Didn't this guy see 'Jurassic Park'?
The suggestion would be considered unbelievable - if it involved anyone other than Clive Palmer.
The controversial billionaire is rumoured to be planning to clone a dinosaur from DNA so he can set it free in a Jurassic Park-style area at his new Palmer Resort in Coolum.
Mr Palmer has, apparently, been in deep discussion with the people who successfully cloned Dolly the sheep to bring his dinosaur vision to life.
If Mr Palmer can resurrect the Titanic, what is to stop him from trying with another of his other alleged passions - dinosaurs?
This is just one of the rumours circulating about Mr Palmer's plans for Coolum.
And while the concept sounds like a joke, it apparently comes from a source close to Mr Palmer's inner circle.
It was the same source who provided the Daily with an exclusive peek at Mr Palmer's plans to build towering hotels at the Palmer Resort with a 20-storey sky needle and a giant, London Eye-style ferris wheel.
Mr Palmer has not commented on this vision yet. Sunshine Coast Mayor Mark Jamieson has said Mr Palmer was very serious about the plans.
It is also understood Mr Palmer intends to target the Middle East market for his resort.
But this vision, if it is correct, will not bring employment to the region.
It has been suggested he wants to use "fly-in, fly-out Muslim hospitality staff" to cater for his clientele.
While Mr Palmer was quick to deny he had plans to build a sky rail to Mount Coolum, he remains silent about the latest speculations.
He declined to answer questions relating to the dinosaur rumours and the Middle East.
A spokesman said Mr Palmer would hold a press conference in Brisbane on Friday. - sunshinecoastdaily
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Children’s chemistry sets used to contain cyanide
Do you ever long for the good ol' days? When a rickety school desk was enough to protect you from a nuclear blast, and chemistry sets contained real (read: deadly) chemicals?
The first half of the 20th century was the golden age of children's chemistry sets. "By the 1920s and 30s," writes BBC's Alex Hudsen in this expose on the disappearance of the basic chem set, "children had access to substances which would raise eyebrows in today's more safety-conscious times."
What kind of chemicals are we talking here? Oh, you know, the usual. Radioactive substances like uranium dust (evidently this was a hit in "nuclear" kits marketed in the 1950s); chemicals for making gun powder, like potassium nitrate; and, of course, sodium cyanide — one of the most rapidly acting toxins known to man.
Are these chemicals dangerous? Absolutely. But that, say scientists who grew up experimenting with these older kits, is no excuse to drag down science education. Today's kits, often hobbled by health and safety regulations, kind of suck. "Some of the bigger sellers recently have included one capable of making edible creations tied to film franchises," writes Hudson, "and a perfume kit aimed at girls... These kits are not capable of the experiments of old."
So how do you reunite kids with more interesting (if potentially dangerous) chemical experiments? Promoting safe experimentation, says Judith Hackitt, Chair of the UK's Health and Safety Commission, is key:
For science to move away from practical experiments because they are seen as dangerous, she believes, is a mistake.
"Yes they are safe. Are there some hazards associated with them? Yes, but of a very minor nature. The whole idea of them is you learn from handling real materials," she says.
Read more about the glory days of kids' chemistry sets at BBC. Want to build your own kickass chemistry set? Check out this great guide to assembling your own, courtesy of the folks at MAKE. - io9
NOTE: My father owned (and still operates) a hobby shop (Strickler's Hobby House) and sold chemistry sets and supplies. For those people who know me and the store location in Hanover, PA, you may be familiar with the small wooden 'house' behind the store by the parking lot. That was my 'laboratory' when I was a kid in the 60's...creating unintended fires on more than a few occasions. I spent hundreds of hours mixing a variety of compounds...especially those I could pack into something and ignite. Anyway...this brought back great memories. Lon
Chemistry Lab Set - Advanced Level A
CHEM C1000: Chemistry Experiment Kit for Beginners
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Teacher Tries To Get Out Of Work By Lying That He Ran Over And Killed A Girl With His Car
There's faking sick, and then there's telling your employers that you just killed a small child.
