A US fireman who lost his power of speech in a traffic accident has been taught to speak again by parrots.

Brian Wilson, from Damascus, Maryland, suffered life-threatening injuries in the accidnet 14 years ago. He also lost his ability to speak.

But he now claims that the chatter of pet parrots confounded the bleak outlook of doctors, who were convinced that he would spend the rest of his life in bed at a nursing home.

"Two birds taught me to talk again," he said. "I had such a bad head injury I was never supposed to talk any more than a two-year-old."

But two of the birds that he had had as pets since he was a child "just kept talking to me and talking to me".

"Then all of a sudden, a word popped out, then two, then more."

To show his gratitude to the birds who helped him on the path to rehabilitation, Mr Wilson has devoted his life to feathered pets whose owners are no longer able or want to keep them.

He now shares his home with about 80 brightly plumed exotic birds, from snow-white cockatoos to scarlet or blue and green macaws to African grey parrots.

He has set up a foundation called the Wilson Parrot Foundation, which also offers the services of the birds to entertain at birthday parties and corporate events.

"You wonder why I rescue birds? They helped me to talk again, so now I take care of them," he said.

credited to telegraph.co.uk

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THIS was one bet Sergey Tuganov was determined to win.

British newspaper, The Sun, reports the 28-year-old Russian man died after taking a bottle of Viagra pills for an apparent 12-hour sex romp.

Two women told Moscow police they bet Tuganov $US4300 that he wouldn't be able to satisfy them during a non-stop half day sex marathon.

The mechanic died of a heart attack minutes after winning the wager, Moscow police said.

"We called emergency services but it was too late, there was nothing they could do," said one of the female participants who identified herself only as Alina.

Medics said he most likely died from the quantity of Viagra he had ingested.

There are 30 pills in an average 100mg bottle of Viagra.

credited to news.com.au

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A BRITISH biologist on a working holiday in Thailand has captured a 55-stone (349kg) stingray - the biggest freshwater fish ever caught using a rod and line.

The Sun reports Ian Welch, 45, spent 90 minutes reeling in the giant stingray and it took 13 men to lift it out of the water.

The stingray measured 7ft (2.1m) long and 7ft (2.1m) wide, while its poisonous barbed tail measured 10ft (3m). The previous record was a 46-stone (292kg) catfish caught in 2005.

Mr Welch had been visiting Thailand to help with a stingray tagging program when he landed the fish on the Maeklong River.

He told The Sun: "It dragged me across the boat and would have pulled me in had my colleague not grabbed my trousers - it was like the whole earth had just moved. I knew it was going to a big one.

"It buried itself on the bottom and the main fight was trying to get it off the floor.

"I tried with every ounce of power but it just would not budge. After half an hour my arms began shaking and after an hour my legs went.

"Another 30 minutes went by and then I put a glove on and physically pulled the line with gritted teeth and somehow I found the reserves to shift the fish."

Once the stingray was off the bottom 11.5 stone (73kg) Mr Welch, from Aldershot, Hampshire, managed to lift it 30ft (9.1m) to the surface.

He said: "As soon as we saw it there was just silence because everyone was just in awe of this thing.

"That line from the film Jaws came to mind about needing a bigger boat because we had to get it to the shore to tag it."

The group put a 12ft (3.6m) wide net under the fish and towed it to the bank.

Mr Welch and the team later released the stingray, which turned out to be a pregnant female.

credited to news.com.au and thesun.co.uk

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Some of the oldest words in English have been identified, scientists say.

Reading University researchers claim "I", "we", "two" and "three" are among the most ancient, dating back tens of thousands of years.

Their computer model analyses the rate of change of words in English and the languages that share a common heritage.

The team says it can predict which words are likely to become extinct - citing "squeeze", "guts", "stick" and "bad" as probable first casualties.

"We use a computer to fit a range of models that tell us how rapidly these words evolve," said Mark Pagel, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Reading.

"We fit a wide range, so there's a lot of computation involved; and that range then brackets what the true answer is and we can estimate the rates at which these things are replaced through time."

Sound and concept

Across the Indo-European languages - which include most of the languages spoken from Europe to the Asian subcontinent - the vocal sound made to express a given concept can be similar.

New words for a concept can arise in a given language, utilising different sounds, in turn giving a clue to a word's relative age in the language.

At the root of the Reading University effort is a lexicon of 200 words that is not specific to culture or technology, and is therefore likely to represent concepts that have not changed across nations or millennia.

"We have lists of words that linguists have produced for us that tell us if two words in related languages actually derive from a common ancestral word," said Professor Pagel.

"We have descriptions of the ways we think words change and their ability to change into other words, and those descriptions can be turned into a mathematical language," he added.

The researchers used the university's IBM supercomputer to track the known relations between words, in order to develop estimates of how long ago a given ancestral word diverged in two different languages.

They have integrated that into an algorithm that will produce a list of words relevant to a given date.

"You type in a date in the past or in the future and it will give you a list of words that would have changed going back in time or will change going into the future," Professor Pagel told BBC News.

"From that list you can derive a phrasebook of words you could use if you tried to show up and talk to, for example, William the Conqueror."

That is, the model provides a list of words that are unlikely to have changed from their common ancestral root by the time of William the Conqueror.

Words that have not diverged since then would comprise similar sounds to their modern descendants, whose meanings would therefore probably be recognisable on sound alone.

However, the model cannot offer a guess as to what the ancestral words were. It can only estimate the likelihood that the sound from a modern English word might make some sense if called out during the Battle of Hastings.

Dirty business

What the researchers found was that the frequency with which a word is used relates to how slowly it changes through time, so that the most common words tend to be the oldest ones.

For example, the words "I" and "who" are among the oldest, along with the words "two", "three", and "five". The word "one" is only slightly younger.

The word "four" experienced a linguistic evolutionary leap that makes it significantly younger in English and different from other Indo-European languages.

Meanwhile, the fastest-changing words are projected to die out and be replaced by other words much sooner.

