These dogs prove the impossible and actually act more human than some of our lesser-intelligent brothers and sisters out there. I promise, you’ve never seen dogs act like this before. If it weren’t so cute, it would actually be pretty creepy. By no means is it “Planet Of The Apes” creepy, but it still makes you think for a second: what are dogs really?



| MSN, Top Photo Courtesy Of: YouTube #end.

Very important lesson for drug traffickers: Do not store your half-ton of weed in the backseat of your car. A Brazilian drug smuggler did just that, police say, and the man was killed when he crashed into a tree while being chased by police ... because the 1,100 pounds of weed came barreling forward and crushed him against the steering wheel.

Federal police started the chase when the man didn't stop at a road block, Jalopnik reports, citing local media. The chase went on for three miles before the as-yet-unidentified man lost control of his car; he was killed instantly.



| Newser#end.

It's quite the fanciful story: Nazis buried diamonds and 100 gold bars in a Bavarian town during World War II, in a spot whose location was encoded into an annotated piece of sheet music by Adolf Hitler's private secretary. That score, to Gottfried Federlein's "March Impromptu," was posted online in December by stumped Dutch journalist Karl Hammer, reports der Spiegel. Now, a 51-year-old fellow Dutchman who spent nine months poring over what NBC News describes as "letters, figures, and lyrics" added to the score thinks he has an answer—or, at least, a "very good theory."

Leon Giesen spotted a distinct capital "M," which seemed familiar to him: An image of a Berlin train station had contained the same letter. He now believes the "M" stands for Mittenwald, where Nazi barracks once stood, and that the phrase Enden der Tanz, or "end the dance," refers to one of the rail line's buffer stops, reports the Guardian. If you're doubtful, there's also this: Giesen thinks an added lyric (wo Matthias die Saiten streichelt, "where Matthew plucks strings") refers to 17th-century violin builder Matthias Klotz, who hailed from that same town. Giesen got the go-ahead to drill three holes in Mittenwald, and says his "geophysical survey" revealed an "anomaly" in the earth. Next up: Raise more money for a full excavation, which is no small task.

 "If there are boxes with valuable items below the surface they could be booby-trapped, so we need to bring in specialists and meet all safety requirements first."
| Newser #end.

The New York Times explains in its latest Snowden scoop:

The NSA "has been exploiting its huge collections of data to create sophisticated graphs of some Americans’ social connections that can identify their associates, their locations at certain times, their traveling companions and other personal information ..."

To make those "sophisticated graphs" as sophisticated as possible, the agency also culls data from Facebook profiles, voter registration rolls, property records, GPS data, tax information—you get the picture. An NSA spokesperson insists that any such analysis has a "foreign intelligence justification, period." But the story notes that a 2011 policy change allows the NSA to compile these records "without having to check foreignness" of all the email addresses or phone numbers involved.

The agency would not say how many US citizens had been scrutinized. Click for the full story.

| NYT #end.

Are the United Arab Emirate states being over-the-top extravagant when purchasing super luxury cars? Word has it that an Abu Dhabi billionaire is the proud owner of a Mercedes V10 Quad Turbo sports job that has a body made of white gold! Not gold paint, but gold alloy sheet metal. Do these kinds of luxuries find any parallel with the similarly over-the-top “eco” projects happening in the region, like The World islands and Masdar City?

The specially made car features a newly developed V10 quad turbo with 1,600 horsepower and 2800nm of torque. It is said to be able to go from 0-100km/h in less than 2 seconds, and can go a 1/4 mile in 6.89 seconds running on biofuel. But seriously folks, is it even relevant to talk about biofuel in the face of such an item?

Cost of this “jewelry store on wheels” is reported to be $2.5 million USD – or enough money to feed the poorer populations of many Arab countries for months.

Oil rich Emirates in the UAE have been known to spend large sums of money on all kinds of extravagant projects including what has been billed as the largest and most expensive indoor ski complex in the world, Ski Dubai, the world’s tallest building, Burj Khalifa Tower (all 158 stories of it) Abu Dhabi’s now being constructed luxurious Al Reem Island (said to be a playground for the wealthy); and what may be the only truly environmental sustainable project, Masdar City, which is also in the early stages of construction.

