Great White Shark Filmed Breaching at Night -- A First

Although seals are a common meal forgreat white shark, under the cover of darkness, one might expect the marine mammals to catch a break. Dramatic new footage, however, proves great whites sometimes fancy a midnight snack. it was a 13-foot (4-meter) shark launching itself from the water to snare a seal at the surface—the first time such "breach feeding" has been documented at night.

47 dead, 100 missing in Congo boat accident

Twenty-seven people are known to have survived, said Mathieu Modeste Bella, district commissioner of North Ubangi province in the far north of the central African country.
The boat was carrying at least 182 passengers, mostly merchants but also women and children, Bella said. It sank Tuesday night after it left the Congo town of Mobayi Bongo, 700 miles northeast of Congo's capital, Kinshasa. It was navigating the Ubangi river, headed for the Central African Republic, which shares a border with Congo. Bella said 47 bodies had been recovered. "The rest of the passengers, more than 100, have disappeared," Bella said. "We do not know what happened to them." Because of bad roads, many people in the area prefer to take small boats even if they do not know how to swim. KINSHASA, Congo - At least 47 people died when a motorized boat sank on a river in Congo, and more than 100 people are missing, a district official said Friday.

US military deaths in Iraq war at 4,124

As of Friday, July 25, 2008, at least 4,124 members of the U.S. military have died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. The figure includes eight military civilians killed in action. At least 3,360 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military's numbers.The AP count is three fewer than the Defense Department's tally, last updated Friday at 10 a.m. EDT.
The British military has reported 176 deaths; Italy, 33; Ukraine, 18; Poland, 21; Bulgaria, 13; Spain, 11; Denmark, seven; El Salvador, five; Slovakia, four; Latvia and Georgia, three each; Estonia, Netherlands, Thailand, Romania, two each; and Australia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, South Korea, one death each.

Iraqi Police Say Female Bomber Kills 8 U.S.-Allied Soldiers

BAGHDAD — Iraqi police say at least eight people have been killed in a female homicide bombing against a checkpoint manned by U.S.-allied Sunni guards northeast of Baghdad.
A police officer who read the report says the woman blew herself up about 8:30 p.m. Thursday near the so-called awakening council checkpoint in central Baqouba.The officer says at least eight awakening council members were killed and 24 other people were wounded. The officer spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to release the information.

Math study finds girls are just as good as boys

WASHINGTON - Sixteen years after Barbie dolls declared, "Math class is tough!" girls are proving that when it comes to math they are just as tough as boys. In the largest study of its kind, girls measured up to boys in every grade, from second through 11th. The research was released Thursday in the journal Science. Parents and teachers persist in thinking boys are simply better at math, said Janet Hyde, the University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher who led the study. And girls who grow up believinHyde and her colleagues looked at annual math tests required by the No Child Left Behind education law in 2002. Ten states provided enough statistical information to review test scores by gender, allowing researchers to compare the performances of more than 7 million children.The researchers found no difference in the scores of boys versus girls — not even in high school. Studies 20 years ago showed girls and boys did equally well on math in elementary school, but girls fell behind in high school."Girls have now achieved gender parity in performance on standardized math tests," Hyde said.g it wind up avoiding harder math classes.

Complete Baby Tyrannosaurid Unearthed in Mongolia

TOKYO — Japanese and Mongolian scientists have successfully recovered the complete skeleton of a 70-million-year-old young dinosaur, a nature museum.

The scientists uncovered a Tarbosaurus — related to the giant carnivorous Tyrannosaurus — from a chunk of sandstone they dug up in August, 2006 in the Gobi Desert in Mongolia, said Takuji Yokoyama, a spokesman for the Hayashibara Museum of Natural Sciences, a co-organizer of the joint research project."We were so lucky to have found remains that turned out to be a complete set of all the important parts.The latest find would be a major step toward discovering the growth and development of dinosaurs.

French Scientists Find New Alien World

Scientists have discovered a new Jupiter-sized planet orbiting around a distant sun-like star.
This planet takes 9.2 days to orbit its star, the longest period for any transiting explonet ever found.The planet, called CoRoT-Exo-4b, was discovered by the European Space Agency's CoRoT space telescope, which was designed to search for extrasolarplanets by looking for transits, or tiny dips in the light output from a star when a planet passes in front of it. By tracking the time between transits, a team of scientists led by the French space agency CNES measured how long the planet takes to revolve around its star, and found that it is the same period of time its star, which is slightly larger than our sun, takes to rotate 360 degrees.

U.S., NATO Press Pakistan to Fight Terror On Afghan

PERTH, Australia — Pakistan needs to do more to prevent Taliban militants from launching attacks into Afghanistan from its territory, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Friday, echoing earlier remarks made by the chief of NATO.Speaking in Australia, Rice suggested to reporters that a surge in Taliban-related violence in Afghanistan had its source in the restive semiautonomous tribal areas along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan. "We understand that it's difficult, we understand that the northwest frontier area is difficult, but militants cannot be allowed to organize there and to plan there and to engage across the border," Rice said. "So yes, more needs to be done."

Iraqi Police Say Female Bomber Kills 8 U.S.-Allied Soldiers

BAGHDAD — Iraqi police say at least eight people have been killed in a female homicide bombing against a checkpoint manned by U.S.-allied Sunni guards northeast of Baghdad.
A police officer who read the report says the woman blew herself up about 8:30 p.m. Thursday near the so-called awakening council checkpoint in central Baqouba.The officer says at least eight awakening council members were killed and 24 other people were wounded. The officer spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to release the information.

1 Dead in N.H. Storms That Levels Several Homes

1 dead in N.H. storms that levels several homes; door-to-door search under wayViolent storms on Thursday in a 25-mile-long swath of central New Hampshire destroyed several homes, damaged dozens of others and left at least one person dead, authorities said as police and firefighters went door-to-door searching for more possible victims. Other people were hurt, including the husband and baby grandson of the woman killed. Gov. John Lynch said at an evening news conference that about a dozen people were injured. There was no immediate word on how serious their injuries were.The National Weather Service was trying to determine whether a tornado was responsible for the damage, which stretched from about 10 miles east of Concord to beyond the eastern end of Lake Winnipesaukee near the Maine border.Around Northwood Lake in Epsom, many homes in one area were badly damaged or destroyed by the storm, which tossed couches and refrigerators along with downed trees and other debris.