ROME – Rita Levi Montalcini, a Nobel Prize-winning scientist, said Saturday that even though she is about to turn 100, her mind is sharper than it was she when she was 20.

Levi Montalcini, who also serves as a senator for life in Italy, celebrates her 100th birthday on Wednesday, and she spoke at a ceremony held in her honor by the European Brain Research Institute.

She shared the 1986 Nobel Prize for Medicine with American Stanley Cohen for discovering mechanisms that regulate the growth of cells and organs.

"At 100, I have a mind that is superior — thanks to experience — than when I was 20," she told the party, complete with a large cake for her.

The Turin-born Levi Montalcini recounted how the anti-Jewish laws of the 1930s under Benito Mussolini's Fascist regime forced her to quit university and do research in an improvised laboratory in her bedroom at home.

"Above all, don't fear difficult moments," she said. "The best comes from them."

"I should thank Mussolini for having declared me to be of an inferior race. This led me to the joy of working, not any more unfortunately, in university institutes but in a bedroom," the scientist said.

Her white hair elegantly coifed and wearing a smart navy blue suit, she raised a glass of sparkling wine in a toast to her long life.

The name chikungunya means "that which bends up" in the Swahili language. People infected with the virus walk in a bent-over position because of the severe pain in the joints.

Malaysia reported more than one thousand one hundred cases of chikungunya so far this year. In Indonesia, about two hundred people in central Java became sick from the virus last month. And about one thousand people near Yeshwanthpur in India also showed signs of the disease in March.

But the disease also appeared in a cooler climate in two thousand seven, causing concern about its spread. Italy reported about two hundred cases during warm weather. The medical journal Eurosurveillance Weekly said it was the first time mosquitoes carried the virus inside Europe.

Two kinds of mosquitoes carry chikungunya fever. One is called Aedes albopictus, or Asian tiger mosquito. It has been reported in many European countries including France, Belgium, Spain and the Netherlands. It also lives in the southern United States. The other mosquito that can carry chikungunya, Aedes aegypti, also is present in the United States.

Ann Powers is an expert on viruses. She works for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Fort Collins, Colorado. She said the disease spread is not directly connected to climate change. But she also said C.D.C. scientists are preparing for possible cases of chikungunya in the United States.

People around the world can prevent diseases spread by mosquitoes by removing standing water from their property. They should try to keep mosquitoes out of their homes. And they should wear clothing that covers the arms and legs when they are outside. DEET and other chemicals that work against insects can keep mosquitoes from biting.

                                                   The Thai spa uses an outrageous form of fish therapy, first developed in Turkey, which leaves customers feeling fresh-footed. Clients soak their stompers in a tank with up to 1500 swimmers, which are said to nibble dead skin on the feet and legs to soften rough and cracked skin.   

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TEXAS ban on fish pedicures means salon customers can no longer enjoy the pleasure of hundreds of small fish nibbling away the dead skin from their feet. Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation spokeswoman Susan Stanford said the agency was concerned about salons using the same fish to clean the skin of multiple customers, leaving them open to possible infections. She also said the foot baths and holding tanks, because they’re home to live fish, cannot always be properly cleaned and disinfected. Although she admitted she had not heard of anyone becoming ill from a fish pedicure, she said the decision “erred on the side of safety”. The US fad caught on after a Virginia salon began offering the fishy foot treatments. One salon owner still has 500 guppy-like fish she had bought for $2,500. She said: “I guess we will either keep them as pets, or send them back.”

Lincoln is said to return to the White House when the security of the country is at risk. He strides up and down the second floor hallway, raps at doors, and stands by certain windows with his hands clasped behind his back. One staff member claimed to have seen Lincoln sitting on his bed pulling on his boots.

A bodyguard to President Harrison was kept awake many nights trying to protect the president from mysterious footsteps he heard in the hall. He grew so tired and worried; he finally attended a séance to beg President Lincoln to stop so he could get enough sleep to properly protect the president!

Abigail Adam's ghost was seen drifting through the closed doors of the East Room to hang the laundry during the Taft administration.

