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'Hello, is this planet Earth?' Astronaut dials wrong number

Britain’s first astronaut on a space mission, Major Tim Peake, accidentally called the wrong number when trying to call home from space.

Major Peake quickly took to Twitter to insist that the incident was not a prank call “just a wrong number!” “I’d like to apologise to the lady I just called by mistake saying ‘Hello, is this planet Earth?’ — not a prank call... just a wrong number,” he tweeted from International Space Station. The 43-year-old, who is spending six months conducting scientific experiments on the station, has been unlucky with calls to the Earth and had earlier got his parents’ answering machine when he tried to wish them a Merry Christmas.

Earlier in the week, Peake helped two fellow crew members to conduct a space walk outside the ISS. Astronauts Tim Kopra and Scott Kelly, from the US space agency NASA, went outside the ISS to fix a broken component.

Peake, who is a former major in the Army, is the first Briton to join the crew of the ISS and is employed by the European Space Agency. Helen Sharman became the first British citizen to travel to space when she visited the Soviet Mir orbiting station in 1991.

Other Britons who have flown into space have done so either as private individuals or by taking US citizenship. Earlier this month Peake was waved off by his wife and two sons, Thomas, six, and Oliver, four, at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Neighbour calls cops on hearing US woman shout 'IS is great' during sex

Milwaukee County police asked the elderly woman to call back if she heard the chant again and a cop later took to Twitter to share the incident

New York: Call it bizarre or insane, but an 82-year-old elderly woman called police after she reportedly heard her female neighbour chanting “IS (Islamic State) is good, IS is great” while having sex, media reported on Wednesday.

The 82-year-old requested the police to come over as she heard the woman yelling in bed. 

The woman from Brown Deer in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, called the police requesting them to come over as she heard the woman yelling “IS is great” while the couple made love. Police, however, advised the woman to call back if she heard the “IS” chanting again.

Brown Deer police chief Michael Kass posted on Twitter: “Maybe taking ‘see something, say something’ a little too far?” Meanwhile, Twitter users took to jokes and speculations as the post went viral.

“They might have been role-playing as Egyption gods. Isis is probably very good!” tweeted @DannyDangerOz.

Some even suggested that the elderly woman who reported this may need to take her medication. Others, however defended the 82-year-old woman, saying the couple might just be “into really kinky stuff.”

'Amazing kindness' Hero pilot turns plane around to get grieving family to dad's funeral

A GRIEVING family on their way to their father’s funeral have praised a pilot who turned his plane around to pick them up after they missed their flight.

The family nearly missed their Delta Airlines flight

Nicole Wibel said she and her family were heartbroken after their plane was delayed meaning they missed their connecting flight with Delta Airlines to Tennessee where her 56-year-old father, who died of lung cancer, was due to be buried the next day.

She said her mother, Marcia Short, had been desperate to fulfill her late husband’s wishes of being buried in his home town and they were devastated when they arrived at the airport in Minneapolis to find the gate had already closed.

She said: “The heartache and thought of missing that flight hurt tremendously.”

Through tears, the family began waving their arms and screaming in a desperate bid to catch the pilot’s attention.

A member of the ground crew said there was nothing that could be done to stop the flight and the family watched in despair as the plane began to taxi towards the runway.

However, the group’s misery turn to joy when the phone rang and a message was relayed to the family that the plane would be returning to collect them.

Ms Wibel said: “When the phone rang at the desk and she said it was the pilot who insisted on bringing that plane back to the gate to let us on more tears came, but these were happy tears.

“I don’t have words. The pilot saw the tears, the sadness and desperation."

A Delta spokesman identified the pilot as Captain Adam Cohen of Endeavor Air, a Delta Airlines subsidiary.

Ms Wibel added: “It was solely the pilot’s decision. We need more people like that in this world.

“This Pilot deserves more praise than my family can give him.

“I hope others reading this will think twice and spread more kindness."

Wear Your Genes: Scarves Turn Your DNA Into Unique Pattern

Dot One creates personalized scarves featuring patterns based on a person's unique DNA sequence. View full size image

You can now buy scarves featuring designs based on your unique DNA sequence, making these items among the most personalized gifts ever made.
London-based company Dot One notes that each person shares about 50 percent of his or her DNA with bananas, 90 percent with mice and 99.9 percent with the other 7.3 billion humans on Earth. This leaves 0.1 percent of the genome to distinguish one person from another. Dot One, named after this 0.1 percent, seeks to highlight what makes everybody unique, with DNA-personalized items such as scarves and prints.
To create the patterns on the garments, Dot One has customers swab their cheeks to collect DNA samples. This swab is then sent to AlphaBiolabs, the United Kingdom's leading accredited provider of DNA testing. The lab uses polymerase chain reaction (PCR), a technique that creates many copies of DNA, to analyze the sample.

