Paul Gauguin statue sells for record price

A wooden bust by Paul Gauguin has sold for $11.3m (£6.8m) at Sotheby's in New York, a record price for a statue by the 19th Century French artist.

Jeune tahitienne (Young Tahitian) was last seen in public in 1961.

The work had been predictable to sell for between $10m (£6m) and $15m (£9m), the sale house said.
The current record for a Gauguin work is held by L'homme a la hache (The Man with an Axe), which sold for $40.3m (£24.4m) in 2006.

The latest auction agrees with a Gauguin exhibition taking place at the National Gallery of Art in Washington.

It is the first main exhibit of the artist's career in the United States in approximately 20 years.

This week's sale contrasts with an earlier auction in London in February when a rare Gauguin picture failed to sell.

Nature Morte A L'Esperance (Still Life with Sunflowers) had been probable to fetch up to £10 million at the Christie's event.

Miss Maine USA to Bounce Big Pageant for Wedding

Miss Maine USA is going to sit out Donald Trump's Miss USA Pageant to be present at her big sister's wedding.

NBC moved the Miss USA Pageant from its customary slot in April to June. Emily Johnson says the new weekend is the only one in which she had other plans — plans that trump the competition.

Johnson, a Baylor University mark off and talented pianist, is allowed to keep her crown, but she's giving up the title, prizes and appearance.

Mackenzie Davis, executive director of the Miss Maine USA pageant, says she understand Johnson's reasoning, but she says Miss Maine is a serious promise and that she's let down Johnson withdrew from her duties.

The state's participant in the Miss USA Pageant will be the first runner-up, Ashley Marble, of Cumberland.

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Bronx Zoo's lost Egyptian cobra found

The Bronx Zoo's lost deadly Egyptian cobra has been found "living and well".

The 20in (50cm) poisonous snake was discovered in the zoo's reptile house on Thursday morning, nearly a week after it runaway.

Officials say the cobra was twisting in a dark corner of the reptile house and that it is in good health.
The zoo's reptile house has been closed since the snake went lost last Friday but officials say they hope to reopen it soon.

"When we are sure that the snake is in good condition, we will reopen the Reptile House and plan to have the animal on exhibit," a declaration by the zoo said.

The zoo spread the good news via Twitter, saying: "FOUND! Bronx Zoo cobra found alive & well in Reptile House in non-public area. The key was endurance."

Zoo officials had earlier said they were confident the teenager Egyptian cobra was hiding in a non-public area of the Reptile House but approved that finding it would be difficult.

In the days that it was lost, the snake became amazing of a celebrity, gaining hundreds of thousands of followers on a Twitter account set up in its name.

For 12-year old astrophysics genius, the sky’s the limit

In some ways, Jacob Barnett is just like any other 12-year-old kid. He plays Guitar Hero, shoots jewelry with his friends, and has a friendly girlfriend.

But in other ways, he's a little unlike. Jake, who has an IQ of 170, began solving 5,000-piece jigsaw puzzles at the age of 3, not long after he'd been identified with Asperger's syndrome, a mild form of autism. A few years later, he trained himself calculus, algebra, and geometry in two weeks. By 8, he had left high school, and is currently taking college-level advanced astrophysics classes while teaching his older classmates. And he's being recruited for a paid canvasser job by Indiana University.

Now, he's at work on a theory that confronts the Big Bang the current explanation among scientists for how the universe came about. It's not clear how developed it is, but experts say he's asking the right questions.

"The theory that he's working on involve several of the difficult problems in astrophysics and theoretical physics," Scott Tremaine of Princeton University's Institute for Advanced Studies where Einstein (pictured) himself worked wrote in an email to Jake's family. "Anyone who solves these will be in row for a Nobel Prize."

Here you can watch Jake question some of the key elements of Albert Einstein's theories on quantum physics:

It's not clear where Jake got his gifts from. "Whenever I try talking about math with anyone in my family," he told the Indianapolis Star, "they just stare vacantly."

