Robert Pattinson isn’t the only famous vampire in his family.

Genealogists said the 24-year-old “Twilight” star is related to Vlad the Impaler, widely cited as the inspiration for the main character in Bram Stoker’s “Dracula.”

Researchers at Ancestry.com discovered that Pattinson and the Transylvanian leader (real name: Vlad III Dracula) are connected through their relationship to the British royal family. Prince William and Prince Harry are Pattinson’s distant cousins; Vlad the Impaler was their distant uncle.

“Tracing Pattinson’s family back to Vlad was difficult research, but the pieces that unraveled created the perfect accompaniment to the Twilight Saga,” said Anastasia Tyler, a genealogist at Ancestry.com. “Without any myth or magic, we find royalty and vampires lurking in Pattinson’s life — making his story just as supernatural as the one he’s playing on screen.”

Also connected to the prince’s lineage and therefore to Dracula? Stephenie Meyer, the author of the “Twilight” series.

The latest big-screen installment in the popular vampire saga, “Eclipse,” opens July 8.

[via: fox5vegas.com]

But that doesn’t mean “The Lizard King” isn’t still making the rounds in one of his former West Hollywood haunts.

As devout fans gather at his Parisian grave this weekend, looking for signs of the brooding singer and poet’s spirit, they might be better served if they visited a Mexican restaurant at 8512 Santa Monica Blvd.

“You feel it here almost every day, throughout the entire place, but especially near this spot,” says Christina Arena, general manager of Mexico, a colorfully festive restaurant that’s been open about a year.

And just what spot does Arena refer to?

The unisex restroom.

You see, the building Mexico occupies was formerly “The Doors Workshop,” an office space/crash pad/recording studio used by the band in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

And the restroom? It was the actual vocal booth where Jim Morrison recorded the classic “L.A. Woman” in 1970.

Today, a framed plaque featuring the album cover, gold record and hand-scrawled lyrics hangs outside the famous john. Fans come from all over the world to pay homage to Morrison at this sacred site, and they may get more than they bargained for.

“His presence hangs very heavy here,” Arena says. “It gets eerie sometimes.”

[Read on at aolnews.com]

A red substance was photographed running from the forehead of Jesus and down his cheek in a church depiction of the Last Supper.

Local priest Father Jorge Gandur said the ‘ooze comes from one of the wounds on the left side of the forehead of Christ produced by the crown of thorns’.

The stains were first noticed on Friday by two men who had entered the Oratory of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Yerba Buena, Tucuman province.

The pair reported the substance to Father Gandur, who took samples of the substance to be scientifically tested to see if it was human blood.

After local media were tipped off that the men had seen Christ weeping ‘tears of blood’ the streets surrounding the church became jammed pilgrims wanting to see the phenomenon for themselves.

Hundreds of people were reported to be crying and praying fervently in at least two streets leading up to the church.

[via: dailytelegraph.com.au]

A plan to attack Hitler’s bunker in 1943 and a 1944 plot involving an assassin who had gained the trust of the Nazi leadership were both cancelled on Stalin’s orders, General Anatoly Kulikov told a historical conference in Moscow on Tuesday.

“A plan to assassinate Hitler in his bunker was developed, but Stalin suddenly cancelled it in 1943 over fears that after Hitler’s death his associates would conclude a separate peace treaty with Britain and the United States,” Russia’s RIA news agency quoted Gen Kulikov as saying.

In 1944, the Soviets again plotted to kill Hitler after a potential assassin managed to gain the trust of the Nazi leadership. “A detailed assassination plan was prepared, but Stalin cancelled it again,” Gen Kulikov was quoted as saying.

Hitler killed himself on April 30, 1945, as Soviet forces closed on Berlin, effectively ending the war in Europe and setting the stage for the Cold War stand-off between Russia and the West.

An estimated 27 million Soviet citizens died in the 1941-1945 war with Nazi Germany.

Gen Kulikov was Russia’s interior minister from 1995 to 1998 under President Boris Yeltsin. He said that the Club of Military Leaders, which he heads, would include details of the assassination attempts in a forthcoming book on the Second World War.

[via: telegraph.co.uk]

The complex disc, which measures 300ft across, appeared to the east of Wilton Windmill near Marlborough in a blazing yellow rape seed field.

It appeared on Saturday just 25miles from another circle that popped up a fortnight ago by the Iron Age hill fort of Old Sarum

Lucy Pringle, a renowned crop circle researcher was puzzled by what appears to be a hidden code based on complex numbers within the shape.

She said: ‘I believe it contains binary, a numeral system, or base-2 number system that represents numeric values using two symbols, 0 and 1.

‘Working from the centre outwards, people are suggesting it has a connection to Leonhard Euler’s theorem e^(i)pi+1=0 which is thought to be one of the most beautiful theorems in mathematics.’

Read on at dailymail.co.uk.

Probably one of the most famous horror houses, having featured in the 1979 film The Amityville Horror, this five-bedroom Dutch Colonial property situated in New York has yet again gone on sale.

The incredibly troubled past started in 1974 when six members of the DeFeo family were shot dead as they slept by the eldest son Ronald DeFeo. 23 at the time, he remains in prison serving a life sentence.

