It shows that the Vietnamese don’t hold women in high regard or respect the criminal nature of rape. It says even their communist government believes in traditional medicine over the rule of law and objective evidence. Then again, hiring an expert and paying for expert testimony has become standard procedure in court cases and their culture considers healers experts.

Surely Pham Thi Hong must have been compensated, perhaps VERY well compensated for her expert testimony and threat to immolate herself.

Currently Pham Thi Hong is the only traditional medicine practitioner in Vietnam who can give a virginity test by examining ones' ear. (AP Photo)

‘Virginity test’ helps free 3 in Vietnam rape case
TRAN VAN MINH  |  Jul 1, 2010  |  AP

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) – An acupuncturist who claims she can detect a man’s virginity based on a small dot on the ear has become a minor celebrity in Vietnam, where she is credited with helping to free three convicted rapists from prison.

Traditional medicine practitioner Pham Thi Hong started lobbying for the men’s release, pleading their case all the way to the president, because she believes all three men are virgins and therefore could not be guilty of rape.

“They all had small red spots on the back of their ears,” said Hong, 54. “The spots should have disappeared if they had had sex. My many years of experience told me that these men did not have sex before.”

Her claims are unusual even for a country where acupuncture and traditional medicine are still common remedies, but Hong’s determination to have the case reopened – even threatening to light herself on fire – led to prosecutors re-examining the case. The convictions eventually were suspended due to flaws by initial investigators.

“Thanks to her efforts, investigators revisited the case which otherwise could have been buried,” said Nong Thi Hong Ha, a lawyer for one of the freed men.

Hong says she discovered the spot on Nguyen Dinh Kien’s ear the first time he visited her for treatment four years ago. He was brought to the hospital from prison, where he was serving a 16-year sentence after being convicted of gang raping a 20-year-old woman in 2000.

After seeing the spot on Kien’s ear, Hong believed his insistence that he was innocent. She later examined his two alleged accomplices and began a campaign for their release. Eventually, President Nguyen Minh Triet ordered that the case be re-examined.

Investigators who revisited the case discovered flaws, including the fact that testimonies of witnesses indicating their innocence were not included in the case’s files, according to the local Pioneer newspaper. The three men, having served 10 years in jail, were released in January.

Vietnamese newspapers have dedicated profiles to Hong and her virginity test, crediting her with helping to free the men while not expressing any skepticism of her ability. Earlier this week, she went on an online chat on Pioneer newspaper where readers expressed their “great admiration” for her efforts.

She says she was first taught how to determine if a man has ever had sex by feeling their pulse. She later developed the ear-spot method on her own. She says the spot will only disappear after heterosexual intercourse and is not affected by gay sex or masturbation.

“I never thought that one day I would use this method to help the three men prove their innocence,” said Hong, while treating a patient in her home on the outskirts of Hanoi.

Her virgin-detecting claims have drawn skepticism from other traditional medicine practitioners, who work with needles, herbs and other methods using centuries-old techniques to manipulate energy, or chi, in the body.

“I have never heard of this method before,” said Nguyen Van Hao, 60, an acupuncturist who has practiced for 14 years. “From the medical point of view, it’s impossible to determine whether a man has had sex or not by feeling the pulse or examining the red spot on their ears.”

Hong, however, said she’s convinced her method works after years of testing it on her students.

Hong says her reputation has now prompted other convicted rapists to seek her help in appealing their cases.

“I’m not planning to launch a campaign to clear innocent people who were falsely convicted of rape,” she said. “But I’m willing to help people to prove their innocence, if they really are.”

We wish this guy the best.

Arizona man suffers second degree burns on both feet from extremely hot pavement
by Mike Murasarz, ABC News  |  WHAS11.com  |  July 19, 2010 at 2:27 PM

(ABC News) The extreme heat sent an Arizona man to the hospital with severe burns on his feet.

Seventy-eight-year-old James Wankul suffered second degree burns on his feet, just for walking on the sidewalk with no shoes on. He had gone outside to run after the mailman. Wankul said the pain brought him to his knees. A neighbor ran after him, after seeing him fall in the street.

Terri Cyran, the neighbor, said “By the time he turned around, he couldn’t run back to the grass. So he fell down and then he was burning his knees and his hands so we had to, both of us, had to pick him up by his arms and then run him to the grass.”

James Wankul, had second degree burns on his feet. “I couldn’t stand up. The pain was so bad in my feet. Both the right & the left feet had blistered all the way across the balls of my feet,” said Wankul.

