The First Private Expedition to the Moon

SPEN, Colorado - You don't have to pack your bags quite yet, but passenger travel to the Moon is on the flight manifest of a space tourist company.

The price per seat will slap your wallet or purse for a swift $100 million - but you'll have to get in line as the first voyage is already booked.

Space Adventures, headquartered in Vienna, Virginia, is in negotiations with the customers who will fly the first private expedition to circumnavigate the Moon.

"I hope to have those contracts signed by the end of the year," said Eric Anderson, Space Adventures' president and CEO.

Anderson outlined the future for his space travel firm during Flight School, a workshop for commercial space and private aviation ventures, held here June 20-22 at the Aspen Institute.

Lunar leap: free-return

A Space Adventures team has blueprinted a circumlunar mission using a unique blend of existing and flight-tested Russian technology. At the heart of the lunar leap is Russia's venerable Soyuz spacecraft. A pilot and two passengers would depart Earth in their Soyuz, linking up in orbit with an unpiloted kick stage for a boost outward to the Moon.

"The Soyuz was originally designed as a circumlunar spacecraft. It hasn't flown with people around the Moon, of course. But the Soyuz would fly a free-return trajectory - a boomerang course - around the Moon. So there's not a lot that needs to be done to the Soyuz to accommodate for that...it could probably fly around the Moon right now," Anderson told SPACE.com. "There will be some upgrades to the communications systems...and we would make the window bigger too."

Anderson said that the Soyuz pilot and two passengers would not go into lunar orbit. "That comes later," he added, as a follow-on public space travel trek.

A practice run of mission hardware in unpiloted mode is likely, Anderson continued, "so we would test it all out, even though we think we could do it [the expedition] without a test flight."
The two-passenger, $100 million per couch flight adds up to a $200 million mission.

"I personally think that it's the biggest thing in private spaceflight. It would change the way the whole world thinks about private spaceflight. It is definitely doable for under the $200 million price tag," Anderson explained, thereby signaling a radical reduction in cost of any past piloted lunar flight.

(Yahoo News; Image: AFP)
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Paris Hilton released from L.A. jail

Paris Hilton left jail Tuesday after a bizarre, three-week stay in which the hotel heiress was briefly released to her Hollywood Hills home, then sent screaming and crying back to a county lockup.

The 26-year-old celebutante walked out of the all-women's jail in Lynwood to an enormous horde of cameras and reporters after midnight. She had checked into the jail, largely avoiding the spotlight, late June 3 after a surprise appearance at the MTV Movie Awards.

Hilton smiled as she left the jail, her blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail. Her parents, Kathy and Rick, met her in a black SUV as cameras snapped pictures and Hilton, wearing a gold blouse with white trim over a white shirt and black slacks, waved to the crowd.

She didn't say anything, and it wasn't immediately clear where she was going.

"She fulfilled her debt. She was obviously in good spirits. She thanked people as she left," said sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore.

Hilton will complete her probation in March 2009 as long as she keeps her driver's license current and doesn't break any laws. She can reduce that time by 12 months if she does community service that could include a public-service announcement, the city attorney's office has said.

(AP)

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Cameron Diaz apologizes for Maoist bag

Cameron Diaz apologized Sunday for carrying a bag with a political slogan that evoked painful memories in Peru.

The voice of Princess Fiona in the animated "Shrek" films visited the Incan city of Machu Picchu in Peru's Andes on Friday carrying an olive green bag emblazoned with a red star and the words "Serve the People" printed in Chinese, perhaps Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong's most famous political slogan.

The bags are marketed as fashion accessories in some world capitals, but in Peru the slogan evokes memories of the Maoist Shining Path insurgency that fought the government in the 1980s and early 1990s in a bloody conflict that left nearly 70,000 people dead.

"I sincerely apologize to anyone I may have inadvertently offended. The bag was a purchase I made as a tourist in China and I did not realize the potentially hurtful nature of the slogan printed on it," Diaz said in a statement e-mailed to The Associated Press.

On Friday, one prominent Peruvian human rights activist said Diaz should have been a little more aware of local sensitivities when picking her accessories.

In Sunday's statement, the star of "There's Something About Mary" said the purpose of her visit was to participate in a television show that celebrates Peru's culture. The actress has been in Peru as part of "4 REAL," a Canadian TV production that focuses on young community leaders around the world.