A gardener claims to have spoken to the ghost of Dolly Madison, who reproved him for trying to remove the rose bushes she had planted over a hundred years ago.

In the 1930's Andrew Jackson's ghost could be heard laughing in the Rose room.

In 1952, extensive repairs were done to the second floor of the White House. Since then, the ghosts have not walked so actively.

Yosemite National Park is a place of extremes. It has high mountains. It has valleys formed by ancient ice that cut deep into the Earth millions of years ago. Water from high in the mountains falls in many places to the green valley far below. There are thirteen beautiful waterfalls in Yosemite Valley. One of these waterfalls, Yosemite Falls, is the fifth highest on Earth.

Up in the mountains are clear lakes, quick-moving small rivers, and huge formations of rock. One huge rock is called Half Dome. It rises more than two thousand seven hundred meters into the air.

Yosemite has a beautiful slow-moving river and large grassy areas where you can see wild animals. More than sixty kinds of animals live in the park. Deer are very common. You can see them almost everywhere. They have little fear of humans. You might even see a large black bear. You can also see two hundred different kinds of birds.

The story of the Sierra Nevada Mountains and the area that is Yosemite National Park begins about five hundred million years ago. The area then was at the bottom of an ancient sea.

Scientists believe strong earthquakes forced the bottom of the sea to rise above the water. After millions of years, it was pushed up into the air to form land and mountains. At the same time, hot liquid rock from deep in the Earth pushed to the surface. This liquid rock slowly cooled. This cooling liquid formed a very hard rock known as granite.

Many centuries of rain caused huge rivers to move violently through this area. Over time, these rivers cut deep into the new mountains. During the great Ice Age, millions of tons of ice cut and shaped the cooled granite to form giant rocks. Millions of years later these would become the giant rocks called Half Dome and El Capitan in Yosemite Park.

Humans have lived in the area of Yosemite for more than four thousand years. The first people who lived there were hunters. Most were members of a tribe of Native Americans called the Miwok. They lived in Yosemite Valley near the river.

During the extremely cold winters, these people would move to lower, warmer areas. They would return when the winter months had passed.

  The first white Americans may have been hunters looking for fur animals. A famous American hunter and explorer named Joseph Walker passed through the area in the eighteen thirties. He reported about the huge rock formations and said there was no way to reach the valley below.

Citizens who had formed a military group were the first real modern explorers of the valley. They were at war with the local Indians and came into the valley. The white soldiers called the Indians Yosemites. The valley was named for the Indian tribe. Soon, reports of its great natural beauty were sent all the way back to Washington, D.C.

In eighteen sixty-four, a United States senator called for legislation to give the Yosemite Valley to the state of California as a public park. The legislation said the valley should be preserved and protected. President Abraham Lincoln signed the bill after Congress approved it.

This event was extremely important in the history of the United States. It was the first time that a government had approved a law to preserve and protect land because of its great beauty. The land was to be kept for the public to enjoy. Yosemite became the first state park. It was the first real park in the world. In eighteen ninety, it became a national park. The National Park Service is responsible for the park today. It is preserved and protected for all people to enjoy.

No major roads lead to Yosemite National Park. Visitors must leave the highways and drive their cars over smaller roads. Yosemite is about three hundred twenty kilometers east of San Francisco.

It is deep in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The roads leading to the park pass over lower parts of the huge mountains. Then the road goes lower and lower into the area of the park called Yosemite Valley.

Visitors can stay in different kinds of places in Yosemite Park. Several beautiful old hotels have been built on the property. Some are very costly. Others cost less. Many people bring temporary cloth homes called tents. It costs only a few dollars a day to place a tent in the approved areas.

Visitors can walk through many areas in the beautiful valley and the mountains. These walking paths are called trails. The National Park Service has improved more than one thousand one hundred kilometers of trails. It is fun to explore these trails. Some take only a few minutes to walk. Others can take several days to complete.

People come from all over the world to climb one of the huge rock formations at Yosemite. The most famous of these is called El Capitan. People who climb it call it "El Cap." Climbing El Cap is only for experts. This activity is called "hard rock climbing." It is extremely difficult and can be very dangerous.