Luxury at the expense of poorer Arabs

All of these, including the car of course, are at the expense of millions of people throughout the Muslim world who go to bed hungry every night; and many of these people (from countries like Bangladesh, Indonesia, and even Jordan) work in the UAE on these construction projects for incomes ranging from as little as $4 a day.

It appears that only the wealthy can afford to purchase properties in these places, or spend the night in hotels that can run as much as $25,000 a night for a luxurious suite in Dubai’s Burg Al Arab ultra luxurious hotel tower. It makes us wonder what good could be done if just some of the money spent on these projects had been used for the good of the regional environment.

And while the much touted Masdar City is being marketed as “an example for other countries”; other projects, especially Dubai’s island community extravaganza The World, may turn out to be the region’s economic and environmental downfall, due to severe problems from both aspects.

Getting back to the “solid gold Mercedes” it does have one redeeming quality; its 1,600 HP engine is designed to run on biofuels. But throwing in words and ideas like LEED-certified building and biofuel does not make a construction project or car environmental friendly. It’s just using the good deeds of the environment movement to get some good PR.

Want to convert your Mercedes to biofuel? No problem. Follow this handy resource “converting diesel mercedes to biofuel” and save yourself $2.5 million dollars.

| Green Prophet #end.

Construction on Tianducheng, in China’s Zhejiang district, began in 2007. It was meant to be a luxurious gated community resembling Paris in every way possible. The highlight of the town is its 354-foot replica of the Eiffel tower, but plenty of Paris’ other landmarks have been faithfully recreated here.

There is a major incongruity between one’s expectations for a “little Paris” and what you will actually see in Tianducheng. The streets are, for the most part, entirely empty. There are no throngs of tourists or business people rushing off to their offices. There is a lot of quiet, and there is a fair amount of traditional Chinese culture, seemingly completely out of place in the French surroundings.

The development was built to house 100,000 people and to draw rural families into a bustling metropolitan area. As of 2007, (the last time the population was counted), only 2,000 souls inhabited the gated compound. The population seems to be dwindling, leading local media to refer to Tianducheng as a “ghost town.”

It may seem odd to build a replica of a famous city in a different country, but the developers were working on the idea that Paris was seen as a romantic destination. They felt that Chinese people would want to live in this faux-European environment with its stately townhouses and wide-open courtyards. Several other Western-style towns and communities have been built in China around this idea.

At least in Tianducheng, you are more likely to see empty streets and traditional Chinese agricultural life than the distinctly Parisian pastimes of shopping, strolling, and sipping wine on a restaurant patio. Daily life in the town is documented in the video above.

Work is still in progress in the compound; its expected completion date is in 2015. So the Paris of the East, it turns out, isn’t quite a ghost town – it hasn’t had the time to develop ghosts just yet. In a few years, this now-quiet development could very well be chock full of Chinese residents ready to begin their European-style lives. | Business Insider Fot. ALY SONG REUTERS#end.

The future is always unknown, especially the distant future, but that shouldn’t stop us from making educated guesses. That’s exactly what artist and researcher Nickolay Lamm did with help from Dr. Alan Kwan, who has a doctorate in computational genomics from Washington University. Their starting point was the question: “What do you think the human face might look like in 100,000 years and why?”

From there, they reasoned out how humanity with advanced genetic engineeringtechnology might reshape itself over time, taking over the role played by natural selection so far. Lamm then created a series of images of what he thinks the human face might look like 20,000 years, 60,000 years and 100,000 years in the future (Note: He said that we shouldn’t read too much into the fact that the man and woman are Caucasian because those were just the best models he could find).

Image: Today

| MNN / Photo: Courtesy of Nickolay Lamm#end.

