Archives for: February 2010

JERUSALEM - Two parts of an ancient biblical manuscript separated across centuries and continents were reunited for the first time in a joint display Friday, thanks to an accidental discovery that is helping illuminate a dark period in the history of the Hebrew Bible.

The 1,300-year-old fragments, which are among only a handful of Hebrew biblical manuscripts known to have survived the era in which they were written, existed separately and with their relationship unknown — until a news photograph of one's public unveiling in 2007 caught the attention of the scholars who would eventually link them.

Together, they make up the text of the Song of the Sea, sung by jubilant Israelites after fleeing slavery in Egypt and witnessing the destruction of the pharaoh's armies in the Red Sea.

"The enemy said: 'I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil. My lust shall be satisfied upon them, I will draw my sword, my hand shall destroy them,'" reads the song, which appears in the Book of Exodus. "Thou didst blow thy wind, the sea covered them. They sank like lead in the mighty waters."

An exhibit at Israel's national museum dedicated to the Song of the Sea is now bringing together the two long-separated pieces.

From North Carolina ... and London
One page of the song, known as the Ashkar manuscript, was previously housed in a rare books library at Duke University in North Carolina and was first displayed at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem in 2007.

That's when a photograph of the manuscript in a local newspaper caught the eye of two Israeli paleographers, Mordechay Mishor and Edna Engel, who noticed it resembled a different page of Hebrew writing known as the London manuscript, presently part of the private collection of Stephan Loewentheil of New York.

"The uniformity of the letters, the structure of the text, and the techniques used by the scribe ... it made it very clear to me," Engel said.

The relationship would not be so clear to a casual observer. The Ashkar manuscript has been so blackened by exposure to the elements that the text is all but invisible, while the London manuscript is legible and far better preserved. But after close study of ultraviolet images, the experts were able to confirm that the texts were not only written by the same scribe, but were also part of the same scroll.

May have originated in Egypt
Scholars believe the scroll was written around the seventh century somewhere in the Middle East, possibly in Egypt. It is not known how the two parts were separated or what happened to the rest of the manuscript.

The museum arranged to have the London manuscript brought to Jerusalem. The new exhibit chronicles how the Song of the Sea was written through various ancient manuscripts, from the 2,000-year-old Dead Sea Scrolls to the manuscript known as the Aleppo Codex, written nearly a millennium later.

The reunification of the two pieces adds an important link in the chain, showing how the writing of the Hebrew Bible evolved through the so-called "silent" period — between the third and 10th centuries — from which nearly no Biblical texts survived. While in the Dead Sea Scrolls the song is arranged like prose, for example, in the newly reunited manuscript it is written like a poem, the same way it appears in the Hebrew Bible today.

The manuscripts are "filling the gap," said Israel Museum curator Adolfo Roitman. "We can see we are dealing with a tradition that is still alive."

The museum exhibit displays the manuscripts along with other depictions of the Song of the Sea from the museum's permanent collection, including artistic renderings of the biblical passages in frescoes and Renaissance paintings and recordings of the song as it is chanted by Jews in different communities worldwide.

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A massive magnitude 8.8 earthquake rocked Chile early Saturday, killing at least 147 people and triggering tsunami warnings for the entire Pacific basin.

Warning sirens were sounded in Hawaii at 6 a.m. (11 a.m. ET), although any possible tsunami would not strike for several hours. Tsunamis can travel at 400 to 500 mph -- the speed of a jet plane, said Georgia Tech geology professor Kurt Frankel.

A large wave killed three people and 10 were missing on the island of Juan Fernandez, 400 miles (643 km) off the coast of Chile, said Provincial Governor Ivan De La Maza.

On mainland Chile, the task of trying to save survivors and recover the dead was fully under way. Buildings lay in rubble, bridges and highway overpasses were toppled and roads buckled like rumpled paper. Mangled cars were strewn on several highways, many of the vehicles coming to rest on their roofs.

"This is a major event. This happened near some very populated areas," said Randy Baldwin, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey. "With an 8.8 you expect damage to the population in the area."

As the day unfolded, desperate relatives searched for missing loved ones. Many of the survivors took to the Internet to ask for help in locating relatives.

"I'm from Colombia and I'm searching for my aunt," said one person on Twitter.

The quake struck at 3:34 a.m. (1:34 a.m. ET) off the Pacific coast at a depth of nearly 22 miles (35 km) and about 60 miles (100 km) northwest of Chillan, Chile, the USGS said. Santiago, the capital, is 200 miles (325 km) northeast of the epicenter.

