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It's been a year since New Hampshire's Old Man fell

New Hampshire's Old Man of the Mountain fell out of sight a year ago, but he is hardly out of mind.

A giant twisted turnbuckle that once held New Hampshire's granite symbol together, The Old Man of the Mountain, sits in the boulder field with the Old Man's remains in Franconia, N.H. Wednesday April 28, 2004. New Hampshire's Old Man of the Mountain, the celebrated rock formation featured in the state's commemorative quarter, broke apart one year ago. (AP Photo/Jim Cole)

FRANCONIA, N.H. (AP) -

People still stop at viewing areas in Franconia Notch to gaze at the jagged cliff that once held the stern granite profile that graces New Hampshire license plates, police patches, highway signs and the state quarter.

Many still take photos of - well, not much.

"We always came to look at it and now there's nothing to look at, but we had to come," said Melissa Peluso of Boston, who stopped by on a rainy day recently.

In the Old Man's place is an undefined, jagged cliff. Observant viewers will notice one area that's a light rust color, not the dark, weathered gray of most of the rocks 1,200 feet above the valley floor. That's where the 40-foot-high profile perched until May 3, 2003.

They also might notice lighter-colored gouges a little farther down the mountain. Those close to the Old Man call them scars. That's where the tons of rocks that once made up the profile dropped onto a cliff below, broke into smithereens and tumbled into a boulder field.

"It feels more like a graveyard than anything else," said David Nielsen, who has been in the boulder field. His family took care of the profile for decades, patching cracks and checking the thick metal rods and turnbuckles that fought against the freezing and thawing that eventually pried him loose.

Nielsen said some boulder-sized pieces of the Old Man can be recovered, and probably will end up in a museum dedicated to him.

Recommended by a task force, the museum will be built at the base of Cannon Mountain, a popular skiing mountain in the notch, the local term for a mountain pass.

On Monday, the anniversary, the state will unveil viewfinders in parking areas that give visitors a closeup look at what remains on the perch, and an image of the profile before it fell.

That evening, the state will present its first Profile Awards to an individual, a community and an organization who have honored New Hampshire's heritage or treasures. Officials also will kick off a drive to raise money to carry out the task force's recommendations.

They include a traveling display and a curriculum for schools and libraries to teach about the geology and significance of the Old Man.

The significance was felt keenly by Nielsen, whose father's ashes were tucked into the profile's eye when the father died after decades of being the profile's caretaker. Though the son has had a busy year - with the task force, his retirement as town police chief and the start of a new job - he said memories of the Old Man have been with him constantly.

"How often do you think about when your mother or father died, or grandmother and grandfather died?" he said. "The first couple of years after they pass away, you think about them almost on a daily basis, whether you are flat out busy or not. That's kind of what the Old Man is."

When Nielsen and some Old Man volunteers hiked to the perch last summer, it was "a very solemn kind of visit to see and to remember things that you took for granted and are not there anymore."

"It was very haunting to be there," he said.

Dick Hamilton, president of the tourism group White Mountain Attractions, drives by the site every day. He said seeing the scars and knowing the remains are strewn through the boulder field is spooky.

"I get a little worked up when I go by and look up and know all that stuff is there," he said.

"Some nights, when conditions are kind of strange, and a cloud goes by, the hair stands up on the back of my neck. It's doing it right now as I'm talking to you," he said.

Hamilton spent a lot of time last summer watching and listening as people gazed toward the Old Man's perch.

"One couple from Massachusetts was looking up and they said 'You know, (John) asked me to marry him right here'," Hamilton said.

Former Gov. Steve Merrill, who led the task force, said it received notes from around the world recounting other personal connections. An Australian couple said they first saw the profile on their honeymoon. Others wrote of bringing aging family members to see the Old Man for the last time before they died.

Merrill said balancing respect for the past with the urge to preserve something meaningful was daunting.

"For all of us, it was as though we were treading on sacred ground," he said.

The task force received more than 5,000 suggestions. Several hundred supported rebuilding the profile in plaster, rubber or fiberglass, or by way of a holographic image projected into the sky.

The idea of rebuilding prompted passionate debate: Some said future generations deserved a replica; others said that would dishonor a symbol of authenticity and integrity.

Merrill said two developments weighed against rebuilding. "First, the state geologist told us ... the ice and snow had eaten sufficiently into the fissures on the face that whatever we put there would fall, probably sooner, not later."

And, he said, over time, people "came to see what nature put there, nature should also take away."

At the mountain, the debate hasn't died.

Bill and Janice Huntley of Madison brought their grandchildren to see the remains during school vacation last week. Huntley, 66, would like to see something back on the cliff. "Now it looks something like a gargoyle."

But Janice Huntley, 60, who has been coming to see the profile for 54 years, opposes rebuilding.

"It's one of those things you expect will always be there, so to see it gone is a sadness. But by the same token, life changes, so things change," she said.

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In addition to a museum, there are decanters, snow globes and ashtrays

By The Associated Press

While New Hampshire prepares to kick off a fund drive for a museum and other tributes to its fallen Old Man of the Mountain, memorabilia-makers ratcheted up production of trinkets, T-shirts and other items soon after his demise a year ago Monday.

A specially treated Old Man coffee mug reacts to heat, so users see the granite profile disappear every time they pour a fresh cup.

This week, there were several dozen Old Man items on the Internet auction site, eBay. They ranged from post cards to liquor decanters, cream pitchers to patches, wrist watches to snow globes and ashtrays.

The official Old Man of the Mountain Legacy Fund begins fund-raising for a museum and other memorials at a dinner Monday night in Manchester.

The occasion also will inaugurate annual Profile Awards. The first recipients will be an organization, a municipality and an individual who "fought to preserve, promote and protect the qualities we associated with the character of the Old Man of the Mountain," said Maura Weston, president of the fund's board of directors.

I'm off to jihad, son wrote

On the day he departed for a terrorist training camp in Pakistan, a 21-year-old Sydney student sent a letter to his parents.

"I'm fed up with Westerners," wrote Izhar ul-Haque, who had just failed his second year of medicine at the University of NSW.

"Western patients look at me as if I'm a frog. They don't wish to speak English to me. How can I spend five to six years with them?"

A disillusioned ul-Haque told them he was going to take part in a jihad with the militant Islamic terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), fighting the Indian Army for the freedom of Kashmir. And he would fight to his death to become a martyr.

But after finishing the 20-day course in January last year ul-Haque decided combat was not for him and he returned to Sydney where he worked hard, excelling again at university and gaining the respect of teachers and students.

Yesterday Central Local Court was told of the events that led a studious and responsible young man to consider martyrdom.

During a two-hour effort by ul-Haque's counsel, Ian Barker, QC, to have him released on bail from the Supermax jail at Goulburn, the court heard testimonials from his former principal at North Sydney Boys High, Bernard Newsom, a careers adviser and family members. A petition from 130 university students was also tendered.

Mr Barker said the views his client had expressed before the training were shortlived. "He went with a rather woolly notion that he could be of assistance in Kashmir, but he changed his mind, decided he wanted to continue his medical studies and he returned to Australia."

On his return ul-Haque caught the attention of customs officers, who seized diaries and 30 books from his luggage, and passed them on to ASIO.

It is understood that after his arrest ul-Haque provided information to the Australian Federal Police about Faheem Lodhi, the alleged mastermind of a plot to bomb Sydney.

Lodhi was arrested last week, a day after AFP officers spent two hours interrogating ul-Haque in his jail cell. Lodhi faces seven terrorism-related charges, including attempting to recruit ul-Haque to take part in activities of a terrorist organisation.

The Crown conceded yesterday that ul-Haque was not planning any terrorist act on Australian soil, but had committed an offence under the new terrorism laws of training with a banned organisation. This carries a 25-year jail term.

The Crown said its case was strong and relied on admissions from ul-Haque's own mouth and his own hand.

Ul-Haque had told police the training course he undertook was "like kindergarten".

"It's like the first step in the ladder [to martyrdom]," he said. "I think anyone could do it. It's like attending King's College."

In his diary he detailed his training in rocket-launchers, landmines, machine-guns, pistols and tank targeting. "The basic motivation was to train to eventually be able to fight the Indian Army," he said. "But most don't get to that stage. Most do these 20-day courses and just leave. It's very hard to become one of those persons [jihads] who is sent by LeT.

"I only support the fighting of those Indian soldiers. If LeT kill civilians I seriously don't believe in it. I am not that sort of person."

When ul-Haque left for the camp, his father, who lives in Islamabad, and brother were so upset that they drove to the camp and pleaded with him: "Stop what you are doing and come back to Australia."

His brother, Imam, 25, told the court that his brother no longer held those views. "Once he came back I explained we go through these feelings at times and he needed to be persistent."

The Deputy Chief Magistrate, Helen Syme, refused bail, saying the prosecution case appeared to be quite strong and there was a risk he could flee.

Mr Barker said it was "an absolute scandal" that his client was being housed in solitary confinement at the maximum-security Goulburn jail and said he was being held there for "political purposes". He described it as "our version of Guantanamo Bay".

The court heard that ul-Haque visited Australia twice before settling here in November 1999. He attended Pennant Hills High and then North Sydney Boys High.

Mr Newsom, his former principal, said ul-Haque was always courteous and had been an "outstanding student".

Girls just want to have a comeback

Back from obscurity, Cyndi Lauper is kicking butt.

In the mid-'80s, Cyndi Lauper built a sizeable fan base on the strength of her thrift-store chic fashions, curious brand of feminism and, of course, powerful pop sensibility.

But for the past decade, those fans had to work hard to rally behind their idol.

Lauper's albums could barely be found on record-store shelves. Her concert appearances were generally confined to opening slots for Tina Turner and Cher. And her second career as an actress all but stalled.

So, who's the diva du jour? None other than the Grammy-winning girl who just wanted to have fun. But these days, it takes more than a party-girl attitude to get ahead.

"I'm stubborn," says Lauper, who performs in Sydney in July. "I never listen to anybody who tells me I can't do something."

The "something" that has reignited Lauper's career is At Last, an album of pop classics - mostly from the '60s - that has received terrific reviews.

For those who remember Lauper for such perky '80s tunes as She Bop, Money Changes Everything and her signature hit, Girls Just Want to Have Fun, it's something of a shocker - a stripped-down collection of songs that shows the 50-year-old Lauper in more mature form.

Though her New York accent remains as delightfully thick as ever, Lauper sings with a newfound world-weariness that brings out the hard truth in selections ranging from La Vie en Rose to Unchained Melody to the Etta James title track. A perfect case in point: her version of the Burt Bacharach-Hal David gem, Walk On By, that Dionne Warwick turned into a pop bauble so many decades ago.

When you listen to Lauper's spare, gritty version, there's no mistaking it for ear candy. "I was wondering if this was a torch song," Lauper says of her approach. The essential ingredient, she explains, was finding the right key to sing the song and expose her vulnerability. "A singer is a storyteller. I always try to find a spot in my voice that best suits the character of the story."