D eep Forrest near border with Ukraine. Nobody Know exactly when and why these military vehicles were abandoned in the woods. Peoples say, They've been sitting there since the mid 90's seeing the lack of rust or flat tires. Some of those are probably gummed up with bad fuel or were left with water still in them so the whole engine might be seized.





























| MB #end.

If the name Zhenli Ye Gon sounds familiar, it’s because he is the same Chinese-Mexican drug kingpin from the story of the largest amount of cash ever seized in one persons possession. If you don’t recall that story, back in 2007 Mexican drug agents and American DEA raided an unassuming house in the suburbs of Mexico City after receiving a tip about suspicious activity from an informant. After securing the property, the agents proceeded to check the residence room by room. Low and behold, when they opened the door to a back bedroom, agents were shocked to discover a mountain of neatly stacked money three feet high and six feet wide. In total, the mountain was made up of $207 million in mostly US hundred dollar bills. It was the largest amount of drug money ever discovered in history.

That house was owned by a businessman named Zhenli Ye Gon. Zhenli Ye Gon moved from Shanghai to Mexico in 1996 to work in the import/export business. By 2002, he was running a supposedly legitimate chemical importing company called Unimed Pharm Chem. Somewhere along the way, Mr. Ye Gon allegedly began re-directing a portion of his imports from legitimate businesses to the Sinola drug cartel. The cartel then used these precursor chemicals to manufacture massive quantities of crystal meth which were then shipped to the US.

Zhenli Ye Gon was actually not at the house when the raid went down and when he found out what happened he fled north, to The United States, of all places. When he reached the US, Zhenli claimed he was forced to hold on to the $207 million by a Cabinet member of Mexico’s then President Filipe Calderon. Zhenli admitted that the money was from the Sinola cartel and further claimed it was to be used in Calderon’s upcoming re-election campaign. Oh, and he also admitted that the total amount of dirty money he was “forced” to babysit was actually closer to $350 million.

Zhenli Ye Gon was indicted in The United States in 2007, but after a series of witnesses recanted or coincidentally turned up dead, the case was eventually dismissed. However, he is still fighting the government to not be extradited to Mexico where drug trafficking laws are slightly looser.

So how does this saga connect back to Las Vegas? Earlier this week, The Las Vegas Sands corporation was fined $47.4 million by the US Attorney’s office for failing to alert authorities to Zhenli Ye Gon’s very suspicious gambling activities. It turns out that between 2004 and the raid in Mexico in 2007, Zhenli gambled away just over $125 million in cash mainly at The Venetian (which is owned by Las Vegas Sands corp). Every casino is obligated to alert American authorities to any suspicious transactions that may involve illicit money.

Between 2006 and 2007 alone, Zhenli transferred $45 million in cash to the Venetian from various banks and money exchanges located around Mexico. He proceeded to not only blow the entire $45 million, but an additional $35 million he received on credit from the casino. For a while, Zhenli was by far and away the largest all-cash-upfront gambler in the history of Las Vegas and thanks to these unprecedented losses, the casinos treated him like a God. The casinos showered him with comped rooms, private jets, meals, cars, girls… we’re talking comps that are beyond mortal imagination. In total, Zhenli lost $85 million at the Venetian and another $40 million at a small handful of nearby casinos.

| MB #end.

The odds of winning the average lottery are 1 in 100 million. That means you are more likely to be killed by a meteor than to win a Mega Millions jackpot. So you can only imagine how crazy the odds must be for someone to win a lottery twice in their lifetime. And to take it a step further, imagine just how astronomically insane the odds must be for someone to win the lottery twice, IN 24 HOURS! Incredibly, that’s exactly what just happened for a man named Cary Collings in Washington state. Not surprisingly, Collings is now being called the luckiest person in America…

Cary Collins bought a scratch off ticket at a River Road Food Mart in Puyallup, Washington while his truck was filling up with gas. Collins, who is a blue collar worker at the nearby Boeing factory, has played the scratch off lottery ever since it was introduced in Washington back in 2004. After leaving the gas station, Cary proceeded to scratch off the ticket while waiting at a red light. To his amazement, his “Red Hot 5s” ticket turned out to be worth $55,555!