For example, "dirty" is a rapidly changing word; currently there are 46 different ways of saying it in the Indo-European languages, all words that are unrelated to each other. As a result, it is likely to die out soon in English, along with "stick" and "guts".

Verbs also tend to change quite quickly, so "push", "turn", "wipe" and "stab" appear to be heading for the lexicographer's chopping block.

Again, the model cannot predict what words may change to; those linguistic changes are according to Professor Pagel "anybody's guess".

High fidelity

"We think some of these words are as ancient as 40,000 years old. The sound used to make those words would have been used by all speakers of the Indo-European languages throughout history," Professor Pagel said.

"Here's a sound that has been connected to a meaning - and it's a mostly arbitrary connection - yet that sound has persisted for those tens of thousands of years."

The work casts an interesting light on the connection between concepts and language in the human brain, and provides an insight into the evolution of a dynamic set of words.

"If you've ever played 'Chinese whispers', what comes out the end is usually gibberish, and more or less when we speak to each other we're playing this massive game of Chinese whispers. Yet our language can somehow retain its fidelity."

credited to BBC

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A worldwide team of scientists says the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is swiftly evolving to avoid the body's immune defences, a phenomenon that adds to the challenge of crafting an AIDS vaccine.

Mutations in HIV enable it to rapidly sidestep genetic variations that offer a better natural shield against the deadly pathogen, they said in a study released by the journal Nature on Wednesday.

"Even in the short time that HIV has been in the human population, it is doing an effective job of evading our best efforts at natural immune control of the virus," said Oxford University researcher Philip Goulder.

"This is high-speed evolution that we're seeing in the space of just a couple of decades."

Goulder's team analysed the genetic codes and viral strain of 2,800 infected people in North America, the Caribbean, Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, Australia and Japan.

Their big focus was on so-called human leukocyte antigen (HLA) genes.

These control specialised proteins whose job is to act as a signaller against intruders. The proteins present little pieces of HIV to the body's heavy armour, T cells, which then seek out the virus and kill it.

Since HIV was identified as the cause of AIDS, more than a quarter of a century ago, doctors have learnt that even though no one appears to be naturally immune to the virus, people progress to the full-blown disease at different rates.

Without antiretroviral drugs, some individuals may develop AIDS as little as a year after infection, while others take as long as two decades.

The span depends largely on inherited luck, for there are variants of HLA genes that are far better at combatting HIV than others. A tiny difference in DNA can make a huge difference in holding back the virus.

Goulder's team came across some bad news.

They found that the virus is able to mutate when facing the more successful variants of these genes.

This "escape mutation" is then transmitted on to the viral progeny and then handed on to the human population when another person becomes infected.

"Where a favourable HLA gene is present at high levels in a given population, we see high levels of the mutation that enable HIV to resist this particular gene effect," said co-author Rodney Phillips in a press release issued by Oxford University.

"The virus is outrunning human variation, you might say."

The study adds a further complexity in the quest for an HIV vaccine, say the authors.

Vaccine engineers will have to wrestle with different "escape mutations" in HIV that exist in distinct pools of populations.

For instance, a highly favourable variant of HLA is called HLA-B*51. It is common among people in Japan -- and, as a result, two-thirds of infected people there have a strain of HIV which features the "escape mutation" for this variant.

In Britain and Africa, though, HLA-B*51 is far less common. As a result, only between 15 to 25 per cent of HIV-infected people have the "escape mutation" in their version of the virus.

So it means that a successful HIV vaccine may have to take these geographical differences into account, as well as the stealthy, slippery mutability of the virus itself.

"The implication is that once we have found an effective vaccine, it would need to be changed on a frequent basis to catch up with the evolving virus, much like we do today with the flu vaccine," said Goulder.

AIDS first emerged in 1981 as a novel disease that destroys immune cells, exposing the body to opportunistic infections.

HIV was identified as its source in 1983. Twenty-five million people have died of AIDS and an estimated 33 million people have HIV.

The new paper focuses only on HIV's ability to sidestep natural immune systems. It did not address the virus' mutability towards anti-HIV drugs.

credited to livenews.com.au

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Anybody entering the word "Eu" in a search engine is likely to get a number of results, but most will be a reference to the past participle of the French verb avoir (to have), not to the pretty market town in Normandy.

The search also brings up pages related to the European Union.

Accordingly, the small town, which boasts a number of attractions, including an impressive château and gardens, is being bypassed.

Marie-Françoise Gaouyer, the local mayor, now has two options - to pay internet giants like Yahoo and Google thousands to put the town at the top of all "Eu" searches, or change the town's name.

"The second option appears the most sensible," said Mrs Gaouyer, adding: "As far as the internet is concerned, we have to bring ourselves up to date." Mrs Gaouyer's favoured option is Ville d'Eu (Town of Eu), with other possibilities including Eu-le-Château and Eu-en-Normandie.

The mayor, who believes tourism revenues are down by as much as a third because of the town's current name, now wants all of the alternatives put to the local population of some 8000 in a referendum.

There is likely to be opposition from traditionalists in Eu, who point to a proud history which has seen visitors to the town include Joan of Arc and William the Conqueror.

If a name change is agreed, it will take some five years to become legal, following a Parliamentary Act and government approval.

credited to telegraph.co.uk

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Tonight's your chance to see green Comet Lulin on its closest approach to Earth for, well, maybe forever. In dark locations, you can see this unusual object with the naked eye. In the city, binoculars are all that's needed.

Lulin is releasing gases that glow green when illuminated by sunlight in space. The comet appears to have two tails, one on each side, although it's an illusion caused by our viewing angle. In addition, Comet Lulin is traveling backward around the sun, in the opposite direction of the planets. Because of this, it appears to move in relation to the stars while you watch, something you don't get to see very often.

Tonight the comet will be in opposition to the sun - directly across from it - which may make Lulin brighter than usual. Around 9 p.m., look high in the southeast sky for big, bright Saturn. Comet Lulin will be a fuzzy smudge slightly above and to the right of the planet.

