Prayer does not heal the sick, study finds

Praying for the health of strangers who have undergone heart surgery has no effect, according to the largest scientific study ever commissioned to calculate the healing power of prayer.

In fact, patients who know they are being prayed for suffer a noticeably higher rate of complications, according to the study, which monitored the recovery of 1,800 patients after heart bypass surgery in the US.

The findings of the decade-long study were due to be published in the American Heart Journal next week, but the journal published the report on its website yesterday as anticipation grew.

The power of intercessory prayer has been studied by doctors for years in America, but with no conclusive results. This $2.4 million study, funded in large part by the John Templeton Foundation, which seeks "insights at the boundary between theology and science", was intended to cast some clear light on the matter.

But the study "did not move us forward or backward" in understanding the effects of prayer, admitted Dr Charles Bethea, one of the co-authors and a cardiologist at the Integris Baptist Medical Center in Oklahoma City. "Intercessory prayer under our restricted format had a neutral effect," he said.

Members of three congregations - St. Paul's Monastery in St. Paul; the Community of Teresian Carmelites in Worcester, Massachussetts; and Silent Unity, a Missouri prayer ministry near Kansas City - were asked to pray for the patients, who were divided into three groups: those who would be told they were being prayed for, those who would receive prayers but not know, and those who would not be prayed for at all.

The worshippers starting praying for the patients the night before surgery and for the next two weeks, asking God to grant "a successful surgery with a quick, healthy recovery and no complications".

The study found no appreciable difference between the health of those who did not know they were being prayed for and those who received no prayers. Fifty-two per cent of patients in both groups suffered complications after surgery. But 59 per cent of those who knew they were prayed for went on to develop complications.

The reports authors said they had no explanation for the difference beyond a possibility that the prayers made people anxious about their ability to recover.

"Did the patients think, ’I am so sick that they had to call in the prayer team?"’ said Dr Bethea.

The results of the study provoked discord among doctors and scientists in the US, many of whom questioned the wisdom of subjecting prayer to the conditions of a research project.

Dr Richard Sloan, a professor of behavioral medicine at Columbia and the author of a forthcoming book, Blind Faith: The Unholy Alliance of Religion and Medicine, told The New York Times: "The problem with studying religion scientifically is that you do violence to the phenomenon by reducing it to basic elements that can be quantified, and that makes for bad science and bad religion."

But Paul Kurtz, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the State University of New York at Buffalo, and chairman of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, had a simpler response when asked why the study had found no evidence for the power of prayer. "Because there is none," he said. "That would be one answer."

Dr. David Stevens, executive director of the Christian Medical and Dental Associations, told the AP that he believed intercessory prayer could influence people's health, but that scientists were not equipped to measure the phenomenon."Do we control God through prayer? Theologians would say absolutely not. God decides sometimes to intervene, and sometimes not," he said. As for the new study, he said, "I don’t think... it’s going to stop people praying for the sick."

Tamarama

Photo: a brave boarder tackles a wave at Tamarama.


Waves reached heights of up to eight metres, according to weather experts - or a mere four metres, according to the less-macho reckoning of surfers.

Several beaches were closed, including Bronte, Maroubra, Newport and Palm Beach, while Bondi lifeguards stopped swimmers from going beyond shallow water. Water police and rescue helicopters were called to Manly about 6.30pm after two men on surf skis were hit by a giant wave.

One of the men washed onto Shelly Beach, south of Manly.

Water police found the other surfer about an hour later a kilometre off Queenscliff to the north.
Former pro-surfer Matt Grainger, who owns Manly Surf School, spent the day surfing off Long Reef and Queenscliff, but warned that only advanced surfers should brave the treacherous conditions. At Bronte, even the baths were closed as huge waves lashed the southern end of the beach.

High winds from the weather system formerly known as Tropical Cyclone Wati started the huge swell 1000 kilometres offshore in the Tasman Sea.

By Gwyn Topham SMH

Archibald Prize 2006

"The Paul Juraszek Monolith" by Marcus Wills

Scientists Find Skull of Human Ancestor

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia
Mar 25, 2006 (AP)

Scientists in northeastern Ethiopia said Saturday that they have discovered the skull of a small human ancestor that could be a missing link between the extinct Homo erectus and modern man.

