Human link to elephant sex drive
AFP
December 23, 2005

THE aggressive sexual activity of Asian elephants could be a key to understanding the human sixth sense, according to new research to be published this week in the international science journal Nature.
The study, conducted by New Zealander Dave Greenwood and Elizabeth Rasmussen of the Oregon Heath and Sciences University, focussed on the ways animals signal to each other.

Male Asian elephants are famed for their annual bouts of heightened sexual activity and aggression, called "musth", during which they produce a notoriously pungent cocktail of chemicals to advertise their mating status, the researchers said.

The jury is out on whether humans have the ability to communicate using pheromones but the research into elephants is considered a significant step forward in the understanding of this signalling in mammals.

The researchers found that more mature males impress females by including a balance of different versions of a particular pheromone called frontalin, which exists in two molecular "mirror-image" forms.

"We found the frontalin is released by the elephants in specific ratios that depend on the animal's age and stage of musth," Mr Greenwood said.

Mr Greenwood, honorary associate professor at Auckland University's School of Biological Science, said the exact chemical blend of the pheromone emitted by older male elephants influenced both a female elephant's interest in mating and how other surrounding elephants behave.

"We were certainly surprised by the results. This is the first example, in mammals, of the use of this very precise signalling and ratio of chemical compounds in signalling.

"All of the responses to the pheromone are such as trumpeting, running away, circling are translatable at the basic level to other animals including humans."

UFO site to launch Virgin into space

December 12, 2005

LONDON: We have lift-off. The British entrepreneur and owner of Virgin, Richard Branson, has chosen the launch site for a venture into space tourism.
The Virgin Galactic spacecraft is scheduled to take off in five years from a site near Roswell, New Mexico, in a desert known for UFO legends and alleged alien autopsies.

Rich travellers who pay $US200,000 ($265,000) for a ticket will be whisked 96km into the sky on the three-hour flights. Up to six passengers at a time will have 20 minutes in space, five minutes of it in a weightless state.

This week, representatives from the New Mexico state Government will visit Sir Richard in London before the Virgin boss flies to the US to announce the deal. The state is to invest $266million in the world's first commercial space port and Sir Richard has agreed to take a 20-year lease on the site.

Sources close to Sir Richard said that talks for a space flight licence from the Federal Aviation Administration were "going well".

The stable, sunny weather around Roswell should guarantee a maximum of 320 operational days each year. At first, the craft will fly once a week -- but the goal is to fly once a day, enabling a dramatic cut in the ticket price.

The area of the space port occupies a special place for intergalactic enthusiasts.

The so-called "Roswell incident" of 1947 -- supposedly a crash landing of a flying saucer that was covered up by the US government -- has fascinated UFO researchers for almost 60 years. Today, the myth brings 500,000 tourists a year to the area.

Several US states had vied to lure Sir Richard since SpaceShipOne, a vehicle partly backed by the Virgin boss, became the first privately funded craft to make a flight into space in October last year. New Mexico won the bidding by promising to invest the $266million and to give Virgin Galactic a tax break on the sales of its tickets.

There has been no shortage of takers wishing to be among Sir Richard's first space travellers. Virgin Galactic has taken $14.7million in deposits and has 38,700 people registered to fly.

Celebrities who have signed up include William Shatner, the actor who played Captain Kirk in Star Trek, and Sigourney Weaver, who starred as Ripley in the Alien films.

The New Mexico Government has agreed to install all the basic infrastructure at the new space port, including a new runway long enough to handle the Virgin space flights.

The Roswell area will welcome the return of revolutionary aircraft after eking out UFO fictions for the past five decades to attract visitors.

It was home to the only atomic bomber squadron in the world when it was hit by a violent thunderstorm in July 1947. The next morning, a rancher stumbled across wreckage and strange shiny material that he could not bend or tear. The local newspaper published a report claiming the airfield had captured a "flying saucer".

There was, indeed, a cover-up, even if the reality did not match the myth of an alien landing. The military authorities at first claimed that the wreckage was part of a weather balloon. Much later, it was revealed that the debris had belonged to a high-altitude balloon being used to monitor Soviet nuclear tests.

The Sunday Times

ROME: An Italian mother who had a sex change has, in her new incarnation as a man, married a female childhood friend at a ceremony witnessed by their children.
Elena Silla, a 32-year-old nurse now officially known as Christian, married 35-year-old journalist Algia Flati. The pair met 20 years ago at school.

Four years ago, Silla decided to become a man, taking the name Christian "at the suggestion of her 10-year-old daughter", the Corriere della Sera newspaper said.

Soon afterwards she met Flati again, who by then was a divorced mother of two, and the pair became close.

AFP

Magnates paying to go under
Lois Rogers
December 12, 2005

BILLIONAIRES are going to ever greater depths to outdo each other: they are competing to have the biggest private submarines that money can buy.
Paul Allen, co-founder with Bill Gates of the Microsoft empire, recently bought a bright yellow submarine capable of taking 10 passengers. The craft is said to be docked, James Bond-style, inside Octopus, his 126m vessel, claimed to be the world's largest yacht.

