Giant ‘Frankenfish’ caught in Virginia may be biggest ever -

Giant ‘Frankenfish’ caught in Virginia may be biggest ever - 



t was already a special day for Caleb Newton and Phil Wilcox — the two friends enjoying a bass-fishing bachelor party on the Potomac River. But when the men spotted a long shadow swimming among the reeds, they knew things were only going to get more interesting.
Gliding among the grass was a northern snakehead, a gruesome animal known as a “Frankenfish” by some. And it was big. But it wasn’t until they wrestled it into the boat that they realized it might be the biggest anyone has ever caught with a hook and line.
“I knew it was a good fish, but I didn’t know how good,” Mr. Newton, 27, said Tuesday.
The two men have been fishing partners for years, and they know the Potomac River and its tributaries like the back of their hands. On Saturday, they joined friends and family for the Big Bass Bachelor Fishing Tournament in honor of Mr. Wilcox’s upcoming wedding.
“We pulled up to the spot, put the trolling motor down on the boat, and I saw the fish in the water,” Mr. Wilcox said. “It was absolutely huge.”

Mr. Newton said he “could just tell by the reaction and tone of his voice,” that his buddy had spotted a keeper.
After a few attempts at luring the fish to bite, the animal finally latched on and took off.
“It went crazy, the water got to boiling, the grass was coming up, so I let the line go on its own,” Mr. Newton said. “With this fish you had to let him play his game.”
After about two minutes, the fish was reeled in close enough to the boat for Mr. Wilcox to scoop the beast out of the water.
Weighing in at 17 pounds, 6 ounces, the fish that Mr. Newton hauled in could be declared the largest snakehead caught on hook and line in the world, a title currently held by a fisherman in Japan for a snakehead only 2 ounces lighter.
News of the haul was first reported by the Fredericksburg, Va., Free Lance-Star.
Mr. Newton must send in pictures of the fish from various angles, along with photos of the rod and reel used, to the International Game Fish Association. The Dania Beach, Fla.-based organization handles records for hook-and-line-only catches.
He also has to submit the tackle he used, as well as verification of the scale that was used to weigh the fish.
“Thank God he doesn’t have to send the fish,” said Jack Vitek, the world record coordinator with the International Game Fish Association.
Mr. Newton must also fill out an application, asking what he was using to catch the fish and the location.


Read more: - 

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jun/4/giant-frankenfish-caught-in-virginia-may-be-bigges/

‘Missing link’? Earliest primate skeleton ever discovered in China - 55-million-year-old fossil -

‘Missing link’? Earliest primate skeleton ever discovered in China - 55-million-year-old fossil -  



An “amazingly complete” 55-million-year-old fossil discovered in China is the oldest primate skeleton ever discovered, researchers say.
The new species illustrates a critical event on the primate family tree: the split that saw monkeys, apes, and humans – a group collectively known as anthropoids — travel down a separate evolutionary path from the lineage that led to modern-day tarsiers, a bug-eyed tree-dwelling primate that lives in Southeast Asia.
The research team named the new species Archicebus achilles and concluded that it is the earliest known member of the tarsier family — in other words, it is not a direct ancestor of humans.
But Archicebus displays a mishmash of tarsier-like and monkey-like features, meaning it must have existed close to the split between the two groups. The “Achilles” in its name is a reference to its heel bone, which is similar to a modern marmoset’s.
Christopher Beard, one of the study’s authors, doesn’t like the term “missing link” because it’s so loaded. But he says this fossil certainly could qualify.
“It’s a hybrid or mosaic — it’s a fossil that shows a combination of features that we’ve simply never seen before in any living or fossil primate.”
Beard added that the discovery also sheds light on human evolutionary history, showing that the anthropoid line that eventually produced Homo sapiens is at least 55 million years old. Apes split from humans 5 to 10 million years ago.
“If you just do a little bit of math, what you see is that the larger lineage, the anthropoid lineage, is between five and 10 times as ancient as the human lineage itself,” said Beard, curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History.
“So if you want to think about it in a philosophical sense, we share much more in common with our anthropoid brethren than the differences between us – on a scale of about nine to one.”
The oldest known primate fossil prior to this discovery is around 7 million years younger.
Archicebus achilles lived during the Eocene, a “greenhouse” period when temperatures were at a global maximum and the earth was filled with lush tropical forests. Primate evolution seems to have exploded during this period.
The slender-limbed, long-tailed Archicebus would have only weighed around 30 grams. Among living primates, the only one as small is the pygmy mouse lemur of Madagascar, Beard said. Archicebus’ trunk and head span less than 10 centimetres, though its tail adds another 13 centimetres to its body length.
Because of its size and food needs, the team concluded that it probably ate insects and spent much of its day leaping energetically from tree to tree in the forest.
The specimen, besides being beautiful, is “really exciting,” said Jonathan Bloch, associate curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Florida Museum of Natural History. “We’ve had bits and pieces of very closely related primates for a long time — teeth, fragmentary jaws, isolated postcranial bones, parts of the skeleton. But nothing like this.”
Bloch, an expert on early primate evolution who was not involved in the study, added: “These kinds of fossils really break things open and allow us to address all kinds of interesting questions.”
The study was led by Xijun Ni, a scientist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and research associate at the American Museum of Natural History, and supported by scientists in the U.S. and France. It is published in this week’s issue of the journal Nature.

