MEXICO CITY: A 19-year-old Mexican woman who fasted for 16 days in a bid for an invitation to the royal wedding of Prince William has finally been granted her wish.
Estibalis Chavez will be flown to London for the April 29 nuptials thanks to an anonymous benefactor, according to the Mexico daily, Milenio.
Chavez camped out in front of the British Embassy in Mexico City in February, refusing to eat, although officials at the embassy had told her she was fasting in vain.
Chavez lost 17 pounds (eight kilos) during her fast, and painted a portrait of Prince William and Kate Middleton, which the embassy also refused to deliver.
"I've been a fan of Lady Di since I was little and my mother's a fan as well," said Chavez. "And I promised myself I would go to a royal wedding," she told during her fast. (AFP)
PARIS The longer a man's fourth or ring finger is compared to his index finger, the more likely he is to be judged attractive by women, according to a study released Wednesday.
The results, published in the British Royal Society's journal Biological Sciences, unveil intricate links between foetal exposure of males to hormones, the development of certain physical traits, and what turns on the opposite sex.
It also adds to a growing body of research -- conducted under the banner of evolutionary psychology -- suggesting that the drivers of human behaviour are found, more than previously suspected, in "nature" rather than "nurture."
Earlier studies had already shown that the size ratio between the fourth and second fingers, especially of the right hand, is a reliable indicator of the extent a man was exposed to testosterone while still in the womb.
The bigger the gap between a longer ring finger and a shorter index, the greater the likely impact of the hormone.
For the new study, scientists led by Camille Ferdenzi of the University of Geneva designed an experiment to find out if women are drawn to the telltale signs of high testosterone levels in men -- a symmetrical face, a deeper voice, a particular body odour -- who have this more "masculine" finger configuration.
More than 80 women university students between 18 and 34 looked at pictures of 49 similarly aged men, and were asked to evaluate them for masculinity and attractiveness.
Smaller groups of women listened to recordings of the male voices, and smelled samples of their body odour, taken from cotton pads worn under the arm for 24 hours.
"The aim was to understand what makes a man attractive," and whether at least some of those qualities "were in part conditioned by the foetal environment," Ferdenzi said in an interview.
For the visual test, the results were unambiguous. "The longer the ring finger compared to the index -- that is, the greater the exposure to testosterone -- the more attractive the face was rated," she said by phone.
"We also found that attractiveness and symmetry in the face are highly correlated."
Such a preference might have evolved to boost a female's chances of reproductive success through mating with a more virile partner, she said.
Surprisingly, however, women did not consistently tag the same men as "masculine".
Nor did their preferences for voice or odours correspond to the longer ring-finger males.
"There wasn't any relation between the 2D-4D" -- 2nd digit, 4th digit -- "ratio and the reactions of the women to odour," Ferdenzi said.
One reason, she speculated, may be that voice and body odour are more dependent on fluctuating levels of adult testosterone than on pre-natal testosterone.
The ring-index finger ratio has also proven to be a useful indicator for gauging the risk of prostate cancer, likewise tied to high levels of testosterone.
Research published in December showed that the chances of developing the disease drop by a third in men whose index finger is longer than their ring finger.
Other studies have also found a link between exposure to hormones before birth and the development of other diseases, including breast cancer and osteoarthritis. (AFP)
KANSAS CITY: A Kansas woman faces a charge of harboring a vicious animal after her pet python grabbed onto her neck and would not let go until a police officer intervened.
Chrystal Wilson of Lyons, Kan., took the eight-foot-long albino snake from its cage for feeding Tuesday when it clasped its jaws on the side of her neck, Police Chief Chris Detmer said Friday. Luckily, the snake has small teeth rather than sharp fangs, he said.
A child in the house called police. Officer Max Bryant forced the jaws of the snake apart with his hands. Bryant will get a citation for bravery from the Lyons City Council, Detmer said.
"There's not too many guys or women who would grab it by the end of the mouth like that," Detmer said. The snake was not wrapped around Wilson but she was reportedly visibly upset because she could not get it off her neck, Detmer said.
Wilson is in her mid 20s and moved to Lyons about a year ago, Detmer said. She was ordered to remove the snake from the home because it poses a risk to children there, he said. She received a misdemeanor citation for harboring the snake. (Reuters)
BUCHAREST: Romanian jeweller Ovidiu Paraianu has created two special rings and an ornamental key which he hopes to give to the Queen, her grandson Prince William and his fiancee Kate Middleton on the occasion of the prince's wedding.
Paraianu, a former coal miner from western Romania, has already created jewels for French first lady Carla Bruni as well as royalty in Spain and Saudi Arabia and told Reuters on Friday he would like to give his gifts to the royals personally.
The gold rings -- one for the queen and one for Kate -- are studded with diamonds and rubies and feature miniature maps of Great Britain. The key, which can be used a tie clip or as a brooch, is embossed with the initials K and W.
Paraianu declined to provide a value for the jewellery.
"They are presents, not anything else," he said. "The value is symbolic." (Reuters)
BERLIN: A German woman gave birth to a one-pound baby after only 21 weeks and five days of pregnancy, making it the world's most premature baby to survive, the mass circulation Bild newspaper reported Saturday.
When Frieda was born on November 7 she measured 11 inches (28 centimetres) and weighed only one pound (460 grammes).
Five and a half months later, she is finally fit to leave the clinic in Fulda, western Germany, in the next few days, now weighing 7.7 pounds (3.5 kilos) for 50 centimetres (nearly 20 inches), the paper said.
Her twin brother Kilian died a few days after being born.
Professor Reinald Repp, director of the paediatric clinic, could not be reached on Saturday, but a doctor on duty said that "there is no foreseeable risk of after-effects for the moment" and that the little girl "should develop normally like any other child."
Repp told Bild that her survival was "a miracle" because generally babies born before 22 weeks have no chance because their lungs, heart and brain are not sufficiently developed.
"Frieda was kept in a completely sterile environment, with her breathing assisted and fed through her navel," he told the paper.
Any baby born before eight months of pregnancy is considered premature. Very premature babies (less than 32 weeks) are considered at high risk of suffering developmental problems. (AFP)
GENEVA: Thousands of plant lovers have flocked to the northern Swiss city of Basel to see a giant, stinky flower bloom for the first time.
The Basel Botanical Gardens expects 10,000 people to see its amorphophallus titanum, or corpse flower, in full glory before the bloom wilts late Saturday or Sunday. The plant is 17 years old and has never bloomed before.
Visitors haven't been deterred by the strong stench of rotting flesh the flower emits to attract insects for pollination.
The 6.6-feet (2-meter) tall flower is native to the Indonesian island of Sumatra and the last one to bloom in Switzerland was 75 years ago. Worldwide, there have been only 134 recorded blooms from artificial cultivation.
The titan arum or Amorphophallus titanum (from Ancient Greek amorphos, "without form, misshapen" + phallos, "phallus", and titan, "giant") is a flowering plant with the largest unbranched inflorescence in the world. (The largest single flower is borne by the Rafflesia arnoldii; the largest branched inflorescence in the plant kingdom belongs to the Talipot palm, Corypha umbraculifera).
Due to its odor, which is reminiscent of the smell of a decomposing mammal, the titan arum is also known as a carrion flower, the "Corpse flower", or "Corpse plant" (Indonesian: bunga bangkai - bunga means flower, while bangkai means corpse or cadaver; for the same reason, the same title is also attributed to Rafflesia which, like the titan arum, also grows in the rainforests of Sumatra).
