Blair was briefed on UK UFO files
Prime Minister Tony Blair was briefed on the UK's files about UFO sightings in 1998, newly declassified MoD documents have revealed.
Writer Nick Redfern urged him to "consider making available for public scrutiny all of the many and varied UFO reports compiled by the government". The request came as the government began to implement Freedom of Information (FOI requests). |  |
Latest release of 'X-files' shows MoD took idea of alien visitors seriously
Britain's defence intelligence agency considered the possibility of alien craft visiting Earth and asked "UFO desk officers" to monitor any potential threat from outer space, hitherto top secret documents released on Thursday show.
Thousands of pages of highly classified files document how officials in the Ministry of Defence were worried they would be accused by the public of not taking UFOs seriously enough, and how some thought there really could be someone out there. "It was important to appreciate that what is scientific 'fact' today may not be true tomorrow," a defence intelligence officer warned in August 1993. Related: See the Nick Pope interview by the GHMB community. |  |
'UFO' at bottom of Baltic sea may actually be a top-secret Nazi anti-submarine defence
Divers exploring a 'UFO-shaped' object in the Baltic sea say that the strange, curved object might be a Nazi device lost beneath the waves since the end of the Second World War.
Sonar scans have shown that the device, raised 10ft above the seabed and measuring 200ft by 25ft, could be the base of an anti-submarine weapon. The weapon was built with wire mesh which could have baffled submarine radar, leading enemy craft to crash - much in the same way as turning out a lighthouse could be used as a weapon against shipping. But now former Swedish naval officer and WWII expert Anders Autellus has revealed that the structure - measuring 200ft by 25ft - could be the base of a device designed to block British and Russian submarine movements in the area. |  |
Familiar music arouses coma patients
Last month, dozens of news outlets reported the story of Charlotte Neve, the seven-year-old girl from Lancashire who awoke from a coma after hearing one of her favourite songs. "It's a complete miracle," the girl's mother, Leila, told The Sun. "I thought I was going to lose my little girl. I climbed into her hospital bed to give her a cuddle … and Adele came on the radio. I started singing it to her because she loves her and we used to sing that song together. Charlotte started smiling and I couldn't believe it."
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Hominins did not need boats to settle islands
The early human colonisation of islands might not have been plain sailing. Instead of using boats to deliberately settle on Indonesian islands, hominins may have arrived as castaways, carried on floating debris after floods.
David Wilkinson of Liverpool John Moores University and Graeme Ruxton of the University of St Andrews, both in the UK, used population estimates from the early settlement of Polynesia to model the likely success of island settlement attempts in human prehistory. |  |
Discovery of fifth moon reignites Pluto planet debate
Pluto may not be a planet any more, but the discovery of its fifth moon means it can boast more satellites than the inner four planets combined. The finding could reignite the debate over the icy rock's planetary status – or lack of. The find also suggests that the neighbourhood surrounding Pluto may be extremely dusty, which is bad news for those trying to a plot a safe course for spacecraft.
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New security scanners to reveal everything about you, instantly
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security may soon embrace super-fast, laser-based molecular scanning technology that can detect anything on or in your body in an instant.
The technology holds promise to make airports, borders and other points of interest to terrorists more secure, but comes with a host of new personal privacy concerns, Gizmodo reports.
The technology holds promise to make airports, borders and other points of interest to terrorists more secure, but comes with a host of new personal privacy concerns, Gizmodo reports.
Stephen Hawking trials device that reads his mind
TECHNOLOGY has helped Stephen Hawking in many ways, and now it might allow him to communicate using thought alone. The cosmologist is trialling a device that monitors brain activity with the ultimate aim of transforming it into speech.
Hawking has motor neurone disease - nerve decay that has left him almost completely paralysed. He currently communicates using a series of cheek twitches to select words from a screen. "It is a very, very slow process," says Philip Low at Stanford University in California, who is founder of healthcare company NeuroVigil. |  |
Nocebo Effect, Not Placebo Effect: Induced Illness Studied
Negative suggestion can induce symptoms of illness. Nocebo effects are the adverse events that occur during sham treatment and/or as a result of negative expectations. While the positive counterpart -- the placebo effect -- has been intensively studied in recent years, the scientific literature contains few studies on nocebo phenomena. In the latest issue of Deutsches Ärzteblatt International, Winfried Häuser of the Technical University of Munich and his co-authors present the underlying neurobiological mechanisms and highlight the relevance of the nocebo effect in everyday clinical practice.
Splicing a 500-Million-Year-Old Gene Into Modern Bacteria
We are still waiting with bated breath for the day scientists resurrect the woolly mammoth. Until then, we’ll have to satisfy ourselves with resurrections of ancient plants and bacteria — which may be more amazing anyway, because they're even older. The dish in the above image holds a bacterium with a 500 million-year-old gene in it. That’s an era just a little while after the Cambrian explosion, when life became complex.
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Stonehenge's £27m makeover will end its days as a traffic island
As ever, the verdict from the visitors arriving by the coach-load at Stonehenge was mixed: wonderful monument, poor access, disappointing facilities.