The hominid cranium found in two pieces and believed to be between 500,000 and 250,000 years old "comes from a very significant period and is very close to the appearance of the anatomically modern human," said Sileshi Semaw, director of the Gona Paleoanthropological Research Project in Ethiopia.

Archaeologists found the early human cranium five weeks ago at Gawis in Ethiopia's northeastern Afar region, Sileshi said.

Several stone tools and fossilized animals including two types of pigs, zebras, elephants, antelopes, cats, and rodents were also found at the site.

Sileshi, an Ethiopian paleoanthropologist based at Indiana University, said most fossil hominids are found in pieces but the near-complete skull a rare find provided a wealth of information.
"The Gawis cranium provides us with the opportunity to look at the face of one of our ancestors," the archaeology project said in a statement.

Homo erectus, which many believe was an ancestor of modern Homo sapiens, is thought to have died out 100,000 to 200,000 years ago.

The cranium dates to a time about which little is known the transition from African Homo erectus to modern humans. The fossil record from Africa for this period is sparse and most of the specimens poorly dated, project archaeologists said.

The face and cranium of the fossil are recognizably different from those of modern humans, but bear unmistakable anatomical evidence that it belongs to the modern human's ancestry, Sileshi said.

"A good fossil provides anatomical evidence that allows us to refine our understanding of evolution. A great fossil forces us to re-examine our views of human origins. I believe the Gawis cranium is a great fossil," said Scott Simpson, a project paleontologist from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine at Cleveland, Ohio.

Scientists conducting surveys in the Gawis River drainage basin found the skull in a small gully, the project statement said.

"This is really exciting because it joins a limited number of fossils which appear to be evolutionary between Homo erectus and our own species Homo sapiens," said Eric Delson, a paleoanthropologist at Lehman College of the City University of New York, who was not involved in the discovery but has followed the project.

Homo erectus left Africa about 2 million years ago and spread across Asia from Georgia in the Caucasus to China and Indonesia. It first appeared in Africa between 1 million and 2 million years ago.

Between 1 million and perhaps 200,000 years ago, one or more species existed in Africa that gave rise to the earliest members of our own species Homo sapiens between 150,000 and 200,000 years ago.

Delson said the fossil found in Ethiopia "might represent a population broadly ancestral to modern humans or it might prove to be one of several side branches which died out without living descendants."

On the Net:

Gona Palaeoanthropological Research Project Stone Age Institute:

http://www.stoneageinstitute.org

Paris burns

IT WAS just the scene the French Government had been dreading: burning cars seven blocks from the Eiffel Tower, shop windows smashed along one of the capital's smartest streets, and columns of helmeted riot police advancing near a prominent tourist venue.

Antoil Ethuin, 48, stood outside the shattered windows of his Bike'n'Roll rental shop on Thursday, stunned by the destruction of the worst violence in two weeks of student protests in Paris and other French cities.

"My country is broken," said Mr Ethuin, gazing at the smouldering wrecks a few metres away and the carpet of glass shards, broken dishes and computer parts covering the footpath in the heart of one of the city's most affluent suburbs.

"I never imagined I would ever see this in Paris."

The unrest intensified a political crisis threatening to unravel the Government much the way previous French governments have been felled by strikes and street protests when they attempted even modest reforms of the costly welfare state.

The Prime Minister, Dominique de Villepin, hastily arranged an emergency meeting with the most influential unions to defuse the crisis.

On Thursday, as a crowd of 140,000 were about to end their march in the park adjoining the gold-domed Hotel des Invalides, near Napoleon's tomb, gangs of hooded and masked youths darted out of side streets, setting cars ablaze, flipping others upside down, breaking shop windows and hurling rocks at police and firefighters.

Riot police broke up the groups with teargas as acrid black smoke filled narrow streets and billowed above the skyline.

Police said 60 people were injured in the clashes, including 27 police officers. Officials said 141 people were arrested.

Mr Villepin had attempted to capitalise on the political misfortunes of his rival, the Interior Minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, by advocating a law he said was intended to give companies greater incentive to hire young people. The law would allow employers to fire workers aged under 26 without reason during their first two years on the job.