42-year-old teacher Derek McGlone was well known at Calderhead High School in Scotland for making up stories to get out of work, the Telegraph reports. At an August 1 hearing of the General Teaching Council Scotland (GTCS), McGlone admitted to lying on a number of occasions between June 2008 and May 2011.
In his most egregious fabrication, the music teacher told school officials that he had just run over a little girl with his car, according to UPI.
"He said he felt his car wheels running over her body," Calderhead High School head Joyce Kilmartin wrote in an official statement.
On another occasion, McGlone called from his home in Glasgow, claiming he was stuck in a volcanic ash cloud in Iceland.
At the Council, McGlone took heat not only for his lies, but for his reaction to being reported. After discovering that some of his colleagues at Calderhead had made statements about his conduct to the GTCS in April 2011, McGlone went on a "drunken rant" over Facebook. He admitted to the Council panel that he referred to his coworkers as "bitches" and wrote that he would "hunt them down," according to the Scottish Sun.
McGlone resigned later that year, the Mirror reports, but now says he wants to return to teaching.
"I can give no reasonable explanation for my actions," he told the Council, adding that he was "embarrassed and sorry."
The hearing panel concluded that McGlone's behavior "falls short the standards expected of a registered teacher." He received a reprimand that will remain on his record for 12 months.
The GTCS is an independent professional body with duties that include maintaining educational standards and keeping a registry of teachers in Scotland. - THP
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Vampire Bat Bites Help Shield Peruvians from Rabies
Rabies has been thought of as virtually 100-percent fatal unless treated immediately, but new research shows that a small number of isolated Peruvians have natural immunity from the animal-transmitted disease.
Researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that one in 15 people living in the remote Amazonian region in Peru were protected without medical intervention against the virus that kills more than 55,000 people globally every year.
Their trick: Vampire bats exposed the remote Peruvians to enough of the rabies virus to confer resistance, but not enough to kill them.
"Our results open the door to the idea that there may be some type of natural resistance or enhanced immune response in certain communities regularly exposed to the disease," Amy Gilbert, a researcher with the CDC's National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases and co-lead study author, said in a statement. "This means there may be ways to develop effective treatments that can save lives in areas where rabies remains a persistent cause of death."
Rabies is a neurological disease transmitted from animals to humans by infected-saliva exposure through bites or scratches. However, the disease can be prevented through immunization within hours of exposure.
"The new news here is that in areas in the world where rabies is endemic and there aren't vaccinations, there may be some resistance," James Kazura, president of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene and global health professor at Case Western Reserve University, told LiveScience in a telephone interview.
To this end, the researchers said they planned to expand their study into other rabies-exposed populations to determine if resistance may be more common worldwide.
Previous work suggested that some people could naturally produce antibodies against the virus, including Inuit hunters in the Canadian Arctic and raccoon hunters in Florida.
In the Peruvian study, Gilbert and colleagues wanted to look at interactions between bats and humans to better understand not only rabies, but also emerging diseases.
The researchers unexpectedly found six people out of 92 interviewed who had developed antibodies against rabies, even though they had never been vaccinated.
The two Peruvian communities under study suffer from endemic rabies that comes from vampire bat populations, so it was no surprise that the people had exposure to rabies through bites and scratches. As such, they'd be expected to carry virus antibodies.
The surprise came when the researchers found actual immunity in humans (they weren't sick), dead ends for the virus since the incidental hosts typically don't pass along the infection.
"It's not thought that incidental hosts develop immunity to the virus," Gilbert said. Reservoir hosts like vampire bats have developed a natural immune response because of the regular exposure to the virus. However, incidental hosts aren’t exposed to the virus, so have built up little, if any, immunity.
Secrets of immunity?
"Very few reported that they would do things recommended such as washing a wound with soap and water or visiting a health care provider," said Brett Peterson, a CDC researcher and co-lead author of the study. "There did seem to be a lack of knowledge of the risk of rabies and proper precautionary measures."
In response, the Peruvian Ministry of Health, which collaborated with the CDC on the study, started a pre-exposure immunization campaign for at-risk residents in the region, Peterson said.
"Some of this new data we are presenting may influence the way people think about preventing rabies," he added.
