The Bloody Truth About Serbia's Vampire

Garlic sales are up. Wooden crosses are a hot commodity. That can only mean one thing: Vampire on the loose!

But this isn't part of a movie script or book. It's a real-life event in the Serbian town of Zarozje (map), where last month the local council issued a public health warning that the resident vampire, Sava Savanovic, may be on the prowl. (See "Pictures: Toothless 'Vampire' Skeleton Unearthed in Bulgaria.")

The vampire scare was sparked by reports that an old mill where the vampire allegedly lived has collapsed. According to ABC News, the town's mayor Miodrag Vujetic said: "People are worried, everybody knows the legend of this vampire andthe thought that he is now homeless and looking for somewhere else [to live] and possibly other victims is terrifying..."

Then again, how frightened should you be of a vampire who, as the story goes, can turn into a butterfly? To find out, we spoke with Mark Collins Jenkins, the author of Vampire Forensics, and forensic archeologist and anthropologist Matteo Borrini.

Is this vampire alert an effort to draw tourists or a modern-day manifestation of ancient superstitions?

MCJ: I have no idea, but I would suspect the former. I would approach the story very warily. Vampire belief might be deeply rooted in the Balkans, but I doubt you'll find any "ancient superstition" even there that hasn't been thoroughly tainted by modern vampire lore. Fangs and blood-drinking are generally not present in the oldstories. Victims were usually beaten up or suffocated.

Is it crazy that the town council issued a public health warning?

MCJ: Historically speaking, it's not that crazy. In past centuries, outbreaks ofvampire hysteria, especially in Central and Eastern Europe, often coincided with outbreaks of tuberculosis and deadly plagues. Peasants had no other way of explaining why everyone was dropping dead but by blaming it on witches and vampires or other supernatural creatures. In 19th-century New England, tuberculosis wasted entire families, one after another. Superstitious people believed that the first to die was somehow feeding on his surviving family members. (See "'Vampire of Venice' Unmasked: Plague Victim & Witch?")

Why did people begin believing in vampires?

MB: Especially between the 16th and 18th centuries, little was known about what happens to the body after death. During plagues and epidemics, mass graves were continually reopened to bury new dead. People sometimes exhumed the bodies of the diseased to look for possible causes. Reports about vampires describe exhumations weeks or months after death, during the body's decay.

MCJ: Bodies weren't embalmed back then. They rot, to be quite frank, in grossly different ways. If a bunch of people in the village started dying in mysterious ways, they'd dig up the first one to die, see that his corpse didn't look quite right, assume that was blood flowing down those cheeks (it's called purge fluid in modern forensics, a natural byproduct of decomposition, but it's not blood), and generally burn the body. End of vampire.

Savanovic supposedly survived in spirit as a butterfly. Are there other twists on the classic vampire story?

MB: Sometimes it was thought that the body turned into a wolf or dog because near the grave of the vampire, there were footsteps of these animals. Actually, the earth had been disturbed by stray and hungry dogs attracted by the smell of the decomposing body.

Why is garlic anathema to vampires?

MCJ: People used to believe that strong-smelling stuff like garlic was apotropaic, meaning able to ward off evil spirits. But the specific garlic-vampire connectionwas popularized by 19th and 20th century novels and movies. A kind of [Romany] vampire, for example, is instead deterred by burning turmeric. Garlic won't bother them.

How do modern interpretations of vampires differ from older ones?

MB: Ancient reports speak about vampires as bloated corpses of ordinary people with blood around the mouth. In the movies, the dead are charming, seductive, often aristocratic, or with superhuman powers.

MCJ: The modern fascination with vampires is fueled by books and movies. Sincethe early 19th century, that has turned on illicit romance. Forbidden love. It was somehow thrilling to cross the line and love a vampire, or to be seduced by one. Hardly any of that is in the folklore, though. (See "Vampire Expert Digs His Fangs Into 'True Blood,' 'Twilight.'")

Has there ever been any proof that a vampire existed?

MB: No. All the old reports about vampires talk about real events and real exhumation of bodies of suspected vampires. But they are misinterpretations ofthe transformative phenomena of corpses: Every exhumed vampire was actually a normal, decomposing body.

Why does this belief in vampires hang on?

