Scientists effort to discover the color of the Atlantic Ocean

A team of scientists from four countries have set out on a maritime journey to discover what colour the Atlantic Ocean is.

They want to find out the impact of misty clouds of aerosol particles hanging above the water on algae that are the foundation of the marine food chain.

Around a third of the carbon dioxide free into the atmosphere by human activities is engrossed by microscopic algae in the sea.

This process gives the waters a greenish shade as algae blooms close to the surface thrive.

But satellite images in recent years have shown large aerosol clouds forming above the oceans, chiefly in the southern part of the Atlantic.

They increase the amount of the sun's rays reproduced away from the sea, reducing the amount of algae and therefore decrease the water's greenish hue.

The project engages scientists from Brazil, Argentina, France and the US currently aboard the Melville, a research vessel belonging to the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego.

The teams hope to gain more accurate measurements of what is happening than those taken from satellites that may be indistinct by strong winds or waves.

Milton Kampel, the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) in Brazil, said: "[The satellite] concentrations have not yet been long-established with field data. We need to see, for example, this is not an effect caused by breaking waves at sea."

They are also taking water samples to study the result on algae.
The Melville left Cape Town in late February and is scheduled to arrive in Valparaiso, Chile, next week.

Orphanage fire kills 10 children in Estonia

A fire raced through an orphanage for disabled children in western Estonia on Sunday, killing 10 of them, a salvage service spokesman said. There were 37 children and nine adults inside the wooden building when the fire happened at 2:30 p.m. (1230GMT) in the coastal town of Haapsalu, said Viktor Saaremets, a spokesman for the Western Estonia Rescue Services Center.

"By the time salvage workers and firefighters arrived at the scene three or four minutes later the building was completely in flames," he said. Ten children were killed and one adult was hurt, Saaremets said. The others were abandoned to a nearby building and were not hurt, he said.

The cause of the fire was not right away clear. "Fire safety inspectors went there in January and found that the building met all the necessary criteria," Saaremets said.

Estonian newspaper Postimees showed pictures on its website of flames tearing into a one-story wooden building. Dead were carried out from a window, as thick smoke billowed from the roof.

The Estonian government met for an crisis meeting after the blaze and declared Monday a nationwide day of grief. Estonian president Toomas Hendrik Ilves expressed his pity. "The tragic accident in the Haapsalu orphanage shocked the whole of Estonia today," Ilves said in a brief statement.

Local officials in Haapsalu told Estonian media that the number of victims was improbable to rise.

The Haapsalu orphanage was opened as a home for immobilized children in 1950, when Estonia was occupied by the Soviet Union, according to its website. In 1996 it moved into the current building, which was funded by the Estonian government as well as Swedish, Finnish and US donors.

Pentagon faces $78 billion expenditure cut

The Pentagon will have to cut expenditure by $78 billion over the next five years, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Thursday, forcing the Army and the Marine Corps to get smaller the number of troops on active duty and finally imposing the first freeze on military spending since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The shock announcement from Gates was a reminder for the military establishment, which has benefited from a gusher of new money over the past decade that it will not remain excused from painful austerity measures.

In a news conference to proclaim what he described as efficiency measures, Gates said he hopes that "what had been a culture of endless money . . . will become a culture of savings and restraint" at the Defense Department. At a time of "extreme fiscal duress," he said, "every dollar spent on excess overhead or unneeded programs . . . is a dollar not obtainable to support our troops" or to deal with future threats.

"We must come to understand that not every defense program is necessary, not every defense dollar is sacred or well-spent, and more of everything is simply not sustainable," Gates said.

In response to questions, he highlighted that the $78-billion reduction over the next five years actually represents a "decline in the rate of growth," since the Pentagon budget will grow "in absolute dollars" every year. "The focus here is on a reduction in the rate of growth, as opposed to total cuts," he said.

Gates also harassed that, even after the reductions in troop strength, both the Army and the Marine Corps both will still be larger than they were when he became defense secretary four years ago. The Army will be bigger by about 40,000 soldiers, and the Marines will motionless have 7,000 to 12,000 more troops, he said.

Baby born in car all through snowstorm in New Brunswick

Moncton - One couple thought they had plenty of time to get to the hospital during Monday morning’s snowstorm, but things occured so quickly that they had to pull over on the side of the highway for their baby to be born.

Ashley Hicks, her mother, and Joseph Gautreau were compulsory to pull over on the Trans-Canada Highway, near the Casino New Brunswick and Magnetic Hill exit shortly before 8 am. They called for help but the baby arrived before emergency workers could get there.

