Hitler ‘gave go-ahead to Rudolf Hess peace mission’

Rudolf Hess’s flight to Britain during World War Two in a bizarre attempt to secure peace was backed by Adolf Hitler, fresh documents claim.

History has long recorded that the Nazi number three was acting alone when he piloted a Messerschmitt to Scotland in May 1941.

He parachuted out over Renfrewshire and was arrested by a farmhand with a pitchfork.

Hess was, apparently, trying to contact the Duke of Hamilton to set peace talks with Winston Churchill in motion under his own initiative.

Hitler was even supposed to have scrambled aircraft to try to stop Hess, his deputy, from leaving Germany.

But a 28-page notebook discovered in a Russian archive disputes this theory and indicates that Hitler was in on the mission. It was written in 1948 by Major Karlheinz Pintsch, a long-time adjutant to Hess.

He was captured by the Soviets and spent years undergoing torture and interrogation at their hands.

In the notebook he writes that Hitler hoped that an ‘agreement with the Englishmen would be successful’.

Pintsch notes that Hess’s task – five weeks before Germany launched its invasion of Russia – was to ‘bring about, if not a military alliance of Germany with England against Russia, then to bring about a neutralisation of England’.

Pintsch’s interrogation transcripts found in the same archive in Moscow show that Hitler was not surprised when news came through of Hess’s capture.

The relevant section reads: ‘Nor did he rant and rave about what Hess had done. Instead, he replied calmly: “At this particular moment in the war that could be a most hazardous escapade”.

‘Hitler then went on to read a letter that Hess had sent him.

‘He read the following significant passage out aloud: “And if this project . . . ends in failure . . . it will always be possible for you to deny all responsibility. Simply say I was out of my mind”.’

This is what happened, with both Hitler and Churchill claiming Hess was deranged.

The allegations surfaced in Der Spiegel magazine in Germany over the weekend.

Hess survived the war and was tried at Nuremberg for war crimes.

He was sentenced to life imprisonment and spent more time behind bars than any other Third Reich leaders before taking his own life in Spandau Prison near Berlin in 1987, aged 93.

via Hitler ‘gave go-ahead to Rudolf Hess peace mission’ | Mail Online.

Test of evolutionary theory: marathon runners will hunt Antelope on foot

On the plains of New Mexico, a band of elite marathoners tests a controversial theory of evolution: that humans can outrun the fastest animals on earth.

By Charles Bethea …

The pronghorn is the second-fastest animal on earth, while the men are merely elite marathon runners who are trying to verify a theory about human evolution. Some scientists believe that our ancestors evolved into endurance athletes in order to hunt quad­rupeds by running them to exhaustion. If the theory holds up, the antelope I’m watching will eventually tire and the men will catch it. Then they’ll have to decide whether to kill it for food or let it go.

“I’ve harvested a ton of pronghorn,” bellows Peter Romero, a camo-clad, 260-pound New Mexican big-game guide who’s standing next to me, squinting into a spotting scope. “But never this way.” Romero, who speaks in the calibrated tongue of the modern sportsman, has “harvested” nearly every species in the New Mexico big-game handbook and isn’t shy about showing off cell-phone pics of his trophies. He’s also Outside’s former building manager, and when he heard we wanted to see if a group of marathoners who live and train near 7,000-foot-high Santa Fe could catch an antelope, he offered to help.

Among other services, the tireless Romero showed the runners where to find antelope-hunting permits—they paid $985 for a tag on Craigslist—and explained a few laws the men would have to obey. They’d be required to stay within the roughly five square miles of ranchland we’d received permission to use, and they could pursue only a male antelope with horns taller than its ears. Assuming they actually succeeded in chasing a buck to the point of exhaustion and still felt the resolve to kill it, a licensed hunter would dispatch the animal with a pistol shot. The use of a gun or bow is required, since New Mexico doesn’t allow human-hurled projectiles, sticks, or bare hands to be used as hunting weapons.

via Persistence Hunting Marathoners | OutsideOnline.com.

Neural Networks Show Signs of Memory Formation

Investigators in the United States have taken another major step towards the development of advanced neural networks. They announce the creation of brain cell cultures in the lab, in which neurons can communicate with each other, and also display signs of memory formation.

The ring-shaped networks are capable of allowing neurons to send electrical signals from one another, much like they would do in the human brain. This capability is essential for our thought patterns, movements and automated processes such as breathing and heart beat.

Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh are to praise for the creation of these networks, which also demonstrated abilities beyond what was expected of them. In a series of measurements, the experts determined that the cells within remain in a state of persistent activity.