"DNA testing is no longer confined to the lab and is making its way into the consumer environment, yet there are still a lot of reservations from people fearful of decoding their own genetic language," said Dot One founder Iona Inglesby. "Customers are not used to doing an at-home DNA test as part of their retail experience, and Dot One, as a design company, is introducing this personalization method in a fun and engaging way. This process in the future may apply to how they are prescribed precision medicine from their general practitioner, use home diagnostic kits to track inherited diseases or even find a compatible partner using a DNA dating app."
The lab investigates specific locations in human chromosomes where genetic differences are known to occur, focusing on DNA variations known as short tandem repeats (STRs).
DNA is composed of strands of molecules known as nucleotides, which come in four varieties, labeled A, T, C and G. STRs are sequences of DNA normally two to five nucleotides long, which are repeated a varied number of times, depending on the individual, usually from five to 36.
For instance, at location D7S280 on chromosome 7, repeats of the sequence "GATA" occur. Individuals may have six to 15 repeats of GATA at this location. One pattern of STRs might lead to a string of red and blue squares on a scarf, while a different pattern might yield a string of green and pink squares. The colors "mirror the fluorescent dyes used in the process of DNA sequencing itself," Inglesby told Live Science.

Brothers hold up their personalized DNA prints.
Credit: Dot One

View full size image

Dot One focuses on 23 different STRs across several chromosomes. The fingerprint from these STRs is enough to distinguish any one person from everyone else on Earth, the company said.
"Genetics is absolutely fascinating. However, it is something which is hard to grasp — enormous in theory and yet microscopic in practice," Inglesby said. "For something fundamental to life, I think it is as a topic quite hard for nonscientists to relate to. By building a narrative around the data and creating something tactical and tangible with it, it is more engaging."
Inglesby came up with the idea for DNA-personalized items while studying design at the Royal College of Art in London, "working on a project with a Scottish weaving company who had a huge catalogue of tartan fabrics," she said. "I was interested in how each Scottish family had a material affiliated to their name, and yet when I asked about the reason for the colors and patterns of the tartans, there was no meaning behind them. I wanted to create a material that intrinsically represented a family, and so decided to explore the idea of using genetics as a language to code the weaving pattern, creating a sort of 'DNA tartan.'"

As Inglesby researched how to translate DNA into something weavable, "during a synthetic biology workshop at Imperial College London, I learnt that scientists were testing DNA as a storage device for binary data," she said. Industrial weaving was also once controlled by systems of binary data — specifically, by punch cards, pieces of paper with patterns of holes punched in them that encoded instructions for controlling machinery. "So I knew there was a link between these coded languages," Inglesby said.
There's also an element of surprise with Dot One's products, she said.
"I think it's exciting that the customer doesn't actually know what their product will look like," Inglesby said. "It is their genetics that determine the aesthetics, so it's a bit of a surprise. The most interesting part is when we get people of the same family testing, so we can map similarities between siblings and which parts of the genetic code have been inherited from parent to child."
The products from Dot One are not cheap. A scarf costs 310 British pounds, or about $460 U.S. dollars, while a print costs 139 British pounds, or about $205 U.S. dollars. For anyone willing to pony up the cash, the company does ship internationally.

"Part of the future vision for Dot One is to establish links with health care organizations and donate a percentage of profits to the research of inherited genetic diseases and family counseling," Inglesby said
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Pardon corrupt officials willing to return stolen funds, Onaiyekan tells Buhari

The Catholic Archbishop of Abuja, John Cardinal Onaiyekan on Friday urged the Federal Government to pardon those involved in money laundering if they were willing to return such funds.

Onaiyekan made the appeal at the St. Peter and Paul Catholic Church, Nyanya as part of his New Year message for the nation in Abuja.

He said that the best strategy to ensure the return of the monies would be an agreement with the people involved to have them return what they had stolen.

He said that the ongoing developments had shown that corruption could be eradicated over time, adding that the fight against fraudulent acts must be handled with care.

“It is okay to expose people and disgrace them, but that will not solve the problem.
“If we want our money back, we have to strategise so that the countries that are keeping our money can feel challenged to return them.

“The easiest way to get the money back is to convince them to go bring the money back, and then it will be easy.
“One way to convince people to bring stolen money back is to promise them that they will not be disgraced,’’ Onaiyekan said.

According to him, the amnesty is not like a plea bargain which only leads to the return of some stolen funds.
“This is different from plea bargain where you tell a person who stole hundred billion of naira to return fifty billion and be forgiven; that for me is not the right thing.

“If you have stolen hundred million and you are ready to bring back all, then we will leave you and not send you to jail, Nigeria can do that.’’