Doctors say this should be a reminder to parents who have small children and to pet owners; that sidewalks and pavements can easily reach 130-degrees on hot summer days.

In a measuring chamber for protons: the muon beam moves through the ring-shaped electrodes from the left. In the space between the two grey-metallic bars under the pane of glass the muons impact on gaseous hydrogen - and displace the electrons from some of the atoms. The apparatus registers this process and fires a laser through the hole in the bottom bar onto the muonic hydrogen in order to reveal details of the atomic structure and thus ultimately the radius of the proton. (Credit: Randolf Pohl / MPI of Quantum Optics)

The Proton — Smaller Than Thought: Scientists Measure Charge Radius of Hydrogen Nucleus and Stumble Across Physics Mysteries
ScienceDaily  |  July 12, 2010  |  www.sciencedaily.com

Big problems sometimes come in small packages. The problem with which physicists must now concern themselves measures a mere 0.0350 millionth of a millionth of a millimetre. This is precisely the difference between the new, smaller, dimension of the proton, the nucleus of the hydrogen atom, and the value which has been assumed so far. Instead of 0.8768 femtometres, it measures only 0.8418 femtometres.

At the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland, an international team of researchers including physicists from the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics has now measured this in experiments which are ten times more accurate than all previous ones. They thus present physics with some tough problems: at least one fundamental constant now changes. And physicists have also to check the calculations of quantum electrodynamics. This theory is assumed to be very well proven, but its predictions do not agree with these latest measurements.

The research is published in the journal Nature (July 8, 2010).

For many years, Randolf Pohl and his colleagues believed their measuring instrument was not accurate enough: they first performed an experiment to determine the size of the proton back in 2003, but they had not discovered the signal which would provide them with the relevant insight. “This was not down to the accuracy of our method, but to the fact that we did not expect such a large deviation,” says Randolf Pohl. The researchers had therefore chosen too small a window for their measurements. “It is good, nevertheless, that we have significantly improved our method yet again, otherwise people might not believe us now,” continues Pohl.

Randolf Pohl and his colleagues in an international collaboration have measured the charge radius of the proton with an accuracy of better than one thousandth of a femtometre. This is the radius which the charge of the positive hydrogen nucleus assumes. To this end, they have investigated tiny details in the atomic structure, using muonic hydrogen, where it is not an electron but a heavier muon which orbits the nucleus (see ‘Background: a ruler for a proton’). Their measurements show that the hydrogen nucleus measures 0.8418 femtometre. A result which is outside the margin of error which physicists had applied to the previous measurements for the proton radius by a factor of five.

Even if the deviation is negligible on a day-to-day scale, it possibly has significant consequences. Researchers are unable to say precisely what these may be, however. What is certain is that this changes the Rydberg constant. Quantum physicists use this constant to calculate which energy packets atoms and molecules absorb and emit when they change their states. These energy packets correspond to the spectral lines of the elements. The calculations for the spectral lines now shift noticeably and no longer match the experimental findings.

The theoreticians are now searching for the error in the calculation

“Since the Rydberg constant is the most accurately determined fundamental constant so far, it is as solid as a rock,” says Randolf Pohl. If physicists draw a self-consistent picture of all fundamental constants, the other fundamental constants such as Planck’s constant or the mass of the electron can only move around the Rydberg constant. The fact that this rock has been moved slightly will hardly impress the other fundamental constants: they have been determined just as exactly as the Rydberg constant so they will probably not feel the jerk at all. The test for this is still pending, however.

“We also have to be very careful with more far-reaching consequences,” says Pohl. Many theoreticians all over the world are now recalculating the predictions of quantum electrodynamics with the new proton radius. This quantum theory describes how atoms, electrons, elementary particles and other players move in this diminutive world and which electromagnetic fields are created in the process. It also provides a value for the proton radius for comparison with experimental data — but this is significantly higher than the one measured now. “I assume that an error has been made somewhere in the calculation, because the theory of quantum electrodynamics is very consistent and has been rigorously proven,” says Pohl. If this is not the case, the slightly shifted proton radius would trigger an earthquake in physics, which would at least result in considerable ‘fault lines’ in this theory.

While theoreticians are now trying to get to the bottom of the mystery of the erroneous proton radius in their models, the Garching researchers and their colleagues are checking the new measurement result with further experiments on the hydrogen atom. They also want to redesign their experimental set-up so that they can also measure the charge radius of the helium nucleus. These investigations are also intended to tell them something about how atomic nuclei are deformed when they interact with a negative charge. In this way the physicists want to discover the exact structure of matter step-by-step — and hope, of course, to come across more mysteries of physics.