In the human brain, this type of state is associated with memory formation. If this is true for these neural grids true, then the team will have broken a new barrier in biotechnology and engineering.

The research group that made the discovery was coordinated by lead researcher Henry Zeringue, who also holds an appointment as a bioengineering professor at the Pitt Swanson School of Engineering.

According to the expert, past investigations conducted on humans using Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) have demonstrated that neurons in the cortex start to form memories shortly after they are subjected to stimuli.

via Neural Networks Show Signs of Memory Formation – Softpedia.

The Garden Sprinkler Nebula.

Nebula Henize 3-1475, the “Garden Sprinkler” Nebula. Credit: J. Borkowski, (North Carolina State University, United States),

J. Harrington, (University of Maryland, United States), J. Blondin (North Carolina State University, United States),

M. Bobrowsky (Challenger Center for Space Science, United States), M. Meixner (Space Telescope Science Institute, United States),
and C. Skinner (Space Telescope Science Institute, United States).

via A Spray of Plasma.

Mini-weapons sought by Pentagon for new era of warfare

Under mounting pressure to keep its massive budget in check, the Pentagon is looking to cheaper, smaller weapons to wage war in the 21st century.

A new generation of weaponry is being readied in clandestine laboratories across the nation that puts a priority on pintsized technology that would be more precise in warfare and less likely to cause civilian casualties. Increasingly, the Pentagon is being forced to discard expensive, hulking, Cold War-era armaments that exact a heavy toll on property and human lives.At L-3 Interstate Electronics Corp. in Anaheim, technicians work in secure rooms developing a GPS guidance system for a 13-pound “smart bomb” that would be attached to small, low-flying drone.

Engineers in Simi Valley at AeroVironment Inc. are developing a mini-cruise missile designed to fit into a soldier’s rucksack, be fired from a mortar and scour the battlefield for enemy targets.

And in suburban Portland, Ore. Voxtel Inc. is concocting an invisible mist to be sprayed on enemy fighters and make them shine brightly in night-vision goggles.

These miniature weapons have one thing in common: They will be delivered with the help of small robotic planes. Drones have grown in importance as the Pentagon has seen them play a vital role in Iraq, Afghanistan and reportedly in the raid on Osama bin Laden’s hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

Now, engineers in Southern California and elsewhere are refining drone technology to deliver a powerful wallop with increasingly smaller robotic planes — many of which resemble model aircraft buzzing around local parks.

… This work is aimed primarily at one buyer —the Pentagon, which is seeking a total of $671 billion for fiscal 2012. Of that, drones represent $4.8 billion, a small but growing segment of the defense budget — and that doesn’t include spending on robotic weapons technology in the classified portion of the budget. …

via Mini-weapons: Mini-weapons are sought by Pentagon for new era of warfare – latimes.com.

 

A sleek, delta-winged robotic jet took to the skies for the first time above the Mojave Desert at Edwards Air Force Base.

Boeing Co.’s experimental drone, dubbed Phantom Ray, flew to 7,500 feet and reached speeds of 205 mph in its first flight. The 17-minute flight took place April 27, but Boeing officials did not confirm details until Tuesday.

The Phantom Ray, which resembles a giant boomerang, is being developed by the Chicago company for a variety of missions. Its stealthy design could enable it to slip behind enemy lines to knock out radar installations, clearing the way for fighters and bombers.

via LA Times

Terrorist ‘pre-crime’ detector field tested in United States

Planning a sojourn in the northeastern United States? You could soon be taking part in a novel security programme that can supposedly ‘sense’ whether you are planning to commit a crime.

Future Attribute Screening Technology (FAST), a US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) programme designed to spot people who are intending to commit a terrorist act, has in the past few months completed its first round of field tests at an undisclosed location in the northeast, Nature has learned.

Like a lie detector, FAST measures a variety of physiological indicators, ranging from heart rate to the steadiness of a person’s gaze, to judge a subject’s state of mind. But there are major differences from the polygraph. FAST relies on non-contact sensors, so it can measure indicators as someone walks through a corridor at an airport, and it does not depend on active questioning of the subject.

The tactic has drawn comparisons with the science-fiction concept of ‘pre-crime’, popularized by the film Minority Report, in which security services can detect someone’s intention to commit a crime. Unlike the system in the film, FAST does not rely on a trio of human mutants who can see the future. But the programme has attracted copious criticism from researchers who question the science behind it (see Airport security: Intent to deceive?). … So far, FAST has only been tested in the lab, so successful field tests could lend some much-needed data to support the technology. …

via Terrorist ‘pre-crime’ detector field tested in United States : Nature News.