At least 33 aftershocks were reported, including a 6.3-magnitude in Argentina.

"There are really aftershocks like every hour," said Felipe Baytelman, speaking to CNN from Santiago.

Chilean officials took to the airwaves to try to control any jitters.

"We are asking everyone to stay calm, to be patient," Chilean President Michelle Bachelet told reporters after inspecting some of the damaged areas. "We assure everyone that emergency crews are working to resolve these issues."

Bachelet declared areas of catastrophe, similar to a state of emergency, which will allow her to rush in aid. She said the town of Chillan -- which was destroyed by a killer quake in 1939 -- was one of the worst affected.

Check out the world's biggest earthquakes since 1900

Bachelet noted that two of the largest hospitals had suffered structural damage and patients were taken to other facilities. Other public institutions also were affected.

"There were reports of riots at one of the jails," Bachelet said. "The jails have, of course, received significant damage. The justice department is looking into the situation, evaluating the damage. We are looking into possibly moving some of these inmates."

The president also asked Chileans to help each other.

"We are looking into shelters," she said. "We are looking into other people providing room in their homes."

In Washington, Chilean ambassador Jose Goni said Chile could manage the catastrophe.

"Eventually, after deeper examination, the government may decide it needs support in some areas," he told CNN.

The United States has resources positioned to assist if Chile requests help, President Barack Obama said in a midafternoon address to the nation.

Obama also warned residents in Hawaii and other areas that could be affected by a tsunami to heed safety instructions from state and local officials.

Saturday's temblor comes about six weeks after an 7.0-magnitude earthquake devastated parts of Haiti and killed more than 220,000 people. The Chilean quake, at magnitude 8.8, was 700 to 800 times stronger.

Coastal Chile has a history of deadly earthquakes, with 13 quakes of magnitude 7.0 or higher since 1973, the USGS said. As a result, experts noted that newer buildings are constructed to help withstand the shocks.

President-Elect Sebastian Pinera, who will take office in March, also was monitoring the situation and warned, "The number of victims could get higher."

The capital lost electricity and basic services, including water and telephones. Bachelet said regional hospitals had suffered damage; some were evacuated. A major bridge connecting northern and southern Chile was rendered inoperable, and the Santiago airport was shut down for at least the next 24 hours.

Chilean television showed buildings in tatters in Concepcion, in coastal central Chile. Whole sides of buildings were torn off, and at least two structures were engulfed in flames. Video showed roads that were destroyed and impassable.

The earth's rumbling was felt by millions in Chile and in parts of Argentina as well. Some buildings were evacuated in the Argentine capital, Buenos Aires, which is 690 miles (1,111 kilometers) away from Santiago.

As recovery efforts continued in Chile, officials in Hawaii and elsewhere prepared for the possible tsunami.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued a tsunami warning, the highest level, for the entire Pacific region, including Hawaii and countries as far away as Russia and Japan.

"We have information of high-altitude waves that could be seen in the following hours," Bachelet said. "We are evacuating people in lower areas to higher ground."

The Air Force said it deployed nine Cessna aircraft with a speaker system attached to the outside lower portion of their plane's fuselage to sound the alarm because 80 percent of the shoreline in Hawaii does not have a fixed-base siren.

The U.S. Coast Guard has closed all commercial ports in the Hawaiian islands to incoming traffic and was encouraging vessels to evacuate to sea. All recreational boaters were asked to take immediate precautions and avoid the water.

In addition, four of 10 U.S. military ships in port in Hawaii were heading out to sea. An additional three ships in San Diego got under way because of high seas.

California and Alaska were under a tsunami advisory.

Follow tsunami warning information

The earliest estimated arrival for a wave that could affect Hawaii is 11:19 a.m. (4:19 p.m. ET), according to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center.

But evacuations of coastal areas began at 6 a.m. (11 a.m. ET). Outdoor siren systems in each Hawaiian county sounded simultaneously to alert residents and visitors to evacuate coastal areas.

CNN Chile, CNN's partner network, suffered damage to its broadcast facilities but continued in operation.

Eduardo de Canto, the head of airport operations in Santiago, told Chile's TVN that the terminal in the airport is severely damaged although he said runways were operational.

Santiago resident Leo Perioto jumped out of his bed in his apartment at the top of a six-story building.

"The whole building was shaking," he said. "The windows were wobbling a lot. We could feel the walls moving from side to side."

Glass shattered at the Santiago Marriott Hotel, but there appeared to be no structural damage, said Alessandro Perez.

