certain angle. He’d been warned that as his eyesight deteriorated, he might experience visual hallucinations in the form of Charles Bonnet Syndrome (CBS).

‘I was lucky enough to know what it was,’ he says, ‘otherwise I would have thought I was going bonkers.’

An estimated 100,000 people in the UK have CBS, but many won’t realise it because the condition remains something of a mystery.

The real number is probably higher because sufferers are often too ashamed to talk about what they have seen for fear of being considered crazy. …

As the condition is caused by a lack of stimulation in the visual part of the brain, one of the techniques he is investigating is stimulating the fingertips.

This is based on the fact that studies of brain scans of sight-impaired people reading Braille show increased activity in that area. The theory is that even feeling a dice with dimples could bring visions to a halt….via Ghostly faces and visions of ‘little people’: The eye disorder that leaves thousands of Britons fearing they’ve lost their senses | Mail Online.

The little people fear dice. It all makes sense.