ROME — Police in Sicily have called in an international team of forensic scientists and criminologists to help solve the case of a murdered Baroness, 447 years after the crime.

The investigation in Carini — a small town near Palermo — centers on the castle where Baroness Laura Lanza was killed in 1563 with her lover Ludovico Vernagallo when they were caught in bed together.

“Justice wasn’t done back then,” said Gaetano La Fata, Mayor of Carini, who has decided to reopen the case and exhume the remains of the lovers.

“We hope that DNA tests and criminal profiling will help us discover the motive behind the crime and establish whether there was more than one assassin,” he told Reuters.

The Baroness’s father Cesare confessed to the honor killing in a letter to the king, which is currently archived in the Chiesa Madre church in Carini.

“Legend has it, however, that Cesare Lanza did not act alone, but was helped by his son-in-law, Don Vincenzo La Grua,” said the Mayor.

Rumours passed down through generations of Sicilians have it that the husband was motivated by plans to marry again. La Grua may also have feared his rival, Vernagallo, would attempt to claim financial rights for fathering children with his wife.

In reopening the ‘cold case’, La Fata has asked the local police to work together with the ICAA (International Crime Analysis Association) headed by Marco Strano, psychologist and criminologist for the Italian State Police.

“The idea for the investigation began as a joke,” Strano told Reuters. “I visited Carini in June and when I met La Fata I teased him for not having resolved the murder yet, so he challenged me to solve it.”

BLOODY HANDPRINT

“There was a trial held at the time, but though both father and son-in-law had their properties temporarily confiscated, they were soon declared innocent, probably thanks to their noble status and the legal right for fathers and husbands of adulterous women to commit honor killings,” said Strano.

It is thought the two lovers are buried in a common grave under the crypt of the Chiesa Madre church in Carini.

“If we are lucky enough to find and identify their bones, it might be possible to verify the cause of death, whether they were run through with a sword or stabbed with a dagger. If there was more than one weapon used, it’s likely there was more than one murderer.”

The team of crime analysts, made up of American and Italian experts in forensic science and criminal pathology, are in the process of making a 3D computer model of the 11th century castle, including the room overlooking the Gulf of Carini where the murder took place.

“We hope to map the killer’s path from the courtyard to the crime scene, and work out whether it’s likely there were servants in that part of the building at the time who might have seen the murderer or an accomplice,” Strano said.

The investigation coincides with a project to rebuild parts of Carini Castle that have collapsed over time. The crime scene has recently been restored. A red handprint has been painted on the wall to mark the spot where — legend has it — the struggling Baroness left a bloody imprint, which reappears every year to mark the anniversary of her murder.

Mayor La Fata hopes that the project will help unravel some of the mystery that surrounds the lovers, whose story continues to intrigue visitors and locals alike.

“Several years ago we tested areas of the castle we knew the Baroness lived in with electromagnetic field meters, and the results were very strange,” La Fata said. “In certain rooms it was as if there were ghosts in the castle, as if the murdered Baroness lives on.”

SOURCE: Reuters

LAS VEGAS — To some men, she might seem like the perfect woman: She’s a willowy 5 feet 7 and 120 pounds. She’ll chat with you endlessly about your interests. And she’ll have sex whenever you please — as long as her battery doesn’t run out.

Meet Roxxxy, who may be the world’s most sophisticated talking female sex robot. For $7,000, she’s all yours.

“She doesn’t vacuum or cook, but she does almost everything else,” said her inventor, Douglas Hines, who unveiled Roxxxy last month at the Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Lifelike dolls, artificial sex organs and sex-chat phone lines have been keeping the lonely company for decades. But Roxxxy takes virtual companionship to a new level.

Powered by a computer under her soft silicone “skin,” she employs voice-recognition and speech-synthesis software to answer questions and carry on conversations. She even comes loaded with five distinct “personalities,” from Frigid Farrah to Wild Wendy, that can be programmed to suit customers’ preferences.

“There’s a tremendous need for this kind of product,” said Hines, a computer scientist and former Bell Labs engineer.

Roxxxy won’t be available for delivery for several months, but Hines is taking pre-orders through his Web site, TrueCompanion.com, where thousands of men have signed up.

“They’re like, ‘I can’t wait to meet her,’ ” Hines said. “It’s almost like the anticipation of a first date.”

Women have inquired about ordering a sex robot, too. Hines says a female sex therapist even contacted him about buying one for her patients.

Roxxxy has been like catnip to talk-show hosts since her debut at AEE, the largest porn-industry convention in the country. In a recent monologue, Jay Leno expressed amazement that a sex robot could carry on lifelike conversations and express realistic emotions.