University students, other young people and unions say the law discriminates against the young by denying them the job security that older workers have.

On Thursday newspapers began reporting leaks from anonymous government officials that President Jacques Chirac was threatening to fire Mr Villepin if he did not resolve the escalating crisis quickly.

The Washington Post

Melting ice sheets could spur oceans' rise - study

Miami would be a memory, Bangkok a soggy shadow of its former self and the Maldive Islands would vanish if melting polar ice keeps fuelling a faster-than-expected rise in sea levels, according to scientists.

In an issue of the journal Science focusing on global warming, climate scientist Jonathan Overpeck of the University of Arizona reported that if global trends continue, Earth could ultimately experience sea levels six meters higher than they are now.

By the end of this century, Earth would be at least 2.3C warmer than now, or about as hot as it was nearly 130,000 years ago.

Back then, significant portions of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets melted, pushing the global sea levels to about six meters higher than current levels.

A similarly dramatic, and in some cases catastrophic, rise in ocean levels could happen by the year 2500, Overpeck said in a telephone interview, but he noted it could come sooner.
"We know when the sea level was that high in the past, and we know how much warming is necessary to get that amount of sea level rise from both Greenland and Antarctica," Overpeck said.

The Earth will get that hot sometime early in the second half of this century, he said, and once it does, the big ice sheets will start melting "in a more dramatic manner" than they currently are.
A conservative estimate would call for sea level rises of one metre per century, he said.
He cautioned, however, that this estimate assumes the Earth will get only as hot as it did 130,000 years ago when the ice sheets melted.

"If we decide to keep on the track we're on now and just keep on warming, because of greenhouse gas pollution, then we could easily cook those ice sheets more rapidly," Overpeck said.

The earlier ice melt was concentrated in the Northern Hemisphere in the summer months, and was due largely to changes in Earth's orbit, he said.

"The climate warming we're in now is global and it's year-round and it's due to human influences on the climate system," he said. "That will be more damaging to the ice sheets than the that warming we had 130,000 years ago."

The ice sheets are already melting, accelerated by relatively warm water that eats away at them, said NASA glacier expert Bob Bindschadler.

"It's not really a debate any more about whether sea level is rising or not. I think the debate has shifted to, how rapidly is sea level rising," Bindschadler said in a telephone briefing.
Overpeck's Web site -- http://www.geo.arizona.edu/dgesl/ -- offers dynamic maps of the projected results of the rise in sea levels.

Reuters

Plant, animal extinctions speeding up

By David Adam
March 22, 2006

HUMANS have provoked the worst series of extinctions since the dinosaurs were wiped out 65 million years ago, says a United Nations report that calls for unprecedented worldwide efforts to address the slide.

The report paints a grim picture of life on earth, with declining numbers of plants and animals, and warns that the current extinction rate is up to 1000 times faster than in the past. About 844 animals and plants are known to have disappeared in the past 500 years.

Released on Monday to mark the start of a UN environment program meeting in Curitiba, Brazil, the report says: "In effect, we are currently responsible for the sixth major extinction event in the history of earth."

A rising human population of 6.5 billion is wrecking the environment for thousands of other species, it adds, and undermining efforts agreed at a 2002 UN summit in Johannesburg to slow the rate of decline by 2010. The global demand for biological resources now exceeds the planet's capacity to renew them by 20 per cent.

The report, Global Biodiversity Outlook 2 from the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, says: "The direct causes of biodiversity loss - habitat change, over-exploitation, the introduction of invasive alien species, nutrient loading and climate change - show no sign of abating."

The Guardian, Reuters

Stop the War

Thousands of demonstrators across the world have denounced the US-led war in Iraq in another day of protests marking the invasion's third anniversary.

Father wants to divorce his 7month old daughter

SEVEN-MONTH-OLD Elizabeth Wells has never been held in her father's arms, and if he has his way she never will be.

In what could be a landmark case in the US, Matt Dubay, a computer programmer, is asking the courts to absolve him of all the responsibilities of fatherhood.

Mr Dubay's lawsuit has the backing of the National Centre for Men, activists who say that equal opportunities have swung too far in favour of women.

