Germany beats Argentina in the World Cup

I think Germany has been blessed by miracle until now.  After beating England 4 - 1, now they did it again by turning Argentina to shreds, 4 - 0.  The game was only within 3 minutes time but Thomas Mueller already scored from a free kick taking by Bastian Schweinsteiger.  And that's only the beginning of German's team dictating what's happen on the field.

By NANCY ARMOUR, AP National Writer – Sat Jul 3, 5:19 pm ET

CAPE TOWN, South Africa – Don't mess with Germany, on or off the field.

Miroslav Klose scored twice to move into a tie for second on the all-time World Cup scoring list, and Germany backed up its pre-game trash talk with an emphatic 4-0 rout of Argentina in the quarterfinals Saturday. The dominant display — along with Germany's two other four-goal games — should demand the attention of everyone still playing in South Africa.

"It was absolute class," Germany coach Joachim Loew said.

Hard to argue with that.

Argentina had been one of the tournament's darlings, with coach Diego Maradona's every move causing a stir and superstar Lionel Messi showing you don't need to score to be sublime. The Argentines rolled into the quarterfinals as one of only two teams to win all its games — the Netherlands was the other — and had been so powerful they never trailed.

No wonder a star-studded crowd was on hand at Green Point Stadium, with German chancellor Angela Merkel, Mick Jagger, Leonardo DiCaprio and South Africa's own Charlize Theron were all spotted in the VIP seats.

But Germany overwhelmed the Argentines, and shut down Messi in the process. The reigning FIFA world player of the year leaves South Africa without a goal, and was in tears after the game.

"He played a great World Cup," Maradona said. "And I tell you, to see Messi cry in the dressing room, whoever says that he doesn't feel pride for his shirt is stupid."

Maradona was equally devastated. He walked slowly to midfield with his hands jammed in his pockets when the game ended, and couldn't muster any energy or enthusiasm at his news conference.

"I'm as disappointed as all Argentinians," said Maradona, who cast doubt on his future as national coach. "To see my country lose a football match is very hard for someone who has worn the shirt."

Germany will play Spain, a 1-0 winner over Paraguay, in the semifinals Wednesday in Durban. This will be Germany's third straight trip to the semis and its 12th overall — nobody has more. But the three-time champions haven't won a title since 1990.

Maybe that's why their celebration was so low-key — the Germans are hoping for something bigger in a week. Players hugged and high-fived each other before walking around the edge of the field to salute the crowd. Even a post-game visit from Merkel was taken in stride.

"It's important that we should not emotionally overreact," Loew said.

There was no such restraint from the fans. Several hundred stuck around Green Point Stadium for more than a half-hour after the game, dancing, singing and banging on drums.

Argentina and Germany have had a testy relationship since trading World Cup titles in back-to-back finals 20 years ago, and it's been downright ugly lately.

After Germany eliminated Argentina on penalty kicks four years ago, also in the quarterfinals, the two teams exchanged punches and kicks in a scuffle. A few team officials even got involved in the scrape.

Germany didn't wait for the game to get its digs in this time, with Bastian Schweinsteiger on Wednesday accusing the Argentines of lacking respect for opponents and referees. Captain Philipp Lahm chimed in a day later, essentially calling Argentina a bunch of hotheads.

The trash talking appeared to be carefully orchestrated, intended to ignite Maradona's infamous temper and distract his team. Or, perhaps, to put the refs on notice.

Turns out, Germany didn't need the head games.

"Are you joking?" Maradona said when asked if he was satisfied with his team's performance. "This is a country where you live and breathe football. I don't think that any will be happy when the team loses 4-0."

Germany's spacing, pace and stingy defense made the Argentines look out of sorts all afternoon. The Albiceleste didn't get their first shot on goal until the 33rd minute, and any time they appeared on the verge of making something happen, the German defense shut it down.

It was enough to make Maradona clutch his fists in agony, looking as if he was physically pained. The sight of the German offense couldn't have made him any happier.

Germany has now scored four goals in three of its five games, and routed England and Argentina by a combined score of 8-1. Those numbers are better suited for PlayStation than the World Cup.

"To lose like that is very painful," forward Carlos Tevez said. "We played badly and sometimes when you make mistakes you go home."