If you miss it tonight, Lulin will still be visible the rest of the week, but moonlight will interfere with it after Sunday. And if you miss it altogether, you could be out of luck. Astronomers aren't sure Lulin will ever reappear in the inner solar system.

credited to hamptonroads.com

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The bizarre markings spotted using Google Earth’s new underwater search tool last week unleashed a tsunami of theories and speculation across the Web about the origins of the grid-like pattern.

The most popular theory was that the markings were signs of the lost city of Atlantis. But Bits readers also wondered if the maze of lines could be anything from the mystical island featured on the television show “Lost” to an underwater lair inhabited by former Vice President Dick Cheney.

According to Google, it’s time to shelve those tinfoil hats.

In an interview, Steve Miller, product manager for Ocean in Google Earth, firmly debunked rumors that the crisscross markings were anything other than artificial data remnants left by sonar-equipped boats collecting data from the ocean floor.

While sound waves are considered to be more effective than satellites for mapping strips of the ocean floor, they’re often more expensive and time-consuming to use. “The boats have to go slowly. Otherwise, they make a lot of noise and can wash out the readings,” said Mr. Miller. As a result, boats are used less frequently, leaving fewer grid-like sonar patterns visible on Google Earth’s map of the ocean.

For the patch of ocean that drew so much attention last week, there was a discrepancy in the readings collected from satellites and the higher-resolution echosounding data collected by boats at water level. That caused exaggerated traces to show up on the map. Typically, when data collected by satellites and sonar surveys are blended, the result is much smoother, Mr. Miller said. But here, the “batches of imagery didn’t overlap properly.”

Mr. Miller compared it to the blurry stripes that are occasionally visible in Google Earth’s land maps. “Those patches are from cameras and instruments using different resolutions,” he said. Over time, those uneven patches smooth out as Google puts more images and data into the system.

As for the speculation that the markings off the western coast of Africa were located near one of the possible sites of the fabled sunken city of Atlantis, Mr. Miller said it was a coincidence. “To my knowledge, the researchers weren’t looking for Atlantis. They conducted this survey many years ago.” They very likely sent out a boat to comb for additional readings in this particular area, he said.

Mr. Miller also highlighted several other findings in Google Earth’s new Ocean feature, including a newly formed volcanic island close to Hawaii and an underwater mountain range in the Atlantic Ocean where two tectonic plates are visibly shifting away from one another.

Was the whole “Atlantis” uproar a well-orchestrated publicity stunt for Google’s new ocean maps, which were introduced earlier this month?

Mr. Miller said no. But the reports certainly drew a lot of armchair explorers eager to view the waterlogged pattern. Searches for “google ocean” and “atlantis google ocean” spiked over the last several days.

credited to bits.blogs.nytimes.com

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When Mark Taylor's computer crashed, he suspected he had a "worm" virus in the system, but was surprised to discover the problem was caused by an actual earthworm.

The discovery was made by IT repairmen who found the 5in worm lodged inside the computer.

The creature had crawled into his £360 old laptop through an air vent and wrapped itself around the internal fan, leading to a total breakdown.

The worm itself was burned and frazzled having been 'cooked' by the overheating internal workings of the Gateway laptop computer.

Mr Taylor, 45, wracked his brains to find out exactly how an earthworm had managed to find its way into his laptop.

The culprits, he believes, were his two cats who are in the habit of pouncing on earthworms outside and bringing them into the house.

Mr Taylor, from Yeovil, Somerset, said: "The worm was obviously looking for a hiding place and must have crawled in through the air vent to get away from the cats.

"I couldn't help thinking that people get computer worms all the time, but not real life ones."

Computer technician Sam Robinson, 28, who discovered the worm said: "The machine was displaying a message saying that the processor fan was unworkable.

"I took the back off and had a look inside. Then I spotted what at first I thought was some sort of hair band or elastic band wrapped around the fan.

"I soon discovered that it was a worm which had been burned to a frazzle. It had obviously wrapped around the fan when somebody had turned on the computer and caused the breakdown due to the fan jamming.

"The vent in the side of the laptop was larger than normal and there was obviously enough room for the worm to get inside.

"Needless to say I hadn't come across a problem like this before but was happy to sort it out for Mark."

credited to telegraph.co.uk

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A British man has admitted to making a sick prank-call while drunk, in which he told a teenage boy's father his son was dead.

29-year-old Aaron Davie was caught on CCTV with a beer can and his mobile phone in hand, howling with laughter shortly after making the prank call at Aston train station in Birmingham in December.

Davie told Birmingham Magistrates’ Court he let a 15-year-old boy borrow his phone to call his father to come pick him up, after a night of bowling with his friends.

When the boy gave Davie the phone back, he hit redial as the teen walked away.

"Have you just been speaking to your son?," Davie asked the boy’s father. When he replied that he had, Davie told the father: "He's just been killed".

The teenager's parents panicked upon hearing the chilling news, and immediately rushed to the train station.

"It chilled me," the 50-year-old father told British newspaper The Sun, outside court.

"I nearly sunk to the floor … it was the worst 40 minutes of my life."

The trainee accountant claimed he had been drinking at a soccer game and wouldn't have made the call if he was sober.

"This defendant is utterly ashamed of himself," a lawyer for Davie, who has pleaded guilty, said in court.

The teenager involved in the prank, said he was shocked by Davie's sick actions.

"I thought he must have been a decent bloke to lend his phone," he said.

"I was surprised and angry at him for being such an idiot."

Davie was remanded on bail and will be sentenced on March 13.

credited to livenews.com.au

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A WOMAN who gardened in the nude and someone who stabled a horse in a townhouse are among hundreds of bizarre strata complaints in NSW.

Other disputes involve an owner breeding trout in an indoor pool and a man who was ordered to urinate on the side of a toilet bowl.

Residents living in the unit below claimed they were being kept awake by the man making frequent visits to the bathroom.

The NSW Fair Trading Department complaints file, obtained by The Sunday Telegraph, shows it received almost 1400 requests to mediate disputes - a 10 per cent rise over the previous year.

