Seti, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, has until now sought radio signals from worlds like Earth.

But Seti astronomer Seth Shostak argues that the time between aliens developing radio technology and artificial intelligence (AI) would be short.

Writing in Acta Astronautica, he says that the odds favour detecting such alien AI rather than “biological” life.

Read on at news.bbc.co.uk.

Ron Sveden had been battling emphysema for months when his condition deteriorated.

He was steeling himself for a cancer diagnosis when X-rays revealed the growth in his lung.

Doctors believe that Mr Sveden ate the pea at some point, but it “went down the wrong way” and sprouted.

“One of the first meals I had in the hospital after the surgery had peas for the vegetable. I laughed to myself and ate them,” Mr Sveden told a local Boston TV reporter.

Mr Sveden said the plant was about half an inch (1.25cm) in size.

“Whether this would have gone full-term and I’d be working for the Jolly Green Giant, I don’t know. I think the thing that finally dawned on me is that it wasn’t the cancer,” Mr Sveden said.

He is currently recovering at home with his wife Nancy, who joked that God must have a sense of humour.

[via: news.bbc.co.uk]

The boars feed off mushrooms, truffles and wild berries which still contain high levels of caesium-137, carried in the radioactive cloud that spread across Europe following the 1986 accident at the Ukrainian nuclear plant.

“In some regions, especially in the south, the radioactivity found in boars is 10 times higher than normal,” Florian Emrich, spokesman for the Federal Agency for the Protection Against Radioactivity, said on Saturday.

A sharp increase in wild boar numbers has meant more boar meat — prized as a delicacy in Germany on a par with venison — is ending up on diners’ plates, raising concerns for human health.

“No one has fallen seriously ill after eating boar meat,” said Emrich, but all boar hunters in high-risk areas must have their game tested for radioactive contamination before it can go on sale on market stalls.

Berlin — which pays out compensation if boar meat has to be withdrawn from the market — shelled out 424,650 euros (565,000 dollars) last year to hunters and hunting associations, up from 240,000 euros in 2006.

According to the Bavarian health and food safety, nine of the 56 boars analysed last year showed contamination well above the allowed level of 600 becquerels per kilogram of meat, with some as much as twice the limit.

Wild mushrooms are especially prone to accumulating radioactivity because the toxic substances are recycled over and over in the forest humus, unlike on farmland where they are broken down by labouring and minerals in the soil.

In southern Bavaria, some porcini and girolles mushrooms contained caesium levels of several hundred becquerels per kilo last year, while blueberries and cranberries contained up to 100 becquerels, official figures show.

[via]

In an exclusive interview with STV, Ron – a 60-year-old retired assistant registrar at Stirling University – said: “I think Scotland is like a world hot spot. All the UFO sightings. All the ghost sightings. All the monster sightings. Poltergeists.

“There is just so much that goes on in Scotland, it is absolutely incredible. It is very hard to explain why Scotland has all these reported incidents.”

Ron became interested in UFOs from a young age and started to research it seriously when he was 30. But what is it about the unexplained which interests him and millions of others around the world?

“The whole mystery of it. People claim all these strange experiences which are at odds with our everyday reality. You don’t walk down the street and expect to see an alien. The whole thing just seems completely bizarre.

“Things like Independence Day and The X-Files have stimulated people’s interest in the whole subject. It the media show interest in UFOs then it definitely generates more UFO reports because people come forward and say they have seen things.

“There are so many people taking photos these days, but there is also greater scepticism. It is very easy to fabricate a UFO picture. The thing that people interested in UFOs find hard to accept is why aliens don’t just land in George Square in Glasgow so TV crews can come and film them?

“I am sceptical too. But when you speak to people who have had these experiences, get their perspective on the thing – there is no particular reason why they would make this up.”

Read on at news.stv.tv for a run down of Halliday’s top ten paranormal happenings in Scotland.

Ministers even went on to commission weekly reports on UFO sightings from a committee of intelligence experts.

The papers also include a wartime account claiming prime minister Winston Churchill ordered a UFO sighting be kept secret to prevent “mass panic”.

The files show reports of UFOs peaked in 1996 – when The X Files was popular.

Read on at news.bbc.co.uk

The coloured stonework has been uncovered at the Ness of Brodgar, in the heart of the area’s World Heritage Site.

Several coloured stones have been discovered, and it is thought the find is the first of its kind in the UK.

Archaeologists believe iron ore could have been mixed with animal fat, eggs or milk to create a primitive paint.

[via: bbc.co.uk]

Officials grew suspicious and sought an investigation by police, who forced their way into the house Wednesday. Police said the mummified body believed to be Kato was lying in his bed, wearing underwear and pyjamas, covered with a blanket.

His granddaughter told investigators Kato holed up in his room about 30 years ago after declaring he wanted to be a living Buddha, police and Tokyo officials said. They believe Kato died soon after that.

Tokyo police were investigating possible crimes on suspicion Kato’s family received pension money of the man and his dead wife.

“His family must have known he has been dead all these years and acted as if nothing happened,” said Tokyo metropolitan welfare official Yutaka Muroi. “It’s so eerie.”

[via: telegraph.co.uk] ]]> http://www.paranormalmagazine.co.uk/2010/08/03/tokyos-oldest-man-dead-for-30-years/feed/ 0 http://www.paranormalmagazine.co.uk/2010/07/06/first-photo-of-the-universe/ http://www.paranormalmagazine.co.uk/2010/07/06/first-photo-of-the-universe/#comments Tue, 06 Jul 2010 14:34:24 +0000 fergusmcshane http://www.paranormalmagazine.co.uk/?p=3667 This is the extraordinary place where we all live – the Universe.

The picture is the first full-sky image from Europe’s Planck telescope which was sent into space last year to survey the “oldest light” in the cosmos.

It took the 600m-euro observatory just over six months to assemble the map.

It shows what is visible beyond the Earth to instruments that are sensitive to light at very long wavelengths – much longer than what we can sense with our eyes.

Researchers say it is a remarkable dataset that will help them understand better how the Universe came to look the way it does now.

“It’s a spectacular picture; it’s a thing of beauty,” Dr Jan Tauber, the European Space Agency’s (Esa) Planck project scientist, told BBC News.

Dominating the foreground are large segments of our Milky Way Galaxy.

The bright horizontal line running the full length of the image is the galaxy’s main disc – the plane in which the Sun and the Earth also reside.

[Read on at news.bbc.co.uk]

The sighting was in July last year, but has only emerged within the last few days on a UFO-watcher’s website.

In his tantalising account the ex-cop, who identified himself only as Nick R, wrote: “I saw whilst driving along the A10 going home one evening after work north a light which was not the moon, orange and oval in shape. I drove into my parking space in Puckeridge and went into my flat. Faffed about for about 10 minutes then went outside for a cigarette.

“I saw something which I have never told anyone about. My flat was in Cambridge Court in Puckeridge backed on to fields. I saw in the twilight what I thought were kids messing about. No, as the light faded around 21.30 the orange globe appeared in the sky. I was at this time watching something on TV, then went outside for a fag again.”

Chillingly he raised the prospect of seeing alien beings that he initially thought were “children”, in the field – a so-called ‘close encounter of the third kind’.

He added: “I know that area is a flight path from Stansted, but that was strange.

“The children disappeared all of a sudden. I lived there for one-and-a-half years, and never experienced anything like that.”

In reply to the post another site user wrote: Intrigued by your report, am interested in sightings on either 25/26th of July in this area seems to be a pattern.”

He suggested Nick R report his sighting on another site dedicated to serving and retired police officers’ sightings of UFO-related phenomena.

[via: herald24.co.uk]