Which is not to say the album doesn't have its upbeat moments. Lauper takes some giddy chances with songs, turning Stay into a salsa celebration and On the Sunny Side of the Street into a reggae affair. And she has plenty of fun playing off a bemused Tony Bennett on Makin' Whoopee. (Another prominent guest artist: Stevie Wonder, who contributes a harmonica solo on Lauper's version of his Until You Come Back to Me.)

The tie that binds this eclectic grouping? Lauper says these are the songs she heard as a kid growing up in the New York neighbourhood of Ozone Park, Queens - "a melting pot where Germans, Italians, Russians and around the block African-Americans lived", she writes in the album's liner notes. "And where each summer, music and families spilled out of row houses into backyards."

But the music wasn't the only thing that united these outer-borough denizens. There was also the "belief that Manhattan was Mecca. The Holy Grail, where all dreams led".

Lauper, who struggled through high school, found that Holy Grail in the '70s and '80s, working with local bands until she secured a record deal. The result was her 1983 debut, She's So Unusual, which led to the runaway single Girls Just Want to Have Fun.

Even with her outrageously coloured hair and offbeat sense of fashion - Lauper worked in a vintage-clothing shop and once remarked that she couldn't make up her to mind what to wear so "I wore it all, you know" - there was something about the pop star that made her approachable to fans. (The oddball "girl power" message of Girls Just Want to Have Fun didn't hurt, either.)

A critic recently described her as "a huggable alternative to Madonna".

But Madonna was able to build on the momentum of her early career. Not Lauper. By the mid-'90s, she was a pop relic. Her 1993 album Hat Full of Stars didn't even crack Billboard's Top 100. And by 2002, she dispensed with album-making and released an EP, Shine.

Lauper also tried her hand at acting, with mixed results. She garnered an Emmy for her work on the sitcom Mad About You, but she wasn't able to fulfill her dream of launching her own TV show, despite completing a pilot.

Still, the '90s were productive for Lauper. In 1991, she married the actor David Thornton and in 1997, the couple had a son, Declyn. Lauper makes it clear that family life has rearranged her priorities. These days, she's looking to star in a Broadway show - she won't get more specific than that - so she can pursue her career without leaving New York. Her son is a budding ice hockey champ, and she's got games and practices to attend.

Is she afraid he might get hurt playing such a rough-and-tumble sport?

"They've got good gear now," she counters. And she hopes he'll learn that "skill is more valuable than fighting".

Then again, Lauper has shown a little feistiness goes a long way - at least when it comes to the music biz. She credits some of her current success to the lessons she learned touring with Cher in the past few years.

"She pushed me ... She was a real fan of mine," Lauper says. "Sisterhood is a powerful thing."

But those who saw the Cher-Cyndi show might argue that Lauper deserved bigger billing. As much as you can admire Cher's remarkably preserved physique - and her own outrageous sense of attire - Lauper is, by far, the better singer.

For her part, Lauper sees the pairing more as a "one-two punch".

"I kicked their butt one way, she kicked it another," she says.

Shop till you drop

There are many ways a trip to the supermarket could be made more enjoyable. Combining it with a workout at the gym is arguably not one of them.

Still, in a move that takes the notion of multi-tasking to a new dimension, supermarket chain Tesco is now merging these two mundane chores of modern life in the hope of wooing time-pressed shoppers.

Thanks to a new shopping trolley, customers of Tesco will soon be able to burn calories while buying the weekly groceries.

Using technology normally found on gym machines, the trolley can be programmed to make it harder to push, increasing the heartbeat and exercising muscles in the legs, arms and stomach.

Sensors in the handle bar allow shoppers to monitor their heart rate and count calories as well as measure how far they have traipsed up and down the aisles.

Wayne Asher, who designed the trolley on behalf of the German manufacturer Wanzl, says a 40-minute shopping trip with the trolley set at resistance level seven (it goes from one to 10) would burn off about 280 calories.

That is equivalent to half an hour jogging, he said, and 30 per cent more than the number of calories expended shopping with a standard trolley.

Better still, Mr Asher believes the trolley will inspire customers to be more health conscious as they shop.

"There's a subliminal effect," he said. " If you are pushing it, are you going to put a chocolate cake in your trolley? You will be thinking, 'I'm really unfit. I must have something healthy'."

Tesco said the trolley was a response to customers' growing concerns about health and fitness.

So does it work? The Telegraph road-tested the prototype and found the experience surprisingly similar to pushing, well, a heavily laden shopping trolley. At level seven, getting the thing moving required a fair old shove, and my heart rate quickly jumped from 80 beats a minute to nearer 130.

How does it compare to the gym? Well, the fact you are doing something else does make the whole exercise of exercising slightly less boring.

But do not expect your efforts to win any admiring glances from fellow shoppers. "Pumping fruit" does not have the same ring to it.

Hanging Tight

Finding the Key to Spider Climbing Power; Could It Lead to Better Post-it Notes?

The itsy-bitsy spider went up the water spout, goes the nursery rhyme. But how exactly does the spider climb such a slippery vertical surface?

Now scientists think they have the answer ? hair. It's a simple discovery that may someday lead to innovative new technologies and products, ranging from stickier Post-it notes to space suits that adhere to surfaces in zero gravity.

Using a scanning electron microscope, researchers from Germany and Switzerland discovered small hairs on the feet of the jumping spider, or Evarcha arcuata. Each of the small hairs is covered in even smaller hairs called "setules," which have unique triangular tips.

These tiny setules ? more than 620,000 in all ? give spiders their superior ability to climb up water spouts, along walls and across ceilings.

The scientists estimated spiders are able to grip surfaces with a force greater than 170 times their own weight.

"That's like Spider-man clinging to the flat surface of a window on a building by his fingertips and toes only, whilst rescuing 170 adults who are hanging onto his back," says Andrew Martin of the Institute of Technical Zoology and Bionics in Bremen, Germany, co-author of the study, published in the most recent Institute of Physics journal Smart Materials and Structures.

Opposites Attract

The researchers speculate the force that allows spiders to climb glass and hang on ceilings is something known as the van der Waals force.

This form of attraction, based on the positive and negative charges of individual molecules, acts only when molecules of opposite charges are within a few nanometers of one another.

The triangular-tipped setules on spiders' feet are perfectly designed to take advantage of the van der Waals force because they form hundreds of thousands of flexible contact points.

Because there are many small contact points, spiders can adjust the number of contacts needed for different surfaces, whether vertical, horizontal, smooth or rough.

Though the total van der Waals force on the spider's feet is strong, it is really just the sum of many small attractive forces on each setule.

That makes moving its foot easy; the spider just lifts each setule one at a time, rather than trying to lift all at once.

And unlike many types of glue, the van der Waals force is not affected by the surface or the surrounding environment. This allows for an unusually high degree of adhesion on wet or oily surfaces.

Creepy-Crawlies

Like spiders, insects have evolved with their own climbing strategies, including claws and clamp-like devices on their feet. In addition, insects secrete an oily liquid that gives them extra adhesion.

But in spite of these adaptations, most insects have only a fraction of spiders' ability to climb. The American cockroach, for example, can support just 1½ times its own weight. Even something called the knotgrass leaf beetle can support just 50 times its weight.

One other animal, however, has been studied for its advanced ability to hang tight ? the gecko, a small lizard common in tropical regions.

And like spiders, the gecko uses branched hairs and miniaturized contact elements on its feet to crawl quickly over smooth walls and other surfaces.

Building a Better Astronaut

What scientists have learned from spiders and geckos may have some meaning for scientists working on new materials and products.

"One possible application of our research would be to develop Post-it notes based on the van der Waals force, which would stick even if they got wet or greasy," said Antonia Kesel, lead author of the study.

"You could also imagine astronauts using spacesuits that help them stick to the walls of a spacecraft ? just like a spider on the ceiling," she added.

"We carried out this research to find out how these spiders have evolved to stick to surfaces," said Kesel. "We now hope that this basic research will lead the way to new and innovative technology."

Microscopic hairs on the feet of the jumping spider give it remarkably powerful climbing abilities, scientists have discovered.
(http://physics.iop.org)

Neanderthals were 'adults by 15'

The Neanderthals reached adulthood at the tender age of 15 according to a report in the journal Nature.

French and Spanish researchers analysed growth records preserved in the teeth of Neanderthals, modern humans and two other human species.

Breaks in the deposition of crown enamel reveal how fast teeth grow.

Neanderthals formed their crowns 15% quicker than we do, reaching adulthood when modern humans of the same age were still floundering in adolescence.

Perikymata are disturbances in the deposition of crown enamel which are preserved on the tooth's surface as a series of horizontal ridges.

More closely-spaced perikymata indicate a slower rate of growth, while more widely-spaced perikymata point to faster growth.

In modern humans (Homo sapiens) tooth growth slows dramatically after the formation of the top half of the crown. This leads to more closely-spaced perikymata in the bottom half of the crown.

Speed of life

In the Nature report, Fernando Ramirez Rozzi and Jose Bermudez de Castro analysed incisors and canines from 119 individual human remains from Europe spanning a time period of about 800,000 years.

They found that perikymata were generally more widely spaced in primitive humans such as Neanderthals, Homo heidelbergensis and Homo antecessor than in our our own species.

But Neanderthals had the most widely spaced perikymata of all.

The authors argue that this indicates Neanderthals grew more rapidly overall. This rapid rate of growth could have been an evolutionary outcome of high adult mortality in Neanderthal populations, they claim.

"When you have a high mortality, you have two evolutionary solutions. One is to have a short growth period, the other is to have many offspring at once," Dr Ramirez Rozzi, of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in Paris, France, told BBC News Online.

"But in humans it is not a viable option to have more than two or three offspring at once. So I would suggest that the high mortality in Neanderthals was the selective pressure responsible for their rapid growth."

Professor Christopher Dean of University College London told BBC News Online:

"I sense that the authors are right. But they haven't looked at any internal histology on the teeth and they haven't looked at molars.

"I think in future, the priority needs to be to look at the molars because they're really crucial in establishing life history."

Brain gain

Some researchers have linked slower development to increased brain size over the course of human evolution.

But the Neanderthals seem to follow a reverse evolutionary trend, with fast growth and a big brain. The results might suggest this trend could be completely random says Dr Ramirez Rozzi.

Dr Christoph Zollikofer, an anthropologist at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, said the work agreed very well with examinations of Neanderthal and modern human skulls he has carried out with his co-collaborator Marcia Ponce de Leon.

"Neanderthals had probably the same pace of brain development as modern humans," he told BBC News Online.

"But as soon as this was approximately finished, by the age of three or four, Neanderthals were still on a very fast time course to reach adulthood.

"Modern humans gained time in terms of their cognitive development. If you develop more slowly you can learn more."

The results bolster the theory that Neanderthals were committed carnivores. They must have had a very high-calorie diet to fuel their rapid growth and sustain such a large brain.

OCD and the Cycle of Virus Doom

Compulsion Disorder Sufferers Will Keep Spreading E-mail Bugs

"If the U.S. Post Office sees a stick of dynamite in the mail, they don't deliver it, do they? A .PIF or .SCR file is an easy thing to stop. It's so obvious. And any other sort of executable file can be quickly scanned by an ISP."