"I'm sorry for any people's pain and suffering and it was certainly never my intention to reopen what I now know is a painful wound in this country's history," she said.

Diaz also spoke of Peruvians' beauty and warmth and said she wished "for their continued healing."

(AP)

Missing: Large lake in southern Chile

A general view of a dried lake in Magallanes, south of Santiago, June 20, 2007.

The lake in southern Chile has mysteriously disappeared, prompting speculation the ground has simply opened up and swallowed it whole. (CONAF/Handout/Reuters)

SANTIAGO (Reuters) - A lake in southern Chile has mysteriously disappeared, prompting speculation the ground has simply opened up and swallowed it whole.

The lake was situated in the Magallanes region in Patagonia and was fed by water, mostly from melting glaciers.
It had a surface area of between 4 and 5 hectares (10-12 acres) -- about the size of 10 soccer pitches.

"In March we patrolled the area and everything was normal ... we went again in May and to our surprise we found the lake had completely disappeared," said Juan Jose Romero, regional director of Chile's National Forestry Corporation CONAF.
"The only things left were chunks of ice on the dry lake-bed and an enormous fissure," he told Reuters.

CONAF is investigating the disappearance.

One theory is that the area was hit by an earth tremor that opened a crack in the ground which acted like a drain.

Southern Chile has been shaken by thousands of minor earth tremors this year.

(Reuters & Yahoo News)

Thousands of pearls found in shipwreck

KEY WEST, Fla. - Salvagers discovered thousands of pearls Friday in a small, lead box they said they found while searching for the wreckage of the 17th-century Spanish galleon Santa Margarita.

Divers from Blue Water Ventures of Key West said they found the sealed box, measuring 3.5 inches by 5.5 inches, along with a gold bar, eight gold chains and hundreds of other artifacts earlier this week.

They were apparently buried beneath the ocean floor in approximately 18 feet of water about 40 miles west of Key West.

"There are several thousand pearls starting from an eighth of an inch to three-quarters of an inch," said Duncan Mathewson, marine archaeologist and partner in Blue Water Ventures.

James Sinclair, archaeologist and conservator consulting with Mel Fisher's Treasures, Blue Water's joint-venture partners, said the pearls are very rare because of their antiquity and condition.

Sinclair said pearls don't normally survive the ocean water once they are out of the oyster that makes them.

"In this instance, we had a lead box and the silt that had sifted into the box from the site of the Margarita, which preserved the pearls in a fairly pristine state," he said.

An initial cache of treasure and artifacts from the Santa Margarita was discovered in 1980 by pioneering shipwreck salvor Mel Fisher. The ship was bound for Spain when it sank in a hurricane in 1622.

The pearls will be conserved, documented and photographed in an archaeological laboratory above the Mel Fisher Maritime Museum in Key West.

"Until they're properly cleaned and conserved we don't know their value, but it would seem they would be worth upwards of a million dollars," Mathewson said.

(Article: Yahoo News, Image: AP)

Bush's watch disappears in crowd

TIRANA, Albania (AP) -- One moment President Bush was glad-handing Albanians on Sunday, proudly sporting a watch with a dark strap on his left wrist. Moments later, it was gone.

Did it fall off? Did one of his bodyguards remove it? Or did one of the crowd artfully slip it off his wrist and pocket it?

The United States Embassy in Albania on Tuesday emphatically denied that Bush's watch was stolen during his visit to the country, where he was acclaimed as a hero.

The Albanian media -- and international Web sites -- is buzzing with video showing Bush's wrist watch apparently disappearing while he was shaking hands with people in Fushe Kruje, 25 kilometers (15 miles) north of Tirana.

"What the local media is saying is absolutely not true," an embassy official, who declined to be named, said.

People waiting on the sidewalks on Sunday gave Bush a rapturous welcome, shaking hands with him, grabbing him by the arms and wrists, reaching out to embrace him and even ruffling his hair.

Bush was clearly delighted by the attention and plunged back into the crowd for more hand shaking and to be kissed on the cheek.

An Albanian bodyguard who accompanied Bush in the town told The Associated Press he had seen one of his U.S. colleagues close to Bush bend down and pick up the watch.
The Top Channel private TV station showed how one of his bodyguards may have talked to the president and then taken the watch from his hand.

