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China may not be a UFO hotspot but one former Manchurian lumberjack not only believes in the existence of UFOs and alien beings, he claims that he had sex with one and will one day be the father of a half-alien child. The encounter occurred over two decades ago and Meng Zhaoguo now works at a university. And everybody knows who he is -- the first Chinese citizen to be abducted by aliens. .. The gist: Meng Zhaoguo, working as a lumberjack in northeastern China, saw what he thought was a helicopter crash in 1994 in the Dragon Mountains and...

Thomas comes backed with a strong resume, having been the first female official to work a major collegiate bowl game. She joins eight other referees granted first-time employment for league games. "Our incoming officials have all demonstrated that they are among the best in college football," NFL vice president of officiating Dean Blandino said in a statement. "We are excited about having them join us." Thomas had been doing some sideline work for Browns, Saints and Colts minicamp practices in the past, but she truly made her name through a strong resume at the NCAA level.

Radar images previously revealed thousands of buried glacier-like formations in the planet’s northern and southern hemispheres. That data has now been incorporated into computer models of ice flow to determine the glaciers’ size and hence how much water they contain. “We have looked at radar measurements spanning 10 years back in time to see how thick the ice is and how it behaves. A glacier is, after all, a big chunk of ice and it flows and gets a form that tells us something about how soft it is. We then compared this with how glaciers on Earth behave and...

Almost one in 10 Americans has a history of impulsive and angry behavior and ready access to guns, new research indicates. The serious mental health issues that would legally prevent someone from purchasing a gun -- such as involuntary commitment to a psychiatric ward for schizophrenia or bipolar disorder -- only account for about 4 percent of U.S. gun violence, noted study author Jeffrey Swanson. "There is a potentially much larger group of individuals in our society who struggle with pathological impulsive and destructive anger that would not normally turn up as serious mental illness on a background check," said...

Before the jurors began their second day, Judge George O'Toole Jr. answered two notes from the panel containing questions. WBZ-TV's Jim Armstrong reports that the questions had to do with the legal definitions of "conspiracy" and "aiding and abetting."

The New York Post reports Lucie Bauermeister, 23, and Anna Ramotowska, 26, filed suit on Monday in Bronx Supreme Court. The two claim they were "severely injured, both physically and mentally." Court documents say Bauermeister and Ramotowska are specifically suing Con Ed, 121 Second Ave. landlord Maria Hrynenko, contractor Dilber Kukic and Hyeonil Kim, owner of Sushi Park. The roommates were able to safely exit their apartment on March 26, and witnessed seeing a severe burn victim and several dramatic last-minute rescues, Jezebel reports. After being interviewed on Fox 5's "Good Day New York" the day after the seven-alarm fire,...

Just step outside between about 8:30 and 10 p.m. local time, face west and let Venus be your guide. At magnitude -4.1, it’s rivaled in brightness only by the Moon and Sun. Early this week, Venus will lie about 5° or three fingers held together at arm’s length below the Pleiades. But each day it snuggles up a little closer until closest approach on Friday. Around that time, you’ll be able to view both in the same binocular field. Outrageously bright Venus makes for a stunning contrast against the delicate pinpoint beauty of the star cluster.

Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the U.S., a key ally of oil-rich Saudi Arabia, had also set up a coordination center in the Sunni Muslim kingdom, whose forces have led an air campaign against the Shi'ite Houthi group which rules most of Yemen. "Saudi Arabia is sending a strong message to the Houthis and their allies that they cannot overrun Yemen by force," he told reporters in the Saudi capital Riyadh. "As part of that effort, we have expedited weapons deliveries, we have increased our intelligence sharing, and we have established a joint coordination planning cell in the...

On an earlier project, Blake had outfitted tortoises on the island with GPS units. He noted something strange in their movements: The tortoises would migrate between lowlands -- only flush with vegetation in the wet season -- and highland meadows, which had plentiful vegetation year-round. Blake knew a Galapagos tortoise could survive up to a year with no food or drink. "Why," he wondered in a release, "would a 500-pound animal that can fast for a year and that carries a heavy shell haul itself up and down a volcano in search of food? Couldn't it just wait out the...

During the walk to the Fuller Lodge, the physicists discussed a recent spate of UFO sightings, and a cartoon in the New Yorker Magazine depicting aliens and a flying saucer. Although the topic of conversation moved on as the group sat down for lunch, Edward Teller recalls “in the middle of the conversation, Fermi came out with the quite unexpected question ‘Where is everybody?’…The result of his question was general laughter because of the strange fact that in spite of Fermi’s question coming out of the clear blue, everybody around the table seemed to understand at once that he was...

