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To: Jim Bishop who wrote (108063)	8/8/2002 7:04:06 PM
From: StocksDATsoar	Respond to of 150070

Reuters SYDNEY (July 22) - A giant squid with tentacles measuring at least 15 yards has washed up on a southern Australian beach, exciting scientists who believe they may have stumbled across a new species. The monster cephalopod washed up on Seven Mile Beach in the southern island state of Tasmania some time at the weekend. The squid, which weighs about 550 pounds, was hauled by trailer to the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery on Monday. ''It's definitely of the giant squid group, which is exciting enough,'' David Pemberton, the museum's senior zoology curator, told Australian Broadcasting Corp radio. ''But it does have some features about it which we're unsure about and we've called some specialists...to help decide, but it looks like it could be different,'' he said. Pemberton said the most intriguing features were long, thin flaps of muscle attached to each of the eight tentacles, which measured between 15 yards and 18 yards. Giant squid also have two smaller feeding tentacles. Only two other of the rare giant squid have been found in Tasmania, in 1986 and 1991. They usually live on the edge of the continental shelf off Australia's coast at depths of at least 500 yards. Giant squid are found in all the oceans of the world and are believed to be the origin of many ancient maritime legends about mysterious creatures from the deep. They have also featured in great works of fiction like Herman Melville's ''Moby Dick'' and Jules Verne's ''20,000 Leagues Under The Sea.'' But Pemberton said there was no chance of the Tasmanian discovery ending up as a massive serve of calamari because its high ammonia content meant it would most likely taste like floor cleaner. Reuters 06:37 07-22-02 Copyright 2002 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon. All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL

To: Jim Bishop who wrote (108063)	8/8/2002 7:07:15 PM
From: StocksDATsoar	Respond to of 150070

Fossil of Giant Flying Reptile Discovered By PAUL RECER .c The Associated Press WASHINGTON (July 18) -The fossilized skull of a flying reptile from the age of the dinosaurs shows it sported an impressive bony crest and may have lived on fish captured while skimming the surface of a steamy southern lagoon. In a study appearing Friday in the journal Science, researchers Alexander W.A. Kellner and Diogenes de Almeida Campos say the fossil is from a previously-unknown kind of pterosaur, a type of reptile that flew on large wings of furry skin, dipping and diving at speeds of up 25 mph to catch fish on the fly. Pterosaurs are the largest flying animals known. The fossilized skull was dug up near the town of Santan do Cariri in northeastern Brazil. The scientists said the animal lived about 110 million years ago, spending its life soaring on 15-foot wings over a land dominated by lumbering dinosaurs. They named the new pterosaur Thalassodromeus sethi. The first word is Greek for ''sea runner'' and the second honors the ancient Egyptian god Seth. The animal is thought to have lived on the shores of an ancient lagoon, called the Araripe, not far from the ocean. Kellner and de Almeida Campos said in Science that the pterosaur's four-foot-long skull was topped with a hollow bony crest that rose 31 inches from the top of its head and may have acted like a rudder as the large animal flew. The crest fossil is marked with grooves from blood vessels, suggesting that the top knot also helped keep the animal cool, the researchers say. The blood vessels would have been near the skin's surface, allowing body heat to escape easily into the atmosphere. The sea runner's jaw structure resembles a modern bird, called a skimmer, that captures its prey by gliding across the surface of a pool and dipping its beak. To feed, the authors suggest that Thalassodromeus dropped toward the water in a long swooping glide and then dipped its head and closed its toothed beak around an unwary fish swimming near the surface. ''The scissors-like bill of Thalassodromeus almost precludes any other method of capturing prey,'' the authors wrote. Marks in the fossilized skull suggest the sea runner had powerful neck muscles. Kellner is with the National Museum in Rio de Janeiro. De Almeida Campos is with the Museum of Earth Sciences, also in Rio. Both are associate researchers at the American Museum of Natural History. Alan Feduccia, a dinosaur expert at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said the authors ''have done a splendid job of bringing this large and remarkable ... pterosaur back to life.'' He agrees that the animal probably was a skimmer, but questions the authors' interpretation that Thalassodromeus' large crest was for body cooling. Feduccia said there are modern birds, such as the hornbill, with large bony crowns that contain blood vessels used to nourish the head and not for cooling. But despite the disagreement, Feduccia marvels: ''One can only imagine the incredible sight of these flying reptiles skimming the Araripe lagoon some 110 million years ago.'' Fossils of pterosaurs are more uncommon than the remains of many other animals from the age of dinosaurs. As with modern flying birds, the bones of pterosaurs were thin and usually didn't survive as fossils. The Araripe Basin, where Thalassodromeus was found, contains one of the largest deposits in the world of pterosaur fossils. Pterosaurs ranged in size from sparrow-sized creatures up to massive fliers like Thalassodromeus. Unlike birds, the wings of pterosaurs had no feathers. Instead, there was a single long finger-like bone extending from a wrist that stretched a thin membrane that provided the aerodynamic lift to give the animal flight. The fossils of another large pterosaur, called Pteranodon, has been found in Texas and Kansas. That animal is thought to have had a wing span of 23 feet and it, too, had a bony head crest, although smaller than that of Thalassodromeus. Pterosaurs became extinct at the same time as the dinosaurs, about 65 million years ago. 18 Jul 2002 Copyright 2002 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.