(AP)

Paradox: Wildlife populates Chernobyl site

PARISHEV, Ukraine (AP) -- Two decades after an explosion and fire at the nearby Chernobyl nuclear power plant sent clouds of radioactive particles drifting over the fields near her home, Maria Urupa says the wilderness is encroaching.
Packs of wolves have eaten two of her dogs, the 73-year-old told a visitor in May, and wild boar trample through her corn field. Meanwhile, she said, fox, rabbits and snakes infest the meadows near her tumbledown cottage.
"I've seen a lot of wild animals here," said Urupa, one of about 300 mostly elderly residents who insist on living in Chernobyl's contaminated evacuation zone.
The return of wildlife to the region near the world's worst nuclear power accident, first reported more than a decade ago, is an apparent paradox that biologists are still trying to measure and understand.

(...)

Some researchers insist that by halting the destruction of habitat, the Chernobyl disaster helped wildlife flourish. Others say animals may be filtering into the zone, but that they appear to suffer malformations and other ills that threaten to send their tenuous populations crashing.

Both sides say more research is needed into the long-term health of a variety of Chernobyl's wildlife species, as governments around the world consider switching from fossil fuel plants, blamed for helping drive global climate change, to nuclear power.

(AP)

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25th Anniversary of Fassbinder Death Marred By Controversy

Rainer Werner Fassbinder was a pioneer of New German Cinema. Admired abroad but often reviled at home, he died 25 years ago at the age of 37.
After a chequered career as a film-maker, actor, producer, theater manager, composer, editor and cameraman, the enfant terrible of New German Cinema died suddenly in 1982.

The 25th anniversary of his death has been overshadowed by a bitter battle over the Fassbinder Foundation. This was set up by his mother, Liselotte Eder, and taken over by his wife, Juliane Lorenz, after she died. Although many agree that the Fassbinder estate would be in chaos without her efforts, others resent her exclusive control over his body of work.

Last week, around 25 of Fassbinder's former colleagues -- including actors, directors and producers -- demanded Lorenz resign and the Fassbinder oeuvre be donated to the Deutsche Kinemathek in Berlin.

(Deutsche Welle)

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Rock star to inherit Briton's house

LONDON, England (Reuters) -- An eccentric British aristocrat with no heir says the lead singer of an American rock group was a "hot contender" to take over his £7 million ($13.8 million) country estate.

"He is my new best friend," Sir Benjamin Slade said Friday of Isaac Slade, frontman for the rock group The Fray who could be in line to take over his 13th century mansion.

The baronet was swamped with applications from 15,000 would-be relatives when his quest for a Slade heir was made into a Discovery Channel documentary.
Among the applicants were Canadian, American and Australian Slades. A convict even applied from an Indian prison.

"Isaac is definitely one of the hot contenders. It is looking good," Slade said after entertaining him for two days at Maunsel House, a rambling stately home in Somerset, western England, that has nine bedrooms, a ballroom, library and bar.
The estate also boasts a herd of 430 cattle as well as 13 peacocks, four dogs and six pigs.

"We would put (the estate) in a trust. That is the only way to protect these assets. I would not be selling it to him. We want an heir for this place who would take it on and look after it," Slade said.

The 60-year-old baronet thoroughly approved of the 26-year-old Isaac from Denver, Colorado, and said he certainly did not fit the popular image of rock 'n' roll excess.

(Reuters)

Paris Hilton not eating in jail, but won't appeal

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Paris Hilton has not eaten or slept since arriving at the medical ward of a Los Angeles jail and is being given psychotropic drugs, celebrity Web site TMZ.com reported on Saturday, citing law enforcement sources.

Nevertheless, the socialite and hotel heiress said late on Saturday afternoon that she had told her attorneys not to appeal the order that sent her back to jail on Friday after a day of house arrest.

"Being in jail is by far the hardest thing I have ever done," Hilton, 26, said in a written statement issued by her attorney, Richard Hutton. "During the past several days, I have had a lot of time to think and I believe that I am learning and growing from this experience."

Hilton had spent just three full days of an expected three-week term behind bars when the Los Angeles County sheriff on Thursday cut short her incarceration and placed her under house arrest due to psychological problems. But a judge overruled the sheriff on Friday and sent her back to jail.