In 2003-04, there were 945 complaints. Latest figures show there are about 65,000 strata schemes in NSW.

And, as Sydney unit-dwellers increase, the number of complaints soars. Unsurprisingly, noise tops the list of grievances.

Water leaks taking too long to be fixed, followed by residents keeping pets without permission, are also high on the list.

Among the more bizarre mediations undertaken related to an inner-city resident, who converted a townhouse courtyard into a stable for his horse.

Following a departmental investigation, the owner moved out, taking the horse.

Fair Trading Minister Virginia Judge said departmental mediators resolved around 70 per cent of complaints, with the rest being referred to the Consumer, Trader and Tenancy Tribunal.

Ms Judge said some of the cases defied belief.

"In one case, an owners' meeting was divided along gender lines over whether to take action against a female resident, who watered the garden naked.''

credited to news.com.au

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Unseen footage of American soldiers training for the D-day landings in North Devon during the Second World War has been unearthed by an amateur historian.

The 10-minute reels feature the wartime leaders Winston Churchill and Dwight Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe and future American president.

The clips show Churchill and Eisenhower visiting the 101st Airborne which was stationed in North Devon. There is also film footage of Russians at Putsborough beach.

The Russians can be seen with the American Army and is believed to be looking at plans for the Omaha landing during the Soviet military mission to observe western training.

The footage, which has been found by Tony Koorlander, a former technical co-ordinator for BBC TV news, has lain undiscovered in the National Archive in Baltimore since the end of the war.

Mr Koorlander, who believes he is the first person in 65 years to have seen the films, has been researching wartime connections in his hometown of Bideford, Devon.

He flew to America and found 38 reels of completely different film revealing American wartime activity at Braunton Burrows, Saunton Sands and Woolacombe beach.

Through links with the military academy in New York, Mr Koorlander was put in touch with Wes Ross, 88, a former 146 Engineer Combat Battalion soldier in America, who trained at Woolacombe and has written a book of his experiences.

Mr Koorlander said: "If it was not for the training at Braunton Burrows, we would not have won D-Day. Each picture and film has an amazing story to tell. I never dreamt it would be this big.

"It is like going back and living the experience. These people were unseen heroes and it has all been kept top secret for too long."

Mr Koorlander said he hoped to have film and photos available to buy within the next few weeks. All proceeds would go towards extending the project for the recovery of the 80 or so reels of film still to be acquired.

Mr Koorlander has been able to transform reels of historic film into high definition footage using a state-of-the-art digital film format.

credited to telegraph.co.uk

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A Sydney man has been charged with attempting to smuggle 44 native lizards and snakes on a flight out of Australia, including a rare albino python.

The haul of reptiles allegedly found in the 24-year-old's luggage at Sydney airport on Friday included 24 shingleback lizards, 16 bluetongue lizards and four snakes.

The snakes have been identified as three black headed pythons and an albino carpet python, an extremely endangered species with numbers estimated to be as low as 100.

The albino python is worth about $20,000, while Customs estimates all the reptiles in the smuggling attempt would fetch between $160,000 and $200,000 on the black market.

They were detected during x-ray screenings of the man's luggage after he checked in for a flight to Bangkok.

The reptiles, hidden in socks and cloth bags, were taken to Sydney Wildlife World, where they have undergone health checks and are being cared for.

The man, from Bonnet Bay, has been granted conditional bail to appear in the Downing Centre Local Court on March 24.

He has been charged with attempting to export native species without a permit, which carries a maximum penalty of $110,000 and/or 10 years' jail.

Customs and Border Protection spokesman Richard Janeczko said wildlife smuggling was a serious crime.

"Customs and Border Protection continues to prevent, investigate and prosecute wildlife smuggling attempts into and out of Australia in a bid to end this cruel practice," Mr Janeczko said in a statement on Monday.

credited to livenews.com.au

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Thai police were searching Monday for the body and identity of a foreigner whose head was found hanging by a rope off a Bangkok bridge over the weekend.

The severed head of a Western man, aged between 30 and 40, was found Sunday afternoon dangling about five metres below the Rama VIII bridge, which crosses the Chao Phraya River in north-western Bangkok.

"We still don't know the name of the victim, nor where his body is," Police Lieutenant Colonel Atcharat Haemthanon said. "We're hoping to get some clues from the bridge's surveillance camera."

Written on the bridge's railing where the man's head was found was the sentence, "Cath. I want but I cannot. ... I came to Bangkok to be with you."

credited to livenews.com.au

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A photograph of a giant snake apparently swimming up a river in Borneo has fuelled speculation that a creature like the Loch Ness Monster is stalking the island.

A member of a disaster team monitoring flood regions on the South East Asian island is said to have captured the image while hovering over the Baleh river in a helicopter.

The shot, which shows a green, wavy object floating along the meandering river, has sparked rumours that a mythical snake called Nabau has returned to the area.

Sceptics have joined the debate claiming that it is nothing more than the work of photo-editing software.

Rather like the myths surrounding Scotland's Loch Ness Monster, legend has it that a terrifying 100ft snake called Nabau, with a dragon's head and seven nostrils prowled Borneo's rivers.

Villagers who claim to have seen the snake in the flesh have now named it Nabau, after the folklore sea serpent which was thought to be able to transform itself into the shapes of different animals.

Those dismissing the suggestions claim that the picture must be doctored because the river in the photo is a different colour to the real Baleh rover, which is a murky brown.

Since the photo appeared on various news websites, further images, purportedly showing the snake at other parts of the river have been circulated.

Even the respected New Straits Times newspaper in Kuala Lumpur has asked readers to make up their own minds about the photos.

Earlier this month scientists unearthed the fossil of a killer snake that was longer than a bus, as heavy as a small car and which could swallow an animal the size of a cow.

It is thought that the 45ft long creature, named Titanoboa, lived on a diet of crocodiles and giant turtles and inhabited the South American tropical forests some 60 million years ago.