But his parents encouraged his interests from the beginning. Once, they took him to the planetarium at Butler University.

"We were in the crowd, just sitting, listening to this guy ask the crowd if anyone knew why the moons going around Mars were potato-shaped and not round," Jake's mother, Kristine Barnett, told the Star. "Jacob raised his hand and said, 'Excuse me, but what are the sizes of the moons around Mars?' "

After the lecturer answered, said Kristine, "Jacob looked at him and said the gravity of the planet ... is so large that (the moon's) gravity would not be able to pull it into a round shape."

"That entire building ... everyone was just looking at him, like, 'Who is this 3-year-old?'"

'Moon man' forecasts earthquakes

A "lunar forecaster" who was ridiculed by scientists after he claimed to have predicted the devastating earthquake in Christchurch has correctly predicted another shake. 

Ken Ring cautioned that an aftershock would hit Christchurch on Sunday, leading scientists to make public a bet that it would not.

However, they were left surprised when the city was indeed shaken by the biggest aftershock since the February catastrophe, which killed more than 182 people. 

Mr Ring, a fishing critic, has become a source of heated debate in New Zealand in recent weeks due to his earthquake predictions, which are based on the belief that quakes are caused by the gravitational pull of the Moon on tectonic plates. 

Seismologists have send away the theory, but it has gained a following in the country as word has spread that Mr Ring, nicknamed "Moon Man", appeared to have properly predicted a quake in September and the disaster last month.

When Mr Ring warned that on the morning of 20 March, as the moon passed close to the Earth, another quake would hit some Christchurch residents believed him and decided to get out of town. But Mr Ring was brand by sections of the media, politicians, and the scientific world. 

Then on Sunday to prove their point a group of geologists, engineers, and a cabinet minister with a PhD in geotechnical engineering held a lunch in one of Christchurch's oldest, tallest buildings, at the time the "7 plus" doomsday quake was hypothetical to hit. 

Lunch was unchanged by any tremors but at 9.47pm the city was shaken by a 5.1 magnitude aftershock. Although it was less influential than Mr Ring had prophesied it to be and came 10 hours late, it was the biggest aftershock since February's disaster, leading some to claim that "Moon man" had been correct. 

Scientists, however, have continued to dismiss Mr Ring, who has gone to ground because of the media notice. Dr Mark Quigley, a lecturer in active tectonics and geomorphology, said: "Vague quotes about dates of 'increased' activity plus or minus several days, without magnitudes, locations, and exact times do not comprise prediction."

Tornado in Western Pennsylvania demolishes 30 Homes

Hempfield Township in Westmoreland County was hit by a tornado earlier today. The National Weather Service long-established the twister and stated that at least thirty homes were shattered. Sixty other residents were poorly damaged by the storm. The National Weather Service confirmed the tornado as EF2 (strong) on the Enhanced Fujita Scale.

No wounds or wounded have been reported. Four Hempfield schools are scheduled to be closed Friday, to assess structural damage. Superintendent Terry Foriska stated that: Hempfield Area High school, Harrold Middle school, Fort Allen Elementary and Crossroads Alternative will be closed. All other schools in the area will open Friday morning as scheduled.

Hempfield Area High School suffered main damage from the tornado. The school’s auditorium, football stadium and scoreboard experienced extreme destruction. Bulldozers were brought in to remove wreckage from the stadium. None of the 200 students on campus at the time of the storm were upset. "It's just amazing that no one was upset. This is a good story that we walked away from a fairly significant storm with no one hurt," said Dan Stevens of Westmoreland County Emergency armed forces.

"A mess. There's just stuff everywhere," said Courtney Ansell as she walked through her knocked down Fort Allen home. "It just looks like it came and sawed the whole roof off. I never realized that, in a matter of 20 seconds, it could do amazing like this."