“With my daughter she was six-and-a-half hours and they say it gets easier”, said her mother. “But then with my son it was 14-and-a-half hours, and then this one was, like, three minutes.” She said that she felt ill during the pregnancy so she had been eager for an easy labour, but didn't think it would be as easy as it was.

Gautreau had by then tied the umbilical cord with a lace from his shoe when the firefighters arrived.

“We just sort of helped out,” Jamie Richford, one of the firefighter. “We made sure the umbilical cord was set to be cut and we in fact let the husband, or boyfriend, cut the cord so he wasn’t besieged by all the people there.

An ambulance then arrived and took them to Moncton Hospital, which was less than 10 kilometres away.

Plagiarism line over 2016 Olympic logo

Organizers of the Rio Olympics are on the suspicious after similarities between the logo for the 2016 Games and a Colorado-based charity foundation were discovered.

The logo, which was released on New Year's Eve at a huge celebration at Copacabana beach, depicts figures acceptance in a circular motion. It was soon noticed that the design resembles the logo for The Telluride
Foundation, a Colorado charity chaired by Norman Schwarzkopf. 

Take away the legs and the red dancer from the Telluride logo and you have Rio's. It's unquestionably similar. But is it plagiarism?

The director of the Brazilian agency that created the logo says no. Fred Gelli admits that there are similarities between the two, but guaranteed that his design was original. "For some reason, we missed that one," he said.

I posed the plagiarism query to Dan Levy, a graphic designer who also hosts a popular sports podcast. He said it's common for the logos of small businesses to partly cover but that it's unforgivable for a major international sporting event to come up with such an unoriginal design. If the Brazilian press could discover the resemblance between Rio 2016 and Telluride, then surely a research and development team could have done the same.

"These logos are way too close for my liking," Levy wrote in an e-mail. "Even the color dispersal is nearly identical. Somebody got ripped off."

The Telluride Foundation, which has yet to comment on the matter, may not be able to protest too loudly though. It seems that the generous organization did some design-borrowing of its own when it made its logo.

Some have noticed its similarity to "The Dancer" by Henri Matisse.

If simulation is the sincerest form of flattery, Matisse would be satisfied.

My biggest problem with the Rio logo isn't the similarity to Telluride's or the similarity between Telluride's and Matisse, but that the logo itself is dead and boring. Organizers say the design is supposed to stand for "contagious energy, harmonious diversity, exuberant nature and Olympic spirit." I must be missing something.

Triplets Born after 11 Years Apart

Ever wonder what you were like when you were rising up? Two 11-year-old sisters in England will have just that possibility, thanks to the amazing birth of their newborn triplet who had been on ice since she was conceived more than a decade ago.

When Adrian and Lisa Shepherd decided to start a family in 1998, they underwent in vitro fertilization at the Midland Fertility Clinic because Lisa undergo from fertility issues that made traditional conception hard.

Doctors obtained 24 eggs from the mother, 14 of which were productively fertilized. Two of those embryos were then entrenched in Lisa, who gave birth to twins Megan and Bethany in 1999.

The other 12 embryos were placed in cryogenic storage space until the Walsall family in progress talking about having another child last year.

"We didn't know if it would work, and we decided that we would just have one go with one embryo and if it didn't work, we wouldn't try again," Lisa, 37, told the Daily Mail. "It was one last chance, and if it was meant to be, then it would occur."

The Shepherds returned to the clinic, where doctors implanted a third embryo in Lisa that had been conceive on the same day as Megan and Bethany.

"It seemed odd to think that we were using embryos that we had stored all those years ago, that were conceived at the same time as the girls," Lisa said. "We knew that if we had another baby it would in effect be the girls' triplet as they were all conceived at the same time."

Ryleigh was born last month at 7 pounds 10 ounces -- 11 years after her sisters. Experts told the paper it could be the longest age gap between siblings conceived during the same fertility treatment.

"When Ryleigh arrived, she looked like both the girls did when they were born 11 years before," Lisa said. "It was uncanny."

Stem Cell Therapy To Monkey

A once paralyzed monkey has become the first case in which a small monkey recovered from a spinal injury.

Japanese researchers said Wednesday they had used stem cells to restore incomplete mobility in a small monkey that had been paralyzed from the neck down by a spinal injury. "It is the world's first case in which a small-size monkey recovered from a spinal injury using stem cells," Professor Hideyuki Okano of Tokyo's Keio University told AFP.

Okano's research team, which earlier helped a mouse get well its mobility in a similar treatment, injected so-called induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells into a paralyzed marmoset, he said.

The team placed four types of genes into human skin cells to create the iPS cells, according to Kyodo News. The injection was given on the ninth day after the injury, considered the most effectual timing, and the monkey started to move its limbs again within two to three weeks, Okano said.

