… Forever Stamps, Political Food Stamp Challenge, Britain’s Animal-Human Hybrids and The Mineral Moon Mosaic!

Like Diamonds, This Stamp is Forever
The postal rate climbed 2 cents on Monday, about a month after the United States Postal Service introduced its new “forever” stamp — a 41-cent stamp that debuted last month. If you buy one, you can use it now and forever, no matter where the cost of a stamp soars. As of last week, the USPS had sold more than $82 million worth of the forever stamps, which lock in the 41-cent rate for eternity.

The USPS is not the first postal agency to catch on to the benefits of a forever stamp, which in philatelic circles is known by a less sexy moniker, “non-value indicator.” Canada introduced them last November, joining Finland, Israel, the United Kingdom, Belgium, France, Norway, Monaco and Sweden, among others.

One man in Pennsylvania walked into a post office and made an $8,000 investment of his own.

Should we all be stocking up?

Speaking of Stamps…
Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) and Rep. Jo Ann Emerson (R-Mo.), co-chairmen of the House Hunger Caucus, have introduced legislation that would add $4 billion to the annual federal food stamp budget, which was $33 billion last year and covered 26 million Americans. According to McGovern, there are more working people today getting food stamps than six years ago.

They also called on lawmakers to take the “Food Stamp Challenge” to raise awareness of hunger and what they say are inadequate benefits for food stamp recipients. Reps. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) and Janice Schakowsky (D-Ill.) are the only two to take them up on the project, which they started on Tuesday, reports The Washington Post.

According to the rules of the challenge, the four House members cannot eat anything beside their $21 worth of groceries. The average food stamp recipient receives $21 a week in federal assistance. That is $3 a day or $1 a meal. That means no food at the many receptions, dinners and fund-raisers that fill a lawmaker’s week.

We’d like to know, who’s going to make sure they don’t cheat?

Britain to Allow Animal-Human Hybrid Embryos
In December, the British government proposed a ban on creating hybrid embryos over what it called “considerable public unease,” but with the door left open for later regulations that could allow such research under license. Yesterday Britain cleared the way for scientists to conduct experiments using hybrid animal-human embryos.

The hybrid embryos, which would be destroyed within 14 days, would be more than 99 percent human but would contain a small amount of animal DNA. Scientists want to use the hybrid embryos to find cures for illnesses such as Parkinson’s, stroke and Alzheimer’s.

The Department of Health said it would accept a recommendation from Parliament’s Science and Technology Committee that interspecies embryos could be created for research, paving the way for more The Island of Dr. Moreau-type mini-mutant-Marlon Brandos.

Richest Shipwreck Treasure Ever Found?
Deep-sea explorers today report that they have mined what could be the richest shipwreck treasure in history, bringing home 17 tons of colonial-era silver and gold coins from an undisclosed site in the Atlantic Ocean. Tampa-based Odyssey Marine Exploration recently arrived in the United States with hundreds of plastic containers filled with coins retrieved from the ocean floor. The more than 500,000 pieces are expected to fetch an average of $1,000 each from collectors and investors.

Total estimated value: $500 million.

Odyssey co-founder Greg Stemm, left, examines coins recovered from the “Black Swan” shipwreck with an unidentified member of the conservation team on Thursday.
Credit: Associated Press/Odyssey Marine Exploration

According to The Associated Press, the richest ever shipwreck haul was yielded by the Spanish galleon Nuestra Senora de Atocha, which sank in a hurricane off the Florida Keys in 1622. Mel Fisher, a treasure-hunting pioneer, found it in 1985, retrieving a reported $400 million in coins and other loot.

Also Found in Dark Ocean Waters…
Carnivorous sponges, hundreds of new worms and no fewer than 585 new species of crustacean were brought to light during three sampling expeditions set up as part of the Antarctic Benthic Deep-Sea Biodiversity Project (ANDEEP) project, carried out by an international team including British scientists who were based on the German polar research ship Polarstern between 2002 and 2005.

The team, which scooped samples from as deep as 20,000 feet (6,348 meters), found unexpectedly rich diversity of animal life suggesting the deep dark waters around Antarctica may have been the source of much marine life.

Many belong to species found around the world, notably in the Arctic, while others appear to be unique to the deepest Antarctic waters, the researchers reported in the journal Nature.

‘WTH-Headline-of-the-Week’ Face-off
We’ll allow the headlines to explain:

Aussies go crazy for cat poo coffee

vs.

Man crushed by flying cow

Can a Bearded Bot Offer Solace for Mourners?
It’s no secret that countries such as South Korea and Japan suffer from some of the lowest birth rates in the world yet have opted against large-scale immigration. Due to these low birth rates, both countries expect fewer workers and thus are increasingly turning to robots to meet their manpower shortage.

What we didn’t know, however, is that in response to the vocations crisis in the priesthood, there is a bearded robo-priest on call 24 hours a day at the Yokohama Central Cemetery to perform funerals, according to a recent feature at The Belfast Telegraph.

The Mineral Moon
This mosaic of 53 images was recorded by the Jupiter-bound Galileo spacecraft as it passed near NASA‘s own large natural satellite in 1992. The pictures were recorded through three spectral filters and combined in an exaggerated false-color scheme to explore the composition of the lunar surface as changes in mineral content produce subtle color differences in reflected light.

Click image for larger view.
Credit: NASA/JPL

Cheers.