- Commentary By John C. Dvorak, PC Magazine

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An estimated 3.3 million Americans alone have obsessive compulsive disorder, or OCD, and more attention is being paid to the problem than ever before. At least two hit TV shows have main characters who exhibit the problem (Monk and Law & Order: Criminal Intent).

The latest iterations of e-mail-based viruses exploit people in the office who have OCD and that's why there is no way that client-based initiatives to stop virus spreading can ever work. Ever. In fact, the virus problem will just get worse.

This observation was prompted by a posting in my online column on phishing.

A Working Example

Junebug630 writes:

I had a co-worker - a supervisor - call me into her office the other month and ask me about an e-mail that she got. Now my company, a big time government contractor, is super security conscious and damn near inundates us weekly with warning messages to the point of saturation on the evils of e-mail attachments and worms, etc.

The woman, who is very intelligent and knowledgeable, said, "Look, there is a message from someone in my e-mail box. Should I open it?" Now this message was not internal, which she knew, and was of a very dubious nature from someone neither she nor I knew concerning a file or files that someone wanted her to download.

I told her to instantly delete the message and any that came along like it. She was nervous about the message being something important and missing something that she would need to know. I had to practically nail her hands to the desk to keep her from opening the e-mail.

I asked her "Do you open everything you get at home?" She replied, "Yes." I said, "Why?" And then she honestly couldn't tell me why.

A Compelling Threat?

The message goes on, but you get the point. When I read this I realized that no amount of public education will end the virus threat, with millions of compulsive people out there getting messages that say things like "Open the important attachment!"

Apparently you don't need anything more than that simple demand to propagate a virus. You don't need spoofing, or tricks, or passwords or anything else. All you need is an attached virus or Trojan horse program and a note that says, "Open me!" Millions of poor souls with OCD will open it.

And if OCD people fit in well in any sort of environment, it's the modern office environment where the ailment may actually be a benefit and lead to rapid promotions. Many with this ailment are geniuses in their own way and work harder than others to compensate for the OCD issues.

Be that as it may, how many are like the otherwise smart woman described above? These people cannot erase the suspicious document and move on. They might be missing something important, after all. With the eventual "Big One" headed our way we can be assured that when it is delivered, the compulsive office workers of the world will be the triggering mechanisms.

Just Saying 'No' Isn't Enough

Of course, many of us can protect ourselves from the direct problems that will arise, such as hard drive erasures. We are all susceptible to the potential meltdown of the Net itself, which can happen when these click-happy obsessives launch the war.

It's futile to try to stop compulsive people. What that suggests to me is that the entire virus threat prevention mechanism has to exist at a higher level. These viruses have to be stopped at the ISP level or perhaps all e-mail should be pumped through some Internet-based filter. The way I see it, if Kaspersky's anti-virus program can spot every attempt on my machine on the fly and quarantine e-mail attachments as they come in, then why can't this be done at the ISP/server level?

Exactly why is that OCD woman cited above allowed to get this stuff in her e-mail box in the first place? If the U.S. Post Office sees a stick of dynamite in the mail, they don't deliver it, do they? A .PIF or .SCR file is an easy thing to stop. It's so obvious. And any other sort of executable file can be quickly scanned by an ISP.

All the current viruses that go back and forth for months on end are easily identifiable - you see the same ones over and over. Why are they continually being allowed to go from server to server? Maybe these ISPs should do something, given all the money they are making.

Who's Really to Blame?

So why hasn't something been done at the only level that will stop the problem? I think it's the anti-virus lobby. Who stands to lose the most if the virus problem is eliminated at the ISP level? The client-based anti-virus software companies: Symantec, McAffee, Kaspersky, Panda, all of them. This is a billion-dollar business.

I've never been one to think that any of these folks actually code viruses, as some people assert. They don't have to. Other people stupidly do it for reasons only known to themselves. What I do not see is any real universal effort on the part of the anti-virus folks to seriously end the virus threat for good. They would put themselves out of business. It's a conflict of interest. The folks with all the expertise don't need to bring change.

It's ridiculous. What do you think can be done to end this cycle? I think that until the end user is taken out of the loop, we're stuck.

No Passion for Broadcast Television

ABC has turned down an offer to air Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, and CBS, NBC and Fox are expected to follow suit, the Associated Press reported. Gibson demanded that the film run in its entirety and unedited.

COC's pricey Ring

May start for applications to see complete Ring Cycle

Though the Canadian Opera Company won't be mounting Richard Wagner's full Ring Cycle until 2006, it will begin taking ticket applications next week, the company announced Tuesday.

The epic opera cycle will open the new Four Seasons Centre, currently under construction in downtown Toronto, in the fall of 2006. Because the venue only offers 2,000 seats -- about 1,000 fewer than the company's current home in the Hummingbird Centre -- the company expects the performances to sell out quickly.

Tickets applications will be accepted through the company's website and by phone beginning May 3. Prices for the complete cycle of the four Ring operas -- Das Rheingold, Die Walkure, Siegfried and Gotterdammerung -- begin at $300, with a limited number of prime box seats available for up to $2,200.

Successful applicants will be notified by December 2004.

The company will stage the entire Ring Cycle once each week for the last three weeks of September 2006.

Iraqi leaders change colours after flag flap

Only days after unveiling the country's new flag, Iraqi leaders have already changed its colours after protests that it looked too much like Israel's.

The design remains the same ? two parallel blue stripes on the bottom representing the Euphrates and Tigris rivers and a yellow stripe between them representing the country's Kurdish minority. A blue crescent above the stripes symbolizes Islam.

But the blue stripes appear to have been made darker after complaints that the light blue stripes were too similar to the light blue bands of the Israeli flag.

Hundreds of university students in Mosul demonstrated against the initial version Wednesday.

Many Iraqis were also upset that the flag no longer featured the colours red for Arab nationalism and black, green and white for Islam.

The old flag had red and white bands across the top and bottom with three green stars floating in the middle. Deposed leader Saddam Hussein added the Arabic words "Allahu Akbar" ("God is Great") during the 1980s.

Not all council members had agreed with the idea of a new flag. Some said there should be a new, elected government before a major national symbol is altered.

Supporters of the new flag said it was important for the new government to distance itself from the the regime of Saddam Hussein.

"We cannot raise the flag of a party that committed many crimes against Iraqi people," said Massoud Barzani, president of the Governing Council.

But Barzani said the design is temporary until a permanent flag is chosen.

Physicists Find Method to Improve Audio

Physicists Find Way to Digitally Map Old, Archived Audio Recordings and Reconstruct the Sound

Two physicists have discovered a way to digitally map old, archived audio recordings and reconstruct the sound.

Four years after hearing a radio report on the challenge of preserving aging audio recordings, particle physicist Carl Haber's newfound method of rescuing the classics is music to archivists' ears.

Haber and a fellow physicist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Vitaliy Fadeyev, have found a way to digitally map the grooves in warped or damaged shellac records and wax cylinders and play them back using a sort of virtual needle.

To do so, they use the same optical scanning method powered by a microscope and computer technology that physicists employ for measuring the journeys of subatomic particles.

The technique detects and filters any scratches, as well as clicks and pops from dust. It works with vinyl, too, though such records aren't as fragile to need it.

Roughly 2.5 million music and spoken-word recordings are stored in the Library of Congress the project's sponsor but some are more than a century old and very delicate. Archivists risk further damage if they use a real stylus to play and re-record them.

"This marks a whole new direction for sound archiving," said Mark Roosa, the library's director for preservation. "They're reconstructing sound as we had never imagined would be possible, even if there are cracks in the cylinder."

The physicists hope their research will ultimately lead to a machine to preserve and enhance public access to sounds of history.

"Archivists want tools that will allow them to copy recordings with as little intervention as possible," Haber said. "It's starting to almost look like there could be a Xerox machine for recordings."

Phony Princess Fools IRS

A college cafeteria worker outsmarted the Internal Revenue Service and received a $2.1 million tax refund when she claimed to be a Hawaiian princess and heir to a billion-dollar estate.

Abigail Roberts, 61, was born Charlotte Veronica Kuheana in Hawaii. In reality, she works in the cafeteria at Widener University and lives with her husband in Chester. But authorities said she pretended to be Abigail Kinoiki Kekaulike Kawananakoa, the 73-year-old heir to the Campbell estate, one of the largest landowners in Hawaii. Investigators said Roberts put Kawananakoa's Social Security number on her tax form.

Roberts and her husband deposited the $2.1 million when they received the tax return in the mail. The IRS used arrest warrants to retrieve most of the tax refund, but a federal judge ruled that there was not enough evidence to show that Roberts intended to commit a crime. The agency has sued Roberts and her husband to recover $100,000 that was allegedly spent.

The Parkinson's Problem

Many people associate Parkinson's disease with the celebrities who visibly suffer from it, from Michael J. Fox to Pope John Paul II. One reason we can often identify people with Parkinson's disease is because they have the signature symptom: a noticeable tremor. As a motor system disorder, Parkinson's disease also causes muscle rigidity, shuffling gait, and impaired balance and coordination.

It's difficult to know who is at risk for Parkinson's disease, though age appears to be the strongest predictor. Other risk factors include a first-degree relative with the disease; exposure to certain pesticides and herbicides; and the overuse of certain medication such as the anti-psychotic Haldol.

Medications for Parkinson's disease can control symptoms by stimulating or replacing the brain chemical dopamine. But the most effective medications, called levodopa-containing compounds, tend to "wear off," so each dose does not last as long as it once did. Doctors sometimes hold off on starting these medications in an effort to delay the wearing-off effect. And new combination therapies help provide relief from symptoms for a longer period of time.

Below, William Koller, MD, PhD, founder of the University of Kansas Parkinson Disease and Movement Disorder Center in Kansas City, discusses the most common treatments for Parkinson's disease.

What is Parkinson's disease?

Parkinson's disease involves symptoms including slowness of movement, stiffness of the muscles, difficultly walking, tremor (which some people refer to as shakiness) and sometimes difficulty with balance.

What causes Parkinson's disease?

We have a fairly good knowledge of what happens in the brain in Parkinson's disease. We know that a small group of cells die in a very small part of the brain. When those cells die, there's a loss of dopamine, which is a brain chemical or what we call a neurotransmitter. So the chemical basis of Parkinson's is loss of this dopamine chemical in the brain.

The part of the brain that's involved in Parkinson's is called the basal ganglia, and it helps control our movements and how we coordinate them. So when the basal ganglia doesn't work, we end up with slowness, stiffness and tremor.

How common is Parkinson's disease?

Parkinson's disease can affect all individuals and may be slightly more prominent in men. It's estimated that, at least in the United States, there's probably one million people affected with Parkinson's disease. Once you get over age 65, 1 percent (that is, 1 in 10) of people are at risk for Parkinson's disease. About 10 percent of cases occur before age 50, which we call young-onset Parkinson's disease, and of course, Michael J. Fox would be an example of someone with young-onset Parkinson's disease.

How can we predict who will get Parkinson's disease?

Currently, we can't predict who will get Parkinson's disease. In a very small group of individuals, maybe 1 percent of people with Parkinson's disease, it runs in the family; some of these genes have been identified. Age itself is a risk factor; the older you get, the more likely you're going to develop Parkinson's disease. But there's no test we can do at this point and say, "Yes, you're going to develop Parkinson's disease."

