2008: March 11th Good News (Student's blog reveals mother's missing children, Italian Granny helps police nab drug dealer, more...)

Good evening all,
Sorry this is a bit late. Still, it's getting out there and better late than not at all. :)
Adam Jr (our nickname for my baby 2 be), was very tired today. So much so that I even fell to sleep in the parking lot of a shopping mall.

Anyway, there are some very fun and interesting stories today. I think I'll label today as moderately crime busting. I hope you enjoy today's posts!

Top 5:
1. Mother Found Her Snatched Children with Help of Scots Girl's Blog (The Scotsman)
2. Sisters Thwart Shooting After Overpowering Lone Gunman (Independent IE)
3. Frozen Remains of WWII Airman Identified (CNN)
4. Seoul's First Astronaut to be a Woman (Press TV)
5. Major Advance In Biofuel Technology: Trash Today, Ethanol Tomorrow (Science Daily)


Honorable Mention:
Nosy Granny Helps Police Nab Dealer (Life in Italy)



Top 5:

1. Mother Found Her Snatched Children with Help of Scots Girl's Blog
http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/latestnews/Mother-found-her-snatched-children.3867086.jp
11 March 2008

A FRENCH woman's worldwide search for her snatched children ended when she chanced upon her daughter's photograph on the internet blog of a Scottish schoolgirl.The mother had not heard from her children for two-and-a-half years, since their father abducted them and went on the run to Asia.
She had no idea where they were until she came across the blog of a teenager from Dundee. The girl had included photographs of schoolfriends, and one was the woman's 14-year-old daughter.
Now the mother has won an order from a Scottish judge to have the girl, and her brother, 11, and sister, nine, returned to France.
The father, who is trying to avoid a jail term in France by fighting extradition, had argued that the family was settled in Dundee and the two older children asked Lord Turnbull to allow them to remain in Scotland.
But the judge said he was satisfied that the children's stated wishes had been influenced by their father, who had sought to turn them against their mother.
The Court of Session in Edinburgh heard that the couple, who cannot be named for legal reasons, married in 1989 and lived in England. They left for South America – where the man intended to set up a religious community in Paraguay – but made it only to Mexico. After some time in California, they returned to England in 1998 and moved to Spain, where they separated in 2001. The wife then returned to her homeland.
A bitter divorce was fought in the French courts, and the couple's eldest son stayed with his father, while their three other children lived with the mother. In July 2005, the father fled France with all four youngsters. He flew to Switzerland, and on to Bangkok, where their trail went cold. For six months, they travelled around south-east Asia and eventually moved to Dundee.
Lord Turnbull said: "Throughout the time her children were missing, (the mother] had taken active steps to locate their whereabouts.
"On 17 November, 2007, she came across a blog posted by a teenage girl attending secondary school in Dundee.
"On looking through this, (the woman] came across a picture of her daughter. She took immediate steps to involve the French authorities."
The woman petitioned the Court of Session for the return of the younger children. The oldest is now 17 and outwith the scope of the 1985 Child Abduction and Custody Act. The Hague Convention, on which the act is based, does not oblige a country to order the return of a child if the child has become settled. The father in this case used that argument against the removal of his children to France.
In the father's absence, he was convicted in France of abducting the children and sentenced to 30 months' imprisonment.
Lord Turnbull said it was quite remarkable that neither of the primary school-age children had mentioned their mother to any teacher, which served to demonstrate how far from normality they were living.
RISE IN 'TUG OF LOVE' CASES
A GROWING number of children are victims of "tug of love" cases where they are abducted by a parent in the wake of family breakdown.
Since 1995, the number of children "kidnapped" by a parent from Britain and taken to another country has risen by 93 per cent.
During 2006, the charity, Reunite, recorded a total of 270 new abduction cases, involving 414 children.
As international travel becomes cheaper and easier, and as employees move around the world with multinational firms, the number of international marriages – and divorces – grows.
The influx of Polish workers to Britain has also fuelled the number of abduction cases in this country. When one partner wants to return home to Poland and takes the children, the matter often ends up before the courts.