The researchers also said that Peruvians likely don't have a genetic leg-up on rabies resistance. However, Rodney Willoughby Jr., pediatric researcher at the Medical College of Wisconsin, wrote in an accompanying editorial that studying the genetics of these naturally rabies-resistant Peruvians could reveal the biochemical and physiological reasons for the resistance.
Having antibodies to the rabies virus doesn’t mean you're off the hook for the disease.
"Despite finding antibodies, we don't believe these people are protected," Gilbert said.
"The antibodies are an immune response so you could say they have some immunity; even though they have some immunity, it may not be fully protective," Gilbert said. Researchers don’t agree on the degree to which antibodies protect against disease.
"Anyone who has contact needs to seek medical advice and seek treatment," she said. - yahoo
Rabid: A Cultural History of the World's Most Diabolical Virus
Vampire Bats
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Former 'God’s Banker' could blitz Vatican with cache of secret documents
The former head of the Vatican Bank has become the Papacy’s Enemy Number One, after police discovered a trove of documents exposing financial misdeeds in the Holy See. The banker now reportedly fears for his life.
Earlier this week police conducted a dawn raid on the house and office of Ettore Gotti Tedeschi. Investigators say they were looking for evidence in a graft case against defense and aerospace firm Finmeccanica, which was formerly run by a close friend of Gotti Tedeschi.
Instead, as it turns out, police stumbled upon an entirely different find.
They discovered 47 binders containing private communication exposing the opaque inner workings of the secretive Holy See. They included financial documents, details of money transfers and confidential internal reports – all prepared by Gotti Tedeschi to build a convincing expose of corruption in the Vatican.
A renowned economics professor and head of the Italian branch of the giant Bank of Santander Gotti Tedeschi took what turned out to be a poisoned chalice of a job in 2009, when he became the President of the Institute for Works of Religion, the formal name for the Bank of Vatican. His brief was formidable – to introduce transparency to a lucrative enterprise that had become a byword for money-laundering and corruption.
After a tumultuous three years marked by in-fighting and public scandals, Gotti Tedeschi was unanimously dismissed from his post by a board of Vatican officials in May.
“I have paid for my transparency” the indignant banker said to the media, as he stormed off even before his dismissal hearing was over.
The confidential minutes of the stormy meeting obtained by Reuters showed the banker accused of "progressively erratic personal behavior" and "exhibiting lack of prudence and accuracy in comments regarding the Institute".
But there may have been other reasons.
Aware that his crusade against corruption was failing, Gotti Tedeschi probably began to leak important documents to the media.
The drip-drip of damaging revelations (alongside more personal ones presumably passed onto the media by the Pope’s own butler) has been dubbed 'Vatileaks', and has captivated Italy in recent months.
At the hearing, the board that dismissed the banker also indirectly accused Gotti Tedeschi of being behind some of the leaks, pointing to his "Failure to provide any formal explanation for the dissemination of documents last known to be in the president's possession."
While the leaks were a weapon with which to attack his enemies, Gotti Tedeschi was also preparing a last resort option if the battle was lost – a ‘suicide belt’ that would blow the lid off Vatican.
Several months ago, he reportedly told his friends that he began collecting an exhaustive dossier “in case something happened to him.”
It is this dossier that the police have now apparently discovered.
The Vatican is barely concealing its panic – and wants the folders handed back unopened.
“We have faith that the prosecutors and Italian judicial system will respect our sovereignty—recognized internationally—with regard to these documents,” said an official statement.
But there is little chance the Papacy will get its way this time.
Italian prosecutors have frequently been at loggerheads with the Vatican and have accused it of using its sovereignty as a shield against proper regulation.
If the documents do spark a legal firestorm, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi is sure to be a key witness in any trial. A former employee against his employers, and a conservative Catholic pitched against the Vatican itself.
Allegedly, Gotti Tedeschi keeps a list of personal enemies in the Vatican – people who he had felt would stop at nothing to prevent him from reforming the Institute for Works of Religion. His friends have told the media he is shaken and scared.
Police are now considering putting the whistle-blowing banker under armed protection. - RT
Render Unto Rome: The Secret Life of Money in the Catholic Church
The Vatican Exposed: Money, Murder, and the Mafia
Unholy Trinity: The Vatican, The Nazis, and The Swiss Banks
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