How does Parkinson's disease affect the quality of people's lives?

Parkinson's disease can be a very disabling condition for some individuals. In addition to its motor symptoms such as slowness, stiffness and shakiness, Parkinson's also involves other symptoms: you can have depression, constipation, sexual dysfunction and sleep abnormalities. All these symptoms can significantly reduce quality of life in some patients.

How is Parkinson's disease treated?

There are a number of medical and surgical treatments for Parkinson's disease. Historically, Charcot, a famous neurologist in France, introduced the first class of drugs, which are sometimes used even today, and they're call anticholinergics. This class of drugs has a lot of side effects, however, and is infrequently used.

Today, there are two main classes of drugs to treat Parkinson's disease: levodopa-containing compounds and a group of drugs called dopamine agonists.

How do the levodopa-containing compounds work?

The gold standard for treatment of Parkinson's disease is levodopa-containing compounds, along with the drug Sinemet (carbidopa). It's based on an amazingly simple concept. You don't have enough dopamine in the brain, so we give the chemical L-Dopa, which goes into the brain and is converted to dopamine. We replace the deficiency, and the symptoms get dramatically better.

What happens, however, though, is that people sometimes develop wiggly movements, which we call dyskinesias and the benefit from an individual dose gets less over time. So, for instance, if one pill gave you four hours of benefit at, say, year three of the disease, by year 10 of the disease, the same pill may now only give you two hours of benefit. So it always works, but the duration of benefit from an individual dose gets less and less over time.

Are there ways of getting the levodopa to last longer?

One of the main problems with the long-term use of levodopa is that its duration of effectiveness gets shorter and shorter over time. So there's been a lot of emphasis in making its duration of effect longer. The L-Dopa is metabolized by two enzymes in the body. One is called carbidopa, and the second enzyme is called COMT. And we now have inhibitors or blockers of that enzyme. When you block that enzyme, the blood level of levodopa is much extended in the patient. When you extend the blood level, you also extend the duration of the clinical response.

These drugs are called COMT inhibitors, and they've been very useful in the motor fluctuations and extending the duration of effect. You can imagine, if you are "off"?which in our terminology means the drug's not working?three to four hours a day and you're shaking and you're slow, you can't do the things you need to do. But with these drugs, sometimes the "off" time goes away, so the drug's working through the whole day, and that's of course, our goal in the treatment of Parkinson's disease.

How do the dopamine agonists work?

The dopamine agonists are a class of drugs that directly stimulate the dopamine receptor, so they make up for the dopamine deficiency in Parkinson's. They cause fewer long-term complications than levodopa-containing compounds such as the wearing-off problem. Their disadvantage is that they're not as good at controlling the symptoms as levodopa-containing compounds.

If you look at control of symptoms, in early disease, dopamine agonists and levodopa are somewhat equal. As the disease advances, however, levodopa-containing compounds are much more effective.

What is the current medication strategy for younger people with Parkinson's disease?

We use dopamine agonists in the young-onset patients, and the reason it's probably more important in them is that these patients are more likely to develop the levodopa-induced dyskinesia and the wearing-off problem. If you're 40 years old, you probably have 30 or 40 year's worth of life left, so you have a lot of time to develop these potential complications. So, with patients in their 40s or 50s, the common practice among neurologists now is to start the dopamine agonists first and save levodopa for later.

Advanced scope's mirror in place

The main mirror for what will be the most powerful telescope on Earth has been installed at its Arizona site.

The Large Binocular Telescope will have two identical mirrors each 8.4m across, which should enable it to see planets around other stars, scientists believe.

"First light", the time it starts its work, is expected later this year.

When both mirrors are installed, the LBT will be the world's most advanced optical telescope with images sharper than the Hubble Space Telescope's.

Golden era

The mirror was cast and figured at the University of Arizona's Steward Observatory Mirror Lab and transported 220km (135 miles) to the top of Mount Graham where the telescope is being constructed.

Now that the mirror has been installed, engineers can test the telescope's support and control systems.

Two identical mirrors, each costing $22m, will be placed in the binocular telescope.

Work on the project began in 1996 and will be completed next year.

The telescope's twin mirrors will combine their images, providing the light-gathering power of a much larger, single mirror, equivalent to one 11.8m across.

"It will be the first of a new generation of extremely large telescopes and will signal a new golden era in this type of space exploration," says Peter Strittmatter, president of the Large Binocular Telescope Corporation.

"This is a huge step in what has been a very long and challenging process," added John Hill, the project's director.

The second mirror is still being polished and will be transported to Mount Graham at a later date.

Green-tinged farm points the way

Pigs and chickens that glow in the dark may signal a new era for the farm yard.

UK scientists at the Roslin Institute say they have dramatically improved the technique for introducing modifications to an animal's genetic make-up.

So far, the researchers have used the new method to introduce a jellyfish gene that makes their pigs and chickens fluoresce - to prove changes will work.

Now, the scientists expect to create animals that are resistant to disease or can be used to study disease.

The Edinburgh institute described its latest research to BBC Radio 4's One Man's Meat programme.

Piggyback research

Conventional efforts to make so-called transgenic animals have been expensive, hampered by inefficient methods of production, which see only about one in 70 embryos injected with genetic material resulting in a modified animal.

The improved technique borrows from procedures developed for gene therapy in humans.

In one of several recent trials at the Roslin Institute, the new approach resulted in 36 out of 40 pig embryos developing into transgenic pigs.

That is a success rate of 90% and has the power to revolutionise the application of GM technology in farm animals, according to researchers Dr Bruce Whitelaw and Dr Helen Sang.

The new technique uses viruses to carry chosen genes into fertilised eggs. Once altered, the eggs are then implanted in surrogate females.

The viruses come from a family called lentiviruses which have undergone extensive medical research.

"We're now piggybacking on this medical research as a way of producing transgenic animals, and what makes these vectors exciting is the fact that they're very efficient," said Dr Whitelaw, from Roslin's department of gene expression and development.

"Rather than the minority of animals ending up transgenic, the majority end up transgenic."

Asian flu

Transgenic pigs and chickens have been produced at Roslin using lentivectors to carry the green fluorescent protein gene (GFP) - a gene found naturally in jellyfish.

Both chickens and pigs carrying the gene can be detected in normal light by their slight greenish tinge, but when viewed in blue light, all areas not covered with hair or feathers are seen to glow torch-light bright.

In the case of chickens, this is the feet and head; and in pigs, it is the ears, snout, trotters and testicles.

"The green fluorescent protein marker gene means we can see instantly if an animal is carrying the gene; there is no need for any biopsies or tests, and as far as we know all of the animals are normal in every other way," said Dr Whitelaw.

Three generations of chickens carrying the GFP have now been produced, showing consistent and stable gene expression.

Poultry researcher Dr Sang is now ready to test the technique with genes of research interest.

"At the moment, we're trying to produce hens with pharmaceutical proteins in their eggs.

"We're looking at a therapeutic protein for cancer treatment," she said, "but we've also now got funding to look at two poultry diseases: Marek's disease and Asian flu."

The technique is most likely to be used to create transgenic animals to study diseases but might also eventually be used to make farm animals that are resistant to specific diseases.

"If you want to make transgenics, you need to be able to make lots of different lines to check them. We couldn't do that until now. It's a much easier and simpler approach.

"These techniques are proving 10 to 100-fold more efficient than any of the old techniques," Dr Sang said.

DNA shoots down Cook arrow legend

DNA testing has ended the century-old claim that a Hawaiian arrow was carved from the bone of 18th-Century British explorer Captain James Cook.

The arrow, given to the Australian Museum in Sydney in the 1890s, has been accompanied by the legend since 1824.

But DNA testing by laboratories in New Zealand and Australia has revealed it was probably made from animal antler.

The arrow will stay on show in the museum - and Cook fans remain sure part of his remains will turn up one day.

Clubbed and stabbed

The arrow forms a part of the exhibition "Uncovered: Treasures of the Australian Museum", which includes a feather cape presented to Cook by Hawaiian King Kalani'opu'u in 1778.

The museum's collection manager Jude Philp confirmed on Thursday: "There is no Cook in the Australian Museum."

Cook, one of Britain's great explorers, is credited with discovering the 'Great South Land' - now Australia - in 1770.

The Yorkshire-born explorer's travels ended when he was clubbed and stabbed to death by a crowd of more than 1,000 warriors in the Sandwich Islands, now Hawaii, in 1779.

The legend of Cook's arrow began 45 years later when Hawaiian King Kamehameha, on his deathbed, gave the arrow to a relative of Cook's wife, William Adams.

The king told Mr Adams, a London surgeon, that it had been carved from Cook's bone after the skirmish with the Sandwich Islanders.

Cook's fans refuse to give up hope that at least one legend about him will prove to be true.

They believe part of his remains will be uncovered, claiming they have evidence not all of Cook's body was buried at sea in February 1779.

Cliff Thornton, president of the UK's Captain Cook Society, said: "On this occasion technology has won.

"But I am sure one of these days... one of the Cook legends will (prove) to be true and it will happen one day."

DNA computers to fight diseases

Israeli scientists have developed tiny devices able to detect signs of cancer, and release drugs to treat the disease.

The work is still test-tube-based but it could lead to "nano-clinics" which remain in the body, sensing illnesses and then treating them automatically.

The devices are so small that roughly a trillion of them can fit into a microlitre (a millionth of a litre).

The research is led by Ehud Shapiro from the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot and is published in the journal Nature.

"The devices are made of biological molecules - DNA; synthetic DNA molecules which we produced to our design, and a naturally occurring enzyme which cuts DNA," Professor Shapiro told BBC News.

Biological 'computer'

They look like chains consisting of three main segments.

The first segment senses levels of substances which are produced by cancerous cells. It functions like a computer running through a simple algorithm.

One algorithm which the team tested is intended to diagnose prostate cancer.

It says that if levels of two messenger RNA molecules (PPAP2B and GSTP1) are lower than usual, and levels of two others (PIM1 and HPN) are elevated, there must be prostate cancer cells in the vicinity.

If this analytical/computational segment "decides" that cancer is present, it tells the second segment to release the third segment, which is an anti-cancer drug - in this case, consisting of so-called anti-sense DNA.

This has the effect of suppressing gene activity involved in the cancer.

"We demonstrated one particular 'computer' for diagnosing prostate cancer and another 'computer' for diagnosing small-cell lung cancer," Professor Shapiro said.

"We mixed them together in solution with various disease conditions, and the right computer diagnosed the right disease in all conditions."

Smart medicine

So far these devices have only been trialled in test-tube solutions, and several decades of further work are needed before research could begin in humans.

But one day nano-scale devices like these could be used inside our bodies to protect against or treat cancers and other diseases.

"The best way to think about it is as a smart drug," suggested Professor Shapiro.

"Today, we bombard the body with drugs that go everywhere and operate everywhere and at any time.

"And what we designed is a smart drug that has some conditions encoded for its release; and it will be released and activated only at the right time and at the right location when a disease is diagnosed."

Dr Lesley Walker, director of cancer information at Cancer Research UK, said: "This work gives us some insight into the rapid progress being made in this field and the blurring of the divisions between the computer and natural sciences.

