King crab from Arctic waters found on Redcar beach, UK

King Crab on Redcar beach

He's spent his working life beneath the sea but even oceanographer David McCreadie was baffled by a rare visitor to Redcar.

For the formidable-looking red crustacean found by David's fiancee Diane Weinoski looks for all the world like a king crab - and they hardly ever stray from considerably icier waters.

Members of the lithododid family, king crabs are large, tasty and usually found in seas MUCH colder than Redcar's.

And despite having worked and played in oceans across the world since the mid-1960s, David has never heard of one being found this far south.

Oceanographer David McCreadie

His suspicion that the six-legged visitor was a king crab species has now been confirmed by David's friend and world crab expert Dr Norman Sloan, of the remote Queen Charlotte Islands in British Columbia, Canada. Dr Sloan, who used to work in the Natural History Museum, is now contacting an expert on British crustaceans to discuss it further.

David, 66, who was brought up in Redcar but now lives in Great Ayton, said: "I have dived as an amateur and professional since 1966 and never seen one anywhere near here before.

"I have heard that king crabs have migrated under the Arctic ice cap and been found in Norway, but this is so far south."

In a lifetime devoted to marine matters, after studying oceanography and marine biology in Bangor, North Wales, in 1966, David stayed to do research before starting a successful oyster hatchery, mussel business and lobster tanks.

Since then, he's started a smokery which supplies the Royal Family, worked as a senior offshore inspection rep in Abu Dhabi and is currently senior lecturer at the TWI Techonology Centre on Riverside Park, Middlesbrough.

In other words, when it comes to life under the sea, he knows what he's talking about.

David, a former pupil of Sir William Turner's School in Redcar, said: "I know my crustaceans and when I saw this one, I knew it was special.

"I know king crabs are common in the Arctic, especially around Alaska, and they have turned up in Norway recently, but how on earth this one has got so far south, I have no idea. To my knowledge, this is the first one.

"It could only come from very cold, deep water but we don't have very cold deep water in the North Sea.

"Perhaps it was on its summer holidays!"

Sadly, the king crab's Redcar vacation didn't last long.

It was alive when Diane first came across it last Friday, but a subsequent return to the beach found it dead on the sands.

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Defeat in Debaltsevo: Kiev's Stalingrad

Junta's losses over the last month stagger the imagination.

DPR Ministry of Defense published data concerning the losses of Ukrainian occupation forces which they suffered during battles with Novorossia's defenders in the vicinity of Debaltsevo and on other sectors of the front between January 12 and February 20.

Occupier losses include 10,940 killed and wounded (including 4110 killed), and 1178 prisoners of war.

Equipment losses are also staggering. The invaders have lost the following quantities of equipment:

• 299 tanks (28 captured intact at Debaltsevo)


• 38 self-propelled howitzers (12 captured)


• 4 2S7 Pion 203mm self-propelled cannon (3 captured)


• 4 2S3 Akatsiya 152mm SP howitzers


• 3 2S1 Gvozdika 122mm SP howitzers


• 151 BMPs (33 captured)


• 115 BTRs (30 captured)


• 24 Grad 122mm MRLs (15 captured at Debaltsevo)


• 1 Smerch 300mm MRL


• 205 towed artillery pieces


• 36 120mm mortars


• 16 ZU-23-2 anti-aircraft guns (captured at Debaltsevo)


• 6 MT-LB tracked APCs and prime movers.


• 2 BRDMs


• 4 BMDs


• 290 motor vehicles (145 captured)

In addition, the junta lost 3 Su-25 attack aircraft, 1 helicopter, and 4 UAVs.

The Ukrainian military had abandoned a state-of-the-art counter-mortar radar supplied by the United States.

J.Hawk's Comment: It's difficult to say to what extent this data is accurate, especially when it comes to the estimates of killed and wounded, many of whom became casualties due to Novorossia artillery fire against targets behind the front lines. However, photographic evidence from several blogs suggests these figures are correct within an order of magnitude. Every major engagement saw the battlefield littered with destroyed and abandoned UAF vehicles. The Debaltsevo cauldron's rate of losses was even higher, since the vast majority of equipment the UAF sent there had to be left behind.