"After six weeks, the animal had recovered to the level where it was jumping around," he told AFP. "It was very close to the normal level."

Scientists say the use of human developing stem cells as a treatment for cancer and other diseases holds great promise, but the process has drawn fire from religious conservatives and others who be in opposition to it.

Embryonic stem cell research is contentious because human embryos are destroyed in order to obtain the cells capable of developing into almost every tissue of the body.

Queen Elizabeth turns to a great-grandmother

Queen Elizabeth, 84, became a great-grandmother for the first time when the wife of her grandson Peter Phillips gave life to a baby girl, Buckingham Palace said on Thursday.

Autumn Phillips, a Canadian, gave birth on Wednesday.

"The Queen, The Duke of Edinburgh, The Princess Royal, Captain Mark Phillips and Autumn's family have been informed and are enchanted with the news. The baby's name will be confirmed in due course," the statement said.

Peter Phillips is the only son of the Princess Royal, Princess Anne, and her first husband Mark Phillips. He was the first grandchild of the Queen to marry in spite of constant media speculation about some of her other grandchildren Prince Harry, Prince William and Phillips's sister Zara.

The baby is 12th in line to the throne. Her birth also made Zara an aunt. The royal family said last week that Zara, a successful equestrian athlete, was to marry rugby player Mike Tindall.

Peter and Autumn Phillips, who courted controversy by selling the rights to their wedding to Hello! Magazine for a reported 500,000 pounds ($772,000), lived until recently in Hong Kong, where he worked for the Royal Bank of Scotland. He now works for the bank in London.

Researches says Hungry Dad Has Husky Kids

If your father didn't have much meat or other protein on the table while he was growing up, you may be more likely to create and store fat, according to recent research.

While this could help you survive hunger, it also puts you at higher risk for some diseases.

Earlier research on an isolated community in Sweden, known as the Överkalix Cohort Study, found that poor nutrition during a paternal grandfather's teenage years increased his grandchild's risk of diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular disease. But since that study was using a real-world human population, there were too many social and economic variables to make any firm closes.

To focus on the effects of paternal diet alone, the researchers forbidden the diets of two groups of mice. The males in one were fed a normal diet. The second group of males received protein-poor food. The females of both groups ate a normal diet.

Lead researcher Oliver Rando and colleagues observed that offspring of male mice fed a low-protein diet showed a marked difference in the activity of genes responsible for fatty chemical formation. Lipid and cholesterol formation increased as compared to offspring of the control group fed the standard diet.

Inheriting an increased production of fats could serve to prepare offspring for tough times by increasing energy storage, but can also lead to health problems.

“It's consistent with the idea that when parents go hungry, it's best for offspring to hoard calories,” said Rando.

Oz court nods for teen to change sex

In a strange case, a 16-year-old autistic schoolboy has been allowed by a court in Australia to become a woman on the condition that he gets his sperm frozen in case he wants to have children in the future.

A female judge in a Family Court has given her nod to the schoolboy, who was given the pseudonym "O", to begin drug treatment to become a woman before puberty fully takes hold, 'The Daily Telegraph' in Sydney reported.

Justice Linda Dessau said that the boy, who suffers from mild Asperger's syndrome, was grown-up enough to know what he wanted. She said her decision was backed by his parents, six specialists and the boy's self-governing lawyer. After hearing that the boy comes from a loving family who "love and respect him", the judge said he's so frantic to become a girl that he had become suicidal and once took the extreme step of swallowing a lead solder at his school.

The court, however, said the boy would have his sperm collected and stored because of concerns the female hormones would affect his aptitude to have children. The judge has held the case in unprecedented confidentiality to protect the boy's identity. She has not only concealed his name but also those of his lawyers, his doctors, the hospital where he'll have treatment and the city in which the court sat.

It's not the first time that an Australian court has created controversy by allowing a minor to start hormone treatment to change sex. Six years ago, the Family court allowed 13-year-old girl "Alex" to begin hormone treatment to become a man. And, in another case, a 12-year-old girl was also allowed to take hormones to live life as a man.

Three Oscar nominees set to open Wednesday

Days after Oscar ballots were sent out, the final three awards nominees are set to open in theaters Wednesday "Another Year," "Biutiful" and "Blue Valentine."

"Another Year," written and directed by British filmmaker Mike Leigh, opens in six theaters in New York and Los Angeles. The film stars Jim Broadbent, Ruth Sheen and Lesley Manville.