"They have moved the concept of the physician in the body - or more specifically here, an entire cancer team in the body - one whole step closer to reality.

"Inevitably, there's a huge amount of work to be done before molecular computers like this can be used to treat people.

"In the meantime, the global research effort to identify the perfect targets for treatment in different cancers will ensure that the biomolecular computers of the future have the best possible programmes."

Spying software watches you work

Spyware has infected almost all companies polled for a survey about web-using habits at work.

Nine out of 10 of the technology managers questioned said machines at their firm had programs that spied on the browsing habits of staff.

The computer staff estimated that, on average, 29% of work PCs had spyware surreptitiously installed on them.

By contrast only 6% of users questioned believed that the machine they use had been infected by such software.

Browsing risk

The figures came to light during the annual Web@Work survey commissioned by mail filtering and security firm Websense.

Spyware is the name given to small programs that accompany popular applications such as the Kazaa and Morpheus file-sharing software.

As the name implies the software surreptitiously keeps an eye on what a user is interested in or searches for.

Once installed the spyware can redirect web searches, install bookmarks or bombard a user with pop-up ads tailored to other search terms.

"Most employees don't even know they are infected;" said Peter Firstbrook, analyst at the Meta Group

He said spyware could be a nuisance, an invasion of privacy and, in the case of the most malicious spyware, can steal confidential information.

Other sections of the Web@Work survey reveal just how this spyware may have made its way onto work PCs.

Of the PC users who took part in the survey, 22% of men questioned said they had looked at a pornographic website while at work, and 2% of all those questioned said they looked at hacking sites.

Technology managers said 10% of the total storage space in a workplace is taken up by non-work related items such as video clips, music tracks, images and other files.

The survey found that employees spend, on average, about two hours per week surfing the web for personal, rather than work, reasons.

By contrast, technology managers believed that this personal surfing took up more than six hours per week.

The survey also revealed how important access to the net at work has become to many people.

When asked if people would rather give up personal surfing or their morning coffee the respondents were split almost equally.

49% said they would rather lose morning coffee, but 46% said they needed their java more than their browsing fix.

'Whites-only' money for SA town

A whites-only enclave is launching its own currency just two days after South Africa celebrated the 10th anniversary of the end of apartheid.

Orania is a small town in the northern Cape populated by white Afrikaners, including the grandson of Henrik Vorwoerd, the architect of apartheid.

The currency will be known as the ora and is available in four denominations.

A spokesman said the currency could only be spent within the town and would be worthless if stolen by outsiders.

"The whole idea is that we are actually working towards the idea of a community that is self-sufficient," said spokeswoman Eleanor Lombard.

"The symbols on the ora 10 note showed the Afrikaner's history, the ora 20 note his art, the ora 50 note his culture and the ora 100 note depicted Orania," she said.

A spokesperson for South Africa's Reserve Bank said the voucher or currency must not resemble any of the South African bank notes. An Oranian spokesman told the BBC that the new notes had been designed by a local artist and the celebrations in the town hall would be preceded by songs and on-stage sketches.

The BBC's correspondent in South Africa, Barnaby Phillips, says the ANC government is ideologically opposed to the concept of a whites-only homeland but instead of confronting Orania, has tended to ignore it.

'Fruit salad'

Ms Lombard rejected suggestions that the new currency was a sign that the community had rejected a multi-racial South Africa.

"South African society is like a fruit salad - if I am allowed to be whatever I am - a banana, an apple or whatever - I can add to the flavour," she told Reuters news agency.

"If I am all squashed up, I cannot contribute."

Many of Orania's 600 residents say they have come here to escape the violence and crime prevalent in the rest of South Africa.

Their main industry is agriculture.

BASIC computer language turns 40

10 PRINT "In 1963 two Dartmouth College math professors had a radical"
20 PRINT "idea - create a computer language muscular enough to harness"
30 PRINT "the power of the period?s computers, yet simple enough that even"
40 PRINT "the school's janitors could use it."
50 END

A year later on May 1, 1964, the BASIC computer programing language (as demonstrated above) was born and for the first time computers were taken out of the lab and brought into the community.

"This is the birth of personal computing," said Arthur Luehrmann, a former Dartmouth physics professor who is writing a book about how the Hanover, N.H., school developed the language.

"It was personal computing before people knew what personal computing was."

Forty years later pure BASIC (Beginners? All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) has all but disappeared, but its legacy lives on in some programing languages, including much of what powers the Internet.

Paul Vick, a senior developer at Microsoft, said his company owes much to BASIC, which was its first product.

"Both Windows and Office really would not have made it as far as they have without the support of the BASIC language," he said, noting that both products still use a descendent of BASIC called Visual Basic.

BASIC came about in an age when computers were large, expensive and the exclusive province of scientists, many of whom were forced to buy research time on the nation?s handful of machines.

Dartmouth math professors Thomas Kurtz and John Kemeny envisioned something better, an unprecedented system that would give their entire school ? from the faculty to the food service staff ? simultaneous access to a computer.

"It?s hard to give young folks a feel for what it was like back then. It was pretty crude," Kurtz said in a recent interview. "It really was very hard to get anything done with computers and punch cards." Kemeny died in 1992.

Using existing technology called time sharing, the men created a primitive network to allow multiple users to access a single computer at the same time via terminals scattered around the campus.

They also needed a programming language simple enough for anyone to use. With the help of students, the men spent a year developing a commonsense language that relied on basic equations and commands, such as PRINT, LIST and SAVE.

John McGeachie was one of the first students to work with Kurtz and Kemeny and was there at 4 a.m. on May 1, 1964, when BASIC came to life in the basement of Dartmouth?s College Hall.

Two terminals hooked up to a single computer ran two different programs.

"I don?t think anybody knew how it would end up catching on," said McGeachie, now 61 and a software designer. "It was just enormously exciting for us as students to be working on something so many people said couldn?t be done."

By working with time-sharing technology, BASIC essentially became time management for a computer, allowing it to focus its processing power a few seconds at a time on a multitude of programs being run from different terminals.

"It gave people an enormous improvement in responsiveness and the feeling that while they were sitting there at some teletype in some closet somewhere off in some department that they had full use of the computer," said Kurtz, 76.

"The thing just took off like crazy after that," he said.

Within a short time nearly everyone at Dartmouth ? a humanities-based college ? had some BASIC experience. And it wasn?t long before the business community took notice.

Kurtz said that by 1970 nearly 100 companies used BASIC systems to share and sell time on computers. And when computers eventually entered the consumer market, most used BASIC.

"More people in the world know or have known how to program in BASIC than any other computer language," Kurtz said, noting that most contemporary computer languages are too difficult for the layman to tackle.

This was long before the days of software on CDs or even floppy disks. Programs for home use mostly were sold as books with hundreds of pages of code a user had to enter one line at a time.

The popularity of BASIC waned as computers got more sophisticated and newer languages were developed to take advantage of the power. Many of those languages, including the Internet?s Java, have their roots in BASIC.

Harry McCracken, editor-in-chief of PC World magazine, laments BASIC?s demise.

"On some level I think it?s sad that it went away," he said. "People went from being creators of software to consumers."

BASIC still is available commercially. In addition to Microsoft?s Visual Basic, copies of True BASIC ? a much closer relative to the language Kurtz and Kemeny designed ? are sold by John Lutz, of Hartford, Vt.

He sells about 3,000 copies a year, mostly to high schools and hobbyists who learned it decades ago.

"We?re finding that that group is right at retirement age, is still using computers and is delighted to pick up where they left off in the ?70s," Kurtz said.

Dyehard Science: Brain Enhancement Drugs and Treatments Have Some Worried

Medical breakthroughs in recent years have led to wondrous benefits for the sick and the injured, but they have also empowered us to tinker with human biology in unprecedented ways. Some experts are concerned that we are on the brink of changing what it means to be human by enhancing healthy brains.

We are knocking at the doorway to Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, with mind altering drugs, potential brain implants, and magnetic stimulation that may someday make it possible for normal college students to breeze through finals in a way they can only dream of today.

As exciting as that may sound, it's a pathway fraught with pitfalls, because no one really knows precisely where the path will lead, and what the final consequences will be in a growing effort to make us think, remember, and even forget, better than we can today.

No one is predicting that Huxley's grim, loveless, and highly manipulated world is just around the corner, and hopefully humans will never venture that far into playing God, but we've already taken the first few steps.

Confronting the Future

Americans spend more than $1 billion a year on nutritional supplements in hopes of improving their memory — a form of brain enhancement at its most basic level — even though it's not known for certain that the drugs actually help.

And the controversial drug Ritalin, normally prescribed for children with attention deficit disorder, is now widely taken by college students to give them an edge in their academic performance, especially while preparing for a major exam.

"We are starting to tamper with our biology," says Judy Illes, senior research scholar in biomedical ethics at Stanford University School of Medicine. "There are significant ethical issues that need to be addressed head on."

Illes is one of the leaders of a movement within the neuroscientific community to get out ahead of the potential ethical issues and establish guidelines that will facilitate ongoing research. Part of their goal is to avoid public relations blunders that could hamper progress — doing to them what fear over potential human cloning has done to geneticists.

"We want to formulate some policy from the inside that empowers the research, so it doesn't get tripped up along the way because of some sort of bad press or catastrophic event," Illes says.

Illes co-chaired a blue ribbon panel of experts last June, sponsored by the National Science Foundation and the New York Academy of Sciences, who grappled with the unknowns of where modern science may be leading us in this brand new arena.

The results of that meeting were published in the April 20 online issue of Nature Reviews Neuroscience, and they offer much food for thought. The panel, consisting of neuroscientists, ethicists, psychologists and educators, concluded that the new age of brain enhancement is already here, and the future is very murky indeed.

"Neither the benefits nor the dangers of neurocognitive enhancement are trivial," the panel concluded. The panelists were much more comfortable with the use of mind altering drugs to heal the sick than they were with boosting the brain power of normal, healthy persons.

Tinkering With Personhood

This is a far trickier area than the use of cosmetic surgery to improve appearances, or steroids to improve physical performance, the panel concluded, because it tampers with our basic "personhood."

"Neurocognitive enhancement involves intervening in a far more complex system, and we are therefore at great risk of unanticipated problems," the panel warns. No one knows at this point if taking Ritalin during finals will result in a more rapid mental decline in old age.

Some drugs, and some new technologies, have improved normal mental performance in laboratory settings, but they didn't work the same for everybody.

"Those with lower levels of performance are more likely to benefit from enhancement than those with higher levels," the panelists said. Thus widespread use of brain enhancing drugs might lessen the gap between the smart and the not-so-smart, a "homogenization" of human cognitive prowess, as Illes puts it.

The panel dealt mainly with drugs, because that's where so much action is these days. Virtually every major pharmaceutical company in the world is working on drugs that would enhance memory, and some are in advanced stages of clinical trials. Most of these drugs strengthen synapses, the electrical contact points at which brain cells trade information, but some are targeting such things as the way the brain records memories.

Conversely, a number of companies are developing drugs that will let us erase unpleasant memories, like witnessing a traumatic event, to help patients deal with depression over something they cannot forget.