Hilton was visited by her psychiatrist, Dr. Charles Sophy, for more than two hours on Saturday morning, according to TMZ.com. She was being held in a room by herself with a glass door that is guarded at all times, the report said.

(Reuters)

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Napoleon sword sells for millions

A gold-encrusted sword used by Napoleon has been sold at auction in France for 4.8m euros ($6.4m).
Auctioneers said the sword, used in battle some 200 years ago, achieved a world record for Napoleon memorabilia.
The sword, which belonged to one of the emperor's descendants, was believed to be the last of Napoleon's blades in private hands.

The intricately decorated blade is just under 100cm (40in) in length and has a distinctive gentle curve.

Egyptian inspired design
The sword, which had only been expected to achieve some 1.2m euros ($1.6m), was sold in the town of Fontainebleau, near a castle Napoleon used as a retreat.
"It's a world record for a souvenir of the emperor, for a sword and for a weapon in general," auction house spokesman Bernard Croissy said.
The inspiration for the sword's design is said to have come during Napoleon's Egyptian campaign.
He noticed that the swords used by the Arabs, which were also curved, were very effective in cutting off the heads of their French enemies.
The French general is said to have carried the sword into battle at Marengo in June 1800 - before he became emperor - when he launched a surprise attack to push the Austrian army out of Italy and seal a victory for France.
After the battle, Napoleon gave the sword to his brother as a wedding gift and it was then passed down the family through the generations.
The sword was declared a national treasure in 1978 and, while it may be sold to a foreign buyer, they must have a French address and keep it in France for six months a year.

(BBC)

Shuttle docking a 'go' despite gap in heat blanket

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (AP) -- The space shuttle Atlantis is charging toward its Sunday rendezvous with the international space station, apparently unaffected by a small gap in its heat-protecting blanket.

Atlantis' seven astronauts spent much of Saturday on a mandatory inspection of the shuttle's delicate heat tiles, outer edges and blankets for problems similar to the kind that caused the fatal Columbia accident in 2003. As of Saturday afternoon, no glaring problems were reported.

But late Friday and early Saturday, the crew spent extra time using a robot arm to look at a gap in a thermal blanket on the left side of the shuttle.

The gap, about 4 inches by 6 inches, appears to have been caused by air lifting the corner of the blanket up, John Shannon, chairman of the mission management team, said at a news conference.

"It's not a great deal of concern right now, but there's a lot of work to be done," Shannon said. "Other than that, the vehicle is very clean."

The area does not get hotter than 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit during the shuttle's return to Earth and is not a place where NASA is usually concerned about potentially fatal problems, NASA spokeswoman Lynette Madison said. Still, engineers were using photos to create a three-dimensional model of the gap just in case.

"They don't think it's much of a concern," Madison said.

As part of the normal day-after-launch tile inspections, astronaut Patrick Forrester used the shuttle's robot arm and a boom extension to examine its wings and outer edges.

Atlantis' crew was given an extra half-hour to sleep Saturday morning, then awoke to the song "Big Boy Toys" by Aaron Tippin.

Atlantis' seven-man crew was closing the gap between it and the space station by about 800 miles every 90-minute orbit. By 2 p.m. EDT, the shuttle was about 4,000 miles away from its destination. Atlantis is scheduled to dock with the space station at 3:38 p.m. EDT Sunday.
Before the docking comes maneuvering that NASA officials often call a delicate ballet, a procedure that has appeared effortless in 20 previous tries, even though it is risky.

"Two vehicles weighing 230,000 pounds going 17,500 mph, it's tough stuff," Mission Management Team leader John Shannon said.

Atlantis commander Rick Sturckow will move the shuttle until it is 600 feet below the station and then make the shuttle turn a backflip in just nine minutes. The last few feet of the docking occur so slowly that Atlantis will get only an inch closer to the station every second.

Once the shuttle and station connect, they will stay locked until June 17.
During the 11-day flight, the astronauts will deliver a new segment and a pair of solar panels to the orbiting outpost. They plan three spacewalks -- on Monday, Wednesday and Friday -- to install the new equipment and retract an old solar panel.