"Blue Valentine" will be in four theaters in New York and Los Angeles. The drama, starring Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams, made headlines for earning a commercially poisonous NC-17 rating for open sexual scenes, but the tag was reduced to a less-restrictive R rating on appeal.

"Biutiful" plays in one theater in New York and one in Los Angeles to meet the criteria for Oscar consideration. The Javier Bardem film officially opens in a limited run January 28.

After a long downturn in the indie market, business has been picking up, with fims such as "Black Swan" and "The Fighter" crossing over to the normal.

Oil rig blast that trembled the world

The worst of the explosions gutted the Deepwater Horizon stem to stern. Crew members were cut down by shrapnel, hurled across rooms and buried under smoking ruins. Some were swallowed by fireballs that raced through the oil rig's shattered interior.

Dazed and tattered survivors, half-naked and dripping in highly combustible gas, crawled inch by inch in pitch darkness, willing themselves to the lifeboat deck. It was no better there.

That same explosion had catch fire a firestorm that enveloped the rig's derrick. Searing heat baked the lifeboat deck. Crew members, certain they were about to be cooked alive, scrambled into enclosed lifeboats for shelter, only to find them like smoke-filled ovens.

Men admired for their hardiness wept. Several said their prayers and jumped into the oily seas 60 feet below. An besieged young crew member, Andrea Fleytas, finally screamed what so many were thinking: "We're going to die!"

Nearly 400 feet long, the Horizon had alarming and redundant defences against even the worst blowout. It was equipped to divert surging oil and gas safely away from the rig. It had devices to quickly seal off a well blowout or to break gratis from it.

On paper, experts and investigators agree, the Deepwater Horizon should have weathered this blowout.

They were also frozen by the sheer difficulty of the Horizon's defences, and by the policies that explained when they were to be deployed. One emergency system alone was controlled by 30 buttons.

In the end, though, many lives were saved by simple acts of bravery, the interviews and records show. All over the rig, in the most hellish of circumstances, men and women helped one another find a way to live.

Pandorama on reappear trail

Meade hopeful Pandorama can get his season back on track

Noel Meade is hoping that Pandorama will enjoy a welcome change of luck on today’s Lexus Chase at Leopardstown.

The seven year old looked set to take high rank in the staying pursues division at the start of the season but things have not gone according to plan so far.

He was forced to miss an intended run at Down Royal after he was found to have blood coming from a nostril and then he made an early fault in the Hennessy at Newbury before being nearly brought down and was pulled up.

"Hopefully we can get Pandorama back on track but it's a rough ask for him," said Meade.

"The season just hasn't gone right for him so far, things have plotted against him but that's the way it goes.

"We've always thought he is the horse to run in this type of race, so we're going there and we're going to give it our best shot.

"The heavy ground should be fine for him."

Belgian man finds £255,000 while refurbishing an old bank

A Belgian man refurbishing a house in Ghent found £255,000 in cash that had been left behind available from when the building had housed a bank almost 10 years ago.

Ferhat Kaya, 33, had bought the property, a former branch of the Dexia bank, at a cost of £153,000 to house his accounting firm and before accepting the keys turned down the estate agent's quote of £3,000 to take away an old safe.

Instead he called two close friends, the brothers Murat and Hurun Tufan to remove the metal vault. "When the vault was open it exposed bags of 20 and 50 euro bills," said Murat Tufan. "The receipts were still there, dated December 31, 2001. We started counting, and it came to some 300,000 euros."

After speaking to his Turkish father, Mr Kaya decided to call the police even though it would have been easy to keep the cash as it had been lost and left unwanted by the bank for almost a decade.

"My friends and I thought we would really make a statement with it: that even immigrants are people that say honesty is the best policy," he said.

Ulrike Pommée, a spokesman for Belgium's Dexia Bank, said that an investigation had been opened but suggested that no trace of money would ever be found.

Octopus builds mobile home

It sounds like a spin-off from "The Little Mermaid" or "Spongebob Squarepants": An octopus builds a mobile home under the sea by heaping up coconut shells. It moves in ... and then it carries the whole heap across the seafloor. "It was an extremely comical sight," said marine biologist Julian Finn, who spotted the behavior off the Indonesian coast. "I never laughed so hard underwater." Let's just hope those clever cephalopods don't develop opposable thumbs. That won't be such a laughing matter.

Galileo's fingers and tooth found

Was that any way to treat a genius? Back in 1737, Galileo Galilei's admirers removed three fingers, a vertebra and a tooth from the astronomer's body when his corpse was being moved to a new crypt.

The vertebra and one of the fingers were recovered soon afterward, but the whereabouts of the tooth and the other two fingers were secrecy. Recently, however, the relics turned up in a container that was auctioned off to a private collector. Now the Galilean body parts, including the finger shown at right, will be put on display at the Museum of the History of Science in Florence.