Anita Herrera at the Hotel Kennedy in Santiago said electricity was out and guests were nervous.

"Our hotel is built for this," she said. "In Chile, this happens many times."

The U.S. State Department said all but two U.S. Embassy personnel in Chile were accounted for.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she will proceed Sunday with her planned trip to five Latin American countries, including Chile.

Saturday's epicenter was just a few miles north of the largest earthquake recorded in the world: a magnitude 9.5 quake in May 1960 that killed 1,655 and unleashed a tsunami that crossed the Pacific.

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PepsiCo's Gatorade said Friday that it has ended its business relationship with Tiger Woods.

"We no longer see a role for Tiger in our marketing efforts," a Gatorade spokesman said. He added the company's partnership with the Tiger Woods Foundation will continue.

PepsiCo's (PEP, Fortune 500) Gatorade is the third major brand to drop its sponsorship of Woods.

The announcement comes after months of allegations of extramarital scandal, which has played out in the public eye. On Nov. 25, The National Enquirer reported that golf pro Woods had been dating New York nightclub hostess Rachel Uchitel. Woods is married to Elin Nordegren, and the couple has two children.

Two days after the Enquirer story was published, Woods pulled out of his driveway in Windermere, Fla., hitting a fire hydrant and a tree, according to an incident report.

Media speculation swirled around the event and a few weeks later a slew of other women began to come forward, claiming to be Woods' mistresses. On his Web site, Woods responded to the allegations by admitting to "personal failings."

At first, Woods' sponsors said they would stick by their star athlete. But in December, Accenture and AT&T (T, Fortune 500) announced they were dropping sponsorship. Woods had signed a multi-year agreement with the telecom giant in February 2009, but terms of the deal weren't disclosed.

Procter & Gamble's (PG, Fortune 500) Gillette said it would stop airing commercials that feature Woods for a while, though the company stopped short of saying it would end the relationship. Other major sponsors, including Nike (NKE, Fortune 500), have stuck by Woods.

Earlier this month, Woods admitted in a televised speech that he had been unfaithful to his wife and had been in therapy to deal with his issues. He said he plans to return to professional golf at some point.

Yahoo! and the micro-blogging site Twitter have struck a content-sharing deal, they announced Wednesday -- a plan that will share real-time tweets with the 600 million users in Yahoo's global network.

The partnership will let people access their Twitter feeds on Yahoo! properties including their home pages, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! Sports and others -- making it easier to tweet or check on the people they follow.

Users will be able to update their Twitter status from Yahoo! sites and share content from Yahoo! in their Twitter stream.

Yahoo! Search also will be including real-time Twitter updates.

"Let me try to capture the enormity of this integration in 140 characters or less," Yahoo! Vice President Bryan Lamkin said in a written release, referring to Twitter's ultra-tight limit on tweets. "We're turning the key to the online social universe -- you will find the most personally relevant experiences through Yahoo!"

The move comes as established Internet players are making moves to plug into the social-media movement spearheaded by sites like Facebook and Twitter. Most notably, Google last month created Google Buzz -- its own networking feature that uses elements similar to both of those sites.

In a blog post Wednesday, Twitter said the Yahoo! deal is similar to its other partnerships with sites like the search engines Google and Bing.

"From our perspective, this partnership represents a big opportunity," reads the post. "Tweets may be short, but they have proven over and over again to contain valuable information."

Malaysia is to extradite nine foreigners arrested on terror charges last month, officials have said.

Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein has said the nine have links to international terror organisations and posed "a very serious threat".

Rights activists have said the men are from Jordan, Nigeria, Syria and Yemen.

The suspects are being held under the controversial Internal Security Act (ISA), which allows for indefinite detention without trial.

The nine foreigners were among 50 people arrested as they attended a religious class near the capital, Kuala Lumpur, on 21 January.

Most were released but the foreigners, along with one Malaysian suspect, were kept in detention.

The authorities have not confirmed the identities of the detainees nor which terror group they are suspected of working with.

A rights group condemned the "secretive" detentions and said the government had to show evidence for the arrests.

Syed Ibrahim Syed Noh, chairman of the Abolish ISA Movement, said the government must also ensure the men would be safe if returned home.

The government has faced calls for the ISA to be repealed from groups who say there is too much potential for it be abused.

The act has previously been used to detain opponents of the government and members of the regional militant Islamist group, Jemaah Islamiah.