A climber must have expert skill and great strength. The climb is straight up the face of a rock wall. Experts say it can take about three days to climb to the top of El Cap. The climbing is very slow. Climbers must look for cracks in the rock. They place their hands and feet in the cracks and then work their way up. They also use ropes and special equipment. From the bottom of the valley to the top of El Cap is about one thousand one hundred meters.

In the summer months, Yosemite Park is filled with visitors. Large buses bring people from San Francisco to spend the day.

They leave San Francisco very early in the morning and arrive back late at night. They drive from one place to another to see Yosemite. Other visitors come by car.

Some even come by bicycle. Some visit for just a few hours. Others take several days or weeks to enjoy the park. Many visitors come to Yosemite again and again. About four million people visit the park every year.

In the winter, heavy snow falls in the Sierra Nevada Mountains and Yosemite. The snow usually begins to fall in the month of November. Heavy snow forces some of the roads into Yosemite to close during the winter months. The National Park Service works hard to keep most of the roads open.

Drivers must use special care because of ice and snow on the roads. They enjoy a special beauty never seen by the summer visitors. Many winter visitors come to Yosemite to spend their time skiing at Badger Pass. Badger ski area is the oldest in California. It has a ski school for those who want to learn the exciting sport.

Many visitors come to enjoy the park with its heavy coat of winter snow. In some areas the snow is many meters deep. Some of the tall mountains keep their snow until the last hot days of summer.

Whenever visitors come to Yosemite, they experience great natural beauty. A visit to the park provides lasting memories of what nature has produced. Most people who come to Yosemite usually bring a camera. They take many of pictures of the huge rocks, the beautiful Yosemite Valley, the waterfalls and the giant trees.

But you do not really need a photograph to remember its great natural beauty. Yosemite will leave its image in your memory forever.

(Paul Thompson)

A CHILLING book of soccer-style “stickers” showing Adolf Hitler has been unearthed by the family of a British soldier.

The black-and-white shots from the 1930s depict the Nazi leader in uniform addressing rallies and in candid scenes with children.

During the Third Reich, when Germany lived under the swastika flag, youngsters swapped the snaps in school playgrounds — just like the Panini football stickers of today.

Hitler’s propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels dreamt up the idea in a bid to put him in a good light.

One shot is of the Fuhrer with Goebbel’s daughter Helga.

Others show him skiing, dressed for dinner, on a train and with Italian dictator Mussolini.

The album of 138 images was brought home by a World War Two veteran.

It was recently found by his family and is expected to fetch hundreds of pounds when it is auctioned tomorrow in Ludlow, Shropshire.

Auctioneer Richard Westwood-Brookes said yesterday: “There are some stirring images. Some show Hitler’s more human side that we don’t often

Historian Dr Riccardo Bavaj, of St Andrews University, said: “The Nazis made movies, posters and albums to influence people in an almost subconscious way.”

She finishes, and there is a long silence. Then the people clap and cheer. They call out for another song. And they call out her name.

Marian Anderson was an American. But she found success in Europe before finding it in her own country. She was born in eighteen ninety-seven in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She grew up surrounded by poverty. Yet she remembered her family as a happy one.

The Andersons were deeply religious and involved in their church. It was in church where Marian first began to sing in public. She was six years old. The songs she sang were spirituals -- the religious songs that African Americans sang as slaves. The songs are about suffering, and the hope of a better life after death.

Marian's interest in music grew as she got older. When she was eight, her father brought home an old piano. She never thought she would be able to play it. One day, however, she heard piano music coming from an open window. She looked inside the house. There she saw a woman, playing ever so beautifully. Her skin was dark, like Marian's. She knew then that if another black woman could play the piano so could she.

The Andersons were too poor to pay someone to teach Marian. So she was able to teach herself only a few simple songs. Her voice remained her most important musical instrument.