A number of drugs are under development that will help normal people deal better with a wide range of mental challenges, including coping with emotions. The military is experimenting with drugs that would ease fear, for example, thus making combat a more cerebral challenge, and less emotional.

But University of Pennsylvania bioethicist Arthur Caplan worries that soldiers so enhanced — fearless in battle — may also be far more vulnerable.

Pulse Personality

One of the most promising areas of research is at the far end of high technology. It's called "transcranial magnetic stimulation," and it holds great promise for treating persons with severe depression, or various mental disorders. "TMS," as it is called, uses magnets to increase or decrease activity in very specific areas of the brain.

It's only been around for a couple of decades, and it's so non-invasive that persons who might otherwise have to undergo brain surgery, or electric shock treatments, hardly feel a thing. A magnetic coil, held against the scalp, produces magnetic pulses that easily pass through the skull, inducing an electric current that alters the activity of specific brain cells — depending on how the coil is programed — either increasing or decreasing their activity.

There doesn't seem to be much debate over using this very promising technique to treat the sick, but that's not all it can do. In one experiment, researchers found that TMS accelerated the ability of normal volunteers to solve problems that required analytical reasoning.

Does that mean someday we will all wear electrified hats that regulate our thought process, thus making us something very different than we are today? Maybe, but maybe not. No one really knows where all of this is leading.

In Huxley's Brave New World, babies were engineered so that they would grow up ideally suited to perform certain tasks. Not too bright if they were to be worker bees, and fearless if they were to be soldiers, but Huxley didn't originate that idea.

Plato, in ancient Greece, argued that people should be told what material they were made of, wood for some, so they would accept more menial chores. He figured gold would be reserved for philosophers, like him, who would also serve as king.

Both, one would hope, were wrong. Huxley of describing improbable science. Plato of bad philosophy.

Flying Saucer Fever Grips Iran, Theories Abound

Is Iran about to be invaded by little green men or are the Americans racing through the night sky in spaceships to spy on the Islamic Republic?

Flying saucer fever has gripped Iran after dozens of sightings in the last few days. Fanciful cartoons of alien spacecraft have adorned the front pages.

State television on Wednesday showed a sparkling white disc it said was filmed over Tehran on Tuesday night.

More colorful Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) have been spotted beaming out green, red, blue and purple rays over the northern cities of Tabriz and Ardebil and in the Caspian Sea province of Golestan, the official IRNA news agency reported.

Newspapers and agencies reported people rushing out into the streets in eight towns on Tuesday night to watch a bright extraterrestrial light dipping in and out of the clouds.

An airforce officer in the Revolutionary Guards was quoted in the reformist Vagha-ye Etefaghiyeh daily saying Iran's Supreme National Security Council should investigate whether these visitors from afar had hostile intent.

But Sa'dollah Nasiri-Qeydari, head of the Astronomical Society of Iran, told Reuters the stories were unfounded.

"In my opinion, flying saucers do not exist," he said, insisting his telescopes would have picked up invaders from outer space.

"The people who have seen these things are not experts - farmers, villagers and pilots," he added.

He said what people reported was consistent with the planet Venus, whose intense light in its current position would be given different hues by being filtered through the atmosphere.

Life-saving kangaroo wins award

Lulu the kangaroo will leap into the record books when she becomes the first marsupial to receive a bravery award.

She'll receive the RSPCA's Australian Animal Valour Award for saving the life of a farmer knocked unconscious.

Leonard Richards, 52, was hit by a falling branch, as he checked for storm damage on his property last September.

Lulu, who was reared by the Richards family, made a huge commotion to alert others, in a scene similar to the 1960s Australian children's series Skippy.

"It's the first time a native animal has ever received the award," said RSPCA executive officer Jenny Hodges.

"Certainly the vast majority of recipients have been dogs," she told the Associated Press.

'Pushing up daisies'

Mr Richards said he owed his life to the four-year-old kangaroo, who they rescued from the pouch of her mother killed in a road accident.

"I'd be pushing up daisies if it wasn't for Lulu," he said.

He estimates he was unconscious for around half an hour after being struck by the branch not far from the house on his farm, 150 kilometres (93 miles) east of Melbourne.

His wife, Lynn, said at the time she had been alerted by the kangaroo's out-of-character behaviour.

"I heard Lulu, she has this bark, and its a very loud bark that she gives out, not like a dog's sound it's quite a nice sound," she said.

"I just looked down and I [saw] her at the paddock and Brendan our nephew was with us and I said to him, Len's down there," she told Reuters news agency.

Mr Richards said his nephew told him afterwards that Lulu had been standing over him with her hind legs at his back.

"She looked like she'd rolled me over on my side to keep my airway clear, but we'll never know for sure," he said.

He was evacuated by helicopter to a Melbourne hospital and has since made a full recovery.

Lulu is only the ninth animal to receive the RSPCA's award honouring animals that display exceptional courage in the face of danger.

"What she did was really exceptional," said Jenny Hodges.

The story is reminiscent of the long-running Skippy series, about a kangaroo that rescues people in distress in the Australian bush.

Orcas boost calls amid boat noise

Killer whales living off the west coast of the US are extending the length of their calls to each other to be heard above the din of heavy boat traffic.

The findings come from an analysis of killer whale, or orca, calls by British and US researchers which has been published in the journal Nature.

The orcas make longer calls when boats are present in an apparent attempt to be heard above the engine noise.

But the orcas only take this action when noise reaches a critical level.

The killer whales observed in the study came from a population that lives close to the shore in waters off Washington state.

There has been a sharp increase in the number of boats in the area over the past decade. A major commercial shipping lane cuts through the waters, while tourism and whale-watching have become increasingly popular.

Numbers of killer whales have been dropping here since 1996.

Researchers from the University of Durham, UK, and the Whale Museum in Friday Harbor, US, compared recordings of calls made by orcas over the periods 1977-81, 1989-92 and 2001-03 in waters made in the absence and presence of boats.

Although no significant difference was found in the length of calls over the 1977-81 and 1989-92 period, the team found a 10-15% increase in the duration of calls made by the orcas during the 2001-03 period.

Long calls

This would appear to suggest that the whales are altering the length of their calls to be heard above the din of background noise from boats.

"The whale-watching vessels quite often act as a beacon attracting the tourist boats," co-author Andrew Foote of the University of Durham told BBC News Online.

"This increases the amount of traffic around the whales even more. While the whale-watching vessels behave responsibly - try not to start their engines up when they're on top of the whales and so on - the tourists aren't always aware of quite how to behave with the whales."

If the growth in boat traffic continues apace, it could start interfering with the orcas' ability to find food, says Mr Foote. The animals partly make calls to keep in touch, but also to co-ordinate foraging.

However, the researchers suggest that because the number of boats increased about fivefold between 1990 and 2000, the orcas only start making longer calls once boat noise reaches a threshold.

Numbers of boats following the killer whales, including registered whale-watching boats and private tourist boats increased roughly fivefold from 1990 to 2000.

NZ's famous sheep gets TV haircut

A renegade New Zealand sheep that managed to evade the shearers for six years has finally had a haircut.

Shrek, the Merino sheep, was shorn live on national television by top shearers David Fagan and Peter Casserley.

The 10-year-old sheep had managed to roam freely on New Zealand's South Island for more than six years before being finally rounded up.

Shrek's giant fleece - possibly the largest ever - is to be auctioned off for children's medical charities.

Shrek went under the shearer's blade during a live half-hour news programme on TV New Zealand.

Correspondents said the contrast between the gigantic woolly mammal that entered the studio and the much leaner version that left could not have been greater.

'Biblical creature'

Bendigo hill station owner John Perriam told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that Shrek had managed to evade capture for six years by hiding in a cave.

"We didn't know he was there," he said, adding that when he was finally spotted they did not immediately recognise him as a sheep.

"He looked like some biblical creature."

Mr Perriam said Shrek was shorn with scissors to ensure a thin layer of wool was left in place to protect him from the oncoming winter.

The 27kg (60lb) fleece - enough to make 20 large men's suits - is to be auctioned off over the internet.

It is unclear what the future now holds for Shrek himself though, says the BBC's Phil Mercer in Sydney.

He is too old to be sold for mutton, but a new career in marketing may now lie ahead - promoting New Zealand's lucrative trade in wool.

Robotic bollards to take control

Robotic bollards that can quickly move across a carriageway to close off lanes have been developed by US engineers.

Each 130cm-high robot takes the form of a bright red barrel which sits atop a three-wheeled motorised base.

A group of the bollards can be directed into position with a laptop and a main control unit equipped with a satellite navigation system for accuracy.

A University of Nebraska-Lincoln team has told New Scientist magazine the robots could improve roadside safety.

"Deploying and retrieving highway markers on open roads is hazardous so the robots will reduce risks for workmen," researcher Shane Farritor said.

Bad barrel

The project is still at the prototype stage and costs will have to be reduced to make the idea commercially viable.

Farritor's team hopes to get the unit price down to $200 (£110).

"At that price I believe the savings will mean it will still be affordable if one dies in the line of duty," said the engineer.

It is envisaged the road markers would be delivered to a location by a specially equipped truck.

A camera on the vehicle would image the road and send a picture to a worker's laptop. The worker would then indicate on the screen where they wanted the bollards to be deployed.

Software developed by the Nebraska team would then obtain the precise coordinates and feed these to the "shepherd" unit so it could lead its herd of red robots into position.

Moving forward

The bollards, which are connected via a radio link, move at just over a metre a second. The shepherd constantly monitors them for positional errors and can, if necessary, remove an errant robot from the line-up.

"It's a pretty simple idea," Assistant Professor Farritor, from the university's Walter Scott Engineering Center, told BBC News. "They can self-deploy and self-retrieve, and remove workers from the dangerous job of putting out these safety devices.

"We're designing the system in such a way that the barrels are very stupid - so that they are very reliable and inexpensive.

"High reliability is a concern but we think we're making great progress and have a solution that will work."

Can the Smart car move America?

The Smart car is a familiar sight in Europe as it squeezes through traffic to find parking spaces too small for anyone else. But how will the tiny car fare on the streets of the US where size really matters?

Big, as far as most US car-makers is concerned, is definitely beautiful. Anyone trying to convince drivers to take to a Smart car in the States may well have their work cut out.

Which may be the reason why, even though the car is being promoted aggressively in the US - DaimlerChrysler sponsoring marathons in New York and Boston - the company has decided not to sell the car in the world's biggest car market until 2006.

With its compact looks and low petrol consumption, the Smart car has been embraced by many European motorists since its launch in 1998. And there is no doubt its blobby swagger would fit the glamour of Mercedez-Benz's flagship Manhattan showroom, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.

But will US drivers take it seriously?

"There is an increasing emphasis on design in America," says Scott Keogh, general manager of Smart USA. "It's even spread to things that were considered plain objects before, from watches to knives and forks. We want to inject emotion and brand values into the entry-level vehicle, which is traditionally seen here as just a commodity."

Mini influence

"Definitely a metrosexual car," chuckles Dan Neil, a critic with the Los Angeles Times. Mr Neil's feel for motoring trends and witty columns have made him the first automotive journalist to receive a Pulitzer prize, earlier this year.

