Bungling Nasa scientists are believed to have found tiny live microbes on Mars — but mistakenly killed them by boiling them alive, a media report said Saturday.
Two spacecraft that landed on the Red Planet in 1976 are now thought to have detected microbes in Martian soil. But scientists at the time failed to spot the signs of life — and cooked the bugs at 160 degrees Centigrade during experiments, the Sun reported. Now an international team has used modern techniques to re-examine data collected by the two unmanned Viking probes.
Biologist Joseph Miller, of the University of Southern California, said, “I’m 99 per cent sure there’s life there. To paraphrase an old saying, if it looks like a microbe and acts like a microbe — then it probably is a microbe.” During the 1976 mission, nutrients were added to the Martian soil.

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‘Robin Gibb in coma, has only days to live’
Bee Gees legend Robin Gibb is lying in a coma and there are fears that the singer has only days to live. The 62-year-old star, who has been fighting colon and liver cancer, is in hospital after he developed pneumonia. His wife Dwina, brother Barry, 65, daughter Melissa, 37, and sons Spencer, 39, and Robin-John, 29, were at his bedside at a private hospital in Chelsea, West London, the Sun reported. How Deep Is Your Love hitmaker seemed to have made a miracle recovery from cancer but doctors fear the singer has a second tumour and pneumonia has complicated things. “Our prayers are with Robin. He has kept so positive and always believed he could beat this,” a family source said. — PTI

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Rodriguez, Miller to start Sin City sequel
DIRECTOR ROBERT Rodriguez and comics writer Frank Miller have joined forces to start production on a sequel to Sin City, a project that has been on hold for years but will finally begin shooting in the US. This summer, the Hollywood Reporter said. The film dubbed Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, will be financed by AR Films and distributed by Dimension Films, an affiliate of The Weinstein Company. Rodriguez and Miller will co-direct the sequel, also based on the like-named comics Miller published in the 1990s, as they did the original Sin City in 2005. The story evolves around characters caught up in violence at Basin City, an ominous, corrupt metropolis. The first Sin City, with Bruce Willis, Jessica Alba, Benicio Del Toro and Clive Owen headlining a distinguished cast, grossed more than $160 million.
— IANS

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Beckham’s children love tipsy mom victoria
Former Spice Girl Victoria Beckham’s children love it when she gets tipsy. Her boys — Brooklyn, Romeo and Cruz — like it when she gets drunk after a couple of glasses of wine in the evening as she then lets them have the rare treat of sleeping with her and their father — ace footballer David Beckham — in the same room, reports thesun.co.uk. “They cuddle up like little peas in a pod, but only on a non-school night,” said Victoria, and hubby David added: “Or when mummy’s had a glass of wine.” Perhaps the boys get countless sleepovers in their parents’ bedroom when the Beckhams visit their own vineyard in Napa Valley, California. The boys earn their pocket money there, too, as they help make the plonk by stamping on the grapes. But it’s not without its dangers. IANS