Sheer Brutality

What has happened in Mumbai remains tonight almost impossible to encapsulate. The sheer wanton brutality appears to be a step change beyond anything we have seen before. What happened in Mumbai involved around some 20 men going into the station, a restaurant, several hotels, a Jewish centre, and spraying machine gun fire at women, children and random people, some Muslim, some Hindu, some Jewish, some Christian, some nothing. They saw the whites of the eyes of the people they killed. They had time to reload the magazines of their guns, time even to think.

It’s hard to determine who they are because the group they claim to be has never been heard of. And in India extremism has often been interwoven with sheer criminal gang activity. Head of Indian commandos says siege at Taj Mahal hotel in Mumbai is now over, after three days of violence which left at least 144 dead. As we go to air, though the terrorists have been captured, it is still unclear how near is the end of the terrorism. It is unclear who is perpetrating it. And it is unclear what the consequence of it all will be in the future. Bravo Indian commandos. They deserve medals. But without doubt 26/11 will go down as another ratchet up in litany of international criminality, in which both politics and religion appear to play a part.

Discovery To The Core

Scientists have discovered more than 1,000 species in Southeast Asia’s Greater Mekong region in the past decade, including a spider as big as a dinner plate, the World Wildlife Fund said on Monday. A rat thought to have become extinct 11 million years ago and a cyanide-laced, shocking pink millipede were among creatures found in what the group called a biological treasure trove.

The species were all found in the rain forests and wetlands along the Mekong River, which flows through Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam and the southern Chinese province of Yunnan. Discoveries of this scale were confined to the history books.These included the world’s largest huntsman spider, with a leg span of 30cm, and the startlingly coloured dragon millipede, which produces the deadly compound cyanide.

End Of The Aura

South Africa ended nearly a century-old drought to register their first ever series win in Australia when they crushed the hosts by nine wickets in the historic second Test in Melbourne on Tuesday. Since touring Australia for the first time in 1910-11, this was The South African's maiden series win Down Under — their previous best performance being a 1-1 draw back in 1963-64. Having taken an unassailable 2-0 lead in the series, South Africa will topple Australia from their top ranking if Graeme Smith’s men can win the third and final Test in Sydney. In a match where Smith struck two fifties, JP Duminy scored his maiden hundred and Ponting scored 101 and 99, fast bowler Dale Steyn was adjudged man of the match for his match haul of 10 for 154 besides the crucial 76 he scored in the first innings. Smith was the lone South African wicket to fall in the second innings.

The South African captain was trapped leg before by Nathan Hauritz after making a 94-ball 75 with 10 boundaries in it. Neil McKenzie (59) and Amla (30) remained not out after guiding the team to a historic win. Ponting, meanwhile, became the first Australian captain in 16 years to suffer a series defeat on home soil. Last time Australia lost a series at home was against the West Indies in 1992-93.

Change In The History

M S Dhoni asked former captain Anil Kumble to receive the Border-Gavaskar trophy along with him. Earlier, after Australia lost its ninth wicket, Dhoni asked Sourav Ganguly to lead the team one last time.

India steamrolled the world champions just before tea of day 5 of the nagpur test, winning the final Test at VCA’s Jamtha stadium by 172 runs. The Border-Gavaskar Trophy had come home after 2003-04. Hayden was the only Aussie to stand tall on Monday as the visitors found the pressure, and the Indian bowling was too much to bear. Harbhajan picked up four wickets while Mishra took three. Ishant, adjudged Man of the Series, claimed two. India’s victory means Australia’s aura of invincibility has been dented, and India are well on their way to becoming the new No.1 Test team.

Dark Energy Stunts

The same mystery force that is speeding up the expansion of the universe is also stunting the growth of the objects inside it. After bulking up rapidly in the first 10 billion years of cosmic time, clusters of galaxies, the cloud like swarms that are the largest conglomerations of matter in the universe, have grown anemically or not at all during the last five billion years, like sullen teenagers who suddenly refuse to eat.

This result could be explained as arrested development of the universe. This stifling of growth is the unmistakable signature of an anti-gravitational force that astronomers have labeled dark energy. It was discovered 10 years ago by astronomers who were using exploding stars called supernovas as distance markers to chart the expansion of the universe. They found that instead of slowing down because of cosmic gravity, as common sense would suggest, the expansion of the universe was actually speeding up, with galaxies zooming apart faster and faster.

New Compound

A new type of imaging compound can light up spreading cancer cells and may offer a way to track the deadly spread of the disease, Japanese and US researchers reported. They used the new compound to monitor the spread of breast and ovarian cancer cells in living mice, using a tiny camera known as an endoscope.

These compounds may allow clinicians to monitor a patient’s response to cancer therapy by allowing them to visualize whether a drug hits its target and whether hitting the target leads to shrinkage of the tumor. The researchers made their imaging compound by linking a fluorescent compound to Herceptin, itself a genetically engineered antibody that homes in on cells with mutated estimated glomerular filtration rate.