News for Week 14 of 2010

News — By ken on April 5, 2010 at 11:17 am

Turin Shroud Goes on Public Display

Worshiped by millions as the authentic burial cloth of Jesus, the Shroud of Turin is one of the most sacred and controversial relics of the Christian world. The image of Christ, believers say, was burned into the cloth fibers by the intense heat of resurrection.

The shroud of Turin went on public display Saturday for the first time since it was restored in 2002.

About two million people — including Pope Benedict XVI — are expected to view the shroud while it’s on view at the Turin Cathedral for the next six weeks.

AssociatedPress April 10, 2010
The Shroud of Turin went on public display on Saturday for the first time in 10 years, drawing long lines of people to see the linen some believe is Christ’s burial cloth and others dismiss as a medieval fake.

Terror Threats Loom at soccer World Cup

Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) secretary general Jerome Valcke says there has been a terrorist threat to the World Cup, but it will not stop organisers from holding the soccer tournament.

Valcke was commenting on an online magazine article that said “how beautiful” it would be if a bomb exploded at the U.S.-England game June 12 in the South African city of Rustenburg.

The comments appeared to come from a contributor to a militant online magazine called “Yearners for Paradise,” not the usual sites used by al-Qaida and other groups to make threats. In the article, the author says he is not a spokesman for al-Qaida.

South Africa will be hosting 31 other soccer nations, so the police have prepared and planned for every eventuality.

Police have staged training simulations of chemical, biological and radiation attacks. Hospital workers have worked up plans in case of mass casualties. South African intelligence agents are tapping colleagues from around the world for information about possible threats.

AssociatedPress April 9, 2010
FIFA secretary general Jerome Valcke says there has been a terrorist threat to the World Cup, but it will not stop organisers from holding the soccer tournament.

FIFA World Cup – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

FIFA.com – The Official Website of the FIFA World Cup™
Official site. Features news, information about venues, photo gallery, and organising committee details.

• Overweight hedgehogs put on diet
• Baby boomers play banker for next generation
• Tension rises as Thailand blocks websites, TV
• Australia becoming ‘breeding ground’ for Tamil rebels
• Foreign Legion soldier killed in Afghanistan
• China executes more Japanese drug smugglers
• Rescuers suspend US mine search
• Bingo battle in America’s heartland
• Anti-ACORN filmmaker arrested
• Media bias or campaign contributions – Which is worst?
• Pecking order determines flock formation
• Burqa mishap kills go-karter
• Pay-per-loo: Ryanair to charge for toilet trips
• Do you trust Generation Y?
• Study shines light on near-death experiences
• Sushi may ‘transfer genes’ to human gut
• Eating less fruit will mean fewer broken arms
• India cagey over Australia travel warning
• Man guilty of stalking friend who later killed himself
• Kirby slams Australian government inaction on same-sex marriage
• Diplomat sparks bomb scare with cigarette
• Furor from in-flight incident
• Priest jailed for altar boy assault
• $1 billion in property seized from Mafia clan
• Romantic French gorilla makes life after death
• Tourism body applauds oil spill ship management
• Taiwan’s answer to Susan Boyle goes viral
• ‘Moody, homesick’ Watson nears Australia
• In Sleepless Nights, a Hope for Treating Depression
• WWII bomb closes Berlin airport
• Netanyahu pulls out of nuclear summit
• U.S. and Russia Sign Nuclear Arms Pact
• Russia criticizes Pentagon effort
• Ex-Yugoslav leader Tito’s elephant dies
• Toyota executive urged board ‘to come clean’
• The man who saw the financial crisis coming
• Camilla takes tumble, breaks leg

Honda Unveils ‘Personal Mobility’ Device

The Segway now has competition in the personal mobility device market.

Honda Motor co has unveiled a small, electric battery-powered device which they say may be the future of indoor transportation – the U3-X

Segway’s personal transporters require the user to stand, whilst the Honda device allows them to sit. The Segway has two wheels whilst the Honda U3-X only has one. The user just sits on it and guides it around by just leaning forward, backward, or left to right.

Honda apparently sees the device as useful for getting around offices and other relatively controlled environments, rather than onto rough sidewalks, curbs, and trails.

The U3-X weighs under 10 kg, and resembles a short unicycle. The device will balance on its own, and has a fold-out seat and built-in carrying handle. Users just set the device down, have a seat, put the feet on the fold-out footrests, then lean whatever way they want to go: the omni-directional wheel takes users in that direction. Users can easily reach the ground and stand, and riders sit only a little below the eye level of other people and pedestrians.

The device is still in experimental stages.

It was first publicly demonstrated at the 2009 Tokyo Motor Show 2009.

AssociatedPress April 8, 2010
Honda has taken the wraps off a new mobility device that allows you to steer and cruise around simply by shifting your weight.

It appears riders are expected to hold on to the sides of the seat with both hands, which would make it difficult or impossible to hold or carry anything while using the device.

Honda says the U3-X has a battery life of about 1 hour.

The FULL story on ‘Personal Mobility’ vehicles of the future

Associated Press Top Stories

AssociatedPress April 7, 2010
Here’s the latest news for Wednesday April 7: Crews search for missing miners; President Obama heads to Prague; 95 dead from floods in Brazil; UConn women capture national championship..

Associated Press Top Stories

AssociatedPress April 6, 2010
Here’s the latest news for Tuesday, April 6: Families hold out hope for 4 missing miners; Obama hails nuke plan; Catholic priest in India declares his innocence; Calif AG: Haim had more than 500 pills.

Diabetics look to pigs for cure

Scientific trials of pig cell transplants in New Zealand and Russia could result in a cure for type 1 diabetes, after successful human trials involving insulin-producing pig cells being transplanted into more than a dozen people to control diabetes.