Partial skeletons of the prehistoric beast, which weighed 1.25 tons were found in a Colombian coal mine by an international team of fossil hunters.

credited to telegraph.co.uk

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A fantasist stole thousands from his girlfriend after duping her into believing he was an MI5 secret agent sent to protect her from being poisoned by her boss.

Whisky shop salesman Wayne Gouveia cheated Leanne McCarthy of £14,000 after convincing her that her jeweller boss was about to poison her with anthrax powder in her mail.

He even made the 21-year-old jeweller's assistant sign the Official Secrets Act to keep up the pretence that he was a James Bond-style secret agent.

Miss McCarthy was taken in by Gouveia's story when they worked in shops in Turl Street, Oxford.

After Gouveia, 25, pleaded guilty to three charges of fraud by false representation [[on Monday]], Miss McCarthy described him as "really believable".

But Judge Terence Maher, sitting at Oxford Crown Court, described the conman's yarn as "bizarre to the point of lunacy" and said Gouveia was "bonkers".

The court heard that when the couple originally got together in September 2007 Gouveia showered Miss McCarthy with expensive gifts.

Clare Tucker, prosecuting, said the lying began when he claimed to be an undercover policeman.

She said: "He said he was working in Turl Street due to an imminent armed robbery, which was going to occur at the shop where she worked. "He went on to convince her it was her boss who was planning the armed robbery so he could claim on the insurance."

Slowly the lies became more elaborate.

"He also convinced her that her boss was trying to kill her, by lacing her mail with anthrax. He persuaded her not to open her mail but to give it all to him," she said.

This allowed Gouveia access to all her post, including bank cards and PIN numbers. He subsequently managed to steal £14,000 from her accounts, according to a police source.

He also changed his story to tell her he was an MI5 agent, got her to sign the Official Secrets Act and even said he wanted to recruit her to the organisation.

He even staged a break-in of the flat they shared while they were on holiday in Tenerife to convince her that forces were after her.

Gouveia, of Shannon Road, Bicester, Oxon, admitted three charges of fraud by false representation.

On adjourning sentencing for psychiatric reports Judge Maher said: "He spun a web of lies and abused the trust that this unfortunate young woman put in him.

"It is not only a remarkable story but it is bizarre to the point of lunacy.

"This man was living in fantasy land. The more I heard, the more I was thinking that this man was bonkers."

Speaking after the hearing Miss McCarthy described Gouveia's performance as believable.

"I trusted him and he took me in," she told the Oxford Mail newspaper.

"He was really believable. I did feel really stupid. I absolutely hate him.

"Everyone that met him liked him. They were all taken in by him.

"I thought I knew him but obviously, quite clearly, I didn't at all."

Sentencing was adjourned until March 16.

credited to telegraph.co.uk

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A rare quail from the Philippines that was believed to be extinct, has been photographed for the first time before being sold at a poultry market as food.

Worcester's Buttonquail has only ever been depicted through illustrations based on museum specimens decades old, but according to NationalGeographic.com, a television crew was able to document the live bird in the market before it was sold in January.

Scientists had previously thought the bird, found only on the island of Luzon, to be extinct.

Wild Bird Club of the Philippines President Michael Lu said he was disappointed locals weren't more conscious of protecting endangered wildlife.

"What if this was the last of its species?" he told AFP.

credited to livenews.com.au

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AN infant boy was married off to his neighbours' dog in eastern India by villagers who said it will stop the groom from being killed by wild animals.

Around 150 tribespeople performed the ritual recently in a hamlet in the state of Orissa's Jajpur district after the boy, who is under two years old, grew a tooth on his upper gum.

The Munda tribe see such a growth in young children as a bad omen and believe it makes them prone to attacks by tigers and another animals. The tribal god will bless the child and ward off evil spirits after the marriage.

"We performed the marriage because it will overcome any curse that might fall on the child as well on us," the boy's father, Sanarumala Munda, was quoted as saying by a local newspaper.

The groom, Sagula, was carried by his family in procession to the village temple, where a priest solemnised the marriage between Sagula and his bride Jyoti by chanting Sanskrit hymns, a witness said.

The villagers then ate a feast with rich food and alcohol to celebrate.

The dog belongs to the groom's neighbours and was set free to roam around the area after the ceremony. No dowry was exchanged, the witness said, and the boy will still be able to marry a human bride in the future without filing for divorce.

Indian law does not recognise weddings between people and animals, but the ritual survives in rural and tribal areas of the country where millions are illiterate.

credited to news.com.au

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A German entrepreneur, Hermann Ramke, has invented a James Bond-like jetpack powered by high-pressure water, called the JetLev-Flyer.

Designer Ramke's invention can power the rider to a height of 50 feet (15m), has a top speed of 30mph, and can travel almost 200 miles before it needs to be refuelled.

A floating pump powered by a 150 horsepower four-stroke engine sends water through a 140ft-long (43m) hose to a pair of nozzles mounted on the jet pack.

The jet leaving the nozzles is sufficiently powerful to push the rider off the ground.

The nozzles can then be angled to propel the pilot forward in "stable, controlled flight".

The website advertising the jetpack, which retails at around £160,000, claims the device offers "freedom, exhilaration, [and] adventure".

It continues: T"he dream of personal flight is as old as mankind. In the 21st century the daring vision of Daedalus has finally come true."

The gadget took nine years to develop, including six years of "intensive testing and refinements" before a product was engineering which they felt could deliver on their premise.

The JetLev, which also seems to have drawn inspiration from Toy Story's Buzz Lightyear, can accommodate pilots of over 6ft (up to 2m) in height from and 40kg (88lbs) 120kg (265lbs) in weight.

A digital fly-by-wire system is used to control the throttle.

For special applications, future designs could achieve higher altitudes and top speeds, extended range and even travel below the water´s surface.

The American manufacturers claim it is "amazingly easy to learn and operate".