Tunnel found under temple in Mexico

Researchers found a tunnel under the Temple of the Snake in the pre-Hispanic city of Teotihuacan, about 28 miles northeast of Mexico City.

The tunnel had apparently been sealed off around 1,800 years ago.

Researchers of Mexico’s National University made the finding with a radar device. Closer study revealed a “representation of the underworld,” in the words of archaeologist Sergio Gomez Chavez, of Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History.

Experts found “a route of symbols, whose conclusion appears to lie in the funeral chambers at the end of the tunnel.”

The structure is 15 yards beneath the ground, and it runs eastwards. It is about 130 yards long.

“At the end, there are several chambers which could hold the remains of the rulers of that Mesoamerican civilization. If confirmed, it will be one of the most important archaeological discoveries of the 21st century on a global scale,” Gomez Chavez said late Thursday.

Teotihuacan, with its huge pyramids of the Sun and the Moon, its palaces, temples, homes, workshops, markets and avenues, is the largest pre-Hispanic city in Mesoamerica. It reached its zenith in the years 300-600 AD.

via Tunnel found under temple in Mexico.

Jellyfish Stings Over 400 On Cocoa Beach

More than 400 people have suffered jellyfish stings over the holiday weekend on a Central Florida beach.

Brevard County Ocean Rescue Assistant Chief Eisen Witcher says legions of jellyfish called mauve stingers washed ashore from the Atlantic, primarily around Cocoa Beach.

Witcher says more than 200 people suffered sings to their legs, arms and torsos on Saturday. More than 200 more people suffered similar stings Sunday. No major health problems were reported. Still, a lot of people said they chose to pack it up and take their families elsewhere.

“We’re going to a pool, where there’s no jellyfish,” said Frank Cortez, a beach visitor.

The reddish-colored jellyfish have purple barbs that sting. Lifeguards offered victims sprays of vinegar to neutralize the stinging cells. Witcher recommended that swimmers apply Benadryl to itching or painful welts.

The vinegar neutralizes the jellyfish sting, which is much like the sting of a bee … Melissa Smith said people should stay home and avoid the beach.

“Don’t come to Cocoa Beach, stay at your pool,” said Smith.County officials said Monday that they believe consistent east winds and a east swell are causing the jellyfish to wash up.

via Jellyfish Stings Over 400 On Cocoa Beach – News Story – WFTV Orlando.

Narcolepsy cases rising after swine flu vaccine

Ninety-three people in Sweden, most of them children, have been diagnosed with narcolepsy since taking the swine flu vaccine Pandemrix last winter, according to figures from the Swedish Medical Products Agency (Läkemedelsverket).In 88 of the 93 cases, the agency has identified a direct correlation between the vaccine and the onset of narcolepsy, a sleep disorder causing extreme drowsiness and daytime sleep attacks.

According to the Swedish Association of Persons with Neurological Disabilities (Neurologiskt handikappades riksförbund – NHR), the agency is examining a further 135 cases involving children and will present its full findings later this summer.

NHR announced on Friday the launch of a 250,000 kronor ($40,000) research grant to facilitate studies of the relationship between Pandemrix, a drug manufactured by pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline, and narcolepsy.

“We are deeply concerned and have decided that things needs to happen, and quickly,” said NHR chair Kathleen Bengtsson-Hayward in a statement.

A study presented in March by the Medical Products Agency showed that children and adolescents under 20 vaccinated with Pandemrix could be up to four times as likely to develop narcolepsy as those not inoculated.

Since August 2010, at least 12 countries have reported cases of narcolepsy, particularly among children and adolescents, after receiving a swine flu, or H1N1, vaccine.

Figures from Sweden’s National Board of Health and Welfare (Socialstyrelsen), show that 31 million people have been vaccinated with Pandemrix in Europe.

According to the WHO, the rates of narcolepsy reported in Sweden, Finland and Iceland were higher than those in other countries.

via Narcolepsy cases rising after swine flu vaccine – The Local.

Christian Bohlin Builds Giant Duck-Shaped Boat

Ducks are great swimmers — but they also make for great boats.

At least according to shipbuilder Christian Bohlin, who sailed his eye-catching duck-shaped ship across Stockholm harbor on May 27.

One of two novelty boats constructed by the shipwright, this waterfowl-inspired watercraft has plenty of high-flying features. The ship reportedly boasts a sauna, a kitchenette and two sleeping cots for bird-brained sailors.

The boat is expected to sell for about $58,000 when it hits the market at an upcoming boat expo in Sweden.

via Christian Bohlin Builds Giant Duck-Shaped Boat.