PLANETARY BRAIN

Theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking with his first wife Jane in 1965, above,
and in a ballistic flight aircraft, below.


Hawking warns against contact with aliens

On the probability of alien life existing, he says: "To my mathematical brain, the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational," says British scientist Stephen Hawking.

"If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans," said the astrophysicist. "Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonise whatever planets they can reach," he warned.

The doomsday scenario is suggested in a series on the Discovery Channel. The programs depict alien life forms in huge spaceships on the hunt for resources after draining their own planet dry.

OLYMPIC-SIZED ENLARGEMENT

Olympic champion Merritt tests positive to penis enlargement drug
Olympic 400m champ LaShawn Merritt of the United States has been suspended after testing positive for taking an over-the-counter penis enlargement product. The 400m world champion said in he was "deeply sorry".
The 23-year-old, facing a two-year ban, said "to know that I've tested positive as a result of a product that I used for personal reasons is extremely difficult to wrap my hands around".

HOLY ORDERS

US man names Pope Benedict in Milwaukee abuse lawsuit

A man who says he was the victim of an American paedophile priest is bringing a lawsuit against the Pope and the Vatican in a US federal court.

TERROR IN THE SKIES

Ash fallout worse than 9/11: official

The closing of the skies over Europe caused by an Icelandic volcano spewing ash is having a greater impact on the air travel industry than 9/11, says an air authority official.

EXIT STRATEGY

Beating the filter: masterclass photos

Exit International-sponsored a "hacking masterclass", where the euthanasia advocacy group was to show how to use proxy servers and virtual networks so users could bypass the filter and find information on "safe suicide".
About 70 people attended the Melbourne masterclass, in which Australian Pirate Party member David Campbell, of Newcastle-based company Clear Computers, explained how web proxies and virtual private networks (VPNs) can be used to bypass the government's planned internet filter.
"As far as the Pirate Party is concerned, the filter is in place to make the government appear as though they're doing something. And because the filter is set to Refused Classification [RC] content, they could change the definition of RC at any point in the future," Campbell said.

SCANDAL IS SIN

Fresh allegations made against Pope

The AP newsagency says it has obtained a letter signed by the future Pope in 1985, when he was a senior Vatican official, in which he resisted appeals for the dismissal of an American priest who had sexually abused two boys at a school in California.

The Pope, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, pleaded for more time, asking the diocese to consider the good of the universal church.

Cardinal Ratzinger wrote in the letter that arguments to remove the priest were of "grave significance", but also worried about what "granting the dispensation can provoke with the community of Christ's faithful, particularly regarding the young age of the petitioner".

Irwin Zalkin, a lawyer representing victims of the priest in question, believes the church associated scandal with sin.

"Scandal was considered a sin and if evidence or information were to get out and become public about the depth and the breadth and the insidious nature of the problem of the priests and other religious committing these crimes, it would for sure provoke scandal," he said.