Klose, making his 100th appearance for Germany, was simply masterful in the second half. With Germany clinging to a 1-0 lead and unable to get that all-important insurance goal despite several chances in the first half, Klose showed the skill that's made him one of the most prolific players in German history.

In the 68th minute, Lukas Podolski crossed the ball from just beyond the box, slicing it between Argentina goalkeeper Sergio Romero and defender Nicolas Burdisso. Klose got control of the ball in front of the goal and effortlessly tapped it in for a 2-0 lead.

And Klose wasn't done. In the last minute of regulation, he volleyed in a cross from Mesut Oezil from no more than 10 yards, then broke out his trademark somersault. It hasn't been seen in months after a tough season at Bayern Munich, and German fans were no doubt thrilled to have Klose's swagger back.

"I am just pleased that we are in the semifinals," Klose said, "that was our target."

The two goals give the 32-year-old Klose four in South Africa, one less than Spain's David Villa. He now has 14 in three World Cups, tying him with German great Gerd Mueller for second place on the all-time list. Brazil's Ronaldo holds the World Cup record with 15 goals.

Klose also is second to Mueller on Germany's all-time list with 52 goals. Mueller scored 68.

Komodo Dragon

Komodo is actually the name of an island within the eastern part of Lesser Sunda chain of Islands (part East Nusa Tenggara province) in Indonesia. It lies among several small islands and neighboring two the substantially larger islands Sumbawa to the west and Flores to the east.  I think this is the island and it's story of discovery which inspired the story about King Kong.  Remember in the movie that they used a ship from Surabaya?  Surabaya is the name of a city in Indonesia.

The name Komodo is getting famous when first European in 1910 visited the island and came back with report of giant lizzards roaming the island. They named this enormous lizzard as Komodo Dragon, although later they realized that these dragons were also found among small islands near Komodo.  Actually, this giant lizzard is not extraordinary for the natives there, so they never made story about those lizzards, because they thought there's nothing special with this animal.  Most of these people are sailors or fishermen, they feed from the sea while these dragons feed from the land, so they both lived in relative harmony.



In 1980, government of Indonesia established Komodo National Park which consist of three major islands: Komodo, Rinca and Padar, as well as numerous smaller islands surrounding them creating a total surface area (marine and land) of 1817km (proposed extensions would bring the total surface area up to 2,321 sq km). As well as being home to the Komodo dragon, the Park provides refuge for many other notable terrestrial species such as the orange-footed scrub fowl, an endemic rat, and the Timor deer. Moreover, the Park includes one of the richest marine environments including coral reefs, mangroves, seagrass beds, seamounts, and semi-enclosed bays. These habitats harbor more than 1,000 species of fish, some 260 species of reef-building coral, and 70 species of sponges. Dugong, sharks, manta rays, at least 14 species of whales, dolphins, and sea turtles also make Komodo National Park their home. SInce 1986, the Park was declared a World Heritage Site and a Man and Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO.

As for the dragon itself, it's a member of the monitor lizard family (Varanidae), it is the largest living species of lizard, growing to an average length of 2 to 3 metres and weighing around 70 kilograms. Recent research suggests that the large size of komodo dragons can be understood as representative of a relic population of very large varanid lizards that once lived across Indonesia and Australia, most of which died out after contact with modern humans, along with other megafauna. Fossils very similar to V. komodoensis have been found in Australia dating to greater than 3.8 million years ago, and its body size remained stable on Flores, one of the handful of Indonesian islands where it is currently found, ever since Flores (along with neighboring islands) were isolated by rising sea levels approximately 900,000 years ago. As a result of their size, these lizards dominate the ecosystems in which they live. Although Komodo dragons eat mostly carrion, they will also hunt and ambush prey including invertebrates, birds, and mammals.