Marian's father died when she was ten years old. She had to go to work to help support her family. She continued to sing at church on Sunday. Soon, other churches heard of the young girl with the beautiful, deep voice. They invited her to sing for them. Marian accepted. She began singing in African-American churches all over Philadelphia.

At about this time, several people told Marian that she should have a voice teacher. They told her that a beautiful voice can be destroyed if it is not trained. Marian said she always sang naturally, without any thought of how she did it. She realized that she would need some training.

The people in Marian's church were very proud of her. They wanted to help, even though many of them were as poor as the Anderson family. They collected enough money to pay for a few voice lessons. She went to a local music school in Philadelphia.

A group of girls was waiting to enter the school. Before Marian could enter, however, a young white woman who worked in the school told her to go away. "We do not take black people here," she said. Marian was shocked. Never before had anyone insulted her because of her race. Years later, she remembered her feelings:

"I just looked at the woman. I was shocked that such words could come from someone so young. I did not understand how a person surrounded by the joy of music could not have some of its sense and beauty inside her. It was as if a cold and horrible hand had touched me. I had never heard such brutal words. My skin was different, but not my feelings. "

Marian Anderson was to hear those hateful words many times again during her life.

Marian Anderson continued to sing at churches and special gatherings. Her singing became more widely known. But she still felt that her voice needed training. Finally, a friend promised to help her meet a well-known voice teacher. The teacher was Giuseppe Boghetti. Only the best singers in Philadelphia were his students.

Marian went to see Mister Boghetti. She was nervous, because she wanted to please him. He told her that he already had too many students. He made it clear that he would listen only because he knew her friend.  Marian's nervousness disappeared when she began to sing. The song she chose was one she knew best. It was called "Deep River".

Mister Boghetti sat quietly when Marian finished. There were tears in his eyes. Finally, he said: "You will start training at once. I will need just two years with you. After that, you will be able to go anywhere and sing for anybody. "

Marian Anderson was very happy. Her friends agreed to help pay for her lessons. Mister Boghetti taught her how to control and direct her voice. He also taught her how to breathe correctly. Marian learned to sing classical music -- the songs of the great European composers.

Marian Anderson grew to love opera, because it joined singing and acting. But Mister Boghetti advised her not to choose opera as a way to make a living. He knew that black singers in America were not permitted to sing with white opera groups. Instead, he told her she could be successful by singing in concert theaters. She followed his advice.

In nineteen twenty-four, Anderson sang in New York City for the first time. In those days, a singer had to be recognized in New York to be successful everywhere else. She sang in one of the most important concert theaters in the city -- Town Hall.

She sang some spirituals and some classical music. She wanted to make sure she would be judged as a singer who happened to be black -- not as a black singer.

Marian Anderson's town hall concert was not successful. Few people came to listen. The next day, newspapers sharply criticized her. They said she sang the European music without feeling or understanding. Anderson was crushed. She decided to return to Philadelphia. She thought about never singing again.