2. Sisters Thwart Shooting After Overpowering Lone Gunman
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/sisters-thwart-shooting-after-overpowering-lone-gunman-1313147.html
Tuesday March 11 2008

A would-be assassin was prevented from killing his intended target in a packed pub by two sisters, including the girlfriend of the gunman's intended victim.
The two women pounced on the man as he brandished a shotgun at stunned drinkers and staff in Quilty's pub, on Limerick's northside.
The unmasked hitman entered the lounge area of the bar at 8.30 on Sunday evening looking for his target.
But he was then taken by surprise, beaten and restrained by the two sisters in the pub.
Aided by other customers, the sisters, who are aged in their 30s, jumped on the unmasked man as he threatened and pointed the sawn-off shotgun at customers. His intended target was sitting in the Thomondgate pub wearing a bullet proof vest.
Such was the severity of the his injuries, the arrested gunman had to be taken from garda custody on Sunday night and transferred to the Mid-Western Regional. He was said to be in a "stable" condition last night.
The foiled gunman is aged in his early 30s. He remained under armed garda protection in the Limerick hospital last night.
One eyewitness told the Irish Independent: "There was about 20 people in the lounge and another 30 in the bar. He came into the lounge and pointed the gun at a few people. For a second, everyone stood back, then people jumped at him."
A desperate struggle for control of the firearm ensued as frightened customers ran for cover from the premises.
"The two girls battered him. They gave it everything they had. They kicked and punched him all over the head and eventually he was overpowered, while one of the men took the gun into the corner and we called the guards. One of the sisters is the girlfriend of the man he intended to shoot in the pub," the eyewitness added.
The sawn-off shotgun was loaded and ready for use, but no shots were discharged.
Restrained
Both of the sisters are from the Moyross area of the city. Customers restrained the gunman on the floor until gardai arrived.
The foiled gunman is from the Weston area of the city. He has a number of criminal convictions and is well known to gardai.
The 21-year-old intended target, who had equipped himself with a bullet-proof jacket, was shot twice last year.
He is from St Mary's Park and was shot near his home last September. He now lives in a city suburb.
Medical personnel treated one person in the bar for shock. The pub closed after the incident.
A garda investigation continues and officers are examining CCTV footage from the pub.
It is believed the incident is connected to the ongoing gangland war in the city.
Officers are also investigating the history between the gunman and his intended target.
- Barry Duggan



3. Frozen Remains of WWII Airman Identified
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americas/03/11/us.airman/Updated at 1:40 pm (CNN) -- The U.S. military has identified frozen remains found atop a California glacier as those of a World War II era airman who vanished more than half a century ago.
Peter Stekel and a friend found the remains of a World War II airman atop a glacier in California.
Ernest G. Munn had been missing since his training flight disappeared over the Sierra Nevada mountain range on November 18, 1942, the U.S. military said Monday. He was 23 at the time.
Last year, two hikers found the frozen remains of a man with blond, wavy hair in a remote area of Kings Canyon, east of Fresno, California. A tattered sweater still clung to the body, and an unopened parachute lay nearby, said Peter Stekel, one of the hikers who made the discovery.
DNA analysis confirmed that the remains were Munn's, the Department of Defense said Monday. The military has notified his family in St. Clairsville, Ohio.
"You don't often have an opportunity in life to provide people with the answers to questions that they have always wanted to know the answer to," Stekel told CNN Tuesday. "Having the ability to supply that information just makes me really happy."
Munn was one of three cadets who, along with their lieutenant, took off from Mather Field in California on a routine training flight nearly 66 years ago. The AT-7 Navigator aircraft carried about five hours of fuel but never returned to base, the U.S. Department of Defense said.
Authorities searched for the men for a month -- without success.
Five years later, in 1947, hikers on Darwin Glacier in the Sierra Nevada mountain range discovered plane wreckage but found no bodies.
Then, in October 2005, backpackers discovered frozen human remains of a crew member, later identified as Leo M. Mustonen.
Two years later, in 2007, Stekel and a friend were in the area researching a book that Stekel is writing about the ill-fated flight.
About 100 feet from where Mustonen's body was found, Stekel discovered the remains of a second man emerging from a melting glacier.
At first he thought it was a tree, Stekel said.
"And as I got closer and closer, I noticed what turned out to be a gold ring on his left ring finger," he said.
DNA retrieved from Munn's family matched samples from the remains.
With two of the missing airmen now identified, authorities continue their search for the others.
Munn was the oldest of four children. He did well in school and watched over his three little sisters, his family told CNN in 2005.
"He was my idol," one of his sisters told CNN. "He was tall and good-looking. And when he walked in, they said, 'Here comes the blond bomber.' And I would say, 'That's my brother.'"
At 23, he enlisted in the Army, kissed his sisters goodbye and told his mother never to cut her long hair.
Authorities have notified his sisters, now in their 80s, about the match. Munn is expected to be buried in May in Colerain, Ohio.
His mother lived to be 102, never cut her hair and died awaiting word on his fate.


