Fly Parasite Turns Honeybees Into Zombies

If deadly viruses and fungi weren't enough, honeybees in North America now must also deal with a fly parasite that causes them to leave their hive and die after wandering about in a zombie-like stupor, a new study shows.

Scientists previously found that the parasitic fly, Apocephalus borealis, infects and ultimately kills bumblebees and paper wasps, while the "decapitating fly," an insect in the same genus, implants its eggs in ants, whose heads then pop off after the fly larvae devour the ants' brains and dissolve their connective tissues. Now researchers have discovered honeybees parasitized by A. borealis in 24 of 31 sites across the San Francisco Bay area, as well as other commercial hives in California and South Dakota.

Genetic tests revealed that some of the bees and flies were infected with deformed wing virus and the fungus Nosema ceranae, both of which have been implicated in colony collapse disorder (CCD). The scientists believe that more research into the parasitized bees and their behavior could yield new insights into the devastating disorder.

"Understanding causes of the hive abandonment behavior we document could explain symptoms associated with CCD," the researchers write in their study, published today (Jan. 3) in the journal PLoS One.

Read more at:  http://www.livescience.com/17718-fly-parasite-honeybees.html

UFO, zombie, ghost and witch sightings revealed

Published date: 28 April 2011 |
Published by: Thomas Morton

DYFED Powys Police has revealed how many sightings of UFOs, zombies, ghosts, witches and vampires occurred in the county in the past five years.

The figures, made public because of a Freedom of Information Request Act, reveal 14 recorded UFO sightings in the past five years, along with 26 reports of ghosts, 11 witches and two of zombies and vampires respectively.

One zombie report turned out to be in a horror film being shot in Pembrey; the other a person acting suspiciously wearing a zombie mask in Haverfordwest.

Of the witch reports many of the calls were apparently from the same individual identified as having “mental health issues”. Others simply refer to someone looking “like a witch” but one drunk caller “rang regarding a gang of witches that want to sacrifice him.” There were no reports of werewolves.

Dyfed Powys Police said that they did not find any evidence of supernatural or paranormal activity in any of the cases – however this does not mean every case had an explanation.

UFO sightings included such reports as an “Oblong shaped, bright yellow” object “going horizontally across, about 10 to 15ft off the ground” in Llandrindod Wells in 2005; a “triangular shape in sky with different coloured lights in each corner” in Meifod in 2007; to “three orange lights thought to be UFOs” in Llanidloes in 2009, which ends: “Object seized and discovered to be a night lantern.”

Phil Hoyle of the Shrewsbury-based UFO Research and Investigation Unit said that such statistics were only a fraction of sightings, many of which go officially unreported or are hard to classify.

“Wales has got a lot of UFO hot-spots, particularly on the Shropshire/Welsh border and down around the Radnorshire forest, Knighton, Builth Wells and Llandrindod Wells” he said, saying he had reports from ex-military and police themselves, “The police go through a process of elimination to try to classify it, but people often can’t describe what they have seen - lots of people have reported structured devices, 20 to 30 feet across, quite close up - these are not just lights, and can’t be confused with chinese Lanterns.”

Between 2005 and 2010 there were 36 incidents of big cat sightings or animal deaths where big cats were suspected.

According to the British Big Cat Society’s statistics Wales ranks number four in the UK’s top 10 areas for big cat sightings. Scotland is number one, followed by Kent and Yorkshire.

In response to another request about how much the force had spent on mediums, clairvoyants or other psychics during the last five years it said it did not use such services.

The force has had 3,300 freedom of information requests costing it over £500,000 in the last five years, and has begun to publish these on its website.

Other figures show that in 2010 the force received 21 allegations of crime involving the website ebay and 47 allegations involving the social networking site Facebook.
As of 31 March 2010 there were 294 registered sex offenders living in the force area.

The Dyfed-Powys Police helicopter made 481 flights in 2009 and the force spent £299,078 on its press and communications office and officers in 2009/10.

http://www.countytimes.co.uk/news/101792/ufo-zombie-ghost-and-witch-sightings-revealed.aspx

Law of Haiti admits and criminalizes the creation of zombies

Thursday, February 3, 2011

HAITI - Haitians are 50% Catholic and 100% Voodoo priests - says a military member of Brazilian peace forces, that are working in the capital Port-au-Prince since 2004. The mysticism of the inhabitants of the western part of the island of Hispaniola, the Caribbean, is considered taboo by most of the western world and has little relationship with rag dolls targeted needles.