All customers receive detailed instructions from a qualified personal trainer to learn the special procedures of takeoff, flying, turning, hovering and landing.

credited to telegraph.co.uk

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SLEAZY men are taking advantage of Sydney's rental crisis by placing online advertisements offering women free rooms in exchange for sex.

The zero-rent ads, targeting desperate women looking for somewhere to live, are becoming increasingly common on popular "share house'' rental websites.

Although there have been numerous complaints about the ads, which some website users have dubbed "offensive'', they do not breach policy guidelines for sites such as flatmates.com.au

A statement on flatmates.com.au says that if the site were to impose a ban, the ads would merely go underground, making the process unsafe for women.

One advertisement offering free rent for a female to "share a room'' was placed by a 32-year-old Auburn man calling himself Atiq.

Atiq told The Sunday Telegraph he was looking for a relationship with a woman in a "clean'' one-bedroom unit.

"Yes, I am alone and the rent would be free. I am looking for a girl to share my room and, yes, in the same bed,'' he said.

Atiq said he had migrated from Pakistan eight months ago and that a friend had placed the ad for him.

"I'm not that kind of person,'' he said. "But, yes, it would possibly involve sex.''

Atiq said a number of women had responded to the ad but he had not yet found anyone suitable.
A similar ad on flatmates.com.au read: "$0 to share flat, wanted flatmate/girlfriend to share unit in Griffith, ACT.

"Free accommodation in exchange for relationship.''

Another ad, for a Melbourne townhouse, offered "free rent for someone special: instead of rent, I am looking for someone to help me with certain needs/requirements on a regular basis''.

After complaints, flatmates.com.au issued a statement on why it continued to run such ads.

"Sometimes, it's pretty clear it's for sex,'' the statement said.

"Yes - there is a rental crisis. We have had a few complaints about these ads.

"Our policy is to let them stay, on the basis it's better for these ads to be upfront with what they are offering than disguise the offer.''

Gumtrees.com.au did not respond to The Sunday Telegraph's inquiries.

Flatmates.com.au is Australia's biggest free "share house'' website. Most of its users are aged between 18 and 29.

credited to news.com.au

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Dallas, TX (AHN) - Texans from Dallas to Austin reported seeing at least one fire ball in the sky and hearing sonic booms Sunday at midday.

A red and orange fireball with a small black center was seen by many as it sped toward earth, but it burned out in the sky, leaving a trail of white smoke.

FAA officials said there was no interference with flights and no reports of ground strikes or injuries.

The U.S. Strategic Command said it was likely a meteorite or other natural phenomenon. The agency says it has been monitoring the space debris from the recent collision of two Russian and U.S. satellites in space, and that none of the debris was in the vicinity of where the fireball appeared.

credited to allheadlinenews.com

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A Chinese woman who was filmed wailing and writhing on the floor of Hong Kong’s international airport after missing her flight has become a star on YouTube after her hysterics were filmed and uploaded to the video sharing website.

The middle-aged woman was seen charging at a security guard at the departure gate, before screaming “aieyyahhhhh,” at the top of her lungs in a rant that lasts about three minutes.

The woman, sprawled on the ground, was seen wailing. An elderly man travelling with her tried to pull her to her feet but she shouted in Cantonese: “I want to go, I want to go.”

Cathay Pacific said it had already closed the aircraft’s doors and had offloaded the woman’s baggage, and so was unable to allow her to board the flight to San Francisco.

“Don’t be so upset, don’t be so emotional,” a male Cathay Pacific staff member is heard saying on the video.

But his attempt to soothe the passenger was unsuccessful.

The incident occurred on Feb 4, and the video appeared to have been loaded onto YouTube late last week. By Monday, the video, titled “A woman missed her flight at the boarding gate HKIA” had nearly 600,000 hits.

The footage appears to have been shot with a mobile phone from behind the staff desk.

In 2006, another sensational outburst by a tense Hong Kong man captured the imagination of many people in the fast-paced Asian financial capital.

The middle-aged man, who chastised and swore at a youngster in a six-minute-long diatribe aboard a double decker bus, was dubbed “Bus-Uncle” and a video of the incident received close to two million hits.

His quote “I have pressure, you have pressure” became a catch-phrase and sparked outrage at the pressure that many over-worked Hong Kong citizens suffer.

As for the distraught woman at the airport, Cathay Pacific said it put her and her two travel companions on a later flight to Los Angeles, at no extra cost.

credited to telegraph.co.uk

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Beyonce is offering fans the chance to meet her backstage at her upcoming tour, for the price of £1,265.

For more than 25 times the standard ticket price, the millionaire American singer is offering VIP treatment including a personal introduction.

The "Meet and Greet" package includes entrance to a pre-show party in an "exclusive VIP room" where there will be a "specially selected luxury dinner buffet".

The ticket also allows use of a complimentary bar providing a selection of quality wines, beers and soft drinks.

After meeting Beyonce and having their photograph taken with her, the ticket holders will be able to watch her concert from a front row seat.

They will also walk away with a goodie bag filled with an autographed tour book, a wristband and a one year membership to the Beyonce fan club.

The packages are being organised by Event Travel and are available through Ticketmaster.

Event Travel director Tim Smales said: "This is an expensive event but it is available to a very small number of paying customers - about 10 to 15 guests at each event.

"It is for those who are really passionate about the artist and whose budget allows.

"It will be a unique, once in a lifetime experience.

"The whole nature of the music industry is changing to offer that little bit extra to those who can afford it and this is a real VIP affair."

Beyonce is touring for the first time since 2007, promoting her 'I Am... Sasha Fierce' album. Standard tickets cost £49.50.

She is appearing in Newcastle, Birmingham, London's O2 Arena, Manchester, Belfast, Liverpool, Sheffield and London again.

'I Am... Sasha Fierce' is the third solo studio album Beyonce, formerly of Destiny's Child, and was released in November last year.

The double album went straight in at number one on America's Billboard 200 chart, making it her third consecutive number-one album.

credited to telegraph.co.uk

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ELLIE Barton and Phil Hendicott will bare all when the couple tie the knot au naturel as part of a radio station's naked wedding competition in Brisbane.