Arguably this victory is even more important as, in addition to he obvious morale effect on both sides, it quite effectively deprived the UAF of the physical ability to conduct offensive military operations (not that they were all that impressive to begin with), and even to offer effective defense against a Novorossia offensive. This is why Ukrainian officials are scouring the world for weapons, and why the West is concerned about Novorossia's designs on the rest of Ukraine. And, let's face it, the surest sign that Ukraine is on the brink of military collapse is when NATO begins to talk about the Russian Army allegedly operating in Eastern Ukraine.

However, it does not appear that Novorossia is going to press its military advantage. To start with, its government has major problems to deal with, due to the damage caused by Ukrainian artillery bombardments of civilian areas. In contrast to Ukraine, Novorossia's government plans to establish its legitimacy by actually governing and making the country a place fit for human habitation. Secondly, Ukraine's economic crisis is deepening, which will either force a change of policy or, should that fail to materialize, a change of regime. At the moment, the latter scenario seems the more likely of the two.

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Italian 'Frankensurgeon' says first head transplant will be possible in two years

© Reuters/Rupak De Chowdhuri

Controversial Italian neurosurgeon Sergio Canavero claims he could perform the world's first ever human head transplant in 2017, despite ethical and scientific reservations from many of his colleagues.

Canavero, who heads the Turin Advanced Neuromodulation Group, told Sky News.

Canavero's team, which previously touted their plans for a whole-eye transplant, published a paper outlining the procedure two years ago, and say they are now ready to find subjects for the experimental procedure.

" the neurosurgeon told the New Scientist.

Prior to the surgery, the two bodies would be cooled, to preserve them better without oxygen, and then their necks would be sliced open and major blood vessels connected between the donor's body and the recipient's head.

The key stage would be the severing and re-attachment of the spinal cord, which would have to be cleanly sliced, and would then present two bundles of nerves, which would need to be connected to each other. Canavero foresees this being done with polyethylene glycol, a material that enables fat in different tissues to mesh.

The neck would then be stitched shut, and the patient placed in an artificial coma for four weeks, allowing the body to heal without movement.

Canavero previously estimated that the pioneering surgery would cost upwards of €10 million, and that the perfect initial recipient would be a person with a young, healthy brain, suffering from muscular dystrophies or metabolic disorders. He proposes initial experiments where both of the individuals in the surgery would be brain-dead.

'No evidence' it would work

Most of the scientific objections to the procedure focus on the impossibility of restoring body control after the refusing of the spine. Currently, it is commonly impossible to overcome paralysis when a spinal cord is completely severed, even when the rest of the body belongs to the same person. An ambitious procedure performed by Polish doctors last year, managed to restore movement by implanting lab-grown nerve cells into the spine.

But Richard Borgens, director of the Center for Paralysis Research at Purdue University, Indiana, said that Canavero's surgery offers no such guarantees.

There is no evidence that the connectivity of cord and brain would lead to useful sentient or motor function following head transplantation," he told the New Scientist.

This is such an overwhelming project, the possibility of it happening is very unlikely. I don't believe it will ever work, there are too many problems with the procedure. Trying to keep someone healthy in a coma for four weeks - it's not going to happen," said Harry Goldsmith, a clinical professor of neurological surgery at the University of California, Davis, himself a leading expert on reconnecting spinal tissue that enables paralyzed people to walk again.

Yet Canavero can reassure himself that his 'Frankensurgery' is not without precedent. The first attempted dog head transplant dates back to more than a century ago, and Soviet scientist Vladimir Demikhov performed multiple such procedures in the 1950s. US surgeon Robert J. White famously performed a head transplant between two monkeys in 1970, with the survivor living for nine days.

In all of the previous procedures, the recipients remained paralyzed, and all struggled with immune rejection of the new body parts, though with improved techniques, this is not an insurmountable problem.

Ethical problems - from religious considerations, to the simple ickiness-factor - are also likely to slow down progress.

said Patricia Scripko, a neurologist and bioethicist at the Salinas Valley Memorial Healthcare System in California, who does not believe the procedure is possible, but insists it is not objectionable.

Despite the myriad objections - and even his supporters are skeptical of the two-year timeframe - Canavero will now have the chance to convince his colleagues, when he will present his specific plans for the surgery to the prestigious congress of the American Academy of Neurological and Orthopedic Surgeons in Maryland in June.