One very interesting fact of these giant lizzard is their parthenogenesis ability. A Komodo dragon at London Zoo named Sungai laid a clutch of eggs in late 2005 after being separated from male company for more than two years. Scientists initially assumed that she had been able to store sperm from her earlier encounter with a male, an adaptation known as superfecundation. However, on December 20, 2006, it was reported that Flora, a captive Komodo dragon living in the Chester Zoo in England, was the second known Komodo dragon to have laid unfertilized eggs: she laid 11 eggs, and 7 of them hatched, all of them male. Scientists at Liverpool University in England performed genetic tests on three eggs that collapsed after being moved to an incubator, and verified that Flora had never been in physical contact with a male dragon. After Flora's eggs' condition had been discovered, testing showed that Sungai's eggs were also produced without outside fertilization. On January 31, 2008, the Sedgwick County Zoo in Wichita, Kansas became the first zoo in the Americas to document parthenogenesis in Komodo dragons. The zoo has two adult female Komodo dragons, one of which laid about 17 eggs on May 19–20, 2007. Only two eggs were incubated and hatched due to space issues; the first hatched on January 31, 2008 while the second hatched on February 1.  Both hatchlings were males.

From Papanidea

Sun Camera Miraculously Recover

An article worth mentioning to show that miracle does happen everywhere yeah.  So, don't be afraid folks, keep doing what we have to do, hope is always there.  Even if we fail, at least we try not just sitting there watching.

Paragraph above is created by Papanidea

Zoe Macintosh
SPACE.com Staff Writer
SPACE.com – Sat Jun 26, 3:30 pm ET

A new space camera designed to watch the sun from its perch aboard an advanced weather satellite has taken its first photograph of our nearest star after a months-long glitch.

The new X-ray solar photo shows the sun mottled with bright, active spots. NASA called the satellite's sensor recovery nothing short of "miraculous" in a recent announcement.

"Frankly, we were down to our last straw when all the teams' hard work and efforts finally paid off," said Andre Dress, GOES N-P deputy project manager at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "We now believe we have a full recovery of the instrument's functionality! It's an incredible story and a true testament of our NASA/contractor teams expertise, hard work and determination."

The camera, called the Solar X-Ray Imager, is riding on the $500 million GOES-15 satellite that launched in March to serve as continuous weather sentinel. The satellite is monitoring the sun for potentially dangeroussolar flares and can track hurricanes and other severe weather on Earth.

But the Solar X-Ray Imager suffered a voltage glitch soon after GOES-15 (short for Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite 15) blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on March 4 atop an unmanned rocket.

"Since the early checkout of GOES 15 (P) and the anomalous turn on of the Solar X-Ray Imager, the team has been aggressively pursuing all avenues to recover the instrument," Dress said.

NASA engineers brought the satellite back to full health on June 3 after the months of battling the voltage issue, which threatened to leave the solar camera threatened offline for good.

The first image came on June 2 and scientists declared the instrument completely recovered the next day after monitoring it overnight to make sure it was working continually, a NASA spokesperson with the Goddard center said.

The satellite, formerly known as GOES-P, also managed to take its first visible light image of Earth on April 6 and recorded its first full-disk infrared snapshot on April 26.

Along with three other GOES satellites, the GOES-15 spacecraft forms the latest fleet of instruments to continuously monitor both solar and terrestrial weather conditions. At stake are the satellite-based telecommunications instruments that are the foundation of modern travel, communication, and security.

"I don't think most people realize how important these space weather instruments are in our everyday life," Dress said. "This data is used by the U.S. Department of Defense, NOAA, NASA, and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in protecting our space assets, land based assets and directing flight paths for the FAA."

Partial Lunar Eclipse

Sun Jun 27, 2:38 am ET

LOS ANGELES – Skygazers got a treat Saturday when a portion of the moon crossed into the Earth's shadow during a partial lunar eclipsevisible in the western United States and Canada, the Pacific and eastern Asia.

NASA says that the eclipse occurred in the pre-dawn hours on the West Coast. It began at 3:17 a.m. PDT and ended about three hours later.

During a lunar eclipse, the Earth blocks out some of the sun's rays that would normally reach the moon. Slightly more than half of the moon's surface was shaded at the eclipse's peak, according to NASA's web site.

Saturday's partial eclipse was a preview to the total lunar eclipse in December that will be visible throughout North America.

___

Online:

NASA eclipse page: http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov

Germany Beats England in World Cup

In a match went unbelievably well for the German's side, England was sent home from South Africa.  Some kind of deja vu happened in the match, a shot by Frank Lampard clearly cross the goal line but neither the referee or the linesmen saw it, totally opposite what happened in 1966 World Cup when a shot by English player Geoff Hurst struck the crossbar, bounced down, did not cross the line but the referee awarded a goal for England.