For Mr Dubay, 25, news that he was about to become a father was an unwelcome shock. It followed a night spent with a student, Lauren Wells, who he claims told him that she was infertile and using contraception. The apparent contradiction of those remarks did not fully hit Mr Dubay until several weeks later, when Ms Wells, 20, told him she was pregnant.

While the relationship soon foundered, his former girlfriend said she was keeping the child and, when the baby was born last August, she began legal proceedings to ensure that her former boyfriend paid his way in bringing up their daughter.

Faced with a court order for $US500 ($690) a month in child support, Mr Dubay said not paying was his constitutional right.

"I don't believe men have any say … [they are] simply ignored," he said from his home in Saginaw, Michigan. After learning that Ms Wells was pregnant, Mr Dubay said he talked to her about an abortion or having the baby adopted, but she ruled out both. "I painted a very clear picture at that point that I was not ready to be a father," he said. "I was not ready to be a part of the child's life."

His lawsuit, filed in a federal court, says that men who face fatherhood without their consent should be able to opt out of their responsibilities. While it does not seek to force women to have an abortion or give up their babies for adoption, it claims that women have the right to pursue either option if they do not want to bring up a child on their own.

The founder of the National Centre for Men, Mel Feit, said: "Men are routinely forced to give up control, forced to be financially responsible for choices only women are permitted to make, forced to relinquish reproductive choice as the price of intimacy.

"A man must choose to be a father in the same way that a woman chooses to be a mother," Mr Feit said.

Ms Wells said in a statement through her lawyer on Saturday that "my focus is on providing a nurturing home for our baby".

Saying that she was disappointed in Mr Dubay's decision, she added: "I believe that life begins at conception and blossoms. I take responsibility for my acts and will do my best as an adult and mother to protect and provide for our daughter."

Mr Dubay has met his daughter just once, when both attended a clinic for blood tests that proved he was her father. He admitted it was "difficult to look away" when the baby was in the room, but he believes it would disrupt her life if he assumed any other duties of parenthood. "I still, to this point, believe that it isn't right to be part of the child's life. An unwilling parent is not good for a child."

Telegraph, London

Earth Faces Mass Extinction

By Nassim Khadem, Canberra
March 16, 2006

A LEADING British environmental scientist has urged the Australian Government to switch its focus from nuclear power and clean-coal technologies to renewable energies.

Norman Myers said he had raised the issue with federal Environment Minister Ian Campbell just two days ago.

Professor Myers was speaking yesterday at the National Press Club about the mass extinction of animal and plant species being a greater threat to the world than global warming.

Professor Myers, a visiting fellow of Oxford University, said despite Australia having vast amounts of coal and uranium available to export to countries such as China, it still needed to consider how it would produce energy beyond the fossil-fuel era. "I would suggest to Australia, as I did to the minister, that in anticipation of the end of the fossil fuel era … Australia might want to develop an alternative energy strategy. That is, a clean and renewable source of technology."

Asked whether he agreed with the Australian Government that nuclear power was a possible way to reduce global warming, he said it was not safe and it would take at least 10 years before a nuclear power plant would be operational.

His comments came as Australia confirmed it was close to signing an agreement with China on the sale of uranium. Officials from both nations met in Beijing a fortnight ago for the latest round of negotiations.

Professor Myers, who has been a senior adviser on biodiversity to the United Nations, the World Bank and the White House, said Earth was experiencing the largest mass extinction of species in 65 million years. He said there were about 10 million species and half could be lost if governments did not act quickly.

Professor Myers is renowned for identifying "hot spots" — homes to our most valuable animal and plant species — in grave need of protection. There are 34 hot spots and only five countries have more than one. Australia has two: one in southern Western Australia and the other taking in forests on the east coast.

A UN meeting in Brazil next week will discuss reducing the loss of species by 2010.

AAP

Club 793 - Billionaires Only

A billion dollars, says Luisa Kroll, who edits Forbes magazine’s list of the world super-rich, is “just not what it used to be”. Too right! There’s now something horribly common about being a billionaire. Forbes names an incredible 793 of them round the world — 102 more than last year. In London alone there are 23, including the steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal, now the world’s fifth richest person.

