Man jailed for three months for making ‘bean’ bomb

A 26-year-old man who made a hoax bomb from two tins of beans has been jailed for three months at Londonderry Magistrate’s Court.

James McAuley from Kavanagh Court threw the tins into his uncle’s home in Ballachmore in the early hours 6 June.

The cans had been taped together and had wires and a watch attached to them.

The court heard how McAuley shouted “tick, tock” as he threw the device through the front door.

A prosecuting solicitor told district judge Barney McElholm that McAuley’s uncle threw the tins out of his home and they landed underneath his car. He then alerted the police.

The solicitors said the incident caused widespread disruption, which included the evacuation of more than 20 nearby homes and the tasking of army bomb disposal experts.

He said in a separate incident two months earlier on 8 April, McAuley was arrested for disorderly behaviour at Strand Road, when he was verbally abusive to police officers. …

via BBC News – Man jailed for three months for making ‘bean’ bomb.

Siberian UFO: Film claims to show little green men walking about after ‘spaceship crash’

Top: They’re here: In this still from the film clip, an object which appears to be disc-shaped with flashing lights hovers above the Siberia landscape

Bottom image : This screen grab shows an apparent UFO on the ground with what appears to be an unearthly being to its right and four other beings directly in front of the glowing craft

For an alien looking to explore Earth, the frozen wastes of Siberia may not be the most attractive of landing locations.

But if this film footage is to be believed, that’s exactly where these ‘little green men’ chose to land their UFO.

The clip, filmed in the remote Irkutsk region of Siberia, appears to show a strange glowing craft and five aliens walking about in the snow.

It shows what seems to be an alien about four feet tall, standing 15 feet away from its glowing craft, with four other similar figures nearby.

The short clip was taken two days after mysterious lights illuminated the Siberian night skies above Bayanday, also in Irkutsk.

‘These two videos from two independent witnesses show that a UFO event of Roswell-sized proportions has taken place in Russia,’ said UFO expert Mike Cohen.

via Siberian UFO: Film clip claims to show little green men walking about after ‘spaceship crash’ | Mail Online.

Cuban Man ’24′ Proud Of His 4 Extra Fingers, Toes

They call him “Twenty-Four.” Yoandri Hernandez Garrido’s nickname comes from the six perfectly formed fingers on each of his hands and the six impeccable toes on each foot.

Hernandez is proud of his extra digits and calls them a blessing, saying they set him apart and enable him to make a living by scrambling up palm trees to cut coconuts and posing for photographs in this eastern Cuban city popular with tourists. One traveler paid $10 for a picture with him, Hernandez said, a bonanza in a country with an average salary of just $20 a month.

via Cuban Man ’24′ Proud Of His 4 Extra Fingers, Toes.

UFO Sightings Increase 67 Percent In 3 Years

Unemployment, gas prices, and fear over global warming aren’t the only things skyrocketing — so are mysterious objects rocketing through the sky.

The Mutual UFO Network — the largest privately funded UFO research organization in the world — tells The Huffington Post that more people than ever are reporting unidentified flying objects, mostly in the United States and Canada.

“Over the past year, we’ve been averaging 500 sighting reports a month, compared to about 300 three years ago [67 percent],” MUFON international director Clifford Clift said.

“And I get one or two production companies contacting me every week, wanting to do stories on UFOs.”

So far this week, mysterious aerial lights in Laredo, Texas, and Kansas City, MO., lived up to, at least initially, the strict definition of UFOs, namely “Unidentified” Flying Objects.

That, of course, doesn’t mean that little green men are watching us. It’s generally accepted that 95 percent of all sightings are easily dismissed. Some turn out to be conventional aircraft, others are satellites or weather balloons — and then there are the hoaxers with Photoshopped concoctions.

In the case of the Kansas City sighting, the UFOs turned out to be the Army Golden Knights parachuting team, performing a nighttime jump. But the explanation for the blinking light over Laredo is still up for grabs.

However, the remaining 5 percent of all UFO reports aren’t as easily explained. And many of them are reported by commercial and military pilots. These were examined on “Secret Access: UFOs On The Record,” a new History Channel documentary that premiered on Thursday. …

via UFO Sightings Increase 67 Percent In 3 Years, History Channel Investigates Unexplained Aerial Phenomena.

Han Solo In Carbonite Ice Molds

This is a $10 Han Solo in carbonite ice cube tray from ThinkGeek. It molds ice cubes that look like Han Solo frozen in carbonite…that’ll last ten seconds in a drink before transforming into formless blocks. Now that’s magic.

via Jabba Drinks: Han Solo In Carbonite Ice Molds – Geekologie.

Tron: Legacy-inspired Lightcycle superbike that can hit 120mph costs $54,000

If you have a spare £33,000 and are in the market for the ultimate boy’s toy, then this might be the treat for you.

