On:

Environmentalists in Jordan are warning that the Dead Sea will disappear by the year 2050 if its level continues to drop at the current rate. Friends of the Earth (Middle East) has stepped up a campaign to try to save the world?s saltiest body of water. The group is running a photo competition to draw attention to the threat facing the lake, which is home to several rare species of plant and wildlife.

The Dead Sea is unique. You can float in it, it is renowned for its health-giving properties and it?s a major tourist draw on both its Israeli and Jordanian sides. But the Dead Sea is now dying as the water that used to feed it is diverted for industry, agriculture and domestic use in both Israel and Jordan.
read more

On:

Flu epidemics have long been known to recur in a pattern. Solar magnetic activity (sunspots) has a similar pattern, recurring in an 11-year cycle. This coincidence prompted three Canadian researchers?an astrophysicist, an epidemiologist, and a physician? to look for a correlation between periods of peak sunspot activity and influenza epidemics.
read more

On:

While on a routine training flight off the Turkish Aegean coastal town of Candarli, two Turkish air force trainee pilots saw a bright object that approached their plane at high speed and reportedly gyrated around them for about a half hour.

The Turkish newspaper Hurriyet reported this call: “Object approaching the wings. Now it’s behind the plane … now it’s in front of us.”

They told their controller and the regional war alert center of the Turkish army that the UFO had an unusual shape that looked like a cross between a cone and a disc.

Turkish air force sources say they are investigating. So are the neighboring Greeks. The Turks are planning to report the encounter to international organizations, including NASA.
read more

On:

Teachers are more likely to die from an autoimmune disease than other professionals, according to US researchers. They hope the finding will help to unravel the causes of multiple sclerosis and other disorders in which the immune system turns against the body?s own cells.

Stephen Walsh and Laurie DeChello, at Connecticut University, analyzed the death certificates of more than 860,000 ?professional? Americans. Overall, teachers were 13 per cent more likely to die from multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus and other autoimmune disorders. But secondary school teachers aged between 35 and 44 were 143 per cent more likely to have an autoimmune disease listed on their death certificate. ?That?s a pretty substantial figure,? says Walsh.
read more