“Luckily, guys,” he joked, “there’s a button that turns that off.”

SOURCE: CNN

LONDON — International hotel chain Holiday Inn is offering a trial human bed-warming service at three hotels in Britain this month.

If requested, a willing staff-member at two of the chain’s London hotels and one in the northern English city of Manchester will dress in an all-in-one fleece sleeper suit before slipping between the sheets.

“The new Holiday Inn bed warmers service is a bit like having a giant hot water bottle in your bed,” Holiday Inn spokeswoman Jane Bednall said in an emailed statement to Reuters.

The bed-warmer is equipped with a thermometer to measure the bed’s required temperature of 20 degrees Celsius (68 Fahrenheit).

Holiday Inn said the warmer would be fully dressed and leave the bed before the guest occupied it. They could not confirm if the warmer would shower first, but said hair would be covered.

Florence Eavis, Holiday Inn spokeswoman told Reuters that the “innovative” bed-warming method was a response to Britain’s recent cold weather and marked the launch of 3,200 new Holiday Inns worldwide.

She could not explain why the beds were not being warmed by hot water bottles or electric-blankets, but admitted the human method was quirky.

Holiday Inn is promoting the service with the help of sleep-expert Chris Idzikowski, director of the Edinburgh Sleep Center, who said the idea could help people sleep.

“There’s plenty of scientific evidence to show that sleep starts at the beginning of the night when body temperature starts to drop,” he said. “A warm bed – approximately 20 to 24 Celsius – is a good way to start this process whereas a cold bed would inhibit sleep.”

SOURCE: Reuters

Last week, a virtual space station in the online world Entropia sold at auction for 330,000 real dollars, the largest-ever expenditure in an online game. The previous record-holders, both in Project Entropia as well, included a virtual space resort and nightclub purchased for $100,000.

The currency in the futuristic Entropia universe is entirely based on real money. Unlike many other large online games, the Entropia universe is free to play. Swedish developer MindArk makes its money from in-game transactions, typically on a much smaller scale than the space station purchase.

Players live on Planet Calypso and exchange PEDs, or Project Entropia Dollars, which exchange to U.S. dollars at 10 to 1. Project Entropia’s user-to-user transactions among its 820,000 players exceeded $420 million in 2008.

entropiadirectory.com

The biosphere section of the Crystal Palace Space Station.

Erik Novak, the player who purchased the space station, is less like an eccentric gamer and more like a traditional investor. He might make a couple of pennies every time a player slays a monster in his new purchase. And he can tax every shopping transaction there. If the game remains open long enough, he could see real profit.

Which begs the question: Is this economy “real” or “virtual”?

Christopher Bolton, a literature professor at Williams College, teaches in a virtual classroom in the online game Second Life. To him, the question is not so much whether a virtual economy is “virtual,” but whether a real economy is “real.”

“Many of the things that we spend money on in a given day are virtual,” Bolton said. “After food and shelter, a lot of what we’re buying is appearances, feelings and fictional experiences. Making your avatar beautiful in Second Life fulfills the same desires of what we have around real consumption.”

A Project Entropia Dollar is valuable because people believe it is — much like a real currency. Some players make six-figure salaries in American dollars without ever leaving the worlds of Second Life or Entropia. While the world economy as a whole was plummeting, Second Life was booming — growing by 54 percent between the third quarters of 2008 and 2009.

“This is a stunning investment opportunity, and I have complete faith I will recover what I spent relatively quickly,” Novak told Tech Blog Red Orbit. “To say Planet Calypso has changed my life would be an understatement. I have even found the love of my life in the game, and now we live together in real life.”

SOURCE: SPHERE.com

ROME — A Sicilian man stole sweets and a packet of chewing gum so he could get arrested and spend New Year’s Eve in a jail cell rather than be with his wife and relatives, Italian media reported.

The 35-year old Sicilian first showed up at a police station asking to be arrested because he preferred spending the night in prison rather than with his family, but was rebuffed because he had not committed a crime, the Agi news agency said.

The man immediately went to a tobacco shop next door, where he threatened the owner with a box cutter as he grabbed a few sweets and a packet of gum. He then waited until police arrived to arrest him for robbery, the news agency said.

SOURCE: Reuters

Passengers on planes flying near or through lightning storms could be exposed to harmful levels of radiation. Lightning discharges, or a related phenomena known as terrestrial gamma-ray flashes, can jolt airline passengers with a level of radiation equivalent to 400 chest X-rays.