Face of Amazingly Preserved 700 Years Old Mummy

Eyebrows still intact stress amazing level of preservation Mummy believed to be a high-ranking member of the Ming Dynasty Wearing silk and cotton, she's the first major detection in years in the area

These hard to believe pictures show a 700-year-old mummy, which was discovered by possibility - by road workers - in excellent condition in eastern China.

The dead body of the high-ranking woman believed to be from the Ming Dynasty - the ruling power in China between 1368 and 1644 - was stumbled across by a team who were looking to get bigger a street.

And the mummy, which was found in the city of Taizhou, in the Jiangsu Province, along with two other wooden tombs, offers a charming insight into life as it was back then.

Discovered two metres below the road surface, the woman's features - from her head to her shoes - have retained their unique condition, and have hardly get worse.

When the discovery was made by the road workers, late last month, Chinese archaeologists, from the nearby Museum of Taizhou, were called into excavate the area, the state agency Xinhua News reported.

They were surprised by the remarkably good condition of the woman's skin, hair, eyelashes and face. It was as though she had only recently died.

Her body, which measures 1.5 metres high, was found at the construction site immersed in a brown liquid inside the coffin.

And the coffin was opened earlier this week, on March 1, much to the excitement of the local city - and further afield. And the right hand of the 700-year-old mummy showed her preserved skin, and a ring.

The mummy was wearing traditional Ming dynasty costume, and also in the coffin were bones, ceramics, ancient writings and other relics.This is the latest discovery after a lull of three years in the area. Indeed, between 1979 and 2008 five mummies were found, all in very good condition.

Those findings raising the interest in learning the techniques of preservation funeral of this dynasty and customs in time to bury the dead.

Director of the Museum of Taizhou, Wang Weiyin, told Xinhua that the mummy's clothes are made mostly of silk, with a little cotton.

He said usually silk and cotton are very hard to preserve and excavations found that this mummifying technology was used only at very high-profile funerals.

The first finding of the Ming Dynasty in Taizhou dates from May 1979 and led the opening of the museum.
At that time the bodies were also found intact, but due to lack of experience of archaeologists only clothing, belts and clamps could be preserved.

The Ming Dynasty, who built the Forbidden City and restored the Great Wall, was the last in China and marked an era of economic growth and cultural splendour which produced the first commercial contacts with the West.

Sumo wrestler turn into heaviest man to ever finish marathon

The heaviest person to ever total a marathon weighed 275 pounds. Add that weight plus the total weight of a great long-distance runner (about 120 pounds) and you'll get Kelly Gneiting.

Gneiting, a three-time U.S. sumo winner, tipped the scales at 400 pounds when he began Sunday's Los Angeles Marathon. Nine hours, 48 minutes, 52 seconds later he crossed the finish line and set the Guinness World Record for being the heaviest person to ever total the 26.2-mile race.

The 400-pound American run the first eight miles of the race and walked the last 18, often stopping at junctions and stoplights because he was well behind the 13-minute-per-mile pace set by race managers. He says he became feverish after mile 10 and only realized he hit the 15-mile mark when a friend gave him a clean pair of socks.

"I was really struggling in the last five miles," he told the Los Angeles Times, "but I said to myself, 'If I have to crawl, I will.'"

When he finally finished, he had set the weight world record and a personal best by over two hours. "I'd like to see the Kenyan get better his marathon time by two hours," he joked.

Gneiting weighed 200 pounds in college but says he packed on the weight after getting married. He became a sumo wrestler 11 years ago and won his first national title four years later. In spite of his weight, Gneiting says he's still fit and wants to prove it by competing in other competitions. Next up? Swimming the English Channel.

Miraculous!! 4-Month Old Baby, 70-Year Old Woman Found Alive

In the middle of the silent corpses a baby cried out - and Japan met its smallest miracle.

On March 14 soldiers from the Japanese Defense Force were going door-to-door, dragging bodies from homes compressed by the earthquake and tsunami in Ishinomaki City, a coastal town northeast of Senda. More familiar to the chomping of rubble and the sloshing of mud than to the sound of life, they sent away the baby's cry as a fault. Until they perceive sound again.