So far two patients have been able to stop using insulin.

The trial is now being considered in Australia.

There has been concern though that this treatment could result in the transmission of viruses from pigs causing a pandemic among humans.

It caused Australian authorities to place a ban on pig cell transplants, but that ban has now been lifted.

Islet cells from the pancreas of pigs are coated with a seaweed gel and implanted into the abdomen of patients to manufacture insulin and help control their blood sugar levels.

The New Zealand piglets being used are kept in quarantine after being bred from a unique herd that lives on the sub-Antarctic Auckland Islands.

The herd had been abandoned some 200 years ago and the isolation means that the pigs are free from retroviruses.

NewsOnABC April 5, 2010
Scientific trials of pig cell transplants in New Zealand and Russia could result in a cure for Type 1 diabetes after two diabetics were able to stop their insulin use.

More on the general subject…

Weight, Health and the Economy
In the last two decades, the rate of obesity has risen three-fold. It is more than 30 percent in some European countries. In Europe, about 50 percent of all adults are categorised as overweight. Obesity increases the risk of hypertension, diabetes, and atherosclerosis.

Lady Sonia McMahon dies aged 77

Lady McMahon died aged 77 on 2 April 2010, in Sydney’s St Vincent’s Private Hospital after suffering from cancer; her son Hollywood actor Julian McMahon and her two daughters Melinda and Deborah were by her side.

Sonia Rachel Hopkins worked as an occupational therapist until 1965 when she married William McMahon, an Australian Liberal politician who became the 20th Prime Minister of Australia in 1971. She was 32, he 57. It was the only marriage for both of them.

Sonia McMahon made world headlines in 1971, after being photographed at the White House wearing a revealing dress in the company of her husband and United States president Richard Nixon. The white full-length dress featured see-through slits down both sides.

NewsOnABC April 2, 2010
Lady Sonia McMahon, widow of former Prime Minister Sir William McMahon, has died at the age of 77.

Feathered fury on Pillow-Fight Day

On April 3rd, pyjama-clad participants in 137 cities around the world celebrated the International Pillow Fight Day.

International pillow fights were started by Kevin Bracken and Lori Kufner’s interactive public art group “Newmindspace” based in New York and Toronto.

http://www.pillowfightday.com/

This project is a collaboration of many people who comprise a loose, decentralised network of urban playground event organisers all over the world.

Since 2005, on April 3, people in almost every major city in the world go to public spaces like town squares armed with pillows to fight each other. Its a non-commercial event aimed at having people take part as participants, not consumers, and to give people the chance to do something playful in public space.

In the spirit of good-natured fighting and on cue at around three o’clock, the feathers fly with the emphasis on fast and energetic for about 15 minutes straight and then a total clean-up.

The rules state the following…

Swing lightly, as many people will be swinging at once and do not swing at people without pillows or with cameras. Its important to remove glasses beforehand and wait until 3 p.m. to begin.

Soft pillows only! Funky pillows and costumes were encouraged.

The event was FREE and appropriate for ALL AGES.

NewsOnABC April 4, 2010
Flying feathers have littered cities across Europe and South America, as hundreds of people turned out to battle for “International Pillow-Fight Day”.

Australian art prize judged by a cockatoo

A caricature of veteran Australian television personality Bert Newton has won this year’s Bald Archy art prize. The Bald Archy is an Australian art prize, a parody of the Archibald Prize, an important portraiture award.

It began in 1994 at the Coolac Festival of Fun, in the tiny town of Coolac near Gundagai, New South Wales, but is now a popular event presented in Sydney, Melbourne and other locations.

The prize was established by experienced arts administrator and successful theatre director, Peter Batey OAM, as part of an arts festival, to avoid discrimination by those afraid of a cultural image.

Organisers claim the Bald Archy is judged by a sulphur-crested cockatoo called Maude.

This years winner by Judy Nadin, titled Patti’s Cake, shows Newton in the buff. Nadin, a professional illustrator and cartoonist from Newcastle, won $5,000 for her efforts.

The 2009 winner was James Brennan, a 34-year-old railway worker, with a portrait of Bart Cummings, the South Australian trainer of 11 Melbourne Cup winners. The painting being titled, “Old Owl Eyes Is back”.

The 2008 award was won again by James Brennan with a portrait depicting Denmark’s Australian-born Crown Princess Mary breastfeeding in sheepskin boots while her Y-front clad husband Crown Prince Frederik sips a beer.

The 1997 winner by Xavier Ghazi was of Rupert Murdoch holding the earth and saying, “I’ll Eat You In The End”.

The 2010 Bald Archy exhibition can be seen at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s headquarters at Ultimo until April 25.

It will then travel to Coffs Harbour, Adelaide, Deniliquin, Bowral, Brewarrina, Melbourne and Cootamundra.

The official web site is… http://www.baldarchy.com.au/

NewsOnABC April 1, 2010
Australian Senator Bill Heffernan shares his take on this year’s Bald Archy spoof art prize. He jokingly refers to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation venue as the Communist Party. The Liberal Party Senator, representing the state of New South Wales, is known for his conservative views. At the National Marriage Day Breakfast held in Canberra on 13 August, 2009, Bill Heffernan was accused by gay rights group Equal Love of equating homosexuality with paedophilia. Specifically, Heffernan allegedly stated to a gay rights activist in the corridors of the conference that, “I don’t mind gay people. I just want you to stop fucking the kids”. Later he issued a public apology for his comments, stating: “I wish to apologise to all those people who were offended with alleged comments published in the media… Please be assured I have a great relationship with many gay people, so at times, printed material is often misquoted and untrue”.