Gold Spells Trouble for the Dollar

The value of gold and silver are on the rise, but this spells trouble for the declining dollar index which could push as low as 66 points, according to Chris Zwermann, strategist from Zwermann Financial.

Gold made new highs Wednesday and “looks like it’s going further up,” he told CNBC.

“The question is what really does gold tell us,” he said, adding that gold’s strength is “a sign that the dollar is going to weaken earlier or later in the next few days already, and the stock markets turn around again.”

The dollar is on a downward trend, currently resting at about 76 points, but “the dollar so far didn’t manage to come out of this downtrend,” Zwermann said, adding that the dollar doesn’t have the strength to turn around at the moment, pushing the index target as low as 66 points.

While gold strength spells trouble for the US dollar, the silver market is likely to rise with gold pushing the spot silver value to more than $20 per ounce, he said.

Gold made new highs Wednesday and “looks like it’s going further up,” he told CNBC. …

via Gold Spells Trouble for Greenback: Charts – Economy * Europe * News * Story – CNBC.com.

Here’s another tip:

“You don’t want to chase the railroads or transportation stocks at this point—rather, we want to run where Buffett’s going than where he’s been,” Altucher told CNBC. Altucher said Buffett’s latest new position is Becton Dickinson and he also added to Johnson & Johnson. “Buffett is making a good long-term bet on the health care industry with the aging baby boomers – cnbc

All precious metals are increasing in value. The gold I bought years ago when it was low has turned out to be a fantastic investment. I’m not selling yet. Gold is still going up. At this time, I recommend buying some palladium. It is cheaper than gold and has great potential based on its uses in alternative energy technologies.  You want to buy low and sell high, and the price of palladium is currently low, but it has been much higher in the past. The 5 year high is $579/oz. Palladium is currently around $329 and has been climbing all year.

Japanese fishing trawler sunk by giant jellyfish

A 10-ton fishing boat has been sunk by gigantic jellyfish off eastern Japan.

The trawler, the Diasan Shinsho-maru, capsized off Chiba`as its three-man crew was trying to haul in a net containing dozens of huge Nomura’s jellyfish.

Each of the jellyfish can weigh up to 200 kg and waters around Japan have been inundated with the creatures this year. Experts believe weather and water conditions in the breeding grounds, off the coast of China, have been ideal for the jellyfish in recent months.

The crew of the fishing boat was thrown into the sea when the vessel capsized, but the three men were rescued by another trawler, according to the Mainichi newspaper. The local Coast Guard office reported that the weather was clear and the sea was calm at the time of the accident.

One of the largest jellyfish in the world, the species can grow up to 2 meters in diameter. The last time Japan was invaded on a similar scale, in the summer of 2005, the jellyfish damaged nets, rendered fish inedible with their toxic stings and even caused injuries to fishermen.

Relatively little is known about Nomura’s jellyfish, such as why some years see thousands of the creatures floating across the Sea of Japan on the Tsushima Current, but last year there were virtually no sightings. In 2007, there were 15,500 reports of damage to fishing equipment caused by the creatures.

Experts believe that one contributing factor to the jellyfish becoming more frequent visitors to Japanese waters may be a decline in the number of predators, which include sea turtles and certain species of fish.

via Japanese fishing trawler sunk by giant jellyfish – Telegraph.

Anglo-Saxon treasures uncovered

A newly-found hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold has been officially acknowledged as treasure by the authorities – meaning the amateur metal detector enthusiast who found it is likely to become a rich man. The hoard was found in a field in Staffordshire by 55-year-old Terry Herbert (pictured) in July. Archaeologists went on to uncover at least 1,345 items, many of them fashioned from gold. Terry Herbert found the gold with a 14-year-old metal detector.

The exact location has been kept secret by archaeologists who says it is the most significant find since Sutton Hoo in unravelling Anglo-Saxon history.

Mr Herbert will have to split the value with the owner of the farmland where it was discovered. Only four helmets like the one from which this cheek plate is taken have survived. The plate would have been worn in battle to mark the warrior’s status.
he vast hoard will officially became the property of the Queen to ensure it does not leave the UK.
Much of the treasure will be on display at Birmingham Museum Art gallery before it is moved to the British Museum in London. Archaeologists say the hoard was likely to be a collection of trophies but they cannot tell yet whether it was from a single battle or from a long and successful military career.

via BBC NEWS | UK | Anglo-Saxon treasures uncovered.

Photo gallery here.

Giant Squid Eaten by Sperm Whale (Rare photos)

Eating on the run, a female sperm whale carries the remains of a giant squid off the Bonin Islands, about 621 miles (1,000 kilometers) south of Tokyo, on October 15, 2009.

The whale almost certainly carried the giant morsel up from the dark depths of the nearby Osagawara Trench, a favorite hunting ground of sperm whales. The whales routinely dive for an hour or more to depths of up to 3,280 feet (1,000 meters) in pursuit of giant squid, which are thought to rarely venture higher than 1,000 feet (300 meters) below sea level.

Battles between giant squid and sperm whales often leave the whales scarred with sucker marks. Until recently, such wounds–along with analysis of sperm whale stomach contents–were the only proof of the whales’ appetite for giant squid.