To: Jim Bishop who wrote (108063)	8/8/2002 7:15:52 PM
From: StocksDATsoar	Respond to of 150070

cnn.com Strange 'flying saucer' spotted in our galaxy July 16, 2002 Posted: 9:47 AM EDT (1347 GMT) The strange-shaped cloud hides a star much like our own. By Richard Stenger CNN (CNN) -- A strangely shrouded star detected in a quiet corner of the Milky Way offers a glimpse into what our solar system might have looked like billions of years ago. A cloudy ring surrounds the young sun-like star, prompting European Southern Observatory scientists to name it the Flying Saucer. Planets could have started to form in the dust disk around the central star, which is located in the outskirts of a dark cloud about 500 light-years away, the ESO researchers said. The space neighborhood is far away from the cosmic perils facing other young stars with developing planets, according to the scientific team. "Most other young stars, especially those that are born in dense regions, run a serous risk of having their natal dusty disks destroyed by the blazing radiation of their more massive and hotter siblings in these clusters," the group said in a statement weeks ago. The star system, about 1 million years old, could resemble our solar system in its infancy about five billion years ago, the scientists said. The star disk contains at least twice as much mass as the planet Jupiter. "The 'Flying Saucer' object presents us with a striking portrait of our solar system in its infancy. With this object, nature has provided us a perfect laboratory for the study of both dust and gas in young circumstellar disks, the raw materials of planets," said ESO's Nicolas Grosso. Usually young star disks are hard to spot. But there are exceptions, such as this one where the ring appears nearly edge-on from our perspective. In this case, the main dust ring blocks out light from the central star, while additional material above and below the disk scatter the stellar light. The observed result is a dark ring flanked by two reflection clouds or nebulae. Astronomers confirmed the existence of the peculiar-looking object with the Very Large Telescope and New Technology Telescope at the ESO La Silla Observatory in Chile.

To: Jim Bishop who wrote (108063)	8/8/2002 7:18:06 PM
From: StocksDATsoar	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 150070