On Sunday, astronaut Clayton Anderson will replace astronaut Sunita Williams as the U.S. representative aboard the space station, and Williams will return to Earth aboard Atlantis. She has spent the past six months in orbit.
About an hour after launch Saturday, NASA managers said initial checks found nothing to worry about. One piece of foam that appeared to come off the shuttle's fuel tank -- which bore white patches from repaired hail damage that had delayed the flight by three months -- about 135 seconds after launch did not seem to hit the shuttle, said shuttle program manager Wayne Hale.

(AP)

Patent sought on 'synthetic life'

Scientists working to build a life form from scratch have applied to patent the broad method they plan to use to create their "synthetic organism".
Dr Craig Venter, the man who led the private sector effort to sequence the human genome, has been working for years to create a man-made organism.

But constructing a primitive microbe from a kit of genes is a daunting task.

Dr Venter says, eventually, these life forms could be designed to make biofuels and absorb greenhouse gases.

The publication of the patent application has angered some environmentalists.
The Canada-based ETC group, which monitors developments in biotechnology, called on patent offices to reject applications on synthetic life forms.

The J Craig Venter Institute's US patent application claims exclusive ownership of a set of essential genes and a synthetic "free-living organism that can grow and replicate" made using those genes.

It has also filed an international application at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) which names more than 100 countries where the institute may seek monopoly patents.

Dr Venter's team intends to construct an organism with a "minimal genome" that can then be inserted into the shell of a bacterium.
By removing genes, one by one, from a bacterium called Mycoplasma genitalium they identified the minimum number of genes required for this particular organism to replicate, or reproduce, in its controlled environment.

They have been able to remove 101 of its 482 genes without killing the bacterium, meaning that 381 were required for replication.
But generating a man-made living organism from the bottom up requires much more than just its minimal genome.
For example, in order to get the genes to do something, there have to be chemicals to translate the genes into messenger RNA and proteins.

Scientists around the world have been wrestling with the task of generating a so-called free-living synthetic organism for years.

Environmental objection

The ETC Group says it will be writing to Dr Venter asking him to withdraw his institute's patent applications.
"We don't want to engage in a long-term legal strategy to slap down bad patents. These patents must be struck down before they're issued," said Hope Shand, a spokesperson for the group.

Jim Thomas, of ETC Group, added: "These monopoly claims signal the start of a high-stakes commercial race to synthesise and privatise synthetic life forms."


(BBC)

Graig Venter Website

Transplant tragedy

ANN ARBOR, Mich. - A patient whose double lung transplant operation was stopped after a plane carrying donor organs crashed into Lake Michigan has received a second set of lungs, doctors announced Friday.

The 50-year-old Michigan man, whose name wasn't released at his family's request, was in critical condition at a University of Michigan Health System hospital after the more than seven-hour surgery ended early Thursday, the health system said.

"We are relieved that we were able to do this transplant and give this man another chance for life," Dr. Jeffrey Punch, director of the Division of Transplantation at University of Michigan, said in a statement. "Our friends that died in the crash would have wanted us to go on with our work.

The cause of the crash was still unknown, but divers searching the lake off Milwaukee identified a debris field Friday on the lake bottom containing much of the wreckage, said Keith Holloway, spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board.

Heavy equipment will be needed to raise it, Holloway said. Recovery won't take place until next week, he told the Detroit Free Press.

Police said the Cessna's flight voice recorder had also been recovered, but Holloway could not confirm that.

The patient already was prepped for surgery, with his chest cut open and his lungs exposed to the air in the operating room, when the plane crashed, killing six members of a Survival Flight team.

Officials learned late Tuesday that another set of donor organs was available.

"If he had not received a transplant in a timely fashion he would have died," said Dr. Andrew C. Chang, one of two doctors who led the surgical team.

The patient has not been told of the crash. "I'll tell him more when he can handle it," Chang said.
Chang said the man's condition is "significantly improved."

The patient, a longtime smoker, needed the transplant because of a condition called chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder, the health system said. He had been on the waiting list for a double lung transplant since November.

The patient's family, in a statement released by the health system, said it was devastated and heartbroken for the families of the six team members who died in the crash.

(AP)

Screaming Paris Hilton sent back to jail

Paris Hilton was taken from a courtroom screaming and crying Friday seconds after a judge ordered her returned to jail to serve out her entire 45-day sentence for a parole violation in a reckless driving case.