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The truth about Walmart's paltry wage increase

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Remember when Walmart got panned for running a Thanksgiving food drive for its own employees—overlooking the irony of demonstrating noblesse oblige by asking customers to subsidize the workers the company itself impoverished? The retail giant took a more strategic approach last week when rolling out its latest do-gooder scheme: raising its base wage incrementally to $10 an hour. The move was widely praised even by labor groups—for lifting wages slightly closer to... well, what it should have been paying workers all along.

Still, the announced raise, to a $9 minimum, then rising to $10 an hour by early next year, isn't chump change: for many, it means earning perhaps $1 or $2 more per hour, which, spread across an estimated half million workers, may generate a not-insignificant economic stimulus. Moreover, Walmart promises to offer more stable scheduling and boost some managers' starting pay, as well—all measures that respond partially to the longstanding demands workers nationwide have aired in protests, petitions and lawsuits.

Some predict Walmart's move could eventually raise the floor for the entire labor force, because the company controls a tremendous retail market share and helps set standards for pay scales across the supply chain, from shelf stockers to truck drivers. Though this market influence has been blamed for depressing wages, an uptick in Walmart's base wage may theoretically encourage competitors to match its more favorable offerings on the labor market. That's the business narrative painted by CEO Doug McMillon when he told CBS that Walmart's motive was to "provide a great customer experience" and ensure that workers understood "how much we value them."

But even with the raise, Walmart would still seem to peg the value of its workers at less than a living wage. The lowest-paid employees rely on billions in public benefits each year, including masses of food stamps, to scrape by. According to one recent analysis based on federal estimates, "a single Walmart Supercenter cost taxpayers between... $3,015 and $5,815 on average for each of 300 workers." If a part-time associate is working 1,000 hours a year—roughly half its workers are part-timers—the extra dollar an hour still might not make her financially self-sufficient, much less lift her family out of poverty .

And since Walmart apparently has no plans to significantly expand full-time positions , thousands may continue to lack the working hours they need to approach a sustainable income.

Walmart associates are further devalued by the company's longstanding pattern of suppressing workplace organizing efforts and imposing unstable schedules , which often interfere with workers' family caregiving or school responsibilities and especially impact working women. In addition, Walmart devalues workers further through its vastly unequal corporate hierarchy: according to Demos, the ratio of CEO-to-worker earnings has more than doubled in recent years, to about $300 in CEO compensation for every meager dollar earned by a wage worker.

Besides, the modest wage hike still barely offsets the lag between associates' earnings and shareholder gains in recent years. While wages have barely kept pace with inflation, during the "recovery" since 2007, Walmart has seen a 22 percent rise in profits per worker, according to .

What would a fairer raise at Walmart look like? Workers have proposed their own simple—and surprisingly feasible—demand: $15 an hour, and full-time jobs . According to an analysis by the think tank Demos, Walmart could already afford this measure simply by redirecting about $6.6 billion away from its current practice of repurchasing its own shares—a tactic to artificially boost shareholders' income—and boosting workers' pay instead. This measure "could give its 825,000 low-wage employees a raise of $5.13 per hour, boosting productivity and sales."

The virtuous circle could be widened by ratcheting up pay scales across the retail workforce. Demos estimates that if retailers with 1,000 or more workers set a basic annual income of $25,000, nearly six million workers, most of them women, would get a major boost—resulting in a 27 percent raise for a typical low-wage woman worker.

So Walmart's raise deserves some praise, but it represents a fraction of what the company could already afford to pay, if it only slightly shifted some investments from the executive suite to the checkout line.

Demos analyst Catherine Ruetschlin tells via e-mail that Walmart's chief competitors, ultra-cheap dollar stores, might decide to double down on poverty wages to fill the bottom rung of the market that Walmart previously occupied. So unless economic conditions drastically improve for all workers (and Walmart's new wage hike won't cut it), there will always be impoverished families with householders forced to work for less.

"Since the base of households struggling to make ends meet will persist even after Walmart's raise, it's unlikely those stores will change their model, which is really too bad," Ruetschlin says. Walmart might argue its business will benefit from higher pay, but cheaper rivals might opt to keep banking on the low-wage, low-price economy. Amid a weak labor market, Ruetschlin says, "There may remain a market for buying cheap goods from unhappy employees."

One thing that could actually improve pay across the board would be a boost in the legal minimum wage —and many communities are pushing for higher mandatory wage floors that no one can undercut without breaking the law.