"The success of BMW's Mini has lowered the threshold of what's seen as an acceptable size. There is a trend towards cute, adorable miniaturisation."

The Smart car, Mr Neil suggests, may be inadequate on Michigan's battered roads or in rough, highway-choked LA. But in the "smoother urban environments" of Boston, Chicago, or Miami Beach, it could clearly catch on.

Cultural obstacles remain, however. Even as a car for the urban sophisticate, the Smart would be sharing street space with the macho 4x4 sports utility vehicle (SUV), which occupies a large share of the US car market.

The Smart car's style credentials would make it an ideal product to target at women drivers. But in the US, surveys suggest women also tend to choose large SUVs because they make them feel safe.

"Anything that size in this country is basically SUV road kill," sneers recent New Yorker Michelle Baran. Originally from southern California, Michelle has lived - and driven - in both Europe and the US. "Small equals murder here, and the Smart is a case of style over practicality."

Hybrid vehicles

But Jenny Silver, a lifelong Brooklyn resident, is an early convert: she and her husband are "dead against SUVs".

"I think it's ridiculous to have an SUV in New York. In the backwoods of Maine or other rural areas, maybe, but not here."

Jenny is making plans for the day the couple's current car, which has seen better days, finally expires. "We're now looking at the hybrid vehicles that Toyota and Honda make," she adds, "and we'd definitely be up for a Smart."

Mindful of an enduring SUV bias, DaimlerChrysler has re-interpreted the acronym to fit a new product: it will be entering the US market with what it calls a Smart Utility Vehicle.

Named Fourmore, and seating four people, the model is halfway between a European city car and an American SUV. Slick as the former and powerful as the latter?

It will be very small by SUV standards, insists Scott Keogh of Smart USA, and much lighter. "But," he adds, "with all the innovation and versatility you'd expect. The Fourmore is meant for those who want to stand out and be distinct."

Smart estimates that around 30,000 Americans will want to stand out and be distinct in the first year. Set against the 17 million or so cars sold annually in the US, that number may appear small.

But it's far from negligible for a newly-launched niche vehicle. Mr Keogh hopes it will give Smart the leverage to begin marketing its miniature models, including the two-seater city-coupe, which measures just 2.5 metres.

Aside from looks and size, European customers are drawn to the Smart car for its reduced environmental impact. Not only is the car almost entirely recylable, but it meets the EU's most stringent gas emissions standards, known as Euro 4. Its fuel consumption is also low, even by economy-car criteria. Yet that argument traditionally carries less weight in the US, where access to cheap and plentiful petrol is seen as a civic entitlement.

Now, however, with prices at the pump spiralling, Dan Neil of the LA Times forecasts a "sea-change" in attitudes. He believes over-reliance on imports is starting to bring home to drivers the true cost of oil. "The US consumer," says Mr Neil, "needs a hard shock to be nudged in the right direction."

Sherlock expert in death mystery

A leading Sherlock Holmes expert died after being garrotted with a shoelace, an inquest has heard.

Richard Lancelyn Green, 50, from Kensington, died from asphyxiation, Westminster Coroner's Court was told.

Coroner Dr Paul Knapman recorded an open verdict and said the ex-chairman of the Sherlock Holmes Society of London suffered a "very unusual death".

Mr Lancelyn Green was paranoid people were trying to smear his name and plot against him, the inquest was told.

'Obsessed with legacy'

Dr Knapman said there was not enough evidence to rule in or out suicide, murder or a sexual act gone wrong.

Mr Lancelyn Green was found in his bed, surrounded by cuddly toys and a bottle, after a wooden spoon was used to tighten the shoelace around his neck.

Mr Lancelyn Green, who co-edited a book about the Sherlock Holmes creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, had strong concerns about the planned auction of the author's papers, the inquest heard.

The court was told he thought "someone in America" was preparing to dirty his name and he was becoming increasingly obsessed with the Conan Doyle legacy and the impending sale.

The death has provoked more rumours about the so-called "curse of Conan Doyle" - several people connected with the Sherlock Holmes author have died unexpectedly early or have faced legal battles over the family archives.

Verdict

The coroner said: "There are many comments in this case in favour of suicide. He was acting strangely and he seemed to be scared and there is no evidence of violence.

"I am perfectly content to say that suicide is the most likely possibility but we have no note and it's a very unusual way of killing yourself to put a lace, which must hurt, around the neck and continue to twist it.

"The second possibility is unusual behaviour - often some form of deviant sexual behaviour. There is nothing that actually points to this form of death.

"As for murder, there is not much in the way of direct evidence.

"It's an unusual form of death that can be done by others. We do have interesting messages from him about the paranoia he was feeling but it is assumed by all to be without much foundation."

'Like a thriller'

Mr Lancelyn Green's sister, Priscilla, told the inquest she had become worried about her brother in the week before his death after a string of bizarre conversations.

"It was clear he was very concerned about the upcoming Sherlock Holmes sale," she said.

"This was Richard's life - Conan Doyle. It seemed that something about this sale was worrying him enormously and I tried to get him to explain to me what it was.

"He made comments about his own reputation, about the possibility of his name being in the papers, about people behaving in a way he did not expect them to and doing things he did not expect them to."

He had sent here a strange note with three names and their telephone numbers on it which had seemed to Ms Lancelyn Green "to be the beginning of a thriller novel".

The document had "Please keep these names safe" written on it.

Hunted?

Police found Mr Lancelyn Green's body after his sister could reach no reply from his London house.

The last known person to see the Holmes expert alive was his former boyfriend, care worker Lawrence Keen, from Roehampton.

They had been out for dinner the night before Mr Lancelyn Green's body was found and Mr Keen said his friend had been "quite depressed".

"He asked me to go in the garden because he thought the flat was bugged," Mr Keen told the inquest.

"His mind was not its normal self and he was telling me someone in America was trying to hunt him down in the Sherlock Holmes Society."

Duck USB Memory Storage

For those light-at-heart and animal lovers out there, Solid Alliance (Japan) has released a new i-Duck USB Memory Storage device.

The i-Duck uses a USB 1.1 interface and has a maximum storage capacity of 256MB. When plugged into your computer?s USB port, the i-Duck will light up. Six different colors are available: pink, yellow, blue. Tangerine, Army, and Heart.

Giant African snails seized from schools

Federal health officials have seized several dangerous pests called Giant African Land Snails from Wisconsin classrooms and have started a national search for the creatures, which reproduce rapidly, destroy plants and can transmit meningitis.

The snails, which are illegal to have in the United States, were used in classrooms by unwitting school officials, said Willie Harris, eastern regional director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Safeguarding, Intervention and Trade Compliance Program.

Snails have been seized in the past month from Wisconsin cities including Big Bend, Menasha and Milwaukee. Officials so far have not found any others elsewhere.

They are concerned the snails, about the size of a person's hand, could be transported to states with warmer climates, where they can rapidly reproduce and destroy plants.

In 1966, a Miami boy smuggled three Giant African Land Snails into the country. His grandmother eventually released them into a garden, and in seven years there were more than 18,000 of them. The eradication program took 10 years, according to the USDA.

Five of the snails donated to Nicolet Elementary School in Menasha by a parent were seized after teachers learned they were illegal, said the school's principal, Linda Joosten.

"They were very cool creatures," Joosten said.

The snails, native to Africa but also found in parts of Asia, are known to consume as many as 500 different plants and their mucous can transmit meningitis.

Snail smugglers can face fines of up to $1,000 per charge. Harris said people who have the snails without knowing they are illegal will not face punishment.

One Frugal Family

How the Cheapest Family in America Saves Cash

With gas and grocery prices soaring, Americans could learn from one Arizona family that has been beating the high cost of living for years.

Rising gas prices have been all over the news, but you might not know that your groceries are getting much more expensive as well, with the cost of staples such as milk, butter and eggs skyrocketing. In March, a gallon of milk cost $2.79 on average, compared with $2.66 last March. Butter averaged $3.47 a pound, compared with $3 last year. And, this year, eggs will set you back $1.63 for a dozen, compared with $1.21 last year.

Annette and Steve Economide, and their five children, ages 10 to 21, have mastered the art of living on the cheap. Their mission: to maintain a reputation they've proudly earned ? or maybe saved ? the old-fashioned way. The Arizona clan says it's proud to be America's cheapest family.

"We started out our marriage with so little money that we decided we were going to live within our means," said Annette Economide. "From day one, we were not going to accrue any kind of debt, of any kind."

The Economides say careful planning allowed them to pay off their first house in just nine years, even though their family income averaged just $33,000 a year. Their second home is nearly paid off as well.

Steve Economides, who calls himself the family's "cheap economizing officer," is a freelance graphic artist. He and his wife runs the family business, HomeEconomiser, a Web site and newsletter dedicated to helping people live within their means.

The Economides spend $350 a month on food and cleaning products, feeding seven mouths for 30 days.

Careful Planning

How do they do it?

Step one: Careful planning. The Economides make a grocery list and check it three times before heading to the store.

"These women that are at the grocery store every day, three times a week, are spending gobs of money on food that they don't need to be spending," said Annette Economides.

"It takes a little bit of time to sit down and plan a menu. But you eat better, you save more money, and it creates less stress in your life."

Step two, they say, is using coupons, and having them clipped, filed and ready for action when they arrive at the store.

The family goes to the store with walkie-talkies and scours for bargains. On one recent trip, Steve asked his wife over the walkie-talkie: "Vidalia or yellow onions?"

"Oh, get the vidalia," came the reply.

Step three is a carefully coordinated in-store check for last-minute deals on the shelves.

"Buy one, get two free," Annette said, reading from a coupon for brownie mix. "So you now have three boxes. And I have a coupon for another dollar off. All three for $1.19!"

Step four of the family's money-saving plan involves having a lot of freezer space. Whatever the family cannot consume right away can be purchased and saved for a later day.

"One day a month the family all cooks meals," Annette said. "And we put away anywhere from 13 to 17 meals in a freezer."

No Plastic

Step five is to avoid credit cards ? and their costly interest payments. The couple has never used a credit card in 22 years of marriage.

Their advice to other families, which they offer both in seminars and on their Web site, is make a plan and stick to it. First, figure out how much you need to pay your monthly expenses.

"Right now, we need $3,400 a month to cover everything," said Steve Economides. "Then we take everything over that amount and split it into three. One third goes into a house fund, to cover any house emergencies. One third goes into a 'fun' account, for vacations, and one third for our family goes to charity, but for other families can go to mutual funds or other kinds of savings."

To receive a free sample issue of The HomeEconomiser Newsletter, go to www.HomeEconomiser.com.

Danish artist continues to paint the town red

The Danish artist who recently made headlines for painting an iceberg is continuing his "red" period with an unusual -- and unwanted -- gift to South Africa, which celebrates the 10th anniversary of the end of apartheid Tuesday.

Chilean-born artist Marco Evaristti poured red organic dye into a fountain located in an upmarket section of Johannesburg Sunday. The artist said the gesture was his attempt to beautify a "very badly proportioned and really ugly" statue of Nelson Mandela, which stands next to the fountain.