Background: A ruler for a proton

In order to measure the charge radius of the proton, the researchers use the electronic interactions in a hydrogen atom and take into account the tiniest details of the atomic structure: the positively charged nucleus attracts the electron, which can move in different shells around the nucleus. The energy of the electron increases when it jumps up to the next highest shell. In the first shell it can only move in one orbital: the s-orbital, which surrounds the atomic nucleus like a sphere. When the electron climbs upwards shell by shell, additional space becomes available to it each time. In the second shell, for example, it can occupy not only the spherical s-orbital but also a p-orbital which forms a dumbbell-shaped structure around the atomic nucleus.

In the simplest model of an atom the electron has the same energy in the s-orbital as it does in the p-orbital. In reality, however, its energy in the p-orbital is slightly higher than in the s-orbital. Physicists call the small energy gap the Lamb shift. The Garching physicists are targeting this small gap. One reason for its existence is that the proton is not an infinitesimally small point, but a tiny sphere. If the electron occupies the p-orbital, the electron does not feel this, because both club-shaped ends of the dumbbell are located outside the atomic nucleus — the electron is therefore never inside the nucleus itself. The situation is quite different in the sphere of the s-orbital: here the electron also repeatedly spends time in the nucleus itself — the charges of nucleus and electron then cancel each other out. This decreases the average attractive force of the nucleus and hence the energy of the electron.

In the conventional hydrogen atom the effect is so small that it is hardly noticeable even in the most accurate measurements. At the Paul Scherrer Institute in the Swiss town of Villingen the Garching physicists have therefore produced muonic hydrogen in which a muon replaces the electron. The muon has the same negative charge as an electron, but is around 200 times heavier. The total diameter of the atom thus shrinks and, on average, the muon spends more time in the nucleus so that the energy of the s-orbital in question also experiences a stronger shift. The researchers measure the energy difference by giving the electron a little energetic nudge with a laser, so that it jumps from the s-orbital of the second shell into the p-orbital.

That is the principle. In order to measure the energy difference, which is still tiny even in muonic hydrogen, the physicists working with Randolf Pohl have to solve some practical problems. They not only need a laser whose wavelength can be set with extreme precision. Little by little they change its energy until it precisely matches the transition between the two orbitals. The laser must also release its pulse in less than one millionth of a second after it has received the command. This is placed as soon as the detectors of the apparatus register a muonic hydrogen atom.

In 99 percent of the cases the muon in the hydrogen atom slips immediately into the s-orbital of the energetically favourable first shell. The laser therefore mainly fires at particles which are no use for the researchers’ real purpose. The apparatus registers an atom in which the muon remains in the s-orbital of the second shell only six to seven times per hour. “You can sit for hours in front of the screen and hardly anything happens,” says Randolf Pohl. And then it takes only a millionth of a second until the muon falls from the second into the first, energetically more favourable shell. The Garching researchers have used a variety of tricks to teach their laser a reaction time of 900 billionths of a second, thus making the measurement possible in the first place.

After the researchers had spent several months setting up and fine-tuning their apparatus at the Paul Scherrer Institute, they finally measured for three weeks without a break. Only then had they moved muons from the s-orbital into the p-orbital of the second shell so often that a marked peak was visible in their spectrum. Then only calculations remained. “The equation for this is pretty difficult,” says Pohl, but, finally, they arrived at their value for the proton radius which is ten times more accurate and which now sets a number of new tasks for quantum theorists.

Creature drives villagers ashore
Theresa Ralogaivau | Tuesday, June 29, 2010 | www.fijitimes.com

A STRANGE looking marine creature reportedly spotted in lagoon waters of three villages in Cakaudrove are keeping fishermen and divers away from sea.

Naiqaqi Village headman Jepeca Nakuvu said villagers from the neighbouring village of Laucala and Valeni were scared of going out to sea because of the creature.

Ateca Disukavanua, 50, said she was fishing near a copse of mangrove called Dogodogo on Monday when she saw a black creature swimming towards her.

“At first I thought it was a log but then it moved closer and I was so scared because the water was up to my waist I jumped on top of a mangrove stump,” she said. “I hung on to that mangrove tree for about an hour and the creature, which was about three foot long, and had flippers like that of a turtle and had a strange long mouth.