They made their way to the pile of wreckage, and carefully removed wreckage of wood and slate, devastated glass and rock. And then they saw her: a four-month old baby girl in a pink woolen bear suit.

The tidal wave factually swept the unnamed girl away from her parents' arms when it hit their home on March 11. Since then her parents - both of whom survived the tragedy - have taken safe haven in their ruined house, and worried that their little girl was dead. Soldiers managed to reunite the baby with her delighted father shortly after the rescue.

"Her detection has put a new energy into the search," a civil defense official told a local news crew. "We will listen, look and excavate with even more assiduousness after this." Ahead of the baby's rescue, officials reported finding at least 2,000 bodies washed up on the beach of Miyagi region. How the child survived drowning - or being crushed by fallen trees and houses - remains a mystery.

In a nation short on good news, other saves have marker morale, too. In Iwate prefecture, northeastern Japan, the overwhelming tidal wave swept away an old woman along with her entire house - but it couldn't put out her will to live.

Rescuers found the 70-year-old alive inside her home on March 15, four days after the black tidal wave wiped out much of the region. Osaka fire department spokesman Yuko Kotani told the Associated Press the woman is now receiving treatment in a local hospital. She is conscious but suffering from hypothermia.

Elsewhere, 60-year old Hiromitsu Shinkawa survived two days at sea by clinging on to his floating rooftop. He was discovered 10 miles off the Japanese coastline. "Several helicopters and ships passed but none of them noticed me," he said after his March 13 rescue. "I thought that was going to be the last day of my life."

Great-great-grandmother of America

Besse Cooper, a great-great-grandmother from Georgia, USA has been formally recognized as the world's oldest living person at 114 years and six months.

Since her birth in 1896 Mrs Cooper has seen 21 dissimilar presidents from Grover Cleveland to Barack Obama, and lived through two world wars and the great despair.

The hendecagenarian was formally recognized by Guinness World Records as the oldest person on earth at a ceremony at her nursing home on Thursday.

Mrs Cooper was given with the title after the death of Eunice G Sanborn of Jacksonville, Texas last month.
As one of eight siblings she led an active childhood, climbing trees and splashing through rivers in Sullivan County, Tennessee with her older brothers and it was that, along with good genes that her son Sid believes is the secret of her longevity.

After moving to Georgia to teach in a school during the First World War, Mrs Cooper was wedded in the 1920s and remains with her husband for 40 years, though he died approximately half a century ago.

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.

US regret for Afghan deaths 'not enough' –Karzai

Afghan President Hamid Karzai told General David Petraeus, the commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, on Sunday his regret for a foreign air strike that killed nine children last week was "not enough".

At a meeting with his safety advisers at which Petraeus was present, Karzai said civilian wounded by foreign troops were "no longer acceptable" to the Afghan government or to the Afghan people, Karzai's palace said in a report.

Civilian wounded caused by NATO-led and Afghan forces hunting rebellious have again become a major source of friction between Karzai and his Western backers.

In the meeting, Petraeus apologized for the deaths of the nine children in eastern Kunar region last Tuesday, saying the killings were a "great error" and there would be no do again.

"In return, the president said the apology was not enough and harassed that civilian casualties caused during operations by alliance forces were the main cause of strained relations between the United States and Afghanistan," the palace said.

"The people of Afghanistan are fed up with such terrible incidents and apologies or censure is not going to heal their wounds," it quoted Karzai as saying.

Hours before Karzai's statement, hundreds of people chanting "Death to America" protested in the Afghan capital against the recent spate of civilian deaths, in a sign of the boiling anti-Western feeling among many normal Afghans.

International anxiety over civilian casualties has grown, and the fallout from the recent incidents is even threatening to basket peace and settlement efforts, with a slow drawdown of the 150,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan to begin in July.

Last Tuesday, two attack helicopters gunned down nine Afghan boys as they collected firewood in Kunar after a nearby foreign base had come under insurgent assault. The event, in a unstable area that has seen a recent spike in foreign military operations, encouraged rare public regret from Petraeus and his deputy.