Haitian Voodoo has its root in Africa. The practices are widespread in the Caribbean nation, whose deep misery gives to gives the nation the worst Human Development Index (HDI) of the Americas.

Brazilian soldiers who are part of MINUSTAH (United Nations Mission for the Stabilization of Haiti), they remember of to have found in the street, at the beginning of the mission, pieces of human bodies, with chest cutted and eyes gouged out. Believe they were victims of voodoo priests, the "bokors", who practice black magic

The brazilian militaries still remember themselves having collected the testimony of an Italian priest who was kidnapped together a novice nun by practitioners of voodoo. The nun was raped repeatedly, including with sticks and wooden stacks, in a supposed religious ritual. The victims managed to escape when another bandits group attacked the firsts and was this episode that created the chance of escape

Apart from the rituals of death and purification, the voodoo includes the mystical transformation of humans into "zombies". This is one of the biggest fears for the secular society. The haitians believe that a zombie is created from the sorcery of the wizard, who would make himself a controler of his victim, able to manipulate the will the person's soul. For scholars of practice Vodouisants are, however, the alleged lethargy of zombies may be resulted from the application of tetrodotoxin, a neurotoxin found in puffer fish species.

Article 246 of the Haitian Penal Code makes clear reference to the poisoning made with the aim to produce a "lethargic" state in a person, the main characteristic of those Haitian zombies. "Are classified as envevenamento all attacks on a person's life, the effect of substances that can lead to death sooner or later, independent of the epoch when that these substances had been applied or administered, and whatever the consequences of this procedure.

If most of the practitioners od the Haitian voodoo practiced mixed with other religions such as Catholicism, after 2010 earthquake, when at least 220 000 people lost their lives and, mainly, with the worsening of the cholera outbreak at the end of last year, sorcerers of voodoo passed to be hostilized by the population. At Port au Prince the reaction against voodoo practioners can be something violent.

In houses whose roofs have a sort of scarecrow with red rags, at least 40 priests were murdered, says Brazil's ambassador to Haiti, Igor Kipman. Part of the population attributed to them the responsibility for the deaths of more than 3300 people that were victims from cholera.

SOURCE: BORGES, Larissa. Na polêmica do vodu, lei haitiana proibiria criação de "zumbis".
IN Terra Notícias - published in 01/21/2011
[http://noticias.terra.com.br/mundo/noticias/0,,OI4903622-EI8140,00-Na+polemica+do+vodu+lei+haitiana+proibiria+criacao+de+zumbis.html]

http://brazilweirdnews.blogspot.com/2011/02/law-of-haiti-admits-and-criminalizes.html

Zombies and sea monsters added to classic literature

Zombies, vampires and sea monsters have been added to classic works of literature in a new wave of horror "mash-up" literature.

By Ben Leach
Published: 7:20AM BST 13 Aug 2009

Mr Darcy, Vampyre, by Cheshire-based writer Amanda Grange, which imagines a bloodsucking private world of the celebrated romantic hero, will be released next month.

The idea for the book came while the author was watching the cult TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Its release follows a wave of successful books about Vampires, including the Twilight and The Southern Vampire Mysteries series.

The publication of the book follows the success of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which has sold more than 700,000 copies and is to be made into a film.

The reinterpretation of Jane Austen's novel will be followed with the release of Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters and later in the autumn a third book, Jane Bites Back, which imagines the author fighting off the zombies.

The books were created by US-based publishing house, Quirk Books. Jason Rekulak, the editorial director, said he pioneered the format after meeting dozens of Austen fans at a Californian sci-fi convention.

He told the Independent that he was a "lifelong fan" of the works of Jules Verne, and thought it would be fun to enliven the follow-up with some rampaging giant squid and man-eating octopuses.

"I just thought it was a funny idea. There were concerns from our sales department who thought Jane Austen fans wouldn't like the mayhem while zombie fans wouldn't get on with the original, but so far we have managed to get both audiences," he said.

Despite some objections from Austen fans the books have been a huge success – aided by the fact that her books are no longer under copyright and so are open to wholesale reinterpretation.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/6019956/Zombies-and-sea-monsters-added-to-classic-literature.html