    Play Video Video: Exit Poll: Who are the first time voters AP

Play Video Video: How the Candidates Spent Election Day ABC News

Play Video Video: Thousands Gather For Obama Watch Party In Dallas CBS 11 Dallas

Barack Obama entered the final week of the campaign leading in national opinion polls and in many of the states that could decide the election.
BARACK OBAMA: "Do not believe for a second that this election is over. Do not think for a minute that power concedes. We have a lot of work to do. We have to work like our future depends on it in this last week, because it does depend on it this week!"
The Democrat began giving what his campaign called his "closing argument" in a speech last Monday in Ohio.
BARACK OBAMA: "John McCain might be worried about losing an election, but I am worried about Americans who are losing their homes and their jobs and their life savings. I can take one more week of John McCain's attacks, but this country cannot take four more years of the same failed politics and the same failed policies. It is time to try something new!"
John McCain was also in Ohio.
JOHN McCAIN: "With one week left in this campaign, the choice facing Americans is stark. My economic goals and policies are very clear."
Senator McCain wants to permanently extend President Bush's tax cuts. Senator Obama would let those tax cuts end. He says he wants tax cuts for the middle class, not the wealthy.
John McCain and his running mate, Sarah Palin, have suggested that the plan amounts to socialism.
JOHN McCAIN: "And that is the problem with Senator Obama's approach to our economy. He is more interested in controlling wealth than creating it, in redistributing money instead of spreading opportunity. I am going to create wealth for all Americans by creating opportunity for all Americans!"
Ohio is a major battleground state. No Republican has ever won the presidency without winning Ohio. The last Democrat to win without carrying that state was John Kennedy in nineteen sixty.
Ohio has twenty votes in the Electoral College and decided the last election. Two hundred seventy electoral votes are needed to win the presidency.
As of last week, the RealClearPolitics.com average of polls showed Ohio leaning toward Senator Obama.Pennsylvania has twenty-one electoral votes. John McCain was still campaigning there last week even as polls showed a solid lead for Barack Obama. By late in the week Senator Obama appeared to have lost some of his lead in Pennsylvania.
Florida has twenty-seven electoral votes and decided the disputed election of two thousand. As of last week polls showed that the race in Florida remained close.
The election will be historic, whoever wins the White House.
Senator Barack Obama of Illinois is the first black presidential candidate of a major party. And he has set new records for raising campaign money.
Senator John McCain of Arizona would at age seventy-two become the nation’s oldest first-term president. And Sarah Palin is the first woman on a Republican presidential ballot.
The next president will have a lot to do. The United States is fighting two wars. The situation is improving in Iraq but getting worse in Afghanistan. Barack Obama has promised to withdraw most troops from Iraq within sixteen months in office. John McCain supports the war and opposes setting time limits.
The top issue, though, is the economy. What began as a housing crisis is now America's worst financial crisis since the nineteen thirties. And it has spread around the world.
Throughout the campaign, Barack Obama sought to tie John McCain to the unpopular current occupant of the White House. He pointed to Senator McCain's record of voting with George W. Bush more than ninety percent of the time over the last eight years.
John McCain rejected the comparisons. And he, in turn, sought to tie Barack Obama to the unpopular, Democratic-led Congress, saying they would "tax and spend." In the closing days of the campaign, he warned increasingly of the dangers of one-party rule.
Barack Obama is forty-seven years old. He served eight years in the Illinois state senate. He was elected to the United States Senate in November of two thousand four.
Millions of Americans saw him for the first time that year when he spoke at the Democratic National Convention. He called on Americans to look beyond party politics and unite for the good of the country.
Barack Obama was born in Hawaii to a white mother from Kansas and a black father from Kenya. He knew little of his father. His parents divorced when he was two.
His mother was an anthropologist who for a time was on public assistance. His grandparents helped raise him after his mother moved to Indonesia. He spent part of his childhood in Jakarta after she married an Indonesian man.
Barack Obama graduated from Columbia University in New York City. After college he became a community organizer in Chicago, his adopted hometown. Later, at Harvard Law School, was elected the first black president of the Harvard Law Review.
His wife, Michelle, is also a Harvard-trained lawyer. She grew up in a working class family in Chicago. The Obamas have two young daughters.
Anti-Obama e-mails have said he is Muslim. He is Christian. He is also biracial but has said that he considers himself black. Nine out ten black voters support him. And polls have shown that many white voters who supported President Bush say they will vote for him over John McCain.
Yet one-third of voters in a recent New York Times-CBS News poll said they knew someone who will not support him mainly because he is black.
Eighty-two-year-old Bob Moller of Washington, D.C., is white. He says he plans to vote for Barack Obama partly because he believes the Democrat would help to heal some of the nation's racial wounds.
BOB MOLLER: "I hope I live long enough to see a black man in the White House with his family. That would make me joyous beyond words. Because of our history of slavery and all the aftermath, and it was not until the civil rights movement that things began to right themselves. It's just been disgraceful and embarrassing to me as a citizen."
Edika Onubah is a student at Howard University, a traditionally black school in Washington, D.C. Now that she is eighteen, she can vote for the first time.
EDIKA ONUBAH: "I'm voting for Barack Obama because when I watched him on television I felt that what he was saying was sincere, that he meant it, that he wants change."
Barack Obama has campaigned on a message of "Change We Need."
John McCain's message is "Country First."
Among those who plan to vote for him is Richard Peters, a retiree from New Jersey. He says he has been hit hard financially in recent weeks, but his major issue of concern in this election is terrorism.
RICHARD PETERS: "I am of the opinion that if we don't protect this country from terrorism and all the other free countries from terrorism then nothing else much matters."
John McCain was born on an American naval base in the Panama Canal Zone. His father and grandfather were admirals in the Navy. He studied at the Naval Academy and became a Navy pilot.
His plane was shot down over Hanoi during the Vietnam War. He spent five and a half years as a prisoner of the communist North Vietnamese. He refused an offer of early release. He faced severe beatings. He returned home with permanent injuries to his arms -- but a war hero.
After retiring from the Navy, he was elected to the House of Representatives in nineteen eighty-two. Four years later he was elected to the Senate. He became known for working with Democrats and not always supporting his own party.
This is his second campaign for the White House. In two thousand he lost the Republican Party nomination to George Bush.
John McCain has had the most serious form of skin cancer, melanoma, most recently in two thousand two. He and his wife Cindy have four children, plus three from his first marriage. Cindy McCain heads one of the nation's largest beer distribution companies, which her father started.
Barack Obama's choice for vice president is Senator Joe Biden of Delaware. He is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Joe Biden is sixty-six years old and was first elected to the Senate in nineteen seventy-two.
Sarah Palin is forty-four and the governor of Alaska. She was elected in November of two thousand six. Earlier, she was mayor of the town of Wasilla for six years.
Barack Obama and John McCain have talked a lot about change. But many of the changes they propose require approval by Congress.
All four hundred thirty-five seats in the House of Representatives will be on Tuesday's ballot. The Democrats currently hold a thirty-seven-seat majority.
In the Senate, which has one hundred seats, just over a third will be decided. The Democrats now have a two-seat majority. The party hopes to win at least six more.
Record numbers of Americans have already been voting. The majority of states now permit early voting in person or by mail even without the need for an excuse. Nationally, about one-third of voters are expected to cast their ballots early this year. Both major parties have thousands of lawyers ready for Election Day in case of problems with voting.