After taking his friends out for a celebratory pizza party, Cary drove off to the state lottery department to claim his prize. On a whim he decided to make a pit stop on the way to collect his earnings and buy another ticket. This time he purchased three “Bring on the Bens” tickets for $30. You can only imagine the look on Cary Collins’ face when one of those scratchers turned out to be a $200,000winner. In less than 24 hours, Collins won two lottery tickets worth a grand total of $255,555. What are the odds? Honestly they are probably too high to calculate.

Cary’s lucky streak reminds us of the story of Australian lottery winer Bill Morgan. Bill Morgan is an Australian factory worker who was nearly crushed to death by a freak truck accident at work. After leaving the hospital with a heart condition, Morgan had severe heart attack that left him in a deep coma. The coma was so deep that his family was advised to remove life support not once, but TWICE. Bill’s luck eventually turned around in the most amazing way. Not only did he end up winning the lottery twice, but the second time was on live TV! You really need to read the full story and watch the incredible video to appreciate how it all went down
| MB #end.

Don Bailey and Matthew Solnik, researchers at iSEC Partners presented their work at the Black Hat 2011 security conference in Las Vegas, explaining how they can use an Android phone to carry out a technique they've dubbed "war-texting". The new technique relies on intercepting text messages, which many devices use to send commands or even firmware (permanent software programmed into a read-only memory) updates.

By setting up a local GSM network in the vicinity of a Subaru Outback, the team were able to intercept password authentication messages sent between the electronic key fob and the vehicle. What happens next is not exactly known, because the researchers haven't divulged all their secrets as a courtesy to the manufacturer.

However, what we do know is that intercepting those authentication messages allowed the team to understand the basic commands required to communicate with the security system of the car. Once they knew those details, they were able to send their own messages to the system in order to reverse-engineer the firmware - effectively learning how the entire device works.

From there, they could work out which commands were useful, and write their own messages to send that could unlock - and even start the engine of - the car. The whole process took them just a matter of hours. The team haven't gone into detail about which other cars might share these vulnerabilities, but the communication devices built into the vehicle are generic items - so the chances are that the problem could be widespread.

More worryingly, their technique could be used to attack other systems. Any device that routinely recieves firmware updates via text message, such as traffic control systems and security cameras, could be fair game. Perhaps worst of all, it could also attack SCADA sensors, which are used to monitor industrial systems such as the power grid and water supplies. "I could care less if I could unlock a car door," Don Bailey told CNN. "It's cool. It's sexy. But the same system is used to control phone, power, traffic systems. I think that's the real threat."

Though there has been no formal statement made by Subaru, Bailey has notified the manufacturer, and they are apparently taking steps to remedy the situation.

| newscientist #end.

The tools it uses are both internally and externally sourced, with some coming from the private sector. Hacking at the FBI under court order has gradually increased, as law enforcement officials try to find ways to circumvent new communication tech that’s more resistant to traditional surveillance methods like wiretapping. The specifics of its methods are not generally brought to light in public, but a warrant from earlier this year revealed that one request involved using a computer’s built-in camera to take photos of a suspect without their knowledge. The request in that case was denied.

According to the WSJ’s source, the FBI resorts to these tactics when they’re out of options, and “don’t have any other choice.” The tools used to gather the data are often installed remotely, using essentially phishing style links that injects essentially Trojan software when clicked by a suspect under surveillance. They can also be installed via physical access and a USB drive, the report says, and in all cases the FBI tries to ensure only “relevant data” are gathered by its hacking efforts, through the use of a screening team that checks for relevancy before handing information off to investigators working the case.

The news that the FBI employs hacker tactics on occasion to gather data about potential suspects is not new, but the specifics of how it goes about it, and how it might be able to employ a user’s own hardware to record conversations remotely is definitely going to raise some eyebrows, especially in light of the attention now focused on digital rights and privacy thanks to the leaks around the NSA’s PRISM and XKeyscore programs. In theory, the devices could even be activated to eavesdrop on an in-person conversation with a potential suspect who doesn’t even own an Android device, perhaps from the pocket of a friend who does. PRISM reportedly involves a number of prominent Internet companies, and Xkeyscore seems to allow the U.S. security agency unprecedented access to information about emails, chat history and more, according to information leaked by former U.S. government security contractor Edward Snowden.