Argentina glacier under threat

As world leaders enfold up a climate change summit in Cancun, Mexico, aimed at reaching an emissions deal, countries across the world are witnessing worrying effects of global warming.

Scientists say time is running out to save melting glaciers that give fresh drinking water for millions of people.

Al Jazeera's Teresa Bo reports from the Upsala Glacier, a major body of ice in southern Argentina that is moving back at an alarming rate.

Stunning Steel House Made by an Individual

A self-styled artist, architect and sculptor, Robert Bruno’s home is more than just a house – it is a masterpiece of art and engineering manufacture all of his aesthetic and engineering talents in a single spectacular structure. Weighing over 100 tons, this is one of the most amazing buildings ever constructed by a passionate individual – only likely with the right synthesis of vision, skill and patience.

The work itself is worthy of the eccentric new architectural stars like Frank Gehry who bend space and structure to their whims – only this example was made carefully, piece by piece, a work in progress constructed by hand. Also unlike many of his architectural all-star contemporaries, Bruno made the steel of his structure itself structural – rather than relying on a wood or metal frame to hold it together.

The form was not predetermined. In fact, Bruno did not even understand he was embarking upon the greatest work of his life when he started the project as a simple steel volume. It has grown and multiplied in all directions, expanded spatially in ways the designer never expected. It is not the paragon of functionality but nor is it meant to be. It remains a work of eclectic aesthetics but undeniable genius.

Liverpool lining up move for Ronaldinho

Liverpool is the latest in a long list of clubs reportedly pursuing out of favour AC Milan playmaker Ronaldinho. The Brazilian, 30, has become a marginal figure at the San Siro, with boss Massimiliano Allegri preferring Robinho.

Ronaldinho's lack of regular football has led to conjecture his time will be up in January as promises of a new deal have been placed into the background by AC Milan. Itasportpress now claims Liverpool are looking at the former Barcelona man, and Roy Hodgson is said to be looking for an original side-kick to line up alongside Fernando Torres.

Ronaldinho would arrive on a free transfer as his contract at AC Milan expires in June, leaving him free to talk with other clubs. However, Liverpool would have to convince him to drop his €7.5 million (£6.3m) per annum wage stress for the man who has also been linked with moves to Los Angeles Galaxy and a host of Brazilian clubs.

WikiLeaks founder is locked up in Britain in sex case

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was arrested and jailed without bail Tuesday in a sex-crimes investigation, but his organization scarcely missed a beat, releasing a new batch of the secret cables that U.S. officials say are destructing America's security and relations worldwide.

A month after dropping out of public view, the 39-year-old Australian surrendered to Scotland Yard to answer a warrant issued for his arrest by Sweden. He is wanted for quizzical after two women accused him of having sex with them without a condom and without their consent.

Assange said he would fight exile to Sweden, setting the stage for what could be a pitched legal battle. And as if to prove that it can't be intimidated, WikiLeaks promptly released a dozen new cables, including details of a NATO defense plan for Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania that made Russia bristle.

The Pentagon welcomed Assange's arrest. "That sounds like good news to me," U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on a visit to Afghanistan.

WikiLeaks spokesman Kristinn Hrafnsson insisted Assange's arrest and the decision Tuesday by both Visa and MasterCard to stop processing donations to the group "will not change our operation."

Hrafnsson said the organization has no plans yet to make good on its threat to release en masse some of its most sensitive U.S. documents if it comes under attack.

There appeared to be no need.

The U.S. government is investigating whether Assange can be prosecuted for espionage or other offenses. On Tuesday, Pentagon and State Department officials said some foreign officials have suddenly grown reluctant to trust the U.S. because of the secrets spilled by WikiLeaks.

"We have already seen some indications of meetings that used to involve several diplomats and now involve fewer diplomats," said State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley. "We're conscious of at least one meeting where it was requested that notebooks be left outside the room."

Pentagon spokesman Col. Dave Lapan said the military had seen foreign contacts "pulling back."

"Believing that the U.S. is not good at keeping secrets and having secrets out there certainly changed things," Lapan said. The latest batch of confidential U.S. cables could strain relations between Washington and Moscow. The documents show that NATO secretly decided in January to defend the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania against military attack.

Dmitry Rogozin, Russia's ambassador to NATO, said Tuesday that Moscow will demand that NATO drop the agreement, which he argued is clearly aimed at his country.

"Against whom else could such a defense be intended? Against Sweden, Finland, Greenland, Iceland? Against polar bears, or against the Russian bear?" Rogozin said.