MCJ: Fear of the dead. The same reason that people, deep down, are still afraid of ghosts. A vampire is a dead body brought back to life, so to speak, perhaps by the devil or an evil spirit.

MB: I think it's connected to two deep aspects of human thought: death and blood. Death is our inevitable destiny. Blood is our life fluid. The vampire connects these two aspects in a paradoxical way—it is a corpse who escapes death by drinking blood.

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Newtown Couple Vow to Live for Dead Daughter

The parents of Jessica Rekos, a 6-year-old girl who died during the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., said they are committed to keeping their daughter's memory alive despite their pain.

"We will talk about her every day, we will live for her," Krista Rekos told ABC News. "We will make sure her brother knows what an amazing person she was."

Richard and Krista Rekos say that talking about Jessica, who loved horseback riding and whom they called the CEO of their family, brings tiny moments of comfort.

CLICK HERE for full coverage of the massacre at the elementary school.

"Jessica loved writing, and she would often leave us little notes all over the house," Rekos said. "They would just say, 'I love you so much.'

"She was a ball of fire, she ruled the roost," Krista Rekos said.

When the call came Friday morning that Sandy Hook Elementary was on lockdown, Krista Rekos rushed in disbelief through the town where she and her husband were raised, a place they had always felt safe.

"I was running, and I kept thinking, 'I'm coming for you honey, I'm coming,'" she said, choking up.

CLICK HERE to read about the "hero teacher," the principal and 20 children who lost their lives.

First Sandy Hook Shooting Victims to Be Buried Watch Video

Adam Lanza: Who Was Elementary School Shooter? Watch Video

Richard Rekos said they initially had little information on what had happened.

"We had no idea at that point," he said. "We thought, OK, the reports are that one or two people may have been injured and taken to hospitals. There was still hope, that the children were hiding, there was still so much hope at that point."

The couple said that they walked around the firehouse, thinking that maybe Jessica had been taken there.

"I knew exactly what she was wearing, and I was hoping to see her little ponytail run around the corner, and her jacket and her black glittery Uggs that she had on that morning," Krista Rekos said.

Finally, around 1:15 p.m., everyone was asked to sit down, and a police officer said 20 children had been killed.

"We couldn't get a straight answer," Richard Rekos said. "There's so much panic and confusion when that announcement was made, the life was just sucked out of the room. And you know, I just point-blank found a state trooper and said, 'Are you telling me that standing here as a parent that my daughter is gone?' And he said, 'Yes.'"

The Rekoses were asked to stay at the firehouse to identify their daughter's body but, overcome with grief, they left in disbelief. The couple went home, and got into their daughter's bed, staying there until about 1 a.m., they said.

At that point there was a knock on the door and a police officer said that Jessica was dead.

"It just confirmed the nightmare, it's not real," Krista Rekos said. "It's still not real that my little girl who's so full of life and wants a horse so badly, and who was going to get cowboy boots for Christmas, isn't coming home."

The couple said the pain is just settling in. But equally strong is their commitment to keeping their daughter's memory alive.

The parents said that their 6-year old family powerhouse, with an enormous heart, will forever be their angel who left behind love notes that are still being found.

"This morning I found a little journal, and it was exactly what I needed, because it says, 'I love you so much momma, love Jessica,'" her mother said.

"It was like she was telling me she was watching us and she knows how hard this must be for us, and she wants us to know she loved us, and she knows how much she was loved."

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Zebrafish made to grow pre-hands instead of fins

PERHAPS the little fish embryo shown here is dancing a jig because it has just discovered that it has legs instead of fins. Fossils show that limbs evolved from fins, but a new study shows how it may have happened, live in the lab.

Fernando Casares of the Spanish National Research Council and his colleagues injected zebrafish with the hoxd13 gene from a mouse. The protein that the gene codes for controls the development of autopods, a precursor to hands, feet and paws.

Zebrafish naturally carry hoxd13 but produce less of the protein than tetrapods - all four-limbed vertebrates and birds - do. Casares and his colleagues hoped that by injecting extra copies of the gene into the zebrafish embryos, some of their cells would make more of the protein.

One full day later, all of those fish whose cells had taken up the gene began to develop autopods instead of fins. They carried on growing for four days but then died (Cell, DOI: 10.1016/j.devcel.2012.10.015).