A study was conducted to estimate radiation levels based on satellite and ground observations of X-rays and gamma rays. Terrestrial gamma-ray flashes are mysterious phenomena that are believed to originate at the same flying altitudes as airliners. Scientists believe they are produced in the electric fields above the thunderstorms.

Using computer models to estimate the levels of radiation produced within or near thunderclouds during a lightning storm, researchers concluded that the amount of radiation within immediate proximity to these lightning events could be high enough to be considered a “biologically significant level.”

SOURCE: Mercola.com

Wake Forest University’s Institute of Regenerative Medicine, which has successfully grown human bladders in the lab using only a few extracted cells sprayed onto a chemical frame that mimics the body’s tissues, has so far been unsuccessful at regenerating penises because of the organ’s complexity.

However, it announced in a November journal article a success with rabbit penises. Four of the 12 rabbits with lab-grown phalluses successfully impregnated females, and in an unexpected finding, the new penises appear not to lessen sexual desire, in that all 12 of the rabbits began mating within one minute of meeting females.

SOURCE: Yahoo! News

A 55-year-old British man whose bowel was ruptured in a nearly catastrophic traffic accident has been fitted with a bionic sphincter that opens and closes with a remote controller.

Ged Galvin had originally endured 13 surgeries in a 13-week hospital stay and had grown frustrated with using a colostomy bag until surgeon Norman Williams of the Royal London Hospital proposed the imaginative operation.

Dr. Williams, who was interviewed along with Galvin for a November feature in London’s Daily Mail, wrapped a muscle transplanted from Galvin’s leg around the sphincter and attached electrodes to tighten or loosen the muscle’s grip.

SOURCE: Yahoo! News

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Forget the plastic icicles, brightly colored balls and tinsel.

Some Christmas trees for sale in the Anchorage area are adorned with something truly different this holiday season – live Pacific Chorus frogs.

While the small frogs are very cute, measuring an inch or two with lovely moss-colored green sides and black spots, state officials are asking residents to practice some tough love. If you find a Christmas tree frog, kill it.

So far, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, has received reports of two amphibious hitchhikers. One of them was hiding out on a holiday tree from Washington state that was sold this week at an Anchorage nursery. The frog ended up in the biology department at the University of Alaska Anchorage.

“They identified it as a Pacific Chorus frog,” said Tracey Gotthardt, a zoologist with the university’s Alaska Natural Heritage Program. The frogs are found from British Columbia to southern Baja California, but are not native to Alaska.

“No one is in panic mode over this but we are taking it seriously,” said Jennifer Yuhas, spokeswoman for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

That’s because the cute frogs – whose joyful chorus is often used for movie soundtracks – could be carrying some ugly viruses and funguses, including chytrid fungus that is devastating amphibians around the world.

“Our immediate concern is that if a frog does hop out of a tree and they decide to keep it as a pet over the winter, they must keep it forever. We don’t want them being released into the wild,” Gotthardt said.

Yuhas said it’s not that Alaskans are heartless, but it’s a matter of protecting our own.

“I know they are awful cute but pets or small children are known to put things in their mouths,” she said.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game is suggesting two methods of dispatch: death by a dab of Orajel applied to the head (the tooth desensitizer apparently knocks them out for good), or, putting the little critter in a plastic bag and placing it in the freezer.

With temperatures hovering around zero Friday morning, Doug Warner, a spokesman for the state Division of Agriculture, had another suggestion for disposing of the frogs.

“Put it in a jar and put it out on the front porch and that way you won’t have to put it in with your Christmas cookies,” he said.

Tammy Davis, leader of Fish and Game’s Invasive Species Program, said the Alaska Natural Heritage Program will accept live frogs as well. People finding frogs should call 877-INVASIVE.

The important thing is that people don’t keep the Christmas frogs, she said.

“That is the whole thing about invasive species,” Davis said. “We didn’t think zebra mussels would live in the Great Lakes.”

Warner said the frog invasion highlights a potentially serious problem in Alaska. While the state requires that trees be inspected for any pests prior to shipment, it is Scrooge-like when dedicating resources to make sure the trees arrive pest-free.

Unlike some states, Alaska also doesn’t require that imported trees be mechanically shaken and it doesn’t have a shaker of its own.

Davis said she’s got doubts about tree-shaking, anyway.

“To my knowledge these trees are bound. Even shaking it, if there is some little critter out there in the branches it is not going to be shaken out,” she said. “I have a hard time believing someone is shaking every Christmas tree.”

Yuhas also questioned the tree-shaking method for preventing invasive species from finding a new home in Alaska.

“I don’t know much about the standards of tree shaking,” Yuhas said. “How hard do they shake a tree. Can a frog hang on to a branch?”

SOURCE: SPHERE.com