President Barack Obama also expressed "deep regret" over the killings and the United Nations called for a review of air hits.

There have been at least four events of civilian casualties by foreign troops in the east in the past two weeks in which Afghan officials say more than 80 people died.

Demonstrators demo through the centre of Kabul, some carrying banners bearing pictures of blood-covered dead children they said were killed in air hits by foreign forces.

"We will never forgive the bloodshed by our innocent Afghans who were killed by NATO forces," said one activist Ahmad Baseer, a university student.

"The Kunar incident is not the first and it will not be the last time civilian wounded is caused by foreign troops."

Dozens of women were also among the activists, a rare incidence in a country where women are largely banned from public life. Using loudspeakers, some of the women chanted: "We don't want Americans, we don't want the Taliban, and we want peace."

Basketball star dies after winning shot in team's ideal season

The score was tied. The game was in overtime. The mood, emotional.

Number 35 came charging up to the net and hit a last-moment winning layup for his unbeatable Fennville High School Blackhawks to end the regular season Thursday night with a perfect 20 wins.

The other players lifted their star, 16-year-old Wes Leonard, on their shoulders. The loud crowd charged the court to hug him. It was the biggest moment in memory for the tiny Michigan town of Fennville.

And then it all turned to black.

Silence fell under the cruel glare of the florescent lights. Leonard lay still on the court, pale in his school colors. His family and coaches bounded him. He wasn't breathing, his friend Arista Sauceda recalled. His heart had stopped cold.

After attempts to revitalize the varsity player in the gym, an ambulance transported him to nearby Holland Hospital. Doctors effort on him for an hour and 20 minutes.

They could not save him. By 10:40 at night, when Leonard should have been out rejoicing with his classmates, he was dead.

An autopsy Friday resolute that Leonard died of cardiac arrest due to an enlarged heart, said a statement from Dr. David A. Start, the Ottawa County chief medical examiner.

As news of Leonard's death spread, a small group of people on the banks of Lake Michigan convulsed in shock. A moment of huge school pride was reduced to irrelevance, a moment of joy turned into the opposite.

Knife in man’s head has been removed after four years

A Chinese man has had a four-inch blade surgically removed from his head after four years of self-medication with anesthetic injections.

Mr Ni had been suffering from severe headaches for more than four years before seeking treatment for what he supposed was an aural disease. After taking X-rays of his head, doctors were shocked to find a four-inch blade stuck in his brain.

"We checked his mouth, but no injury or scar has been found. It is very odd as to how the blade got into his head," said Xu Wen, deputy director of the stomatology department of the People's Hospital in Yuxi city.

Mr Ni later recalled being attempted in the lower right jaw during a fight with a robber four years ago. After that, he had suffered regular headaches, difficulty swallowing food, a gruff voice and had occasionally spoke gibberish.

Previous hospital examinations had found no cause of the symptoms. "As time went on, I used injections to kill pain in head and ears. It has now been four years," Mr Ni said. The rusty blade luckily did not touch the brain artery nor facial nerves, keeping him narrowly alive.

Mr Ni is now getting better from the operation in hospital.

Woman gives birth to own grandson

A 61 year-old woman in the US has given birth to her own grandson. 

 
Kristine Casey acted as a surrogate for daughter Sara Connell after she was powerless to have children of her own. Mrs Connell and her husband Bill are the organic parents of the boy, who is called Finnean.

The 35 year-old lecturer sat holding her mother's hand as she delivered the baby boy at a hospital in Chicago, Illinois, USA. She said her mother, who gave birth to her last child almost 30 years ago, had obtainable to act as a surrogate when she suffered years of heartache annoying to conceive.

Mrs Connell said she underwent IVF treatment in 2004 but delivered stillborn twins, and later she suffered a miscarriage. She said when she heard her son cry for the first time after the caesarean section delivery she could not hold back the emotion.

