Rare Calico Lobster Turns Heads, Escapes Being Dinner

The calico lobster known as Calvin is shown in this photo provided by Boston's New England Aquarium. The lobster is dark with bright orange and yellow spots.

A calico lobster that had been living in obscurity off the coast of Maine has now been catapulted into a sort of celebrity, thanks to its rare coloring: a calico mix of orange and yellow spots. Researchers say it could be a 1 in 30 million specimen.

The invertebrate was caught off Winter Harbor, Maine; it was saved from the cooking pot at Jasper White's Summer Shack restaurant in Cambridge, Mass., after the staff noticed its striking coloration.

Envision Radio Networks launches “Paranormal 60”

Envision says Paranormal 60 is their new daily :60 second exploration through the realms of the unexplained. Paranormal expert Dave Schrader takes listeners on a supernatural journey that probes such phenomena as alien and UFO sightings, encounters with elusive creatures known as Bigfoot and chupacabras, and, of course, ghostly visitations from the beyond.

To stay grounded from the world of the unknown, Paranormal 60 marries unusual subject matter with current entertainment news in features that appeal to all listeners including “Celebrity Paranormal Reports” and “Sci-Fi/Horror Entertainment Updates”.

“Paranormal 60 offers programming specifically designed for PPM markets at no cost to affiliates,” says Danno Wolkoff, Envision CEO. “Radio stations can use these compelling stories of the supernatural on-air, online and on demand throughout multiple dayparts. Listeners love these unexplained events and want to hear what really happened?”

While taking a quick break from conducting a paranormal investigation in Mansfield, Ohio, host Dave Schrader said, “Paranormal 60 is the perfect blend of creepy, fascinating and fun information that will get the water cooler talk buzzing. Paranormal 60 is dragging your nightmares out into the daylight; hold on for one hell of a ride!”

[rbr.com]

UFO Filmed Shadowing Plane Over Montreal

A UFO was observed Tuesday trailing what appeared to be a passenger airliner, before disappearing beside the plane.

The daytime incident was captured on video, luckily, and the footage was slowed to get a better sense of the encounter. It's definitely an eerie thing to watch.

The glowing light appears behind the plane, and then gains ground, before vanishing mysteriously on the opposite side of the fuselage. You can view the footage here. Because of distance and lighting, you can't discern any markings on the plane, but it could be a commercial jet.

These encounters between planes and UFOs are becoming a serious problem for the aviation industry. It seems these scary episodes are occurring with increasing frequency. And, because of the ubiquity of cell phone cams and other held-held devices, it's easy to capture sightings on video.

It's no shock extraterrestrials would find aircraft interesting. Hopefully, the airlines are instructing their crews to pay attention to what is going on inside the planes, instead of watching for UFOs.

[gather.com]

The world may not end soon predicts newly found Mayan calendar

The earliest known Mayan calendar has been found in an ancient house in Guatemala and it offers no hint that the world's end is imminent, researchers said Thursday.

The walls reveal the oldest known astronomical tables from the Maya. Scientists already knew they must have been keeping such records at that time, but until now the oldest known examples dated from about 600 years later.

Astronomical records were key to the Mayan calendar, which has gotten some attention recently because of doomsday warnings that it predicts the end of the world this December. Experts say it makes no such prediction. The new finding provides a bit of backup: The calculations include a time span longer than 6,000 years, meaning it could extend well beyond 2012.

"Why would they go into those numbers if the world is going to come to an end this year?" observed Anthony Aveni of Colgate University in Hamilton, New York, an expert on Mayan astronomy. "You could say a number that big at least suggests that time marches on."

Huge Dead Satellite May Be Space Junk for 150 Years

An enormous Earth-observing satellite that was officially declared dead in space Wednesday (May 9) may stay in orbit for the next 150 years, posing a threat to other spacecraft zipping around our planet.

The $2.9 billion Envisat spacecraft, which is about the size of a school bus, went mysteriously silent about a month ago after 10 successful years of studying our planet from orbit. The European Space Agency (ESA) announced Wednesday that it had given up hope of recovering the satelite, which died a year before its planned 2013 decommissioning.

The announcement instantly made Envisat one of the biggest pieces of space junk in low-Earth orbit. Its body measures about 30 feet long by 16 feet wide (9 by 5 meters), but its 46-foot-long (14-m) solar array gives the satellite an even bigger profile. The dead spacecraft weighs 17,600 pounds (8 metric tons).

At the moment, the disposal plan for Envisat is simply to let the huge spacecraft spiral slowly down to a fiery death in Earth's atmosphere. In 2010, ESA scentists estimated that this could take 150 years or so.

[space.com]