And upward pressure on wages can come from workers who organize to reject poverty wages and demand better working conditions. Following Walmart's announcement, the advocacy group OUR Walmart reminded workers and the public that activists should take this initial raise as a down payment on what they are truly owed:

Walmart associates deserve enough hours each week to make ends meet and enough per hour to keep a roof over our heads. That means $15 an hour, full-time, consistent hours, and respect for our hard work.

As it squares off with aggrieved workers, Walmart may have sought to move the goalpost with a modest concession. But the measure ought to spur labor activists to up their game. When Walmart finally grants them the labor conditions and just compensation they deserve, workers should rightly take the credit for keeping the pressure on the retail giant.

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Additives used to thicken foods found to cause inflammation and weight gain leading to metabolic syndrome

© Monkey Business Images/Shutterstock.com

Processed foods containing emulsifying agents disrupt gut bacteria

Food additives that are commonly used to thicken and stabilize processed foods may disrupt the bacterial makeup of the gut, causing health problems, a new study in animals suggests.

In the study, mice that were fed two chemicals that are commonly added to foods gained weight, had altered blood sugar and developed intestinal problems. The chemicals were "emulsifying agents," chemicals that hold together mixtures that include both fat and water, which would otherwise separate.

The chemicals were "able to trigger low-grade inflammation and metabolic syndrome," in the mice, said study co-author Benoit Chassaing, a microbiologist at Georgia State University in Atlanta.

The food additives may also have harmed the mice by promoting the growth of bacteria that eat through the protective mucus lining of the gut, the study found.

Widely used products

Generally, emulsifying agents are chemicals that thicken foods. For instance, emulsifiers help make ice cream stay creamy even after several cycles of freezing and thawing, whereas otherwise it would turn into a hard, icelike block, Chassaing said.

"If you want to make a product that gels together and liquefies together, you need to add these compounds," said Christian Jobin, a microbial immunologist at the University of Florida in Gainesville, who was not involved in the study.

Past studies in mice had shown that a food additive called carboxymethylcellulose changed the composition of the bacterial communities that line the gut. So Chassaing and his colleagues wondered how this affected the animals' health.

Big changes

The team fed healthy mice a diet with either 1 percent carboxymethylcellulose, or 1 percent polysorbate 80, another popular emulsifier found in many foods. (Processed foods typically contain about 1 percent emulsifiers.)

The healthy mice soon began eating more, gaining weight and had blood sugar control problems , compared with control mice. These symptoms are important to look at because in humans, they are involved in "metabolic syndrome," which is a generally unhealthy state (defined as having high blood pressure, low levels of HDL, or "good" cholesterol, high blood sugar and increased levels of triglycerides).

When the researchers looked at the mice's gut tissue under a microscope, they saw more signs of low-grade inflammation.

The team also fed the food additives to mice genetically predisposed to develop diseases such as inflammatory bowel disease and colitis. In these mice, the emulsifiers seemed to worsen the disease.

To understand why the food additives caused low-grade inflammation in the mice, the researchers looked at the layer of protective mucus that lines the gut. They found that emulsifiers contributed to the growth of bacteria that live deeper in the mucous layer, closer to the intestinal tissue itself. The food additives also promoted the growth of bacteria that can digest the mucous.

The findings are part of a growing body of literature that suggests that the bacteria that live in the human body play an important role in health, the researchers said.

Human effect?

Jobin noted that mice eat a very different diet than humans, so repeating this study in animals such as pigs, which eat a very similar diet to humans, could be more informative.

Ultimately, the ideal experiment would be to compare people who are eating foods with and without these agents in them, Jobin said. But completely eliminating these compounds from a person's diet could be tricky.

"We are just bombarded with these things," Jobin told Live Science.

People who want to avoid these food additives should eat more whole foods and fresh foods, Chassaing said.

"Packaged products are very loaded with emulsifiers and freshly cooked foods are not, so this is one of the simplest ways to avoid these agents," Chassaing told Live Science.

The research team is currently starting a test in people, and the members are also following up to see if other natural emulsifying agents, such as soy lecithin and guar gum, have similar effects, Chassaing said.

The findings were published today (Feb. 25) in the journal .

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1.6 billion people worldwide forced to pay bribes

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A major study has looked at bribery levels across the world and reached a disappointing conclusion: a total of 1.6 billion people worldwide - nearly a quarter of the global population - are forced to pay bribes simply to gain access to everyday public services.

The research, published in a new book by academics from the University of Strathclyde and the University of Birmingham in the UK, found that bribes are paid for healthcare and education, to obtain permits or after being stopped by police.