Paragraph above created by Papanidea

By NESHA STARCEVIC, AP Sports Writer – Sun Jun 27, 4:22 pm ET

BLOEMFONTEIN, South Africa – Germany's latest World Cup victory over England will be remembered not for any of the brilliant goals, but for the one that didn't count.

Ask anyone — players, coaches, thousands of fans in the stadium and millions more watching on television — and there's little question that Frank Lampard put a shot in the net late in the first half that would have tied the score.

But referee Jorge Larrionda waved play on, and Germany used two second-half goals by Thomas Mueller for a 4-1 victory Sunday. The Germans are headed to the quarterfinals. The English are shaking their heads in disbelief.

"It's incredible," England coach Fabio Capello said. "We played with five referees and they can't decide if it's a goal or no goal. The game was different after this goal. It was the mistake of the linesman and I think the referee because from the bench I saw the ball go (in)."

Germany coach Joachim Loew couldn't argue that point.

"What I saw on the television, this ball was behind the line," Loew said. "It must have been given as goal."

It wasn't.

"The goal was very important," Capello said. "We could have played a different style.

"We made some mistakes when they played the counterattack. The referee made bigger mistakes."

Larrionda and assistant referee Mauricio Espinosa were not made available to comment. FIFA said in a statement that it "will not make any comments on decisions of the referee on the field of play."

Soccer's rules-making panel agreed last March not to pursue experiments with technology that could help referees judge goal-line decisions.

Germany went up on goals by Miroslav Klose and Lukas Podolski before England's Matthew Upson made it 2-1 in the 37th minute.

Lampard's non-goal came a minute later. After the ball landed across the line, it spun back into the arms of Germany goalkeeper Manuel Neuer. Capello initially celebrated what he thought was an equalizer by clenching his fists and shaking his arms. But his face changed when he realized the goal had not been given.

As the players headed off the field at halftime, Wayne Rooney walked over to a linesman and gestured with his hands how far he thought the ball crossed the goal line.

In 1966, England and Germany were 2-2 in extra time in the World Cup final when Geoff Hurst's shot struck the underside of the crossbar, bounced down and spun back into play. That time, the referee consulted his linesman, who awarded the goal.

Hurst went on to score a third goal in England's 4-2 victory at Wembley.

This time, it was Mueller getting two goals.

"We heard that the ball was behind the line, that we were fortunate," Mueller said of Lampard's shot. "Before the last two goals, the game hung in the balance, England was putting on the pressure."

The 20-year-old forward finished two quick German counterattacks within 3 minutes to sink England's hopes of beating Germany at the World Cup for the first time since that '66 final.

Germany plays Argentina, which beat Mexico 3-1, in the quarterfinals on Saturday in Cape Town.

"In the knockout stages, Germany is always there," Podolski said. "We fought and ran a lot, just fantastic today."

Added Klose: "We were aggressive from the first minute and it was a deserved victory. Our target was to reach the semifinals and that's what we want to achieve."

It was the most lopsided England loss in a World Cup.

Mueller scored on the counterattack in the 67th minute, having started the move after a long clearance by Jerome Boateng. Mueller passed to Bastian Schweinsteiger, who patiently dribbled upfield and ran across the 18-yard line to feed the unguarded Mueller. His shot hit the hand of England goalkeeper David James and went in.

Three minutes later, Mueller struck again after a break on the left wing by Mesut Oezil.

"We played I think well at 2-1, but after the third goal it was a little bit disappointing," Capello said. "Germany is a big team. They played a good game."


Klose scored his 50th goal in 99 games for Germany — his 12th World Cup goal — by outmuscling defender Upson to a bouncing ball off a goal kick. Podolski gave the three-time champions a 2-0 lead, putting the ball through James' legs.

Upson headed in a cross from Steven Gerrard to make it 2-1, then Lampard's shot was not rewarded — a decision sure to be debated for as long as international soccer has no video replay.
"I think if you look back at the game as a whole, we've been beaten by the better team," England captain Steven Gerrard said. "At 2-1, if Frank's ball had stayed I think it would have been a nice turning point in the game."