At the top of the Billionaires Club, admittedly, there’s still some serious money around. Between them the three richest dudes on the planet — Bill Gates, Warren Buffett (the man always quaintly described as Gates’s “bridge partner") and the Mexican telecom mogul and serial Rodin hoarder Carlos Helú — possess more wealth than the world’s 600 million poorest people put together.

The Times

'the Gorilla" dead

Papal favourite linked to Vatican scandal dead at 84

By Adam Bernstein
in Washington
February 23, 2006

Photo: Papal bodyguard and banker … Paul Marcinkus in 1982.
Photo: AP

PAUL MARCINKUS, the papal bodyguard dubbed "the Gorilla" and a titular archbishop who led the Vatican bank into a monetary scandal of staggering proportions, has died at his home in Sun City, Arizona.

Archbishop Marcinkus, 84, reportedly had emphysema.

After joining the priesthood in Chicago, where he was born to Lithuanian immigrants, he served in the Vatican's diplomatic corps and soon became a favourite of Pope Paul VI.

A hulking, 195-centimetre-tall rugby player, he served as bodyguard and "advance man" on Paul's historic diplomatic outreach trips abroad.

He was said to have safeguarded the pontiff in 1970 from a knife-wielding assailant at Manila airport. This, along with a penchant for one-liners and an athletic swagger, endeared the archbishop to Paul.

He was president of the bank, formally known as the Institute for Religious Works, from 1971 to 1989, and always had a zinger that explained his work: "You can't run a church on Hail Marys."
He was among the most powerful members of the Vatican elite, and it was assumed he would be elevated to cardinal or serve as president of Vatican City. But his reputation suffered markedly in 1982, when he was indicted as an accessory in the multibillion-dollar financial collapse of Banco Ambrosiano, once the largest private bank in Italy and an institution with close ties to the Vatican.

Shortly after the news broke, Ambrosiano's chairman, Roberto Calvi, sometimes labelled "God's banker" for his Vatican relationships, was found dead under mysterious circumstances - hanging from a bridge in London, in what was officially ruled a suicide. Calvi was said to have had Mafia connections, spurring speculation that he would publicly divulge some nexus between the church and the underworld.

It was sensational news carried worldwide. Archbishop Marcinkus became a central figure in the affair, and he was also one of the most enigmatic.

Largely hidden in the Vatican during the investigation, he declined to answer Italian investigators' questions about the church's role in dummy companies set up abroad to which Banco Ambrosiano funnelled more than $US1 billion.

Later, so-called "letters of comfort" surfaced, reputedly showing his guarantee of protecting bank creditors' investments. While denying wrongdoing, the Vatican paid $US244 million to creditors of the Ambrosiano bank in what it called "recognition of moral involvement" in the bank's collapse.

The Italian Government issued an arrest order for Archbishop Marcinkus and two bank subordinates as "accessories to fraudulent bankruptcy," but the Vatican, an independent state, refused to comply and cited diplomatic immunity. The Italian high court agreed, allowing him to avoid standing trial.

The Washington Post

Dunken Sailor

Waratahs winger Wendell Sailor, who now faces a ban after admitting he was drunk and vomited in the street after becoming involved in a scrap at a nightclub near his team's Cape Town hotel on Friday night.

Sailor also has a two-week suspension still hanging over his head after being involved in a similar incident last year before the Test match between SA and Australia at another nightclub.

"I had some wine at dinner. Then, between the hours of 10 and one, I picked up the pace a bit..." said Sailor.

Breath Testing - Prepare to Run

Fallen Eagle Cousins stands down
February 21, 2006

AFL Brownlow medallist Ben Cousins has resigned as West Coast captain in the wake of the infamous booze-bus incident.

Cousins admitted to errors of judgement after his car was found abandoned near a booze bus in Perth and decided to resign because of the pressure placed on the club. Cousins refused to take questions at a media conference yesterday, leaving soon after he read a prepared statement.

WA police are investigating after Cousins admitted he had been the driver of a car abandoned 50m from a booze bus last Sunday week. They said Cousins had ignored orders to stop as he ran away and later refused to answer questions about why he evaded officers.

AAP

"teenage delinquent" elephants

By Roger Highfield
February 17, 2006
Telegraph London


THE reputation that elephants never forget has been given a chilling new twist - a generation of pachyderms may be taking revenge on humans for the breakdown of elephant society.