Scamming the globe

Professor Richard Rose of Strathclyde and Dr. Caryn Peiffer of Birmingham conducted surveys interviewing more than 250,000 people in 119 countries in Africa, Asia, the European Union, former Communist European nations, Latin America and the Anglo-American world. There were significant differences in bribery levels between continents, but also between different countries in the same continent.

Europe has very low rates of bribery, with only 4 percent on average making such payments. By contrast, the average is 22 percent in Latin America and 29 percent in the 30 African countries surveyed.

However, Professor Rose says that: "'Within every continent, there are major differences in the percentage of people annually paying bribes. In Africa, the range is between 63 percent in Sierra Leone and 4 percent in Botswana; in the European Union, which has the goal of upholding the rule of law, there were 29 percent paying a bribe in Lithuania and fewer than 1 percent reporting bribing a British public official."

Large percentages of countries' populations will avoid the problem for long periods simply because they do not have regular contact with public services, however most people will have contact with public services at some stage in their life. Parents of school-age children are most likely to be in contact with education officials, while older people, especially widows, are most likely to need health care, and young men are most likely to have contact with the police.

Morals are hard to map

Europe's low rates for individuals having to bribe officials for services should not necessarily be taken as a sign of moral superiority. Professor Rose explains that: "The European contribution to global corruption is in the bribes that multi-national corporations pay to political elites to obtain 'big bucks' contracts for such things as building dams or supplying military aircraft."

In countries where individuals do have to bribe public officials, the study looked at the cause of the problem. Rose says that: "Some public officials like to blame their citizens for being ready and willing to pay bribes, as part of a so-called 'moral economy' of corruption, in which everybody sees services as corrupt and therefore takes payment of a bribe as a part of everyday life."

"However," he added, "survey data shows this is not the case. The great majority of people in every country think that bribery is wrong. They pay bribes because the alternative is doing without health care or a better education for their children."

He also pointed out that: "Our evidence shows that most public officials are not out to make money by taking bribes, but to provide services such as teaching small children to read or looking after people in hospital," while the problem is caused by a minority of "bad apples."

Six principles for reducing bribery are set out in the book's conclusion, including computerized systems and rewarding the service ethic of public officials.

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Cyprus and Russia renew military cooperation

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Anastasiades and Putin.

Russian navy ships will keep having access to stop off at Cyprus' ports in Mediterranean as the two countries have agreed to prolong the pre-existing deal on military cooperation.

The agreement, which applies to Russian vessels involved in counter-terrorism and anti-piracy efforts, was signed by President Vladimir Putin and his Cypriot counterpart, Nicos Anastasiades, in Moscow.

The signing came aimed heightened tensions and sanctions between Russia and the EU over the military conflict in Ukraine.

President Putin, however, stressed that the agreement, as well as Russia-Cypriot ''friendly ties aren't aimed against anyone."

"I don't think it should cause worries anywhere," he said.

During his press conference at Tass news agency's headquarters, Anastasiades stressed that Moscow and Nicosia haven't signed any new agreements, but only prolonged those that were in place before.

"The updated agreement envisages the right of Russian warships to visit the ports of Cyprus...for humanitarian purposes such as supply and refueling a swell as saving the lives and evacuation of Russian citizens from neighboring states," he said.

He called the prolongation of a military deal with Russia "a sensitive issue," adding that Vladimir Putin discussed this matter in a very delicate manner, not putting Cyprus in an uncomfortable position before its EU partners.

Despite the permission to enter Cyprus port for Russian ships, the sides also agreed that Moscow will restructure its €2.5 billion bailout loan it gave Nicosia in 2011.

In return for being granted permission for Russian navy ships to stop off in Cypriot ports, Moscow has agreed to restructure its €2.5 billion (£1.8 billion) bailout loan it gave Cyprus in 2011.

Russia isn't only country to have military ties with Cyprus as the Mediterranean island state also planning to host British military bases.

The cool down in relations with EU and the US saw Moscow working to maintain good relations with its long-time time European partners, including Greece, Hungary and Cyprus.

Anastasiades spoke out against the implementation of further European sanctions against Russia as "they impact other countries [and] members of the EU, which include my motherland."

He also reminded that "most of the Cyprus military's weaponry is Russian made. Apart From France, only Russia supplies weapons to Cyprus."

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