"It's not right!" shouted the weeping Hilton. "Mom!" she called out to her mother in the audience.

Hilton, who was brought to court in handcuffs in a sheriff's car, came into the courtroom disheveled and weeping. Her hair was askew and she wore a gray fuzzy sweatshirt over slacks. She wore no makeup and she cried throughout the hearing.

Her body also shook constantly as she dabbed at her eyes. Several times she turned to her parents, seated behind her in the courtroom, and mouthed, "I love you."
She had been brought to court in sheriff's custody today for a court hearing on her early release from jail after back-and-forth decisions on whether she could participate by telephone from her home.

Hilton, appearing to be in handcuffs, cried after she was placed into a black-and-white patrol car, which sped away from her home with lights flashing as news helicopters pursued, broadcasting live TV coverage.

The car carrying her disappeared into the courthouse's underground parking lot, avoiding a swarm of news media, and her parents then arrived.

In the hearing, which began at late morning, a judge was to listen to the city attorney's complaint that the county sheriff did not have the right to reassign her to electronically monitored home detention after only three days in jail for violating probation in a reckless driving case.

On Thursday, Superior Court Judge Michael T. Sauer ordered that Hilton be brought to Friday's hearing. But early Friday a court spokesman announced that she would be allowed to participate by telephone, which is common in misdemeanor cases. Then, in a reversal, the spokesman said the judge had ordered the Sheriff's Department to pick her up and bring her to court.

The frenzy began early Thursday when sheriff's officials released Hilton because of an undisclosed medical condition and sent her home under house arrest. She had been in jail for three days.

Hilton was fitted with an electronic monitoring ankle bracelet and was expected to finish her 45-day sentence for a reckless driving probation violation at her four-bedroom, three-bath home.
The decision by Sheriff Lee Baca to move Hilton chafed prosecutors and Sauer, who spelled out during sentencing that Hilton was not allowed to serve house detention.

Late Thursday, Sauer issued the order for Hilton to return to court after the city attorney filed a petition demanding that Hilton be returned to jail and to show cause why Baca shouldn't be held in contempt of court.

(Associated Press)

US scientists discover new, potentially deadly bacteria

"SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - In a dramatic case of microbial sleuthing, US scientists said they have discovered a new, potentially deadly strain of bacteria previously unknown to medicine.

The bacteria was found in a 43-year-old American woman who had traveled across Peru for three weeks and suffered from symptoms similar to typhoid fever or malaria. The woman has since recovered.

Named Bartonella rochalimae, the new species is a close relative of a microbe that sickened thousands of soldiers during the First World War with what became known as trench fever, spread through body lice.

It is also related to a bacteria identified 10 years ago during the AIDS epidemic in San Francisco as the cause of cat scratch disease, which infects 25,000 people a year in the United States.

It was this previous work on cat scratch disease related to AIDS that helped experts at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention isolate the new bacteria found in the female traveler.

The findings are published in the New England Journal of Medicine."(...)

(Yahoo)
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Transplante insólito em Espanha: mão direita em braço esquerdo

O cirurgião espanhol Pedro Cavadas realizou no final de abril um transplante fora do comum: um paciente que tinha perdido a mão esquerda pôs no lugar a sua mão direita, informaram fontes da Fundação Galeno, especialista em transplantes e cirurgias de reconstrução.

Esta operação é tão surpreendente como a história do paciente, de 63 anos de idade. Depois de ter perdido sua mão esquerda há 40 anos, há três anos ficou com o braço direito inutilizado, depois de um acidente cardiovascular.

"Já não podia fazer nada. Precisava de ajuda para tudo", explicou à AFP Virginia Cavadas, membro da Fundação e irmã do cirurgião que teve a idéia de "fazer da sua mão direita uma mão esquerda".

As vantagens deste tipo de "autotransplante" em que o doador é a mesma pessoa que o receptor é que o paciente não precisa fazer um tratamento contra a rejeição do órgão transplantado e o índice de êxito é mais elevado.

Mais que um simples transplante, o doutor Cavadas teve que "mudar toda a estrutura da mão, e fazer um trabalho delicado com os tendões e os ossos" para que as articulações da mão direita correspondessem às do braço esquerdo, informou Virginia Cavadas.