“I had never seen such a thing before in my life. I was shaking because it kept hanging around as if it smelt the place where I was standing.

“I only got down when the tide went out and the water was only ankle high.”

Mr Nakuvu said men from the three villages armed themselves with cane knives, digging forks and spears and looked for the creature hoping to kill it.

“When we know it is dead we will go out to sea because we are scared because this is something that we are not familiar with,” he said.

The village headman said they had lodged a complaint at the Savusavu Police Station.

The owner of the leg seems like a really nice, outgoing, happy, active man. I hope this link to a video works. Here’s another link.

Todd Snyder holds his prosthetic leg that washed up on Jacksonville Beach as he talks to Channel 4's Steve Douglas.

Prosthetic Leg, Owner Reunited At Beach
Ad Posted On Craigslist To Find Leg’s Owner After It Washed Ashore
June 3, 2010  |  www.news4jax.com

JACKSONVILLE BEACH, Fla. — A man has been reunited with his prosthetic leg that washed ashore at Jacksonville Beach last week.

Todd Snyder said he was swimming in the ocean when the leg filled with water and came off.

“I had it in my hand and got hit by a wave,” Snyder said. “It came out of my hand, and I went down and felt out, but I was out of breath, and right when I came up, I got hit by a wave and I lost it again.”

Snyder said he figured currents had taken the leg miles away, and he was surprised to hear the Jacksonville Beach police had it.

“I figured by the next day it’s in New Smyrna Beach or Daytona or somewhere, so I had just given up hope,” he said.

Police took the leg with a Willie Nelson sticker on it into custody and posted an ad on Craigslist looking for the leg’s owner.

Snyder reclaimed his missing leg Wednesday night after he called police to let them know it was his.

He said he goes swimming about two to three times a week and won’t let this mishap stop him from getting in the water.

Candidate wins NV primary with queen of clubs
SANDRA CHEREB  |  Jul 1, 2010  |  AP  |  CARSON CITY, Nev.

The 10 of clubs wasn’t quite good enough.

That’s what Carl Moore Sr. drew Thursday in the tiebreaker between two rural Nevada county commission candidates who sought the Republican nomination in the June 8 primary.

Nye County Commissioner Andrew “Butch” Borasky, who survived a recall last year and is seeking a second term, drew a queen of clubs to advance to the November general election.

The drawing took place in a courtroom in Pahrump, 60 miles west of Las Vegas.

Both tied with 381 votes in the primary. They remained tied after two recounts. State law calls for candidates to draw lots to get a winner when an election is deadlocked. It can be cutting cards, throwing dice, drawing straws or flipping a coin.

Before the big moment, Borasky and Moore agreed on procedure, down to the color of the deck that Clerk Sandra Merlino used – red. Merlino then shuffled the cards seven times and fanned their fate out on a table.

“We decided on high card,” Borasky told The Associated Press in a telephone interview afterward. “There was no disagreement between us. We shook hands before and after.”

Moore, co-owner of a family-owned hardware store, did not immediately return a phone message seeking comment.

Borasky will face Libertarian candidate Sandra Darby in November.

It’s not the first time a Nevada election has been determined by chance.

In the past decade, county commission races in White Pine and Esmeralda counties were each decided by a cut of the deck.

Two card draws were needed to decide the winner of a seat on a rural television district board last year.

After a tie in 2008, one candidate lost an initial draw before Washoe County election officials discovered some votes weren’t counted. They tied again in ballots, and the eventual winner was declared after he drew an ace of clubs to beat a 10 of spades in January 2209.

wow

Prosthetic leg washes ashore in Jacksonville Beach; Willie Nelson sticker included
By Dan Scanlan  |  June 1, 2010  |  www.jacksonville.com

You would think that a prosthetic leg would be hard to miss, or at the very least hard to forget about and leave behind.

But that’s what the Jacksonville Beach Police Department has in its property room right now, discovered Thursday on the beach near 10th Avenue North.

Sgt. Thomas Bingham, the police spokesman, said a man brought the left leg in after it apparently washed ashore, also posting the missing limb on jacksonville.craigslist.org.

“There are no markings on it except for a Willie Nelson sticker,” Bingham said. “It’s kind of hard to forget.”

The sergeant said the prosthetic leg has a distinctive coloration and markings, so whoever lost it should be able to identify it if they come to the department at 101 S. Penman Road. The owner can also call the police department property room at (904) 247-6196 between 7 a.m. and 4 p.m. weekdays.