On:

Usha Lee McFarling of the Los Angeles Times reports that Eskimos are trying to cope with the fact that the ice in Russia, Alaska, Canada and Greenland has started to thaw. Thunder and lightning, which were once rare, have become common. A strange warm wind now blows in from the south. Hunters who prided themselves on their ability to read the sky say they no longer can predict the sudden blizzards. ?The Earth,? one hunter decided, ?is turning faster.? In recent years, thousands of seabirds have washed up dead and deformed seal pups have become a common sight. Whales appear sick and undernourished. The walrus is becoming scarce, as are tundra rabbits.
read more

On:

African Americans won both Best Actor Oscars this year. Now it looks like the next Pope may be black. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the Vatican?s doctrinal chief, says an African papacy would ?only be to the Church?s benefit? and a ?wonderful sign for all Christianity.?

Cardinal Ratzinger, 74, is viewed as a major decision-maker in the conclave that will eventually choose the Pope?s successor. He says that the Church?s African leaders have all the qualities required for the papacy and that it?s entirely possible that the ?next Pope may come from there.? Yet he admits that racism could prevent an African succession and that there are still ?great misgivings in the West about the Third World.?
read more

On:

Jeans dyed blue by bacteria may soon be available. Walter Weyler and his colleagues at Genencor International in Palo Alto, California have genetically modified bacteria to produce the indigo pigment used to stain denim. The process would be a less-polluting way to dye jeans than chemical indigo production.

Originally extracted from plants, indigo dye is now made from coal or oil, with potentially toxic by-products. Bacteria have previously been adapted as alternative indigo manufacturers, but a trace by-product turns the jeans a shade of red.
read more

On:

When Jim Alexander backed out of a convenience store where he?d stopped for a cup of coffee in 1996, he crashed his car, which burned for 20 minutes before rescuers could get him out. Burns disfigured his face so badly that the other diners at his regular restaurant asked him not to come back. Alexander, age 60, retreated to his home, partially blinded and disfigured ?like a freak in a sideshow,? despite 38 surgeries.

Then he found Bob Barron a former disguise expert for the CIA, who helps seriously disfigured people blend back into society by designing prosthetic devices that look so real, most people don?t notice them. This sounds like the plot of the recent Tom Cruise movie ?Vanilla Sky,? but in this case, the story is real.
read more