Durante esta difícil cirurgia de mais de 13 horas no hospital Virgem do Consolo de Valência, o cirurgião e a sua equipa moveram o polegar do paciente por razões práticas e para evitar um efeito estético negativo.

Mais de um mês depois da operação, o paciente "está feliz. Já pode mover a mão", assegurou Virginia Cavadas.

O doutor Pedro Cavadas foi responsável no final de 2006 pelo primeiro transplante de duas mãos na Espanha, e também realiza trabalhos humanitários na África.

(AFP)

Nues pour Spencer Tunick

2.000 personnes posent nues pour Spencer Tunick Plusieurs dizaines de femmes ont posé nues, dimanche, juchées sur des vélos sur un pont enjambant l’un des canaux d’Amsterdam. Ce tableau inédit faisait partie d’une des quatre séances de pose organisées à l’aube par le photographe américain Spencer Tunick qui a réuni quelque 2.000 modèles hommes et femmes dans le plus simple appareil.

"La première et la plus grande composition s’est déroulée sur un parking. Les photos de dimanche devaient être exposées dans une discothèque de la ville dans la soirée et seront reproduites sur des affiches dans la ville cet été.

Spencer Tunick, photographe new-yorkais, est devenu célèbre pour ses photos de nus réunissant des dizaines de modèles dans des grandes villes, de Londres à Buenos Aires. Il a battu un record en faisant poser nues 18.000 personnes à Mexico le mois dernier."

(Foto e texto: AP)

Scientists find 24 species in Suriname

"A frog with fluorescent purple markings and 12 kinds of dung beetles were among two dozen new species discovered in the remote plateaus of eastern Suriname, scientists said Monday.
The expedition was sponsored by two mining companies hoping to excavate the area for bauxite, the raw material used to make aluminum, and it was unknown how the findings would affect their plans.

Scientists discovered the species during a 2005 expedition led by the U.S.-based nonprofit Conservation International in rainforests and swamps about 80 miles southeast of Paramaribo, the capital of the South American country, organization spokesman Tom Cohen said.

Among the species found were the atelopus frog, which has distinctive purple markings; six types of fish; 12 dung beetles, and one ant species, he said.

The scientists called for better conservation management in the unprotected, state-owned areas, where hunting and small-scale illegal mining is common.

The study was financed by Suriname Aluminum Company LLC and BHP Billiton Maatschappij Suriname. Suriname Aluminum, which has a government concession to explore gold in the area, will include the data in its environmental assessment study, said Haydi Berrenstein, a Conservation International official in Suriname, which borders Brazil, Guyana and French Guiana.

About 80 percent of Suriname is covered with dense rainforest. Thousands of Brazilians and Surinamese are believed to work in illegal gold mining, creating mercury pollution that has threatened the health of Amerindians and Maroons in Suriname's interior."

(Texto e foto: AP)

Des élus italiens réclament sept jours fériés supplémentaires Non contents du mois de congés payés et des 12 jours fériés déjà reconnus dans l’ensemble du pays, auxquels s’ajoute un jour de fête régionale, des parlementaires italiens réclament la restauration de sept jours fériés supprimés il y a une trentaine d’années, rapporte lundi La Stampa.

Les élus à l’origine de cette campagne font valoir que la remise à l’honneur de fêtes telles que la Saint Joseph, l’Ascension, la Fête-Dieu, Saint Pierre et Paul, l’Unification italienne et la Fin de la Première Guerre mondiale seraient de nature à relancer la ferveur religieuse et le patriotisme.

Des économistes soulignent pour leur part que l’impact sur la croissance risque d’être très négatif.

Après cinq ans de quasi stagnation, la croissance italienne a atteint près de deux pour cent l’an dernier et on s’attend pour cette année à un taux similaire.

Mais avec un faible taux de productivité et un coût de la main d’oeuvre relativement élevé, l’Italie continue d’être à la traîne de la plupart de ses partenaires européens.

Dans un éditorial, La Stampa écrit que, bien que la proposition puisse apparaître attractive de prime abord, l’instauration de jours fériés supplémentaires risque de perturber l’organisation du travail sans pour autant augmenter forcément le sentiment religieux ou la fierté nationale. (Reuters)

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