Read more - 

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2013/06/05/earliest_primate_skeleton_ever_discovered_amazingly_complete_in_china.html

Connecticut Senate passes bill writing the Wright Brothers out of history - First Powered Flight by Gustave Whitehead -

Connecticut Senate passes bill writing the Wright Brothers out of history - First Powered Flight by Gustave Whitehead - 



Are they righting a wrong or wronging the Wrights?
The Connecticut Senate passed a bill Tuesday evening that would delete the Wright brothers from history, explicitly stripping recognition for the first powered flight from Orville and Wilbur and assigning it to someone else.
'At least in Connecticut, aviation history now appears to have been rewritten.'
- Aviation historian John Brown
“The Governor shall proclaim a date certain in each year as Powered Flight Day to honor the first powered flight by [the Wright brothers] Gustave Whitehead and to commemorate the Connecticut aviation and aerospace industry,” reads House Bill No. 6671, which now sits on the Governor’s desk awaiting passage into law.
"There’s no question that the Wright brothers retain their place in aviation history," Republican state Sen. Mike McLachlan told FoxNews.com. "And rightfully so. They just weren't first." 
The Governor is likely to sign the bill as early as next week, McLachlan said.
In March, aviation historian John Brown unveiled what he calls photographic proof that Whitehead flew over Connecticut in 1901, “two years, four months, and three days before the Wright brothers.” 
"At least in Connecticut, aviation history now appears to have been rewritten,” Brown told FoxNews.com Wednesday. “I have no information about whether school books will be reprinted in time for the start of Fall classes.”
The Wright brothers soared into history books on Dec. 17, 1903, following their historic, 852-foot, 59-second flight at Kitty Hawk, N.C. -- an achievement for which the duo are widely described as being “first in flight.” But historians have long known that others were working on a variety of flying machines, including a fellow U.S. resident, German immigrant Gustave Whitehead (born Weisskopf).

A 1948 contract between the Smithsonian museum and Orville Wright requires the museum to call the Wright Flyer the first real airplane, critics argue. Here, the relevant excerpt from the contract:
“Neither the Smithsonian Institution nor its successors, nor any museum or other agency ... or its successors shall publish or permit to be displayed a statement or label in connection with or in respect of any aircraft model or design of earlier date than the Wright Aeroplane of 1903, claiming in effect that such aircraft was capable of carrying a man under its own power in controlled flight.”



Whitehead flew early in the morning of Aug. 14, 1901, Brown said. His winged, bird-like plane was called No. 21, or "The Condor"; with wooden wheels and canvas wings stretched taut across bat-like wooden arms, it rose over the darkened streets of Bridgeport, Conn., and covered an estimated 1.5 miles at a height of 50 feet, he said.
Since Brown’s March revelation, controversy has swirled around his claims.
The Smithsonian Museum in particular -- curators of the Wright Brother’s plane -- continue to express doubts about Brown’s claims.
“There is no solid proof on the Whitehead side that stands up to scrutiny,” Tom D. Crouch, senior curator of aeronautics for the Institute, told FoxNews.com via email in April. “Did Whitehead fly? Did Daedalus fly? There is not much more solid evidence for Whitehead than there is for Daedalus.”
McLachlan told FoxNews.com he found the information convincing enough. 
"If more information comes along in history, we always change the history book. That’s been going on for years," he told FoxNews.com.
Brown trumpeted the bill, which he said was based not on partisan beliefs but on hard facts.
“These weren't just people cheering the home team,” he told FoxNews.com. “Several legislators -- from both parties -- contacted me before the vote … they'd clearly done their homework and asked hard-ball questions.”
“It was refreshing for me to see how seriously they took their vote,” Brown added.
While Kitty Hawk, N.C., has become famously associated with flight thanks to Orville and Wilbur, Connecticut has a deep history in the aviation world as well. Sikorsky Aircraft, makers of the Black Hawk helicopter, are headquartered mere miles from the site of Whitehead’s achievement.
"North Carolina’s license plate does say first in flight," McLachlan told FoxNews.com. "I think we’ll now have a little bit of a discussion between Connecticut and North Carolina to verify who was first."
"It’s a big deal that we have dislocated the Wright brothers as number one."