"I lost it," Mrs Connell said. "It's such a wonder." Mrs Casey, a mother-of-three, said she was grateful to be able to help her daughter.

"The three of the happiest days of my life were giving birth to my daughters,' and I thought I could choose to do this for an important person I love," she said. Mrs Casey underwent multiple tests to assess her medical and psychological health, as required by Illinois law on surrogate births.

She fell pregnant after his second course of IVF treatment and gave birth after 39 weeks. Mrs Casey, who is from Virginia, is believed to be the oldest person in the state of Illinois to give birth.

"The emotional context of this delivery was so profound," said Dr Susan Gerber, an obstetrician at Northwestern Memorial Hospital where the baby boy was born.

Age related macular deterioration clue discovered

An international team of researchers have found a clue to one of the most important causes of blindness, which they hope could eventually lead to a cure. Age-related macular degeneration affects 500,000 people in the UK and is not curable.

The study in the journal Nature found an enzyme recognized as DICER1 that stops functioning, resulting in the illness. UK experts said it had the possible to be an important breakthrough.

The macula is a part of the eye which sits in the centre of the retina and is accountable for the fine detail at the centre of the field of vision. As the disease progresses that central vision declines, making reading, driving and recognizing people difficult. It affects one in 50 people over 50 and one in five people over 85.

The precise cause is unknown, but risk factors include smoking, high blood pressure and having relatives with the condition.

Potential breakthrough 

The researchers noticed the enzyme DICER1 was less active in the retina of people with the more common "dry form" of the sickness and when they turned off the gene which makes the enzyme in mice, then the animal's retina cells were damaged. It was then discovered that DICER1 is essential for destroying small pieces of genetic material called Alu RNA.

Without DICER1, the Alu RNA accumulates with toxic penalty leading to the death of the retina. Professor Jayakrishna Ambati, from the University of Kentucky, told the BBC: "This work opens many new doors of investigate.

"First, we need to identify various classes of molecules that can either add to DICER1 levels or block Alu RNA so that these can be evaluating in clinical trials. "Second, we need to understand more about the biological processes that lead to reduction in DICER1 levels and the precise basis of the Alu RNA transcripts."

Professor Ian Grierson, school of clinical sciences at the University of Liverpool, said: "This is a great piece of science which provides another jigsaw piece which we need to put together with other findings. "It was done in an animal model which is a long way from the patient; the breakthrough is we've got another player."

Professor Mike Cheetham, head of molecular and cellular neuroscience at UCL, said: "It's a potentially very important get through which gives insight into this dry form of the disease.”It could provide new pathways to therapy, but the findings need to be validated by other researchers."

Shocking cyclone wreaks chaos in Australia

INNISFAIL, Australia (AFP) – A frightening top-strength cyclone slammed into Australia's populous northeast coast Thursday leaving a trail of obliteration, the worst storm to batter the region in a century.

Howling winds beat up by Severe Tropical Cyclone Yasi with speeds of up to 290 kilometres (181 miles) per hour ripped off roofs, felled trees and cut power lines as the tempest crossed the Queensland coast.

Yasi made landfall around midnight (1400 GMT), the Bureau of Meteorology said, after the cyclone was improved early in the day to a category five storm from category four. The storm made landfall near Mission Beach, which lies in the heart of a tourism and agriculture-rich area 180 kilometres south of Cairns, gateway to the Great Barrier Reef.

The bureau later downgraded the cyclone to a group three storm and said it would continue to weaken as it moved in a west-southwesterly direction but said it remained dangerous. "The very unhelpful core, with gusts up to 205 km/h, is continuing to move inland west of Cardwell towards the Georgetown area," it said.

"Critical winds with gusts in excess of 125 km/h are occurring between Innisfail and Townsville and extending inland to east of Georgetown." The stricken area's million inhabitants were earlier warned of an "extremely dangerous sea level rise" and "very destructive" winds supplementary Yasi's arrival, posing a severe threat to life.

