New island appears off coast of Germany

A new island the size of 34 acres and providing sanctuary for hundreds of sea birds has emerged from the waters of the North Sea.
Despite its youthful age the sickle-shaped island lying 16 miles off the coast of the German state of Schleswig Holstein is already home to around 50 different plant species and proved popular with sea birds such as herring gulls and oyster catchers, eager to take advantage of its unspoilt and pristine environment.

Formed over just 10 years, the rapid appearance of the island has surprised scientists familiar with the strong winds and shifting shifts that characterise Germany's North Sea coast.

"The fact that in just a few years a new island is formed is very impressive," said Detlef Hansen, who works at the neighbouring Wadden Sea National Park. "For conservationists this is anything but ordinary."

The formation of new sandbanks in the shallow waters of the Wadden Sea park are not uncommon but scientist said it is rare for one to survive the winter storms and establish itself as an island. The new land mass now boast dunes as high as four metres, and the grasses and other plants emerging from its windswept surface have provided it with a certain resilience to the eroding hand of nature.

Given the name Norderoogsand, the island has also benefited from lying in a position sheltered by other islands and from the fact that over the past decade there have been few high storm surges.
Http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/9792843/New-island-appears-off-coast-of-Germany.html

Man brawls with smartphone 'thief' after tracking him with 'Find My iPhone'

A builder from San Diego got into an 18-minute brawl with the alleged thief of his iPhone after tracking him using Apple's Find My iPhone software.
Kenneth Schmidgall, 26, told a local television channel that the handset went missing at a reggae concert on December 30.

He repeatedly called his own phone but there was never an answer, so he and frend Greg Torkelson turned to Find My iPhone to track it down.

They spent hours trying to pinpoint the moving GPS signal before matching it to a man on a bicycle, who they followed to the Torrey Pines State Reserve.

In the ensuing confrontation, Mr Schmidgall said he was attacked with a rock before a passing off-duty police officer pinned the alleged thief to the ground, before he was arrested.

"I saw the gentleman on the bike and we followed it and kept tracking it and every time it would stop, the guy on the bike would stop," Mr Schmidgall said.

The fight lasted 18 minutes and was captured on video by Mr Torkelson, an amateur photographer who also pepper sprayed the alleged thief.

"Some of it was a little bit of adrenaline? you know, it was the chase of trying to get the guy," said Mr Schmidgall.

"It's not the phone that's so much important," he said. "It's that people get away with this kind of stuff all the time with cellphones being stolen."

"I do think I taught him his lesson.

"I really don't think people should be going out and getting in fights with people because of their cellphones but there comes a point when you have to stand up for yourself and say, 'This is my stuff, and I'm not going to let people get away with taking it.'"

The video also shows the alleged thief eventually handing over Mr Schmidgall's iPhone.
"THE VIDEO" : http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/apple/9792738/Man-brawls-with-smartphone-thief-after-tracking-him-with-Find-My-iPhone.html

Vampire' Graves Uncovered in Poland


Archaeologists in Poland believe they've made a startling discovery: a group of vampire graves.

The graves were discovered during the construction of a roadway near the Polish town of Gliwice, where archaeologists are more accustomed to finding the remains of World War II soldiers, according to The Telegraph.

But instead of soldiers, the graves contained skeletons whose heads had been severed and placed on their legs. This indicated to the archaeologists that the bodies had been subject to a ritualized execution designed to ensure the dead stayed dead, The Telegraph reports. [Famous Fangs: Tales of Our Favorite Vampires]

By keeping the head separated from the body, according to ancient superstition, the "undead" wouldn't be able to rise from the grave to terrorize the living. Decapitation was one way of achieving that; another way was hanging the person by a rope attached to the neck until, over time, the decaying body simply separated from the head.

There were other, equally bizarre ways of dealing with vampire burials, according to research published by forensic anthropologist Matteo Borrini. He cites the case of a woman who died during a 16th-century plague in Venice, Italy. The woman was apparently buried with a brick wedged tightly in her open mouth, a popular medieval method of keeping suspected vampires from returning to feed on the blood of the living. The woman's grave might be the earliest known vampire burial ever found.

Hers was a typical case of an accusation of vampirism following some calamity, such as a plague or a devastating crop failure. Accusing an individual of being a vampire was a not-uncommon way of finding a scapegoat for an otherwise unexplained disaster.

In other cases, the body of a suspected vampire might be staked to the ground, pinning the corpse into place with a stake made of metal or wood. In 2012, archaeologists in Bulgaria found two skeletons with iron rods piercing their chests, indicating they may have been considered vampires.

The practice of decapitating the bodies of suspected vampires before burial was common in Slavic countries during the early Christian era, when pagan beliefs were still widespread.

In fact, their belief in vampires stemmed from both superstition about death and lack of knowledge about decomposition. Most vampire stories of history tend to follow a certain pattern where an individual or family dies of some unfortunate event or disease; before science could explain such deaths, the people chose to blame them on "vampires."

Villagers have also mistaken ordinary decomposition processes for the supernatural. "For example, though laypeople might assume that a body would decompose immediately, if the coffin is well sealed and buried in winter, putrefaction might be delayed by weeks or months; intestinal decomposition creates bloating which can force blood up into the mouth, making it look like a dead body has recently sucked blood," writes LiveScience's Bad Science columnist Benjamin Radford. "These processes are well understood by modern doctors and morticians, but in medieval Europe were taken as unmistakable signs that vampires were real and existed among them."