A motorbike painstakingly engineered to replicate the computer-generated bike in science fiction film Tron: Legacy is now on sale.

In the film, the bike was created using state-of-the-art CGI graphics and is controlled by computer programs and gamers.

The real version, created by Parker Brothers Choppers, is 8ft long, 23 inches wide and weighs 474lbs. It can also reach a cool 120mph.

…Its hubless wheels are produced using former truck tyres that have been custom-shaped to fit and decorated with electro-luminescent strips.

A fibreglass cover encases a steel frame and, unusually, riders have to lie at a near-horizontal position just as in the film.

The bike is powered by a fuel-injected Suzuki 996cc, four-stroke engine and is spring-loaded at the front and back.

Every bike is custom-built and are available to buy online from Hammacher Schlemmer.

Spokesman Trish Hammond said: ‘This bike has been fine-tuned so that every aspect of it is identical to the bike in the famous film.

‘It is stunning to look at and you would certainly turn a few heads riding it down the street.’ …

via Tron: Legacy-inspired Lightcycle superbike that can hit 120mph costs £33k | Mail Online.

Movie Titles in Movies

Demodex Mites and Dry Eyes

Long-term studies of Demodex and its role in chronic blepharits have been carried out in recent years. Demodex are intradermal parasites that thrive in hair follicles, meibomian and sebaceous glands. Demodex is spread through direct contact and probably by dust that contains eggs.

Demodex folliculorum is the tiny parasitic mite that lives primarily in eyelash follicles and the meibomian glands. Demodex brevis mites live primarily in sebaceous glands connected to hair follicles and the glands of Zeis. These mites are now linked to some forms of rosacea. Both species are primarily found in the face, near the nose, the eyelashes and eyebrows.

The Demodex mites try to avoid light. Mating takes place in hair follicle openings at night and eggs are often laid deep inside the sebaceous and meibomian glands. The larvae hatch in the glands after 3-4 days, and it takes about seven days for the larvae to develop into adults that venture out at night.

In the vast majority of cases, Demodex mites go unobserved, without any adverse symptoms. However, in some people with suppressed immune systems, mite populations can dramatically increase, resulting in a condition know as demodicosis. The symptoms include ocular irritation including dry eyes, itching, scaling of lids, decreased vision and madarosis (loss of lashes). …

Treatment of demodicosis of the eyelids can last for months. It includes tea tree oil, yellow mercurial ointment, sulphur ointment, camphorated oil, steroids, antibiotics and metronidazole gel or ointment.

Prevention: Many attribute tear function and ocular surface improvements to suppression of inflammatory mediators by the iron-binding protein, lactoferrin. Through its unique combination of antimicrobial action and anti-inflammatory activities, lactoferrin in the tear film provides a protective effect against a large variety of microorganisms including parasites, bacteria, viruses, and fungi.

Lactoferrin is produced by neutrophils, lacrimal glands, ocular surface epithelial cells, and meibomian glands. Lactoferrin has been suggested to dampen the complement activation pathway by binding to markers of inflammation (think Il-1 and Il-6), while pathogen-associated molecular patterns, such as lipopolysaccharides are targeted by lactoferrin for removal through tears and hydrodynamic flushing. …

via Demodex Mites and Dry Eyes | The Optical Vision Site.

How to kill them:

… We know from the paper In vitro and in vivo killing of ocular Demodex by tea tree oil, that various oils and solutions can kill demodex mites quite quickly in the test tube. …

Solution	Demodex Kill Time
100% alcohol	4 minutes
50% tea tree oil	15 minutes
100% tea tree oil	4 minutes

Tea Tree Oil is sourced from the Melaluca tree which is native to eastern Australia. Tea Tree Oil has been shown to kill demodex mites in as little as 4 minutes. External application of undiluted tea tree oil and/or at inappropriate high doses has been associated with toxicity, including death, in cats and other animals.

There is so much interest in the properties of tea tree oil that a research group has been created within the School of Biomedical, Biomolecular and Chemical Sciences at The University of Western Australia.

In a recent study, TTO was used to eliminate demodex mites living in the eyelashes of ocular rosacea sufferers. Study participants were given weekly lid scrubs with 50% tea tree oil and a daily lid scrub with a tea tree shampoo. After six weeks all 6 participants showed improvement in conjuctival irritation and inflammation.

TTO is not soluble in water, but is soluble in alcohol, but sadly that would be unsuitable for use around the eye. Tea Tree Oil can be diluted 50% in Macadamia nut oil for use around the eyes. Lid scrubs with 50% Tea Tree Oil did produce irritation in the participants but the effect was found to be minimised if care was used to avoid spilling it into the eye.