To some men, she might seem like the perfect woman: She's a willowy 5 feet 7 and 120 pounds. She'll chat with you endlessly about your interests. And she'll have intimacywhenever you please -- as long as her battery doesn't run out.

Meet Roxy, who may be the world's most sophisticated talking female intimacyrobot. For $7,000, she's all yours.

"She doesn't vacuum or cook, but she does almost everything else," said her inventor, Douglas Hines, who unveiled Roxy last month at the Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Lifelike dolls, artificial intimacyorgans and sex-chat phone lines have been keeping the lonely company for decades. But Roxy takes virtual companionship to a new level.

Powered by a computer under her soft silicone "skin," she employs voice-recognition and speech-synthesis software to answer questions and carry on conversations. She even comes loaded with five distinct "personalities," from Frigid Farrah to Wild Wendy, that can be programmed to suit customers' preferences.

"There's a tremendous need for this kind of product," said Hines, a computer scientist and former Bell Labs engineer.

Roxy won't be available for delivery for several months, but Hines is taking pre-orders through his Web site, TrueCompanion.com, where thousands of men have signed up.

"They're like, 'I can't wait to meet her,' " Hines said. "It's almost like the anticipation of a first date."

Women have inquired about ordering a intimacyrobot, too. Hines says a female intimacytherapist even contacted him about buying one for her patients.

Roxy has been like catnip to talk-show hosts since her debut at AEE, the largest porn-industry convention in the country. In a recent monologue, Jay Leno expressed amazement that a intimacyrobot could carry on lifelike conversations and express realistic emotions.

"Luckily, guys," he joked, "there's a button that turns that off."

Curious conventioneers packed Hines' AEE booth last month in Las Vegas, asking questions and stroking Roxy's skin as she sat on a couch in a black negligee.

"Roxy generated a lot of buzz at AEE," said Grace Lee, spokeswoman for the porn-industry convention. "The prevailing sentiment of everyone I talked to about Roxy is 'version 1.0,' but people were fascinated by the concept, and it caused them to rethink the possibilities of 'intimacytoys.' "

Hines, a self-professed happily married man from Lincoln Park, New Jersey, says he spent more than three years developing the robot after trying to find a marketable application for his artificial-intelligence technology.

Roxy's body is made from hypoallergenic silicone -- the kind of stuff in prosthetic limbs -- molded over a rigid skeleton. She cannot move on her own but can be contorted into almost any natural position. To create her shape, a female model spent a week posing for a series of molds.

The robot runs on a self-contained battery that lasts about three hours on one charge, Hines says. Customers can recharge Roxy with an electrical cord that plugs into her back.

A motor in her chest pumps heated air through a tube that winds through the robot's body, which Hines says keeps her warm to the touch. Roxy also has sensors in her hands and genital areas -- yes, she is anatomically correct -- that will trigger vocal responses from her when touched. She even shudders to simulate orgasm.

When someone speaks to Roxy, her computer converts the words to text and then uses pattern-recognition software to match them against a database containing hundreds of appropriate responses. The robot then answers aloud -- her prerecorded "voice" is supplied by an unnamed radio host -- through a loudspeaker hidden under her wig.

"Everything you say to her is processed. It's very near real time, almost without delay," Hines said of the dynamics of human-Roxy conversation. "To make it as realistic as possible, she has different dialogue at different times. She talks in her sleep. She even snores." (The snoring feature can be turned off, he says.)

Roxy understands and speaks only English for now, but Hines' True Companion company is developing Japanese and Spanish versions. For an extra fee, he'll also record customizable dialogue and phrases for each client, which means Roxy could talk to you about NASCAR, say, or the intricacies of politics in the Middle East.

Hines believes that Roxy is a step above other love dolls -- the similar but mute RealDoll costs about $5,500 -- because her conversational abilities provide something close to emotional companionship. His customer base? Shy, awkward or older men who "have trouble meeting girls," he says.

In an industry known for pushing the technological envelope, observers are curious about how Roxy will fare in the marketplace.

"Is this a viable product? Yes," said Sherri Shaulis, an editor at Adult Video News, a trade magazine for the pornographic industry. "There's a market for it. Granted, it's a very small market."

Maybe not. TrueCompanion claims that more than 4,000 men have placed pre-orders for Roxy robots, and another 20,000 or so have requested information about the product. TrueCompanion also is developing a male intimacyrobot, named Rocky.

"There's really nothing like this on the market," said Hines, who speaks of his unique creation with what seems like genuine affection. "Whenever she's out in public, everyone wants to talk to her and pose for pictures. It's so cute."

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