Astronomers Hope to Find Alien Life Within 25 Years By Belinda Goldsmith Reuters CANBERRA (July 16) - Scientists searching the stars for aliens are convinced an E.T. is out there -- it's just that they haven't had the know-how to detect such a being. But now technological advances have opened the way for scientists to check millions of previously unknown star systems, dramatically increasing the chances of finding intelligent life in outer space in the next 25 years, the world's largest private extraterrestrial agency believes. ''We're looking for needles in the haystack that is our galaxy, but there could be thousands of needles out there,'' Seth Shostak, the senior astronomer at California's non-profit Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute, told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday. ''If that's the case, with the number of new star systems we now hope to check, we should find one of those in the next 25 years.'' But Shostak, visiting Australia to attend a conference on extraterrestrial research, said detecting alien life, like the big-eyed alien in the film E.T., was only the start. ''Even if we detect life out there, we'll still know nothing about what form of life we have detected and I doubt they'll be able -- or want -- to communicate with us,'' Shostak said. Since it was founded in 1984, the SETI Institute has monitored radio signals, hoping to pick up a transmission from outer space. Its Project Phoenix conducts two annual three-week sessions on a radio telescope at Arecibo, Puerto Rico. Project Phoenix, widely seen as the inspiration for the 1997 film ''Contact'' starring Jodie Foster, which depicted a search for life beyond earth, is the privately funded successor to an original NASA program that was canceled in 1993 amid much skepticism by the U.S. Congress. But the search has been slow. About 500 of 1,000 targeted stars have been examined -- and no extraterrestrial transmissions have been detected. E.T. NOT ON THE LINE ''We do get signals all the time but when checked out they have all been human made...and are not from E.T., more AT&T,'' said Shostak. He said the privately-funded institute was developing a giant $26 million telescope to start operating in 2005 that can search the stars for signals at least 100 times faster. The so-called Allen Telescope Array, named after sponsor and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, is a network of more than 350, 20-foot satellite dishes with a collecting area exceeding that of a 338-foot telescope. The Allen array, to be built at the Hat Creek Observatory about 290 miles northeast of San Fransciso, will also expand the institute's stellar reconnaissance to 100,000 or even one million nearby stars, searching 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Shostak said he is convinced there is intelligent life out there -- but don't expect to find a loveable, boggle-eyed E.T.. He said if any aliens share the same carbon-based organic chemistry as humans, they would probably have a central processing system, eyes, a mouth or two, legs and some form of reproduction. But Shostak thinks any intelligent extraterrestrial life will have gone light years beyond the intelligence of man. ''What we are more likely to hear will be so far beyond our own level that it might not be biological anymore but some artificial form of life,'' he said. ''Don't expect a blobby, squishy alien to be on the end of the line.'' Reuters 06:31 07-16-02 Copyright 2002 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon. All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.

To: Jim Bishop who wrote (108063)	8/9/2002 10:47:12 AM
From: ChrisJP	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 150070

TALK -- looks like yesterday was the "bargain day". Chris

To: Jim Bishop who wrote (108063)	8/12/2002 11:38:59 AM
From: Jim Bishop	Respond to of 150070

INDM Industrial Minerals Inc. To Bring Bissett Creek Graphite Property To Production TORONTO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 12, 2002--Industrial Minerals Inc. (OTCBB:INDM - News) announces that it will bring its wholly-owned Bissett Creek graphite property to production. Industrial Minerals Inc. has engaged Erana Mines Limited to construct the facilities and manage all mining activities on the Bissett Creek property. Site preparation is now underway. Erana Mines Limited is an Ontario-based mineral exploration and development company established in 1962. The company offers consulting services through to mine completion and operation including the construction and commissioning of mineral processing plants, surface exploration, metallurgical testing, and quarry development. In addition to evaluating various graphite properties in Canada, Erana has designed and constructed a major crystalline graphite plant capable of processing 3500 tons per day. Erana has also owned and operated quartz and granite quarries in Northern Ontario, shipping product throughout Canada as well as to the northeastern and mid-western United States. Industrial Minerals Inc. owns 100% of the undivided interest in the Bissett Creek Graphite patented mineral lease, containing a reserve of 640,000 tons of flake graphite, located in Maria Township in the Province of Ontario, Canada. The property is comprised of 28 patented claims covering an area of approximately 1245 acres (504 hectares). It has been the subject of substantial earlier exploration drilling, trenching and metallurgical test work by Cominco Engineering Services, Kilborn Engineering, Pincock Alan and Holt and KHD Canada. The company also owns three unpatented mining claims comprising approximately 645 acres (250 hectares) which are contiguous to the Bissett Creek property. Disclaimer: Statements, which are not historical facts, are forward-looking statements. The Company, through its management, makes forward-looking public statements concerning its expected future operations, performance and other developments. Such forward-looking statements are necessarily estimates reflecting the Company's best judgment based upon current information and involve a number of risks and uncertainties, and there can be no assurance that other factors will not affect the accuracy of such forward-looking statements. It is impossible to identify all such factors. Factors which could cause actual results to differ materially from those estimated by the Company include, but are not limited to, government regulation, managing and maintaining growth, the effect of adverse publicity, litigation, competition and other factors which may be identified from time to time in the Company's public announcements. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Contact: Industrial Minerals Inc., Toronto Max Christian, 888/225-0886 www.industrialmineralsinc.com