Full strength tea tree oil should never be used anywhere on the face. …

1. Use Tea Tree Oil Soap (Soapworks brand) to cleanse face and body.
2. Use Tea Tree Oil Cream (Regime brand) once to twice a day (You could alternate with Regime’s Calendula Cream if using the Tea Tree Oil Cream twice a day is too irritating).
3. Shampoo with a Tea Tree Oil Shampoo (Treemenda brand) once a day or another tea tree oil shampoo without alcohol in it.
4. When you wash your linens for your bed use 10 drops of tea tree oil in your laundry in addition to your perfume free detergent. (Nature Clean makes an excellent Liquid Laundry Soap available at Bulk Barn stores).

via RosaceaSupport

What I use is Tea Tree Oil mouthwash (Desert Essence brand) on my eyebrows and very carefully around my eyelids with a q-tip. I’ve asked them what the percentage of tea tree oil is because it is not listed on the web site or on the product container as far as I can tell.

DARPA releases video of HTV-2 hypersonic glider flight

An unmanned glider streaks over the Pacific Ocean at 20 times the speed of sound in a video released Thursday by a U.S. defense research agency experimenting with technology that could give the military the ability to strike any part of the globe within an hour.

The Aug. 11 test ended early when a problem caused the craft’s safety system to force it down into the ocean but the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency said valuable data was collected in the nearly three minutes of free flight at the hypersonic speed of Mach 20 – about 13,000 mph.

The Falcon Hypersonic Test Vehicle-2 was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., atop a Minotaur 4 rocket that carried it to the edge of space, performed what DARPA described as a series of aggressive banks and turns, and then released the glider.

The video taken by a crewmember on a tracking ship shows the rocket and vehicle together as a fast-moving contrail and then the HTV-2 as a faint dot zipping away on its own.

“It gives us a visceral feel for what it means to fly at Mach 20,” DARPA Director Regina Dugan said in a statement.

Hypersonic is the term for speeds greater than Mach 5. Various hypersonic programs have typically produced brief flights – measured in seconds or minutes.

This month’s test was the second of two missions in DARPA’s HTV-2 program, which is aimed at learning how to fly at such speeds and advancing the technologies needed for long-duration hypersonic flight.

via DARPA releases video of HTV-2 hypersonic glider flight.

Mach 20 is about 15,200 miles per hour. How does this compare to the speed of a meteor?

… not all meteors travel at the same speed.  The slowest travel at 25,000 miles per hour (m.p.h.) and
the fastest at 160,000 m.p.h.  It will take a fast meteor about 90 minutes to travel the distance from the moon to the Earth. … – link

 

 

Study: Humans got immunity boost from Neanderthals

Neanderthals, as well as hominids known as Denisovans, contributed key types of immune genes still found in human populations, scientists say.As recently as 2008, scientists thought that Neanderthals and modern humans had never mated.

Then, last year, they said that the two species had, but that the few Neanderthal genes that survived in modern human DNA were not functional.

Now researchers believe that key versions of immune system genes in modern humans appear to have been passed down by archaic relatives, including Neanderthals, after all.

Indeed, DNA inherited from Neanderthals and newly discovered hominids dubbed the Denisovans has contributed to key types of immune genes still present among populations in Europe, Asia and Oceania. And scientists speculate that these gene variants must have been highly beneficial to modern humans, helping them thrive as they migrated throughout the world.

This DNA has had “a very profound functional impact in the immune systems of modern humans,” said study first author Laurent Abi-Rached, a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of senior author Peter Parham of the Stanford University School of Medicine.

Neanderthals were stocky hunter-gatherers who populated Europe and parts of Asia until about 30,000 years ago. In 2010, a team of biologists led by Svante Paabo of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, sequenced the Neanderthal genome via DNA extracted from ancient bones.

From this, they estimated that 1% to 4% of modern Eurasian genomes came from our close hominid relatives.

No one knows what Denisovans looked like: The only confirmed evidence of the group, which is thought to have split from the Neanderthals about 350,000 years ago and migrated east, are a tooth and a pinkie finger bone found in a Siberian cave in 2008.

When Paabo and coworkers sequenced DNA extracted from the pinkie in 2010, they calculated that 4% to 6% of modern Melanesian genomes came from Denisovans.

In the new study, Abi-Rached and coauthors decided to focus on a small set of genes on chromosome 6 known as the human leukocyte antigen (HLA) class I genes.

HLA genes carry instruction for making HLA proteins, which help the immune system spot evidence of problems in cells — infection or cancer, for instance — so that it can wipe out abnormalities to fight disease. The genes come in many forms that vary in frequency around the world, probably because our genomes have been tailored by evolution to fight specific disease threats that exist in particular places. …

via Humans got immunity boost from Neanderthals, study finds – latimes.com.