… A female sperm whale, carrying a piece of giant squid in her mouth, leads a gargantuan dinner party in the northwestern Pacific on October 15, 2009. Sperm whales are voracious hunters of squid—the species as a whole consumes an estimated 110 million tons a year.

Aiding the sperm whale in its hunts is the world’s largest brain, which is surrounded by patches of spermaceti. Once used in candles and ointments, the white, waxy substance was long ago mistaken for the whale’s sperm, leading to the species’ curious name.

via RARE PHOTOS: Giant Squid Eaten by Sperm Whale.

Iraq Swears by Bomb Detector U.S. Sees as Useless

Despite major bombings that have rattled the nation, and fears of rising violence as American troops withdraw, Iraq’s security forces have been relying on a device to detect bombs and weapons that the United States military and technical experts say is useless.

The small hand-held wand, with a telescopic antenna on a swivel, is being used at hundreds of checkpoints in Iraq. But the device works “on the same principle as a Ouija board” — the power of suggestion — said a retired United States Air Force officer, Lt. Col. Hal Bidlack, who described the wand as nothing more than an explosives divining rod.

Still, the Iraqi government has purchased more than 1,500 of the devices, known as the ADE 651, at costs from $16,500 to $60,000 each. Nearly every police checkpoint, and many Iraqi military checkpoints, have one of the devices, which are now normally used in place of physical inspections of vehicles.

With violence dropping in the past two years, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has taken down blast walls along dozens of streets, and he contends that Iraqis will safeguard the nation as American troops leave.

But the recent bombings of government buildings here have underscored how precarious Iraq remains, especially with the coming parliamentary elections and the violence expected to accompany them.

The suicide bombers who managed to get two tons of explosives into downtown Baghdad on Oct. 25, killing 155 people and destroying three ministries, had to pass at least one checkpoint where the ADE 651 is typically deployed, judging from surveillance videos released by Baghdad’s provincial governor. The American military does not use the devices. “I don’t believe there’s a magic wand that can detect explosives,” said Maj. Gen. Richard J. Rowe Jr., who oversees Iraqi police training for the American military. “If there was, we would all be using it. I have no confidence that these work.”

The Iraqis, however, believe passionately in them. “Whether it’s magic or scientific, what I care about is it detects bombs,” said Maj. Gen. Jehad al-Jabiri, head of the Ministry of the Interior’s General Directorate for Combating Explosives.

Dale Murray, head of the National Explosive Engineering Sciences Security Center at Sandia Labs, which does testing for the Department of Defense, said the center had “tested several devices in this category, and none have ever performed better than random chance.”

The Justice Department has warned against buying a variety of products that claim to detect explosives at a distance with a portable device. Normal remote explosives detection machinery, often employed in airports, weighs tons and costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. The ADE 651’s clients are mostly in developing countries; no major country’s military or police force is a customer, according to the manufacturer. …

via Iraq Swears by Bomb Detector U.S. Sees as Useless – NYTimes.com.

A psych weapon at best. At worst, a way to increase the number of bombing deaths.

Pablo Escobar burnt £1m in cash to keep warm on the run

The Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar burnt cash worth more than £1 million to keep his daughter warm during a single night on the run, his son has claimed.

The infamous cocaine baron is said to have lit a bonfire using wads of US dollars at a mountain hideout while he was being hunted by authorities.

Sebastian Marroqui­n, who has changed his name from Juan Pablo Escobar, claimed his father burnt the notes when he realised his daughter Manuela was suffering from hypothermia.

They also used the fire, fuelled by $2 million in cash, to prepare food.

Escobar’s son, who moved with his family to Argentina after his father’s death 15 years ago, also told the Colombian magazine Don Juan the security-mad billionaire bought his own taxi firm to find out when outsiders arrived in their native Medellin. He also moved his family every 48 hours between 15 hideaways he had all over the city.

He even blindfolded them before each move so that they could never work out the whereabouts of each house and give the locations to torturers if they were captured.

Escobar, head of the infamous Medellin Cartel, was shot dead in December 1993 as he tried to escape police.

At the height of his power in 1989, he was ranked the seventh richest man in the world by Forbes magazine with an estimated £18 billion fortune.

via Pablo Escobar burnt £1m in cash to keep warm on the run – Telegraph.

Money couldn’t buy him love.

Telescopes Help Solve 100-year-old Mystery + the Kosmophone (Listen to Cosmic Rays)

Nearly 100 years ago, scientists detected the first signs of cosmic rays — subatomic particles (mostly protons) that zip through space at nearly the speed of light. The most energetic cosmic rays hit with the punch of a 98-mph fastball, even though they are smaller than an atom. Astronomers questioned what natural force could accelerate particles to such a speed. New evidence from the VERITAS telescope array shows that cosmic rays likely are powered by exploding stars and stellar “winds.”

These findings were published in the Nov. 1 online issue of the journal Nature, and are being featured today in a press conference at the Fermi Science Symposium in Washington, DC.