In this case, it sounds like the FBI’s tools might involve Android and desktop PC malware, so Google wouldn’t need to be complicit for claims about using Android device mics remotely to be accurate. We’ve reached out to both the FBI and Google for comment, but have yet to hear back as of press time.
| TechCrunch/WSJ #end.

The author of Fast Food Nation is offering a little reminder of the danger of nuclear weapons: If things had gone just a little differently, the US could have blown up North Carolina—and taken much of the East Coast out too, thanks to the fallout. In 1961, Eric Schlosser writes in an upcoming book excerpted in Mother Jones, a B-52 bomber went haywire over the state, and a pair of hydrogen bombs fell out. They were each 250 times stronger than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. One of the bombs wasn't armed when it dropped, thanks to a failsafe, but the other one nearly exploded when its safety gear failed.

"The arming wires were yanked out, and the bomb responded as though it had been deliberately released by the crew above a target," Schlosser writes in Command and Control, an investigation of US nuclear mishaps. "The bomb hit the ground, and the piezoelectric crystals inside the nose crushed. They sent a firing signal." Of course, the bomb didn't ultimately explode. The Air Force said there was never a chance it would have, but that's not true, Schlosser says. Today, Schlosser tells Mother Jones in an interview, we've forgotten about the danger of these weapons: They "are machines, and I think they are the most dangerous machines ever invented," he says. "And like every machine, sometimes they go wrong." The book is out tomorrow, the Raw Story reports. (Click to read about a woman who's been protesting nukes across from the White House ... for 32 years.)
| DailyMail #end.

Huge numbers of American children have a liver disease that used to be seen mainly among adult alcoholics—and most of them don't know it, researchers warn. Around 10% of children are now believed to have fatty liver disease, which can lead to cirrhosis and liver failure in some cases, the Wall Street Journal reports. Around 40% of obese children have the condition, but its prevalence is rising even as obesity rates level off; the number of normal-weight children with fatty livers has also surged over the last 20 years, studies show.

"This is just really worrisome to have this number of children who have a disease this severe," says a pediatrics professor whose research has found that the prevalence of fructose in Western diets could be partly to blame. The disease has no symptoms and public health experts are debating introducing widespread screening for it. Little is known about how the disease progresses into adulthood and for now, treatments for it and associated illnesses are limited: Doctors recommend weight loss through diet and exercise and treating inflamed livers with Vitamin E. (In other health news, a recent study found that one fruit rules supreme when it comes to lowering your diabetes risk.) | Newser. Photo: Daniel Martin , A la my#end.

In 1972, more than two dozen South Korean fisherman were kidnapped by the North while sailing the Yellow Sea. Forty-one years later, Chun Wook-pyo, 68, has made it back home, South Korea today confirmed. He's "the only crewman from those two boats to have escaped," says a rep for the Seoul-based Abductees' Family Union, per the Daily Mail. And he's one of thousands of fishermen believed to have been taken by the North across decades, though Pyongyang denies it. Some 450 have never returned home, reports the New York Times.

The escape, first reported last month, is rare; the Times reports that eight fisherman are previously said to have made it back since 2000. And the ordeal doesn't necessarily end upon reaching home: According to the Mail, South Korean officials are typically suspicious of escapees like Chun, fearing they could have been indoctrinated by the North and set free as a spy. They may also be concerned that the person claiming to be Chun could in fact be a North Korean agent. Chun was reportedly questioned for two weeks upon his arrival in the South before rejoining his family. While very few additional details were given, the rep tells Bloomberg that Chun worked as a truck driver in North Korea. (In other North Korea news, white steam has been spotted at a reactor there; what that means here.) | Newser #end.