"Of course, we haven't been able to grow hands," says Casares. He speculates that hundreds of millions of years ago, the ancestors of tetrapods began expressing more hoxd13 for some reason and that this could have allowed them to evolve autopods.

If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.

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Motor Racing: Grosjean thrills Bangkok with Race of Champions win

BANGKOK: French Formula One star Romain Grosjean claimed the Race of Champions in Bangkok late on Sunday, besting some of the biggest names in motorsport including Sebastian Vettel and Michael Schumacher.

Grosjean beat Le Mans legend Tom Kristensen in the best-of-three final to the competition, which brought together heavyweights from all racing disciplines in the same type of car including IndyCar Series champion Ryan Hunter-Reay and rally driver Sebastien Ogier.

Grosjean, who endured a controversy-marked season in his Formula One Lotus car, ended the year in style with the inspired win at the custom-built tarmac track in Bangkok's 50,000-capacity Rajamangala Stadium.

Grand prix legend Schumacher was knocked out by Grosjean in the semi-final of the headline event while three-time Formula One champion Vettel stumbled at the quarters for the second year running.

But it was not all bad news for the German superstar, as he claimed the ROC Nations Cup on Saturday for the sixth time in a row with compatriot Schumacher.

The 25th edition of the event comes as Thailand makes moves to host its first Formula One race in 2014.

- AFP/fa

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Twitter begins rollout of users' tweet archive option

Twitter has apparently begun rolling out a promised feature that allows users to download their entire archive of tweets.

Twitter users began tweeting last night about the appearance on a new settings feature that allows users to "Request your archive." A brief note under the new button informs users that, "You can request a file containing your information, starting with your first tweet. A link will be emailed to you when the file is ready for download."

The new feature does not appear to be part of a wide rollout at this time; it was unavailable to this user. CNET has contacted Twitter for more information on the feature and will update this report when we learn more. (Image below shows what some users have reported seeing.)

CEO Dick Costolo announced during a keynote at the Online News Association conference in San Francisco in September that it expected to provide users with one of the most-desired capabilities by the end of the year. "[It's] a priority we absolutely want to have out by the end of the year," he said.

The move brings Twitter in line with other companies that allow export of data they created on the service. Saying that "Users should be able to control the data they store in any of Google's products," Google's Data Liberation Front tool is designed "to make it easier for users to move their data in and out of Google products" such as Gmail and Google Drive. Facebook's Download Your Information allows users to get a copy of what they've shared on Facebook, such as photos, posts, messages, friends list, and chat conversations.

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Space Pictures This Week: Frosty Mars, Mini Nile, More

Photograph by Mike Theiss, National Geographic

The aurora borealis, also known as the northern lights, illuminates the Arctic sky in a recent picture by National Geographic photographer Mike Theiss.

A storm chaser by trade, Theiss is in the Arctic Circle on an expedition to photograph auroras, which result from collisions between charged particles released from the sun's atmosphere and gaseous particles in Earth's atmosphere.

After one particularly amazing show, he wrote on YouTube, "The lights were dancing, rolling, and twisting, and at times looked like they were close enough to touch!" (Watch his time-lapse video of the northern lights.)

Published December 14, 2012

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Conn. Community Mourns Victims of Massacre

President Obama will visit Newtown, Conn. today to meet with the grieving families and thank the first responders from Friday's school shooting, as the community begins the long process of healing.

The pictures of the young victims killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School emerged Saturday, along with a remarkable story of survival.

Twenty children and six adults were killed at the school when shooter Adam Lanza went on a shooting rampage.

Later this evening, the community will gather for an interfaith vigil, where the president is scheduled to address mourners, some from out of state who came to offer help and others, who knew the young victims or their families.

Addressing the nation on Friday, Obama mourned the children who "had their entire lives ahead of them -- birthdays, graduations, weddings, kids of their own."

Story of Survival

READ: Complete List of Sandy Hook Victims

The lone survivor of her class tricked the gunman by playing dead, the girl's pastor told ABC News, before running out of the school covered in the blood of her classmates.

"She ran out of the school building covered from head to toe with blood and the first thing she said to her mom was, 'Mommy, I'm OK but all my friends are dead,'" said Pastor Jim Solomon. "Somehow in that moment, by God's grace, [she] was able to act as she was already deceased."

Five first graders in another class were also killed, along with six staff members.