After the horrific incident, the house was first put up for sale and was purchased by George And Kathleen Lutz. They along with their three children remained in the house for only 28 days. Moving in on December 23, 1975 a family friend asked that they get the house blessed to overcome it’s history. However when the priest entered a room of the house, a male voice demanded he ‘Get Out!’

The next day the priest telephoned to ask that the family stay out of the room where he heard the voice, but the call cut short by static, he returned only to develop a fever and stigmata-like blisters on his hands.

Over the course of the next 27 days, the family experienced many supernatural terrors, including; swarms of flies; a secret ‘red room’; ghostly embraces; ooze from walls and doors; cloven hoof prints outside; visions of red eyes and a pig-like demon; detailed nightmares of the murders; and bite-marks from a china lion!

Since then the house has been lived in by families who had no such experiences, but given the fraught history and paranormal nature of the house, this is sure to receive many interested bidders… or for the reasons above, none at all.

Animal rights campaigners were furious at the news, but the Ministry of Defence insisted that their experiments had ’saved many lives’ in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The controversial tests were carried out between 2006 and 2009, and the MoD say that as a result they’ve made big improvements in body armour and in the treatment of soldiers who’ve been injured by roadside bombs.

The pigs are anaesthetised before each experiment and some are given body armour to test its effectiveness in reducing damage from IEDs.

Scientists say that the injuries sustained by the animals are consistent with those received by soldiers, so potentially life-saving improvements in trauma care result from the tests.

However, the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection said: ‘Not only are such experiments scientifically questionable… subjecting pigs to such massive mutilation and injury also raises profound ethical questions.’

An MoD spokesman said: ‘The advances made due to this research can be utilised both in theatre and civilian scenarios, particularly if there are mass casualties and evacuation to hospital is delayed.’

[via: metro.co.uk]

Jabbing his finger at a cloudy sky, Mr Coleman said: “I seen her there and I seen her there. She did make herself known.”

Although reluctant to go into any details about the “message” he had received, Mr Coleman did say the Blessed Virgin had been angry about the way he had been treated by shrine authorities.

He complained that he and his followers had not been allowed to pray as they had wished in the Apparition Chapel, “part of the largest shrine in the world dedicated to Our Blessed Lady”.

About 200 people attended yesterday’s event, a much smaller turnout than previous “visions”.

[via: irishtimes.com]

The letters were addressed to Blossom Grant at Pig Flats – the creature’s old sty in Uckfield, East Sussex.

The building was renovated two years ago house volunteers at a local horse rescue centre, and due to a Land Registry error the pig receives several junk letters a month.

Pauline Grant, 73, Blossom’s owner, said: “I could not believe it when the letter telling Blossom to register to vote came through it was one of the strangest things I had ever seen.

“I am not sure who Blossom would have voted for but at a guess I would say the Green Party. They would probably look after her needs best.

“She is a very clever animal but I think politics might be a bit complicated for her.”

After contacting Wealden District Council bosses to point out the mix-up, Mrs Grant decided to take Blossom down to her nearest polling station on May 6.

She added: “I did it as a sort of piggy protest for poor old Blossom and the amount of paperwork she is expected to do.

“I walked her down to the polling station and took all the letters she has received. People quickly huddled around and wanted to know what was going on.

“It is getting a bit silly now, the amount of post she gets.

“I have tried to tell the local authority on many occasions to sort this out, but nothing happens.

“I have called them and said the recipient of this post is a pig but no one listens. They probably think I am joking.

“We have had letters from all sorts of establishments addressed to the pig.

“There have been lots of requests from the TV licensing people and loads from Royal Mail but I have not opened any of them they are not addressed to me.

“I do not think Blossom would have much use for a mobile phone and it is a bit unfair for her to pay for a TV licence as she does not watch television.”

A spokesman for Wealden District said: “The flat is listed as being named The Pig on a database of addresses used by local authorities.

“I can confirm no pigs voted in the area last week.”

[via: telegraph.co.uk]

German researchers studied what happens in accidents involving robots using sharp tools alongside humans.

They used a robot arm holding a variety of bladed tools programmed to strike test substances that mimic soft tissue.

In some cases, the researchers found, the robots managed to accidentally inflict wounds that would prove “lethal”.

The tests were conducted to see if a prototype safety system could limit the damage done.

Human subject
The tests involved a robot arm weighing 14kg and a 1.1m reach that was equipped with a variety of bladed household tools including a steak knife, kitchen knife, scissors and screwdriver.

The robot arm was programmed to use the bladed tools to stab and cut a silicone lump, a leg from a dead pig and the arm of a human volunteer.

Striking, stabbing and puncturing tests with the safety system turned off were performed on the silicone and pig leg. Deep cuts resulted in most cases that, the researchers said, could prove to be “lethal” if inflicted on a living subject.

Three researchers from the Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics at the German aerospace agency wanted to carry out the tests because they envisage a future in which robots will start to become domestic helpers.

Injuries were significantly reduced when the prototype collision detection system developed by the trio was switched on. This system uses torque sensors to spot when it has hit a different substance and halts movement. It was used to limit damage when human subjects were tested.

Previous studies have looked at what would happen when large heavy robots bump into people. However, the German study is thought to be the first to look at the slashing injuries robots could cause.

The results of the study were presented at the 2010 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, held in Alaska in early May.

[via: news.bbc.co.uk]