New Scientist has reported that elephants appear to be attacking settlements as vengeance for years of abuse by humans.

In Uganda, elephant numbers have never been lower or food more plentiful, yet there are reports of the creatures blocking roads and trampling through villages, apparently without cause or motivation.

Scientists suspect that poaching in the 1970s and 1980s marked many of the animals with the equivalent of post-traumatic stress disorder, perhaps caused by being orphaned or witnessing the death of family members.

Many herds lost their matriarch and had to make do with inexperienced "teenage mothers". Combined with a lack of older bulls, this appears to have created a generation of "teenage delinquent" elephants.

Joyce Poole, the research director at the Amboseli Elephant Research Project in Kenya, said: "They are certainly intelligent enough and have good enough memories to take revenge.

"Wildlife managers may feel that it is easier to just shoot so-called 'problem' elephants than face people's wrath. So an elephant is shot without [people] realising the possible consequences on the remaining family members and the … possibility of stimulating a cycle of violence."

A study by Dr Poole showed that a lack of older bulls to lead by example had created gangs of aggressive young males with a penchant for violence towards each other and other species.

In Pilanesburg National Park in South Africa, young bulls have been attacking rhinos since 1992. In Addo Elephant National Park, also in South Africa, 90 per cent of males are killed by another male - 15 times the "normal" figure.

Richard Lair, a researcher specialising in Asian elephants at Thailand's National Elephant Institute, said there were similar problems in India."The more human beings they see, the less tolerant they become," he said

Global Warming

Scientists muzzled for Bush election campaign
By Andrew RevkinFebruary 17, 2006
The New York Times

POLITICAL appointees in NASA's press office exerted strong pressure during the 2004 presidential campaign to cut the flow of press releases on glaciers, climate, pollution and other earth sciences, public affairs officers at the agency say.

The disclosure comes two weeks after the space agency's administrator, Michael Griffin, called for "scientific openness" at the agency. In response to the call, NASA researchers and public affairs officials described how political appointees altered or limited news releases on scientific findings that could have conflicted with Bush Administration policies.

Examples have been reported to senior scientists and administrators who are assembling complaints as part of a review demanded by Mr Griffin.

Press officers said much of the pressure in late 2004 was placed on Gretchen Cook-Anderson. At the time, she was in charge of managing the flow of earth science news at NASA.

In a conference call in October 2004, the colleagues said, Cook-Anderson said that Glenn Mahone, who was then assistant administrator for public affairs, had told her a planned news conference on fresh readings by a NASA satellite, Aura, that measures ozone and air pollution, should not take place until after the election.

Cook-Anderson this week said she could not discuss the matter, but added, "I won't disagree with that description of what took place." Mr Mahone has since left NASA. Dean Acosta, a political appointee who was Mr Mahone's deputy and is now Mr Griffin's press secretary, said he had never pressed Cook-Anderson to cut back on news releases.

But archives of the NASA website show a sharp decline in the number of news releases issued - from about 48 in 2004 to 12 last year.

Mr Griffin announced the review after complaints last month by James Hansen, the agency's top climate scientist, that political appointees were trying to stop him from speaking out on global warming. After those complaints were reported, other staff came forward with similar stories.

In another example of political pressure at the agency, press officers and scientists cited an email sent last July from NASA's headquarters to its jet propulsion laboratory in Pasadena.
The message said a web presentation describing the uncontroversial finding that Earth was a "warming planet" could not use the phrase "global warming". It was "standard practice", the message said, to use the phrase "climate change".

NASA officials said the aim was to use the most general term to describe climate fluctuations.
But other public affairs workers and some scientists called it an effort to avoid mentioning a rise in global temperatures. They said it was a standing unwritten order from political appointees in public affairs.

"There was this general understanding that when something in this field was written about that it was to be described as climate change and not global warming," said Elvia Thompson, who recently retired from the same office.

Allegations of political interference appear to reflect an intensifying debate between a cluster of presidential appointees at NASA and civil servants and scientists at the agency's research centres around the US. "The issue is where does science end and policy begin," said David Goldston, a Republican spokesman.

fun anyone?