And for Ellie, at least, it will be a welcome relief from the daily fitness workouts the couple have endured in the lead-up to their flesh-fest nuptials, which will take place before 250 (fully clothed) guests at Brisbane's upmarket Gianni's Events restaurant at Portside.

"We started working out with a personal trainer the day we found out we won the competition," Ellie admitted to Confidential ahead of tomorrow's wedding.

"When I first started I said to him: 'Right, this is what I want us to work on - abs and bum.' So ever since then he has been killing me every morning.

"But it's been worth it. It makes you feel good at the least."

And, naturally, confidence will be key when Ellie strolls down the aisle sans threads.

"But I must admit I am getting a bit nervous," she said.

"But my family has been really supportive.

"Even my Nan. She is celebrating her 60th wedding anniversary this week and she is all for it."

So just how much will the couple bare?

"Well, we will have some body paint on," said Ellie, who plans to cover her - er - front parts with an over-sized bunch of roses.

"I have a massive bouquet," she laughs.

"There are about 250 roses in it and it is very heavy but it will cover plenty."

The competition was run by radio station B105.

credited to news.com.au

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Video footage of a UFO hovering above the British coastline has been captured by holidaymakers in Somerset.

Caravaners were left baffled when the mysterious cylinder hovered over a busy campsite in Brean, Somerset.

They claimed the unidentified black metal object stands out clearly against the blue sky, where it can be seen darting up and down for more than 10 minutes.

Local police reported no unusual activity, but witnesses were left convinced they had seen an extra-terrestrial spectacle.

It took place on a sunny afternoon last July when tourists staying at an unidentified holiday park spotted the object.

One grabbed his video camera and managed to capture its strange, erratic movements in the sky.

The video was shot at the height of the tourist season and stopped hundreds of holidaymakers in their tracks.

But it only emerged yesterday after it was sent anonymously to local news website.

UFO expert Malcolm Robinson said the object was "totally consistent" with other sightings.

Mr Robinson, who runs UFO group Strange Phenomena Investigations, said: "This video of a UFO is clearly very exciting.

"While UFOs are commonly thought to be spherical in shape, we receive dozens of calls from people who have spotted similar cylinder-shaped objects.

"There is, of course, an argument that this could be a weather balloon or some other common object.

"But my research has shown that it is totally consistent with other UFO sightings, none of which have been hoaxes or naturally-occurring phenomenon."

The footage has since been uploaded onto video sharing website YouTube, where it has sparked fierce debate.

One user claims it was a "high altitude observation balloon payload", while another argues it looks "like a metallic shape, higher than a plane, making it pretty big".

It is not the first time a mystery object has been spotted in the skies over Brean.

Last June, local Coastguards were called out to search Somerset's coastline after sightings of a mystery parachute and canister, which were never found.

credited to telegraph.co.uk

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A tiny island in the Adriatic has become a holiday hit for lovers because it is shaped like a hearth.

The 130,000 square yard islet of Galesnjak came to prominence after its unusual shape was highlighted on Google Earth.

Even the owner of the uninhabited island - now known as Lovers' Island - didn't realise how perfectly heart-shaped the island off the Croatian coast was until he was swamped with requests from couples to stay there.

It seems many lovers from around the world consider it the ideal spot for a romantic Valentine's Day break.

Vlado Juresko said: "It has been incredible. We think it is the most perfect heart-shaped island in the world. Nobody lives there so if lovers really do want to spend time alone it's the perfect desert island.

"We always thought it looked a bit like a heart but since it's been on Google Earth everyone else has seen it too and the whole world seems to want to stay here."

The island is located in Zadarski Kanal between Zadar and the Island of Pasman.

Croatia is ranked as the 18th most popular tourism destination in the world, proving especially busy during the summer months.

credited to telegraph.co.uk

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A landowner in northern NSW has been fined $408,000 for illegally clearing 486 hectares of land covered by native vegetation.

In the NSW Land and Environment Court on Wednesday, John Ross Hudson was convicted by Justice David Lloyd of clearing wetland by the Gwydir River, contrary to the Native Vegetation Act, between November 2006 and March 2007.

The wetland, on the property known as Yarrol, about 60km west of Moree, is considered an important breeding area for migratory birds.

The vegetation removed included eucalyptus, casuarina and acacia trees.

"The evidence satisfies me beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr Hudson personally authorised the carrying out of the clearing of the native vegetation," Justice Lloyd said in his judgment.

He rejected Hudson's defences that the clearing was permissible because it was intended to remove the noxious weed lippia, and that the Border Rivers-Gwydir Catchment Management Authority had approved it.

"The clearing of some 486 hectares was self-evidently done for the purpose of making more land available for agriculture," the judge said.

The offence fell within the upper range of seriousness, he said.

"The very extent of the clearing means that the harm caused by the offence was substantial," Justice Lloyd said.

"Apart from the fact that Mr Hudson is not known to have any record of previous convictions, there are no mitigating factors."

Hudson had not expressed any contrition or remorse, he said.

Justice Lloyd fined Hudson $400,000 for the offence of land clearing, and a further $8,000 for a separate offence of failing to comply with a notice issued under the Native Vegetation Act.

He also ordered Hudson to pay the prosecution costs, adding that these would be substantial.

credited to livenews.com.au

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Police arrested a man near the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday after he drove up to one of the building's barricades with a rifle in his vehicle and told officers that he had a delivery for President Obama, a Senate spokesman said.

Sgt. Kimberly Schneider identified the man as Alfred Brock, 64, of Winnfield, Louisiana. She said Brock was charged with possession of an unregistered firearm and unregistered ammunition.

Brock drove up to the north barricade at the Capitol late Tuesday afternoon, saying he had a delivery for the president, Schneider said.

After further questioning, he admitted he had a rifle in his truck. He was arrested and taken to police headquarters for processing, she said.

A search of his truck turned up several rounds of ammunition, Schneider said. Police also checked the area around the barricade, but found nothing hazardous.