State Premier Anna Bligh echoed the bleak note of caution, urging residents to steel themselves for what dawn and the passing of the storm might make known. "Without doubt we are set to meet scenes of devastation and heartbreak on an unprecedented scale," she said.

"It will take all of us and all of our strength to conquer this. The next 24 hours I think are going to be very, very tough ones for everybody." More than 10,000 seaside residents and tourists were protecting in 20 evacuation centres across the region -- some so crowded that people were turned away -- while tens of thousands more were staying with family and friends.

Locals further from the water were told to batten down and get ready a "safe room" such as a bathroom or a basement, with mattresses, pillows, a radio, food and water supplies to wait out the cyclone. About 4,000 soldiers were on standby to help residents when the storm passed, but until then, locals were on their own as it was too unsafe to deploy emergency personnel, officials said.

Yasi was determining up as the worst cyclone in Australian history, Prime Minister Julia Gillard said, adding the nation was with Queenslanders as they faced "many, many dreadful, frightening hours" of destruction.

"This is almost certainly the worst cyclone that our nation has ever seen," Gillard said. Bligh said grave fears were held for major power transmission lines in the region, never before tested at category five winds, caution that their failure would be a "catastrophic" issue for the entire state.

"We are planning for an aftermath that may see a catastrophic failure of necessary services," she said. The storm's size and power dwarfs Cyclone Tracy, which hit the northern Australian city of Darwin in 1974, killing 71 people and destruction more than 90 percent of its houses.

It comes after scores of Queensland towns were overwhelmed and more than 30 people killed by flooding in recent weeks that caused Australia's most luxurious natural disaster on record.

Orangutan DNA Enhances Survival Chances

Orangutans are far more genetically varied than thought, a finding that could help their survival, say scientists bringing their first full DNA analysis of the critically-endangered ape. The study, published Thursday in the science journal Nature, also reveals that the orangutan -- "the man of the forest" has hardly evolved over the last 15 million years, in sharp difference to Homo sapiens and his closest cousin, the chimpanzee.

Once widely dispersed across Southeast Asia, only two populations of the intelligent, tree-dwelling ape remain in the wild, both on islands in Indonesia. Some 40,000 to 50,000 individuals live in Borneo, while in Sumatra deforestation and hunting has abridged a once robust community to about 7,000 individuals, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

These two groups split genetically about 400,000 years ago, significantly later than once thought, and today comprise separate albeit closely related species, Pongo abelii (Sumatra) and Pongo pygmaeus (Borneo), the study showed. An international group of more than 30 scientists decoded the full genomic sequence of a female Sumatran orangutan, nicknamed Susie.

They then completed précis sequences of 10 more adults, five from each population. "We found that the average orangutan is more varied genetically speaking -- than the average human," said lead author Devin Locke, an evolutionary geneticist at Washington University in Missouri.

Human and orangutan genomes partly cover by about 97 percent, compared to 99 percent for humans and chimps, he said. But the big surprise was that the far smaller Sumatran population showed more difference in its DNA than its close cousin in Borneo.

While confusing, scientists said this could help boost the species' chances of survival. "Their genetic difference is good news because, in the long run, it enables them to maintain a healthy population" and will help shape conservation labors, said co-author Jeffrey Rogers, a professor at Baylor College of Medicine.

Ultimately, however, the fate of this great ape whose behavior and unenergetic expressions can be eerily human at times will depend on our stewardship of the environment, he said. "If the forest disappears, then the genetic variation won't matter -- home is absolutely essential," he said. "If things continue as they have for the next 30 years, we won't have orangutans in the wild."

The researchers were also struck by the unrelenting stability of the orangutan genome, which appears to have changed very little since branching off on a separate evolutionary path. This means the species is hereditarily closer to the common ancestor from which all the great apes are presumed to have originated, some 14 to 16 million years ago.

One likely clue to the lack of structural changes in the orangutan's DNA is the relative absence, compared to humans, of telltale bits of genetic code known as an "Alu". These short stretches of DNA make up about 10 percent of the human genome figuring about 5,000 and can pop up in unpredictable places to create new mutations, some of which persist.