 

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The battle for the most-tilted-tower title has gotten downright medieval, with a 13th-century German church flattening the circa-1372 Leaning Tower of Pisa's record, Guinness World Records announced this week.

Compromised by a wooden foundation and sodden soil, the Suurhusen church's 15th-century steeple addition tilts at a 5.07-degree angle, versus the Italian tower's current 3.97 degrees, according to Olaf Kuchenbecker of Guinness World Records' German office.

"When you lay photos of the two next to each other, you can see it relatively clearly," Kuchenbecker told the Reuters news agency.

The ornate 185-foot-tall (56-meter-tall) Pisa edifice, though, would tower over the 84-foot-tall (26-meter-tall) village landmark.

A woozy foundation isn't all the two landmarks have in common. Today both are mainly tourist attractions, with the Suurhusen church hosting services only on major holidays.

And both were stabilized in the 1990s. The Leaning Tower of Pisa was actually somewhat straightened, perhaps depriving it of Guinness fame.

November 19, 2007—Captured just before midnight on November 13 by fishers in Cambodia, this Mekong Gain Catfish is 8 feet long (2.4 meters long) ands weighs 450 pounds (204 kilograms).
"This is the only giant catfish that has been caught this year so far, making it the worst year on record for catch of giant fish species," said Zeb Hogan (far right), a fisheries biologist at the University of Reno in Nevada.

After collecting data on the fish, Hogan released it unharmed.

Giant catfish were once plentiful throughout Southeast Asia's Mekong River watershed, including the Tonle Sap River—home of the fish near Phnom Penh.

But in the last century the Mekong giant catfish population has declined by 95 to 99 percent, scientists say. Only a few hundred adult giant catfish may remain.

Since 2000 five to ten fish have been caught by accident each year throughout the Mekong area.