And what is it with those two busy roads rumbling within a few metres of the stones? But finally, after years of planning, scheming and wrangling, changes are afoot. On Wednesday work officially began on a £27m project to transform the area around Britain's most famous monument from a "national embarrassment" into a tranquil and dignified setting. |  |
Ancient town unearthed could explain Viking urban planning
The location of an excavated Viking town, believed to be a fabled strategic military stronghold of ancient Scandinavian kings, suggests local chieftans may have controlled urban growth say archeologists.
Aarhus University archeologists date the settlement to as far back as 700AD, and they believe it was used for 300 years. This tallies with descriptions of the ancient chieftan settlement of Sliasthorp in the 804AD Royal Frankish Annals -- the first known written account of Danish history. The town, the text says, was setup as a military base by King Godfred, and is located near the modern town of Füsing in Northern Germany on the border with Denmark. Surrounded by wetlands, it made for an ideal defensive foothold in the region.
Aarhus University archeologists date the settlement to as far back as 700AD, and they believe it was used for 300 years. This tallies with descriptions of the ancient chieftan settlement of Sliasthorp in the 804AD Royal Frankish Annals -- the first known written account of Danish history. The town, the text says, was setup as a military base by King Godfred, and is located near the modern town of Füsing in Northern Germany on the border with Denmark. Surrounded by wetlands, it made for an ideal defensive foothold in the region.
Scorpion Venom Heals Drug-Resistant Bacteria Infection
It may sound like snake oil, but a new study suggests scorpion venom contains a substance that can fend off drug-resistant bacteria, including the deadly MRSA.
Drug resistance is increasingly rendering our antibiotic arsenal ineffective against bacteria. According to a CDC study, MRSA caused 36 percent of staphylococcal infections in U.S. hospital intensive-care units in 1992, and as much as 64 percent of infections in 2003. But new research in mice suggests a solution may be hiding right under our feet. |  |
Brain-Scanning Binoculars Harness Soldiers' Unconscious Minds to Locate Threats
Soldiers scanning the battlefield for threats may soon get a new tool: a brain-scanning set of binoculars that can pick up on a soldier’s unconscious recognition of a potential threat and bring it to his conscious attention. It’s just one of many ways DARPA and other military research groups are looking to have soldiers mind-meld with their machines and materiel, and as the BBC reports, it demonstrates how remarkably close we are to deploying mind-control on the battlefield.
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Alcohol Not Marijuana Triggers Drug Abuse in Teenagers
If you want your kids to stay away from drugs, then you might want to keep teenagers off alcohol because a new study says that long term drug abuse is likely to occur due to alcohol, not marijuana, use.
The present study included data on more than 14,500 high-school students from 120 schools across U.S. The data was obtained from Monitoring the Future study.
Researchers analyzed the data to find out what substances were being tried by students. They checked for use of marijuana, cocaine, heroin, LSD, amphetamines, tranquilizers and other narcotics. Alcohol was the first substance to be tried by students, the results showed.
The present study included data on more than 14,500 high-school students from 120 schools across U.S. The data was obtained from Monitoring the Future study.
Researchers analyzed the data to find out what substances were being tried by students. They checked for use of marijuana, cocaine, heroin, LSD, amphetamines, tranquilizers and other narcotics. Alcohol was the first substance to be tried by students, the results showed.
Scientists march against 'death of evidence' in Canada
OTTAWA — Scientists held a mock funeral march Tuesday marking the "death of evidence" in Canada, accusing the ruling Tories of muzzling government scientists to advance a political agenda that ignores research findings.
The procession of 200 scientists in lab coats lead by pallbearers carrying a coffin winded silently through downtown Ottawa's streets to Parliament, where a mock funeral service was held for scientific programs cut in recent budgets. "We are here today to commemorate the untimely death of evidence in Canada," rally organizer and doctoral student in biology Katie Gibbs told a crowd. |  |
How the Higgs Could Become Annoying
Sometimes I wonder what the Wright brothers would think if they time-traveled to the present and experienced commercial air travel. They might be horrified and depressed about the fact that, rather than marveling at the wonder of flight, we get annoyed when our seat-mates don't close the window shades while we're trying to watch a movie.
Wednesday's announcement from CERN that physicists believe they've observed evidence of the Higgs boson particle is no doubt the first tender step into fabulous worlds of discovery. |  |
Gateway to Myanmar’s Past, and Its Future
BAGAN, Myanmar — Fires, floods, treasure seekers and ficus trees have by turns withered this ancient royal capital, but in many ways it still looks as it might have eight centuries ago.
More than 2,200 tiered brick temples and shrines sprawl across an arid 26-square-mile plain on the eastern bank of the Irrawaddy River, remnants of a magnificent Buddhist city that reached its height in the 11th and 12th centuries. |  |
Anthropology professors James Allison and Mike Searcy, spent spring term excavating what appears to be the largest known structure belonging to the Fremont civilization with a crew of Brigham Young University (BYU) students unearthing a glimpse of what life was like in Utah valley 1,000 years ago.
The 800 square-foot structure served as a gathering place for a small village located near the mouth of Goshen canyon in a settlement known as “Wolf Village.
The 800 square-foot structure served as a gathering place for a small village located near the mouth of Goshen canyon in a settlement known as “Wolf Village.