"I want to make something pretty for the country to celebrate its 10 years of democracy," the 41-year-old said of his work, which he entitled Pink Elephant in Mandela Square, in an interview Monday. "I want to bring some happiness."

"I first wanted to paint a real elephant pink, but authorities wanted $7,490 US for it. So I rather went for the statue," he said.

"The management wants me to pay for damages, but I refuse. I will rather go to trial and exercise my right to free speech."

Officials at Mandela Square declined to comment.

In March, Evaristti and a small team spray-painted an iceberg off the Greenland coast blood red. Scheduled to visit Canada this Thursday before continuing to France, the controversial artist declined to say if he will practise his art in those countries because he believes authorities may try to stop him.

"But it will be beautiful," Evaristti said.

The visual and performance artist, whose website calls him "preoccupied with blood," drew both attention and disdain in 2000 with a gallery exhibit featuring 10 working blenders filled with goldfish. A patron took up Evaristti's invitation to turn the devices on and ground up a pair of fish. The gallery's director was charged with animal cruelty but was later acquitted.

Mona Lisa shows her age

The Mona Lisa, Leonardo da Vinci's 16th-century masterpiece, is deteriorating quickly, officials at France's Louvre Museum announced Monday.

An in-depth study will be conducted to determine why the thin, poplar wood panel on which the work is painted has experienced a significant deformation since the last time the painting was analysed by conservation experts.

The work, which depicts a mysterious woman with a slight smile, undergoes evaluation once every year or two.

While the condition of the world's most famous painting is causing "some worry," the estimated six million visitors a year who visit the Louvre Museum in Paris won't have to miss out on seeing the Mona Lisa, also known as La Gioconda in Italian.

"These analyses will take place in such a way as to allow the work to remain on public display," a museum spokesperson said.

The Centre for Research and Restoration of Museums of France will conduct the study.

New flag chosen for Iraq

BAGHDAD - Iraq's governing council has picked a new flag for the country.

The new one has two parallel blue stripes on the bottom representing the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, with a yellow stripe between them representing the country's Kurdish minority. A blue crescent above the stripes symbolizes Islam.

"This is a new era. We cannot continue with Saddam's flag," said Hameed al-Kafaei, the council's spokesperson.

The old flag had red and white bands across the top and bottom with three green stars floating in the middle. Deposed leader Saddam Hussein added the Arabic words "Allahu akbar" ("God is great") during the 1980s.

Not all council members agree with the idea of a new flag. Some say there should be a new, elected government before a major national symbol is altered.

"I think there are issues more important to concentrate on now than the changing of the flag," said council member Mahmoud Othman.

Study finds seasonal change in cholesterol levels

Blood cholesterol levels peak during autumn and winter but decline in spring and summer, perhaps because warm weather and more activity add volume to the blood, researchers announced.

The report from the University of Massachusetts Medical Center in Worcester was based on a study of 517 healthy men and women who were tracked quarterly over a year on their diet, physical activity, exposure to light, general behavior and cholesterol.

It found that the average cholesterol level was 222 milligrams per deciliter of blood in men and 213 in women. If a patient's total blood cholesterol is between 200-239 milligrams per deciliter, that reading is considered borderline high and means lifestyle changes are needed to avoid a heart attack, according to a National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute Web site. A reading above 240 milligrams is considered high or in "the danger zone," the Web site said.

Among men studied, cholesterol levels increased on average by 3.9 milligrams per deciliter of blood, peaking in December, and in women by 5.4 milligrams, peaking in January.

In general the increases were greater in those who had elevated cholesterol levels to begin with. Nearly a quarter of those studied went above the 240 marker in the winter, the study said.

The report, published Monday in the Archives of Internal Medicine, said warmer weather in the summer and more activity probably contribute to a dilution of the blood cholesterol. Among other things exercise facilitates sodium and water retention, the report said.

The authors said it is possible that some people may be misdiagnosed with high cholesterol if measurements are taken in winter -- if the damage to arteries that high cholesterol does is based on an absolute amount, diluted or not.

But it said season-specific cholesterol guidelines are not warranted based on this study. The authors called for more research "to better understand the mechanism through which physical activity and temperature control systems could aid in the prevention of coronary heart disease, morbidity and mortality."

German takes woman to court for laughing too loud

A German took his female neighbor to court for laughing too loudly.

But she had the last laugh -- the judge threw out the case, saying Germany could not ban laughter, newspapers reported on Tuesday.

Unemployed Bernd F., 52, complained to magistrates that 47-year-old Barbara M. kept him awake with over four hours of loud laughter one evening as she enjoyed a meal with eight friends in her Berlin flat above his, Bild daily said.

The judge dismissed the complaint of disturbing the peace, saying the woman had not broken any noise restrictions.

"Laughter is a general sound of life. It will not be banned," he said.

More orders of 'Law & Order,' 'CSI'

Networks playing it safe with franchise shows

NEW YORK (AP) -- Network executives spend much of their time this month in darkened rooms, watching pilots for new shows and guessing which can become hits.

Some of the guesswork is gone at CBS and NBC, where additional spinoffs of "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" and "Law & Order" are already penciled in.

They're the franchises, proven winners whose success is irresistible; it's no coincidence that CBS and NBC are the two most popular networks. The challenge comes in making sure expansion is not dilution, or that playing it safe ultimately doesn't make them sorry.

"They're like Dairy Queens popping up all over the terrain," Todd Holland, executive producer of Fox's recently canceled drama "Wonderfalls," said with a touch of envy.

The fourth "Law & Order" entry will be known as "Law & Order: Trial By Jury," and will star Jerry Orbach, who's spent 12 years portraying Detective Lennie Briscoe on the mother ship.

"CSI: New York," the third in that series, has two well-known actors as centerpieces: Melina Kanakaredes of "Providence" and Gary Sinise.

It's easy to see why both are being made. They're the closest thing in television to a sure thing. Each of the three previous spinoffs has succeeded, in a business where the vast majority of new series fail. ABC, for example, hasn't had a hit new drama in years.

Facing a room of reporters last week, CBS Chairman Leslie Moonves was willing to put his own money behind "CSI: New York."

"What show out there are you going to want to bet on more than that show?" he said. "I'll bet anybody in this room any amount of money that 'CSI: New York' is the highest-rated new show next season."
'It just bolstered the ratings'

Jerry Bruckheimer, executive producer of the "CSI" series, admitted he was concerned that a spinoff would hurt the original show when CBS first approached him about making "CSI: Miami."

"As it turned out, it just bolstered the ratings for 'CSI,' " Bruckheimer said. "More eyeballs keep coming to it. The ratings kept going up and the ratings keep going up for 'Miami."'

"Law & Order: SVU," the first drama to get the original's brand, was originally just titled "Sex Crimes," said Dick Wolf, its creator and executive producer.

He readily agreed to change the title to include the "Law & Order" brand. "Nobody involved in this had just fallen off a turnip truck," he said.

Wolf believes the three "Law & Order" shows -- and the new one he's writing -- are distinctive enough to work without the brand. They're not spinoffs in the sense that "CSI: Miami" is much the same show in a different city, he said.

"The value of the franchise is in the first six weeks that it's on the air, when there are 35, 36 new shows to sample," Wolf said. "The initial thrust of these shows is helped because the consumer says, well, I liked the last one, I might as well sample this one."

As a result, television is flooded with procedural crime dramas.

How much is too much?

A station manager at an NBC affiliate in Florida angered the network last fall when he publicly said the network was "like a one-trick pony. People like 'Law & Order' -- let's run it every night of the week."

ABC learned the dangers of overexposure the hard way a few years ago when it flooded its schedule with "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" and drowned when the show collapsed.

"You never know you've reached the saturation point until you've reached it," ABC entertainment chief Lloyd Braun said a couple weeks ago. "There's no warning light that goes off. At what point is it too much? It's hard to say. I hope it's too much, too soon (for his competitors)."

(Though not soon enough to help him; Braun lost his job because of ABC's struggles.)

But what about new ideas?

Moonves and his NBC counterpart, Jeff Zucker, say they've sensed no signs of viewers tiring of their franchises.

"The audience for these shows continues to grow and I don't think you can argue against the success of the franchise," Zucker said.

Producer Holland sees a more insidious worry with the franchise expansions: a creeping creative conservatism and fewer opportunities to try new ideas. With four "Law & Order" shows and three "CSIs," there's little room for newcomers on NBC's and CBS' schedules.

Moonves, in fact, said last week he'd seen only one new pilot so far this spring.

Holland was surprised by the caliber of writers available to him when he made "Wonderfalls." There were fewer places to work for people who weren't interested in forensics or crime dramas, he said.

"Everyone in the creative community is hungry for something fresh and new, something that breaks free of the terrain," he said. "I think we're all concerned about it."

The criticism might have some validity, Bruckheimer said, if there weren't so many cable networks and other outlets for material.

"It would be unfair if the shows weren't working," Wolf said. "I think it's kind of carping to say the audience is wrong."

One thing each of these franchise shows has in common is that they are all self-contained stories with a resolution each week. No extended commitment is required, and viewers don't feel they've lost track of the story when they miss a few weeks.

That makes the shows even more valuable to their networks, since their ratings hold up better in repeats than serialized dramas. The shows all have profitable futures in syndication, too.

"I think that 'Law & Order' is kind of comfort food for the mind," Wolf said. "It's also visual nicotine. It's very seductive. You get that same nice, comfortable roller-coaster ride whenever you tune in."

Boston parking spot sold for $160,000

As real estate spaces go, it's quite small. Still, it comes with heat and valet service, sits in a tony Boston neighborhood and costs a mere $160,000.

The escalating cost of parking, long a premium in Boston, hit home for many when it was learned that a 180-square-foot parking spot sold last month for $160,000 at the Brimmer Street Garage in the Beacon Hill neighborhood.

As prices for some spaces exceed the cost of a single-family house in other parts of the state, even seasoned real estate agents are muttering, "Whoa."

"I've said that on a number of occasions," said Richard Phipps, owner of Boston Real Estate Agents.

Since January 2003, seven spots have sold at the Brimmer Street Garage for at least $140,000, with one spot selling for a record $167,500 last August.

By comparison, a three-bedroom home in Westfield was listed for $159,900 this week, one of several listed under $160,000 in that western Massachusetts city.

Eye-popping as the prices are, broker John Forger, a 35-year veteran of the Boston real estate market, noted that people who pay $3 million for a Beacon Hill residence aren't going to worry much about a high-priced parking space.

"It's a lifestyle," he said.

Boston's prices, though high, don't top the national market.

In New York, spots range from $150,000 to $250,000 and in crowded San Francisco they max out at about $200,000, said Dick Delaney, a developer at Chicago-based Mark Goodman & Associates who specializes in the parking market. In Chicago, spots range from $30,000 to $80,000, he said.

The high prices are also found overseas. In February, a Londoner made headlines by listing a spot at $187,500.

Not all parking spots in Boston's exclusive neighborhoods are worth the equivalent of 12 Honda Civics. Spots in the South End can be had for a much more reasonable $39,000 to $100,000, according to data from the Listing Information Network Inc., a real estate information service that tracks the downtown condo market.

Phipps said the pricey spot