Read more: - 

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/06/05/connecticut-senate-passes-bill-writing-wright-brothers-out-history/

Secret Man Caves Found in Environmental Protection Agency Warehouse -

Secret Man Caves Found in Environmental Protection Agency Warehouse -



A warehouse maintained by contractors for the Environmental Protection Agency contained secret rooms full of exercise equipment, televisions and couches, according to an internal audit.

EPA’s inspector general found contractors used partitions, screens and piled up boxes to hide the rooms from security cameras in the 70,000 square-foot building located in Landover, Md. The warehouse -- used for inventory storage -- is owned by the General Services Administration and leased to the EPA for about $750,000 per year.

The EPA has issued a stop work order to Apex Logistics LLC, the responsible contractor, ensuring the company’s workers no longer have access to the site -- EPA security officials escorted contractor personnel off the premises on May 17 -- and ending all payments on the contract.

Since awarding the contract in May 2007, EPA has paid Apex Logistics about $5.3 million, most of which went to labor costs. Conditions at the facility “raise questions about time charges made by warehouse employees under the contract,” the report said.

“The warehouse contained multiple unauthorized and hidden personal spaces created by and for the workers that included televisions, refrigerators, radios, microwaves, chairs and couches,” the IG report said. “These spaces contained personal items, including photos, pin ups, calendars, clothing, books, magazines and videos.”

The agency has completed an inventory of the warehouse’s contents and segregated all surplus furniture. EPA has committed to conducting an agency-wide review of all warehouse and storage facility operations.

In addition to the secret rooms, the IG found an incomplete and inaccurate recordkeeping system; numerous potential security and safety hazards, including an open box of passports; and “deplorable conditions” -- such as corrosion, vermin feces and “pervasive” mold.

EPA acting Administrator Bob Perciasepe said in a letter to the inspector general the agency has taken “immediate, aggressive actions” in response to the findings.

“The EPA is committed to addressing the previous conditions at the warehouse and implementing institutional protections to ensure those conditions do not recur at this facility or any other used by the agency,” Perciasepe wrote. 

Read more - 

http://www.govexec.com/contracting/2013/06/secret-man-caves-found-epa-warehouse/64202/

Tests reveal 66-year-old who lived as a man actually is a woman -

Tests reveal 66-year-old who lived as a man actually is a woman - 



A 66-year-old who lived his whole life as a man was given a surprising diagnosis after visiting the doctor in Hong Kong with a swollen abdomen - he was a woman.

Doctors realized the patient was female after they found the swelling came from a large cyst on an ovary, the Hong Kong Medical Journal reported. The condition was the result of two rare genetic disorders.

The subject had Turner syndrome, which affects girls and women and results from a problem with the chromosomes, with characteristics including infertility and short stature. But he also had congenital adrenal hyperplasia, increasing male hormones and making the patient, who had a beard and a "micropenis", appear like a man.

"Were it not due to the huge ovarian cyst, his intriguing medical condition might never have been exposed," seven doctors from two of the city's hospitals wrote in the study published on Monday.

The doctors said there have been only six cases where both genetic disorders have been reported in medical literature. Turner Syndrome on its own affects only one in 2500 to 3000 females.

Read more: - 

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/06/04/hong-kong-man-66-finds-out-woman/?intcmp=trending

Disney’s Electronic Wristband Illustrates Why Big Companies Push Contactless Wallets - MagicBand - 



Disney just announced an electronic wristband for visitors to its theme parks that neatly illustrates why companies like Google and cellphone networks are pushing the idea of using contactless technology in phones for payments, tickets, boarding passes and more. The short answer? They want data.

Disney’s MagicBand, an ID tag that uses Bluetooth and contactless NFC technology, is being introduced at Walt Disney World in Florida. It replaces a person’s ticket and can be used to tag into rides and other attractions at the park. It can also be used to open a guest’s hotel door, and to pay in stores at the resort. In the future, the Bluetooth link will make it possible for you to wander up to an attraction or Disney character and be greeted using your first name.