NSW gamblers are losing $4.8 billion a year on poker machines.

Department of Gaming and Racing figures showing the average household is losing almost $1300 a year on gaming machines.

Player losses are increasing by about $200 million a year.

The average punter loss on each machine is now $66,000 a year for hotels -- a 25 per cent increase since 2001 -- and $45,000 for clubs.

Symonds 151 (127)

by Alex Brown SMH

For broken records, controversy and all-round intrigue, the Australians' effort against the Sri Lankans yesterday is unsurpassed, rebounding from a seemingly dire predicament at 3-10 to score their highest limited-overs total, 5-368, record a thumping 167-run victory and enforce a third and deciding final at the Gabba tomorrow.

Adam Gilchrist, for one, was enthused by the performance. "I think from the position we were in it's got to be one of the greatest comebacks and most dominating wins ever," he said.

To achieve that, Andrew Symonds and Ricky Ponting combined for the highest partnership by an Australian pair (237) and ensured that Muttiah Muralitharan, who bamboozled the home side in Adelaide on Friday night, returned the worst 10-over figures in the history of limited-overs cricket (0-99). A bloody end to what was almost certainly Muralitharan's last match at the SCG.

"[It was] one of the best batting displays we've ever witnessed," Ponting said. "I said to Andrew on the way in that those sort of things don't happen every day in this game … especially after getting off to the start we did."

The Australian innings was not without its share of controversy, most notably when Mahela Jayawardene claimed to catch Ponting at gully, only for the Australian captain to stand his ground and be subsequently ruled not out.

Replays were inconclusive as to whether the ball bounced before Jayawardene. However, the Sri Lankans were visibly upset at Ponting's decision to stand his ground, and umpire Peter Parker's decision to rule him not out. Jayawardene, however, eventually apologised to Ponting, who was on 57 at the time and went on to post a breathtaking 124 from 127 deliveries; his 19th one-day international century.

Not to be outdone, Symonds also produced an innings of tremendous power, recording his first one-day century on Australian soil and his second-highest limited-overs total. At the conclusion of his innings he had totalled 151, which included 13 boundaries and three sixes over 127 deliveries.

The efforts of Symonds and Ponting overshadowed the late-innings feats of Michael Clarke and Michael Hussey, although both were vital in steering Australia to their record total. Clarke blasted six boundaries to post an unbeaten 54 from 28 deliveries, while Hussey finished with 23 not out from just eight balls - half the deliveries he faced either travelling to, or over, the rope. Such precise, heavy hitting ensured the early failures of openers Adam Gilchrist (0) and Simon Katich (1) and Damien Martyn (8) were all but forgotten.

After Sri Lanka's veteran paceman Chaminda Vaas (4-56) removed those three batsmen within his first two overs - including Gilchrist to the second ball of the game - Australia seemed in danger of losing the match, and the finals series, in quick time.

Enter Ponting and Symonds. United at the crease with Australia reeling at 3-10, the Australian duo adopted a positive approach from the start of their innings. Ponting, the Allan Border medallist, was in particularly menacing form early, while Symonds, after a more watchful start, also found his rhythm.

The Queensland all-rounder, who would have been Australian one-day player of the year if not for his infamous drinking binge in Cardiff last year, celebrated enthusiastically upon reaching his 150, standing mid-pitch with arms raised triumphantly.

"I'll remember that forever - till I'm senile, probably," Symonds quipped. "You couldn't punch the smile off my face tonight."

Faced with such an imposing total, the Sri Lankans were never in the chase. Nathan Bracken (4-30) removed dangermen Sanath Jayasuriya (0) and Kumar Sangakkara (13) early, and Symonds continued his sensational outing by also claiming a pair of wickets.

"It's not going to be hard [to rebound] at all," said Sri Lanka's coach Tom Moody, throwing forward to tomorrow night's decider. "We've done it all series."

SCOREBOARD
At the SCG

AUSTRALIA Runs (Balls)
A GILCHRIST c Dilshan b Vaas 0 (2)
S KATICH lbw b Vaas 1 (5)
R PONTING c Vaas b Perera 124 (127)
D MARTYN c Jayawardene b Vaas 8 (5)
A SYMONDS lbw b Vaas 151 (127)
M CLARKE not out 54 (28)
M HUSSEY not out 23 (8)
Sundries (1lb 4w 2nb) 7

Five wickets for 368

Fall: 0 2 10 247 320.