Connecticut Shooting: Churches Services Honor Victims Watch Video

Connecticut Shooting: Pastor Explains How Girl Played Dead to Survive Watch Video

"The mom told me, and I thought this was very insightful, that she was suffering from what she felt was survivor's guilt because so many of her friends no longer have their children but she has hers," the pastor said.

Click Here for full coverage of the tragedy at the elementary school.

Remembering the Victims of the Sandy Hook Shooting

There was Emilie Parker, the little girl with the blond hair and bright blue eyes, who would have been one of the first to comfort her classmates at Sandy Hook Elementary School, had a gunman's bullets not claimed her life, her father said.

Noah Pozner and his twin sister had just celebrated their sixth birthdays. His twin sister survived the shooting, but Noah did not.

Six-year-old Jesse Lewis went to school on Friday, excited to make gingerbread houses. He died, along with his teacher, Victoria Soto, 27, whose family said was shielding some of her first graders when she was hit by bullets.

As the community mourns and families bear the pain of planning 26 funerals before Christmas, school board members hope to get students back to a familiar routine.

"Well, all the mental health experts we've talked to...tell us that the best thing we can do is to get back to normal operations as soon as possible," said Bill Hart, a member of the Newtown Board of Education.

"We know some teachers won't be prepared to come back, he said. "We are going to be prepared with substitutes. We've got counseling for all. We're prepared to do whatever we have to do to help all of our community."

READ: Police Seek Motive in Shooting

Students who attend Sandy Hook Elementary School will be moved to another location that has yet to be announced, Hart said. He said officials did not yet know what would become of the building that was turned into a slaughterhouse on Friday.

"I think trying to understand what we are going to do with that is a long process and we're not in any way prepared to make those decisions now," he said.

ABC News' Lara Spencer and Dan Harris contributed reporting.

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Zebrafish made to grow pre-hands instead of fins

PERHAPS the little fish embryo shown here is dancing a jig because it has just discovered that it has legs instead of fins. Fossils show that limbs evolved from fins, but a new study shows how it may have happened, live in the lab.

Fernando Casares of the Spanish National Research Council and his colleagues injected zebrafish with the hoxd13 gene from a mouse. The protein that the gene codes for controls the development of autopods, a precursor to hands, feet and paws.

Zebrafish naturally carry hoxd13 but produce less of the protein than tetrapods - all four-limbed vertebrates and birds - do. Casares and his colleagues hoped that by injecting extra copies of the gene into the zebrafish embryos, some of their cells would make more of the protein.

One full day later, all of those fish whose cells had taken up the gene began to develop autopods instead of fins. They carried on growing for four days but then died (Cell, DOI: 10.1016/j.devcel.2012.10.015).

"Of course, we haven't been able to grow hands," says Casares. He speculates that hundreds of millions of years ago, the ancestors of tetrapods began expressing more hoxd13 for some reason and that this could have allowed them to evolve autopods.

If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.

All comments should respect the New Scientist House Rules. If you think a particular comment breaks these rules then please use the "Report" link in that comment to report it to us.

If you are having a technical problem posting a comment, please contact technical support.

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Football: Benteke rampant as Aston Villa curb Liverpool's revival

LIVERPOOL, United Kingdom: Christian Benteke scored twice and made another goal as Aston Villa checked Liverpool's recent resurgence with a 3-1 win at Anfield in the Premier League on Saturday.

Liverpool were bidding for a fourth consecutive win in all competitions but failed to convert a string of first-half chances and were punished when goals from Benteke and Andreas Weimann put Villa 2-0 up at half-time.

Benteke struck again early in the second half and although Steven Gerrard pulled one back, it was too late to prevent Paul Lambert's side - the youngest Villa team ever to start a Premier League game - from extending their unbeaten run to five league games.

Victory eased Villa's relegation fears by carrying them up to 14th place, four days after they beat Norwich City 4-1 to reach the League Cup semi-finals, while Liverpool slipped two places to 12th.

Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers had talked up his side's chances of a top-four finish in the build-up to the match and they certainly began the game with ambition.

Villa goalkeeper Brad Guzan had to be alert after visiting defender Eric Lichaj diverted Stewart Downing's low cross towards his own goal, while Gerrard could only shoot straight at Guzan from just inside the penalty area.