Last week, Paul Moorhouse, a Plymouth-based submarine designer, said that two oil billionaires in the Emirates now owned private submarines offering pressurised overnight accommodation, and that an additional "seven or eight extremely wealthy people" have invested in more modest two-man subs.

"You have to be weird to want one," he declared. "They cost at least pound stg. 10million ($23.3million) to build and pound stg. 100,000 a year to maintain."

Roman Abramovich, the Russian billionaire who owns Chelsea football club and four super-yachts, has a two-man "runaround" sub, which sits alongside his helicopter on the 103m Pelorus.

A source last week implied that he may want to trade up: "If other people have got bigger ones, he will have to be told that he's behind the times."

The ocean depths are seen as an exclusive playground for the super-rich and one entrepreneur is preparing to build the world's first submarine cruise ship.

The vessel, to be named Poseidon, is aimed at the booming market for luxurious but extreme adventure and will be the first commercial vessel to provide cruises to the bottom of the sea.

Costing pound stg. 100million, the 87m ship is designed to perform as well on the surface as it does submerged. The intention is to enable tourists to hop from port to port but also to spend several days at depths of 300m, observing wonders such as the Great Barrier Reef and undersea formations off the Caribbean and Hawaiian islands.

It is the brainchild of Bruce Jones, a submarine entrepreneur from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, who believes that deep ocean tourism rivals space as a new frontier for holidaymakers. Three multi-millionaires have already paid fortunes to fly on space missions.

Jones, a member of the American Bureau of Shipping's committee on underwater systems, has designed the Poseidon and is raising finance for its construction. He believes it can be in service within three years.

The design envisages accommodation for 70 passengers in luxury staterooms costing upwards of pound stg. 1300 a day. Part surface ship, part submarine, the Poseidon will have large acrylic windows capable of withstanding the pressures of extreme depths while giving floodlit views of the undersea world. The mother vessel will also carry a smaller submersible for close-up exploration of reefs and wrecks.

Jones is confident that there will be almost unlimited demand. "The idea of this kind of experience captures people's imagination," he said. "There are millions of intelligent high-end tourists in the world who are fascinated by the idea of underwater travel. We will be able to accommodate only a few thousand a year and our research shows massive interest."

In the Bahamas, he is already developing the Poseidon underwater resort, the first submerged hotel. Planning and finance are in place and Jones hopes the 22-room facility will open next December.

Since status symbols such as mega-yachts have become more common, billionaires are vying to find novel and extreme ways to outdo each other. So as well as submarines, the super-rich are seeking unusual planes. Larry Ellison, boss of the computer company Oracle, has his own jet fighter.

The most distinctive display has come from Gates, who is Ellison's arch rival. After giving billions to charity, he can probably claim the title of the world's greatest philanthropist.

The Sunday Times

December 23, 2005

LONDON: Men who want to carve up the dancefloor should take a good look at their bodies before launching into a waltz or foxtrot in the hope of impressing a woman.
Scientists have discovered that the best male dancers tend to have more symmetrical body features, in a study that suggests dancing ability may be sexually appealing because it conveys useful information about a man's physical fitness.

Many species, including humans, are known to prefer mates with symmetrical features, which are thought to show good health, sound genes and a lack of parasites, all of which may enhance reproductive success.

The research indicates dancing ability could be another signal of these traits, helping people, particularly women, to choose an appropriate mate.

The findings, published in the latest edition of the journal Nature, suggest body symmetry is a particularly important means by which women select mates, which is in accordance with evolutionary theory.

"In species where fathers invest less than do mothers in their offspring, females are expected to be more selective in mate choice, and males to invest more in courtship display," the researchers said.

"Thus, we predicted that degree of symmetry would more strongly correlate with male dance ability, and females would be better discriminators.

"Dance in Jamaica seems to show evidence of sexual selection and to reveal important information about the dancer."

China took another great leap forward yesterday as it upgraded growth estimates by nearly 17 per cent or $US284 billion ($387.4 billion) for 2004, an unprecedented move that could rank it as the world's fourth-largest economy.

With the revision, China officially overtook Italy to rise from seventh to sixth in the global rankings after the United States, Japan, Germany, Britain and France.

But political analysts in Beijing said that by now, China was very likely close to fourth place based on its real growth rate, as opposed to official data, and dollar exchange rates.

Mr Blair, who visited Beijing and New Delhi in September as part of Britain's turn at the rotating European Union presidency, said he did not believe that China had yet overtaken Britain in the GDP league tables.

But he said: "At some point, I'm afraid, the Chinese economy is going to overtake not just Britain, but Japan and Germany and eventually the United States. That's just the way it is."

China's economic growth, he said, was "the dominant force that is driving everything" in the world, given its hunger for energy and raw materials and its cheap labour.