Bowling: C Vaas 10-0-56-4 (1nb), R Perera 10-1-72-1 (2w), N Kulasekera 5-0-41-0, M Muralitharan 10-0-99-0 (1nb), T Dilshan 2-0-10-0, S Jayasuriya 8-0-52-0 (1w), M Bandara 5-0-37-0 (1w).
Batting time: 227 mins. Overs: 50.

SRI LANKA Runs (Balls)
M ATAPATTU c Gilchrist b Clark 24 (35)
S JAYASURIYA c Lee b Bracken 0 (6)
K SANGAKKARA b Bracken 13 (13)
M JAYAWARDENE b Hogg 50 (48)
R ARNOLD not out 64 (62)
T DILSHAN c Ponting b Symonds 13 (14)
C KAPUGEDERA run out 1 (3)
C VAAS c Clarke b Hogg 0 (6)
M BANDARA c Clark b Symonds 0 (6)
M MURALITHARAN c Lewis b Bracken 27 (24)
R PERERA c Ponting b Bracken 0 (2)
Sundries (4lb 2w 3nb) 9

Total 201

Fall: 4 26 74 116 139 145 146 147 200 201.

Bowling: B Lee 8-0-42-0 (3nb 1w), N Bracken 6-0-30-4 (1w), S Clark 5-0-28-1, M Lewis 5-0-30-0, A Symonds 5-1-32-2, B Hogg 7-0-35-2.

Batting time: 166 mins. Overs: 36.

Result: Australia won by 167 runs.

Best of three series locked 1-1.

Plenty of Pushy - bikeshop

Robot goes missing

Philip K Dick is missing.

Not the American science fiction writer whose novels spawned hit films such as Blade Runner and Total Recall -- he died more than 20 years ago -- but a state-of-the-art robot named after the author.

The quirky android, was lost in early January while en route to California by commercial airliner.

"We can't find Phil," said Steve Prilliman of Dallas-based Hanson Robotics, which created the futuristic robot with the FedEx Institute of Technology at the University of Memphis, the Automation and Robotics Research Institute at the University of Texas at Arlington and Dick's friend Paul Williams.

"We're very worried because it's been a few weeks now," said Prilliman. "We're pressing hard to find Phil."

Robotics wizard and lead designer David Hanson built the robot as a memorial to Dick, whose 1968 book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? inspired the 1982 classic Blade Runner starring Harrison Ford.

Short stories by Dick, who died in 1982, served as inspiration for other hit films including the 1990 Total Recall, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, and the 2002 Minority Report, starring Tom Cruise.

In Blade Runner, set in a Los Angeles of 2019, Harrison Ford plays Rick Deckhard, a Blade Runner or policeman whose job is to track down and terminate escaped human clones known as "replicants."

The irony of the situation -- a missing replica of the very author who championed "replicant" freedom -- is not lost on Phil's creators.
But they still want him back.

"We really need to find him soon because the Smithsonian wants to put him in a travelling collection in the autumn," said Prilliman referring to Washington's Smithsonian Institute, an organisation of museums and art galleries.

Along with an eerie likeness to the author, the robot features award-winning artificial intelligence that mimics the writer's mannerisms and lifelike skin material to affect realistic expressions.

Top-of-the-line voice software loaded with data from Dick's vast body of writing allows the robot to carry on natural-sounding conversations, although it does come off as a bit doddering at times.

Biometric-identification software and advanced machine vision allows the robot to recognise people -- even in a crowd -- read their expressions and body language and talk to them sounding a lot like a normal, albeit slightly senile, author who likes to quote his own books when he gets confused.

Prilliman and others close to Phil baulked at giving too many details about his disappearance including the name of the airline that was transporting the robot when he went missing.
Hanson officials said news of Phil's disappearance could hamper the ongoing investigation and search for the robot.

The company officials said they feared ransom demands might be made or Phil could turn up listed for sale on an internet auction house such as eBay.

A spokeswoman, Elaine Hanson, said the company is considering building a new android if the original Phil does not turn up.

AFP