Downing and Joe Allen fired narrowly wide for the hosts, before Nathan Baker had to produce a last-ditch challenge to thwart Jonjo Shelvey.

Luis Suarez returned to the Liverpool line-up after suspension and he spurned a fine chance in the 27th minute, placing a tame half-volley within Guzan's reach from Shelvey's lay-off.

The hosts were punished for their wastefulness two minutes later, when Benteke gathered possession in the inside-left channel before arrowing a low drive into the bottom-left corner from 25 yards.

It was almost 2-0 shortly afterwards, Weiman lobbing onto the roof of the net following a miscued header from Glen Johnson, but five minutes before the interval, the Austrian made no mistake.

A sweeping move culminated in Weimann rolling a pass into the box for Benteke, whose cute back-heel found Weimann rushing in to dispatch a crisp shot across Pepe Reina.

Rodgers introduced Joe Cole at half-time but he was to play an unwitting role in Villa's third goal in the 51st minute.

After the former England man was robbed in midfield, Benteke collected possession and the Belgian striker was allowed to advance deep into the Liverpool box before prodding the ball past Reina.

Johnson had a penalty appeal turned down when his header seemed to strike Baker's arm, before Gerrard stooped to head home Johnson's left-foot shot to give the hosts an 87th-minute consolation.

English Premier League results:

Liverpool 1 Aston Villa 3
Manchester Utd 3 Sunderland 1
Newcastle 1 Manchester City 3
Norwich 2 Wigan 1
QPR 2 Fulham 1
Stoke 1 Everton 1

- AFP/de

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Can a MP3 sound better than a high-resolution FLAC or Apple Lossless file?

A great-sounding recording will sound its best only when it's properly mastered to LP, SACD, DVD-Audio, or a high-resolution file. Those formats will reveal the full glory of the music in ways that lower-resolution formats like MP3 or analog cassette always miss. But if you didn't have access to the high-resolution file to compare it with, a great recording will still sound pretty terrific as an AAC, M4A, or 320kbps MP3 file, because the recording's innate quality would shine through. On the other hand, a heavily compressed, processed and crude recording will always sound heavily compressed, processed and crude, regardless of whether it's an MP3, FLAC file, or LP.

Personal preferences are personal -- we like what we like; but there are objective standards for sound quality: low distortion, wide frequency response and stereo separation, and uninhibited dynamic range. If you applied those standards to most contemporary recordings, few would do well. Let's first look at dynamic range compression; once the mix or mastering engineer compresses a singer's whisper-to-a-scream vocal, the whisper will be just as loud as the scream. I love Arcade Fire's music, but their last record, "The Suburbs," sounds like crap. That's too bad; the music is strong, but the sound is not fun to listen to, and an LP or a FLAC can't fix the problems that were there to start with.

No one sets out to make bad-sounding recordings; they all make recordings they hope their intended audience will like. The bands and engineers know that most people will be listening on free earbuds,
car audio systems or Bluetooth speakers, so they make recordings that sound good over those things, but if that whisper to a scream vocal was left intact by the mix and mastering engineers you'd hear it in the MP3, FLAC file, or on the CD. Those formats are all capable of reproducing music's full dynamic range, but most of today's commercial music has it soft-to-loud dynamics squashed flat. Apparently, most people like it that way.

If the guitarist was playing a Gretsch Synchromatic 400 Acoustic Archtop, I'd like to hear its unique sound. But if the producer and engineer record the Gretsch through a pickup instead of a microphone, equalized its sound, compressed dynamic range, added digital reverb, and process it to death -- there won't be much left of the Gretsch's sound. It would sound like a generic guitar, which is why I would describe the sound of the recording as "bad." If the engineer boosted the treble to make the sound "cut" better for listeners in noisy environments, it's likely to sound harsh at home in a quiet setting. It would sound "bad" to me. So why not make separate mixes for different formats? Load up the MP3 with compressed dynamics and brighter EQ, and put the uncompressed, less EQ-ed mix on the LP and FLAC releases. Then everybody would get the sound they want.

Most commercial recordings purposely distort and compress the sound of vocals and instruments. And sure, they might even do it in a way that sounds great. That's the idea, after all, but sometimes it's a treat to hear a recording that sounds like the band is in the room with you. Here's a list of some of my favorite recordings.

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