Remember Abu Ghraib? The prison in Iraq that became a household name in 2004, thanks to the deplorable acts of depravity and torture inflicted on prisoners by U.S. soldiers? Ah, yes, that Abu Ghraib. You'd think that the media shit-storm that ensued after the scandal broke would convince the Pentagon to rein in their more, uh, "questionable" treatment of detainees in Iraq. Yes, you'd think that, but according to a recent report published by Amnesty International, you'd be wrong.

The report states in no uncertain terms that—though reforms may have been put in place by the military—mistreatment of prisoners and detainees is still widespread in Iraq. The main difference this time around is that the mistreatment isn't being carried out by U.S. personnel, but by Iraqi security forces. We've taught them well, haven't we? According to several former detainees, members of the Iraqi Interior Ministry's Wolf Brigade (which sounds like such a nice organization) beat them with cables, shocked them with electricity and burned their faces with lighted cigarettes in order to ever-so-gently coax confessions out of them. Is the U.S. simply unaware that this is all going on? Nope. According to the former detainees, a U.S. military officer was in the room at one time while detainees were being interrogated. Asked to comment on the report by Time Magazine, a Pentagon spokesman said U.S. soldiers in Iraq "are required to comply with all U.S. laws and treaty obligations in their treatment of detainees. When there have been abuses those violations are taken seriously, acted upon promptly, investigated thoroughly, and the wrongdoers are held accountable." Nevertheless, based on these and other testimonies, the Amnesty International report concludes, "The human rights situation in Iraq remains dire." That's putting it lightly.

With fossil fuel supplies dwindling, the race is on for the alternative power source of the future. Will it be corn-based ethanol? Wind power? Solar energy? The Japanese are saying that it will be none of the above. Instead, they're putting their faith in cow dung. This week, Sakae Shibusawa, a professor at Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, told the Associated Press that his team had extracted gasoline from cow dung by applying high pressure and heat. The technology to produce cow dung-based fuels commercially isn't available just yet, but Shibusawa hopes it will be in the next five years.

"The new technology will be a boon for livestock breeders to reduce the burden of disposing of large amounts of waste," Prof Shibusawa said.

He went on to say that Japan's cows produce around 551,155 tons of cattle dung each year—which sounds like a lot to us. It's good news for Japan, a nation that relies almost entirely on imports for its oil and gasoline needs. And gas isn't the only thing cow manure is good for, according to the Japanese. In a recent experiment, Sekisui Chemical Co. successfully extracted an aromatic ingredient of vanilla from cattle dung. The ingredient, called vanillin, can be used as a fragrance in shampoos and candles. Hot shit, indeed.

Hollywood has always imagined our first contact with extraterrestrial life as a big production—think War of the Worlds, Independence Day or Close Encounters of the Third Kind. But the actual truth looks to be far from that sort of spectacle. Researchers in England and India believe that a vial of liquid collected during a rainstorm in western India may contain the first known samples of extraterrestrial life.

The rainstorm in question has been described as one of the most unusual meteorological events in recent history: In July and August of 2001, blood red rain pounded the region, turning clothes pink, burning leaves on trees and falling in crimson-colored sheets at times. It was originally thought that the red rain occurred because winds swept dust from Arabian deserts into storm systems above India. But many researchers have concluded that the rain was made up of bacteria-like material that had been brought to Earth from a passing comet. And the particles collected apparently have a clear biological appearance—meaning that the rain was made up of alien life forms. Not everybody believes this theory. But many scientists are holding fast.

"If anybody hears a theory like this, that it is from a comet, they dismiss it as an unbelievable kind of conclusion," said Godfrey Louis, a physicist at Mahatma Gandhi University in Kottayam, India. "Unless people understand our arguments, people will just rule it out as an impossible thing, that extra-terrestrial biology is responsible for this red rain."

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