The rarest cosmic rays carry over 100 billion times as much energy as generated by any particle accelerator on Earth. (“Cosmic ray” is a historical misnomer, since they are individual particles, not a ray or beam.) Astronomers have devised ingenious methods for detecting cosmic rays that hit Earth’s atmosphere. However, detecting cosmic rays from a distance requires much more effort.

VERITAS has found new evidence for cosmic rays in the “Cigar Galaxy,” also known as Messier 82 (M82), which is located 12 million light-years from Earth in the direction of the constellation Ursa Major.

“This discovery has been predicted for almost 20 years, but until now no instrument was sensitive enough to see it,” said Wystan Benbow, an astrophysicist at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. Benbow coordinated this project for the Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System (VERITAS) collaboration.

The VERITAS observations strongly support the long-held theory that supernovae and stellar winds from massive stars are the dominant accelerators of cosmic-ray particles. Galaxies with high levels of star formation like M82, also known as “starburst” galaxies, have large numbers of supernovae and massive stars. If the theory holds, then starburst galaxies should contain more cosmic rays than normal galaxies. The VERITAS discovery confirms that expectation, indicating that the cosmic-ray density in M82 is approximately 500 times the average density in our Galaxy, the Milky Way.

“This discovery provides fundamental insight into the origin of cosmic rays,” said Rene Ong, a professor of physics at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the spokesperson for the VERITAS collaboration. …

via Origin Of Cosmic Rays: VERITAS Telescopes Help Solve 100-year-old Mystery.

Here is how to make your own cosmic ray detector. I haven’t tried it.  This is even more interesting to me: The Kosmophone makes music with Cosmic Rays. Hear a sample here. “The Kosmophone is a gamma-ray spectrometer operating in the range of about 3 to 7 million electron-volts (MeV) controlling a MIDI music synthesizer”, in this case a Roland JX-305 synthesizer.

A rainbow in the night sky (photo)

Photographer Chris Walker was returning to his home in Richmond, North Yorkshire, when he saw this rainbow emerge through the rain.

He said: “I noticed something odd in the sky as I was driving home.

“A near full Moon was behind me and the wind was blowing a gale and rain was being driven from clouds on the horizon.

“The moon was so bright that when I arrived home it was obvious that the object in the sky was a rainbow illuminated by moonlight.”

Rainbows are usually created when sunlight is reflected by raindrops, but in this case the moonlight caused the image.

Moonlight rainbows are quite rare as the phenomena requires a combination of very dark skies, the moon at less than 42 degrees high in the sky, and rain falling opposite the moon.

Mr Walker said: “As moonlight is many thousands of times fainter than sunshine the bow is many times fainter and only seen when the moon is near full.

“Even so the eye finds it difficult to discern colours with night vision, but despite that I could even see the red at the top of the bow.”

The ephemeral image is reminiscent of the Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights, which illuminate the night skies in polar regions with a beautiful display of colours.

via Rainbow in the night sky – Telegraph.

The Happiness Hat: A hat that tortures you until you smile (pictures, video)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A wearable conditioning device that detects if you’re smiling and provides pain feedback if you’re not. Frowning creates intense pain but a full smile leaves you pain free! The first in a series of Tools for Improved Social Inter-Acting.

An enclosed bend sensor attaches to the cheek and measures smile size, a servo motor moves a metal spike into the head inversely proportional to the degree of smile. Through repeated use of this conditioning device you can train your brain to smile all the time. The device runs on Arduino.

A smile is a simple action that has the power to make you and everyone around you feel better. Just using the muscles to smile can make you feel happier. Seeing someone else smiling triggers mirror neurons in your own brain, causing you to unconsciously smile yourself. What is the potential of feedback to improve the way we act and feel? On the other hand, how often does the appearance we project misrepresent what we are really thinking and feeling? How do we reconcile these ideas?

via lauren mccarthy.

Video here: http://vimeo.com/7283341

Bald bears baffle vets with mystery condition at German zoo (Live controllable camera)

… the unfortunate Dolores … has lost all her body hair and has just been left with a few tufts around her head. Vets have been left baffled by the condition of the bespectacled bear, who lives at a zoo in Leipzig. And Dolores isn’t the only one. The sudden hair loss has affected all female bears at the zoo.Some experts believe it could be due to a genetic defect though the animals do not seem to be suffering from any other affliction. The bears, which originate from South America, normally have fluffy dark brown fur and would now be growing a thicker fur coat to keep warm during the winter.

But instead they have developed nasty rashes and inflammations on their skin. Unfortunately for the bears, their lack of hair has been pulling in the crowds who want to see want to see the wrinkly animals. Hopefully the zoo will be turning up the heat in their enclosure.

via Bald bears baffle vets with mystery condition at German zoo | Mail Online.

Here is a live controllable camera from a (the same?) zoo in Leipzig. Didn’t see any bears, however.  A vet should be able to diagnose mange and it would be strange (I think) for only the females to get attacked by pests that make their skin fall out. The rashes may be due to the lack of protection from the sun. If you have any more information from the vets, let us know in a comment.  Perhaps animals have a deep genetic sense that knows when the Earth is about to move into a hot period of climate change. Perhaps these bears are getting ready for the Earth to change, same as the “chupacabras” in Texas which are actually foxes with the same condition.