Attack of the killer jellyfish
A ship-born alien that played havoc with the ecosystem of the Black Sea is now threatening the neighbouring Caspian. The toxic invader is a gelatinous monster that can double its weight in a day. Fred Pearce investigates 10 March 2004.
They call it an ecological terrorist and "the blob that ate the Black Sea". Now the world's most dangerous alien species, a jellyfish about the size of your hand, is invading the Caspian Sea, where the region's scientists last week proposed setting another equally voracious jellyfish to gobble it up. Welcome to the biological equivalent of the war on terror.
Maindee Festival Over Run With Aliens
This year's Maindee Festival has been taken over by aliens, space freaks and fleets of UFOs from the furthest reaches of the galaxy.
The annual music and carnival happening on tomorrow will see floats on an `out of this world' theme parade throughout Newport.
It starts at 12am in the old Fairoak School building on Church Road and takes in Hereford Street, Harrow Road, Eton Road, and Corporation Road before landing at the Newport Rugby Ground at 1pm.
A 25ft bubble-blowing silver rocket will lead the parade of giant aliens, other UFOs and, in keeping with Newport's musical past, a platoon of cyber punks-phazers are set to outrage.
Organisers estimate on past events that at least one thousand people will join in with the parade.
They will jump to the rhythms of Batatan, a Newport- based samba street drummer band, and RePercussioN, a samba posse from Powys. It's taken a large number of people from local schools and community groups just to get the parade ready, says organiser Andy O'Rourke.
"Last year's was amazing - but 2004 looks like being even better," he said.
"It's brilliant to watch, but why not get dressed up and hit the streets with us!"
The convoy of things from outer space will corral on ground beside Newport Rugby Club for an afternoon of music.
Admission to the site is free and you can expect a mix of world music, arts and dance, workshops, story telling, food and drink, DJs, MCs, breakdancers and market stalls.
New Galaxy Found
French and Swiss astronomers yesterday disclosed that they have detected the farthest galaxy ever seen.
The galaxy, dubbed Abell 1835 IR1916, is 13.23 billion light-years from Earth, France's National Centre for Scientific Research said.
That places it further away than another galaxy, believed until now to be the farthest known object, that lies roughly 13 billion light-years away. Its discovery was announced in mid-February.
Because its glimmer took so long to reach Earth, the new galaxy offers a look back in time to when the universe was just a baby.
"It is as if we are seeing the childhood of the galaxy," said Roser Pello, a member of the team that found it. "It's a galaxy that is starting to form."
The universe, thought to have begun with the Big Bang some 13.7 billion years ago, would have been a mere 470 million years old when the newly observed galaxy formed, the national research centre said.
Animated Image of weightless moving Astronaught"If we compare the age of the universe to that of a person aged 75, we are facing a baby aged two-and-a-half," the centre said in a statement.
The discovery was made by the European Southern Observatory, with other images also coming from the Hubble Space Telescope and Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope, the centre said.
Only White People See Ghosts, Aliens
Hip-hop star Xzibit has a unique theory on the existence of ghosts or aliens -- "only white people" encounter such supernatural beings.
The rapper and Pimp My Ride host claims blacks are too busy with other issues to make wild claims about UFOs or spooks.
"Black people don't really see ghosts or aliens. People who see aliens ... they never see them in urban settings. Aliens don't [expletive] with the hood, you never see some brother saying, 'Oh man, and then there were some lights, and it just came down.'"
"[Blacks] don't see aliens, [blacks] don't never see ghosts, either. Black people are dealing with too much.
"I lived in South Central (Los Angeles) and none of them [expletive] dare come this way."
Tom Cruise Runs From Aliens
As the title might indicate, the alien visitors in the upcoming "War of the Worlds" remake do not come in peace. In fact, based on the first image released from the Steven Spielberg-directed film, they have some dark intentions for the human race.
Spielberg and "War of the Worlds" star Tom Cruise are still shooting the film, and it won't hit theaters until June, but filmmakers unveiled a first glimpse of what lies ahead this week. In the shot the first official look at Spielberg's take on the sci-fi classic a battered and tattered Cruise shields his daughter, young Dakota Fanning ("The Cat in the Hat," "Uptown Girls") as the two seek refuge with others in a tunnel.
Paramount Pictures, which released the image, is keeping mum about the details of the film but did note that it will focus on a family man (Cruise) trying to keep his loved ones safe as alien invaders attempt to claim Earth as their own. The studio also noted that the film would draw chiefly from the themes of H.G. Wells' original 1898 sci-fi lit masterpiece, "War of the Worlds," instead of the numerous works it has inspired (1953's "War of the Worlds," 1996's "Independence Day" and 2002's "Signs" as well as television's "V" and "War of the Worlds: The Series," to name just a few).
"War of the Worlds" is expected to hit theaters on June 29 2005.
Last Modified on: 05-12-2018