There's no consensus yet on when the bodies found in Poland were buried. According to Jacek Pierzak, one of the archaeologists on the site, the skeletons were found with no jewelry, belt buckles, buttons or any other artifacts that might assist in providing a burial date.

Dutch Bill Seeks To Give Law Enforcement Hacking Powers

"The Dutch government today presented a draft bill that aims to give law enforcement the power to hack into computer systems ? including those located in foreign countries ? to do research, gather and copy evidence or block access to certain data. Law enforcement should be allowed to block access to child pornography, read emails that contain information exchanged between criminals and also be able to place taps on communication, according to a draft bill published Thursday and signed by Ivo Opstelten, the Minister of Security and Justice. Government agents should also be able to engage in activities such as turning on a suspect's phone GPS to track their location, the bill said. Opstelten announced last October he was planning to craft this bill."

No fees, 0% interest: Bank fail as man scribbles his own terms on credit card contract

A Russian man has outwitted a bank by sending back a credit card contract with his own, handwritten, amendments to the contract for zero fees and zero interest. Now he's had a win in court

A MAN who decided to get his own back on a bank which sent him an unsolicited credit card in an ingenious way has had his first win in court.
Dmitry Agarkov decided to write his own small print in a credit card contract and has had his changes upheld in court. He's now suing Russia's leading online bank for more than 24 million roubles ($A800,000) in compensation, RT.com reports.
Disappointed by the terms of the unsolicited offer for a credit card from Tinkoff Credit Systems in 2008, Mr Agarkov, 42, from the city of Voronezh, decided to hand write his own credit terms.
The trick was that Agarkov simply scanned the bank's document and "amended" the small print with his own terms, scribbled in his own handwriting.
He opted for a 0 per cent interest rate and no fees, adding that the customer "is not obliged to pay any fees and charges imposed by bank tariffs."
The bank didn't read "the amendments'', as it signed and certified the document, then sent him a credit card.
It took two years before the bank decided to terminate Mr Agarkov's credit card because of overdue payments.
In 2012, it sued him for 45,000 roubles ($A1500) - an amount that included the remaining balance, fees, and late payment charges, which violated the actual agreement.
The court decided that the agreement Agarkov crafted was valid, and required him to settle only his balance of 19,000 roubles ($A635).
"They signed the documents without looking. They said what usually their borrowers say in court: 'We have not read it,' his lawyer said.
Tinkoff founder Oleg Tinkov tweeted: "Our lawyers think, he is going to get not 24 million, but really four years in prison for fraud.''
The next hearing will be in September.

'Sirius' Documentary Reveals DNA Test Results On Ata, The '6-Inch Alien'


The mummified remains of what looks like a 6-inch space alien has turned "Sirius" into the most eagerly awaited documentary among UFO enthusiasts.

The findings, however, might come as a disappointment.

In early publicity, filmmakers claimed the documentary would reveal that the DNA of the creature with an oversized alien-looking head couldn't be medically classified.

In fact, the film, which premiered Monday in Hollywood, features a scientist who concluded the little humanoid was human.

"I can say with absolute certainty that it is not a monkey. It is human -- closer to human than chimpanzees. It lived to the age of six to eight. Obviously, it was breathing, it was eating, it was metabolizing. It calls into question how big the thing might have been when it was born,"said Garry Nolan, director of stem cell biology at Stanford University's School of Medicine in California.

"The DNA tells the story and we have the computational techniques that allows us to determine, in very short order, whether, in fact, this is human," Nolan, who performed the DNA tests, explains in the film.

"Sirius" focuses on the remains of the small humanoid, nicknamed Ata, that was discovered in Chile's Atacama Desert 10 years ago and has, literally, gone through different hands and ownership since then.

I want one ^^

HERO DEFENDS BLIND KID

'I know his problems and that's what made me so mad': High school teen punished for defending his blind friend who was being beaten by a bully speaks out

    Pines said he was a friend of the visually impaired boy who was being attacked
    He took a stand against bullying, saying attackers are 'ruining' the lives of victims
    Teen was hailed as a hero for stopping blind classmate being beaten up
    Huntington Beach High School student floored bully with a single puncH

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3250290/Huntington-Beach-High-School-teen-defended-visually-impaired-friend-beaten-speaks-out.html

VIDEO: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=2bf_1443065260


100% Hero IMOP  bloody good on ya Cody
'Great job! Our future is in good hands because of young men such as yourself. The hero did the right thing. Don't punish a kid for doing the right thing!!!!' The day you punish people who protect the helpless is the day you've lost humanity. mate your a legend in my book

[Iran troops to join Syria war, Russia bombs group trained by CIA]

Iran troops to join Syria war, Russia bombs group trained by CIA

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/were-targeting-terrorists-syria-kremlin-093858253.html

I don't think this is what Obama had in mind when he "created" the "Arab Spring" a few years ago.

I do believe this is what "power-vacuum" looks like.

Let's hope he's not dumb enough to strike the match near this extremely dry tinder box, saturated in petrol. Of course Obama is the "he".

so i woke up this morning and do my usual , make a coffee read the news , check the logs and messages etc etc etc came across an interesting thing ;)

Nuns who denounce Christ and sell weed say Trump has ‘put a fire under our butts’

Read more: http://metro.co.uk/2017/04/21/nuns-who-denounce-christ-and-sell-weed-say-trump-has-put-a-fire-under-our-butts-6588706/#ixzz4ewINccIa

i like reading funny stuff from metro.co.uk    oooooooo and speaking of strange stuff  this caught my eye also


anyway thats the news for today

Tragic. 

yeah its so sad to see Nuns  denounce Christ