"The Black Book of Carmarthen," dating to 1250, contains texts from the ninth through 12th centuries, including some of the earliest references to Arthur and Merlin. "It's easy to think we know all we can know about a manuscript like the 'Black Book,' but to see these ghosts from the past brought back to life in front of our eyes has been incredibly exciting," Myriah Williams, a doctoral student at the University of Cambridge, said in a statement. "The drawings and verse that we're in the process of recovering demonstrate the value of giving these books another look." ... "The...

)—Days after a horrific Al-Shabaab attack at a university on its soil, Kenya launched airstrikes targeting the terror group in Somalia, according to a military source, who insisted the airstrikes were not retribution for last week's massacre at Garissa University College. "The latest attack of Al-Shabaab bases by the Kenya military is part of the ongoing operations that started in 2011. It is not a retaliation to the Garissa attack. The operation has been ongoing," the military source said Monday. It is customary for Kenyan military sources not to give their names to media. Two of the airstrikes hit Al-Shabaab...

The reporter, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, and the magazine's top editor, Will Dana, say they are taking responsibility for the failures. "These are mistakes I will not make again," Erdely said in a statement. But Erdely will continue writing for Rolling Stone. Dana is standing by her, telling The Washington Post that "Sabrina's done great work for us over the years and we expect that to continue." And Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner is standing by both of them. Wenner did not respond to CNN's requests for comment about his decision. But according to people with direct knowledge of his thinking,...

1. Is this the first time we think we might have found aliens? Nope, there have been several false alarms. The most famous is the 72-second Wow! signal, so called because an eager astronomer wrote "Wow!" next to it on a printout from the Ohio State Big Ear Telescope in 1977. It didn't seem to be of this Earth, but it was never seen again. A few years before that, astronomer Jocelyn Bell thought she may have found the beep-beep-beep of "little green men" when she had actually discovered pulsars, the rapidly rotating corpses of stars that sweep a lighthouse-like...

"We found that if lunar lava tubes existed with a strong arched shape like those on Earth, they would be stable at sizes up to 5,000 meters, or several miles wide, on the moon," said David Blair, a graduate student in Purdue's Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary sciences. "This wouldn't be possible on Earth, but gravity is much lower on the moon and lunar rock doesn't have to withstand the same weathering and erosion. In theory, huge lava tubes -- big enough to easily house a city -- could be structurally sound on the moon." The researchers applied known...

Last week, Governor Jerry Brown made water conservation mandatory in the drought-stricken state of California. "As Californians, we have to pull together and save water in every way we can," he said. Morning traffic makes its way toward downtown Los Angeles along the Hollywood Freeway, past an electronic sign warning of severe drought. California Gov. Jerry Brown introduced the state's first mandatory water reduction measure this week. But if the four-year drought continues, conservation alone — at least what's required by the governor's plan — won't fix the problem. Across California, communities are examining all options to avoid running out...

“It turned out that the government and the BOJ were wrong in thinking monetary easing would boost capital spending,” said Taro Saito, director of economic research at NLI Research Institute. “Low growth expectations appear to outweigh the benefit from lower interest rates, keeping companies from boosting capital spending.” However, managers also say the lean years have forced the company to innovate at its four home factories, a theme mirrored at Daikin’s production mentor, Toyota Motor Corp. At the urging of Toyota president Akio Toyoda, Japan’s top automaker last month unveiled the results of a five-year-old program to re-engineer the way...

Using an inexpensive silicon chip less than a millimetre square in size, the NCI provides the highest depth-measurement accuracy of any such nanophotonic 3-D imaging device. "Each pixel on the chip is an independent interferometer - an instrument that uses the interference of light waves to make precise measurements - which detects the phase and frequency of the signal in addition to the intensity," said Ali Hajimiri from the California Institute of Technology.

Redmond is changing the Do Not Track (DNT) browser privacy setting, citing evolving industry standards and the implementation of those standards. DNT will no longer be turned on by default but will still be an option in future versions of Microsoft's browsers, the company said. This includes Microsoft’s new browser, code-name Project Spartan, shipping on all Windows 10 devices, set to arrive this summer. “While our implementation of DNT two years ago in Internet Explorer 10 (IE 10) was welcomed by many, others voiced concerns, especially given that discussions were underway at the time to establish an industry-wide standard for...

Organizers had trucked in 510,000 plastic eggs in an attempt to break the current world record of 501,000 eggs from a 2007 hunt in Florida. As soon as the first eggs hit the ground, people of all ages lunged for the colorful plastic shells, scooping them up by the armful into oversized plastic bags and even laundry baskets. The dozen workers from organizer Blue Heart International, a Sacramento nonprofit, had intended a more orderly rollout, with egg seekers waiting for the signal to start. Toddlers cried and parents pushed as they jockeyed for mostly empty plastic eggs, which later could...