4. Seoul's First Astronaut to be a Woman
Tue, 11 Mar 2008 09:23:47 http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=46941&sectionid=3510212South Korea says a female bioengineer is to become its first astronaut after Moscow rejected Seoul's first choice as he broke training rules.
Yi So-yeon, 29, who had just finished her master's degree in bioengineering, will fly aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft to the International Space Station on April 8.
The astronaut, Ms. Yi was selected after Russian space authorities asked for a replacement last month because Ko San, the previous choice, violated regulations at a Russian space training center.
Russia's Federal Space Agency says Mr. Ko had committed "repeated breaches of training protocol," including taking training manuals out of the training center without permission.
According to the mission's schedule, Ms. Yi is to return to Earth on April 19 after conducting scientific experiments at the International Space Station.
So far, 34 countries, including Vietnam, Mongolia and Afghanistan, have sent more than 470 astronauts into space. Fewer than 50 of them were women, starting with Valentina Tereshkova of Russia, in 1963.


5. Major Advance In Biofuel Technology: Trash Today, Ethanol Tomorrow
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080310164901.htm
ScienceDaily (Mar. 11, 2008)
University of Maryland research that started with bacteria from the Chesapeake Bay has led to a process that may be able to convert large volumes of all kinds of plant products, from leftover brewer's mash to paper trash, into ethanol and other biofuel alternatives to gasoline. That process, developed by University of Maryland professors Steve Hutcheson and Ron Weiner, professors of cell biology and molecular genetics, is the foundation of their incubator company Zymetis, which was on view March 10 in College Park for Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley and state and university officials.
"The new Zymetis technology is a win for the State of Maryland , for the University and for the environment," said University of Maryland President C.D. Mote, Jr. "It makes affordable ethanol production a reality and makes it from waste materials, which benefits everyone and supports the green-friendly goal of carbon-neutrality."
75 Billion Gallons a Year
The Zymetis process can make ethanol and other biofuels from many different types of plants and plant waste called cellulosic sources. Cellulosic biofuels can be made from non- grain plant sources such as waste paper, brewing byproducts, leftover agriculture products, including straw, corncobs and husks, and energy crops such as switchgrass.
When fully operational, the Zymetis process could potentially lead to the production of 75 billion gallons a year of carbon-neutral ethanol.
The secret to the Zymetis process is a Chesapeake Bay marsh grass bacterium, S. degradans. Hutcheson found that the bacterium has an enzyme that could quickly break down plant materials into sugar, which can then be converted to biofuel.
The Zymetis researchers were unable to isolate the Bay bacterium again in nature, but they discovered how to produce the enzyme in their own laboratories. The result was Ethazyme, which degrades the tough cell walls of cellulosic materials and breaks down the entire plant material into bio-fuel ready sugars in one step, at a significantly lower cost and with fewer caustic chemicals than current methods.
Hutcheson projects a $5 billion enzyme market for biofuels. The energy bill passed by the U.S. Senate in December mandates oil companies to blend in 21 billion gallons of cellulosic ethanol with their gasoline by 2022.
Inventors of the Year
Hutcheson and Weiner won the university's Office of Technology Commercialization Inventor of the Year Award in 2007 in the Life Science category for their enzyme system invention.
Founded in 2006, Zymetis entered the university's MTECH VentureAccelerator Program, which provides hands-on business assistance to faculty and students interested in forming companies around university-created technologies. "MTECH VentureAccelerator helped us validate our market," says Hutcheson. "They found space for our company. They helped us with licensing our technology, forming financial and business plans, and establishing trademarks."
Zymetis also sought expertise from MTECH's Bioprocess Scale-Up Facility (BSF) staff to determine how to mass-produce S. degradans. The BSF is part of the MTECH Biotechnology Research and Education Program, an initiative dedicated to research, education and the development of biotechnology products and processes for Maryland companies.
See video of bacteria changing newspaper into biofuel: http://www.newsdesk.umd.edu/video/zymetis.cfm
Adapted from materials provided by University of Maryland.





Honorable Mention:

Nosy Granny Helps Police Nab Dealer
http://www.lifeinitaly.com/News/news-detailed.asp?newsid=8822
11 Mar 08

(ANSA) - Arezzo, March 11 - A granny in Arezzo helped rumble a Tunisian drug dealer on Tuesday after police made a public appeal to residents to keep an eye out for suspicious behaviour in the Tuscan town.
The police made their appeal to the public on television ten days ago after information from a local bartender led to several drug-related arrests.
Following the appeal, the grandmother, who is in her seventies, spotted the dealer hanging around near a bar and retrieving small bags of drugs from a hedge to sell to young people who came to see him. Spying from a window of her house, when she went to the shops and when she took her grandchildren to school, the woman compiled a dossier for the police detailing the times and people involved in the deals.
The dealer, an illegal immigrant who goes under 12 different aliases and was already wanted by police, was arrested with 13 small bags of drugs in his possession.
''Ever since we made the appeal many residents have been alerting us to illegal behaviour either openly or anonymously,'' said Arezzo police chief Marco Dalpiaz. ''We are verifying them one by one,'' he added.