Threats against Obama have led to arrests in previous cases.

In one, federal prosecutors concluded that three people arrested with drugs and weapons in a suburban Denver, Colorado, motel posed a "true threat" to Obama during the Democratic National Convention.

In the second, a Florida man was charged with threatening bodily harm against the then-candidate in August. He has pleaded not guilty.

credited to cnn.com

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A treasure hunter who claims to have found a buried ship filled with treasure using Google Earth , the popular satellite imaging service, is fighting a legal battle to excavate the site.

Nathan Smith claims the lost gold and silver cargo of a Spanish barquentine that reportedly ran ashore south of Refugio, Texas, in 1822, could be worth $3 billion (£2 billion).

Mr Smith, a musician from Los Angeles, said he used Google Earth, an internet site normally used by people wanting to find their own rooftop, to zoom in to a spot north of the Aransas Pass.

There, he saw an outline shaped like a shoeprint near an area known as Barkentine Creek, where the vessel was said to have run aground, he said.

After consulting experts and visiting the area with a metal detector, he is convinced he has found the ship, now buried under mud.

However, the ranch's owners have refused to allow him on to the land and the dispute has gone to federal court in Houston.

Documents and photographs of the area have been sealed by order of the court to hide the exact site. However, Mr Smith told an earlier hearing that it is even possible to make out an X marking the spot, which he believes is part of the ship's capstan.

His lawyers say the case, known as Smith vs Abandoned Ship in order further to preserve the secrecy, hinges on whether the spot - a wetlands area - counts as land or as a navigable waterway.

If it is the latter, US law allows the first person to find abandoned treasure to ask the federal courts and the US Army Corps of Engineers for permission to retrieve it. If it is deemed to be land, then it belongs to the family of the ranch's late owner, Morgan Dunn O'Connor.

However, other legal experts claim the creek is clearly outside any commercial waterway and so, if it is deemed to be in the water, any wreck belongs to the state of Texas. A judge is due to rule on the case next month.

Ron Walker, a lawyer for the ranch's owners, told ABC News: "It was offensive that somebody could go on Google Earth, look down and see what they think under the ground...and come in and say I want to dig up your property. They have no proof anything is there and no experience."

Mr Smith, who was inspired to become a treasure hunter by the Hollywood thriller National Treasure, said he has been looking for three years without any luck. He estimates the treasure near Barkentine Creek to be worth $3 billion.

The Texas coast is believed to be littered with wrecked ships, but the notoriously muddy waters of the Gulf of Mexico has made treasure hunting particularly difficult there.

Mr Smith's site is not far from Matagorda Bay, where an archaeological team discovered a ship belonging to the 17th century French explorer La Salle in 1995, following an on-off search that had lasted 17 years.

credited to telegraph.co.uk

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F-16 Fighter jets were scrambled to intercept a UFO seen following a London-bound passenger jet.

The object was spotted by the pilot of Olympic Airways flight 266 from Athens, and the sighting was corroborated by staff at Athens Airport and a nearby Greek air force base. Pilots of two other passenger jets also reported seeing the body.

The eyewitnesses described it as looking like a large star, although it was moving erratically and constantly changing shape.

Two fighter jets were sent to investigate the sighting over the Greek capital in November 2007 but the object shot up into the sky and vanished before they could get a clear view.

The incident was kept secret by the Greek authorities for more than a year, but is now generating huge interest after official documents and recordings of the conversation between the pilot and control tower were released.

An Olympic Airlines spokeswoman said: "I can confirm the incident. It is the first of its kind involving our pilots."

Greek officials say that the object, which was not detected on any radar, was probably a mistaken sighting of the planet Venus in the Autumn night sky.

This is not the first time that a passenger jet has had a close encounter with a UFO. Documents released by the Ministry of Defence last year disclosed that an Alitalia flight had a near miss while landing at Heathrow in 1991, with the pilot describing an object "similar to a missile – light brown or fawn – about three metres in length but without any exhaust flame".

credited to telegraph.co.uk

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Dorothy Green, 79, decided to confront Norwich Union's chief executive, Mark Hodges, because she believed the firm was treating her unfairly by attempting to halve her life insurance payout.

The retired teacher became so frustrated at not being able to contact Mr Hodges on the phone that she even reported him to police as an official missing person.

When this failed to get his attention, she travelled from her home in Cambridgeshire to the company's headquarters in York to argue her case face-to-face with Mr Hodges.

The elderly widow then marched into the reception where she staged a three-day protest about her plight.

She spent more than £150 on train and taxi fares, endured freezing temperatures, and even a brush with the law, when officers eventually took her to a police station because they were concerned for her welfare.

However, Mrs Green's persistence paid off and the company agreed to honour the policy she took out in the more than a decade ago.

The mother-of-two, and grandmother-of-four said: "I was very frightened to do it but I thought I must do something about it.

"They said there was a misunderstanding with the terms on the original contract but they are now going to give me a new contract on the terms I thought I had originally."

Mrs Green, from Peterborough, claims she was sold a life insurance plan in the mid-1990s guaranteeing a payout of £56,400 when she died.

But she said that over the last six years the company had tried to reduce her payments and reduce the payout to £26,000.

Her stand-off with Norwich Union began after she made numerous phone calls to Mr Hodges but was left on hold for nearly four hours.

Mrs Green said: "Mark Hodges' PA didn't know where he was, nobody knew where he was.

"After three-and-a-quarter hours on the phone I said 'If nobody knows where he is I had better report him as a missing person'.

"All the while they said they wanted to help me but they kept saying they weren't going to keep the original contract."

Then, in a move Mrs Green admitted was "quite out of character", she made the trip to York to confront the chief executive.

Recently widowed Mrs Green said Norwich Union has now promised to honour her original agreement "even if I live to 110".

A Norwich Union spokesman confirmed that Mr Hodges was not missing and that staff are working closely with Mrs Green and "devoting considerable time to understanding her concerns."

credited to telegraph.co.uk

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