The cleric said that corruption was embedded in the Nigerian system, therefore, required a systemic change to reverse the situation.
Earlier, he also urged the government to swing into proper action in the New Year, for the fulfilment of all its campaign promises.

“The success of the party that won was built on a promise of change and will be in the spotlight of spectators in this New Year.

“We can say that from May till now, it has been a period of consolidating, making strategies and preparing.
“2016 will be a year that we will now begin to see exactly where we are going and how we are moving,” Onaiyekan said.

Onaiyekan said that the movement would include all the nation’s challenges in terms of security and anti-corruption campaign, “which is at the forefront of the country’’.

“We must find a way to discuss and negotiate the peace and tranquility of our nation,” he said.

'Puppy Eyes' Help Dogs Bond with Humans, Study Suggests

by Eddy Albert |  

A new study suggest that when dogs and owners gaze into each others' eyes, it facilitates the release of oxytocin, the love hormone, in both species. The new results suggest that early in domestication, dogs may have hijacked an ancient mechanism humans use for bonding. View full size image

When people call their dogs their "fur babies," they may be onto something, at least on a chemical level.
Dogs that make so-called puppy eyes at their owners get a spike in the "love hormone" oxytocin — and their owners do too, according to a new study. This same positive feedback in oxytocin release occurs when a mom gazes at her newborn infant, studies have shown.
Because dogs don't otherwise use eye contact as a way to cement bonds with other dogs, the study researchers suggest that man's best friend may have gotten its prized place in human hearts by tapping into an ancient human bonding pathway.

"We humans use eye gaze for affiliative communications, and are very much sensitive to eye contact," study co-author Takefumi Kikusui, a professor of veterinary medicine at the Companion Animal Research Lab at Azabu University in Japan, said in an email. "Therefore, the dogs who can use eye gaze to the owner efficiently would have more benefits from humans."
Loving feeling
Oxytocin, often called the "love hormone," performs various actions in humans, such as triggering the onset of labor, reducing stress and helping group members recognize individual members. But in all mammals, one of its key roles is to help a parent and infant bond. For instance, when rodent pups are separated from their moms, they emit a series of ultrasonic noises that spur moms to release more oxytocin and to scoop up their pups and behave in a more nurturing way. This, in turn, leads to the release of more oxytocin and, as a result, more attachment behavior in pups.
In humans, both moms and babies get a spike in oxytocin during breast-feeding, and they will spend hours gazing at each other, each fueling the release of oxytocin in the other, various studies have suggested. For domesticated dogs and wolves, however, eye contact isn't normally a bonding behavior. Rather, dominant dogs stare down canines lower in the group's hierarchy, and pups that are nervous will look away, said Evan MacLean, an evolutionary anthropologist at Duke University who was not involved in the new study.
Gazing behavior
Kikusui and his colleagues wondered exactly what dogs are getting out of their affectionate gazing at humans. In the new study, which is detailed in the journal Science, the team measured the oxytocin levels of dogs and their owners before and after the pairs spent 30 minutes together. After the owners spent quality time gazing into their dogs' eyes, petting and talking to the furballs, both the people and dogs showed increases in the levels of oxytocin in their urine. What's more, the more oxytocin rose in humans, the more it did in dogs as well.
In similar experiments with wolves, the researchers found no such interspecies-oxytocin loop — even though the wolves were interacting with people who had raised them from pups.
In a second experiment, the researchers spritzed an oxytocin nasal spray into dogs' nostrils and found that female dogs stared longer at their owners afterward, and that both the pups and the humans showed a rise in oxytocin as a result.
The findings suggest that the oxytocin feedback loop can cross species boundaries, at least between man and his best friend.
"This tells us something about our relationships with dogs," MacLean, who wrote a Perspectives article in the same issue of Science, told Live Science. "In many ways, they're similar to our relationships with people."
Partners in evolutionary change
The findings may help explain one of the most puzzling stories in human history: how a predatory, fearsome wolf transformed into man's best friend. Kikusui speculated that, at some point early in the domestication of dogs, a small group of naturally more friendly dogs may have gazed at their human counterparts for bonding. In doing so, the dogs unwittingly tapped into the natural human system designed for parent-child bonding.
Humans and dogs may have co-evolved this ability in order for love to flourish across species, Kikusui speculated. In follow-up research, they hope to identify the genes involved, in both humans and dogs.
MacLean, however, doesn't think humans necessarily needed to undergo genetic changes to get an oxytocin boost when they lock eyes with their canine companions.
"Originally, this kind of bonding mechanism was very important between mother and infant, and then we've probably already recycled those same mechanisms in our relationships with other individuals," MacLean said. Therefore, the human ability to bond via eye contact is already very flexible and easily repurposed, he added
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