"In the orangutan genome, we found only 250 new Alu copies over a 15-million year time span," Locke said. Orangutans are the only great apes to dwell first and foremost in trees. In the wild, they can live 35 to 45 years, and in captivity an additional 10 years. Females give birth, on average, every eight years, and the longest interbirth interval among mammals.

Earlier research has shown that the great apes are not only adept at making and using tools, but are capable of cultural learning, long thought to be an exclusively human trait.

Self immolation reports spread through north Africa

The popular gripes in Tunisia that have caused disturbance in the government were sparked by Mohamed Bouazizi, a 26-year-old unemployed college mark off, who set himself on fire in protest. He later died. Now, reports are coming in from other countries in the region Egypt, Algeria, and Mauritania that other protesters are turning to self-immolation.

In Egypt, Abdo Abelmonem Gafr, a baker from a town outside Cairo, set himself on fire outside the parliament building in the capital on Monday, an Interior Ministry official said. Gafr has burns to his face but is living and not badly hurt, ministry spokesman Alla Mahmood said. A police officer put the fire out. Gafr's motives and his age were not immediately known.

In Algeria, security officials said Sunday that three people set themselves on fire in protest. Riots and demonstrations have exploded in Algeria in recent days. Much like in Tunisia, Algerians are aggravated over the economy, rising food prices and what they feel is a government that's not reacted to their needs.

News reports out of Mauritania say a man set himself on fire Monday in front of the presidential palace. Reports recognize the man as Yacoub Dahoud, who posted a Facebook message praising Bouazizi and vowing, "We will never forget you."

"The Arab world's terrible new trend: self-immolation," wrote Blake Hounshell of the foreignpolicy.com blog on Monday. "There is something terrible and, in a way, moving about these suicide attempts. It's a shocking, desperate method that instantly attracts attention, revulsion, but also sympathy," Hounshell, Foreign Policy's organization editor, wrote.

Throughout the Tunisia protests, experts have been saying similar expression could spread to other nations in the region.

In a country with a long-time president and a young, underemployed population, the incident became a symbol for millions. Other Arab nations face similar conditions large populations of young people, anger over the economy, and a government that many feel fails to stand for them.

A 2008 study by doctors in Iran, titled "Self-immolation in Iran" and published in the Journal of Burn Care and Research, says, "On purpose self-inflicted burn is rare in high-income countries, but is reported more often in low- and middle-income countries, especially in Asia and Africa."

The study, which has a theoretical on PubMed.gov, adds, "Unemployment was a risk factor for self-immolation, while mental disorder and lack of access to health and treatment facilities did not play an important role for increasing the rate of self-immolation."

At Beijing's Tiananmen Square in 2001, five people lit themselves on fire in front. One died. A police report recognized them as members of the banned Falun Gong movement. But Falun Gong denied any connection to that incident, saying what became known had "nothing to do with Falun Gong practitioners."

It is too soon to know whether the reports coming in of self-immolations are connected, and whether those lighting themselves on fire are eager to spark protests in their countries.

But as the events in Tunisia show, leaders of other nations in the region who face anger from a young, aggravated, underemployed population have reason to be on guard.

White Lioness Bears 3 Cubs in Argentina

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina Zookeepers in Buenos Aires showed off triplets Wednesday three white cubs born to a pair of white lions brought in from South Africa.

Zoo bureaucrats say the two females and a male were born Nov. 16 and are the first white lions to be born in South America. Children who visit the zoo this Argentine summer can take part in a challenge to name them.

"We're very swollen with pride. There aren't many white lions born in zoos," veterinarian Miguel Rivolta told AP Television News.

Since both parents are white, their cubs each have the recessive genes that make them pure white, he explained.

Zoo visitors loved their debut on Wednesday. The cubs' mother, not so much. She growled at the crowd and carried one of the cubs off in her mouth.