To sum up, a person opting to use a MagicBand could find their stay much more convenient, and perhaps even leave their wallet back at their hotel. It’s a very similar pitch to that made by companies including Google, and the consortium of major cellphone networks, Isis, for contactless “wallets” based on near field communication chips (NFC) built into phones.

However, Disney’s MagicBand program has significant benefits to the company, too. The MagicBand collects valuable data each time it is tagged or used to buy something, providing a new perspective on what Disney’s customers are doing at the resort. It becomes possible to do things like look for relationships between the attractions and rides a person visits, or the characters they meet, and what they spend money on in the gift shop. Disney could look for signs of the social dynamics of groups of people that arrive at the park together.

Read more - 

http://www.technologyreview.com/view/515641/disneys-electronic-wristband-illustrates-why-big-companies-push-contactless-wallets/

Most extreme weight-loss method? Dieters having a patch sewn onto their tongues to make eating unbearably painful -

Most extreme weight-loss method? Dieters having a patch sewn onto their tongues to make eating unbearably painful - 



A plastic patch sewn which is sewn onto the tongue and makes it very difficult to eat is the latest in extreme weight-loss methods.
The 'miracle' patch, which is secured to the tongue with six stitches, makes consuming solid food so painful that users are forced to resort to a liquid-only diet.
Launched in 2009 by Beverly Hills plastic surgeon Nikolas Chugay, the procedure can apparently help you lose up to 30lbs in one month - but not without uncomfortable side effects.

Dr Chugay's website warns that patients may experience swelling of the tongue and difficulty with speech after getting the patch.
And according to Time, some patients have trouble sleeping and difficulty moving their tongue at all following the procedure, which has yet to be FDA-approved.

'Too tall, too fat, and too dark': One woman's 'soul crushing' discovery that she 'wasn't beautiful enough' to live in South Korea
What's more, the patch can only be worn for a maximum of one month, since after that time, the tongue's tissue begins to grow back, and the patch can then become incorporated into the tongue.
But during that month, Dr Chugay provides an 'easy to follow' liquid diet of 800 calories a day, which 'fulfills nutritional needs' and 'maximizes weight loss results', according to his website.
The postage stamp-sized patch is made from marlex, a plastic that is commonly used as mesh to repair hernias, and is also the principal material used to make Hula Hoops.

Inventor: Beverly Hills plastic surgeon Nikolas Chugay launched the patch in 2009, and he claims patients can lose up to 30lbs in just one month
The procedure costs $2,000 at Dr Chugay's Los Angeles clinic, where he said he has performed it on just over 60 women since 2009.
But in Venezuela, which boasts the largest beauty industry per capita in the world, women can get the patch for just $150.
Ana Maria Parra, who works at a clinic in Caracas, told Time she has seen upwards of 900 clients a month since she began offering the procedure in 2011.
Giovanni Sosa works at a different Caracas-based practice that has offered the surgery to eager patients for the past nine months. 
'Venezuelans are very beauty-conscious,' he said.
'So when we offer something that shows concrete results, people will put that before its extreme nature.'
Indeed, according to Time, the average Venezuelan woman spends 20per cent of her annual income on cosmetics and beauty treatments, many of which are paid for by bank loans.
Yomaira Jaspe, a Venezuelan woman who recently underwent the procedure, said she felt like it was the only effective weight-loss option for her.
'I don't have the willpower to go on a diet, so this was the only way,' she explained. 


Read more: -

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2335786/The-extreme-weight-loss-method-The-dieters-having-patch-sewn-tongues-make-eating-unbearably-painful.html

The Wi-Fi in your home can track your moves like Xbox Kinect -

The Wi-Fi in your home can track your moves like Xbox Kinect - 



Want to switch off the living room lights from bed, change channels while washing dishes, or turn the heat up from the couch? A team at the University of Washington has rigged a standard Wi-Fi home network to detect your movements anywhere in the home and convert them into commands to control connected devices.

Gesture recognition is the latest fad in games and tech, but even the newest systems require high-tech depth-sensing cameras or other special hardware. Microsoft's new Kinect, for instance, uses a photon-measuring method called "time of flight" sensing that was, until the Kinect was announced, limited to high-tech laboratories. And Kinect isn't small, either.

UW computer science students, led by assistant professor Shyam Gollakota, looked at the gesture-detection puzzle another way — specifically, how people affect the environment they're already in.

Our bodies distort the Wi-Fi signals we use to beam information to and from our laptops and phones. By watching those signals very closely, the team could determine not just what room you're in, but where you're standing and how you're moving your body. They call the system WiSee.

Read more -
http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/wi-fi-your-home-can-track-your-moves-xbox-kinect-6C10194118